Benjamin Whichcote

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Benjamin Whichcote

Benjamin Whichcote (born May 4, 1609 in Whichcote Hall, Stoke upon Tern , Shropshire , † May 1683 in Cambridge ) was a British philosopher and theologian who played a prominent role in the circle of the " Cambridge Platonists ".

Life

Whichcote was the sixth of the seven sons of Christopher Whichcote and his wife Elizabeth, nee Fox. He entered Emmanuel College in Cambridge on October 25, 1626 , where he received the academic degrees ( Bachelor of Arts 1629/1630, Master of Arts 1633). From 1633 to 1643 he was a fellow (member of the teaching staff) there. Most of the Cambridge Platonists belonged to Emmanuel College temporarily or permanently (in addition to Whichcote John Smith , Nathaniel Culverwell , Peter Sterry , Ralph Cudworth and from the vicinity John Worthington ), but not the main representative of the group, Henry More . In 1636 Whichcote was ordained a priest of the Church of England. He later served as a preacher at Holy Trinity Church. In 1643 he received a pastorate in North Cadbury ( Somerset ), his college was responsible for the occupation. However, he did not give up his position as a fellow until the following year. The former chaos of war soon led to his return to the University: On 19 March 1645 appointed him Earl of Manchester to the Provost of King's College after the English Civil War of Parliament Cambridge troops had occupied and numerous fellows and college head had been removed from their offices. Whichcote accepted this office, according to his later statements, only with internal reservations; He left half of his income to his deposed predecessor, Samuel Collins. In 1649 he received a doctorate in theology (DD) from King's College. From 1650 to 1651 he was vice chancellor of the university. He belonged to a committee that advised the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell in 1655 on the question of the tolerance of Jews in England. During the Restoration in 1660 he lost his office as provost, although the vice-provost and 21 fellows petitioned King Charles II for his whereabouts.

After Whichcote had agreed to the Act of Uniformity , he received on November 8, 1662 the parish of St. Anne's Blackfriars in London. His activity there ended when the church was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. He then worked as a clergyman in Milton near Cambridge , where he had held a benefice since 1651 ; this position was awarded by King's College. From 1668 until his death he was pastor of St. Lawrence Jewry's Church in London, where John Locke was one of his sermons. He died on a visit to Cambridge in May 1683 and was buried in St. Lawrence Jewry on May 24th.

Whichcote married Rebecca, the widow of the politician and businessman Matthew Cradock, in 1643. The marriage remained childless, his wife died in 1649. His sister was Elizabeth Foxcroft, mother of Ezekiel Foxcroft and companion of Anne Conway . His youngest brother Jeremy Whichcote (around 1614–1677) was an attorney for Ruprecht von der Pfalz and was made Baron of Inner Temple by Charles II in 1660 as a reward for his covert service to the Crown during the Commonwealth of England .

Theological and philosophical position

Whichcote is considered to be the founder of the Cambridge Platonists, some of whom were his students at Emmanuel College, from the point of view of his theological views; However, if one puts the link to the Neoplatonic tradition in the center, then Henry More appears as the founder.

Whichcote advocated religious tolerance. He rejected the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination . He represented the principle of the correspondence between natural reason and religion, which was a major concern of the Cambridge Platonists. According to his theology, God can be known through human reason on the basis of created things; because of his ability to judge, man can act in the light of this knowledge. Whichcote said that reason is the highest human faculty and that religion is the highest form of that faculty. Moral truths are also truths of reason. It is wrong to believe without using one's own judgment and knowledge; rather, one should proceed in imitation of the attributes of God, that is, in accordance with reason. Because of the diversity of people, differences of opinion are inevitable, also in the religious field. A joint discourse among equals (fair debate) should then take place about this. If no agreement can be reached, this is to be accepted. Anyone who does not rationally check the foundations of his theological convictions, but submits to the authority of another, is in reality not religious. Whichcote cited the Inquisition as a chilling example . Protestants who demand blind faith in doctrines are behaving like a Catholic (papist) .

