Richard Burthogge [sometimes spelled Borthoge, Burthog, Burthoggius] (1637/38–1705) was an English physician, magistrate and philosopher.
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Richard Burthogge, son of a captain of foot at the garrison of Plymouth, was baptised in Plympton St Maurice on 30 January 1637 (OS; 1638 by the Gregorian calendar). He attended Exeter grammar school[1], was admitted to All Souls College, Oxford, as a servitor in 1654, migrated to Lincoln College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. “completed by determination” in 1658.[2] He matriculated at the University of Leiden in October 1661. His doctoral thesis was entitled “De lithiasi et calculo” and submitted on 27 February 1662.
Back in England, Burthogge practiced medicine in and near Totnes. He spent many years at Bowden House, which belonged to his sister’s husband Edward Giles. Unprejudiced even against Catholics and probably himself a Non-Conformist, he was made a justice of the peace under James II, a position he kept also under William III.
Burthogge was married at least three times. His first wife Sarah[3] was the daughter of Andrew Trevill, to whom he dedicated The Divine Goodness in 1670 and his Organum Vetus et Novum in 1678. In the following years, then already married to Mary Deeble[4], Burthogge published several other works on religious subjects and two further philosophical works, both dedicated to John Locke: An Essay upon Reason, and the Nature of Spirits (1694) and Of the Soul of the World; and of Particular Souls (1699). Mary probably died in 1695. His daughters Sarah, Mary and Ann will have issued from these first two marriages. Ann, who died before her father, left a young son, Richard Babbage, ancestor of Charles Babbage. At the time of his death, Burthogge was married to Honour and seems to have lived in Bowden. He was buried at St. Mary’s church, Totnes, on 24 July 1705. [5]
In his philosophical and theological writings he was a critic in some matters of John Locke, but generally a supporter, and an advocate of religious toleration. His epistemology was empiricist, and he opposed innate ideas. His metaphysics was distinctive, but not completely worked out.[6]