The Legacy of Anne Conway (1631-1679): Reverberations from a Mystical Naturalism

170 Pages·2009·0.42 MB·English

by  Carol Wayne White

The Legacy of Anne Conway
(1631–1679)

The Legacy of Anne Conway
(1631–1679)
Reverberations from a Mystical Naturalism
CAROL WAYNE WHITE
State University of New York Press
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2008 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means
including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of
the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production by Ryan Morris
Marketing by Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
White, Carol Wayne, 1962–
The legacy of Anne Conway (1631–1679) : reverberations from a
mystical naturalism / Carol Wayne White.
p. cm.
Includes bibiographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7914-7465-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Conway, Anne, 1631–1679. 2. Philosophy of nature. 3. Nature—
Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Naturalism. 5. Mysticism. I. Title.
B1201.C5534W45 2008
192—dc22 2007035214
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the loving memory of Luther White, Jr.
and
to Jannie Mae White

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Part 1
Chapter 1 Anne Conway and Her Contemporaries 3
Chapter 2 Esoteric Knowledge, Practical Mysticism, and
Embodied Love 11
Chapter 3 Conway, Descartes, and the New Mechanical
Science 39
Part 2
Chapter 4 Conway’s Religious Vitalism, Visionary
Countertraditions, and the “More” of Life 63
Chapter 5 Processing Conway’s Religious Naturalism 81
Chapter 6 Cultural Reverberations: Love, Religious
Naturalism, and Feminism 97
Notes 119
Bibliography 141
Index 153

Preface
Anne Conway was an early modern religious philosopher whose life
and ideas remain relatively unknown to the majority of contemporary
Westerners. This is unfortunate because her published text The Prin-
ciples of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy is, among other things,
an intriguing seventeenth-century cosmological study outlining
Conway’s views on the nature of divinity, humanity, and the created
order. Derived in part from her readings in the Lurianic Kabbalah,
Conway’s radical theological views challenged the Christian ortho-
doxy of her day and attempted to find a more naturalistic and plural-
istic approach to many influential religious doctrines. Moreover,
Conway’s theory of monads, her attraction and eventual conversion to
Quakerism, and her use of the Lurianic Kabbalah in developing her
religious cosmology characterize her as an innovative and bold
thinker—unusual qualities associated with women in the early mod-
ern period.
In this study, I recover Conway’s ideas within the context of
seventeenth-century English cultural and intellectual life and discuss
her role in the history of the early Quakers. I also demonstrate the
affinity between Conway’s system of thought and contemporary con-
cerns in religious naturalism. Conway’s critique of the philosophy of
her day (especially Descartes’ mechanical theory) and her vitalistic
theories regarding nature contained important ethical principles and
conceptual innovations. Her early modern perspectives thus provide
a remarkable antecedent for new naturalistic impulses in religious stud-
ies, particularly current reconstructions of nature that challenge
“dominion-over-nature” ideologies derived from early scientific and
modern conceptions. In short, Conway’s vitalism has heuristic value,
lending support in crucial ways to various reconstructions of nature in
our current age. As a philosopher of religion, I have become increas-
ingly convinced that the tenability of religious valuing today, depends,
on part, on its capacity to move beyond deficient models of nature
that have dominated mainstream thought until quite recently. As
ix
x Preface
Conway did in her era, I propose distinct approaches to the concept
of nature that proclaim (in a host of ways) a subjectivity of nature. One
minor aim of this study, therefore, is encouraging contemporary West-
erners to view humans as natural processes in relation with other
forms of sentient nature.
This study is divided into two major sections and has six chap-
ters. Part 1 (composed of the first three chapters) is historical in pre-
sentation, focusing on Conway’s key ideas within the context of
seventeenth-century English intellectual and cultural life. Chapter 1
provides an introduction to Anne Conway, outlining the key elements
of her life and sketching the general intellectual debates and develop-
ments that provide a backdrop for her ideas. I also discuss the preva-
lence of gender bias in seventeenth-century England to show the import
of Conway’s unique voice.
In chapter 2, I discuss Conway’s interest in, and eventual conver-
sion to, Quakerism, which I see as an important social corollary of her
religious naturalism. I suggest that Conway’s absorption of the Quak-
ers’ practical mysticism led to her eventual break with Henry More
and his conservative theological tendencies, providing an opening for
tracing the radical political force of her religious naturalism. In this
chapter, I also examine Conway’s interest in kabbalistic esotericism
and its impact on her overall religious cosmology.
In chapter 3, I provide a critical reading of The Principles of the Most
Ancient and Modern Philosophy, presenting Conway’s relational view of
nature and examining it within the context of Conway’s Christian heri-
tage and her basic philosophical convictions. I also examine Conway’s
critical response to Descartes’ mechanistic philosophy, discussing select
Cartesian principles that she both rejected and appropriated.
Part 2 addresses the heuristic value of Conway’s religious vital-
ism for contemporary trends in religious naturalism. In chapter 4, I set
vitalism within historical perspective, discussing influential concep-
tions of it that both preceded and followed Conway’s own formula-
tion. In addition, I present the themes and perspectives of select
visionaries, poets, and scientists whose visions and conceptualizations
of nature have been, like Conway’s, unabashedly antireductionistic
and capacious. In one manner or another, these figures have celebrated
the fullness and abundant vitality of natural processes.
In chapter 5, I specifically identify reverberations of Conway’s
mystical view of nature within strains of twentieth-century process
thought, suggesting, minimally, a potential connection between some
early modern and postmodern models of religious naturalism.