Anne Conway: The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy

A newly translated edition of Conway's radical and influential philosophical treatise.

Anne Conway (Author), Allison P. Coudert (Edited by), Taylor Corse (Edited by)

9780521479042, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 18 April 1996

116 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.7 cm, 0.18 kg

"This is a book of historical and philosophical importance...Coudert and Corse have presented Conway's treatise in a very readable translation...they make clear Conway's remarkable achievement in an age in which women were rarely found in the circles of philosophical debate." The Eighteenth Century

Anne Conway was an extraordinary figure in a remarkable age. Her mastery of the intricate doctrines of the Lurianic Kabbalah, her authorship of a treatise criticising the philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza, and her scandalous conversion to the despised sect of Quakers indicate a strength of character and independence of mind wholly unexpected (and unwanted) in a woman at the time. Translated for the first time into modern English, her Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy is the most interesting and original philosophical work written by a woman in the seventeenth century. Her radical and unorthodox ideas are important not only because they anticipated the more tolerant, ecumenical, and optimistic philosophy of the Enlightenment, but also because of their influence on Leibniz. This fully annotated edition includes an introduction which places Conway in her historical and philosophical contexts, together with a chronology of her life and a bibliography.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chronology
Further reading
Note on the text
The Principles of the Most ancient and Modern Philosophy
Unpublished Preface by Henry More
Published preface
God and his divine attributes
Index.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]