Lady Anne Conway (née Finch) (1631 – 1679) was an English philosopher whose only surviving work, ‘Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy,’ was published posthumously (and anonymously). Principles is based on Platonist metaphysics, and opposes the popular views of the time held by philosophers such as Descartes, More, Spinoza, and Hobbes. She was born to Sir Heneage Finch and his second wife Elizabeth. She was their youngest and last child, as her father passed away before her birth.
Despite the restrictions on women attending university, Conway studied philosophy under Cambridge Platonist Henry More via letter, a connection made through her brother John Finch who was a pupil of More’s. She was further encouraged and supported in her studies by her husband, Edward. His father and her father-in-law, the second Viscount Conway (Lord Conway), also greatly supported her studies, providing her access to his library consisting of over 11,000 volumes. Anne and Edward eventually took up residence in Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, England.
Conway fought illness constantly throughout her life. Conway and Edward famously sought out the Irish healer Valentine Greatrakes in 1666, after consulting other physicians and natural philosophers such as William Harvey, Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, and Robert Boyle. Greatrakes performed his healing unsuccessfully in front of the Royal Society.
They eventually came into contact with Flemish physician and Christian kabbalist philosopher Francis Mercury van Helmont. For the last decade of her live, Helmont lived with her and Edward.It was through Helmont that Conway was introduced to Kabbalistic thought and also Quakerism. This lead to Conway breaking away from Cartesian thought, and converting to Quakerism right before her death on February 23rd, 1679. Principles was published 11 years later in 1690, and remains her only surviving treatise.