The Cambridge Platonists

This book illustrates the vitality and diversity of the seventeenth-century philosophers now known as the “Cambridge Platonists”, focusing chiefly on Henry More, Ralph Cudworth and two women associated with the group ― Anne Conway and Damaris Masham.

The “Cambridge Platonists” made significant contributions to early modern philosophy. Their Platonist sobriquet obscures the fact that they were at the forefront of new thinking of their day.Some of the first English philosophers to write in the vernacular, they tackled the big themes of seventeenth-century philosophy (materialism, determinism, scepticism, atheism) and contributed original and innovative ideas in metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, and ethics. This volume highlights their treatment of some key philosophical themes (from the infinity of the world and the concept of substance to consciousness animals, love), and their inter-connections with contemporary philosophers (Descartes, Leibniz, and Locke).

This book will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and Philosophy graduates. The chapters in this book were originally published in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

Sarah Hutton is Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of York, UK. The leading scholar on the Cambridge Platonists, her publications include Anne Conway. A Woman Philosopher (2004) and British Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century (2015). She is President of the International Society for Intellectual History.