Research Directory: Philosophical Predecessors and Comparators for Sterling’s Core Stoicism v0.1

Research Directory: Philosophical Predecessors and Comparators for Sterling’s Core Stoicism v0.1

Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.

This directory provides scholarly reference pages, historical studies, primary-text collections, and library catalogues for investigating philosophical traditions and thinkers whose commitments may resemble those attributed to Grant C. Sterling’s Core Stoicism. Historical membership in a school does not, by itself, establish agreement with Core Stoicism.

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1. English Philosophy, 17th–18th Century

A. Cambridge Platonists

The principal figures are Ralph Cudworth, Henry More, Benjamin Whichcote, and John Smith. The movement is relevant to the study of rational moral principles, human freedom, and immaterial substance.

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Cambridge Platonists — Overview of the movement, its principal figures, ethical rationalism, and opposition to Hobbes.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Henry More — Substance dualism, immaterial agency, and free will.
• Internet Archive: Ralph Cudworth — Historical editions and digitized primary texts.
• Internet Archive: Benjamin Whichcote — Sermons and aphorisms.
• Internet Archive: John Smith’s Select Discourses — Primary texts from another member of the movement.
• Google Books: Ralph Cudworth’s A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality — Searchable editions and bibliographic information.

Research priorities: Cudworth’s A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, More’s Enchiridion Ethicum, and Whichcote’s moral aphorisms.

B. Ethical Rationalism and Moral Rationalism

This category covers the view that moral truths are accessible to reason and are not constituted by commands, conventions, or subjective feelings.

Samuel Clarke

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Samuel Clarke — Rationalist ethics, opposition to Hobbes, and necessary moral relations.
• Internet Archive: Samuel Clarke — Search for A Discourse Concerning the Unalterable Obligations of Natural Religion.

Richard Price

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Richard Price — Ethical intuitionism, moral realism, moral knowledge, and free will.
• Internet Archive: Richard Price — Search for A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals and other primary texts.

William Wollaston

• Internet Archive: William Wollaston — Search for The Religion of Nature Delineated.
• Google Books: William Wollaston — Searchable editions and bibliographic records.

John Balguy

• Internet Archive: John Balguy — Search for The Foundation of Moral Goodness.
• Google Books: John Balguy — Editions and historical references.

Recommended starting point: Clarke and Price. Both are important to the investigation of moral objectivity and the rejection of accounts that make morality dependent on arbitrary commands. Price is also a significant defender of free will.

C. Intellectualism versus Voluntarism in Ethics

The central question is whether moral distinctions hold independently of commands or depend on the will of a commanding authority.

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Ethical Intuitionism — Moral rationalism, moral knowledge, and non-naturalism.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Richard Price — Price’s rejection of theological and secular voluntarism.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Samuel Clarke — Necessary moral relations.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Cambridge Platonists — The independence of moral principles from human institutions and arbitrary will.

Search terms: moral intellectualism, theological voluntarism, ethical voluntarism, eternal and immutable morality, divine command theory, and necessary moral relations.

These concepts are related but not interchangeable. Rejecting divine-command theory does not, by itself, establish agreement with Sterling’s complete set of commitments.

D. Critics of Hobbes

This category includes philosophers who challenged Hobbes’s accounts of morality, human agency, obligation, or freedom.

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Samuel Clarke — Opposition to Hobbes in metaphysics, theology, and ethics.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Cambridge Platonists — Opposition to Hobbesian materialism and determinism.
• Oxford Academic: Hobbes on Liberty, Action, and Free Will — Scholarly analysis of the Hobbes–Bramhall controversy. [Note: a chapter by Thomas Pink in The Oxford Handbook of Hobbes.]
• Oxford Academic: Of Gods and Clocks—Free Will and the Hobbes–Bramhall Debate — Further analysis of their disagreement. [Note: a chapter by Paul Russell in Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy.]
• Internet Archive: John Bramhall and Thomas Hobbes — Search for primary texts from the controversy.
• Internet Archive: Richard Cumberland — Search for De Legibus Naturae, an important response to Hobbesian moral philosophy.

Additional names to investigate: Ralph Cudworth, Henry More, Samuel Clarke, John Bramhall, and Richard Cumberland.

[Note: the corpus has CPA runs on Hobbes, Bramhall, Cudworth and Clarke.]

