Cavendish's Body of Knowledge

Abstract

Cavendish's contradictory natural philosophy and her complex multiplication of selves has been recognised as an epistemological critique of the New Science's claim to objective knowledge of nature. Using Latour's holistic approach, we will investigate in what way Cavendish's unstable representation of the body of knowledge leads to a fragmented representation of the body in Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy and Grounds of Natural Philosophy. This, in turn, underpins her concept of the self as a physical and as an authorial entity. The slipperiness of Cavendish's epistemology, which is reflected in her contradictory attitude towards empiricism and women, becomes a unifying force in her performance. This performance includes an authorial self-fashioning and a physical and social embodiment of her critique in reaction to, and partly incorporating, scientific notions of the body, which is necessarily a cultural representation in itself. Across the boundaries of these categories, Cavendish emphasised the unequivocal bond between the author and her work.