The Cambridge Platonists and Early Modern Philosophy

Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-1-009-42691-6
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 350 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 653 g

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in Religion and Platonism

Often neglected by historians today, the seventeenth-century philosophers known as the Cambridge Platonists were recognised in their time as some of the most influential and controversial philosophers in England. Whereas most studies of the Cambridge Platonists have discussed their later careers, this book focuses on their early, formative years at Cambridge during the English Civil Wars. Samuel M. Kaldas explores how the Cambridge Platonists addressed issues central to philosophy of religion as we know it today through their engagement with early seventeenth-century religious controversies about predestination, the character and nature of God, and the role of reason in religion. His study serves as an accessible introduction to both the Cambridge Platonists, and to English religious controversies that contributed to the birth of the modern philosophy of religion. At the same time, Kaldas provides context for and fresh insights into the Cambridge Platonists' intellectual development and the coherence of their thought.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kaldas, Samuel M

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Learned and ingenious men; 2. 'Plato and His Scholars': Early Cambridge Platonism; 3. Puritanism and predestination; 4. Cambridge Platonists versus Cambridge Calvinists: John Goodwin and the 1651 Whichcote-Tuckney correspondence; Part II. Rival Conceptions of God and Goodness: The Platonic Anti-Calvinism of the Cambridge Platonists: 5. Goodness and the will of God: Moral realism versus voluntarism; 6. Is God an arbitrary tyrant? Platonic participation versus the Decree of Reprobation; 7. Righteousness real and imagined: Participation and deification versus imputed righteousness; Part III. The Religious Epistemology of the Cambridge Platonists: 8. Reason and the mind of God: Platonic religious epistemology; 9. Deification as spiritual sensation: The epistemology of religious experience; 10. Liberty, violence and practical reason: Moral obligation and the law of love; 11. Conclusion: The Cambridge Platonists as early modern Christian Platonists.

Über Autor(innen)

Kaldas, Samuel M
Samuel Kaldas is a historian of philosophy and philosopher of religion based in Sydney, Australia. He has held full-time research fellowships at the University of Sydney and Fordham University's Orthodox Christian Studies Centre, and lectures widely on philosophy, theology and patristics.