Hutton, Sarah. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher.

Tkacz, Catherine Brown

HUTTON, Sarah. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. viii + 271 pp. Cloth, $75.00--In the last twenty years Lady Anne Conway, nee Finch (1631-79), has gained scholarly attention, as shown by recent encyclopedia entries on her. A Cambridge Platonist, Lady Conway critiqued Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza, as well as her former tutor and lifelong correspondent, Henry More. Leibniz mentions her posthumous work positively, albeit briefly. With an impressive command of documentary and philosophical sources, Sarah Hutton contextualizes the Viscountess's thought and meets the stated goal of showing that Conway's Principia philosophiae antiquissimae and recentissimae expresses "the philosophical concerns of a lifetime" (p. 12).

In an age when women were not formally admitted to Cambridge, Conway was tutored by mail by Henry More, who had also taught her half-brother John Finch. Her notebooks, now lost, were published posthumously in 1690 in Latin translation by men who respected her and who with self-effacement introduced her work without mentioning their own names. Conway proposed replacing the doctrine of the Trinity with a metaphysical metaphor in which God is the Creator, Christ is mediating "Middle Nature," and the third element is Creation. Hobbes and Spinoza she critiques for failing to distinguish between Creator and creation. She also criticized the dualism of Descartes and of More, developing instead a "vitalistic monism" (p. 87). More himself had written of "Monad or Unite" in 1653 (p. 159).

Professor Hutton does an exemplary job of documenting the influences upon Conway. One was pain. From the age of twelve, Conway suffered, often enduring violent headaches lasting for days, even months. This brought her into contact with numerous physicians and gave her an interest in science, which in turn influenced her thought. For instance, she derived her theory of change from Francis Mercury van Helmont and studied the works of Robert Boyle. Her "ecumenical Deism" led at last to her becoming a Quaker.

The volume lacks a chronological table of Conway's philosophical letters, both the extant ones and those reliably attested, with identification of the correspondents, including More, Finch, Knorr, possibly Elizabeth of Bohemia, but not Leibniz or Margaret Cavendish. Such a table would also have clarified just how many letters there are. Similarly, although perceptive comments about Conway's Principia are offered passim throughout the monograph, nowhere are the work's full contents, structure, or length recounted. (In the 1690 duodecimo publication, Van Helmont's anonymous introduction was six pages and the Latin text 144).

In her "reconstructive archaeology" of Conway's thought (p. 10), Hutton gives a generally judicious presentation of what may be reliably inferred from the evidence (for example, pp. 18, 93 n. 58, 138-9, 199). An admirable index gives access to the thematically arranged contents. The final chapter discreetly corrects erroneous assessments of Conway. It is disconcerting, however, that More's dedicatory letter for Antidote against Atheism is cited both to show that More presents Conway as an acceptably stereotypical woman (p. 29) but also as evidence that he admired her particular intellectual gifts (p. 39).

Unfortunately, Hutton's assessment of Conway's influence is exaggerated. For instance, her influence upon More's philosophy is said to be "significant, possibly formative" (p. 78), and she is credited with "a far-reaching impact" on the thought of Van Helmont (pp. 140, 152). The evidence offered, however, shows only moderate influence. Conway is also credited with taking the lead, "setting the agenda" of philosophical subjects in epistolary exchanges with More and Finch (p. 9). Yet More, as Conway's tutor (and social inferior?) asked Conway to propose questions and subjects (pp. 73-4). Finch made the same request (pp. 99-100). That is, it has not been shown that on her own initiative she "set the agenda."

More seriously, Conway is repeatedly treated as collaborator or author of works published by men (for example, p. 9). George Keith, More, and Van Helmont were gathered with her at Ragley for philosophical discussion, but this does not justify deeming her "the director" of the debates or "co-author" of their works. The fact that these men wrote dialogues does not certify that they record her thought (pp. 203-6). A very few parallels in wording between Conway and Van Helmont's Two Hundred Queries do not make her his collaborator (p. 210).

It is instructive to reverse the sexes of the persons involved: Had a man hosted philosophical dialogues involving three women and then each woman had published treatises, the scholarly world would cry "Foul!" if a modern critic were to assert that probably the man was the author of these texts. Moreover, as Hutton makes clear, More and Van Helmont edited Conway's Principia, annotated it, translated it into Latin, wrote an introduction to it, and had it published. Appropriately, she does not from these facts conclude that the men were coauthors of Conway's Principia. Likewise it is inappropriate to aggrandize Conway's work by deeming her the author of their publications.--Catherine Brown Tkacz, Gonzaga University.