author
B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) Cocker
1821–1883
A Methodist minister and philosopher, he spent much of his career at the University of Michigan, where he became known for lively lectures and wide-ranging religious and philosophical writing. His best-known books explore how Christian belief relates to Greek thought, modern skepticism, and the idea of a theistic universe.
2 Audiobooks
Christianity and Greek Philosophy or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles
by B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) Cocker
The Theistic Conception of the World An Essay in Opposition to Certain Tendencies of Modern Thought
by B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) Cocker
About the author
Born in Yorkshire, England, in 1821, he was raised in a Wesleyan family, became a local preacher while still young, and later spent several years in business before moving to Canada. After work in the ministry there, he went on to serve as a Methodist Episcopal pastor and educator in the United States.
He joined the University of Michigan faculty in the 1860s and taught philosophy there for about two decades, earning a reputation as a popular and admired professor. Alongside his academic work, he remained an active religious thinker whose lectures and books aimed to connect philosophical inquiry with Christian faith.
Readers still know him chiefly through works such as Christianity and Greek Philosophy and The Theistic Conception of the World. Those books show his gift for writing serious ideas in an energetic, accessible way, especially for readers interested in the meeting point of religion, philosophy, and nineteenth-century intellectual life.