G.A. Rogers – författare

The philosophy of the Cambridge Platonists in the mid-17th century constituted a unique return to many themes of classical Christian Platonism in epistemology and metaphysics. It did so at a time marked by great changes in the natural sciences and in philosophy under the impact of such figures as Galileo and Descartes and great religious and political turmoil in England associated with the Civil War. As well as examining central aspects of their thought and their political and religious implications, this text explores themes arising from that context and the relationship of key figures in the group with their contemporaries and successors. It consists of a series of papers written by scholars of the period from England, France and Australia. A particular feature is the links made with contemporary political debate, an aspect of their thought hardly touched on in any other publications on the school.

Scientia is the term that early modern philosophers applied to a certain kind of demonstrative knowledge, the kind whose starting points were appropriate first principles. In pre-modern philosophy, too, scientia was the name for demonstrative knowledge from first principles. But pre-modern and early modern conceptions differ systematically from one another. This book offers a variety of glimpses of this difference by exploring the works of individual philosophers as well as philosophical movements and groupings of the period. Some of the figures are transitional, falling neatly on neither side of the allegiances usually marked by the scholastic/modern distinction. Among the philosophers whose views on scientia are surveyed are Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Gassendi, Locke, and Jungius. The contributors are among the best-known and most influential historians of early modern philosophy.

The philosophy of the Cambridge Platonists in the mid-seventeenth century constituted a unique return to many themes of classical Christian Platonism in epistemology and metaphysics. It did so at a time marked by great changes in the natural sciences and in philosophy under the impact of such figures as Galileo and Descartes and great religious and political turmoil in England associated with the Civil War. As well as examining central aspects of their thought and their political and religious implications, this book explores themes arising from that context and the relationship of key figures in the group with their contemporaries and successors. It consists of a series of original papers written by leading scholars of the period from England, France and Australia. A particular feature is the links made with contemporary political debate, an aspect of their thought hardly touched on in any other publications on the school.