Synopses & Reviews
In the wake of the Scientific Revolution, the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the complete demolition of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophers, including Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. The Radical Enlightenment played a part 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. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of the eighteenth century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have received limited scholarly attention. The greatest obstacle to the movement finding its proper place in modern historical writing is its international scope: the Racial Enlightenment was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish or Dutch, but all of these at the same time.
In this wide-ranging volume, Jonathan Israel offers a novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents. Particular emphasis is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism.
Review
"His vast--and vastly impressive--book sets out to redefine the intellectual landscape of early modern Europe....Magnificent and magisterial,
Radical Enlightenment will undoubtedly be one of the truly great historical works of the decade."--John Adamson,
Sunday Telegraph"[A] magnificent...study of the impact of Spinoza and his philosophy on European cultural history.... Sumptuous in the energy, clarity and breadth of its scholarship."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Israel's Radical Enlightenment is an audacious, pathbreaking, and deeply learned work that may be read on a multiplicity of levels. For the specialist, it is a thick empirical survey and analysis of a vast strain of thought derived from the work of Benedict de Spinoza."--Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Review
"His vast--and vastly impressive--book sets out to redefine the intellectual landscape of early modern Europe....Magnificent and magisterial, Radical Enlightenment will undoubtedly be one of the truly great historical works of the decade."--John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph
"[A] magnificent...study of the impact of Spinoza and his philosophy on European cultural history at the hinge of the 17th and 18th centuries....Sumptuous in the energy, clarity and breadth of its scholarship."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Mr. Israel's lucid, engrossing account of the Enlightenment's formative period explains why we want our intellectual histories rewritten for every generation, for this Enlightenment overflows with our favorite things."--The Scriblerian
About the Author
Jonathan Israel is a professor in the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Table of Contents
I. The 'Radical Enlightenment'
1. Introduction
2. Government and Philosophy
3. Society, Institutions, Revolution
4. Women, Philosophy, and Sexuality
5. Censorship and Culture
6. Libraries and Enlightenment
7. The Learned Journals
II. The Rise of Philosophical Radicalism
8. Spinoza
9. Van den Enden: Philosophy, Democracy, and Egalitarianism
10. Radicalism and the People: The Brothers Koerbagh
11. Philosophy, the Interpreter of Scripture
12. Miracles Denied
13. Spinoza's System
14. Spinoza, Science, and the Scientists
15. Philosophy, Politics, and the Liberation of Man
16. Publishing a Banned Philosophy
17. The Spread of a Forbidden Movement
III. Europe and the 'New' Intellectual Controversies 1680-1720
18. Bayle and the 'Virtuous Atheist'
19. The Bredenburg Disputes
20. Fontenelle and the War of the Oracles
21. The Death of the Devil
22. Leenhof and the 'Universal Philosophical Religion'
23. The 'Nature of God' Controversy
IV. The Intellectual Counter-Offensive
24. New Theological Strategies
25. The Collapse of Cartesianism
26. Leibniz and the Radical Enlightenment
27. Anglomania: The 'Triumph' of Newton and Locke
28. The Intellectual Drama in Spain and Portugal
29. Germany and the Baltic: 'The 'War of the Philosophers'
V. The Clandestine Progress of the Radical Enlightenment 1680-1750
30. Boulainvilliers and the Rise of French
31. French Refugee Deists in Exile
32. The Spinozistic Novel in French
33. English Deism and Europe
34. Germany: The Radical Aufklaerung
35. The Radical Impact in Italy
36. The Clandestine Philosophical Manuscripts
37. From La Mettrie to Diderot
38. Epilogue: Rousseau, Radicalism, Revolution