The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context [electronic resource] : Politics, Metaphysics and Religion / edited by G. A. J. Rogers, J. M. Vienne, Y. C. Zarka
The Cambridge Platonists were defenders of tolerance in the political as well as the moral sphere ; they held that practical j u d g e m e n t came down in the last instance to individual conscience ; and they laid the foundations of our modern conceptions of conscience and liberty. But at the same time they ma intained the existence of eternal truths , and of a Good-in-itself , identical with Truth and Being, refusing to admit that freedom of conscience i m p li e d moral relativism. They were critics of dogmatism, and of the sectarian notion of "enthusiasm" as a source of illumination , on the grounds that both were disruptive of social harmony; they pleaded the cause of reason , in the hope that it could become the foundation of all human knowledge . 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 . They debated with Des cartes and took a keen interest in his mech- ism and his dualism ; they brought the atomistic theories of Democritus back into repute; and they sought to provide a detailed account of the causality link ing all phenomena
CONTENT
I The Other-Worldly Philosophers and the Real World: The Cambridge Platonists, Theology and Politics -- II Libertรฉ et Vรฉritรฉ: Politique et morale dans la correspondance hollandaise de More et de Cudworth -- III Critique de Hobbes et fondement de la morale chez Cudworth -- IV The Heritage of Patristic Platonism in Seventeenth century English Philosophical Theology -- V John Smith et le Portique -- VI Cudworth, Boethius and the Scale of Nature -- VII Ralph Cudworth, un platonisme paradoxal: La Nature dans la Digression concerning the Plastick Life of Nature -- VIII ?????? et Relation: Du platonisme ร lโ{128}{153}empirisme -- IX The Role of Illuminism in the Thought of Henry More -- X โ{128}{156}La Nature est un artโ{128}{157}. Le vitalisme de Cudworth et de More -- XI Force, Motion and Causality: Moreโ{128}{153}s Critique of Descartes -- XII Cudworth versus Descartes: platonisme et sens commun dans la critique des Mรฉditations -- XIII Les diffรฉrentes lectures du System de Cudworth par G. W. Leibniz -- XIV Platonic Idealism in Modern Philosophy from Malebranche to Berkeley
