Cambridge Platonists

Cambridge Platonists, school of English Christian philosophers, centered at the University of Cambridge, in the late 17th century. Derived from a group known as the Latitudinarians that reacted against Calvinism, and basing their doctrines largely on the teachings of Plato, the Cambridge Platonists were the theological liberals of their age. Stressing morality rather than dogma, they sought to reconcile fundamental Christian ethics with the new rationality of Renaissance philosophy, science, and humanism. Although their background was Puritan, they rejected the Puritan separation of theology and morals. The school was fundamentally antagonistic to the doctrines of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who based his dogma on the senses and ignored the moral and religious postulates of human nature. The extent of their liberalism often caused the Cambridge Platonists to be condemned as atheists, and they generally were viewed with suspicion. The two best-known Cambridge Platonists are the English philosophers Ralph Cudworth and Henry More.