Primary Literature

Work by Collins

• Collins, Anthony, 1707 [1984], An Essay Concerning the Use of Reason and A Discourse of Free Thinking, Peter Schouls (ed.), 1707; republished New York: Garland Press, 1984.

  A republication of Collins’ first book and his 1713 book on free thinking, both in their original eighteenth century type.

  (Scholar)
• –––, 1707 [1976], Determinism and Free Will, introduction by James O’Higgins, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

  Provides the facsimile text of Collins’ A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Freedom along with annotations and a useful introduction that discusses Collins’ place in the debate over free will and determinism and provides an analysis of the text.

  (Scholar)
• –––, 1729 [1970], A Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing, Edward A. Bloom and Lillian D. Bloom (eds.); republished, Los Angeles: The William Andrews Memorial Clarke Library, No. 142, 1970.

  A republication of Collins’ last book with an interesting introduction and notes.

  (Scholar)
• Clarke, Samuel and Anthony Collins, 2011, The Correspondence of Samuel Clarke and Anthony Collins, 1707–08, William Uzgalis (ed.), Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.

  A new edition of the Correspondence with an introduction, notes, index and supplementary readings that put the correspondence in context.

  (Scholar)
• Dybikowski, James (ed.), 2011, The Correspondence of Anthony Collins (1676–1729), Freethinker, Paris: Honoré Champion.

  A fine edition of Collins’ letters that includes an introduction, extensive notes that make clear many of the references in the letters that would otherwise be unintelligible, and an index.

  (Scholar)

Works by Others

• Bayle, Pierre, 1697 [1991], Historical and Critical Dictionary Selections, Richard Popkin (ed. and trans.), Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.

  This contains a translation of the article “Diaearchus” in which Bayle attacks the thinking matter hypothesis.

  (Scholar)
• Clarke, Samuel, 1738 [1928], The Works of Samuel Clarke, volumes 1–4; republished New York: Garland Press, 1928.

  Clarke’s Works have Clarke’s Boyle lectures, the Clarke Collins correspondence in its entirety and Clarke’s review of Collins’ 1717 book on determinism and free will.

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• Locke, John, 1690 [1975], An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Peter Nidditch (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Locke’s magnum opus had a considerable influence on Collins both in respect to his epistemological views and in respect to particular issues such as whether matter can think. This is currently the standard edition of Locke’s Essay.

  (Scholar)
• –––, 1989, The Correspondence of John Locke, volume 8, E. S. De Beer (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Contains Locke’s letters to Collins during the period of their eighteen month friendship. It is thus a major source for the study of their relationship.

  (Scholar)

Secondary Literature

• Agnesina, Jacopo, 2009, «Sur l’attribution à Anthony Collins du Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing» (in French), in La Lettre Clandestine, 17, Paris: Presses de l’université de Paris-Sorbonne, 277–290.

  Agnesina argues on the basis of a comparison of the sources used in A Discourse on Ridicule and Irony in Writing and the catalog of Anthony Collins library that the Discourse is a genuine work of Anthony Collins.

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• –––, 2011, “Anthony Collins e il Determinismo Logico” (in Italian), Rivista di Storia della Filosofia, 66(3): 409–430.

  Agnesina argues that Collins was not just a determinist but a logical determinist or necessitarian who was influenced indirectly by Spinoza through Bayle and Leibniz.

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• –––, 2018, The Philosophy of Anthony Collins: Free Thought and Atheism, Paris: Honoré Champion

  An account of the life and works of Anthony Collins focused on the question of whether Collins was an atheist. Agnesina fills in some of the philosophical background to Collins’ work, identifies previously unknown works, and often gives a compelling analysis of some of the works themselves.

  (Scholar)
• Attfield, Robin, 1977, “Clarke, Collins and Compounds”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 15(1): 45–54. doi:10.1353/hph.2008.0087

  Introduces the Clarke Collins controversy, and focuses on the issue of Clarke’s categories. Attfield suggests that if one does not wish to accept Clarke’s reductionism one should focus on the powers of functional objects.

  (Scholar)
• Bedau, Mark A. and Paul Humphreys (ed.), 2008, Emergence, Contemporary Readings in Philosophy and Science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262026215.001.0001

  While not dealing with emergent properties before J. S. Mill, the twentieth and twenty-first century treatments of emergence in this book gives some real perspective on the interest and importance of the arguments Collins gives for such properties in the Clarke Collins correspondence of 1707–08.

  (Scholar)
• Berman, David, 1975, “Anthony Collins: Aspects of His Thought and Writings”, Hermathena, 119: 49–70.

