Workshop on Anne Conway

In the framework of the ITN, ESR Karen Felter has organized a workshop together with the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism. The workshop takes place March 10 at Cambridge University (Thirkill Room, Clare College, Old Court).

Please note that we will all read Conway’s “Principles” beforehand. Through the day there will be a series of introductionary talks to further our discussion, but the majority of the day will be centered on discussions of selected themes and passages from the text, which we will read together. 

Program

 9:30     Coffee and Welcome
             Introduction: Conway’s life and treatise / Karen Felter

10:00   God as Ahad and the Living Atom - The Influence of Henry More's Early Poetry on Anne Conway's
            Principia Philosophiae / Christian Hengstermann
            Discussion

11:00   Systems and Principles: a reflection on the methodology in Cudworth and Conway / Thomas Hanke
            Discussion

12:00   Lunch (provided)

13:15   Conway’s understanding of essence, substance, and nature / Adrian Mihai
            Discussion 

14:00   God’s goodness and creative act / James Bryson

14:45   Female Principles? Women and Theology in Seventeenth-century England / Mark Burden

15:00 – 16:30 Open discussion

You can see the poster here.

The theme of the workshop is related to Felter's research project, which explores the relation between body and spirit as it occurs in Anne Conway (1631-1679) and how she views the intersection between human freedom, spirit and body. Conway was part of an influential group of philosophers called the Cambridge Platonists who drew on an Origenian concept of freedom in which there is no dichotomy between mind and body. At the core of their liberal philosophy was Origen’s notion of freedom and the capability of moral self-determination. Based on this idea, the Cambridge Platonists forged the first Anglican rational theology in the footsteps of Origenism and Platonism and thus turned out to be forerunners of the concept of human autonomy and agency during the Enlightenment.