Jeff Jordan
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199291328
- eISBN:
- 9780191710698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291328.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter scrutinizes nine objections leveled against Pascal's Wager. Two of these objections are charges that Pascalian reasoning is immoral. Three might be called ‘methodological objections’, as ...
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This chapter scrutinizes nine objections leveled against Pascal's Wager. Two of these objections are charges that Pascalian reasoning is immoral. Three might be called ‘methodological objections’, as they purport to show that the Wager argument is unsound because of this or that logical flaw. Four of the objections flow out of theological considerations. None of the nine, however, survives close scrutiny. The Jamesian Wager, in particular, escapes the nine unscathed.Less
This chapter scrutinizes nine objections leveled against Pascal's Wager. Two of these objections are charges that Pascalian reasoning is immoral. Three might be called ‘methodological objections’, as they purport to show that the Wager argument is unsound because of this or that logical flaw. Four of the objections flow out of theological considerations. None of the nine, however, survives close scrutiny. The Jamesian Wager, in particular, escapes the nine unscathed.
J. B. Bullen
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128885
- eISBN:
- 9780191671722
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128885.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Few people who use the word ‘Renaissance’ today realize that it is a comparatively recent historical idea, or that it is a ‘myth’ or story constructed by writers to explain the past. This innovative ...
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Few people who use the word ‘Renaissance’ today realize that it is a comparatively recent historical idea, or that it is a ‘myth’ or story constructed by writers to explain the past. This innovative and wide-ranging book traces the genesis of that myth back to the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The seeds of the idea are to be found in Voltaire, but the book shows how it was taken up by French art historians and Gothic revivalists as an important element in the acrimonious political and religious debates with French historiography. The book’s main focus, however, is on English intellectual life and the ways in which writers like Augustus Welby Pugin, John Ruskin, Robert Browning, and George Eliot took up the terms established by Victor Hugo, Francis Alexis Rio, and Jules Michelet in France and adapted a reading of fifteenth-century Italy to suit the special conditions of Victorian England. Ultimately, in the work of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Matthew Arnold, Walter Horatio Pater, and John Addington Symonds the Renaissance became a key factor in relating ethics and aesthetics, and in its late nineteenth-century phase, the myth figures prominently in an important discussion about the relationship between power, authority, and individualism.Less
Few people who use the word ‘Renaissance’ today realize that it is a comparatively recent historical idea, or that it is a ‘myth’ or story constructed by writers to explain the past. This innovative and wide-ranging book traces the genesis of that myth back to the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The seeds of the idea are to be found in Voltaire, but the book shows how it was taken up by French art historians and Gothic revivalists as an important element in the acrimonious political and religious debates with French historiography. The book’s main focus, however, is on English intellectual life and the ways in which writers like Augustus Welby Pugin, John Ruskin, Robert Browning, and George Eliot took up the terms established by Victor Hugo, Francis Alexis Rio, and Jules Michelet in France and adapted a reading of fifteenth-century Italy to suit the special conditions of Victorian England. Ultimately, in the work of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Matthew Arnold, Walter Horatio Pater, and John Addington Symonds the Renaissance became a key factor in relating ethics and aesthetics, and in its late nineteenth-century phase, the myth figures prominently in an important discussion about the relationship between power, authority, and individualism.
R. R. Palmer
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161280
- eISBN:
- 9781400850228
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161280.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter discusses a movement of modern democratic type in Geneva in 1768, which made a positive impression on institutions of government. In the roles played by upper, middle, and lower classes, ...
