How Cavendish Conceive Nature and Its Key Features
The central argument of Cavendish’s philosophy is that all of nature is one material thing. The one material thing, as evidenced lecture 15, is “the substance of infinite matter”. Cavendish, in an effort to explain materialism, maintained that matter thinks. The thinking matter, as described by Cavendish, is based on the assumption that human mind is hosted in the body. More specifically, the thinking “that is supposed to establish our distinctness from other thinking things and the world of extension, including the body, is but a bit of matter in motion” (Lecture 14).
Although it might be argued that matter has no motion, but motion cannot be without matter. This is what informed the argument that “beings such as living creatures of all sorts will be composed of matter in distinct motion which provides them with unity” (Lecture 14). To illustrate this further, when a person travels from one location to another, the mind which is housed in the body partakes of this motion as well. Therefore, the key features can be classified into rational, sensitive and inanimate matter.
How Cavendish Conceive of God
Cavendish viewed God as immaterial and one that exists outside time. In claiming so, Cavendish maintains that no part of nature can conceive the essence of God. As evidenced in Lecture 16, Cavendish’s characterization of God revolves around the following elements. Firstly, that God is incomprehensible and, as such, is above nature. Secondly, that God is most powerful – “an eternal, infinite, omnipotent, incorporeal, individual, immovable being” (Lecture 16).
In addition to this, Cavendish understanding of the existing relationship between God and the one substance is twofold. Firstly, that God is the sole creator of the eternal nature, which explains why it has no beginning or end. Secondly, that God cannot be identified as the creator since “He directly makes individual creatures or directly acts in the world of Nature” (Lecture 16). It therefore follows that the only way that God can order nature is because He empowered it to partake in his commands. As explicated in Lecture 16 “God, the author of nature, has ordered her, so that she cannot work beyond her own nature, that is, beyond matter”. More specifically, he made her (nature) self-moving and single whole.
Cavendish and Spinoza’s Account of God
Cavendish account of God and His relationship to one substance is quite different from Spinoza’s account. Unlike Cavendish who conceives God as being above nature and the cause of it, Spinoza maintains that God and nature are one and the same – they are one substance. Spinoza argued that “if things have nothing in common with one another, one of them cannot be
the cause of the other” (Spinoza. n.d). However, these two accounts are somehow the same in the sense that none, both nature and God, could have exited without the other and that God is the cause of all things. The only point of departure in this similarity is that as for Spinoza, God is not a transeunt cause. Overall, both Cavendish and Spinoza account of God tend to challenge rationale for religious practices. For Cavendish, the fact that God is incomprehensible and unknowable can easily make one question if the religious practices are what they are believed to be. On his part, Spinoza challenges Christian’s need to prayer because they seem to appeal to God to change the way the universe work since God and nature are one.
References
Lecture 14. (PHLB35 – Fall 2022). Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy. Observations on Experimental Philosophy.
Lecture 15. (PHLB35 – Fall 2022). Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy. Observations on Experimental Philosophy II.
Lecture 16. (PHLB35 – Fall 2022). Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy. Observations on Experimental Philosophy III.
Spinoza. (n.d.). The Ethics. Demonstrated in geometric order and divided into five parts, which treat.