  This is, in effect, a critical review of James O’Higgins book Anthony Collins: The Man and His Work. Berman fills in the gaps that O’Higgins account leaves in our understanding of Collins. The article, then, is intended as a supplement to the book. Berman paints a picture of Collins as a genuine lover of truth who uses his wealth to create a research library used by many scholars. He relates Collins to Locke and Berkeley in terms of the meaning of terms for religious mysteries, e.g. the trinity, as well as in other ways.

  (Scholar)
• –––, 1980, “Hume and Collins on Miracles”, Hume Studies, 6(2): 150–154. doi:10.1353/hms.2011.0618 (Scholar)
• –––, 1988, A History of Atheism in Great Britain: From Hobbes to Russell, London, Croom Helm.

  Berman makes the case that Collins was an atheist. This is a competing interpretative hypothesis to O’Higgins’ view that Collins believed in the existence of God and a future state.

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• Colie, Rosalie L., 1959, “Spinoza and the Early English Deists”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 20(1): 23–46. doi:10.2307/2707965

  Develops the political dimension of early English Deism. Colie claims that Collins was the least political of the early English Deists. She discusses the relation of Collins’ views on necessity and the problem of evil to those of Spinoza.

  (Scholar)
• Copenhaver, Rebecca (ed.), 2018 Philosophy of Mind in the Early Modern and Modern Ages: The History of the Philosophy of Mind, Volume 4, London: Routledge.

  An anthology of works about Philosophy of Mind in the early modern and modern periods, including a chapter about the Clarke Collins correspondence (Uzgalis 2018).

  (Scholar)
• Cottingham, John, 1988, The Rationalists, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Explains heirloom theories of causality

  (Scholar)
• Ducharme, Howard M, 1986, “Personal Identity in Samuel Clarke”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 24(3): 359–383. doi:10.1353/hph.1986.0062

  Makes the case that Clarke develops the metaphysical view that underlies the distinction between identity in the strict and philosophical sense and identity in the loose and popular sense that Butler later named.

  (Scholar)
• Edwards, Paul, 2009, God and the Philosophers, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

  Puts Collins in the context of a brief history of Deism.

  (Scholar)
• Fergusen, James, 1974, The Philosophy of Dr. Samuel Clarke and its Critics, New York: Vantage Press.

  Fergusen deals with the Clarke Collins controversy over determinism and free will. He considers critically Clarke’s response to Spinoza and Hobbes.

  (Scholar)
• Fox, Christopher, 1988, Locke and the Scriblerians, Identity and Consciousness in Early Eighteenth Century Britain, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

  A fine treatment of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century debate over consciousness and personal identity that includes an account of the Clarke Collins correspondence of 1707–08 and the influence it had on the Scriblerians.

  (Scholar)
• Harris, James A., 2005, Of Liberty and Necessity, The Free Will Debate in Eighteenth Century British Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0199268606.001.0001

  Puts the views of Clarke and Collins in the context of other views about free will and determinism in the eighteenth century.

  (Scholar)
• Hefelbower, Samuel Gring, 1918, The Relation of John Locke to English Deism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  An effort to characterize the defining features of English Deism

  (Scholar)
• Jacob, Margaret C., 1976, The Newtonians and the English Revolution 1689–1720, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press

  Profiles the latitudinarian Anglicans both before and after the Revolution of 1688 who used Newtonian natural philosophy as a basis for justifying a particular social order against a materialistic, Hobbesian philosophy that they regarded as atheistic that justified a competing social order. Jacob thus puts the controversies between Clarke and Collins in a meaningful and interesting historical and intellectual context.

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• Lennon, Thomas M. and Robert J. Stainton (eds), 2008, The Achilles of Rationalist Psychology, Dordrecht: Springer.

  A collection of articles dealing with a Kantian argument intended to show the partless unity of the soul and variants of that argument. It includes an article about the Clarke Collins correspondence focused in part on Collins conception of matter.

  (Scholar)
• Martin, Raymond and John Barresi, 2000, The Naturalization of the Soul: Self and Personal Identity in Eighteenth Century, London: Routledge.

  Deals with the Clarke Collins correspondence of 1707–08 in the context of the history of the debate over consciousness and personal identity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

  (Scholar)
• McIntyre, Jane L., 1994, “Hume: Second Newton of the Moral Sciences”, Hume Studies, 20(1): 3–18.

  Deals with Hume’s relation to Clarke and Collins particularly in relation to the issue of whether the self is simple or compounded, and personal identity.