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This chapter discusses a movement of modern democratic type in Geneva in 1768, which made a positive impression on institutions of government. In the roles played by upper, middle, and lower classes, in the conflict between political and economic demands, and in the interplay between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary pressures, this “revolution” at Geneva prefigured or symbolized the greater revolution that was to come in France. It was, moreover, a revolution precipitated by the presence in the neighborhood of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It was here that the Social Contract produced its first explosion. Near at hand, at the same time, lived another worthy of more than local repute, namely Voltaire. The embroilment of Rousseau and Voltaire in the politics of Geneva meant the blowing of two antithetical views of the world into a teapot tempest; or, rather, the agitations at Geneva, which in themselves were significant enough, were brought to the level of world history by the involvement of these two difficult geniuses.Less
This chapter discusses a movement of modern democratic type in Geneva in 1768, which made a positive impression on institutions of government. In the roles played by upper, middle, and lower classes, in the conflict between political and economic demands, and in the interplay between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary pressures, this “revolution” at Geneva prefigured or symbolized the greater revolution that was to come in France. It was, moreover, a revolution precipitated by the presence in the neighborhood of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It was here that the Social Contract produced its first explosion. Near at hand, at the same time, lived another worthy of more than local repute, namely Voltaire. The embroilment of Rousseau and Voltaire in the politics of Geneva meant the blowing of two antithetical views of the world into a teapot tempest; or, rather, the agitations at Geneva, which in themselves were significant enough, were brought to the level of world history by the involvement of these two difficult geniuses.
Andrew Kahn
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199234745
- eISBN:
- 9780191715747
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199234745.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, Poetry
This chapter returns to the intersection of poetry and ideas. It refocuses on a theory of sensibility that is an important part of the pre-Romantic legacy of Pushkin's view of individual identity. In ...
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This chapter returns to the intersection of poetry and ideas. It refocuses on a theory of sensibility that is an important part of the pre-Romantic legacy of Pushkin's view of individual identity. In exploring the impact of materialist thought, it considers works that are not usually read together because they fall into separate thematic groupings. When seen as structural or stylistic invariants, Pushkin's motifs often seem static and suggest an apparent lack of development over the course of his career. This impression is illusory. We can better appreciate how his thinking evolves by seeing motifs in terms of ideas that are dynamic links between poems.Less
This chapter returns to the intersection of poetry and ideas. It refocuses on a theory of sensibility that is an important part of the pre-Romantic legacy of Pushkin's view of individual identity. In exploring the impact of materialist thought, it considers works that are not usually read together because they fall into separate thematic groupings. When seen as structural or stylistic invariants, Pushkin's motifs often seem static and suggest an apparent lack of development over the course of his career. This impression is illusory. We can better appreciate how his thinking evolves by seeing motifs in terms of ideas that are dynamic links between poems.
Siân Reynolds
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199560424
- eISBN:
- 9780191741814
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199560424.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, Cultural History
This chapter analyses Marie-Jeanne's determination to educate herself, she is allowed to read: works of religion, but also Plutarch and Voltaire, provided by the apprentices. After her pious mother's ...
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This chapter analyses Marie-Jeanne's determination to educate herself, she is allowed to read: works of religion, but also Plutarch and Voltaire, provided by the apprentices. After her pious mother's death, she has an unusual series of older mentors, who suggest reading the philosophes and especially Rousseau, to whom she becomes devoted, and whom she tries to visit.Less
This chapter analyses Marie-Jeanne's determination to educate herself, she is allowed to read: works of religion, but also Plutarch and Voltaire, provided by the apprentices. After her pious mother's death, she has an unusual series of older mentors, who suggest reading the philosophes and especially Rousseau, to whom she becomes devoted, and whom she tries to visit.
Tony James
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151883
- eISBN:
- 9780191672873
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151883.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, European Literature
This is an important new analysis of the problematic relationship between dreams and madness as perceived by 19th-century French writers, thinkers, and doctors. Those wishing to know the nature of ...
