CPA Run — Ralph Cudworth — Version 1.0
Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.
Classical Presupposition Audit (CPA) v1.2. Instrument architecture: Dave Kelly. Corpus opened for this run: the CPA v1.2 instrument document, Core Stoicism.
Result in brief: six Aligned, No Dissolution. He is the first of Hobbes’s answerers to put freedom in assent, and he holds more of the chain than any of the others, in places almost word for word. He breaks it at the conclusion: no being can be happy “without Immortality, and Security of the Future Continuance thereof.”
What Is the Classical Presupposition Audit?
The Classical Presupposition Audit identifies the presuppositions a named public figure must hold in order to argue as he does, and audits those presuppositions against the six classical commitments: substance dualism, libertarian free will, ethical intuitionism, foundationalism, correspondence theory of truth, and moral realism. The subject of analysis is the figure’s own argumentative record. The CPA issues findings about what that record requires at the level of embedded presupposition, and about what those presuppositions entail for an agent who takes up his framework as a governing account of his condition. It issues no findings about his inner life, his sincerity, or the correctness of his scholarship or policy.
Subject and Locus
Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688), Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge. The locus is three works: The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678), A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (printed 1731) and A Treatise of Freewill (a manuscript, printed 1838).
He does not name Hobbes in what was read. He writes of “a Modern Writer” and “a late Writer of Politicks,” and he names De Cive and the Leviathan.
Step 0 — Protocol Activation
The three works stand on three different footings.
- True Intellectual System: the whole text was in hand, downloaded as a public transcription and read directly.
- Read in full: the Preface; pp. 889–895 at the close of chapter V, where the transcription breaks off with four pages missing; and in chapter V pp. 658–660, 663–664, 690–691, 716–721, 825–826, 851–853 and 875–876.
- Searched: the rest of chapters I and V, by keyword, with the passage around each hit read. Chapters II, III and IV were not opened.
- Eternal and Immutable Morality: by extraction only, from four excerpts: Book I chapters I–III, and Book IV chapters II, III and VI. The rest of the book was not seen.
- Freewill: by extraction only, from a transcription of the manuscript. Chapters 1–17 were returned and then the copy broke off. The later chapters were not seen.
- Quotations keep the old spelling, with the long s modernized; those from Freewill keep the manuscript’s spelling. A capital is supplied where a quotation opens a sentence. Every quotation from the System was matched against the downloaded text; those from the other two works are as extracted. None has been checked against a printed text.
- Greek: the transcription of the System leaves out his Greek, so where he quotes Greek only his English was available.
- Corpus: the CPA v1.2 instrument document and Core Stoicism were opened in full. No other document on the CPA corpus list was opened.
- Input fit: a named figure with an argumentative record. The close of chapter V answers Hobbes on civil sovereignty; his defence of the rights of sovereigns is excluded.
Self-Audit — Step 0:
- Is the corpus in view? Partly; the exception is recorded here and ruled under Rulings on This Run.
- Are the sources restricted to the figure’s own record? Yes. Two of the three works were printed after his death; ruled below.
- Has a prior conclusion been stated or implied? Yes. It was expected that none of Hobbes’s answerers keeps the chain. Declared and set aside. This run bears on it; ruled below.
Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 1.
Step 1 — Presupposition Profile
Stage A — Argumentative Record Summary. Eight presuppositions are load-bearing.
P1 — There is a substance distinct from body, and it is the self. It is “as certain to us, as any thing in all Geometry, That Cogitation and Understanding, can never possibly Result out of Magnitudes, Figures, Sites, and Locall Motions” (Preface). What he asserts is “a Substance Specifically distinct from Body,” one that “is Self-Active, and hath an Internal Energy, distinct from that of Locall Motion” (Preface). The ruling principle is “that which is Properly We Ourselves (we rather Having those other things of Necessary Nature, then Beeing them)” (Freewill, ch. 10). The move: his answer to the “Modern Atheistick Writer” who holds that thinking is local motion.
P2 — Something is in our own power, and we are the beginners of our actions. “We are so far forth Principles or Masters of our own Actions, as to be Accountable to Justice for them” (Preface). There is something “In our own Power, (by means whereof, we become a Principle of Actions, accordingly deserving Commendation or Blame,) that is, something of Self-Activity” (p. 851). “Necessary Nature can be no Foundation for Blame and Punishment” (Freewill, ch. 9). The move: necessity, on whatever ground, means “taking away all Guilt and Blame, Punishments and Rewards” (Preface).
