biography
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1636–80)
|
| biography:
| Philosopher and clergyman, born in Plymouth, Devon, SW England, UK. After studying at Oxford, he served as vicar of Frome (1662), rector of the Abbey Church in Bath (1666), and prebendary of Worcester (1678). He is known for The Vanity of Dogmatising (1661), in which he attacked scholastic philosophy, supported experimental science, and appealed for freedom of thought. He defended the work to the newly established Royal Society, of which he became a fellow in 1664. He also attacked the rationalizing scepticism of those who denied the existence of ghosts, witches, and other apparitions of the spirit. |
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