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This is an important new analysis of the problematic relationship between dreams and madness as perceived by 19th-century French writers, thinkers, and doctors. Those wishing to know the nature of madness, wrote Voltaire, should observe their dreams. The relationship between the dream-state and madness is a key theme of 19th-century European, and specifically French, thought. The meaning of dreams and associated phenomena such as somnambulism, ecstasy, and hallucinations (including those induced by hashish) preoccupied writers, philosophers, and psychiatrists. This book shows how doctors (such as Esquirol, Lélut, and Janet), thinkers (including Maine de Biran and Taine), and writers (for example, Balzac, Nerval, Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, and Rimbaud) grappled in very different ways with the problems raised by the so-called ‘phenomena of sleep’. Were historical figures such as Socrates or Pascal in fact mad? Might dreaming be a source of creativity, rather than a merely subsidiary, ‘automatic’ function? What of lucid dreaming? By exploring these questions, this book makes good a considerable gap in the history of pre-Freudian psychology.Less
This is an important new analysis of the problematic relationship between dreams and madness as perceived by 19th-century French writers, thinkers, and doctors. Those wishing to know the nature of madness, wrote Voltaire, should observe their dreams. The relationship between the dream-state and madness is a key theme of 19th-century European, and specifically French, thought. The meaning of dreams and associated phenomena such as somnambulism, ecstasy, and hallucinations (including those induced by hashish) preoccupied writers, philosophers, and psychiatrists. This book shows how doctors (such as Esquirol, Lélut, and Janet), thinkers (including Maine de Biran and Taine), and writers (for example, Balzac, Nerval, Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, and Rimbaud) grappled in very different ways with the problems raised by the so-called ‘phenomena of sleep’. Were historical figures such as Socrates or Pascal in fact mad? Might dreaming be a source of creativity, rather than a merely subsidiary, ‘automatic’ function? What of lucid dreaming? By exploring these questions, this book makes good a considerable gap in the history of pre-Freudian psychology.
Margaret C. Jacob
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691161327
- eISBN:
- 9780691189123
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161327.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This is a panoramic account of the radical ways that life began to change for ordinary people in the age of Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau. In this book, familiar Enlightenment figures share places ...
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This is a panoramic account of the radical ways that life began to change for ordinary people in the age of Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau. In this book, familiar Enlightenment figures share places with voices that have remained largely unheard until now, from freethinkers and freemasons to French materialists, anticlerical Catholics, pantheists, pornographers, readers, and travelers. The book reveals how this newly secular outlook was not a wholesale rejection of Christianity but rather a new mental space in which to encounter the world on its own terms. It takes readers from London and Amsterdam to Berlin, Vienna, Turin, and Naples, drawing on rare archival materials to show how ideas central to the emergence of secular democracy touched all facets of daily life. Human frailties once attributed to sin were now viewed through the lens of the newly conceived social sciences. People entered churches not to pray but to admire the architecture, and spent their Sunday mornings reading a newspaper or even a risqué book. The secular-minded pursued their own temporal and commercial well-being without concern for the life hereafter, regarding their successes as the rewards for their actions, their failures as the result of blind economic forces.Less
This is a panoramic account of the radical ways that life began to change for ordinary people in the age of Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau. In this book, familiar Enlightenment figures share places with voices that have remained largely unheard until now, from freethinkers and freemasons to French materialists, anticlerical Catholics, pantheists, pornographers, readers, and travelers. The book reveals how this newly secular outlook was not a wholesale rejection of Christianity but rather a new mental space in which to encounter the world on its own terms. It takes readers from London and Amsterdam to Berlin, Vienna, Turin, and Naples, drawing on rare archival materials to show how ideas central to the emergence of secular democracy touched all facets of daily life. Human frailties once attributed to sin were now viewed through the lens of the newly conceived social sciences. People entered churches not to pray but to admire the architecture, and spent their Sunday mornings reading a newspaper or even a risqué book. The secular-minded pursued their own temporal and commercial well-being without concern for the life hereafter, regarding their successes as the rewards for their actions, their failures as the result of blind economic forces.
Stephen Gaukroger
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199594931
- eISBN:
- 9780191595745
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199594931.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, General
In the course of the eighteenth century, natural philosophy began to take on a new cultural standing, emerging as the paradigm bearer of, and the standard for, cognitive values. It was Fontenelle who ...
