The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy

Relational Space and Places of Value

“…Second, distributive justice or 'equity' promotes positive moral obligations to treat everyone fairly, not in an abstract sense of equality, but rather in the sense of giving everyone what he or she 12 Such perfecting is, as Anne Conway recognised, species-specific. See Conway (1996), pp.32-3. See also, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI, 7 and X,5.…”

Ideas in the Mind: Gender and Knowledge in the Seventeenth Century

“…What did this term imply? The 1690 preface of the Latin edition of Anne Conway's Principles praised her as “a woman … especially well versed in every sort of philosophy” (Conway 1996, 7). While Conway was loathe to describe herself in such terms, preferring to admit her ignorance rather than to celebrate her learning, her male mentors and friends celebrated her deep engagement with the most pressing philosophical problems of the day.…”

“…More broadly, the letters chart Conway's intellectual and spiritual evolution. They offer us tantalizing glimpses of her responses to More's Cambridge Platonism and the fascination with Christian cabbala shared by More and Francis Mercury Van Helmont; they record Conway's criticisms of Descartes, Hobbes, and other modern philosophers that would be echoed more fully in her posthumous The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (1690) that has also been recently edited and translated by Alison Coudert and Taylor Corse (Conway 1996). They capture the fascinating mix of theology and philosophy that defined intellectual life in the mid‐seventeenth century, including Conway's eventual decision to convert to Quakerism in the face of her husband's and More's disapproval.…”

“…Modern editions of key publications by the Venetian scholar Lucrezia Marinella (1571‐1653), the Dutch scholar Anna Maria van Schurman (1607‐1678), the English philosopher Anne Conway and English educators Bathsua Makin (ca. 1600‐1675) 3 and Mary Astell (1668‐1731), and the Mexican nun, poet, and philosopher Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648‐1695) have all appeared since 1996 (Marinella 1999; Schurman 1998; Conway 1996; Teague 1998; Astell 1997; Sor Juana 1997) 4 . Publishing the works of Margaret Cavendish (1623‐73) is an industry on the verge of rivaling publications about her (Cavendish 1994, 1997, and 1999; Bowerbank and Mendelsohn 2000; Battigelli 1998).…”

“Imperfect Discretion”: Interventions into the History of Philosophy by Twentieth-Century French Women Philosophers

“…A tradition of the pre‐Socratics, Greek philosophy, early Christian philosophy, medieval, rationalist, empiricist, realist, idealist, phenomenological, and twentieth‐century analytic philosophy is usually represented as a history of male authors, although women have, as numerous anthologies demonstrate, always, in different modes, practiced philosophy 10 . A course on the rationalists tends not to direct attention at Elisabeth of Palatine (see Nye 1999) as a philosopher in her own right and a contributor to the rationalist tradition, nor does it discuss the writings of Ann Conway (1982). Courses in medieval philosophy and early political philosophy tend not to include Christine de Pizan's The Book of the Body Politic (1994).…”