author
Richard Price
1723–1791
A Welsh thinker of the Enlightenment, he brought together philosophy, preaching, politics, and mathematics in a life that reached far beyond the pulpit. His writings on liberty and public life made him an influential voice in the age of the American and French Revolutions.
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About the author
Born in Glamorgan, Wales, in 1723, Richard Price became a Nonconformist minister, moral philosopher, and mathematician whose work moved easily between religion, ethics, and public affairs. He spent much of his career in and around London, where he preached, wrote, and joined the lively intellectual debates of the eighteenth century.
Price is remembered for both his ideas and his public influence. He wrote on moral philosophy and political liberty, supported the American cause, and later defended the early French Revolution. He also made important contributions to finance and probability, especially through work on life insurance, annuities, and population questions, showing an unusual gift for linking abstract thought with practical problems.
What makes him especially interesting is the range of his mind: he could be a preacher, a reformer, and a careful mathematical thinker all at once. That combination helped make him one of the distinctive voices of the British Enlightenment, admired by some contemporaries and sharply opposed by others.