For early modern metaphysician Anne Conway, the world comprises creatures. In some sense, Conway is a monist about creatures: all creatures are one. Yet, as Jessica Gordon-Roth (2018) has astutely pointed out, that monism can be understood in very different ways. One might read Conway as an ‘existence pluralist’: creatures are all composed of the same type of substance, but many substances exist. Alternatively, one might read Conway as an ‘existence monist’: there is only one created substance. Gordon-Roth has done the scholarship a great favor by illuminating these issues in Conway. However, this article takes issue with Gordon-Roth's further view that Conway ‘oscillates’ between the extremes of existence pluralism and monism. In its place, I argue we should read Conway as a priority monist: the whole of creation is ontologically prior to its parts.

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安妮·康威作为优先一元论者：对戈登·罗斯的回应

对于早期现代形而上学家安妮康威来说，世界是由生物组成的。在某种意义上，康威是一个关于生物的一元论者：所有的生物都是一体的。然而，正如 Jessica Gordon-Roth (2018) 敏锐地指出的那样，一元论可以用非常不同的方式来理解。人们可能会将康威解读为“存在多元论者”：生物都是由相同类型的物质组成，但存在许多物质。或者，可以将康威解读为“存在一元论者”：只有一种被创造的实体。Gordon-Roth 通过在 Conway 中阐明这些问题，为这项奖学金提供了极大的帮助。然而，本文对戈登-罗斯的进一步观点提出质疑，即康威在存在多元论和一元论的极端之间“摇摆不定”。取而代之的是，我认为我们应该将康威视为优先一元论者：