Fénelon may be the most neglected of all the major early modern philosophers. His political masterwork was the most-read book in eighteenth-century France after the Bible, yet today even specialists rarely engage his work directly. This problem is particularly acute in the Anglophone world, for while Fénelon's works have been published in several excellent modern French editions, only the smallest fraction of his vast and influential corpus has appeared in modern English translation. This volume aims to help remedy (...) this by bringing to English-language audiences the first collection of his moral and political writings in translation. By so doing it hopes to make more widely available the riches of one of the leading voices of resistance to the absolutism of Louis XIV. Fénelon's political thought will thus be of particular interest to students and scholars of French history, as well as to those today engaged in questions of political resistance and reform. But Fénelon's reach also extends to fields well beyond politics and ethics. In the Enlightenment, Fénelon came to be celebrated not only as a humanitarian political reformer but also as a pioneering theorist of education, a prescient student of economics and international relations, and a key voice in contemporary philosophical debates-not to mention his fame as one of the seventeenth-century's most preeminent theologians and spiritualists and masters of French prose. As such, his work will be of interest to students and scholars in fields ranging from philosophy and political science to economics, education, literature, French history, and religion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Adventures of Telemachus [1699] by François de Salignac de la Mothe-FénelonJean–Michel RacaultFrançois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon. The Adventures of Telemachus [1699]. Translated with an introduction and notes by A. J. B. Cremer. London, Anastasis Books, 2022, 419 pp. Hardbound £24.50. Paperback £15. ISBN: 9781739798314.Fénelon’s 1699 novel The Adventures of Telemachus—or more precisely, the epic poem in prose—was one of the major bestsellers (...) in many European countries for nearly two centuries. The book inspired paintings, operas, fashions, and even wallpaper motifs. It gave birth to a literary subgenre, the “archeological novel,” such as Terrasson’s Sethos (1731) or Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s L’Arcadie (1788), in which the action is located in an antique setting. Still part of French schools’ syllabi a century ago, this book mainly owes its survival today to highly specialized academic research, stimulated from time to time when an “Agrégation” program generates new publications, papers, and conferences, as happened in 2009–10. The situation is similar in English-speaking countries, if perhaps just a bit worse: new editions are scarce and generally based more or less on revised versions of eighteenth-century translations, such as those editions by John Hawkesworth’s (1768) or Tobias Smollett’s (1776).The publication by A. J. B. Cremer of an entirely new translation, featuring a close rendering of the French text into modern English and preserving the original’s formal dignity without resorting to a pastiche of the classical language, is therefore a landmark in the history of Fénelon’s reception, and in the valuation of Telemachus particularly. This edition, while intended for the general reader, includes most of what is expected of a scholarly edition. In a comparatively short introduction, the editor recalls the essential facts about the author’s background (as a descendent of high nobility) and about his ecclesiastic career, which was compromised by both his involvement in mystical spirituality (the quarrel over Quietism) and his critical attitude toward the absolutism of Louis XIV’s régime. [End Page 140]In fact, Fénelon’s appointment as Archbishop of Cambrai (1695) was a kind of exile. In 1689, however, he was appointed tutor to Louis XIV’s seven-year-old grandson, the young Duke of Burgundy, second in the line of succession to the throne after his father (though both died prematurely). Fénelon wrote for this boy The Adventures of Telemachus as an educative fiction in the tradition of the “mirrors of Princes.” Of course, such a book was not intended for publication, and when it appeared in 1699—strangely enough, in a fully legal manner and with a printing privilege—it was against Fénelon’s will and in a very faulty form, which was corrected in later editions. An editor today therefore faces solving some highly complex textual problems, and choosing between the manuscript traditions. Cremer’s translation is based upon Jacques Le Brun’s authoritative text, published in Fénelon’s Œuvres, tome II (Paris: Gallimard, “Pléiade,” 1997).1After surveying the critical reception of Telemachus, particularly in England, starting at the text’s first publication and reaching the present time, the introduction discreetly hints at an apparent trend, among some interpretations, toward Christian allegory. If the figure of Mentor obviously “represents Fénelon” in his tutorial role, Cremer notes, this character, also an incarnation of Minerva, embodies humanity and divinity simultaneously, and thus may be seen as a “Christ-figure,” with Telemachus as his disciple and Ulysses, with his pursuit of a never-ending quest, as the symbolic form of the Divine. These observations are not entirely new; they have been formulated before by various critics. The editor himself concurs with a well-known article by André Blanc that describes Fénelon’s neo-platonician turn of mind: for Fénelon there is no contradiction between Christian revelation and the pagan fables of classical mythology, which he considers prefigurations or allegories of Christianity.This interpretation is abundantly and convincingly confirmed in the editor’s annotations. While as expected the commentaries point frequently to Greco-Latin mythology or classical literary sources... (shrink)

