Philosophical Ideas in the Missionary Work of John Eliot

The purpose of this study is to analyze the intellectual heritage of John Eliot’s missionary activity in order to identify his philosophical ideas. This thinker’s biography and works are well studied by the scientific community, but little attention has been paid to his philosophical ideas. However, it is known that John Eliot was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and then became a famous Puritan missionary, preacher, and lexicographer. He was also known as the “Apostle of the Indians.” We used historical– philosophical reconstruction and historical–comparative methods to analyze the early American philosopher’s political and religious works. As a result, we undertook to describe the main works of John Eliot and prove the existence of one of the first examples of the historical acquaintance of representatives of an indigenous population of North America with European philosophy, especially Aristotelianism. Evidence of teaching logic and metaphysics, as well as attempts to translate philosophical concepts and terms from English into the languages of an indigenous population of North America has been discovered.