"Covetous of Truth" : the Life and Work of Thomas White, 1593-1676

Thomas White, in the quatercentenary of his birth, is due for historical rehabilitation. English Catholic priest, philosopher, theologian, and scientist, he was a renowned and notorious figure in his own day; and, though long forgot­ ten, his work exemplifies aspects of major current concern to historians of ideas: in particular, the significance of the newly-revived sceptical philosophy; the complexity ofthe transition from scholasticism to the new philosophy; and the whole role of"minor", non-canonical figures in the historyofthought. White's writings embrace theology, politics, and natural philosophy, or science'; and in all these three areas, his work, after centuries of comparative neglect, has slowly been resurfacing. His theological significance received intermittent recognition through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early-twentieth centuries; but more recently his great importance as leader of a whole "Blackloist" faction of English Catholics has become increasingly clear. Condemned by co-religionists in his own time as a dangerous heretic, he has been assessed by modem scholars as an anticipator of twentieth-century trends in Catholic theology, and even as "probably, after John Henry Newman, the most original thinker as yet producedby modem English Catholicism."2 Blackloism implied not only a theological, but also a political position; and that position was clarified and publicised by White in his single political treatise, The Grounds of Obedience and Government, published in the mid­ 1650s. His provocative stance was widely misunderstood and misinterpreted, and was soon anyway rendered untenable by the restoration of the monarchy. This is the first major work devoted to the life and work of Thomas White, an important and wide ranging seventeenth-century thinker long overdue for historical rehabilitation. Renowned in his own day as an eminent philosopher, White's reputation suffered not least as a result of his theological heresies and his pro-Cromwellian political sympathies. But he is here shown as the leader of an influential faction of English Catholics, known after his alias as `Blackloists' as a dogged opponent of the then newly-fashionable scepticism; and as a would-be synthesiser of scholastic thought with the `new philosophy'. In his Janus-faced intellectual stance White exemplifies the position of many mid-seventeenth-century thinkers; and he is presented here as representing a philosophical standpoint that is crucial for our understanding of a fascinating period in intellectual history Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-6 Reputation....Pages 7-11 The Man....Pages 12-20 Life....Pages 21-33 Blackloism....Pages 34-41 Politics: The Grounds of Obedience and Government ....Pages 42-52 Politics: Responses to The Grounds ....Pages 53-65 The Context of Scepticism....Pages 66-82 The Context of Scholasticism....Pages 83-92 Science Old and New: Cosmology....Pages 93-103 Science Old and New: Physics....Pages 104-118 Science Old and New: Psychology....Pages 119-126 Science and Religion....Pages 127-137 Influence....Pages 138-143 Epilogue....Pages 144-145 Back Matter....Pages 146-196