Ralph Cudworth

1617–1688

A short-lived Master of the College, Ralph Cudworth was once labelled ‘hardly… worthy of Clare’. Today, he is remembered as one of the leading philosophers of the seventeenth century. 

Cudworth’s intellectual abilities had been noted as a student and then Fellow of Emmanuel College. In 1645, Clare elected this prominent scholar as its Master, but Cudworth seems to have had other things on his mind. He failed to accept the post formally until 1650, and served only until 1654 in a Mastership distinguished by his absence from College. This did not necessarily reflect a lack of application – his subsequent Mastership of Christ’s College (1654-1688) was long and successful – but instead an intense commitment to his academic work. For, the very year that he was appointed Master of Clare, Cudworth also accepted the Regius Professorship of Hebrew. 

His studies culminated in his 1678 work, The True Intellectual System of the Universe. This remarkable piece of scholarship explored the Platonist worldview, cementing Cudworth’s leading position in the Cambridge Platonist school. 

He is now recognised as one of the first English philosophers to frame his ideas through Platonic reasoning, and as an accomplished philosopher in his own right. His theories of consciousness, free will, and the plastic power of nature inspired many later philosophers, including Locke.