The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, 150)

The philosophy of the Cambridge Platonists in the mid-seventeenth century constituted a unique return to many themes of classical Christian Platonism in epistemology and metaphysics. It did so at a time marked by great changes in the natural sciences and in philosophy under the impact of such figures as Galileo and Descartes and great religious and political turmoil in England associated with the Civil War. As well as examining central aspects of their thought and their political and religious implications, this book explores themes arising from that context and the relationship of key figures in the group with their contemporaries and successors. It consists of a series of original papers written by leading scholars of the period from England, France and Australia. A particular feature is the links made with contemporary political debate, an aspect of their thought hardly touched on in any other publications on the school. Content: Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Front Matter....Pages 1-1 The Other-Worldly Philosophers and the Real World: the Cambridge Platonists, Theology and Politics....Pages 3-15 Liberté et VéRité: Politique Et Morale Dans La Correspondance Hollandaise De More Et De Cudworth....Pages 17-37 Critique De Hobbes Et Fondement De La Morale Chez Cudworth....Pages 39-52 Front Matter....Pages 53-53 The Heritage of Patristic Platonism in Seventeenth Century English Philosophical Theology....Pages 55-77 John Smith et Le Portique....Pages 79-92 Cudworth, Boethius and the Scale of Nature....Pages 93-100 Ralph Cudworth: Un Platonisme Paradoxal. La Nature Dans La Digression Concerning the Plastick Life of Nature ....Pages 101-110 ∑χέσις et Relation: Du Platonisme � L’Empirisme....Pages 111-126 Front Matter....Pages 127-127 The Role of Illuminism in the Thought of Henry More....Pages 129-144 “La Nature est un Art”. Le Vitalisme de Cudworth et de More....Pages 145-157 Force, Motion and Causality: More’s Critique of Descartes....Pages 159-171 Cudworth Versus Descartes: Platonisme et Sens Commun dans la Critique des Méditations ....Pages 173-183 Front Matter....Pages 185-185 Les Différentes Lectures du System de Cudworth par G. W. Leibniz....Pages 187-196 Platonic Idealism in Modern Philosophy from Malebranche to Berkeley....Pages 197-214 Back Matter....Pages 215-258 Yet , for all that , they ma intained that a certain sort of mystical illumination lay at the heart of all true thought , and that human reason had validity only in virtue of i t s divine origin .