Well-ordered Universe Research Articles

The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish

The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish

Review of Deborah Boyle on Margaret Cavendish

A review of Deborah Boyle's book The Well-Ordered Universe (2018), by Dustin D. Stewart.

The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish by Deborah Boyle

Reviewed by: The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish by Deborah Boyle Tessie Prakas Deborah Boyle. The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish. New York: Oxford, 2018. Pp. x + 273. $74. It is fitting that any inquiry into the programmatic nature of Cavendish’s inquiries in natural philosophy should itself be well ordered. Exactly so, The Well-Ordered Universe considers her explicitly philosophical writing alongside her poetry, prose fiction, and other works to establish not only that the importance of order shapes Cavendish’s thinking across these different genres to a degree we have not previously remarked, but also that it has for her a normative function: that nature takes order and regularity to be desirable, and indeed that “each creature of a given sort has certain norms of behavior it is supposed to follow.” This latter and bolder point is at the heart of Boyle’s important contribution to the existing scholarly conversation on Cavendish’s materialist notions and on their evolution during her lifetime. Chapter 1 contends that the apparent determinist leanings of her earliest known work, The Worlds Olio, should be regarded as something of an outlier in the light of her later commitment to the notion of self-moving matter. Boyle follows other scholars in distancing Cavendish from “Hobbes, Descartes, Robert Boyle, and others [who] conceived of matter as naturally inert, capable of moving only when moved by some external force, and certainly not intrinsically perceptive or knowing.” For Cavendish, by contrast—certainly in her later works—matter has a perceptual capacity that assists it in initiating action of its own accord. But Boyle takes pains in her first four chapters to emphasize that to cast matter as free in this way, she need not be as centrally preoccupied with freedom as other scholars have tended to suggest, and indeed that in her later works of natural philosophy she advances a form of vitalist materialism in which “the parts of matter are subject to certain principles dictated by Nature herself.” It is in the negotiation between these ordering principles and whether the parts of matter choose to observe them that Boyle is principally interested. The broad scope and deep learning of Boyle’s study is in itself a strong argument that the complex position she claims for Cavendish can only emerge through wide and rigorously comparative reading of her works, reading from which critics have sometimes turned away in frustration at what they regard as her incoherence. And Boyle counsels persistence more explicitly too, asserting that a central “interpretive principle” of The Well-Ordered Universe is “that when faced with contradictory passages in Cavendish’s writings, we should seek to resolve the inconsistency, leaving as a last resort the conclusion that the tension is unresolved.” In crediting her with a capacity for more systematic, less erratic thought than is traditional in the field—and that her own contemporaries typically allowed her—Boyle joins a number of feminist scholars whose work in recent decades has had explicitly recuperative aims. Notably, however, she does not follow precisely in their footsteps; indeed, she wishes—on the basis of her larger claim regarding Cavendish’s commitment to order—to resist the tendency to regard her as formulating “early expressions of feminism or proto-feminism.” Instead, Boyle advances a valuable contention in chapters 6 and 7 that her natural philosophical commitments to order have social implications that tend rather the opposite way: she “endorse[d] very conventional seventeenth-century English views about social class” as well as about gender. That endorsement, however, does not prevent Cavendish from describing numerous departures [End Page 61] from convention—by figures of her own invention as well as by entities with whom she has no personal or authorial connection. What is more, Boyle observes in chapter 7 that Cavendish likely saw herself as lacking in traditionally female behavior. Yet Cavendish’s emphasis on these departures, Boyle suggests, represents not a disorder in Cavendish’s method of argumentation but rather her acknowledgment that matter more broadly may pursue disorder. That every entity has an order prescribed for it in nature does not translate necessarily into its following that order. For...

Универсум науки. Архитектонические идеи науки, отраслей и частей научного знания в философии Канта

I argue that Kant has developed a broad systematic account of the architectonic functionality of pure reason that can be used and advanced in contemporary contexts. Reason, in the narrow sense, is responsible for the picture of a well-ordered universe of science consisting of architectonic ideas of science, sciences and parts of sciences. In the first section (I), I show what Kant means by the architectonic ideas by explaining and interrelating the concepts of (a) the faculty of reason, (b) ideas (as principles), (c) method, and (d) sciences of reason. Thereafter (II), I think through his holistic understanding of science and scientific progress and suggest differentiating between four levels of use of architectonic ideas, drawing on the metaphor of a well-structured universe as imagined by Kant in his work on the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. I also claim that each possible idea of reason can be (apart from its primary function) additionally regarded as a fourth-level architectonic concept when explicitly conceived as an object of (e. g. philosophical) studies, i. e. from a mere methodological perspective. In the final section (III), I unveil the potential of Kant’s theory by pointing out how this architectonic methodological function of pure reason is tacitly used in Karl-Otto Apel’s contemporary philosophical research programme.

