Anne Conway, Viscountess Conway

Lady Anne Conway, Viscountess Conway, born Anne Finch (* December 14, 1631 in London, † February 18, 1679 ) was an English philosopher.

Biography

Conway was the daughter of Sir Heneage Finch, lawyer and politician, who died shortly before her birth, and his second wife Elizabeth. Conway grew up as the youngest child of the family in the property, which is known in its current form as Kensington Palace and that was before his conversion owned by the Finch family. In 1651 it came to the marriage with Edward Conway, later 1st Earl of Conway.

Through her stepbrother John Finch, who studied at the University of Cambridge, she came in contact with Henry More, one of the leading representatives of the Cambridge Platonists. From him she was philosophically in letter contact, mainly through the work of René Descartes, taught, but soon developed by the student for friendly discussion partner. More's 1653 book, published Antidote against Atheism is dedicated to her.

About Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont, son of Johan Baptista van Helmont naturalist, she learned Quakerism, to which she converted shortly before her death, and know the Jewish Kabbalah.

Her only surviving work appeared under the title Prinicipia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae in Latin translation and without a car race Nung 1690 in Amsterdam. As The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy was published in 1692 in a back-translated English edition in London. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had a copy of the essay and was possibly influenced by the concept of monads from her.

Honors

• The Anne Conway Street in Bremen, district Horn Lehe was named after her in 1997.

Work

The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy. Translated and edited by Allison P. Coudert and Taylor Corse. Cambridge 1996.

The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy. Edited with an Introduction by Peter Loptson. ( Archives Internationales d' Histoire des Idées 101). The Hague; Boston; London 1982.

Nicolson, Marjorie Hope: The Conway Letters. The Correspondence of Anne Viscountess Conway, Henry More and Their Friends ( 1930). Revised. v. S. Hutton. Oxford 1992.