Editing Joseph Glanvill (section)

===Atheism, scepticism and Aristotle===

His views did not prevent Glanvill himself being charged with atheism. This happened after he engaged in a controversy with [[Robert Crosse (theologian)|Robert Crosse]], over the continuing value of the work of [[Aristotle]], the classical exponent of the middle way.<ref>Nicholas H. Steneck (1981), ''"The Ballad of Robert Crosse and Joseph Glanvill" and the Background to Plus Ultra'', British Journal for the History of Science, 1981, vol. 14, no. 46, pp. 59–74.</ref> In defending himself and the Royal Society, in ''Plus ultra'', he attacked current teaching of medicine (physick), and in return was attacked by [[Henry Stubbe]], in ''The Plus Ultra reduced to a Non Plus'' (1670).<ref>Roger Kenneth French, Andrew Wear (editors), ''The Medical Revolution of the Seventeenth Century'' (1989), pp. 151–2.</ref> His views on Aristotle also led to an attack by [[Thomas White (scholar)|Thomas White]], the Catholic priest known as Blacklo. In ''A Praefatory Answer to Mr. Henry Stubbe'' (1671) he defined the "philosophy of the virtuosi" cleanly: the "plain objects of sense" to be respected, as the locus of as much certainty as was available; the "suspension of assent" absent adequate proof; and the claim for the approach as "equally an adversary to scepticism and credulity". To White he denied being a sceptic.<ref>[[Stephen Gaukroger]], ''The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1210–1685'' (2006), p. 224.</ref><ref>Stuart Clark, ''Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture'' (2007), p. 352.</ref> A contemporary view is that his approach was a species of [[rational fideism]].<ref>[[Richard Henry Popkin]], ''The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle'' (2003 edition), p. 213.</ref>

His ''Philosophia Pia'' (1671) was explicitly about the connection between the "experimental philosophy" of the Royal Society and religion. It was a reply to a letter of Meric Casaubon, one of the Society's critics, to [[Peter du Moulin]]. He used it to cast doubt on the roots of [[enthusiasm]], one of his main targets amongst the nonconformists.<ref>Michael Heyd, ''Be Sober and Reasonable: The Critique of Enthusiasm in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries'' (1995), note p. 156.</ref> It also dealt with criticisms of [[Richard Baxter]], who was another accusing the Society of an atheist tendency.<ref>Jon Parkin, ''Science, Religion and Politics in Restoration England: Richard Cumberland's De Legibus Naturae'' (1999), pp. 137–8.</ref>