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Anne Conway (philosopher)

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Anne Conway
Perspective View with a Woman Reading a Letter by Samuel van Hoogstraten. This painting is often thought to depict Anne Conway, though that attribution has been disputed.[1]
Born
Anne Finch

(1631-12-14)14 December 1631
London, England
Died23 February 1679(1679-02-23) (aged 47)
Ragley Hall, Warwickshire, England
Resting placeHoly Trinity Church, Arrow, Warwickshire[1]
Spouse
​
​
(after 1651)​
ChildrenHeneage Edward Conway
Parent(s)Sir Heneage Finch
Elizabeth Cradock
RelativesJohn Finch (brother)
Era
Region
Main interests
Metaphysics, Monism

Anne Conway (also known as Viscountess Conway; née Finch; 14 December 1631 – 23 February 1679[2]) was an English philosopher of the Enlightenment, whose work was in the tradition of the Cambridge Platonists. Conway's thought is a deeply original form of rationalist philosophy. Conway rejected Cartesian substance dualism and instead, argued that nature is constituted by one substance. Against the mechanists, she argued that matter is not passive, but has self-motion, perception, and life.[3]

Life

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Anne Finch was born to Sir Heneage Finch (who had held the posts of the Recorder of London and Speaker of the House of Commons under Charles I) and his second wife, Elizabeth (daughter of William Cradock of Staffordshire). Her father died the week before her birth. She was the youngest child.[4] Anne grew up in the house now known as Kensington Palace, which her family owned at the time.[4] In her younger years, she was educated by tutors. She studied Latin, and later learned Greek and Hebrew. Her half-brother, John Finch, encouraged her interests in philosophy and theology. He introduced Anne to one of his tutors at Christ's College, Cambridge, the Platonist Henry More. This led to a lifelong correspondence and close friendship between Henry and Anne. The pair's communication was focused on the subject of René Descartes' philosophy. Eventually, Anne grew from More's informal pupil to his intellectual equal. When speaking about her, More said that he had "scarce ever met with any Person, Man or Woman, of better Natural parts than Lady Conway" (quoted in Richard Ward's The Life of Henry More (1710) p. 193), and that "in the knowledge of things as well Natural and Divine, you have not only out-gone all of your own Sex, but even of that other also."[5]

In 1651, she married Edward Conway, later 1st Earl of Conway. Her husband was also interested in philosophy and had been tutored by More. Anne and Edward established their place of residence at Anne's home at Kensington Palace. In the year following her marriage, More dedicated his book Antidote against Atheism to Anne. In 1658, she gave birth to her only child, Heneage Edward Conway, who died of smallpox just two years later.[6] Anne also contracted the illness, but managed to survive the disease.[7]

Anne contacted Elizabeth Foxcroft likely through More, and when Foxcroft's husband went to India in 1666, she moved in with Anne and became her companion and amanuensis. They shared the same interests and Foxcroft lived at Ragley Hall until 1672.[8] Conway became interested in the Lurianic Kabbalah, and then in Quakerism, eventually converting in 1677. In England at that time, the Quakers were generally disliked and feared, and suffered persecution and even imprisonment. When Anne decided to convert, she made her house a centre for Quaker activity.[citation needed] While her family was not very supportive of Anne's conversion to Quakerism, they still respected her decision.

Anne's life was marked by the recurrence of severe migraines from the age of twelve, when she suffered a period of fever. This meant that she was often incapacitated by pain, and she spent much time under medical supervision and searching for a cure, at one point even having her jugular veins opened. The extreme pain she experienced led her to pursue her philosophical studies from the comfort of her own home. She received medical advice from Dr. Thomas Willis and many others.[9] The Conways had consulted the Swiss royal physician of the time, Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, as well as natural philosopher Robert Boyle.[7] She had also consulted William Harvey, who was a physician and researcher of how blood circulated in the human body. Even though Conway was famously treated by many of the great physicians of her time, none of the treatments proved to be successful.[10] She died in 1679 at the age of forty-seven.

Philosophical Work

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The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy

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In The Principles, written around 1677, Conway develops a monistic view of the world, where it consists of only one substance. Conway criticizes the Cartesian idea that bodies are constituted of dead matter. She also argues against Henry More's concept of the soul in his Antidote Against Atheism and dualist theories of the relationship between the body and spirit.[11] The text was influenced by Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont[12], who also first published it in Latin translation as Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae in 1690. An English retranslation appeared in 1692.[13]

Correspondence

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Throughout her life, Conway exchanged numerous letters with Henry More, Francis Mercury van Helmont, and other major thinkers of her time. In these letters, she discussed numerous philosophical and theological concepts and occasionally wrote about personal matters, like the death of her son.

Conway also wrote around a dozen letters to her father-in-law, Lord Conway, and received around a dozen letters from her brother, John Finch.[7] These correspondences concerned philosophy, social issues, and their personal lives. In 1930, Marjorie Hope Nicolson published Conway's correspondence along with bibliographical details about her.[14] In 1992, Sarah Hutton published a revised, augmented edition of Nicolson's Conway Letters.[7] Nicolson's version focuses primarily on Conway's relationships with friends and family, including an analysis of her relationship with Henry More.[15]

Historical Impact

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Conway's work was an influence on Gottfried Leibniz, and Hugh Trevor-Roper called her "England's greatest female philosopher."[16][17]

Bibliography

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  • The principles of the most ancient and modern philosophy (London: n. publ., 1692) 168 pp. in 12°. – originally printed in Latin: Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae de Deo, Christo & Creatura, Amsterdam: M. Brown 1690.
  • Letters. The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More and their friends, 1642–1684, ed. M. H. Nicolson (London 1930) 517 pp.
  • The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More and their friends, 1642–1684, Rev. ed. S. Hutton (Oxford 1992).
  • Collaborations with Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont (1614–1698)
    • A Cabbalistical Dialogue (1682) (in Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, Kabbala denudata, 1677–1684)
    • Two Hundred Quiries moderately propounded concerning the Doctrine of the Revolution of Humane Souls (1684).

