Much of my work focuses on Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688), one of the leading lights (along with Henry More) of seventeenth-century Cambridge Platonism. Because Cudworth is a relatively understudied figure in the history of philosophy, I am going to use this page to begin collecting resources in order to help introduce Cudworth to others. (I’ll also occasionally post other miscellaneous resources, which you can find at the bottom of the page.) This page is a work in progress. Feel free to contact me with suggested amendments or additions.
Meet Ralph
For starters, if you want to meet Ralph, you can find an exclusive interview with the man himself at 3:16: https://www.3-16am.co.uk/blog/exclusive-3-16-interview-with-ralph-cudworth.
Read Ralph
Now that you’ve met Ralph, you probably want to read his works. Fortunately, much (although not yet all) of Cudworth’s work (published and unpublished) is available online. I’ve compiled a Google Doc listing Cudworth’s works and containing links to online versions, which you can view here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bXap4Mpr-AQshgDmBPxnrr3sYIU4BMuR9GDSTYUqkw4/edit?usp=sharing.
Further Resources
The Cambridge Platonism Sourcebook: https://www.cambridge-platonism.divinity.cam.ac.uk
Many of the links in my Google Doc will send you to The Cambridge Platonism Sourcebook, an excellent online resource that contains digital editions of many works from the Cambridge Platonists, Cudworth included. In addition to these digital editions, the Sourcebook contains a few absolutely invaluable resources compiled by the great Mark Burden:
- First, Burden has compiled a “Critical Bibliography” of the Cambridge Platonists: https://www.cambridge-platonism.divinity.cam.ac.uk/about-the-cambridge-platonists/critical-bibliography
- Second, Burden has also put together a terrific “Publication History of Ralph Cudworth’s Works”: https://www.cambridge-platonism.divinity.cam.ac.uk/about-the-cambridge-platonists/publication-history/cudworth-ralph
- Third, and perhaps most impressively, Burden has written a blog post providing by far the most reliable account of the dating and composition history of Cudworth’s freewill manuscripts (British Library Additional Manuscripts 4978–4982): https://cprg.hypotheses.org/815
Three cheers for Mark!
Other Miscellanea
- I’ve compiled a facing Latin-English edition of the complete Descartes-More correspondence (with marginal references to various standard editions), which I have used in teaching. Available here: https://matthewleisinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/descartes-more-correspondence.pdf
Updated: 20 December 2023
Matthew A. Leisinger 