E. The Free-Will Controversy

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Free Will — Libertarianism, compatibilism, event causation, and agent causation.
• Oxford Academic: Hobbes on Liberty, Action, and Free Will — The Hobbes–Bramhall dispute.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Richard Price — Arguments concerning freedom and Price’s correspondence with Joseph Priestley.
• Internet Archive: Anthony Collins and Samuel Clarke — Search for primary texts on liberty, necessity, and determinism.

Primary texts to locate:

• John Bramhall, A Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsical Necessity.
• Thomas Hobbes, Of Liberty and Necessity.
• Anthony Collins, A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty.
• Samuel Clarke’s replies to Collins.
• Richard Price’s correspondence with Joseph Priestley on free will.

These disputes are relevant to Sterling’s commitment to metaphysical libertarianism. The arguments must nevertheless be evaluated individually rather than treated as a single shared doctrine.

F. English Neostoicism

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Justus Lipsius — European Neostoicism and its intellectual influence.
• Internet Archive: Joseph Hall — Search for Hall’s writings and editions.
• Internet Archive: Guillaume du Vair — French Neostoic writings and historical studies.
• Internet Archive: Justus Lipsius — Editions of De Constantia and related works.

Neostoicism is a historical movement involving the adaptation of ancient Stoicism to early modern religious and intellectual contexts. Membership in the movement does not, by itself, establish agreement with Sterling’s six commitments.

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2. English Philosophy, 19th–20th Century

A. William Whewell’s Intuitionist Moral Philosophy

• Internet Archive: William Whewell — Search for The Elements of Morality and Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy.
• Google Books: William Whewell — Searchable historical editions.
• Oxford Academic: British Ethical Theorists from Sidgwick to Ewing — Later British intuitionism and related ethical traditions. [Note: Thomas Hurka, “Intuitionism,” a chapter in British Ethical Theorists from Sidgwick to Ewing.]

Whewell defended rational moral principles and treated moral obligations as objective rather than reducible to subjective preference.

B. Henry Sidgwick and Philosophical Intuitionism

• Oxford Academic: Philosophical Intuitionism in Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics — Sidgwick’s formulation of philosophical intuitionism. [Note: David Phillips, “Philosophical Intuitionism (Methods III.XIII),” a chapter in Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics: A Guide.]
• Oxford Academic: Intuitionism in The Cosmos of Duty — Further analysis of Sidgwick’s moral epistemology. [Note: Roger Crisp, “Intuitionism,” a chapter in The Cosmos of Duty.]
• Internet Archive: Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics — Primary text.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Ethical Intuitionism — Historical and conceptual overview.

Sidgwick is not simply an advocate of unrevised intuitionism. His examination of common-sense morality and his arguments for utilitarianism complicate any direct comparison with Sterling.

C. Oxford Intuitionism and Oxford Realism

Principal figures include H. A. Prichard, W. D. Ross, A. C. Ewing, John Cook Wilson, and W. D. Ross’s contemporary critic and fellow intuitionist W. D. Carritt. [Note: Carritt’s initials are E. F.]

• Oxford Academic: British Ethical Theorists from Sidgwick to Ewing — The British intuitionist tradition, including Prichard, Ross, and Carritt.
• Oxford Academic: Moral Writings of H. A. Prichard — Prichard’s realist and intuitionist ethics.
• Oxford Academic: W. D. Ross and the Development of Ethics — Ross’s moral objectivism, intuitionism, and pluralism. [Note: the chapter “Ross” in Terence Irwin, The Development of Ethics.]
• Internet Archive: H. A. Prichard — Primary texts and collected essays.
• Internet Archive: W. D. Ross — Search for The Right and the Good.
• Internet Archive: John Cook Wilson — Search for Statement and Inference and related material.

Prichard and Ross are particularly relevant to objective moral principles and intuition as a source of moral knowledge. Ross’s pluralism about prima facie duties, however, differs from a theory that identifies virtue as the sole good and vice as the sole evil.

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3. Scottish Philosophy

A. Scottish Common Sense Philosophy

Principal figures include Thomas Reid, James Beattie, James Oswald, Dugald Stewart, William Hamilton, and James McCosh.

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Scottish Philosophy in the 18th Century — Overview of the Scottish Enlightenment and its philosophical context.
• Oxford Academic: Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment — Common-sense philosophy, realism, and responses to scepticism.
• Internet Archive: Thomas Reid — Primary texts, including Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind.
• Internet Archive: James Beattie — Search for An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth.
• Internet Archive: Dugald Stewart — Primary texts.
• Internet Archive: James McCosh — Historical works on Scottish philosophy and realism.

