"Only the philosophical eye". La Rivoluzione francese nella lettura di Mary Wollstonecraft

An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution (1795) is one of Wollstonecraft's most interesting writing, at least from a political point of view. If her philosophical and political commitment to the defence of the revolutionary cause dates back to the Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), in this work it becomes clearer that her faith in the Revolution is based on an optimistic and progressive view of human nature. Inscribing herself in the radical tradition of such authors as Rousseau, Paine, Burgh and Price, Wollstoncraft sees in the disappearance of the aristocracy a chance of freeing the body politic from all social pathologies caused by a heteronomous and hierarchical society, dominated by values of appearance and theatricality.