Margaret Cavendish
Cała przyroda jest materią, która sama odczuwa, porusza się i myśli – nie ma niematerialnego umysłu ani martwego mechanizmu.
Umiejscowienie
Księżna Newcastle i płodna autorka: cała przyroda jest materią, która odczuwa i rozumuje – wbrew niematerialnemu umysłowi Kartezjusza, mechanicyzmowi Hobbesa i eksperymentatorom z Royal Society.
Kluczowe idee
- Materializm witalistyczny
- Samoporuszająca się, postrzegająca materia
- Krytyka filozofii eksperymentalnej
Krytyka
Krytykuje 2
Thomas Hobbes pod wpływem
pod wpływem
Through her husband’s circle, which included Hobbes, Cavendish shared his view that nature is wholly material, but made matter self-moving and perceptive (Philosophical and Physical Opinions, 1655). M. Cavendish, Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1655); Philosophical Letters (1664); SEP “Margaret Lucas Cavendish”
Źródło: szkic AI
krytykuje
Cavendish rejected Hobbes’s account of perception as pressure transmitted from objects to the organs, holding that perceiving matter patterns the object by its own motions (Philosophical Letters, 1664). M. Cavendish, Philosophical Letters (1664), Part I (letters on Hobbes); SEP “Margaret Lucas Cavendish”
Źródło: szkic AI
Thomas Hobbes › 1588–1679
Kartezjusz
krytykuje
In Philosophical Letters (1664) Cavendish rejected Descartes’ separation of an immaterial mind from inert matter, holding that all matter is self-moving, perceptive and rational. M. Cavendish, Philosophical Letters (1664), Part I; SEP “Margaret Lucas Cavendish”
Źródło: szkic AI
Kartezjusz › 1596–1650
Dzieła
Romans utopijny dołączony do „Observations”: cesarzowa rządzi światem ludzi-zwierząt i spiera się z jego uczonymi – wczesne dzieło science fiction.
Przeciw mikroskopistom z Royal Society: natura jest materią samowiedzącą i samoporuszającą się, a nie maszyną.
Stanowisko
Cavendish developed a materialism different from Hobbes’: nature is one infinite, self-moving body, and every part of it has sense and reason, so that matter perceives and knows. Against Descartes she denied an immaterial soul; against mechanism she denied that motion is transferred by impact, arguing that each body moves itself in response to others. Against the experimentalists she argued that microscopes distort rather than reveal. She also wrote on women’s exclusion from learning and public life, sometimes defending it, more often protesting it, and in “The Blazing World” a woman becomes empress of another world. Mocked in her lifetime as “Mad Madge”, she has been rediscovered as an original metaphysician.
Życie i kontekst
Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673), born Margaret Lucas in Essex, went into exile in Paris as maid of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria and there married William Cavendish, later Duke of Newcastle, whose circle included Hobbes, Gassendi and Descartes. Back in England after 1660, she published a dozen books under her own name, and in 1667 became the first woman to attend a meeting of the Royal Society.
Dalsze główne dzieła
- Philosophical Letters (1664)
- Grounds of Natural Philosophy (1668)
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