Reinterpreting Anne Conway: A Cosmopsychist Ontology of Created Substance?

Abstract

Anne Conway’s ontology about created substance in The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy has often been proposed to be a form of existence monism or existence pluralism. More recently, Emily Thomas has been suggested that it might sit better as a form of priority monism (Thomas, 2020). While the literature remains rife on such matters, there has been little contemporary consideration as to what this substance is in-and-of-itself. I provide a novel answer to this question by presenting how Conway’s ontology is analogous in form and intention to contemporary variants of panpsychism. Combining this conclusion with Thomas’, I propose that the theory resulting from the synthesis of these two conclusions – ‘cosmopsychism’ – is consistent with many of Conway’s remarks and has some interesting theological implications for the text.