The Enlightenment The Rise of Modern Paganism

by Gay, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780393313024
• ISBN10: 0393313026
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-07-17
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

The eighteenth-century Enlightenment marks the beginning of the modern age, when the scientific method and belief in reason and progress came to hold sway over the Western world. In the twentieth century, however, the Enlightenment has often been judged harshly for its apparently simplistic optimism. Now a master historian goes back to the sources to give a fully rounded account of its true accomplishments.

Table of Contents

Overture: The Enlightenment in Its World
The Little Flock of Philosophes	3	(17)
Appearances and Realities	20	(11)
BOOK ONE: THE APPEAL TO ANTIQUITY
The Useful and Beloved Past
Hebrews and Hellenes	31	(8)
A Congenial Sense and Spirit	39	(20)
The Search for Paganism: From Identification to Identity	59	(13)
The First Enlightenment
Greece: From Myth to Reason	72	(22)
The Roman Enlightenment	94	(33)
The Climate of Criticism
Criticism as Philosophy	127	(33)
The Hospit able Pantheon	160	(18)
The Primacy of Moral Realism	178	(19)
Candide: The Epicurean as Stoic	197	(15)
BOOK TWO: THE TENSION WITH CHRISTIANITY
The Retreat from Reason
The Adulteration of Antiquity	212	(14)
The Betrayal of Criticism	226	(10)
The Rehabilitation of Myth	236	(21)
The Era of Pagan Christianity
The Purification of the Sources	257	(22)
Ancients and Moderns: The Ancients	279	(29)
Ancients and Moderns: The Moderns	308	(15)
In Dubious Battle
The Christian Component	323	(13)
The Treason of the Clerks	336	(23)
Beyond the Holy Circle
The Abuse of Learning	359	(12)
The Mission of Lucretius	371	(30)
David Hume: The Complete Modern Pagan	401	(22)
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
The Enlightenment in Its World	423	(28)
The Useful and Beloved Past	451	(13)
The First Enlightenment	464	(18)
The Climate of Criticism	482	(7)
The Retreat from Reason	489	(16)
The Era of Pagan Christianity	505	(30)
In Dubious Battle	535	(12)
Beyond the Holy Circle	547	(6)
Bibliography of Works Frequently Cited	553	(3)
Index	556