{"id":758,"date":"2019-01-15T02:38:02","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T00:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/?p=758"},"modified":"2019-01-15T02:38:03","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T00:38:03","slug":"some-further-reflections-on-bruckers-classification-of-henry-more-as-a-platonico-cabbalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/758","title":{"rendered":"Some further reflections on Brucker\u2019s classification of Henry More as a \u2018Platonico-Cabbalist’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I noted in an earlier post that the historian of philosophy\u00a0Johann Jacob Brucker, writing in the 1730s and 1740s,\u00a0distinguishes More\u2019s ‘Platonico-Cabbalism’ from Cudworth, Gale, and Burnet\u2019s \u2018Alexandrian\u2019 form of Platonism in his characterisation of their position. This must certainly reflect the fact that More had gained an early reputation in continental Europe for his engagement with the Cabbala. It is noteworthy that one of the first publications of note addressing More\u2019s work on the continent, the Herborn Lutheran professor Samuel Andreae’s Examen Generale Cabbalae Philosophicae D. Henrici\u00a0More\u00a0<\/i>(Herborn, 1670) is a critique of More’s Conjectura Cabbalistica\u00a0<\/i>(London, 1653), with which he was\u00a0familiar in the English. More responded to Andreae\u2019s critique in the scholia to his Opera Omnia\u00a0<\/i>(London, 1679), which in turn attracted a response from Andreae (then at Marburg) in his<\/span>\u00a0Epistola apologetica, ad virum eruditissimum & celeberrimum Henricum Morum\u00a0<\/em>(Marburg, 1684). Johannes Franciscus Buddeus, in a 23 page section of his\u00a0Introductio ad\u00a0historiam\u00a0philosophiae Ebraeorum\u00a0<\/i>(Halle, 1702) discusses More\u2019s Conjectura Cabbalistica <\/i>before passing to a\u00a0consideration of his later Cabbalistic writings. Buddeus notes that these later Cabbalistic texts (those which would be\u00a0published\u00a0within Christian Knorr von Rosenroth\u2019s Kabbala\u00a0<\/i>denudata <\/i>(Sulzbach and Frankfurt, 1676) and More’s\u00a0Opera Omnia<\/i>)\u00a0were written between 1672 and 1678, after a period of almost twenty years during which More did not touch on Cabbalistic themes, with the two periods being punctuated by the Andreae-More exchange. Buddeus notes that More was a\u00a0pioneer in attempting a modern harmonisation of the Cabbala with Christian philosophy, as does\u00a0<\/span>Paul Berger (another critic) in his <\/span>Cabbalismus Judaico-Christianus detectus\u00a0<\/i>(Wittemberg, 1707), who classes him together with Johann Stephan Rittangel – according to Berger, a convert\u00a0from\u00a0Judaism, although this has been contested – and Knorr von Rosenroth as the first to attempt\u00a0such a modern harmonisation. Somewhat later Brucker also acknowledges the\u00a0pioneering nature of More\u2019s engagement with the Cabbala and refers to the Andreae-More exchange. Evidently More\u2019s association with Cabbala became quite entrenched. For instance,\u00a0<\/span>the entry CABALE, (Philos.)<\/em> in the first edition of Diderot\u2019s Encyclopedie<\/em> (1751)\u00a0contains the following:\u00a0\u2018Henri Morus & Van-Helmont (Knorrius, Cabala denud<\/em>. tom.I.) sont les deux savans qui ont les premiers d\u00e9brouill\u00e9 le cahos de la philosophie cabalistique\u2019 (p.480). Such characterisations extend into the nineteenth\u00a0century. The extent to which More\u2019s early reputation in continental\u00a0Europe\u00a0was bound up with his engagement with Cabbalism has still to be established, but it certainly seems to have been an important strand and to some extent to have eclipsed his\u00a0reputation as an anti-Cartesian.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(with thanks also to Mark Burden for drawing my attention to the Andreae-More exchange)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I noted in an earlier post that the historian of philosophy\u00a0Johann Jacob Brucker, writing in the 1730s and 1740s,\u00a0distinguishes More\u2019s ‘Platonico-Cabbalism’ from Cudworth, Gale, and Burnet\u2019s \u2018Alexandrian\u2019 form of Platonism in his characterisation of their position. This must certainly reflect the fact that More had gained an early reputation in continental Europe for his engagement … Continue reading Some further reflections on Brucker\u2019s classification of Henry More as a \u2018Platonico-Cabbalist’<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19837,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_license":"","publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69461],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[2460576],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-billets"],"authors":[{"term_id":2460576,"user_id":19837,"is_guest":0,"slug":"cprg","display_name":"David Leech","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2d93d39b4cd4070fd47c7fbc1ff8bd73991a91866e634b708a9d8898b05d66e6?s=96&d=blank&r=g","1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":786,"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cprg.hypotheses.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}