The importance of knowledge ingovernance presents increasing pressures on thescience-society contract. A re-thinking of thenature of `knowledge policy' is required. Byexamining the changing context and processes ofthe production of knowledge, this articleexamines whether and how policy organizationscan learn to adapt to complex knowledgeenvironments.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Political Philosophy of Fénelon by Ryan Patrick HanleyJohn J. Conley SJRyan Patrick Hanley. The Political Philosophy of Fénelon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xvi + 306. Hardback, $41.95.In his monograph, Ryan Patrick Hanley offers a revisionist interpretation of the political philosophy of François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, archbishop of Cambrai. A series of Enlightenment commentators (Montesquieu, Rousseau, Hume, Jefferson) and their progeny have (...) hailed Fénelon as a political subversive who boldly attacked the injustices of the reign of Louis XIV and who prepared the arrival of an egalitarian society with socialist and pacifist traits. Hanley, however, argues that Fénelon actually defended a more moderate and realistic model of political society than his Enlightenment exegetes have suggested. Like earlier commentators, Hanley attempts to prove his argument primarily through an analysis of Telemachus, the pedagogical novel Fénelon had composed for Louis, duc de Bourgogne, the "petit Dauphin" and grandson of Louis XIV, when Fénelon served as his tutor.Three strong chapters demonstrate Hanley's thesis concerning Fénelon's moderate politics and philosophy. Hanley argues that Fénelon's philosophy of education rests on a distinction between true and false glory. True glory resides in virtue and a humble recognition of divine glory, while false glory is the self-centered glorification of the human agent, which easily deteriorates into vanity. Rather than simply condemn self-interest, in his treatment of the education of the prince Fénelon argues that self-interest must be gradually transformed into a broader interest for the good of one's subjects and a deeper recognition of the glory of God. Earning the praise of his Enlightenment acolytes and later feminist commentators, Fénelon defends a solid education for women, but he clearly wants this education to prepare women for their domestic role as wives and mothers; his celebrated treatise and letters on the education of women are not an exercise in gender equality.The economic theory of Fénelon has often been interpreted as a type of utopian socialism. This is largely based on the central place taken by Bétique in the Telemachus. In this mythical land, the happy citizens practice a communist economics; private property is foreign to them. All their basic needs are provided for through communal cooperation. Luxury is also foreign to them; precious metals like gold and silver are used in practical construction as if they were pieces of iron. But Hanley argues that the prosocialist exegetes ignore the varied economies presented in the passages concerning Egypt, Crete, and Tyre. Bétique does not stand alone as an economic ideal. When Fénelon details how the economy of contemporary France should be reformed, it is far from simple socialism. The state has a strong initial role in the state's economic reform, but it works in tandem with private initiatives that will gradually become the stronger partner. "Fénelon differs from later socialists in insisting that the use of state power is not an end in itself, but necessary only to establish the conditions whereby a free economic system can emerge and flourish—at which point direct intervention of the state into economic affairs will diminish, and a free (though hardly unbridled) pursuit of self-interest will be encouraged" (81).Hanley also attacks the common argument that Fénelon is a pacifist who excoriates all recourse to war. Fénelon does indeed condemn war in the most graphic terms. As Archbishop of Cambrai in northern France, he had witnessed the brutal carnage and attendant famines that had decimated the population in repeated wars in this border area. But his nuanced critique of war rests on a distinction between false and true courage. False courage is found in the warrior who initiates war for the sake of his own false glory. True courage lies in those who defend the innocent out of a proper sense of duty; this courage contrasts with cowardice disguised as pacificism. Hanley argues that the confederation of nations that Fénelon envisions as a mechanism to mediate conflict and reduce the recourse to war is less a species of international government than... (shrink)

In his monograph, Ryan Patrick Hanley offers a revisionist interpretation of the political philosophy of François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, archbishop of Cambrai. A series of Enlightenment commentators and their progeny have hailed Fénelon as a political subversive who boldly attacked the injustices of the reign of Louis XIV and who prepared the arrival of an egalitarian society with socialist and pacifist traits. Hanley, however, argues that Fénelon actually defended a more moderate and realistic model of political (...) society than his Enlightenment exegetes have suggested. Like earlier commentators, Hanley attempts to prove his argument primarily through an analysis of... (shrink)