Regarding the relationship between reason and belief, Whichcote advocated the priority of reason. He argued that there would be no possibility of any belief unless there was some natural, reasoned knowledge of God's existence beforehand. Accordingly, reason is the ground not only for a natural religion independent of revelation , but also for belief. It represents the core of religion and ultimately coincides with it. The primacy of reason should apply to all objects of theology, thus also to all contents of revelation. These are to be measured against the judgment of reason.

Fonts

Whichcote did not publish any work; only after his death were his sermons published according to postscripts from parishioners and from his estate. It appears that all of the printed sermons are from the time we worked at St. Lawrence Jewry, so they are late works. In 1685, an anonymous editor who referred to himself as a student of Whichcote published sermons (Some Select Notions) , for which he referred to his own notes, the authenticity of which is, however, disputed. In 1698 the philosopher Shaftesbury brought out the Select Sermons , a transcript-based edition of twelve Whichcotes sermons, which he prefixed with a programmatic foreword without giving his name. The clergyman John Jeffery published three volumes (Several Discourses) from Whichcote's estate in 1701–1703 . A fourth volume was published by Samuel Clarke in 1707. The texts edited by Jeffery also include "aphorisms"; This is a posthumous compilation of concise formulations from Whichcote's estate. In 1751 a four-volume edition was published in Aberdeen . The sermons are the main source of Whichcote's thinking; His correspondence with his former teacher, Anthony Tuckney, a Masters degree from Emmanuel College, is also instructive. Tuckney, a Calvinist, took a dogmatic position; he saw in Whichcote's theology a falsification of the Christian faith.

output

  • The Works of the Learned Benjamin Whichcote. 4 volumes, Garland, New York 1977 (reprinted from Aberdeen 1751 edition), ISBN 0-8240-1814-1 ( online ).

literature

Overview representations

Investigations

  • Frederick C. Beiser: The Sovereignty of Reason. The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1996, ISBN 0-691-03395-1 , pp. 159-165.
  • Michael B. Gill: The Religious Rationalism of Benjamin Whichcote. In: Journal of the History of Philosophy. Volume 37, 1999, pp. 271-300 ( online , PDF).
  • Robert A. Greene: Whichcote, the Candle of the Lord, and Synderesis. In: Journal of the History of Ideas . Vol. 52, 1991, pp. 617-644.
  • Stefan Weyer: The Cambridge Platonists. Religion and Liberty in England in the 17th Century. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1993, ISBN 3-631-45684-0 , pp. 69-90.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Stefan Weyer: The Cambridge Platonists. Frankfurt 1993, pp. 71-73; James D. Roberts: From Puritanism to Platonism in Seventeenth Century England. The Hague 1968, pp. 1-11.
  2. ^ Stefan Weyer: The Cambridge Platonists , Frankfurt 1993, p. 73 f .; James D. Roberts: From Puritanism to Platonism in Seventeenth Century England. The Hague 1968, p. 11 f.
  3. ↑ For the family, see James D. Roberts: From Puritanism to Platonism in Seventeenth Century England. The Hague 1968, p. 1 and note 3.
  4. ^ Graham Alan John Rogers: The Cambridge Platonists. In: Jean-Pierre Schobinger (Ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. 17th century philosophy. Volume 3: England. 1st half volume, Basel 1988, pp. 240–290, here: 250.
  5. ^ Graham Alan John Rogers: The Cambridge Platonists. In: Jean-Pierre Schobinger (Ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. 17th century philosophy. Volume 3: England. 1. Halbband, Basel 1988, pp. 240-290, here: 253-255; Stefan Weyer: The Cambridge Platonists. Frankfurt 1993, pp. 81-84.
  6. ↑ Günter Frank: The reason of the God thought. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2003, pp. 238-244.
  7. ↑ Wolfram Benda et al. (Ed.): Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Standard Edition. All works, selected letters and posthumous writings. Volume 2/4, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2006, pp. 13-308.
  8. ^ Stefan Weyer: The Cambridge Platonists. Frankfurt 1993, pp. 72-79.
personal data
SURNAME Whichcote, Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British philosopher and theologian
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1609
PLACE OF BIRTH Stoke upon Tern
DATE OF DEATH May 1683
Place of death Cambridge