A Modal and Incremental Distinction: Anne Conway on Spirit and Body

NATALIA STROK

Río de Janeiro

Conferencia; I International Conference Women in Modern Philosophy; 2019

Carol Wayne White explains in her book that Lady Anne Conway was better known for her lifelong headaches than for her profound philosophical thinking (2008, p. 4). By reading not only White?s, but also Sarah Hutton?s book, it is possible to say that Anne?s strong headaches gave her a path to texts and practices that found place in her own philosophy. Every one who thought that could help her, approached and try her best, every time without any good result. So, there are phrases repeated by her friends and family like this one: ?though her Pains encreas?d, yet her Understanding diminish?d not? (Van Helmont in Hutton 2004, p. 203). This is what those around her perceive: a kind of split between her lucid and painless mind in opposition to a useless and painful body. But Anne does not think the relationship between mind and body in that way. She writes in her text about the union between spirit and body in human beings and animals, how body and spirit are essentially the same, the strong bond they have. She affirms: ?Truly, every body is a spirit and nothing else, and it differs from a spirit only insofar as it is darker. Therefore the crasser it becomes, the more it is removed from the condition of spirit. Consequently, the distinction between spirit and body is only modal and incremental, not essential and substantial (Principia Philosophiae, VI, 11). And adds: ?it is therefore clear that no creature can become more and more a body to infinity, although it can become more and more a spirit to infinity. (?) As we see from constant experience and as reason teaches us, this must necessarily happen because through pain and suffering whatever grossness or crassness is contracted by the spirit or body is diminished; and so the spirit imprisoned in such grossness or crassness is set free and becomes more spiritual and, consequently, more active and effective through pain. (Principia Philosophiae, VII, 1). In this paper I intend to analyse this relationship between spirit and body in Anne Conway?s The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, in order to accept or dismiss the kind of phrases that her friends and family said concerning her condition. I will look for Platonic trends that may be present in her thinking as well.