Motion as an Accident of Matter

Margaret Cavendish and Thomas Hobbes on Motion and Rest

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21395027
AutoresMarcus P Adams (autor correspondente)
Ano2021
Volume59
Fascículo4
Páginas495-522
Data de publicação2021-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Southern Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0038-4283 • E-ISSN: 2041-6962
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/sjp.12434
OpenAlexW3190410523
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas25

Margaret Cavendish is widely known as a materialist. However, since Cavendishian matter is always in motion, “matter” and “motion” are equally important foundational concepts for her natural philosophy. In Philosophical Letters (1664), she takes to task her materialist rival Thomas Hobbes by assaulting his account of accidents in general and his concept of “rest” in particular. In this article, I argue that Cavendish defends her continuous‐motion view in two ways: first, she claims that her account avoids seeing accidents as capable of generation and annihilation, which she argues is inconceivable; and second, she contends that according to Hobbes’s own view “rest” is an absurd conception since it cannot be drawn from experience. Beyond its function as a defense, I claim that Cavendish’s focused criticism of “rest” shows that she is a perceptive reader of Hobbes’s natural philosophy, insofar as her criticisms undercut the two a priori principles of Hobbesian physics. Finally, I show how her views developed in more detail in Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1663) and Observations upon Experimental Philosophy ([1666] 2001) avoid the worries she raises for Hobbesian materialism

Accident (philosophy) · Art · Classical mechanics · Criticism · Epistemology · Literature · Materialism · Motion (physics) · Natural Philosophy · Physics · Rest (music) · Historical Philosophy and Science · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought