Introduction

This introduction presents the project of the book, to examine the seventeenth-century debate about materialism that began with the work of Thomas Hobbes. Among those who responded directly to Hobbes, the book focuses on Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, and Margaret Cavendish. The introduction and book then look at John Locke’s discussion of materialism in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which draws on and responds to that earlier discussion. A central question for all these philosophers is whether human minds are material. They also consider whether animal minds are material, and whether God is. Other philosophical issues, including theories of substance and of the nature of ideas, are repeatedly involved in the discussion. The relation of these discussions to the work of René Descartes is noted.

Materialism from Hobbes to Locke

Are human beings purely material creatures, or is there something else to them, an immaterial part that does some (or all) of the thinking, and might even be able to outlive the death of the body? This book is about how a series of seventeenth-century philosophers tried to answer that question. It begins by looking at the views of Thomas Hobbes, who developed a thoroughly materialist account of the human mind, and later of God as well. All this is in obvious contrast to the approach of his contemporary René Descartes. After examining Hobbes’s materialism, the book considers the views of three of his English critics: Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, and Margaret Cavendish. Both More and Cudworth thought Hobbes’s materialism radically inadequate to explain the workings of the world, while Cavendish developed a distinctive, anti-Hobbesian materialism of her own. The second half of the book focuses on the discussion of materialism in John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, arguing that we can better understand Locke’s discussion if we see how and where he is responding to this earlier debate. At crucial points Locke draws on More and Cudworth to argue against Hobbes and other materialists. Nevertheless, Locke did a good deal to reveal how materialism was a genuinely possible view, by showing how one could develop a detailed account of the human mind without presuming it was an immaterial substance.

More and Cudworth against Hobbes

This chapter considers the criticisms of Hobbes made by two Cambridge Platonists, Henry More and Ralph Cudworth. The first half looks at their criticisms of Hobbes’s arguments: More’s replies to Hobbes’s arguments for materialism, and Cudworth’s replies to (what he took to be) Hobbes’s arguments for atheism. The second half of the chapter then looks at how More and Cudworth argued for the existence of immaterial beings that control the workings of the material world (the spirit of nature or plastic natures). These arguments imply that Hobbes’s materialist ontology is radically inadequate to explain the actual phenomena of the natural world.

Un estudio de las fuentes de la «Lingüística cartesiana»: Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688)

En este artículo se realiza un estudio de tres de las obras más relevantes de Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688), mencionado por Chomsky en Lingüística cartesiana. Metodológicamente nos basamos en los pilares de la historiografía de la lingüística según Swiggers y la división en dimensión interna y externa de Brekle, utilizando como instrumento fundamental la teoría de las series textuales (Hassler; Zamorano Aguilar 2013). La hipótesis defendida y cuya demostración se desempeña en este trabajo es que el uso de la teoría cudworthiana por parte de Chomsky, si bien recoge algunos elementos epistemológicamente fundamentales, obvia aspectos claves para comprender la aportación de aquel no solo a la teoría racionalista inglesa del siglo XVII, sino también a la historiografía en general. En este sentido, percibimos, además de la alusión a una única obra de Cudworth, la parcialidad en la descripción de su teoría por parte de Chomsky.

Damaris Masham, Ralph Cudworth and John Locke: Some Philosophical Continuities

In this paper, I focus on Damaris Masham, to re-consider the relationship of her philosophy to the two philosophers with whom she was most closely associated: John Locke, and her father, the Cambridge Platonist, Ralph Cudworth. After considering some of the problems of interpretation which have arisen in scholarly debates, I focus her Occasional Thoughts to highlight continuities with both Locke and Cudworth in her epistemology, moral philosophy and metaphysics. I argue these show that Damaris Masham’s philosophy does not fit the received categories of empiricist or rationalist of the dominant narrative. Her position requires us to reconsider not just the relationship of her philosophy to that of Cudworth and Locke, but also of the relationship of Cudworth and Locke. Ultimately, therefore, reintegrating women into the history of philosophy challenges us to rethink standard narratives of the history of philosophy.

La unidad de la sustancia inmaterial en Ralph Cudworth

En este artículo me propongo mostrar que en el universo armónico que propone Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688), destacado miembro del grupo de los Platónicos de Cambridge del siglo XVII, la sustancia inmaterial cumple un rol fundamental. Ella no se halla separada de la sustancia material y recibe distintos nombres de acuerdo a las funciones que desarrolla, en tanto es la única fuerza vital en la creación, fundada en la naturaleza divina. Es decir, la naturaleza plástica (plastic nature) y las almas no son más que distintos nombres para esa única sustancia inmaterial en el universo creado. Esto refleja una concepción dualista diferente al dualismo cartesiano, que tendrá consecuencias a nivel físico. Por eso, en primer lugar, presentaré la metafísica de Cudworth, para luego detenerme en la sustancia inmaterial. Para esto utilizaré su obra principal The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678) y sus dos escritos de publicación póstuma: Treatise concerning eternal and immutable Morality (1731) y Treatise on Freewill (1838).

Cudworth, Bayle y Hume: sobre el ateísmo estratonista

Uno de los debates más interesante en torno a la razonabilidad del materialismo ateo se dio entre los siglos XVII y XVIII a partir de que el anglicano Ralph Cudworth recuperó, para confutarla, una antigua versión atribuida al peripatético Estratón de Lampsaco. Esta versión, y las ideas de Cudworth al respecto, llegan al Continente por obra de Jean Le Clerc, donde rápidamente caen bajo la crítica de Pierre Bayle. Bayle, en efecto, muestra que la posición de Cudworth era menos sólida de lo que se suponía y que, por lo tanto, la hipótesis estratonista no había sido confutada ni mucho menos. David Hume, por su parte, tomó nota de este debate y lo reutilizó como parte importante de sus Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, desde donde alcanzó su más amplia difusión.

Locke, God, and Materialism

This chapter investigates Locke’s views about materialism, by looking at the discussion in Essay IV.x. There Locke—after giving a cosmological argument for the existence of God—argues that God could not be material, and that matter alone could never produce thought. In discussing the chapter, I pay particular attention to some comparisons between Locke’s position and those of two other seventeenth-century philosophers, René Descartes and Ralph Cudworth. Making use of those comparisons, I argue for two main claims. The first is that the important argument of Essay IV.x.10 is fundamentally an argument about the causation of perfections. Indeed, Locke gives multiple such arguments in the chapter. My second main claim is that my proposed reading of IV.x is not merely consistent with what Locke says elsewhere about superaddition, but also provides reasons to favor a particular understanding of what superaddition is.

Rozum, wiara, tajemnica: Ralph Cudworth z angielskiej szkoły z Cambridge

The text introduces the figure of Ralph Cudworth, the leading representative of the Cambridge Platonist school. The presentation of the views of the English philosopher and theologian aims to draw attention to the original and almost completely forgotten intellectual tradition of 17th-century England – typically perceived as dominated wholly by the currents of empiricist and materialistic orientation.

Philosophy, Religion, and Heterodoxy in the Philosophy of Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, and Anne Conway

Philosophers who hold the compatibility of reason and faith, are vulnerable to the charge of opening the way to atheism and heterodoxy. This danger was particularly acute when, in the wake of Cartesianism, the philosophy of Spinoza and Hobbes necessitated a resetting of the relationship of philosophy with religion. My paper discusses three English philosophers who illustrate the difficulties for the philosophical defence for religion: Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, and Anne Conway, for all of whom philosophical and religious truth were deeply intertwined. But each of them also subscribed to heterodox religious beliefs. This raises questions of whether there is a direct the relationship between their philosophy and religious heterodoxy—whether they exemplify the charge that philosophy undermines religion, or indeed whether their defence of religion was a cover for heterodoxy.