P3 — The power is one soul ruling itself, and it reaches to assent. He throws out the separate faculties: to say the will wills is like saying “the Faculty of walking walketh,” for “it is Really the Man or the Soul” that understands and wills (Freewill, ch. 7). By this power “every man is Self-made, into what He Is” (ch. 10). And it covers judgment: “It is not the Vnderstanding Power or Nature in us that Erreth, but it is We Our Selves who Err, when we rashly and unwarily assent to things, not Clearly Perceived by it” (p. 718). There is “something of Self-Activity in the Soul it Self, by means whereof, it can give its Assent, to things not clearly Perceived, and so Err” (p. 852).
P4 — Things are what they are by nature and not by will. “Every thing is what it is by Nature, and not by Will” (Morality, I.ii.3). So there is “Something in its own Nature, Immutably and Eternally Just, and Unjust; and not by Arbitrary Will, Law, and Command onely” (Preface). The move against Hobbes: “For what is Made meerly by Will, may be Destroyed by Will” (p. 893), and “Covenants without Natural Justice, are nothing but meer Words and Breath” (p. 894). He turns the same argument on divines who rest right and wrong on God’s bare will.
P5 — Moral differences are real. “The Differences of Just and Vnjust, Honest and Dishonest, are greater Realities in Nature, than the Differences of Hard and Soft, Hot and Cold, Moist and Dry” (p. 858).
P6 — Knowledge is the mind’s own act, and the mind brings moral notions with it. “Knowledge of Things doth not arise from the Activity, Energy and Radiation of the Objects without upon us, Passively Received by Sense, but from the Active and Comprehensive Energy or Activity of the Mind it self” (Morality, IV.ii.6). “The Man hath certain Moral Anticipations and Signatures stamped inwardly upon his Soul” (IV.ii.14). The soul “is not a meer Rasa Tabula” (IV.vi.4). The move: against “a late Writer of our own” who “determins, Sense to be Original Knowledge” (p. 634).
P7 — Truth is not made, and the common notions cannot be false. “Truth is not Factitious; it is a thing which cannot be Arbitrarily Made, but Is” (p. 718). What is clearly perceived is “a Publick, Catholick, and Vniversal Truth” (p. 720). The common notions are “the Principles from whence all their knowledge is derived,” and we have “such a Certainty of Truth in our Common Notions, as that they cannot Possibly be False; without which nothing at all could be proved by Reason” (p. 721). The move: against Descartes, whose proof of our faculties from God and of God from our faculties “is plainly to move round in a Circle; and to prove nothing at all” (p. 717).
P8 — The chief good is the right use of one’s own will, yet happiness needs immortality. The truly religious “place their Chief Good, in nothing that is ... Aliene or in Anothers Power, and Exposed to the strokes of Fortune; but in that which is most truly their Own, namely the Right use of their own Will” (p. 659). Yet “though an understanding Being, have never so much Enjoyment of it self for the present, yet could it not possibly be Happy, without Immortality, and Security of the Future Continuance thereof” (p. 889). The move: his answers to the atheist’s arguments from fear and from interest rest on both.
Stage B — Domain Mapping. There are five domains: substance (P1), agency (P2, P3), morals (P4, P5), knowledge (P6, P7) and happiness (P8). Four tensions were mapped and joined.
- Free will as the ground of desert against free will as an imperfection. It “hath a Mixture of Imperfection in it” (Freewill, ch. 14), and true liberty is to be “Habitually Fixed in Morall Good” (ch. 17). He joins them himself: it is given “as a Self-Promoting Self-improoving Power” (ch. 13), the means by which an imperfect being reaches that state.
- Freedom against acting by what appears good. “Men act according to an Appearance of Good” (p. 710), and much of what they do can be foreseen. He joins them: the liberty he defends is “Liberty of Will, properly so called, not that of Fortuitous Determination” (p. 690).
- Truth as agreement with things against truth as clear perception. He divides the cases himself: “the Truth of Singular Contingent Propositions, depends upon the Things themselves Existing without, as the Measure and Archetype thereof,” while for universal truths “the very Essence of Truth here, is this Clear Perceptibility or Intelligibility” (p. 718).
- A soul distinct from body against a soul always joined to some body. He offers the second only as an old opinion and will not “Dogmatize” on it (Preface).
No Inconsistent finding is available.
The expository exception is not invoked. Much of the System reports the ancients. One sentence that would serve C1 is of that kind: “And this is properly called, I My Self, not the Extended Bulk of the Body” (p. 826) closes an argument he takes from Plotinus. He argues in the same domain in his own voice, so the argued material is the source and that sentence is left out of the profile.