The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish by Deborah Boyle

The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish by Deborah Boyle

The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish. Deborah Boyle.

<i>The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish</i>. Deborah Boyle.

The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish by Deborah A. Boyle

Reviewed by: The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish by Deborah A. Boyle Stewart Duncan Deborah A. Boyle. The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. x + 273. Cloth, $74.00. Deborah Boyle's book is a splendid addition to the literature on the philosophy of Margaret Cavendish (1623–73). It provides an overview of Cavendish's philosophical work, from her panpsychist materialism, through her views about human motivation and general political philosophy, to views about gender, health, and humans' relation to the rest of the natural world. Boyle emphasizes themes of order and regularity, but does not argue that there is a strong systematic connection between Cavendish's views. Indeed, she makes a point of noting the different ways in which the themes of order and regularity work in different areas of Cavendish's philosophy (7–8). The early chapters consider Cavendish's natural philosophy. Thus, chapter 2 considers the atomist views found in her first book, the 1653 Poems and Fancies. Boyle takes time to think about what those atomist views are, but also—and perhaps more importantly for our overall picture of Cavendish's work—argues that Cavendish was "merely toying" with atomism (57). Chapter 3 then considers Cavendish's later views about the natural world, which is wholly material: both what we might call the "mid period" views of the Philosophical Fancies (1653) and the first edition of the Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1655), and the later views of better-known texts from the 1660s. Some of Cavendish's notable views, such as the idea that there are different "degrees" of matter, can be found in the texts from the 1650s. But others, such as the notion that inanimate, sensitive, and rational matter are all blended together throughout the world, are later developments. Chapter 4 builds on that discussion to look at individual creatures in the material world, considering views about natural kinds, occasional causation, and self-knowledge. In later chapters, Boyle turns to Cavendish's views about human beings in particular. Chapter 5 looks at Cavendish's views on human motivation, before chapter 6 considers her views on peace and order in human society. That progression itself, like a number of things Cavendish said on these topics, sounds somewhat Hobbesian. While acknowledging some similarities, Boyle argues for differences between the two. Thus, she shows that Cavendish was not a social contract theorist, arguing plausibly that some passages that might seem to suggest otherwise are misleading (149–51). Boyle also argues that Cavendish and Hobbes differ in their accounts of human motivation. For instance, Cavendish grounded self-preservation in self-love (126). Human self-love is, moreover, different from that of other creatures: all creatures want to preserve themselves, but humans also want to be recognized and remembered (127). Hobbes meanwhile, Boyle notes, did not include self-love on his lists of passions. However, one might wonder how far Cavendish was from a Hobbesian picture here, despite some differences in terminology. In Cavendish's view, as Boyle describes it, the first part of human self-love is a (Hobbesian sounding) desire for self-preservation. The second part, the desire for recognition and fame, itself seems not so far from what Hobbes calls "glory," which he identifies as one of the three principal causes of quarrel. Moreover, as Boyle notes Cavendish distinguishing better or worse forms of the desire and search for fame (134), so we can find Hobbes distinguishing "glorying to no end, [which] is vain-glory, and contrary to reason" from, presumably, other sorts of glorying (Leviathan, chapter 15). Perhaps, then, there is some reason to think that Cavendish was closer to Hobbes here than Boyle allows. Chapter 7 investigates Cavendish's views on gender roles, arguing that those views were "consistently conservative" (166). Chapter 8's topic is humans' relationship to the rest of nature. Here Boyle argues, for example, that Cavendish had less concern for the welfare of animals than is sometimes suggested, and that what concern she did have did not come from sympathy with animals. Chapter 9 then considers health, something about which Cavendish had a good deal to say. This discussion...

Review of The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish by Deborah Boyle

A review of Deborah Boyle's recent book The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017).

The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish,by Deborah Boyle

<i>The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish,</i>by Deborah Boyle

