Johnson, Samuel (1696–1772)

Johnson was the first important philosopher in colonial America and author of the first philosophy textbook published there. He derived his views largely from others, combining in one system elements from diverse sources. He followed the empiricists in holding that knowledge begins with sensations but held the Augustinian view that knowledge of necessary truths comes only from the mind’s illumination by divine light. With Berkeley, he denied matter’s existence, viewing bodies as collections of ideas. He held that these ideas are ‘faint copies’ of God’s archetypal ideas, which he thought of in much the same way as had Malebranche and John Norris. His ethical views, influenced by William Wollaston, take happiness to be the supreme good, stressing that human beings should seek a happiness consonant with their nature as rational, immortal and social beings.