eprintid: 10193959 rev_number: 9 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/19/39/59 datestamp: 2024-08-06 12:56:52 lastmod: 2024-08-06 12:57:58 status_changed: 2024-08-06 12:56:52 type: book_section metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Chamberlain, Colin title: What Is It Like to Be a Material Thing? ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B03 divisions: C01 divisions: F16 keywords: Cavendish, More, Achilles argument, unity of consciousness, materialism, multi-modal integration note: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. abstract: Henry More argues that materialism cannot explain how a single subject or perceiver can have multiple perceptions simultaneously, as, for example, when we see, hear, and smell at once. In response, Margaret Cavendish appeals to the mind or rational matter—terms she often uses interchangeably—to explain the integration of sensory input from multiple senses in her materialist framework. When rational matter integrates perceptions across modalities, different parts share their knowledge so that they all come to perceive alike. When rational parts successfully communicate their knowledge, each part knows what all the others know. They pool their knowledge; they perceive alike. When someone hears, sees, and tastes, each part of her mind hears, sees, and tastes alike, in parallel and in unison. The Cavendishian mind, in short, approximates simplicity by achieving uniformity or homogeneity of perceptions across its parts. date: 2022-11-17 date_type: published publisher: Oxford University Press official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192884749.003.0004 oa_status: green full_text_type: other language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2019607 doi: 10.1093/oso/9780192884749.003.0004 lyricists_name: Chamberlain, Colin lyricists_id: CCHAM01 actors_name: Chamberlain, Colin actors_id: CCHAM01 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public place_of_pub: Oxford, UK pagerange: 97-136 isbn: 0192884743 book_title: Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Volume XI citation: Chamberlain, Colin; (2022) What Is It Like to Be a Material Thing? In: Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Volume XI. (pp. 97-136). Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10193959/1/Chamberlain%20-%20What%20Is%20It%20Like.pdf