Burthogge, Richard (c.1638–c.1704)

Richard Burthogge, perhaps the first but certainly not the least interesting modern idealist, was a minor philosopher who responded to a variety of English and Dutch influences. His epistemology, constructed as an undogmatic framework within which to debate theological and metaphysical issues, contains remarkable resemblances to later, even recent idealism. He argued that, since our faculties help to shape their objects, we never know things as they are in themselves: all the immediate objects of thought are appearances. ‘Metaphysical truth’ is therefore beyond us, but we approach ‘logical truth’ in so far as our notions harmonize or cohere with one another and with experience. In this spirit, Burthogge advocated a tolerant reasonableness in religion, while in metaphysics he postulated a universal mind, united with matter, of which individual minds are local manifestations.