Enlightenment Contested Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752

by Israel, Jonathan I.

• ISBN13: 9780199279227
• ISBN10: 0199279225
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-11-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The first major reassessment of the Western Enlightenment for a generation. Continuing the story he began in Radical Enlightenment, Jonathan Israel now focuses on the first half of the eighteenth century. He traces to their roots the core principles of Western modernity: the primacy of reason, democracy, racial equality, feminism, religious toleration, sexual emancipation, and freedom of expression.

Author Biography

Jonathan Israel is Professor of Modern European History, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.

Table of Contents

List of Plates	xviii
List of Figures	xx
Abbreviations of Library and Archive Locations	xxi
Other Abbreviations	xxiii
PART I: INTRODUCTORY
1. Early Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Modern Age	3	(40)
1. Ancien Régime and Revolution	3	(12)
2. Historians and the Writing of 'Intellectual History'	15	(11)
3. L'Esprit philosophique	26	(17)
2. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity	43	(20)
1. Spinoza and Spinozism in the Radical Enlightenment	43	(8)
2. Locke, Hume, and the Making of Modernity	51	(12)
PART II: THE CRISIS OF RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY
3. Faith and Reason: Bayle versus the Rationaux	63	(31)
1. Europe's Religious Crisis	63	(8)
2. Consensus gentium and the Philosophes	71	(14)
3. Voltaire and the Eclipse of Bayle	85	(9)
4. Demolishing Priesthood, Ancient and Modern	94	(21)
5. Socinianism and the Social, Psychological, and Cultural Roots of Enlightenment	115	(20)
6. Locke, Bayle, and Spinoza: A Contest of Three Toleration Doctrines	135	(29)
1. Toleration from Locke to Barbeyrac	135	(10)
2. Bayle's Freedom of Conscience	145	(10)
3. Spinoza's Liberty of Thought and Expression	155	(9)
7. Germany and the Baltic: Enlightenment, Society, and the Universities	164	(37)
1. The Problem of 'Atheism'	164	(11)
2. Academic Disputations and the Making of German Radical Thought	175	(13)
3. An Alternative Route? Johann Lorenz Schmidt and 'Left' Wolffian Radicalism	188	(6)
4. Natural Theology, Natural Law, and the Radical Challenge	194	(7)
8. Newtonianism and Anti-Newtonianism in the Early Enlightenment: Science, Philosophy, and Religion	201	(24)
1. English Physico-theology	201	(14)
2. From 's-Gravesande to d'Alembert (1720-1750)	215	(10)
PART III: POLITICAL EMANCIPATION
9. Anti-Hobbesianism and the Making of 'Modernity'	225	(15)
10. The Origins of Modern Democratic Republicanism	240	(24)
1. Classical Republicanism versus Democratic Republicanism	240	(9)
2. Democracy in Radical Thought	249	(15)
11. Bayle, Boulainvilliers, Montesquieu: Secular Monarchy versus the Aristocratic Republic	264	(31)
1. Bayle's Politics	264	(14)
2. Early Enlightenment French Political Thought	278	(9)
3. The Ideal of Mixed Monarchy	287	(8)
12. 'Enlightened Despotism': Autocracy, Faith, and Enlightenment in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (1689-1755)	295	(31)
1. Peter the Great's 'Revolution' (1689-1725)	295	(14)
2. Europe and the Russian Enlightenment (1725-1755)	309	(8)
3. Locke, Newton, and Leibniz in the Greek Cultural Diaspora	317	(9)
13. Popular Sovereignty, Resistance, and the 'Right to Revolution'	326	(18)
14. Anglomania, Anglicisme, and the 'British Model'	344	(28)
1. English Deism and the Recoil from Radicalism	344	(12)
2. French Anglicisme	356	(8)
3. Anglicisme and Anti-anglicisme in the Mid Eighteenth Century	364	(8)