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In the course of the eighteenth century, natural philosophy began to take on a new cultural standing, emerging as the paradigm bearer of, and the standard for, cognitive values. It was Fontenelle who had established the standing of natural philosophy in France as a worthy and useful form of inquiry, but it was Voltaire who had elevated its standing further by making it into the model for cognitive grasp per se. In d'Alembert's preliminary Discours to the Encyclopédie, a more elaborate statement of the archetypal role of natural philosophy in cognitive enquiry was set out.Less
In the course of the eighteenth century, natural philosophy began to take on a new cultural standing, emerging as the paradigm bearer of, and the standard for, cognitive values. It was Fontenelle who had established the standing of natural philosophy in France as a worthy and useful form of inquiry, but it was Voltaire who had elevated its standing further by making it into the model for cognitive grasp per se. In d'Alembert's preliminary Discours to the Encyclopédie, a more elaborate statement of the archetypal role of natural philosophy in cognitive enquiry was set out.
Jonathan I. Israel
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206088
- eISBN:
- 9780191676970
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206088.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, European Modern History
Arguably the most decisive shift in the history of ideas in modern times was the complete demolition during the late 17th and 18th centuries — in the wake of the Scientific Revolution — of ...
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Arguably the most decisive shift in the history of ideas in modern times was the complete demolition during the late 17th and 18th centuries — in the wake of the Scientific Revolution — of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, culminating in Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. In this revolutionary process, which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as well as man's dominance over woman, theological dominance of education, and slavery, substituting the modern principles of equality, democracy, and universality, the Radical Enlightenment played a crucially important part. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of the late 18th century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have been little studied doubtless largely because of its very wide international sweep and the obvious difficulty of fitting it into the restrictive conventions of ‘national history’ which until recently tended to dominate all historiography. The greatest obstacle to the Radical Enlightenment finding its proper place in modern historical writing is simply that it was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish, or Dutch, but all of these at the same time. In this novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents, particular stress is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism.Less
Arguably the most decisive shift in the history of ideas in modern times was the complete demolition during the late 17th and 18th centuries — in the wake of the Scientific Revolution — of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, culminating in Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. In this revolutionary process, which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as well as man's dominance over woman, theological dominance of education, and slavery, substituting the modern principles of equality, democracy, and universality, the Radical Enlightenment played a crucially important part. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of the late 18th century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have been little studied doubtless largely because of its very wide international sweep and the obvious difficulty of fitting it into the restrictive conventions of ‘national history’ which until recently tended to dominate all historiography. The greatest obstacle to the Radical Enlightenment finding its proper place in modern historical writing is simply that it was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish, or Dutch, but all of these at the same time. In this novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents, particular stress is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism.
Roger Pearson
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158806
- eISBN:
- 9780191673375
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158806.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Three hundred years after his birth in 1694, this is the first comprehensive study of Voltaire's Contes Philosophiques: the philosophical tales for which he is now best remembered and which include ...
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Three hundred years after his birth in 1694, this is the first comprehensive study of Voltaire's Contes Philosophiques: the philosophical tales for which he is now best remembered and which include the masterpiece Candide. This book situates each of the 26 stories in its historical and intellectual context and offers new readings and approaches in the light of modern critical thinking. It rejects the traditional view that Voltaire's Contes were the private expression of his philosophical perplexity, written merely in the margins of his historiography and his campaigns against the Establishment. Arguing that narrative is Voltaire's essential mode of thought, the book stresses the role of the reader and shows how the Contes were designed less to communicate a set of truths than to encourage independence of mind. The author has written a guide to the ‘fables of reason’ with which Voltaire undermined – and continues to undermine – the religious, philosophical, and economic ‘fables’ by which other thinkers have tried to explain and direct human experience.Less
Three hundred years after his birth in 1694, this is the first comprehensive study of Voltaire's Contes Philosophiques: the philosophical tales for which he is now best remembered and which include the masterpiece Candide. This book situates each of the 26 stories in its historical and intellectual context and offers new readings and approaches in the light of modern critical thinking. It rejects the traditional view that Voltaire's Contes were the private expression of his philosophical perplexity, written merely in the margins of his historiography and his campaigns against the Establishment. Arguing that narrative is Voltaire's essential mode of thought, the book stresses the role of the reader and shows how the Contes were designed less to communicate a set of truths than to encourage independence of mind. The author has written a guide to the ‘fables of reason’ with which Voltaire undermined – and continues to undermine – the religious, philosophical, and economic ‘fables’ by which other thinkers have tried to explain and direct human experience.
