Unitarian Materialism. Christoph Stegmann, Joseph Priestley, and Their Concepts of Matter and Soul (2020)
This paper describes the affinities between Socinian and Unitarian materialism. Based on different philosophical traditions, the Socinian Christoph Stegmann and the Unitarian Joseph Priestley developed a strong “system of materialism” which fit very well with Christian doctrines and the Bible. The conviction that the whole man is material and therefore mortal became the common basis for these radical thinkers. Stegmann formulated within the Aristotelian tradition a “non-reductive” materialism in which matter, not form, became the fundamental principle of all living things. Priestley, on the other hand, created his “absolute” materialism by developing a new understanding of the concept of matter according to the philosophical rules of Isaac Newton. The paper will discuss the affinities and differences between these two different concepts of materialism. The idea of a thinking matter, most prominently formulated by John Locke, will serve as a link between them.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Chapter
Dybikowski, James;
(2008)
Joseph Priestley, Metaphysician and Philosopher of Religion
Article
Falk Wunderlich;
(2020)
Priestley on Materialism and the Essence of God
Article
Paola Rumore;
(2020)
Priestley in Germany
Article
Charles T. Wolfe;
(2020)
From the Logic of Ideas to Active-Matter Materialism: Priestley’s Lockean Problem and Early Neurophilosophy
Article
Omero Proietti;
(2022)
Pomponazzi, Da Costa e il mito dell’immortalità dell’anima
Article
Amal A. Awad;
(2023)
Al-Rāzī on the theologians' materialism
Chapter
Wykes, David L.;
(2008)
Joseph Priestly, Minister and Teacher
Chapter
Fruchtman, Jack, Jr.;
(2001)
David and Goliath: Jewish Conversion and Philosemitism in Late Eighteenth-Century English Millenarian Thought
Article
Charles T. Wolfe;
Falk Wunderlich;
(2020)
Joseph Priestley: Materialism and the Science of the Mind. Foundations, Controversies, Reception
Article
Udo Thiel;
(2020)
Priestley and Kant on Materialism
Article
Breno Moura;
(2018)
Newtonian Optics and the Historiography of Light in the 18th Century: A critical Analysis of Joseph Priestley’s The History of Optics
Chapter
Beretta, Alan;
(2014)
Joseph Priestley: An Instructive Eighteenth Century Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem
Article
Ian Leask;
(2017)
Stoicism Unbound: Cicero’s Academica in Toland’s Pantheisticon
Book
Gascoigne, John;
(2010)
Science, Philosophy and Religion in the Age of the Enlightenment: British and Global Contexts
Article
Cohen, Sarah R.;
(2004)
Chardin's Fur: Painting, Materialism, and the Question of Animal Soul
Article
Marleen Rozemond;
(2016)
Descartes, Malebranche and Leibniz: Conceptions of Substance in Arguments for the Immateriality of the Soul
Article
Falk Wunderlich;
(2016)
Materialism in Late Enlightenment Germany: A Neglected Tradition Reconsidered
Book
Thomson, Ann;
(2008)
Bodies of Thought: Science, Religion, and the Soul in the Early Enlightenment
Chapter
Domski, Mary;
(2012)
Locke's Qualified Embrace of Newton's Principia
Book
Janiak, Andrew;
Schliesser, Erick;
(2012)
Interpreting Newton: Critical Essays
Be the first to comment!