The Cambridge Platonists. The School
John H. Muirhead
Routledge eBooks October 24, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9781315628004-1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that the Cambridge Platonists shared with Descartes a rational basis for moral and religious experience, that their philosophy was a "philosophy of religion" rather than centered on mystic ecstasy, and that vital Christian theology has repeatedly drawn on Platonism. |
Abstract
Cambridge University had the honour of being the first to welcome the new thought. Between Descartes and the Cambridge writers there was a certain identity of aim in that both sought for a basis in reason for man’s moral and religious experience. Though it is a mistake to represent mystic ecstasy as the centre of its teaching, it is true that the main interest of the school was religious. Its philosophy, however much it might extend to include a theory of knowledge and of nature, was a “philosophy of religion”. “The Platonic theory of knowledge”, writes Professor Perry, “was both retained and reinforced by Christianity”. Wherever, from the author of the Fourth Gospel to St. Augustine, from St. Augustine to Thomas Aquinas, and from Aquinas to Dean Inge, the spirit of Christian theology has been really alive, it has tended to fall back upon Platonism.