An Argumental Discourse Before All: An Approach to Teaching Cavendish

Cavendish directs readers of Observations upon Experimental Philosophy to begin engaging her work through "An Argumental Discourse." In this piece, I describe a way of thinking about the structure of that piece and how to understand two of its major moments in relationship to standardly taught material. The first moment is the dilemma about how inanimate matter is moved, with its response centered on treating a horse and its rider as a paradigm example of causation. The article shows how the argument involves Cavendish's conceptions of causation, minds, bodies, and mind-body interaction. The second moment has to do with the relationship between infinite divisions and atomism. The article distinguishes Cavendishian and Cartesian conceptions of division in order to relate Cavendish's thinking about division and atoms to Descartes's well-known argument against atomism. The discussion shows how a wide variety of central philosophical issues can be taught and interestingly complicated while requiring students to engage with fewer than 16 pages of reading.