Margaret Cavendish’s vitalist materialism: Theory of perception and the problem of the metaphysical status of color

Abstract

In this paper I analyze aspects of Margaret Cavendish?s metaphysics relevant to her account of perception, and, specifically, visual perception. Regarding her theory of sensory perception, I intend to show that Cavendish considers self-motion and selfknowledge, as essential characteristics of matter, to be individually necessary and only jointly sufficient conditions of veridical perception. In the section dedicated to the problem of the metaphysical status of color, my aim is to show that her objection based on color constancy is a serious criticism of the, at the time, dominant mechanist view of the nature of color. Furthermore, her realism concerning color has greater explanatory power compared to mechanists? view when it comes to explaining this phenomenon.