Event Details

Title: Matter as a Potentiality for Joy and Perfection

Abstract: Anne Conway’s Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy offers a striking approach to the concept of matter because it is driven by an embodied human perspective that prioritizes the pleasure of achievement. I will argue that Conway’s concept of matter is a potentiality for perfection and joy, which gives her an interesting answer to the question of why a good and loving God would create matter. Common narratives have it that there are two competing early modern approaches to the concept of matter: mechanists that define matter by geometric qualities of size, shape, texture, motion, and more controversially, vitalists that attribute self-motion or life to matter. Though Conway is typically categorized as a vitalist, I will suggest that Conway is best described as an agential realist. The category of agential realism helps to distinguish theories that define matter by self-motion and life from theories that universally attribute agency or intentional states to matter. 

Please join the Philosophy Department for this talk at 4:40 p.m. on Thursday, Mar. 6, in the 4th floor lounge of Old Main (MAIN 400). All are welcome. Refreshments will be served.