J. B. Schneewind
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199563012
- eISBN:
- 9780191721731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563012.003.0016
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Many Enlightenment thinkers — Wolff, Voltaire, Hume, Condorcet, for example — think that ignorance is the source of the darkness that enlightenment must dispel. Kant does not agree. He famously ...
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Many Enlightenment thinkers — Wolff, Voltaire, Hume, Condorcet, for example — think that ignorance is the source of the darkness that enlightenment must dispel. Kant does not agree. He famously thinks that our lack of enlightenment is self-imposed. This chapter argues that Kant is here invoking his theory of the radical evil in the human will. We see what would be right to do but, perversely, we choose not to do it. Hence our lack of enlightenment is our own fault, and it is up to us to remedy it.Less
Many Enlightenment thinkers — Wolff, Voltaire, Hume, Condorcet, for example — think that ignorance is the source of the darkness that enlightenment must dispel. Kant does not agree. He famously thinks that our lack of enlightenment is self-imposed. This chapter argues that Kant is here invoking his theory of the radical evil in the human will. We see what would be right to do but, perversely, we choose not to do it. Hence our lack of enlightenment is our own fault, and it is up to us to remedy it.
Harold Fisch
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184898
- eISBN:
- 9780191674372
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184898.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter argues that Blake both identified with the spirit of the Enlightenment and found his most passionately held convictions threatened by that spirit. The clearest and subtlest statement of ...
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This chapter argues that Blake both identified with the spirit of the Enlightenment and found his most passionately held convictions threatened by that spirit. The clearest and subtlest statement of this situation is his poem, ‘Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau’. Here Blake actually foregrounds the dual focus that we are considering, making it the very matter of the poem. He presents the duality itself, the fundamental agon within himself and within the spiritual history of his time with such lucidity that he comes as near as anywhere in his writing to overcoming it. Blake here brilliantly combines the two voices of which we have spoken by a kind of dialogic interplay, with the poet-narrator taking both sides in the dialogue.Less
This chapter argues that Blake both identified with the spirit of the Enlightenment and found his most passionately held convictions threatened by that spirit. The clearest and subtlest statement of this situation is his poem, ‘Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau’. Here Blake actually foregrounds the dual focus that we are considering, making it the very matter of the poem. He presents the duality itself, the fundamental agon within himself and within the spiritual history of his time with such lucidity that he comes as near as anywhere in his writing to overcoming it. Blake here brilliantly combines the two voices of which we have spoken by a kind of dialogic interplay, with the poet-narrator taking both sides in the dialogue.
J. B. BULLEN
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128885
- eISBN:
- 9780191671722
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128885.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The term ‘Renaissance’ is a relatively modern idea. It did not exist in the eighteenth century, and even in the nineteenth century it had a meaning rather different from ours. Our use of the word ...
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The term ‘Renaissance’ is a relatively modern idea. It did not exist in the eighteenth century, and even in the nineteenth century it had a meaning rather different from ours. Our use of the word ‘Renaissance’ presupposes a view of history not shared by former generations. To the modern reader, the word ‘Renaissance’ brings to mind activities as diverse as architecture, painting, scientific and geographical discoveries, the political activities of the Italian city states, even Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of anatomy and mechanics. But this collection of signifiers would have had no significance for the eighteenth-century mind because for the eighteenth-century the various fifteenth-century revivals, literary, artistic, scientific, political, and philosophical, were independent movements existing largely in isolation from each other. Yet the myth of the Renaissance does have its roots in eighteenth-century historiography. This chapter looks at the foundations of Renaissance historiography in the eighteenth century, focusing on the works of Voltaire in France and Edward Gibbon in England.Less
The term ‘Renaissance’ is a relatively modern idea. It did not exist in the eighteenth century, and even in the nineteenth century it had a meaning rather different from ours. Our use of the word ‘Renaissance’ presupposes a view of history not shared by former generations. To the modern reader, the word ‘Renaissance’ brings to mind activities as diverse as architecture, painting, scientific and geographical discoveries, the political activities of the Italian city states, even Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of anatomy and mechanics. But this collection of signifiers would have had no significance for the eighteenth-century mind because for the eighteenth-century the various fifteenth-century revivals, literary, artistic, scientific, political, and philosophical, were independent movements existing largely in isolation from each other. Yet the myth of the Renaissance does have its roots in eighteenth-century historiography. This chapter looks at the foundations of Renaissance historiography in the eighteenth century, focusing on the works of Voltaire in France and Edward Gibbon in England.
