Editing Joseph Glanvill (section)

===Rationality and plain talking===
He was the author of ''[[The Vanity of Dogmatizing]]'' (editions from 1661), which attacked [[scholasticism]] and [[religious persecution]]. It was a plea for [[freedom of religion|religious toleration]], the [[scientific method]], and [[freedom of thought]]. It also contained a tale that became the material for [[Matthew Arnold]]'s Victorian poem ''[[The Scholar Gipsy]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kingmixers.com/Gypsyscholar.html|title=The Scholar Gypsy: Tired of Knocking at Preferment's Door |access-date=February 12, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090415104649/http://www.kingmixers.com/Gypsyscholar.html |archive-date=April 15, 2009 }}</ref>

Glanvill was at first a [[Cartesianism|Cartesian]], but shifted his ground a little, engaging with [[scepticism]] and proposing a modification in ''Scepsis Scientifica'' (1665), a revision and expansion of ''The Vanity of Dogmatizing''. It started with an explicit "Address to the Royal Society"; the Society responded by electing him as Fellow. He continued in a role of spokesman for his type of limited sceptical approach, and the Society's production of useful knowledge.<ref>[[Richard H. Popkin]] (editor), ''The Pimlico History of Western Philosophy'' (1999), pp. 360–2.</ref> As part of his programme, he argued for a plain use of language, undistorted as to definitions and reliance on [[metaphor]].<ref>Jonathan Sawday, ''The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture'' (1996), p. 235.</ref> He also advocated with ''Essay Concerning Preaching'' (1678) simple speech, rather than bluntness, in preaching, as [[Robert South]] did, with hits at [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|nonconformist]] sermons; he was quite aware that the term "plain" takes a great deal of unpacking.<ref>N. H. Keeble, ''The Literary Culture of Nonconformity in Later Seventeenth-century England'' (1987), p. 244 and p. 246.</ref>

In ''Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion'' (1676) he wrote a significant essay ''The Agreement of Reason and Religion'', aimed at least in part at nonconformism. Reason, in Glanvill's view, was incompatible with being a dissenter.<ref>[[Richard Ashcraft]], ''Latitudinarianism and Toleration'', p. 157 in Richard W. F. Kroll, Richard Ashcraft, Perez Zagorin (editors), ''Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England, 1640–1700'' (1991).</ref> In ''Antifanatickal Religion and Free Philosophy'', another essay from the volume, he attacked the whole tradition of imaginative illumination in religion, going back to [[William Perkins (Puritan)|William Perkins]], as founded on the denigration of reason.<ref>Jeremy Schmidt, ''Melancholy and the Care of the Soul: Religion, Moral Philosophy and Madness in Early Modern England'' (2007), p. 89.</ref> This essay has the subtitle ''Continuation of the [[New Atlantis]]'', and so connects with [[Francis Bacon]]'s utopia. In an [[allegory]], Glanvill placed the "Young Academicians", standing for the Cambridge Platonists, in the midst of intellectual troubles matching the religious upheavals seen in Britain. They coped by combining modern with ancient thought.<ref>Westfall, p. 116.</ref> Glanvill thought, however, that the world cannot be deduced from reason alone. Even the [[supernatural]] cannot be solved from first principles and must be investigated empirically. As a result, Glanvill attempted to investigate supposed supernatural incidents through interviews and examination of the scene of the events.