Article ID: CBB509215550

The Life of the Thrice Sensitive, Rational and Wise Animate Matter: Cavendish’s Animism (2021)

unapi

This paper explores Cavendish’s argument for what she calls “animate matter.” Her commitment to the ubiquity of animate matter, styled “Cavendish’s animism,” is presented as the conclusion of an inference to the best explanation of nature’s order. The reconstruction of Cavendish’s argument begins with an examination of the relationship between God’s creation of our world and the order produced through nature’s wise governance of her parts. Cavendish’s materialism and anti-atomism are presented as ingredients in her final account of God’s ordering of the world by making it a self-moving whole. On the present account of Cavendish’s metaphysics, this self-moving whole then freely produces the regular motions that constitute its ordering of itself, as a distinct ordering beyond God’s initial act of creating our world. The depth of Cavendish’s commitment to the animistic elements of her materialism—or in other words, the extent to which her system is genuinely animistic—is then considered.

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Authors & Contributors
Wilkins, Emma
Anfray, Jean-Pascal
Sgarro, Tommaso
Gorman, Cassandra
Sabrina Ebbersmeyer
Demarest, Boris
Concepts
Natural philosophy
Metaphysics
Animism
Matter theory
Women in science
Science and literature
Time Periods
17th century
18th century
16th century
Early modern
Places
England
Italy
Great Britain
Europe
Institutions
Royal Society of London
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