Alan Charles Kors
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198227366
- eISBN:
- 9780191678684
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198227366.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, History of Religion
This chapter discusses the high tide of atheism in the French Enlightenment. It discusses the materialistic atheism advocated by the Baron d'Holbach and Jacques–André Naigeon. Naigeon and d'Holbach ...
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This chapter discusses the high tide of atheism in the French Enlightenment. It discusses the materialistic atheism advocated by the Baron d'Holbach and Jacques–André Naigeon. Naigeon and d'Holbach assaulted religion more openly than ever as irrational, dysfunctional, and worthy of deprecation. They suggested a potentially progressive materialism, supremely rational and enlightened, although they were aware of its limitations. They also owed much to the ideas of Descartes, Locke, and Newton, drawing out implications from the doctrines of mechanism, naturalism, and sensationalism. As shown by a survey of the reaction to the ideas of Naigeon and d'Holbach by Voltaire and others who were essentially theistic, the debate exemplifies the divided state of European culture at this time, and the way in which it contained the seeds of parallel theistic and materialistic lines of thought ever since.Less
This chapter discusses the high tide of atheism in the French Enlightenment. It discusses the materialistic atheism advocated by the Baron d'Holbach and Jacques–André Naigeon. Naigeon and d'Holbach assaulted religion more openly than ever as irrational, dysfunctional, and worthy of deprecation. They suggested a potentially progressive materialism, supremely rational and enlightened, although they were aware of its limitations. They also owed much to the ideas of Descartes, Locke, and Newton, drawing out implications from the doctrines of mechanism, naturalism, and sensationalism. As shown by a survey of the reaction to the ideas of Naigeon and d'Holbach by Voltaire and others who were essentially theistic, the debate exemplifies the divided state of European culture at this time, and the way in which it contained the seeds of parallel theistic and materialistic lines of thought ever since.
Jonathan I. Israel
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199279227
- eISBN:
- 9780191700040
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279227.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, European Modern History
This chapter begins by considering the alleged gap between Spinoza’s philosophy and the ‘Spinozism’ rife in the Early Enlightenment. It argues that Early Enlightenment ‘Spinozism’ was broadly ...
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This chapter begins by considering the alleged gap between Spinoza’s philosophy and the ‘Spinozism’ rife in the Early Enlightenment. It argues that Early Enlightenment ‘Spinozism’ was broadly faithful to Spinoza’s system even if normally also a considerably simplified, thinned-down vulgarization. Early Enlightenment ‘Spinozism’ was also heavily influenced by the account of Spinoza’s thought in Bayle’s article ‘Spinoza’, the longest of all the entries in his Dictionnaire historique et critique of 1697. The chapter then discusses the exact relationship of the Radical Enlightenment to the making of ‘modernity’ and clarifies the relation of Locke, Voltaire, and Hume to the phenomenon of Spinoza and the Radical Enlightenment.Less
This chapter begins by considering the alleged gap between Spinoza’s philosophy and the ‘Spinozism’ rife in the Early Enlightenment. It argues that Early Enlightenment ‘Spinozism’ was broadly faithful to Spinoza’s system even if normally also a considerably simplified, thinned-down vulgarization. Early Enlightenment ‘Spinozism’ was also heavily influenced by the account of Spinoza’s thought in Bayle’s article ‘Spinoza’, the longest of all the entries in his Dictionnaire historique et critique of 1697. The chapter then discusses the exact relationship of the Radical Enlightenment to the making of ‘modernity’ and clarifies the relation of Locke, Voltaire, and Hume to the phenomenon of Spinoza and the Radical Enlightenment.