Ironist and Moralist: The Two Readers of Tom Jones

Ironist and Moralist: The Two Readers of Tom Jones WILLIAM PARK Commenting on William Empson’s essay “Tom Jones,” C. J. Rawson remarked that “the overall effect of the essay is misleading... in so far as it suggests that the main doctrinal points are made by means of an essentially evasive irony rather than by what is often an em­ phatic explicitness.”1 Rawson was speaking of sexual morality, and perhaps we have all come into complete agreement on that subject. Yet on another “doctrinal” point—the relationship between the plot of the novel and a providential design—there have appeared in recent years two contradictory and opposed readings. On the one hand we find Ian Watt, Martin Battestin, Aubrey Williams, and Henry Knight Miller, who see the well-ordered plot as being somehow related to Fielding’s vision of a well-ordered universe.2 As Watt says, the plot “reflects the general literary strategy of neoclas­ sicism; just as the creation of a field of force makes visible the universal law of magnetism, so the supreme task of the writer was to make visible in the human scene the operations of universal order.”3 On the other hand we discover Sheridan Baker, John Preston, Leo Braudy, and David Goldknopf, who see the plot as an artifice, a kind of irony, a recognition of confusion, or a failure having no real significance in itself but possibly working as an aesthetic device that enables Fielding 233 234 / WILLIAM PARK to achieve other ends.4 According to Braudy, “In Tom Jones Fielding asserts that the most obvious and artificial structure (the plot) is also the most liberating. Because it does not claim to be necessary, it therefore allows the material the freest play and gives the truest and most relevant representation of life. ” Braudy further claims that since only the Man of the Hill, Partridge, and Blifil believe in Providence, “the providential view in Tom Jones is at best supererogatory and at worst ignorantly or meretriciously self serving.”5 I believe this conflict may to some extent be resolved if we return to Empson’s concept of “double irony” in Fielding and the two readers which that irony involves.6 According to Empson, Fielding poses as the man of the world, the one who winks tolerantly at sexual mis­ behavior. This is his first irony, made at the expense of stuffy moralists. The second irony, however, trips up the worldly reader when either chastity or sexual license no longer appears to be a joke. Thus Fielding moves closer to a Richardsonian view, though one which has become highly qualified. Now I would argue that the plot ofTom Jones is one double irony.7 As narrator, Fielding on numerous occasions insists that the world is governed by accident and Fortune, that virtue is not rewarded by happiness in this world (XV, i), and that he will not intervene to help Tom (XVII, i). He appeals directly to the realist like Braudy and seems to be laughing at the theologically orthodox like Battestin. As he says, he is confined to “natural Means alone” (XVII, i).8 At first, the hodgepodge of events seems to support this first irony, but as order and happiness begin to emerge out of the random and episodic world, as Tom’s fortunes are reversed, the comic action contradicts this particu­ lar narrative viewpoint and reveals the second irony, namely that Fortune is but Providence improperly understood. At this point the realist who accepted all the statements about chance, accident, For­ tune, and history as absolute has been revealed to be as literal-minded as his moralistic counterpart. By a careful counterpoint between statement about the plot and the plot itself, Fielding has by the last book reversed his initial position; and as he withdraws from direct commentary, the novel as a whole affirms an orthodoxy which be­ comes more interesting and acceptable than the simpleminded version preached by the prigs. Instead of talking about the plot ofTom Jones as Two Readers of Tom Jones / 235 an artifice, then, it might be more appropriate to notice how Fielding’s pretense at being a naturalistic narrator is an even greater artifice...

Ecology and Culture: Environmental Determinism and the Ecological Approach in Anthropology

Throughout the ages man has shown an interest in explaining the world around him.' In myths, folk-tales, poetry, literature, history and science, man has communicated his beliefs in a well-ordered universe where given causes inevitably lead to given effects. Explanations of social and cultural forms existing in a given time and place have tended to be simple: they have frequently identified a single factor as a causal agent.2 An explanation that has long enjoyed considerable popularity is that geography determines man's life. The belief in the sovereign influence of environment has been widespread in space as well as in time. As a folk belief, it has frequently taken the form that people who live in the northern part of a given area are typically of stern and sturdy character, industrious and provident. Those who live in the southern section are characteristically easy going, indolent, talkative and of cheerful disposition. This folk belief is shared by such diverse peoples as the Japanese, the Chinese, the Indians, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish, the English, the Dutch and the Americans.3 Men of letters who have subscribed to environmental determinism include many scholars who have in a major way affected the intellectual history of Western civilization-Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Polybius, and Ptolemy.

Irrationalism and Myth in Georges Sorel

The First World War is sometimes credited with the dissolution of the well-ordered universe of the nineteenth century. In fact, by 1914 there was very little left to destroy, for most of the essential work had already been accomplished. The aftermath of the war merely helped to make the collapse of order and stability more visible. But the post-1918 atmosphere of gloom, later crystallized in the “Lost Generation” and in the escapist movements of the twenties, gave the impression that the war had been responsible for the moral and intellectual Zusammenbruch of the period. The feeling of decay was everywhere; the old values, the former certainties and criteria had vanished, leaving an impression of emptiness behind. The old order had crumbled, without dignity, “not with a bang but with a whimper,” as T. S. Eliot put it.