15. The Triumph of the 'Moderate Enlightenment' in the United Provinces	372	(37)
1. The Defeat of Dutch Radical Thought: The Social Context	372	(14)
2. Intellectual Realignment within the Huguenot Diaspora	386	(10)
3. The Orangist Restoration (1747-1751)	396	(13)
PART IV: INTELLECTUAL EMANCIPATION
16. The Overthrow of Humanist Criticism	409	(27)
1. Ars critica	409	(12)
2. Secularization of the Sacred	421	(6)
3. Man and Myth	427	(9)
17. The Recovery of Greek Thought	436	(35)
1. 'Rationalizing the Gods': Disputing Xenophanes	436	(8)
2. Strato, Spinoza, and the Philosophes	444	(13)
3. Spinozism: A Reworking of Greek Stoicism?	457	(14)
18. The Rise of 'History of Philosophy'	471	(25)
1. Pre-Enlightenment 'History of Philosophy'	471	(5)
2. German Eclecticism and the Rise of a New Discipline	476	(5)
3. 'Radical Renaissance'	481	(15)
19. From 'History of Philosophy' to History of l'Esprit humain	496	(17)
1. Fontenelle, Boulainvilliers, and 'l'histoire de l'esprit humain'	496	(8)
2. Diderot and the History of Human Thought	504	(9)
20. Italy, the Two Enlightenments, and Vico's 'New Science'	513	(32)
1. Italy Embraces the Mainstream Enlightenment	513	(15)
2. Vico's 'Divine Providence'	528	(9)
3. A Restored Italo-Greek Wisdom?	537	(8)
PART V: THE PARTY OF HUMANITY
21. The Problem of Equality	545	(27)
1. Enlightenment and Basic Equality	545	(18)
2. Aristocracy, Radical Thought, and Educational Reform	563	(9)
22. Sex, Marriage, and the Equality of Women	572	(18)
1. Cartesianism and Female Equality	572	(4)
2. Marriage, Chastity, and Prostitution	576	(6)
3. The Erotic Emancipation of Woman, and Man	582	(8)
23. Race, Radical Thought, and the Advent of Anti-colonialism	590	(25)
1. Enlightenment against Empire	590	(13)
2. Slavery and the Early Enlightenment	603	(6)
3. Empire and National Identity	609	(6)
24. Rethinking Islam: Philosophy and the 'Other'	615	(25)
1. Islam and Toleration	615	(5)
2. Bayle and Ibn Rushd (Averroes)	620	(8)
3. Ibn Tufayl and the Hidden Wisdom of the East	628	(3)
4. The Clandestine 'Enlightenment' of the Zindikites	631	(9)
25. Spinoza, Confucius, and Classical Chinese Philosophy	640	(23)
1. China and Spinozismus ante Spinozam	640	(12)
2. Leibniz, Wolff, and Chinese prisca theologia	652	(5)
3. Voltaire, Montesquieu, and China	657	(6)
26. Is Religion Needed for a Well-Ordered Society?	663	(36)
1. Separating Morality from Theology	663	(18)
2. 'Moderate' Enlightenment Deist Morality	681	(11)
3. Radical Thought and the Construction of a Secular Morality	692	(7)
PART VI: RADICAL PHILOSOPHES
27. The French Enlightenment Prior to Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques (1734)	699	(34)
1. The Post-1715 Reaction to Absolutism	699	(13)
2. The Materialist Challenge	712	(10)
3. Clandestinity	722	(11)
28. Men, Animals, Plants, and Fossils: French Hylozoic Matérialisme before Diderot	733	(18)
29. Realigning the Parti philosophique: Voltaire, Voltairianisme, Antivoltairianisme (1732-1745)	751	(30)
1. Voltaire's Enlightenment	751	(11)
2. The Defeat of Voltaire and the French 'Newtonians'	762	(10)
3. Breakdown of the Lockean-Newtonian Synthesis	772	(9)
30. From Voltaire to Diderot	781	(13)
31. The 'Unvirtuous Atheist'	794	(20)
1. The Affaire La Mettrie' (1745-1752)	794	(9)
2. Atheistic Amoralism	803	(11)
32. The Parti philosophique Embraces the Radical Enlightenment	814	(26)
1. Radicalization of the Diderot Circle	814	(10)
2. The 'Quarrel' of the Esprit des lois (17 48-17 52)	824	(16)
33. The 'War of the Encyclopédie': The First Stage (1746-1752)	840	(23)
34. Postscript	863	(9)
Bibliography	872	(83)
Index	955