ABSTRACT
Ralph Cudworth conceived Plastic Nature as an intermediary agency between God and the natural world, the function of which is to maintain the day-to-day operations of the physical universe and to regulate life processes in an orderly and harmonious manner according to divine intention. This chapter examines whether Plastic Nature can be considered in any way the cause of cognition. It argues that, since Cudworth holds that cognition is mind-generated, Plastic Nature does not have a direct causal role in human cognition. Cudworth’s writings on causality and epistemology can seem like an exotic throwback to premodern times. Cudworth had concerns about the reduction of causation to efficient causality, and the materialist implications of machine-models of mind implied by Descartes’ attenuated account of the soul as res cogitans. As this suggests, Cudworth’s objection to the Cartesian conception of the soul as conscious cogitative substance rests on fundamental differences in metaphysics.
