Anne Conway
All creatures are made of one living spiritual substance in different degrees, so there is no sharp divide between mind and body.
Placement
English philosopher close to the Cambridge Platonists: against Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza she taught a vitalist monism of spirit, which Leibniz praised.
Key ideas
- Vitalist monism
- Critique of mind–body dualism
- All creatures can be perfected
Influence
Influenced by 1
Plato
influenced by
Conway knew Plato’s legacy chiefly through Henry More and the Cambridge Platonists; her Principles (1690) take up a Platonist scale of beings through which creatures rise toward perfection. A. Conway, Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae (1690; English 1692); S. Hutton, Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher (2004); SEP “Anne Conway”
Evidence: AI draft
Plato › 428–348 BCE
Influenced 1
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
influenced
Leibniz, who knew her Principles (1690) through van Helmont, wrote in 1697 that his views came ‘somewhat close’ to Conway’s; how far she shaped him is debated. G. W. Leibniz, letter to T. Burnett (1697); A. Conway, Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae (1690); SEP “Anne Conway”
Evidence: AI draft
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz › 1646–1716
Criticism
Criticizes 3
Thomas Hobbes
criticised
Conway rejected Hobbes’s materialism, including his claim that God is corporeal, holding that body as Hobbes conceives it could neither think nor feel (Principles, 1690, ch. 9). A. Conway, Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae (1690), ch. 9; SEP “Anne Conway”
Evidence: AI draft
Thomas Hobbes › 1588–1679
René Descartes
criticised
Conway held against Descartes that body and spirit differ only in degree, so matter is not dead extension (Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, 1690). A. Conway, Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae (1690), chs. 7–9; SEP “Anne Conway”
Evidence: AI draft
René Descartes › 1596–1650
Baruch de Spinoza
criticised
Conway charged that Spinoza confounds God and creatures in one substance, and distinguished three kinds of being: God, Christ and creatures (Principles, 1690, ch. 9). A. Conway, Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae (1690), chs. 5–6, 9; SEP “Anne Conway”
Evidence: AI draft
Baruch de Spinoza › 1632–1677
Works
God, Christ and creatures: there is only one kind of substance, living and capable of perfection.
Position
Conway’s only treatise, published in Latin after her death, rejects the dualism of Descartes as well as the materialism of Hobbes and the pantheism of Spinoza. There are three kinds of being: God, Christ as mediator, and creatures. All creatures share one substance; body and spirit differ only in degree, matter being spirit in a dense and sluggish state. Every creature is alive and capable of change, suffering purifies rather than destroys, and creatures can rise toward ever greater perfection. Leibniz, who learned of her work through Francis Mercury van Helmont, praised it, and today she is read as an original metaphysician of her century.
Life & context
Anne Finch was born in London in 1631 into a prominent family and educated privately. Through her brother she began a lifelong philosophical friendship with the Cambridge Platonist Henry More. Married to Edward Conway, she lived mostly at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, tormented by severe headaches that no physician could cure. Late in life she joined the Quakers. She died in 1679.
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