Anne Conway’s Critique of Cartesian Dualism :: Dualism Essays

Anne Conways Critique of Cartesian DualismABSTRACT I describe and analyze Anne Conways survey of Cartesian dualism. After a brief biographical introduction to Conway, I sketch some of the influences on her philosophy. I then describe her non-Cartesian view of substance. According to Conway, there is merely one substance in created reality. This substance contains both matter and touch. A purely material or odourual substance is, she argues, an impossibility. Next, I establish several of Conways arguments against Cartesian dualism. Firstly, dualism is inconsistent because dualists, while denying that concepts much(prenominal) as divisibility and extension are applicable to spiritual substance, nevertheless use such terms when describing the soul or spirit. They assume that soul or spirit is something particular which can be located somewhere. Secondly, she argues that dualism results in mechanism because it makes alike sharp a distinction between bole and soul, thus regarding the body as a mechanical machine and the soul as something which is not integrally related to the body. Thirdly, dualism cannot account for the interaction between mind and body. The deuce substances of which a dualist speaks are defined on the basis of the exclusion of characteristics. except the two things which have nothing in common cannot influence for each one other causally. 1. IntroductionDuring his lifetime and in the centuries following, the dualism and mechanism of Descartes philosophy gave inception to a great number of objections and discussions. In this article, I would like to image a response to Descartes views which is somewhat less easy-known than others, that of Anne Conway. Conways reaction to Descartes is fire because she speaks from out of a metaphysical tradition different from those of many other philosophers who discussed his ideas. (1) In addition, she makes use of a pre-modern, non-abstract idea of spirit, a conceptualisation of spirit which has bee n lost or sidelined in the philosophical tradition after Descartes. On the basis of an entirely different ontology of matter and spirit from that of Descartes, Conway questions the presuppositions of dualism as well as its abstract view of spiritual substance. In this paper, I allow begin with a short biographical sketch of Conway and a fall out of some of the main influences on her thought. I will then in short describe her philosophical system. I will then discuss her critique of Descartes dualism. Finally, I will consider the question of how her views can be of determine to us today.