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person1617-1688

Ralph Cudworth

Disciplines:
theology
ethics
metaphysics

Summary

English philosopher and major Cambridge Platonist who wrote the most systematic refutation of atheistic materialism of the 17th century and developed a theory of plastic nature.

Core Contribution

The True Intellectual System: refutes atomistic atheism; posits plastic nature — a lower world-soul that implements the higher soul's rational plan without consciousness — avoiding both occasionalism and materialism. Moral truth is eternal and not dependent on God's arbitrary will.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • The True Intellectual System is over 800 pages and was never completed — Cudworth intended it as the first of three volumes, none of the others being finished.
  • Developed plastic nature to avoid both Cartesian mechanism (requiring constant divine intervention) and hylozoism (matter being alive): a semi-conscious instrumental cause in the world.

Notable Works & Achievements

The True Intellectual System of the Universe

A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality

Historical Influences

Plato Plotinus Benjamin Whichcote

Intellectual Lineage

Cambridge Platonism Neoplatonism Anglican Theology

Contemporaries & Peers

Henry More Thomas Hobbes Baruch Spinoza

Minds Influenced

Damaris Masham Samuel Clarke Richard Price

Intellectual Posterity

Cambridge Platonism Moral Rationalism

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