This tradition is relevant to the study of realism, human cognitive faculties, and the defense of claims about reality that cannot be reduced exclusively to sensory impressions. Common-sense realism is nevertheless a broad family of positions, not a synonym for ethical intuitionism or moral realism.

B. Thomas Reid: Active Power and Agent Causation

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Thomas Reid — Overview of Reid’s philosophy.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Free Will — Background on agent-causal theories of freedom.
• Internet Archive: Reid’s Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind — Primary source for active power, agency, and voluntary action.
• Google Books: Thomas Reid and Active Power — Scholarly books and historical editions.

Read Reid’s account of active power before relying on modern summaries. The central issue is whether agents possess genuine causal powers and whether human actions can be attributed to agents in a way that is not reducible to antecedent events.

This question bears directly on Sterling’s libertarian commitment, although Reid’s own account should not automatically be identified with every contemporary theory of agent causation.

C. Stoicism in the Scottish Enlightenment

This category connects Scottish moral philosophy with ancient Stoicism without assuming that every Scottish philosopher adopted the same interpretation of Stoicism.

Francis Hutcheson and Marcus Aurelius

• Wikisource: Introduction to the History of Translations of Marcus Aurelius — Historical information about the 1742 Glasgow translation associated with James Moor and Francis Hutcheson. [Note: the page names the co-translator “Thomas Hutcheson.”]
• Internet Archive: Marcus Aurelius, 1742 Glasgow Translation — Search for digitized editions.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Scottish Philosophy in the 18th Century — Historical context for Hutcheson and the Scottish Enlightenment.

Adam Smith and Stoicism

• Internet Archive: Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments — Primary text. Investigate Part VII, particularly the discussion of ancient ethical systems and Stoicism.
• Google Books: Adam Smith and Stoicism — Scholarly treatments and searchable editions.

Adam Ferguson and Stoicism

• University of Edinburgh Research Archive: Scottish Cato? — A thesis examining Ferguson’s engagement with classical antiquity and his relationship to Stoicism. [Note: the thesis is “‘Scottish Cato’? A Re-examination of Adam Ferguson’s Engagement with Classical Antiquity” (2011).]
• Oxford Academic: Adam Ferguson’s Moral Philosophy — Virtue, action, sociability, and moral judgment. [Note: Craig Smith, “Moral Philosophy,” a chapter in Adam Ferguson and the Idea of Civil Society.]
• Oxford Academic: Adam Ferguson and Moral Education — Stoic and Christian ideas in Ferguson’s approach to education and virtue. [Note: Craig Smith, “Moral Education,” a chapter in the same book.]
• Internet Archive: Adam Ferguson’s Institutes of Moral Philosophy — Primary text.

The historical relationship between Ferguson and Stoicism is contested. Identifying him as a Stoic without qualification may obscure differences between his thought and ancient Stoicism. This makes the Edinburgh thesis particularly useful for comparative research.

D. Scottish Realism in American Colleges

This category traces the transmission of Scottish philosophy into American education, particularly through John Witherspoon and James McCosh at Princeton.

• Internet Archive: John Witherspoon — Lectures and writings on moral philosophy.
• Internet Archive: James McCosh — Search for The Scottish Philosophy and related works.
• Princeton University Library Catalog — Search for Witherspoon, McCosh, Scottish philosophy, and moral philosophy.
• Oxford Academic: Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment — Historical background for the tradition that influenced American philosophy.

The key question is which specific doctrines survived, how they were modified, and whether the resulting positions resemble Sterling’s commitments.

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4. Philosophical Categories Across Periods

A. Ethical Intuitionism (C3)

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Intuitionism in Ethics — History and contemporary formulations of ethical intuitionism.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Richard Price — A historical case study in intuitionist moral epistemology.
• Oxford Academic: Philosophical Intuitionism in Sidgwick — Self-evident moral axioms.

Search terms: ethical intuitionism, rational intuition, self-evident moral truths, moral epistemology, and moral knowledge.

B. Non-Naturalist Moral Realism (C6)

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Intuitionism in Ethics — The historical association between intuitionism and non-naturalist moral metaphysics.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Richard Price — Price’s defense of objective moral truths.
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Metaethics — Moral realism and related metaethical theories.

