Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgments Part I 1. Anne Conway and Her Contemporaries 2. Esoteric Knowledge, Practical Mysticism, and Embodied Love 3. Conway, Descartes, and the New Mechanical Science Part II 4. Conway's Religious Vitalism, Visionary Countertraditions, and the "More" of Life 5. Processing Conway's Religious Naturalism 6. Cultural Reverberations: Love, Religious Naturalism, and Feminism Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author

Carol Wayne White is Associate Professor of Religion at Bucknell University and author of Poststructuralism, Feminism, and Religion: Triangulating Positions.

Reviews

"...[a] useful survey ... this brief book might well be a valuable addition as a text to an undergraduate survey course concerned with the subject of European intellectual responses at the intersection of religion, philosophy, and natural history over the last five centuries." - Reviews in Religion & Theology "Recovering Conway's critique of the philosophy of her day is important, as is revealing Conway's role in the history of Quakerism. The author pulls these elements together nicely in an admirably readable text. She also does a fine job of showing how significant the physical world was in the religious life of Anne Conway, and this is especially relevant for contemporary religious thinkers because religious naturalism is clearly on the ascent among contemporary intellectuals." - Loyal Rue, author of Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution "Conway studies are burgeoning, and this book will be useful for undergraduate teaching." - Jane Duran, author of Eight Women Philosophers: Theory, Politics, and Feminism