  (Scholar)
• McLaughlin, Brian P., 1992 [2008], “The Rise and Fall of British Emergentism”, in Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism, Ansgar Beckermann, Hans Flohr, and Jaegwon Kim (eds), Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Reprinted in Bedau and Humphreys 2008: 19–59. doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262026215.003.0003

  Explains the origins of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ school of British emergentist philosophers.

  (Scholar)
• Miller, Jon (ed.), 2009, Topics in Early Modern Philosophy of Mind (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind: Volume 9), Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-90-481-2381-0

  A collection of articles on European philosophers from Descartes to Hume and including material about the Clarke Collins correspondence.

  (Scholar)
• Mijuskovic, Ben Lazare, 1974, The Achilles of Rationalist Arguments, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

  Gives a history and analysis of the simplicity argument, central to Clarke’s claims about consciousness and the soul, that Collins argues against in the Clarke Collins correspondence of 1707–08. He discusses its uses in arguing for immortality and in questions about personal identity.

  (Scholar)
• Mossner, Ernest Campbell, 1967, two articles in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, volume 2, Paul Edwards (ed.), New York: Macmillan.
  • 1967a, “Anthony Collins”, pp. 144–146.

    Provides a good account of Collins, though significantly shorter and less detailed than the one provided here.

    (Scholar)
  • 1967b, “Deism”, pp. 326–336.

    Provides a fine overview of Deism both in England and on the continent with brief biographies of both major and minor figures.

• O’Higgins, James, 1970, Anthony Collins The Man and His Works, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

  The first full length study of Anthony Collins. The book is strong in its account of Collins’ life, his predecessors, his theological views, and his influence on the continent. What is missing is depth in the account of Collins’ philosophical views.

  (Scholar)
• Overhoff, Jurgen, 2000, Hobbes’ Theory of the Will: Ideological Reasons and Historical Circumstances, Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers.

  Provides an excellent account of the nature of Hobbes’ determinism and its context. This is helpful in assessing Collins’ place in the history of determinism.

  (Scholar)
• Perry, John (ed.), 2008, Personal Identity, 2nd edition, Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

  The second edition of the book includes selections on personal identity from the Clarke Collins correspondence of 1707–08 and an essay on Collins’ views on personal identity as well as many of the relevant chapters on personal identity from the early modern period as well as the twentieth century.

  (Scholar)
• Robertson, J. M., 1915, A Short History of Freethought: Ancient and Modern, London: Watts & Co.

  Treats Collins sympathetically in the context of the history of Freethinking.

  (Scholar)
• Rowe, William L., 1987, “Causality and Free Will in the Controversy Between Collins and Clarke”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 25(1): 51–67. doi:10.1353/hph.1987.0008

  Examines the debate over free will between Collins and Clarke and compares both views with those of Locke. Rowe explores assumptions the two sides have in common. His aim is to develop Clarke’s free agent theory.

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• –––, 1991, Thomas Reid on Freedom and Reality, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

  Treats Locke, Collins and Clarke’s views concerning free will and necessity as background for an exposition of the views of Thomas Reid. Rowe sees Reid as giving the best account of libertarian free will. In discussing the Clarke Collins interaction on determinism, he focuses on Clarke’s account of agency as an important antecedent to Reid.

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• Rozemond, Marleen, 2008, “The Achilles Argument and the Nature of Matter in the Clarke Collins Correspondence”, in Lennon and Stainton 2008: 159–175.

  Treats Clarke’s original argument as a variant of the Achilles of Rationalist arguments, finds the fundamental disagreement between Clarke and Collins in their differing views of matter (apart from their disagreement about emergent properties and discusses Clarke’s emergent soul.

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• –––, 2009, “Can Matter Think? The Mind–Body Problem in the Clarke–Collins Correspondence”, in Miller 2009: 171–182. doi:10.1007/978-90-481-2381-0_8

  Discusses the debate between Clarke and Collins over emergent properties and concludes that Collins abandoned his emergentism in favor of a version of the mind-brain identity theory.

  (Scholar)
• Russell, Paul, 1995, “Hume’s ‘Treatise’ and the Clarke Collins Controversy”, Hume Studies, 21(1): 95–115. doi:10.1353/hms.2011.0074

  Puts the controversies between Clarke and Collins over materialism and free will and determinism in context, summarizes the controversies themselves, and then considers the influence these had on Hume.