Distinguish the existence of objective moral facts from the claim that those facts are non-natural. A moral realist need not be a non-naturalist.

C. Agent-Causal Libertarianism (C2)

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Free Will — Major theories of freedom and causal agency.
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Free Will — Freedom, determinism, and responsibility.
• Internet Archive: Thomas Reid’s Essays on the Active Powers — Historical source for active power and voluntary agency.

Search terms: agent causation, agent-causal libertarianism, active power, sourcehood, and liberty of indifference.

D. Substance Dualism (C1)

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Dualism — Substance dualism and related positions.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Henry More — Historical defense of immaterial substance.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Cambridge Platonists — Context for early modern dualism.

Distinguish substance dualism from property dualism and other accounts of mind. Similar conclusions about human agency do not establish agreement about the nature of mind.

E. Classical Foundationalism (C4)

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Foundationalist Theories of Epistemic Justification — The central reference for foundationalism.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epistemology — Justification, basic beliefs, and knowledge.

Search terms: classical foundationalism, basic beliefs, self-evident propositions, epistemic regress, and foundations of knowledge.

Do not assume that every philosopher who appeals to self-evident moral principles accepts classical foundationalism in its technical epistemological sense.

F. Correspondence Theory of Truth (C5)

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Correspondence Theory of Truth — Truth as correspondence with reality.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Truth — Overview of competing theories of truth.

Search terms: correspondence theory of truth, truthmakers, truth and reality, and propositions and facts.

G. Phenomenal Conservatism

• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Michael Huemer — Introduction to Huemer’s epistemology. [Note: the original address, iep.utm.edu/huemer/, did not load. This link goes to the IEP entry “Phenomenal Conservatism.”]
• Google Scholar: Michael Huemer and Phenomenal Conservatism — Research papers and citations.
• Google Books: Michael Huemer’s Ethical Intuitionism — Book information and searchable excerpts where available.

Phenomenal conservatism concerns the epistemic status of seemings. Roughly, if something seems true to a person, that seeming provides prima facie justification for believing it, absent defeaters.

It is relevant to the epistemology of moral judgment but should not be conflated with moral realism itself.

H. Neostoicism

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Justus Lipsius — Principal scholarly reference for the movement.
• Internet Archive: Justus Lipsius, De Constantia — Primary texts and translations.
• Internet Archive: Guillaume du Vair and Stoicism — French Neostoicism.
• Internet Archive: Neostoicism and Early Modern Philosophy — Historical studies.

Investigate Lipsius and du Vair alongside English writers influenced by their work. Examine how they reconstructed Stoic ethics under early modern religious and metaphysical assumptions.

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5. Library Catalogues and Subject Headings

Library catalogues are essential for finding monographs, dissertations, collected editions, and older scholarship that may not appear in general web searches.

Library of Congress

• Library of Congress Online Catalog
• Library of Congress Subject Headings
• Library of Congress Name Authority File

Search for the following headings or closely related terms:

• Philosophy, Scottish — 18th century
• Philosophy, English
• Common sense
• Free will and determinism
• Stoics
• Ethics, Modern — 18th century

Recommended catalogue-search procedure:

• 1. Search the subject heading in quotation marks where the catalogue supports exact-phrase searching.
• 2. Search the individual philosopher’s name separately.
• 3. Search the philosopher’s name with a distinctive concept, such as Richard Price and free will or Thomas Reid and active power.
• 4. Examine the subject headings assigned to relevant books and dissertations.
• 5. Follow those headings to identify additional literature that uses different terminology from the original search.

Other Major Catalogues and Research Databases

• WorldCat — Books and editions held by libraries worldwide.
• Internet Archive — Digitized books, historical editions, and scholarly works.
• HathiTrust Digital Library — Digitized scholarly and historical books.
• Google Books — Full-text searching and bibliographic discovery.
• JSTOR — Scholarly articles and historical research.
• PhilPapers — Research papers organized by philosophical topic.

PhilPapers is particularly useful for discovering contemporary discussions of individual philosophical commitments. WorldCat and the Internet Archive are useful for locating historical primary texts.

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6. The Moral Sense School: A Contrastive Research Category

This category is useful because it identifies thinkers whose positions may differ from Sterling’s ethical rationalism.

[Note: the corpus has CPA runs on Shaftesbury and Hutcheson.]

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury

• Internet Archive: Shaftesbury’s Philosophical Works — Search for Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times.