Jonathan I. Israel
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199279227
- eISBN:
- 9780191700040
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279227.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, European Modern History
This chapter begins with a discussion of Europe’s religious crisis of the late 17th century. It then explores the consensus gentium which, according to Bernard, Le Clerc, Élie Benoît, and the other ...
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This chapter begins with a discussion of Europe’s religious crisis of the late 17th century. It then explores the consensus gentium which, according to Bernard, Le Clerc, Élie Benoît, and the other rationaux, constitutes a valid philosophical proof of the essential reasonableness of faith not just in God but also in his goodness, omnipotence, and providence, something binding on all men capable of cogent reasoning. This is followed by a discussion of the link between the rationaux and Voltaire which was to bind the latter, throughout his career, consciously and closely to the legacy of Le Clerc and Clarke.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of Europe’s religious crisis of the late 17th century. It then explores the consensus gentium which, according to Bernard, Le Clerc, Élie Benoît, and the other rationaux, constitutes a valid philosophical proof of the essential reasonableness of faith not just in God but also in his goodness, omnipotence, and providence, something binding on all men capable of cogent reasoning. This is followed by a discussion of the link between the rationaux and Voltaire which was to bind the latter, throughout his career, consciously and closely to the legacy of Le Clerc and Clarke.
Jonathan I. Israel
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206088
- eISBN:
- 9780191676970
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206088.003.0038
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, European Modern History
The French Revolution overtly challenged the three principal pillars of medieval and early modern society — monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church — going some way to overturning all three. Inevitably ...
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The French Revolution overtly challenged the three principal pillars of medieval and early modern society — monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church — going some way to overturning all three. Inevitably in the context, ideology — and linked to ideology, radical philosophy and political thought — were prime factors in the complex of pressures and impulses which shaped the Revolution. The revolutionaries assigned a ‘radically critical function to philosophy’, thereby constructing a conceptual if to some extent an unhistorical ‘continuity that was primarily a process of justification and a search for paternity’. In the perceptions of the revolutionaries themselves there was no need to look beyond France and little need to look further back than the middle of the 18th century. Furthermore, they showed a distinct propensity to lionize, and to some extent radicalize, certain key philosophical heroes, of whom Voltaire and Rousseau were much the most celebrated.Less
The French Revolution overtly challenged the three principal pillars of medieval and early modern society — monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church — going some way to overturning all three. Inevitably in the context, ideology — and linked to ideology, radical philosophy and political thought — were prime factors in the complex of pressures and impulses which shaped the Revolution. The revolutionaries assigned a ‘radically critical function to philosophy’, thereby constructing a conceptual if to some extent an unhistorical ‘continuity that was primarily a process of justification and a search for paternity’. In the perceptions of the revolutionaries themselves there was no need to look beyond France and little need to look further back than the middle of the 18th century. Furthermore, they showed a distinct propensity to lionize, and to some extent radicalize, certain key philosophical heroes, of whom Voltaire and Rousseau were much the most celebrated.
Udo Thiel
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199542499
- eISBN:
- 9780191730917
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199542499.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter turns to Locke's account of personal identity itself, taking up the discussion of the fundamental notions that are relevant in this account from the previous chapter. Contrary to what ...
