You are invited to the next Colloquia in our Winter 2022 Series on March 4th, 2022, with Professor Alison Simmons from Harvard University.
About the Event:
“Beyond Dualism: The Case of Anne Conway”
Lecture by Alison Simmons, Professor in Philosophy, Harvard University.
March 4th, 2022
3:00-5:00 p.m
BUCH A 201
Abstract:
Anne Conway rejects dualism in no uncertain terms. It’s hard to know what positive label to give her metaphysics. She argues that the natural world is made up of a single kind of stuff and that the stuff is essentially vital or living. So “vitalist monism” suggests itself. She assigns to the vital stuff of nature some properties that dualists attribute to matter (extension, divisibility, impenetrability) and other properties that they attribute to mind or soul (sense and thought). There is also a striking and pervasive normative dimension to her metaphysics of nature. This paper explores the ways in which Conway’s engagement with two of dualism’s traditional motivations shape her metaphysical thinking: (a) the philosophical need to account for the manifest order we find in nature and (b) the traditional theological demand to underwrite human exceptionalism among nature’s creatures. Dualism, she argues, is hopeless for accounting for nature’s order and fundamentally misguided about the ways in which human beings are (and are not!) exceptional in nature.
About Alison Simmons
Alison Simmons received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. The bulk of her teaching is in early modern philosophy, natural philosophy, and theories of mind. She also has teaching interests, however, in medieval philosophy, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of psychology.
Her research interests lie primarily at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. Some of her publications include, just to name a few of them:
- “Causation and Cognition in Descartes,” in Causation and Cognition: Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Sebastian Bender and Dominik Perler (New York: Routledge, 2020): 39-60.
- “Embedded EthiCS: Integrating Ethics Broadly Across Computer Science Education,” Communications of the ACM 62(8) (2019): 54-61. With Barbara Grosz, David Gray-Grant, Kate Vredenburg, Jeff Behrends, and Jim Waldo.
- “Mind-Body Union and the Limits of Cartesian Metaphysics” Philosophers Imprint 17 (14) (2017): 1-36.*
*Note: “Due to COVID restrictions, please note that this event is closed to members of the public.”
