Anne Conway on the Silence of Mechanism

Abstract

This paper examines two problems with Cartesian mechanism explored by Anne Conway: the passivity of matter and the reduction of qualitative facts to mechanical facts. According to Conway, mechanical philosophy, in conceiving all qualities of the natural world as reducible to matter in motion, remains silent on the vital and phenomenal character of reality. Conway's commitment to the silence of mechanism leads to panpsychist conclusions on the basis of the fact that her universal soteriology requires that all creatures sometimes experience the phenomenal state of pain, since pain is necessarily ameliorative on her view.