  (Scholar)
• Snobelen, Stephen, 1996, “The Argument over Prophecy: An Eighteenth-Century Debate between William Whiston and Anthony Collins”, Lumen: Selected Proceedings from the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 15: 195–213. doi:10.7202/1012482ar

  Explains the controversy between Collins and Whiston over the argument from prophecy and makes the point that Newton believed in the argument from prophecy and that Whiston is trying to apply Newtonian methods to biblical prophecy.

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• Stephen, Leslie, 1936, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, London: Watts & Co.

  Gives a detailed history of English Deism in both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and on the continent. There are several chapters devoted to Deism and one of these to Collins.

  (Scholar)
• Talbot, Ann, 2019, “Anthony Collins and China: The Philosophical Impact of the Missionary Encounter”, Journal of Early Modern History, 23(4): 325–349. doi:10.1163/15700658-12342629

  Argues that Collins found in the reports of the Jesuits about neo-Confucians, an atheistic and monistic ethic held by a government that was tolerant of different religious views

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• Tarantino, Giovanni, 2007, Lo scrittoio di Anthony Collins (1676–1729). I libri e i tempi di un libero pensatore (in Italian), Milan: Franco Angeli.

  This catalog of Collins’ library, the third largest in England when he died, allows one to see what sources were available to Collins the prolific writer.

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• Thompson, Ann, 2008, Bodies of Thought: Science, Religion and Soul in the Early Enlightenment, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199236190.001.0001

  Provides a detailed context for the Clarke Collins debate and follows the debate up to mid-eighteenth century France.

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• –––, 2010, “Animals, Humans, Machines and Thinking Matter, 1690–1707”, Early Science and Medicine, 15(1–2): 3–37. doi:10.1163/138374210x12589831573027

  Provides a context for Collins’ position about the similarities between animals and humans by explaining the views of a number of authors leading up to the Clarke Collins correspondence.

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• Toland, John, 1704 [2013], Letters to Serena, Ian Leask (ed.), Dublin, Four Court’s Press, 2013.

  A modern edition of the Letters with an interpretative introduction suggesting that Toland uses arguments he learned from Leibniz to fix a problem in the philosophy of Spinoza. Toland holds that motion is essential to matter.

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• Torrey, Norman L., 1930, Voltaire and the English Deists, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

  Discusses the influence Collins had on Voltaire’s conversion to determinism.

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• Uzgalis, William, 2008a, “Locke and Collins, Clarke and Butler, on successive persons”, in Perry 2008: 315–326.

  Argues that Collins has a materialist Lockean theory of personal identity and that nothing either Locke or Collins wrote committed them to a doctrine of successive persons as Bishop Butler alleged.

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• ––– (ed.), 2008b, “Selections from the Clarke-Collins Correspondence”, in Perry 2008: 283–314.

  This includes all of the material in the Clarke Collins correspondence of 1707–08 on personal identity.

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2009, “Anthony Collins on the Emergence of Consciousness and Personal Identity”, Philosophy Compass, 4(2): 363–379. doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00203.x

  Argues that Collins has an emergent account of consciousness and defends a materialist version of Locke’s account of personal identity.

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• –––, 2018, “Minds and Persons in the Clarke Collins Correspondence ”, in Copenhaver 2018: ch. 12.

  Examines some of the arguments, their strengths and weaknesses of the two protagonists in the Clarke Collins Correspondence.

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• Vailati, Ezio, 1993, “Clarke’s Extended Soul”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 31(3): 387–403. doi:10.1353/hph.1993.0052

  Argues that Collins’ most successful arguments in the Collins Clarke exchange of 1706–08 were against Clarke’s claim that the soul is extended.

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• –––, 1997, Leibniz and Clarke: A Study of their Correspondence, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Talks about the Clarke Collins correspondence to set the stage for the Leibniz Clarke Correspondence.

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• Wimsatt, William C., 1997 [2008], “Aggregativity: Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence”, Philosophy of Science, 64(Suppl.2): S372–S384. Reprinted in Bedau and Humphreys 2008: 99–110. (Scholar)
• Woolhouse, Roger S., 2007, Locke: A Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  The most recent biography of Locke which includes an account of Locke’s relations with Collins in Locke’s old age and other valuable material.

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• Yolton, John W., 1956, Locke and the Way of Ideas, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Yolton’s book has a section on the beginning phases of the “thinking matter” controversy in which we see that there were a number of writers on both sides while Locke was alive and that Locke discussed some of these with Collins.

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• –––, 1983, Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth Century Britain, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

  This book begins with Locke’s account of the possibility of “thinking matter” and traces the controversy over this suggestion well into the eighteenth century beginning with the Clarke Collins controversy of 1707–8

  (Scholar)