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The book surveys the key metaphysical contributions of the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More (1614–1687). It deals with such interwoven topics as: the natures of body and spirit, and the question of whether or not there is a sharp ontological division between them; the nature of spatial extension in relation to each; the composition and governance of the physical world, including More’s theories of Hyle, atoms, vacuum, and the Spirit of Nature; and the life of the human soul, including its pre-existence. It approaches these topics and the systematic connections between them both historically and analytically, and seeks to do justice to the ways in which More’s system developed and changed—sometimes quite dramatically—over the course of his long career. It also explores More's intellectual relations with both his own inspirations (Plotinus, Origen, Ficino, Descartes, etc.) and with those who responded, whether positively or negatively, to his work (Leibniz, Locke, Boyle, Newton, etc.).
This is the first modern biography to place Henry More’s (1614-1687) religious and philosophical preoccupations centre-stage, and to provide a coherent interpretation of his work from a consideration of his own writings, their contexts and aims. It is also the first study of More to exploit the full range of his prolific writings and a number of unknown manuscripts relating to his life. It contains an annotated handlist of his extant correspondence.
The significance of Henry More's vitalist philosophy in the history of ideas has been realized relatively recently, as the bibliography will reveal. The general neglect of the Cambridge Platonist movement may be attributed to the common prejudice that its chief exponents, especially More, were obscure mystics who were neither coherent in their philosophical system nor attractive in their prose style. I hope that this modern edition of More's principal treatise will help to correct this unjust im pression and reveal the keenness and originality of More's intellect, which sought to demonstrate the relevance of classical philosophy in an age of empirical science. The wealth of learning -- ranging as it does from Greek antiquity to 17th century science and philosophy -- that informs More' s intellectual system of the universe should, in itself, be a recom mendation to students of the history of ideas. Though, for those in search of literary satisfaction, too, there is not wanting, in More's style, the humour, and grace, of a man whose erudition did not divorce him from a sympathetic understanding of human contradictions. As for More's elaborate speculations concerning the spirit world in the final book of this treatise, I think that we would indeed be justified in regarding their combination of classical mythology amd scientific naturalism as the literary and philosophical counterpart of the great celestial frescoes of the Baroque masters.
Henry More (1614-1687) was probably the most important English philosopher between Hobbes and Locke. Described as the 'hammer' of the Cartesians, More attacked Descartes' conception of spirit as undermining its very intelligibility. This work, which analyses an episode in the evolution of the concept of spiritual substance in early modernity, looks at More's rational theology within the context of the great seventeenth century Cartesian controversies over spirit, soul-body interaction, and divine omnipresence. This work argues that More's new, univocal spirit conception, highly influential upon Newton and Clarke, contributed unwittingly to a slow secularisation process internal to theistic culture. It thus fills a lacuna in scholarship by examining how conceptual changes in early modern metaphysics, as opposed to better researched transformations in moral philosophy, were an additional ingredient in the origins of modern speculative atheism. It also suggests that these controversies are by no means merely of historical interest but represent a resource for contemporary philosophical reflection.