The Cambridge Platonists at the Origins of Enlightenment: Texts, Debate, and Reception (1650-1730)

剑桥柏拉图学派的主要成员是本杰明·惠希科特(1609-83年)、拉尔夫·库德沃斯(1617-1688)、亨利·莫尔(1614-1687)和约翰·史密斯(1618-1652)，他们代表了意大利文艺复兴和浪漫主义时代之间最重要的柏拉图哲学家学派。这场运动以其宽容的时代、坚持科学与宗教的兼容性以及对人性的乐观而闻名，被视为西方道德哲学中的一场“哥白尼革命”。它们或许代表着向世俗伦理转变的关键一步。这些思想家是第一批直面现代科学观的柏拉图主义者，他们试图谈判，一方面是继承的格雷科-罗马-基督教世界观，另一方面是伽利略-笛卡尔科学提出的令人震惊的新的宇宙机械观。“无私的快乐”这一关键美学概念可以追溯到剑桥柏拉图主义者。我们从他们那里衍生出其他基本的哲学概念，如“唯物主义”、“一神论”、“宗教哲学”和“自我意识”。他们对康威、马沙姆、阿斯特尔等女性思想家的影响，以及他们对英国持不同政见的传统、苏格兰启蒙运动和欧洲启蒙运动的影响，才刚刚开始受到重视。然而，剑桥柏拉图主义者基本上被现代学者忽视了，原因包括：学术上的误解，缺乏可读的教科书，以及他们的主要作品的好的批评性版本。他们发表的著作和许多重要手稿都没有编辑过。该项目的中心目标是，首先，通过制作一本数字《剑桥柏拉图主义资料册》来解决这一忽视问题，这本书分为三大部分--自然与上帝；知识与信仰；人类与道德。《资料手册》将作为项目网站上的数字专题研究合集在网上免费提供。其次，通过展示他们对当代辩论的参与，我们的目的是推翻对柏拉图主义者的错误看法，认为他们是孤立的人物，与思想史几乎没有关系。这本原始资料书将从整个剑桥柏拉图主义者的全部作品以及他们与他们接触或与他们接触的许多同时代人中挑选出广泛的摘录。每一节都有导言和说明性说明。它将提供重要的印刷和手稿资料，说明他们的思想范围，并询问：剑桥柏拉图主义者赋予他们知识身份的独特的形而上学、认识论和伦理立场是什么？例如，他们(S)在上帝与时空的关系、意识的不可还原、个人身份、理性和情感、直接的自知、责任、良知、自由意志等问题上采取了什么立场？另外，他们在多大程度上同意对方的观点？他们所处环境的主要争议是什么？他们同时代的人中有哪些是他们的主要目标？他们的影响到底是什么？除了原始资料，专题研究集合还将包括剑桥柏拉图主义的在线参考书目、技术术语词汇表和一个项目博客，该博客将报告剑桥柏拉图主义学术的发展。它还将介绍我们工作的最新进展，并为学者和有兴趣的公众提供一个论坛，提供他们的意见和想法。此外，我们希望出版《资料册》的精简版印刷版。该项目将与主要的文化机构联系，以推广对剑桥柏拉图主义的认识，剑桥柏拉图主义是一场非常重要的智力运动，也是我们当代文化的重要来源。

The Cambridge Platonists, whose leading members were Benjamin Whichcote (1609-83), Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688), Henry More (1614-1687) and John Smith (1618-1652), represent the most important school of Platonic philosophers between the Italian Renaissance and the Romantic Age. This movement, distinguished in its time for toleration, insistence on the compatibility of science and religion, and its optimism about human nature, has been seen as a 'Copernican revolution' in Western moral philosophy. They represent, perhaps, a key step in the shift to a secular ethics. These thinkers are the first Platonists to have confronted the modern scientific outlook as they attempted to negotiate the claims of, on the one hand, the inherited Graeco-Roman-Christian worldview and, on the other hand, the startling new mechanical vision of the universe presented by Galilean-Cartesian science. The key aesthetic notion of 'disinterested pleasure' can be traced back to the Cambridge Platonists. We have derived from them other fundamental philosophical concepts such as 'materialism', 'monotheism', 'philosophy of religion', and 'self-consciousness'. Their influence on women thinkers such as Conway, Masham, Astell, and their impact on the British Dissenting tradition, the Scottish Enlightenment, and the European Enlightenment, have only just started to be appreciated.The Cambridge Platonists, however, have been largely neglected by modern scholars for a combination of reasons: scholarly misapprehensions, a lack of accessible textbooks and good critical editions of their major works. Their published writings and many important manuscripts have not been edited. The central aims of this project are, first, to address this neglect by producing a digital 'Cambridge Platonism Sourcebook', subdivided into three broad sections - Nature and God; Knowledge and Belief; Human Beings and Morality. The Sourcebook will be made freely available online as a digital thematic research collection on the project website. Secondly, by showing their engagement with contemporary debates, we aim to overturn false perceptions of the Platonists as isolated figures of little relevance to intellectual history.This sourcebook will consist of extensive excerpts selected from across the entire oeuvre of the Cambridge Platonists and from many of their contemporaries with whom they engaged or who engaged with them. Each section will be supplied with an introduction, and explanatory notes. It will make available both important printed and manuscript sources illustrating the range of their thinking, and ask: what were the distinctive metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical stances of the Cambridge Platonists that gave them their intellectual identity? For instance, what position(s) did they take on problems as diverse as God's relation to space and time, the irreducibility of consciousness, personal identity, reason and emotion, immediate self-knowledge, responsibility, conscience, and free will? Also, how far did they agree with one another? What were the key controversies of their milieu? Which of their contemporaries were their primary targets? What precisely was their influence? In addition to the sourcebook, the thematic research collection will include an online bibliography of Cambridge Platonism, a glossary of technical terms, and a project blog, which will report on developments in Cambridge Platonism scholarship. It will also update on the progress of our work, and offer a forum for scholars and interested members of the public to contribute their input and ideas. In addition, we hope to publish a hard-copy abridged version of the Sourcebook.The project will liaise with key cultural agencies to promote knowledge of Cambridge Platonism as a highly significant intellectual movement, and an important source of our contemporary culture.