Covetous of Truth

This work is devoted to the life and work of Thomas White, an important and wide-ranging 17th-century thinker long overdue for historical rehabilitation. Renowned in his own day as an eminent philosopher, White's reputation suffered not least as a result of his theological heresies and his pre-Cromwellian political sympathies. Here, White is shown as the leader of an influential faction of English Catholics, known after his alias as "Blackloists"; as a dogged opponent of the then newly-fashionable scepticism; and as a would-be synthesizer of scholastic thought with the "new philosophy". In his Janus-faced intellectual stance White exemplifies the position of many mid-17th-century thinkers, and he is presented here as representing a philosophical standpoint that is crucial for our understanding of a fascinating period in intellectual history.