Universals in English Platonism: More, Cudworth, Norris

The essay reconstructs the topic of universals in the Cambridge Platonists' and John Norris' epistemologies and ontologies. More and Cudworth restrict universals to the mental realm, stating that whatsoever exists without the mind is singular. Despite this nominalistic principle, universal concepts are not inductive constructions, but primarily divine thoughts and secondarily a priori ideas in the human mind. The archetypal theory of creation and the connection of finite minds to God’s Mind ensure their objective validity, in antithesis to Hobbes' phenomenalism and sensationalism. Norris shares the archetypal theory of creation, but refuses innatism, and his doctrine of universals is framed inside his theory of the ideal world inspired by Malebranche. Both the Cambridge Platonists and Norris, opposing theological voluntarism, discuss the status of ideas in God's mind which oscillate from being merely thoughts of the divine intellect to being its eternal objects.