Self-Audit — Step 1:
- Are the presuppositions drawn from his own record? Yes, subject to the Step 0 footing.
- Was the load-bearing test applied? Yes; his proofs of God, his history of atomism, his pagan theology and the plastic nature are excluded.
- Was charity applied? Yes, to all four tensions.
- Were domain variations mapped? Yes.
- Was the expository exception handled? Considered and not invoked.
Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 2.
Step 2 — Commitment Audit
C1 — Substance Dualism: Aligned. P1 holds a self-active substance distinct from body and calls it “We Ourselves,” the rest being what we have and not what we are. He adds that “Pain is not the Evil of the Man, but only of the Part so affected” (p. 876).
C2 — Libertarian Free Will: Aligned. P2 and P3 make the man the beginner of his own acts, and P3 carries this to assent. None of the four before him did that.
C3 — Ethical Intuitionism: Aligned. P6 gives moral notions that the mind has from itself and not from sense or from reckoning what is useful.
C4 — Foundationalism: Aligned. P7 names the stopping points and says why they must hold. He gives up Descartes’s proof sooner than let the common notions be doubted.
C5 — Correspondence Theory of Truth: Aligned. P4 and P7 put truth beyond any will or opinion: the natures of things are “neither Alterable by any Will whatsoever, nor changeable by Opinion” (Morality, IV.vi.3). His account of universal truths as clear perceptibility is ruled below.
C6 — Moral Realism: Aligned. P4 and P5 make just and unjust real in nature, against law, compact, and the bare will of God alike.
Recorded, not tested: where he stands with the chain.
- The good is in our own will. The chief good is “the Right use of their own Will,” and not in anything “Aliene or in Anothers Power” (p. 659). The atheist’s world is dismal because in it “there should be no other Good, than what depends upon things wholly out of our own power” (p. 663). Compare Th6, Th10 and line 12.
- Fear comes from placing good and evil outside. Atheists are “liable to great Fears and Solicitudes, concerning Outward Events,” because they place good and evil in pleasure and pain (p. 659). Compare Th3 and line 4.
- Opinions disturb us, not things. “It is not Things themselves that disturb men, but only their Own Opinions concerning things; and therefore it being much in our own Power to be freed from these, Providence is not to be Blamed upon the account of them” (p. 876). He gives this as the saying of “the Moralist.” It is taken here to be Epictetus, Enchiridion 5; the identification is this run’s, made from his English. Compare Th7 and line 8.
- Things are as they should be. “To Believe a God, is to Believe the Existence of all Possible Good and Perfection in the Universe; It is to Believe, That things are as they Should be” (p. 889). Compare Th21 and Th22.
- Everyone wants the good. What first moves us is “a Constant, Restless, Uninterrupted Desire or love of Good; as such Happyness” (Freewill, ch. 8). Compare Th1.
- Against Stoic fate. Necessity under a good God “hath not onely been formerly asserted by the Stoicks, but also of late, by divers Modern Writers” (Preface), and his third book was to be written against it. On fate he stands where Core Stoicism stands at Th21, against the ancient school. His name for the seat of freedom, the hegemonicon, is the Stoic word for the ruling principle; he cites it from Origen.
Recorded, not tested: where he leaves it.
- Happiness needs immortality. No being can be happy “without Immortality, and Security of the Future Continuance thereof” (p. 889). This is against line 14 and the closing guarantee, which put complete happiness in our control now.
- Happiness rests on hope. “They who are without Hope, can never be free from Fear” (p. 664). Hope looks to a good to come that is not in our control; line 4 counts such a desire as exposure to unhappiness.
- Chief good, not only good. He writes “Chief Good.” He also reports “the Complete Happiness of a man, and all the Good that can be desired by him” as the poet’s sound mind in a sound body, and sets beside it a Christian happiness that includes a glorious body hereafter (p. 798, found by search). This is against Th10 and line 12.
- Assent is free only past clear perception. We err when we assent to what is “not Clearly Perceived,” and a perfect being “cannot have any such Power of Streching its’ Iudgment, beyound Certain knowledge” (Freewill, ch. 14). Th6 puts belief in our control without that limit.
- A higher and a lower principle. Blame falls on the man who “succumbeth under, the Lower Affections” (Freewill, ch. 5), and the struggle is “a long Lasting or Continued warr” between “the Higher and the Lower Principle” (ch. 11). Th7 makes desire follow judgment. The soul’s self-exertion also comes “more or less” (ch. 10).
- Grace. True liberty comes “by the Right vse of the Faculty of Free will, together with the Assistence of Divine Grace” (Freewill, ch. 17). The closing guarantee asks only that we judge correctly.