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This chapter turns to Locke's account of personal identity itself, taking up the discussion of the fundamental notions that are relevant in this account from the previous chapter. Contrary to what some commentators hold, Locke distinguishes between consciousness and memory, and he ascribes to both an essential role in the constitution of personal identity. Linked to the notion of consciousness is that of self-concern: its main function for personal identity is that through it the subject relates to its own future; it also connects cognitive features (consciousness and memory) with the moral and legal features of personal identity. In this context the question of the ontological status of Lockean persons re-emerges (chapter 3). Readings that take Lockean persons to be substances are mistaken: Rather, Locke, following Pufendorf, allows that we talk of persons in analogy to substances, as if they were substances, but they are essentially, as in Pufendorf, modal entities. The chapter next examines the theological aspects of Locke's account of personal identity and its connection with Locke's view of the doctrine of original sin and the resurrection, including the controversy with Stillingfleet. A question is raised of whether Locke's account is compatible with genuine repentance. The theological aspects are connected to the thinking matter issue. Locke's materialist followers, Collins, Voltaire, Cuenz see a constructive role for a Lockean account of personal identity within a materialist metaphysics. Although Locke does not endorse materialism, his own theory would in principle fit as well into a materialist as into an immaterialist theory of the mindLess
This chapter turns to Locke's account of personal identity itself, taking up the discussion of the fundamental notions that are relevant in this account from the previous chapter. Contrary to what some commentators hold, Locke distinguishes between consciousness and memory, and he ascribes to both an essential role in the constitution of personal identity. Linked to the notion of consciousness is that of self-concern: its main function for personal identity is that through it the subject relates to its own future; it also connects cognitive features (consciousness and memory) with the moral and legal features of personal identity. In this context the question of the ontological status of Lockean persons re-emerges (chapter 3). Readings that take Lockean persons to be substances are mistaken: Rather, Locke, following Pufendorf, allows that we talk of persons in analogy to substances, as if they were substances, but they are essentially, as in Pufendorf, modal entities. The chapter next examines the theological aspects of Locke's account of personal identity and its connection with Locke's view of the doctrine of original sin and the resurrection, including the controversy with Stillingfleet. A question is raised of whether Locke's account is compatible with genuine repentance. The theological aspects are connected to the thinking matter issue. Locke's materialist followers, Collins, Voltaire, Cuenz see a constructive role for a Lockean account of personal identity within a materialist metaphysics. Although Locke does not endorse materialism, his own theory would in principle fit as well into a materialist as into an immaterialist theory of the mind
ROGER PEARSON
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158806
- eISBN:
- 9780191673375
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158806.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter discusses the concepts of conte, the conte philosophique, and the importance of the readers to Voltaire and his different narrative works. Based on the discussions presented in this ...
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This chapter discusses the concepts of conte, the conte philosophique, and the importance of the readers to Voltaire and his different narrative works. Based on the discussions presented in this chapter, it can be determined that Voltaire's success as a storyteller is through his natural talent as a raconteur and how most of his works are written in the central narrative.Less
This chapter discusses the concepts of conte, the conte philosophique, and the importance of the readers to Voltaire and his different narrative works. Based on the discussions presented in this chapter, it can be determined that Voltaire's success as a storyteller is through his natural talent as a raconteur and how most of his works are written in the central narrative.
ROGER PEARSON
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158806
- eISBN:
- 9780191673375
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158806.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter discusses one of the works of Voltaire: the LʼHomme aux quarante écus. A few years after it was published, the LʼHomme aux quarante écus was ordered to be burned by the Parlement of ...
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This chapter discusses one of the works of Voltaire: the LʼHomme aux quarante écus. A few years after it was published, the LʼHomme aux quarante écus was ordered to be burned by the Parlement of Paris and was also placed on the list of forbidden works by the Vatican. The LʼHomme aux quarante écus soon earned a reputation for being hastily conceived and is described as a rather irritable outburst against the economic theorists of the Physiocrats. Some of the features of this literary work that are examined in this chapter include the story's protagonist, the narrative lines or the conte, and the value of modernity presented.Less
This chapter discusses one of the works of Voltaire: the LʼHomme aux quarante écus. A few years after it was published, the LʼHomme aux quarante écus was ordered to be burned by the Parlement of Paris and was also placed on the list of forbidden works by the Vatican. The LʼHomme aux quarante écus soon earned a reputation for being hastily conceived and is described as a rather irritable outburst against the economic theorists of the Physiocrats. Some of the features of this literary work that are examined in this chapter include the story's protagonist, the narrative lines or the conte, and the value of modernity presented.
