The Cambridge Platonists - Book List

Many of the books on this list are quite old and this reflects the neglect the Cambridge Platonists have suffered in recent years. However, I have included all the major works so that you have a bibliography which may be useful when the course is over. I have also included references to related topics such as the controversy over Hobbes, the new science etc, as these subjects are relevant to the intellectual milieu and influence of the Cambridge Platonists.

ESSENTIAL

Powicke, F.J. The Cambridge Platonists: A Study.
London: Dent, 1926.
Dated but still useful (like your tutor!)

Taliaferro, C. (Ed.) Cambridge Platonist Spirituality.
New York: Paulist Press, 2004.
An excellent modern anthology, it sets the Cambridge Platonists into their historical context.

REFERENCE

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. F.L. Cross & E.A. Livingstone, Editors - 3rd Edition.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
An excellent and indispensable reference tool.

BOOK LIST

Ashcraft, R. 'Latitudinarianism and Toleration'.
Kroll, R. (Ed.) Philosophy, Science and Religion in England, 1640 - 1700.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Axtell, J.L. 'The Mechanics of Opposition: Restoration Cambridge v. Daniel Scargill.
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. Vol.38. 1965, pp.102 - 111.

Baldwin, A. & Hutton, S. (Eds) Platonism and the English Imagination.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Bowle, J. Hobbes and his Critics: A Study in Seventeenth Century Constitutionalism.
London: Jonathan Cape, 1951.

Campagnac, E.T. (Ed.) The Cambridge Platonists: Being Selections from the Writings of Benjamin Whichcote, John Smith and Nathaniel Culverwel.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901.

Carroll, R.T. The Common Sense Philosophy of Bishop Edward Stillingfleet, 1635 - 1699.
The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975.

Cassirer, E. The Platonic Renaissance in England.
Edinburgh: Nelson, 1953.

Chappell, V. (Ed.) Hobbes and Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Colie, R.L. Light and Enlightenment: A Study of the Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch Arminians.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957.

The Conway Letters: The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More and their Friends, 1642 - 1684. M.H. Nicolson, Ed. S. Hutton, Rev. Ed.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Cragg, G.R. Cambridge Platonists.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.

Cragg, G.R. Freedom and Authority: A Study of English Thought in the Early Seventeenth Century.
Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975.
(See chapters 4 and 9).

Cragg, G.R. From Puritanism to the Age of Reason: A Study if changes in Religious Thought within the Church of England, 1660 to 1700.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950.

Crocker, R. 'Mysticism and Enthusiasm in Henry More'.
Hutton, S. (ed.) Henry More: Tercentenary Studies.
Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989.

Crocker, R. 'The Fathers and the Theology of the Cambridge Platonists'.
Livingstone, E.A. (ed.) Studia Patristica. 17. 1982.

Cudworth, R. A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality. Sarah Hutton, ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Feingold, M. 'Isaac Barrow: Divine, Scholar, Mathematician'. Before Newton: The Life and Times of Isaac Barrow. M. Feingold, Ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Gascoigne, J. 'Isaac Barrow's Academic Milieu: Interregnum and Restoration Cambridge'. Before Newton: The Life and Times of Isaac Barrow. M. Feingold, ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Hall, R. Henry More: Magic, Religion and Experiment.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.

Hutton, S. 'Between Platonism and Enlightenment: Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham'.
British Journal for the History of Philosophy. Vol.1. 1993.

Inge, W.R. The Platonic Tradition in English Religious Thought.
New York: Longmans, 1926.

McAdoo, The Spirit of Anglicanism: A Survey of Anglican Theological Method on the Seventeenth Century.
London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965.
(Chapters 3 & 4 deal with the Cambridge Platonists.)

Mclachlan, H.J. Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951.

Mander, W.J. The Philosophy of John Norris.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Marshall, J. 'The Eccesiology of the Latitude-men 1660-1689: Stillingfleet, Tillotson and 'Hobbism'.
Journal of Ecclesiastical History. Vol.36. No.3. July 1985, pp. 407-427.

Marshall, J.S. Hooker and the Anglican Tradition: An Historical and Philosophical Study of Hooker's Ecclesiastical polity.
Sewanee, Ten.: Tennessee University Press, 1963.

Middleton, A. Fathers and Anglican: The Limits of Orthodoxy.
Leominster: Gracewing, 2001. Part 2: 'Fathers and Carolines'.

Mintz, S.I. The Hunting of Leviathan: Seventeenth Century Reactions to the Materialism and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962.

More, H. Philosophical Poems of Henry More: Comprising Psychozoia and Minor Poems. Edited by G. Bullough.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1931.

Muirhead, J.H. The Platonic Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Philosophy: Studies in the History of Idealism in England and America.
London: Allen & Unwin, 1931.

Orr, R.R. Reason and Authority: The Thought of William Chillingworth.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.

Passmore, J.A. Ralph Cudworth: An Interpretation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951.

Patrides, C.A. Cambridge Platonists.
London: Edward Arnold, 1969.

Pauley, W.C. de The Candle of the Lord: Studies in the Cambridge Platonists.
London: SPCK, 1937.

Pawson, G.P.H. The Cambridge Platonists and their place in Religious Thought.
London: SPCK, 1930.

Rogers, G.A.J. (ed.) The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion.
Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997.

Rogers, G.A.J. 'The Other-worldly Philosophers and the Real World: The Cambridge Platonists and Politics'. As above, pp. 3-15.

Saveson, J.E. 'Descartes Influence on John Smith, Cambridge Platonist'.
Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol.20. 1959, pp.258 - 262.

Schneewind, J.B. The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Spurr, J. The Restoration Church of England.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.

Sutton, S. 'Thomas Jackson, Oxford Platonist'.
Journal of the History of Ideas. 39. 1978.

Tulloch, J. Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the 17th Century.
2 vols.
Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1872. (Modern facsimiles available).

Walker, D.P. The Ancient Theology and Christian Platonism.
London: Routledge, 1972.

Andrew Lacey
March 2010

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