The Evolution of Henry More's Theory of Divine Absolute Space

Reid, Jasper

doi:10.1353/hph.2007.0019

Cited by 28 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Even God, in order to act on the world, has to be extended. As extension can be immaterial and void, More argues for the existence of an absolute, infinite space (More 1668(More , dialogue 1, 1995Hall 1990b, 202-223;Henry 1986;Reid 2003Reid , 2007Reid , 2008Reid , 2012Agostini 2011). The idea of an extended immaterial substance is elaborated into that of "spirit of nature" or "hylarchic principle" which is the inferior part of the world soul and serves to account for material causality and for gravitation.…”

Section: Innovative and Original Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

More, Henry

Strazzoni¹

2016

Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy

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Henry More was an expounder of Cambridge Platonism, as he largely relied on a Platonicinspired standpoint in pursuing his aims: the demonstration of the immortality of soul, the critique of atheism and religious enthusiasm. He maintains that soul emanates from God (being therefore not created and pre-existing body) and argues for the existence of a spirit of nature as means to explain natural phenomena, which cannot be accounted for only in mechanical terms. Moreover, he argues for the extended nature of God and spirits, as only in this way they can act on the world. Accordingly, More rejects Descartes's theory of immaterial substance, but relies on his ontological argument provide a demonstration of the existence of God. His critique to enthusiasm (especially that one characterizing Neoplatonic mysticism) is medical, as he distinguishes between a rational, religious inspiration, and a melancholic one.

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Section: Innovative and Original Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

More, Henry

Strazzoni¹

2016

Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy

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“…More also described physical space as God's sensorium, the precise words Newton himself would later use. 6 These extraordinary coincidences, if they are no more than that, between Newton's emanativism and More's Cambridge Neoplatonism do not necessarily imply that Newton was a Cambridge Neoplatonist. 7 From our perspective, Newton seems a paradoxical combination of uncompromising scientific discipline and tradition-based, though unconventional, religious faith, a thinker of curious inclinations and originality, practical and impractical accomplishments, and eccentric extramural diversions.…”

Section: Physics and Metaphysics Of Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Newton’s Metaphysics of Space as God’s Emanative Effect

Jacquette

2014

Phys. Perspect.

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In several of his writings, Isaac Newton proposed that physical space is God's ''emanative effect'' or ''sensorium,'' revealing something interesting about the metaphysics underlying his mathematical physics. Newton's conjectures depart from Plato and Aristotle's metaphysics of space and from classical and Cambridge Neoplatonism. Present-day philosophical concepts of supervenience clarify Newton's ideas about space and offer a portrait of Newton not only as a mathematical physicist but an independent-minded rationalist philosopher.

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“…As a matter of historical fact, however, More's change of heart about holenmerism was probably due, as Jasper Reid has argued, to theological concerns prompted by Hobbes' attack upon the doctrine. 111 112 Against those of the "Schoole Divinity", Hobbes rejects the scholastic notion that there are "certaine Essences separated from Bodies, which they call Abstract Essences, and Substantiall Formes" 113 in favor of a materialist position. As he explains in Leviathan, everything that exists is corporeal: "that which is not Body, is no part of the Universe", and that which is not body "is Nothing; and consequently no where".…”

Section: A Space Which the Mind Can By No Means Disimagine Nor Pluckmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spiritual Presence and Dimensional Space beyond the Cosmos

Kochiras

2012

Intellectual History Review

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This paper examines connections between concepts of space and extension on the one hand and immaterial spirits on the other, specifically the immanentist concept of spirits as present in rerum natura. Those holding an immanentist concept, such as Thomas Aquinas, typically understood spirits non-dimensionally as present by essence and power; and that concept was historically linked to holenmerism, the doctrine that the spirit is whole in every part. Yet as Aristotelian ideas about extension were challenged and an actual, infinite, dimensional space readmitted, a dimensionalist concept of spirit became possible-that asserted by the mature Henry More, as he repudiated holenmerism. Despite More's intentions, his dimensionalist concept opens the door to materialism, for supposing that spirits have parts outside parts implies that those parts could in principle be mapped onto the parts of divisible bodies. The specter of materialism broadens our interest in More's unconventional ideas, for the question of whether other early modern thinkers, including Isaac Newton, followed More becomes a question of whether they too unwittingly helped usher in materialism. This paper shows that More's attack upon holenmerism fails. He illegitimately injects his dimensionalist concept of spirit into the doctrine, failing to recognize it as a consequence of the non-dimensionalist concept of spirit, which in itself secures indivisibility. The interpretive consequence for Newton is that there is no prima facie reason to suppose that the charitable interpretation takes him to deny holenmerism.

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The Evolution of Henry More's Theory of Divine Absolute Space

Cited by 28 publications

References 10 publications

More, Henry

More, Henry

Newton’s Metaphysics of Space as God’s Emanative Effect

Spiritual Presence and Dimensional Space beyond the Cosmos

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