 The Cambridge Platonists were a group of English seventeenth-century thinkers associated with the University of Cambridge. The most important philosophers among them were  Henry More  (1614–1687) and  Ralph Cudworth  (1617–1688), both fellows of Christ’s College, Cambridge. The group also included  Benjamin Whichcote  (1609–1683),  Peter Sterry  (1613–1672),  John Smith  (1618–1652),  Nathaniel Culverwell  (1619–1651), and John Worthington (1618–1671). All of them studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, apart from More who studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where Cudworth was later appointed Master. Their personal and intellectual fortunes were impacted by events of the English Civil War and its aftermath. They developed their philosophical views against a background of the Calvinistic scholasticism which prevailed at Cambridge in their formative years. They did not self-identify as a group or as Platonists. They only came to be referred to as Platonists in the eighteenth century. But in so far as they all held the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus in high regard, and adopted principles of Platonist epistemology and metaphysics, the designation ‘Platonist’ is apt. They drew on a wide range of philosophical sources besides Platonism. For example, among ancient philosophers, they were well acquainted with Aristotle and with Stoicism. They shared the Renaissance Humanists’ regard for the achievements of ancient philosophy, as well as their interpretation of ancient philosophy, which was informed by a strong sense of its relevance of to contemporary life. At the same time, they were also very much abreast of new developments in philosophy and science – with Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza as well as Bacon, Boyle and the Royal Society. Smith, Culverwell, Cudworth and More were among the first Englishmen to read Descartes. Both More and Cudworth were fellows of the Royal Society. The framework within which they read and understood ancient and modern philosophy was that of the ‘perennial philosophy’ (philosophia perennis) adopted by Italian Renaissance philosophers such as Marsilio Ficino, and Agostino Steucho, but also employed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. They also emphatically repudiated the scholasticism that prevailed in academic philosophy and took a lively interest in the developments that brought about the scientific revolution. They therefore form part of the philosophical revolution of the seventeenth century, especially since they sought an alternative philosophical foundation to Aristotelianism which was waning fast in the face of challenges from scepticism and competing alternative philosophies, notably those of Hobbes and Descartes. 