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Joseph Butler

For other people named Joseph Butler, see Joseph Butler (disambiguation).

The Right Reverend

Joseph Butler
Bishop of Durham
A middle-aged white man seated and wearing Georgian-era English clerical robes.
Portrait of Butler by John Vanderbank
DioceseDurham
In office1750–1752
PredecessorEdward Chandler
SuccessorRichard Trevor
Other post(s)Bishop of Bristol (1738–1750)
Dean of St Paul's (1740–1750)
Orders
Ordination26 October 1718 (deacon)
21 December 1718 (priest)
by William Talbot
Consecration3 December 1738
Personal details
Born(1692-05-18)18 May 1692
Wantage, Berkshire, England
Died16 June 1752(1752-06-16) (aged 60)
Bath, Somerset, Great Britain
Buried20 June 1752[1] (O.S.) Bristol Cathedral.[2]
NationalityEnglish (later British)
DenominationPresbyterian
Anglican (after 1714)
ResidenceRosewell House, Kingsmead Square, Bath (at death)
ParentsThomas Butler[1]
ProfessionTheologian, apologist, philosopher
Sainthood
Feast day16 June (commemoration)
Philosophy career
EducationTewkesbury Academy
Oriel College, Oxford
Era18th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolEmpiricism, Christian philosophy
Main interests
Theology
Notable ideas
Criticism of deism
Analogies of religion
Circularity objection to Locke's account of personal identity[3]
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Joseph Butler (18 May 1692 O.S. – 16 June 1752 O.S.)[4] was an English Anglican bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher, born in Wantage in the English county of Berkshire (now in Oxfordshire). His principal works are the Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel (1726) and The Analogy of Religion (1736).

He is known for critiques of Deism, Thomas Hobbes's egoism, and John Locke's theory of personal identity.[5] The many philosophers and religious thinkers Butler influenced included David Hume, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith,[6] Henry Sidgwick,[7] John Henry Newman,[8] and C. D. Broad,[9] and is widely seen as "one of the pre-eminent English moralists."[10] He played a major, if underestimated role in developing 18th-century economic discourse, influencing the Dean of Gloucester and political economist Josiah Tucker.[11]

  1. ^ a b "Butler, Joseph". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4198. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ Adamson, Robert; Grieve, Alexander James (1911). "Butler, Joseph" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). pp. 882–885.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference ip was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Fryde, E. B. (1986). Handbook of British Chronology. Offices of the Royal Historical Society. ISBN 978-0-86193-106-4.
  5. ^ "Joseph Butler (1692–1752)".
  6. ^ White (2006), §8.
  7. ^ J. B. Schneewind, Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978, p. 47.
  8. ^ John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua. New York: Modern Library, 1950, p. 41. Originally published 1946.
  9. ^ C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory. Paterson, NJ: Littlefield, Adams, and Co., 1959, p. 83. Originally published 1930.
  10. ^ James C. Livingston, Modern Christian Thought. New York: Macmillan, 1971, p. 47.
  11. ^ Peter Xavier Price, 'LIBERTY, POVERTY AND CHARITY IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF JOSIAH TUCKER AND JOSEPH BUTLER', Modern Intellectual History (2017), 1–30. doi:10.1017/S1479244317000518. [1]

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