Individuation in Margaret Cavendish

AGUILAR, CLAUDIA MARIA DE LOS ANGELES

Hamburgo

Workshop; 4th Berlin-Hamburg Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy (HU-UHH); 2023

Humboldt UniversityätBerlin- Hamburg Universität

Individuation in Margaret Cavendish Concerning Margaret Cavendish´s theory of individuation, two fundamental axes of analysis can be reconstructed. On the one hand, some research focuses on the similarity between Cavendish´s proposal and that of Spinoza. On the other hand, some scholars do not focus on such similarity but emphasize the role of th emovement of individuated things, rather than the self-movement of infinite matter.The hypothesis that I put forward is that Margaret Cavendish´s theory of individuation consists in the way the infinite matter individuates herself into parts out of her own motion and not out of the motion of those parts. Infinite matter generates parts from her own motion, and therefore, all parts have sense and reason. Thus, we can distinguish between the movement of matter, which the very process of individuation consists in,from the movement of the already individuated parts.To support the hypothesis, this article is divided into two sections: first, I elaborate on how, in Philosophical Letters (1664), the one infinite matter produces all her finite parts from her own motion, and how this motion is distinct from that of the already individuated parts. On this basis, secondly, I show how each part has particular motions of its own, and how every part of nature is a mixture of animate and inanimate matter.There I dwell on the difference between animate matter, which has motion, and inanimate matter, which does not. Here we must consider that animate matter can be either sensitive or rational. Even though the inanimate part has no life or knowledge, itis never given alone; then, the rational and sensitive parts grant each individuated part knowledge and life, respectively. Moreover, each part has sense and reason according to the nature of its figure, and knowledge functions differently in each part. I likewise explain how, although the same matter produces all creatures, they have different figures and, therefore, life and knowledge in them are different. In short, it is the movement of infinite matter that permits the comprehension of life and knowledge of each of her parts, and that, by virtue of the same process of individuation, there is no part in nature that does not have life and knowledge.With this hypothesis, I reject the reduction of Cavendish´s theory of individuation to the Spinozian one and the idea that the parts are individuated by their own motion, since both readings have a common factor: the priority in the analysis of the individuated parts to the detriment of the role of the infinite matter.