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Anne Conway (1) (1631–1679)

Autor/a de The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy

Per altres autors anomenats Anne Conway, vegeu la pàgina de desambiguació.

3 obres 67 Membres 1 crítiques

Sobre l'autor

Born Anne Finch, this Cambridge Platonist philosopher became Viscountess Conway through her marriage in 1651 to Lord Edward Conway. Her father and husband were both high officials of state under Charles II. She was educated by tutors and shortly before her marriage began a correspondence with Henry mostra'n més More, who remained her philosophical mentor. After a serious illness at the age of 12, Conway suffered the rest of her life from chronic and severe headaches that kept her in constant pain for months at a time. Before her marriage she was treated by William Harvey (discoverer of the circulation of the blood); later her doctor was Francis Mercury van Helmont (1618--98). It was apparently through Helmont that Conway came into contact with Quakerism. She was influenced by Robert Barclay and corresponded with both George Keith and William Penn. Over More's disapproval, she joined Helmont in becoming a Quaker around 1675, and Quaker meetings were subsequently held at Ragley, the Conway estate. It was probably between 1677 and her death in 1679 that Conway composed her only extant work, The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, which was finally published in 1690. Conway not only studied modern philosophers but also read extensively in Christian mystical literature. Her work also makes extensive reference to Jewish Cabalistic literature. The foundation of Conway's philosophical system is a natural theology based on an orthodox conception of God and an original interpretation of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The second person of the Trinity, plays a significant role in her theory of cosmogony. Conway ascribes to God a liberty of indifference (ability to choose otherwise than He does) but agrees that He is nevertheless determined by His nature to create the best world. Conway's theory of created things is a metaphysics of monads. For Conway the physical monad is the least part of matter, but each body is divisible infinitely into smaller creatures, though not actually divided infinitely. Conway thought that only God is essentially incorporeal and all creatures have a common essence, in relation to which the difference between spirit and body is one of degree or mode. Thus, bodies are naturally changed into spirits, and vice versa, and most things are simultaneously spiritual and corporeal. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra'n menys

Obres de Anne Conway

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Altres noms
Viscountess Conway
Anne Viscountess Conway
Conway, Anne Finch
Data de naixement
1631-12-14
Data de defunció
1679-02-18
Gènere
female
Nacionalitat
UK
Lloc de naixement
London, England, UK
Lloc de defunció
London, England, UK
Llocs de residència
London, England, UK
Ragley Hall, Warwickshire, England, UK
Professions
philosopher
letter writer
aristocrat
Natural philosopher
Relacions
More, Henry (teacher)
Helmont, Franciscus Mercurius van (doctor)
Harvey, William (doctor)
Biografia breu
Anne Conway, née Finch, Viscountess Conway, was born in London, the posthumous daughter of Sir Heneage Finch, Speaker of the British House of Commons, and his second wife Elizabeth Cradock. She grew up in the house now known as Kensington Palace. She was the youngest child in a large family and especially close to her half-brother, John Finch. His teacher at the Cambridge University, Henry More, undertook to tutor Anne in philosophy via letter since, as a woman, she was unable to go to university. They remained friends for the rest of her life. In 1651, she married Edward, 3rd Viscount Conway. The Conway family owned one of the finest private libraries of the period, and her husband appears to have encouraged Anne's use of it and her intellectual interests. In 1660, her only child died as a baby from smallpox, which she caught from nursing him, but survived. However, from her teenage years, she had suffered from excruciating headaches; the pain became worse and the episodes more frequent as she got older. It was in the search for relief from this disorder that she met Francis Mercury van Helmont, the Flemish physician and philosopher. He lived in her household at Ragley Hall and introduced her to Jewish kabbalistic thought and Quakerism. She learned Latin, Greek and Hebrew in order to pursue her interests in Platonism and other philosophies. She was the author of The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, which discussed the ideas of Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza. It was published in 1690, 11 years after her death at age 47, and was considered highly influential.

Membres

Ressenyes

The historical existence of Anne Conway was a thrilling surprise to me. Here was a 17th-century Englishwoman who had been trained in Cartesian philosophy, Lurianic kabbalah, and Helmontian chymistry. She was an acknowledged influence on Leibniz, and she had an active rapport with the first generation of Quakers. All this excitement and more is available in this volume's introduction by Allison P. Coudert.

The primary text being introduced is decidedly less engaging. It is a manageable treatise in nine sections, trained primarily on theoretical natural philosophy, in primary opposition to Descartes, but also at the end taking up against Spinoza and Hobbes. Conway is careful to keep her positions defensibly Christian, and even includes the occasional "proof" from scripture. She also relies on allegedly empirical facts about spontaneous generation of animals from rotting matter (data furnished by von Helmont, evidently).

On the plus side, her notable positions include:
a) Staunch opposition to any dualistic divide between matter and spirit. She insists that these are the poles of a graduated continuum.
b) Reincarnation, including the passage of individuals between the forms of humanity and different animal species.
c) Understanding of spiritual and material organisms as manifold, and infinitely divisible into component organisms, in an open hierarchical fashion.

It's not too onerous a read, but the actual Conway text is somewhat ponderous. Still, it complements my earlier studies in English supernatural alchemy. I also expect it to be helpful background in my ongoing Blake readings this year, since as Coudert notes, the treatise is a sterling example of the sort of esoterically-grounded English Renaissance thought that provided a springboard for both the Enlightenment and reactions against it.
… (més)
3 vota
Marcat
paradoxosalpha | Jun 4, 2012 |

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Estadístiques

Obres
3
Membres
67
Popularitat
#256,179
Valoració
½ 3.3
Ressenyes
1
ISBN
19
Llengües
3

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