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

Jonathan Israel presents the first major reassessment of the Western Enlightenment for a generation. Continuing the story he began in the best-selling Radical Enlightenment , and now focusing his attention on the first half of the eighteenth century, he returns to the original sources to offer a groundbreaking new perspective on the nature and development of the most important currents in modern thought.

Israel traces many of the core principles of Western modernity to their roots in the social, political, and philosophical ferment of this period: the primacy of reason, democracy, racial equality, feminism, religious toleration, sexual emancipation, and freedom of expression. He emphasizes the dual character of the Enlightenment, and the bitter struggle between on the one hand a generally dominant, anti-democratic mainstream, supporting the monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical authority, and on the other a largely repressed democratic, republican, and "materialist" radical fringe. He also contends that the supposedly separate French, British, German, Dutch, and Italian enlightenments interacted to such a degree that their study in isolation gives a hopelessly distorted picture.

A work of dazzling and highly accessible scholarship, Enlightenment Contested will be the definitive reference point for historians, philosophers, and anyone engaged with this fascinating period of human development.

"Enlightenment Contested is full of wonderful things."--John Dunn, Literary Review

"Mr. Israel's groundbreaking interpretation looks to establish itself as the one to beat."--The Economist

"An enormously impressive piece of shcholarship. The breadth and depth of the author's reading are breathtaking and Enlightenment Contested is set to become the definitive work for philosophers as well as historians on this extraordinary period."--Keith Richmond, Tribune

"Enlightenment Contested is full of wonderful things."--John Dunn, Literary Review

"Mr. Israel's groundbreaking interpretation looks to establish itself as the one to beat."--The Economist

"An enormously impressive piece of shcholarship. The breadth and depth of the author's reading are breathtaking and Enlightenment Contested is set to become the definitive work for philosophers as well as historians on this extraordinary period."--Keith Richmond, Tribune

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.

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

I: Introductory

1. Early Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Modern Age

2. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity

II: The Crisis of Religious Authority

3. Faith and Reason: Bayle versus the Rationaux

4. Demolishing Priesthood, Ancient and Modern

5. Socinianism and the Social, Psychological, and Cultural Roots of Enlightenment

6. Locke, Bayle, and Spinoza: A Contest of Three Toleration Doctrines

7. Germany and the Baltic: Enlightenment, Society, and the Universities

8. Newtonianism and Anti-Newtonianism in the Early Enlightenment: Science, Philosophy, and Religion

III: Political Emancipation

9. Anit-Hobbesianism and the Making of 'Modernity'

10. The Origins of Modern Democratic Republicanism

11. Bayle, Boulainvilliers, Montesquieu: Secular Monarchy versus the Aristocratic Republic

12. 'Enlightened Despotism': Autocracy, Faith, and Enlightenment in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe 1689-1755

13. Popular Sovereignty, Resistance, and the 'Right to Revolution'

14. Anglomania, anglicisme, and the 'British Model'

15. The Triumph of the 'Moderate Enlightenment' in the United Provinces

IV: Intellectual Emancipation

16. The Overthrow of Humanist Criticism

17. The Recovery of Greek Thought

18. The Rise of 'History of Philosophy'

19. From 'History of Philosophy' to Histoire de l'Esprit humain

20. Italy, the Two Enlightenments, and Vico's 'New Science'

V: The Party of Humanity

21. The Problem of Equality

22. Sex, Marriage, and the Equality of Women

23. Race, Radical Thought, and the Advent of Anti-Colonialism

24. Rethinking Islam: Philosophy and the 'Other'

25. Spinoza, Confucius, and Classical Chinese Philosophy

26. Is Religion Requisite for a Well-Ordered Society?

VI: Radical Philosophes

27. The French Enlightenment prior to Voltaire's Lettres Philosophiques (1734)

28. Men, Animals, Fossils: French Hylozoic materialisme before Diderot

29. Realigning of the parti philosophique: Voltair, Voltairemanie, antivoltairianisme 1733-1747

30. From Voltaire to Diderot

31. The 'Unvirtuous Atheist'

32. The parti philosophique Embraces the Radical Enlightenment 1747-1752

33. The 'War of the Encyclopedie: The First Stage 1745-1752

34. Postscript

Bibliography

Index