Hutton - British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century

The seventeenth century was a defining period in British philosophy. This is the period in which for the first time, British philosophy was definitively put on the map, producing philosophers of international stature and lasting influence. Its most famous names, Hobbes and Locke, rank alongside such world-class philosophers as Descartes and Spinoza and Leibniz in the modern philosophical canon. Bacon too belongs with this constellation of great thinkers, although his status as a philosopher tends to be obscured by his status as father of modern science. The significance of the British achievement in philosophy is underscored by the fact that the seventeenth century was a period of transformational change which is normally regarded as the dawn of modernity following the breakdown of the Aristotelian synthesis which had dominated intellectual life since the middle ages.

Whatever the reason why we continue to value early modern philosophers today, it is not at all certain that we value them in the same way as their contemporaries, or that the debates of their time necessarily anticipate the concerns of the present. Furthermore, none of them worked in isolation. As Roger Woolhouse reminds us,

Noteworthy individuals, such as Bacon, Hobbes, or Gassendi, are not isolated mountains in a flat desert landscape. They have an influence on an intellectual scene which encompasses a whole host of lesser thinkers, and they act as focuses for movements of thought which find powerful expression in them before passing on, often changed, or with added force.

To understand where these noteworthy individuals sit in relation to that intellectual scene is the task of the historian. It is my aim in the present volume to relocate these mountains in the context of their times, and to provide a richer picture of the intellectual landscape from which they emerged.

The history of British seventeenth-century philosophy is not usually treated on its own. It is normally slotted into a broader European narrative about the rise of modern philosophy, which focuses on just a few individuals, who are classified using categories which they themselves would not have recognized (e.g. as empiricists or rationalists, ancients or moderns). The history which I present here attempts a different approach. The basic premise of the present volume is that Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke were not the only philosophers of their time. Nor were they the only ones of enduring influence. I therefore aim to apply a more generous view of context, both by including the also rans of philosophy, and giving some attention to the social, political, and cultural conditions in which philosophers practised. My starting point will be what constituted philosophy for the seventeenth century. I focus on individuals, rather than particular branches of philosophy or philosophical themes, and I treat seventeenth-century philosophy as an ongoing conversation, as a means of setting philosophers in relation to one another. Like all conversations, some voices will dominate, some will be more persuasive than others, and there will be enormous variations in tone from the polite to polemical, fair-minded, matter-of-fact, loquacious, reticent, intemperate. The conversation model allows voices to be heard which would otherwise be discounted. By this means I provide what might be called a thick description of seventeenth-century intellectual culture, setting marginal and major thinkers within a more integrated account of seventeenth-century philosophy which attempts to view it in its own terms, taking account of institutions, and the modes of circulation of ideas. I set the philosophy of Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke in relation to the philosophical context within which it was produced, a context made up of figures normally regarded as minor players in philosophy (e.g. Herbert of Cherbury, Cudworth, More, Burthogge, Norris, Toland) as well as others who have been completely overlooked (notably female philosophers). Crucially, instead of emphasizing the break between seventeenth-century philosophy and its past, the conversation model makes it possible to trace continuities between the Renaissance and seventeenth century, across the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth century, while at the same time acknowledging the major changes which occurred.