Self-Audit — Step 2:
- Were all presuppositions audited? Yes.
- Was Non-Operative used to avoid a Contrary? No.
- Were findings distributed for balance? No; six Aligned is what the criteria return.
- Were findings issued outside the corpus’s domain? None on the proofs of God, the pagan theology or civil sovereignty.
- Would the same findings issue for an unsympathetic figure? Yes.
- Was an Inconsistent finding considered? At C5 and at C2, and resolved by joining.
Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 3.
Step 3 — Dissolution Finding
C1 and C2 are both Aligned.
Finding: No Dissolution.
The framework gives a self that is not body and that rules its own assents and acts. This is a finding about the framework, not about Cudworth’s inner life, and it is not a political verdict.
Self-Audit — Step 3:
- Does the finding follow mechanically from Step 2? Yes.
- Is it stated of the framework? Yes.
- Is it philosophical, not political? Yes.
- Was any Inconsistent finding on C1 or C2 present? No.
Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 4.
Step 4 — Summary Finding
Part A — Commitment Pattern.
- C1 — Substance Dualism: Aligned
- C2 — Libertarian Free Will: Aligned
- C3 — Ethical Intuitionism: Aligned
- C4 — Foundationalism: Aligned
- C5 — Correspondence Theory of Truth: Aligned
- C6 — Moral Realism: Aligned
Overall pattern: 6 Aligned, 0 Partially Aligned, 0 Contrary, 0 Inconsistent, 0 Non-Operative. The strongest alignment is C2, held at the point of assent. No divergence appears at commitment level. The deepest divergence is the second half of P8: happiness needs immortality.
Part B — Dissolution Finding. No Dissolution.
Part C — Agent-Level Implication. An agent who adopts Cudworth’s framework takes himself to be a soul and not a body, one who rules his own judgments and acts and is answerable for them. He holds that right and wrong are fixed in the nature of things and that his mind knows them from itself. He places his chief good in the right use of his own will, he holds that his own opinions and not things disturb him, and he believes that the world is as it should be. He also holds that he cannot be happy unless he is immortal and secure of it, that he lives by hope, that a lower principle in him wars with the higher, and that he needs grace to be fixed in the good. He holds all six commitments and most of the chain, and he does not hold its conclusion.
Corpus Boundary Declaration. No finding is issued on his proofs of God, on the pagan theology, on the plastic nature, on the rights of sovereigns, on immortality, or on whether his reply to Hobbes succeeds.
Self-Audit — Step 4:
- Does the summary follow from the preceding steps? Yes.
- Is it free of political verdict? Yes.
- Is it addressed to the adopting agent? Yes.
- Is the boundary declared? Yes.
- Is the summary self-contained? Yes.
Self-Audit Complete. CPA run complete.
Rulings on This Run
- The Step 0 source footing stands. The System was read directly, in the places listed. Morality and Freewill came by extraction, in part. P3 leans on Freewill for the ruling principle; its two sentences on assent come from the System, read directly.
- Morality and Freewill, printed after his death, are admitted as his own argumentative record. Without Freewill, C2 is still Aligned on the System alone. Without Morality, C3 would rest on thinner ground.
- The Step 0 corpus exception stands: only the CPA v1.2 instrument document and Core Stoicism were opened.
- C5 is Aligned. For universal truths he makes clear perception “the very Essence of Truth.” That this is a mark within the mind and not agreement with a thing does not make the finding Partially Aligned: the criterion as written asks whether truth holds apart from belief, outcome and endorsement, and his does.
- C2 is Aligned at the point of assent. That he limits free assent to what is not clearly perceived is recorded and is not a residual, following the ruling in CPA Run — Thomas Reid.
- The prior conclusion was that none of Hobbes’s answerers keeps the chain. It still holds, but Cudworth changes its shape. Five have now been run: Reid, Butler, Bramhall, Clarke and Cudworth. He holds the commitments and most of the chain together, and parts from it only at happiness, hope and grace. The fairer statement is that one of the five came close.
- The Political Application Constraint is read as not applying, as in CPA Run — Thomas Hobbes. His argument on sovereignty is excluded.
Sources
- Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678), Text Creation Partnership transcription.
- Cudworth, A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (1731), Cambridge Platonism Sourcebook: Book I, chapters I–III; Book IV, chapter II; Book IV, chapter III; Book IV, chapter VI.
- Cudworth, A Treatise of Freewill, British Library Additional MS 4978, Cambridge Platonism Sourcebook.
Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.
