The complete works of Joseph Butler, newly edited, with an introduction, notes, glossary, and an analytic index. This edition of Bishop Joseph Butler's [1692-1752] complete works is the first newly edited version to appear in a century, and is the only one to include a single, analytic index to the whole works. The editor's introduction presents Butler's ethics and philosophy of religion as a single, comprehensive system of pastoral philosophy and surveys the vast influence Butler exerted, especially in the nineteenth century. Included here are all fifteen published sermons from Butler's tenure as Preacher at the Rolls Chapel, the only sermons in English routinely studied by secular ethicists to this day; six additional sermons on the great public institutions; his Charge to the Clergy at Durham, controversial in its day for its defense of external religion; his youthful letters sent anonymously to Samuel Clarke, and the complete text of his Analogy of Religion, an apologetic tour de force, including the famous introduction on probability as the guide to life, the analogical defense of immortality, free will and the moral order of nature, as well as his famous rebuttal of deism and his dissertations on virtue and on personal identify. Butler's work is among the monuments of classical Anglican theology. He is a major source for work in ethical theory and philosophy of religion, as well as for the background of Victorian literature. David E. White teaches philosophy at St. John Fisher College and is an officer in the New York State Philosophical Association.

Reprint of the original. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

Offers a new interpretation of Butler's theology and suggests that exploration of his methods may contribute to modern thinking about ethics, language, the Church as well as religion and science.

Using ordinary language and appealing to the acknowledged facts of experience, Bishop Butler presented a guidebook on how to live in pursuit of happiness and the benefit of all. This book introduces readers to Butler's philosophy as a whole and to the primary texts in his own words. Butler was an advocate and consistently defended the Church of England and its associated morality and theology in all his works. He insisted on the necessity of having good reasons to support any belief or practice toward which one was attracted. Butler's ideas are presented here as a good fit with the full range of theistic piety and with the varieties of ethical atheism. The imposition of dogma and the exposition of bias are discarded as distractive from the search for truth. The life, sources, works, and reception of Bishop Butler serve as a bridge, or navigational aid, joining the wisdom of the ancients, sacred and secular, with our experience as moderns and with our expectations for future generations. Since Butler insists on grounding his views in evidence and argumentation, his appeal extends well beyond the Anglican Communion. Butler's clarity of expression and cogency of argumentation free him from the bias associated with philosophical and religious thought. His work remains critical of, and receptive to, a wide range of ways to carry on the business of living a human life without falling into the kind of error and distraction most likely to lead to misery.