Monsters and laws of nature in Margaret Cavendish

SILVIA MANZO

Río de Janeiro

Simposio; Women in modern philosophy; 2019

UNERJ

In a recent book article, ?Margaret Cavendish on Laws and Order? (2018), Karen Detlefsen claimed that Margaret Cavendish hold a view of the laws of nature that occupies an intermediate position between older and newer ways of thinking about them. Following the lead of Detlefsen?s study, I will explore how Cavendish?s thoughts on monsters, understood as individuals with physical congenital anomalies, articulated with her conceptions of nature?s order and the laws of nature. I will argue that Cavendish?s opinions are similar in many respects to the Late Scholastic characterization and explanation of monsters. In both accounts we find, on the one hand, a depiction of monsters as defective beings and preternatural events; and the other, an explanation of the birth of monsters by drawing a distinction into general and particular natures, and by assuming a ?weak? concept of a law of nature, according to which laws or rules governing species are regularities admitting of exceptions. This is not to claim that Cavendish read Scholastic or Late Scholastic sources. Nonetheless, although her specific sources are hard to reconstruct, these resemblances suggest that she was acquainted with Late Scholastic doctrines, probably by her direct familiarity with sources that adopter and/or discussed the Late Scholastic point of view. The fact that Cavendish offered a conception of monsters similar to the Late Scholastic provides new evidence to support the interpretation maintained by scholars like Detlefsen and Broad, according to which some aspects of Cavendish?s natural philosophy do not represent disruptive stances towards tradition but rather constitute a gradual shift towards the approach of the new science.