Francis Hutcheson

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Scottish Philosophy in the 18th Century — Historical context.
• Internet Archive: Hutcheson’s An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue — Primary text.

David Hume

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: David Hume — General philosophical overview.
• Internet Archive: Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature — Primary text.
• Internet Archive: Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals — Primary text.

Comparative purpose: determine whether moral judgment is grounded primarily in reason, sentiment, or a combination of faculties. These philosophers should not be grouped together without qualification because their respective theories differ considerably.

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7. Recommended Research Priorities for the Next CPA Runs

Priority 1: Richard Price

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Richard Price
• Internet Archive: A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals

Why he deserves priority: Price combines moral realism, rational access to fundamental moral truths, rejection of theological voluntarism, and a defense of human freedom. His philosophy provides a substantial basis for examining the relationship between ethical rationalism and metaphysical libertarianism.

Principal caution: Price’s pluralism about duties and his theological framework may produce significant differences from Sterling’s account of virtue, vice, and indifferents. Those differences should be recorded rather than absorbed into a general judgment of similarity.

Priority 2: Adam Ferguson

• Internet Archive: Institutes of Moral Philosophy
• University of Edinburgh Research Archive: Scottish Cato?
• Oxford Academic: Ferguson’s Moral Philosophy

Why he deserves investigation: Ferguson provides a route into the relationship between Stoic ethics, virtue, action, and the moral formation of individuals. His work also offers a useful test of whether apparent Stoic affinities reflect substantive philosophical agreement or merely shared vocabulary and historical influence.

Principal caution: Ferguson’s empirical approach to moral science and his account of sociability may differ significantly from Sterling’s foundationalist and ethical-intuitionist commitments. Historical scholarship also cautions against treating Ferguson as an uncomplicated representative of ancient Stoicism.

Priority 3: Ralph Cudworth

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Cambridge Platonists

Cudworth is a strong candidate because his defense of eternal and immutable morality directly addresses the intellectualist–voluntarist dispute. He also offers a major early modern alternative to Hobbesian materialism and moral conventionalism.

[Note: run in the corpus as CPA Run — Ralph Cudworth — Version 1.0. Six Aligned, No Dissolution.]

Priority 4: Thomas Reid

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Free Will

Reid is especially valuable for investigating active power, agency, and freedom. He may be more informative about the metaphysical foundations of agency than a thinker selected primarily for similarities in moral vocabulary.

[Note: run in the corpus as CPA Run — Thomas Reid — Version 1.1. Six Aligned, No Dissolution.]

Priority 5: Samuel Clarke

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Samuel Clarke

Clarke is a strong candidate for investigating rationalist ethics, necessary moral relations, and opposition to Hobbes. His work offers a useful bridge between the Cambridge Platonists and Price.

[Note: run in the corpus as CPA Run — Samuel Clarke — Version 1.0. Six Aligned, No Dissolution.]

Priority 6: W. D. Ross

Internet Archive: W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good

Ross provides a modern comparator for intuitionist moral realism. His account of prima facie duties should be assessed against Sterling’s specific positions rather than treated as equivalent to them.

[Note: the corpus has a CPA run on Ross. Four Aligned, with C1 and C2 Partially Aligned.]

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8. Final Research Recommendation

The recommended order for the next phase is:

• 1. Richard Price: Ethical intuitionism, moral realism, rationalism, and free will.
• 2. Ralph Cudworth: Eternal and immutable morality, intellectualism, and opposition to Hobbes.
• 3. Samuel Clarke: Necessary moral relations and rationalist ethics.
• 4. Thomas Reid: Active power and the metaphysics of freedom.
• 5. Adam Ferguson: The relationship between Stoic ethics and Scottish moral philosophy.
• 6. W. D. Ross: Modern intuitionist realism as a later comparator.

This order reflects the concentration of potentially relevant philosophical commitments, not a prediction of the outcome of any CPA run.

[Note: of this order, Cudworth, Clarke, Reid and Ross have already been run. Price and Ferguson remain.]

Methodological distinction: Historical research should establish what a philosopher actually argued. A CPA should then evaluate those positions against Sterling’s specified commitments. The fact that a philosopher is called a rationalist, realist, intuitionist, or Stoic is a research lead, not a verdict.

The scholarly references provide orientation, while primary texts provide the basis for verification. Both are necessary for a defensible comparative analysis.

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Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.