Joseph Butler

Joseph Butler (May 18, 1692 - June 16, 1752) was an English Anglican bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher born in Wantage, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). He is well-known for his attacks of Deism, Thomas Hobbes' egoism, and John Locke's personal identity theory. Butler inspired a wide range of philosophers and religious thinkers, including David Hume, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, Henry Sidgwick, John Henry Newman, and C. D. Broad, and is often regarded as "one of the pre-eminent English...See more

Joseph Butler (May 18, 1692 - June 16, 1752) was an English Anglican bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher born in Wantage, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). He is well-known for his attacks of Deism, Thomas Hobbes' egoism, and John Locke's personal identity theory. Butler inspired a wide range of philosophers and religious thinkers, including David Hume, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, Henry Sidgwick, John Henry Newman, and C. D. Broad, and is often regarded as "one of the pre-eminent English moralists." He had a significant, if underappreciated, influence on the development of 18th-century economic language, inspiring the Dean of Gloucester and political economist Josiah Tucker. Butler was born on the 18th of May, 1692. Butler, the son of a Presbyterian linen draper, was meant for the ministry of that church and enrolled in Samuel Jones's dissenting seminary at Gloucester (later Tewkesbury) for that purpose, along with future archbishop Thomas Secker. He started a covert connection with Anglican theologian and philosopher Samuel Clarke there. He opted to join the Church of England in 1714 and enrolled in Oriel College, Oxford, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1718 and was declared a Doctor of Civil Law on December 8, 1733. See less