References

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  1. ^ a b "Conway (1631-1679)". Project Vox. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
  2. ^ Hutton, Sarah (2009). "Death". Anne Conway : a woman philosopher. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 215. ISBN 9780521109819. OCLC 909355784.
  3. ^ Team, Project Vox. "Conway (1631-1679)". Project Vox. Retrieved 22 November 2024.
  4. ^ a b Hutton, Sarah (March 2021). Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Lady Anne Conway" (Spring 2021 ed.).
  5. ^ Broad, Jacqueline (2002). Women philosophers of the seventeenth century. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-511-04237-X. OCLC 56208440.[page needed]
  6. ^ Hutton, Sarah (2004). Anne Conway : A Woman Philosopher. Cambridge University Press. p. 32. ISBN 9780521835473. OCLC 76904888.
  7. ^ a b c d Project Vox team. (2019). “Anne Conway, Viscountess Conway and Killultagh.” Project Vox. Duke University Libraries. https://projectvox.org/conway-1631-1679/
  8. ^ Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B., eds. (23 September 2004). "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/53695. Retrieved 21 August 2023. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  9. ^ White, Carol Wayne (29 May 2008). The Legacy of Anne Conway (1631-1679): Reverberations from a Mystical Naturalism. SUNY Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7914-7465-5.
  10. ^ Owen, Gilbert Roy (1937). "The Famous Case of Lady Anne Conway". Annals of Medical History. 9 (6): 567–571. PMC 7942846. PMID 33943893.[page needed]
  11. ^ Broad, Jacqueline (13 August 2007). Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, pg. 66–67. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521039178.
  12. ^ Merchant, Carolyn (1986). "Quaker and Philosopher" (PDF). Guildford Review (23): 2–13. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  13. ^ Derksen, Louise D. "20th WCP: Anne Conway's Critique of Cartesian Dualism". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  14. ^ G. C. Moore Smith. The Review of English Studies 7, no. 27 (1931): 349–56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/507935.
  15. ^ Duran, Jane. “ANNE CONWAY.” In Eight Women Philosophers: Theory, Politics, and Feminism, 49–76. University of Illinois Press, 2006. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1xcn4h.7.
  16. ^ Trevor-Roper, Hugh. One Hundred Letters from Hugh Trevor-Roper, Oxford 2014, 73
  17. ^ Israel, Jonathan I. Spinoza, Life and Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2023, 1127-28

Further reading

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  • Broad, Jacqueline. Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  • Brown, Stuart. "Leibniz and Henry More’s Cabbalistic Circle", in S. Hutton (ed.) Henry More (1614–1687): Tercentenary Studies, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990.(Challenges the view that Conway influenced Leibniz.)
  • Duran, Jane. "Anne Viscountess Conway: a Seventeenth-Century Rationalist". Hypatia: a Journal of Feminist Philosophy. 4 (1989): 64–79.
  • Frankel, Lois. "Anne Finch, Viscountess Conway," Mary Ellen Waithe, ed., A History of Women Philosophers, Vol. 3, Kluwer, 1991, pp. 41–58.
  • Gabbey, Alan. "Anne Conway et Henry More: lettres sur Descartes" (Archives de Philosophie 40, pp. 379–404)
  • Head, Jonathan (2021). The Philosophy of Anne Conway: God, Creation and the Nature of Time. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-350-13452-2.
  • Hutton, Sarah. "Conway, Anne (c.1630–79)", 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-DA021-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, .
  • Hutton, Sarah, "Lady Anne Conway", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
  • Hutton, Sarah. Anne Conway, a Woman Philosopher. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  • Hutton, Sarah (1970–1980). "Conway, Anne". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 20. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 171–172. ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
  • King, Peter J. One Hundred Philosophers (New York: Barron's, 2004) ISBN 0-7641-2791-8
  • Lascano, Marcy P. "Anne Conway: Bodies in the Spiritual World"; Philosophy Compass 8.4 (2013):327-336.
  • Merchant, Carolyn, "The Vitalism of Anne Conway: its Impact on Leibniz's Concept of the Monad" (Journal of the History of Philosophy 17, 1979, pp. 255–269) (Argues that Conway influenced Leibniz by showing parallels between Leibniz and Conway.)
  • Mercer, Christia. "Platonism in Early Modern Natural Philosophy: The Case of Leibniz and Conway", in Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature, James Wilberding and Christoph Horn, ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 103–26.
  • Bernet, Claus (2004). "Anne Conway (philosopher)". In Bautz, Traugott (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). Vol. 23. Nordhausen: Bautz. cols. 232–239. ISBN 3-88309-155-3.
  • White,Carol Wayne. The Legacy of Anne Conway (1631–1679): Reverberations from a Mystical Naturalism (State University of New York Press, 2009)
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