Cambridge Platonists

As Cambridge Platonists ( Cambridge Platonists ) refers to an influential group of English philosophers and theologians of the 17th century, a Neo-Platonic Christian dominated Platonism to ward atheist and mechanistic entered teachings. They advocated freedom of conscience and tolerance in denominational issues. One also speaks of the “Cambridge School” or “School of Cambridge”, because the four leading representatives of this direction taught at the University of Cambridge .

Representative

Henry More

Ralph Cudworth

Benjamin Whichcote

The four leading figures of Cambridge Platonism were Henry More (1614–1687), Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688), Benjamin Whichcote (1609–1683) and John Smith (1616–1652). The most prominent and by far the most prolific of them as a writer was More; he was a Fellow of Christ's College at Cambridge University. Whichcote, often (but not quite rightly) referred to as the group's founder or pioneer, was Vice Chancellor of King's College . Cudworth was first a Fellow at Emmanuel College and then became a Masters at Christ's College. Smith, a student of Whichcote, was a fellow of Queens' College .

Other thinkers assigned to this direction, but in some cases only relatively loosely connected to the Cambridge group, are:

• Nathaniel Culverwell , the author of An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature, published in 1652 after his death . His affiliation with the Cambridge Platonists is partly doubted in research.
• Richard Cumberland († 1718), a fellow of Magdalene College , Cambridge, author of De legibus naturae ("On the Laws of Nature")
• Joseph Glanvil († 1680), an Oxford- trained scholar and admirer of Henry More. In his book Vanity of Dogmatizing he advocated the undogmatic expression of religious views. He was a staunch opponent of Aristotelianism .
• John Norris (1657–1711), who was a member of All Souls College, Oxford University. He was heavily influenced by Henry More and emerged as a critic of the John Locke system . He described his own philosophical theory in the two-volume essay Towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World (published 1701–1704).
• George Rust († 1670), a pupil of Henry More, who later became Bishop of Dromore in Ireland
• Peter Sterry (1613–1672), a student of Whichcote. Although he was a Puritan , he advocated religious tolerance and was influenced by Neoplatonists such as Plotinus and Marsilio Ficino . Therefore he is rightly counted among the Platonic group.
• John Worthington (1618–1671), a Whichcotes student and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Teaching

The Cambridge Platonists come from a Puritan - Calvinist milieu. They develop their philosophical and theological views in a critical examination of the puritanical thinking, from which they distance themselves more or less clearly, since they consider it to be rigorous . They refer to the doctrine of Plato , which they understand - as was common in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period - in the sense of the Neoplatonic tradition. They tie in with both the ancient Neoplatonist Plotinus and the Neoplatonism of the Renaissance humanist Marsilio Ficino . They are also influenced by the Greek Church Fathers , among whom they prefer Origen . Her relationship with Aristotle, on the other hand, is distant. Within Neoplatonism, they form a rationalistic direction, because they place great value on a rational foundation of their Christian faith and on the complete compatibility of reason and spirituality. They derive the thesis of the correspondence between science and religion from the assumption that God has ordered the world in a reasonable way. God always acts in accordance with reason, i.e. not without preconditions and arbitrarily. Hence human reason is capable of knowing the world order. The soul can gain insight into nature and the properties of the divine through self-observation, among other things . Although the Cambridge Platonists consider a divine revelation beyond the realm of reason to be possible, they are convinced that the contents of such a revelation cannot contradict reason. Thus, revelation is also subject to a certain scrutiny by reason. They reject a belief that is not combined with a reasonable striving for knowledge.

The Cambridge Platonists place particular emphasis on the doctrine of free will and the responsibility of the individual resulting from it. They reject the fatalistic conception of doom, a given fateful necessity of events and human actions in every form. With this they turn theologically against the Calvinist idea of ​​a "double predestination " (predetermination of the not chosen to hell even before their birth), and philosophically against mechanistic worldviews and an atheistic and materialistic determinism . In particular, they argue against the worldview of their main opponent Thomas Hobbes , who reduces reality to the physical, and against Spinoza's system , which they consider to be atheistic. Her anti-mechanistic stance also leads her to criticize Cartesianism , the teaching of René Descartes . They appreciate Descartes 'rationalist approach, but they see the Cartesians' mechanistic conception of nature as a wrong path that ultimately leads to atheism.

In the field of theology they want to abolish the separation between nature and a supernature which is essentially different from nature and which can only be reached through grace. You are against an emphasis on church dogmas and denominational differences. Because of their liberal attitude and their willingness to accept a relatively broad spectrum of opinions, they are ridiculed by their strictly denominational, Calvinist-oriented opponents as Latitude men (“ Latitudinarians ”, proponents of the broad). Your arguments against Calvinism contributed to its decline in England.

The Cambridge Platonists do not believe in a human nature that is fundamentally corrupted by the Fall . You advocate a more optimistic, more humanistic view of man. According to the Platonic, especially Neoplatonic, tradition they assume that human beings can become godlike through right behavior.

A central element of her world of thought is the individual immortality of the soul. They defend the continued existence of individuality on the one hand against the idea of ​​the individual soul dissolving into a comprehensive unity (such as in averroism ), on the other hand against the materialistic concept of an end of personality with death.

swell

• Gerald R. Cragg (Ed.): The Cambridge Platonists . University Press of America, Lanham (MD) 1968, ISBN 0-8191-4347-2 (excerpts from the works of the Cambridge Platonists)

literature

• Graham Alan John Rogers: The Cambridge Platonists . In: Jean-Pierre Schobinger (Ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy . The Philosophy of the 17th Century , Volume 3: England , 1st half volume, Schwabe, Basel 1988, pp. 240–290, ISBN 3-7965-0872-3 (with extensive bibliography)
• Graham Alan John Rogers et al. a. (Ed.): The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context. Politics, Metaphysics and Religion . Kluwer, Dordrecht 1997, ISBN 0-7923-4530-4
• Stefan Weyer: The Cambridge Platonists. Religion and Liberty in England in the 17th Century . Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 1993, ISBN 3-631-45684-0

Web links

• Sarah Hutton: Entry in Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Mark Goldie: Entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Remarks

1. ↑ See Craig A. Staudenbaur: Platonism, Theosophy, and Immaterialism: Recent Views of the Cambridge Platonists . In: Journal of the History of Ideas 35, 1974, pp. 157-169, here: 157-163; Alexander Jacob (Ed.): Henry More's Refutation of Spinoza , Hildesheim 1991, p. II.