American Philosophies

Puritan philosophy arises out of sense of the separation and uniqueness that developed as the Puritans left England because of religious persecution and settled in the New World. The difficulty of such a journey and the problems of living in an unfamiliar land combined to add a kind of rigor and harshness to the Puritans' Christian theology and a strict ethical and social control over the members of their communities.

The first truly influential and famous of Puritan philosophers, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), came years after the Puritans settled in the New World, and is perhaps best known for his fiery sermons and his active role in the religious revivals of the Great Awakening. His endeavor to reconcile Calvinist theology and Congregationalist religious practices with Enlightenment philosophy and science put him squarely in the middle of the conflict between religious traditionalism and the increasing secularization of American society. Edwards's philosophy sought to discard neither religion nor science; rather, his systematic study of both brought him to espouse a naturalized religion in which religious affections and their effects on human conduct replace the supernatural as the primary objects of concern.