This concluding chapter offers some final thoughts on the nature of Cambridge Platonism in light of the analysis provided in the main body of the book. It is argued that while there are real and significant differences in the way each of the Cambridge Platonists engage with Platonic ideas and texts, they share a core set of distinctive philosophical intuitions that set them apart quite clearly as a distinct school of Christian Platonists. It is this philosophical framework that binds Whichcote, More, Cudworth and Smith together into a coherent group of philosophers, even when the diversity of their motivations and intellectual orientations are taken into account.

This chapter provides a basic introduction to Cambridge Platonism and its four central figures: Benjamin Whichcote (1609–83), Ralph Cudworth (1617–88), John Smith (c. 1618–52) and Henry More (c. 1614–87). Beginning with brief biographies of the Cambridge Platonists and an outline of the Civil War background to their intellectual development, the chapter then moves to a consideration of the contested nature of Cambridge Platonism in contemporary scholarship. Were Whichcote, More, Cudworth and Smith aligned enough biographically and intellectually to warrant grouping them together as architects of a shared philosophical school of thought? After reviewing several recent arguments to the contrary, the main argument of the book is laid out: Anthony Tuckney’s 1651 correspondence with Whichcote contains important evidence that Whichcote, Cudworth, Smith and More were known to their Cambridge contemporaries as proponents of a distinctive set of philosophical positions clearly inspired by Platonism.

The introduction considers the place of the Cambridge Platonists in the history of philosophy, and particularly the development of contemporary philosophy of religion. Although often forgotten today, the Cambridge Platonists exerted a direct influence on many of the most important philosophers of early modernity, including Leibniz, Locke and Hume. While their Platonism can make them seem antiquated and out of step with philosophical currents that ultimately proved more influential to our own time, the Cambridge Platonists were recognised by their contemporaries as some of the most important philosophers of their age and still lay claim to our attention as some of the first modern philosophers of religion.

This chapter considers one of the major alternatives to reductionist, mechanistic philosophy in the seventeenth century, focusing upon three key English figures: Herbert of Cherbury, Robert Greville, and Anne Conway. While these thinkers have typically been relegated to the margins of the history of philosophy and science, they nonetheless represent a significant, if largely eclipsed tradition, and one that shows how, during this period, ‘disenchanted’ understandings of nature were not the sole option, and how they could co-exist with scientific conceptions of nature. Accordingly, these figures exemplify ways of being modern and scientific without abandoning an ‘enchanted’ view of the natural world.

This chapter is an overview of the varieties of Christian Platonism in early modern philosophy including canonical figures like Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Kant as well as the Cambridge Platonists, Cudworth, More, Smith, and Conway. It emphasizes the diversity of views inspired by the Christian Platonist tradition in response to Epicurean naturalism.