Anne Conway
She argued that spirit and matter are not two things but one, and quietly shaped Leibniz's monads.
Largely self-taught and often bedridden by relentless headaches, Anne Conway thought her way to a bold monism in a single posthumously published book. There are not two substances, mind and matter, she argued, but one living substance shading by degrees from densest body to purest spirit, every creature capable of rising toward the good. She rejected the cold mechanism of Descartes and Hobbes for a universe alive throughout. Leibniz read her work and adopted her term, the monad, carrying her vision of living, perceiving units into the center of modern philosophy.
Places
Ideas
Words
“Spirit and body differ not essentially, but only in degree.”
Works
Life & Moments
Born in London
Born in London and largely self-taught, she pursued philosophy through a long correspondence and chronic illness.
The Principles of Philosophy
Composed her monist treatise in her final years; published after her death, it reached and influenced Leibniz.
Death in London
Died at forty-eight after arguing that spirit and matter are one living substance, shading by degrees from body to pure mind.
Correspondence with Leibniz
Her monist philosophy reached Leibniz through Henry More's circle; he adopted her term monad for his own system.
Influence
Influenced by
- Descartes
Conway argued that mind and body cannot be two substances, since what has nothing in common can neither act nor be acted on, and proposed instead a single created nature that ranges from grosser to subtler forms of one living stuff.
- Spinoza
Conway discusses Spinoza directly and rejects him, refusing to collapse God and creation into one substance while still insisting that everything created shares a single nature.
Influenced
- Leibniz
Leibniz read Conway's treatise and borrowed her term, the monad, for the living units at the base of his system.
