Born February 2, 1619, in Somerset, Charleton was a fellow of the Royal Society and served as physician to Charles I and Charles II. His philosophical reputation derives mainly from translation and popularization: his A Ternary of Paradoxes “Englishes” Jean-Baptiste Van Helmont, and his Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charletoniana translates parts of Gassendi's Animadversiones. Charleton is sometimes called an English Gassendist, although he disclaimed the label, counting himself among the “sect of electors” or eclectics (Physiologia 1.1.1.6). And despite his close association with Hobbes and Margaret Cavendish, he was heavily influenced by Descartes as well. His Darkness of Atheism uses Descartes’ argument for the real distinction between mind and body (Darkness 1.2) and Descartes’ cosmological argument for the existence of God (Darkness 1.1) in the Third Meditation as well as Epicurean material. The later Immortality moves further from Gassendism to Cartesianism: for example, “Des Cartes hath irrefutably demonstrated, that the Knowledge we have of the existence of the Supreme Being, and of our own Souls, is not only Proleptical and Innate in the Mind of man, but also more certain, clear, and distinct, than the Knowledge of any Corporeal Nature whatever” (Immortality 119). He also wrote numerous medical works.

See also Cavendish, Margaret; Cosmological Argument; Dualism; Gassendi, Pierre; Hobbes, Thomas