Excerpt from Spinoza Et Ses Contemporains La premiere partie de cet ouvrage est la troisieme édition du Spinoza, que nous avions publié en 1894 d'après un Mémoire auquel l'académie des Sciences morales et politiques avait accordé le prix Bordin (rapport de M. Charles Waddington, Séances' et Travaux, sept. - oct. 1891, pp. 386 La seconde partie est formée d'articles qui ont paru dans la Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, de 1904 à 1906; ils devaient, dans notre pensée, accompagner-la deuxième (...) édition du Spinoza; mais ils n'avaient pu ètre achevés en temps utile, ils prennent aujourd'hui la place à laquelle ils étaient destinés. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Numismatique François de Callatay et Caroline Mattheeuws, À propos d'une série exceptionnelle de grands bronzes thasiens (fin ive- début me siècle) p. 481-490 L'acquisition par le Cabinet des Médailles de Bruxelles d'un lot de trente-cinq grands bronzes thasiens aux types «Tête de Déméter/Bustes des Dioscures» permet d'affiner la connaissance de cette émission exceptionnelle. Tous les exemplaires sont contremarques et beaucoup présentent des traces de surfrappe. L'étude du style combinée à celle des poids permet de déceler une manipulation monétaire qui avait (...) échappé jusqu'à présent. Avant de réaliser cette émission en surfrappant une émission existante au type de l'Héraclès imberbe, on s'était d'abord servi de nouveaux flans d'un poids lourd (ca 13 g). L'étude du contexte archéologique confirme d'autre part pour ces bronzes, sans toutefois qu'il soit permis de les situer à l'année près, une datation à l'extrême fin du ive s. av. J.-C. (shrink)

Jean-Francois Lyotard's essay `Adorno as the Devil' had argued that Theodor Adorno's Philosophy of Modern Music was a `diabolic' work of `negative theology' which attributed to Schoenberg's music a secret redemptive power. However, in his later writings, such as the essays in The Inhuman, Lyotard has himself moved close to a `negative theological' position with respect to modernity, time, aesthetics and music. The paper uses the occasion of Lyotard's own theologically inspired essays on music, `God and Puppet' and `Obedience', to (...) re-evaluate the following: Adorno's claims that music transcends mere language and `reaches' for the theological; and more general claims within modern western culture on behalf of music's ability to express the inexpressible. The argument is that the music as negative theology position is not inherently metaphysical but rather that it reflects the importance of the `unsayable' to modern conceptions of reason. In resisting the `closure' of the modern narrative of reason, music, as a temporal art, has often given expression to the more radical forms of alterity present within modern forms of time. In other words, negative theology is not the discourse of the devil; it is the impossible discourse of western reason and its internal fracturing. (shrink)

The undraped human form is ubiquitous in Western art and even appears in the art of India and Japan. Only in China, François Jullien argues, is the nude completely absent. In this enthralling extended essay, he explores the different conceptions of the human body that underlie this provocative disparity. Contrasting nakedness with nudity, Jullien explores the traditional European vision of the nude as a fixed point of fusion where form joins truth. He then shows that the absence of the nude (...) in Chinese art evinces an understanding of the human body as changeable and transitory. Viewed in light of each other, these differing concepts allow for a new way of thinking about form, the ideal, and beauty, enabling us to delve deeper into the relationship between art and the ideas that lie at its roots. Beautifully illustrated and gracefully translated into English for the first time, _The Impossible Nude_ will fascinate anyone interested in art history, Chinese art, or aesthetics. (shrink)

Le § 9 de la Krisis expose les étapes : idéalisation géométrique, mathématisation indirecte des qualités, induction savante, opérations aveugles du calcul. Une enquête historique confirme-t-elle le récit de Husserl ?

Comment caractériser les méthodes de démonstration mathématique utilisées dans les Principia de Newton? Ni géométrie à l'antique ni véritable «calcul différentiel», le raisonnement s'appuie sur les figures, mais en supposant qu'elles bougent et se déforment. Les situations infinitésimales sont traitées comme stade ultime de configurations finies, grâce à certains procédés de représentation (témoins finis de l'infinitésimal). Le temps intervient sous deux modes différents dans ces procédés. Les exemples sont pris dans les lemmes de la section I (proportions ultimes) et dans (...) la démonstration de la proposition 48-49 du livre I (rectification de l’épicycloïde). (shrink)

D’Alembert a plusieurs fois exprimé sa conviction qu’une chaîne unissait tous les êtres naturels. C’est un thème métaphysique traditionnel, qui revient à la mode vers 1750, et qui manifeste l’influence de Leibniz. S’agit-il d’une chaîne des êtres ou des sdences? D’Alembert s’inspire de Descartes dans la description de l’ordre du savoir.

François-Xavier de Peretti | : Notre propos consistera à analyser des textes cartésiens pouvant confirmer une tendance de l’ego à mimer Dieu, à endosser une certaine ressemblance avec Dieu. Nous examinerons pour cela l’énoncé du cogito tel qu’il est formulé dans les Médiations métaphysiques, pour suggérer que la parole de l’ego mime, dans les limites de sa puissance, la puissance performative de la parole de Dieu. Nous considérerons ensuite la manière dont les Méditations métaphysiques sont construites comme un hexaméron, qui (...) donne à nouveau naissance au monde au terme d’un exercice méditatif où le sujet retrouve une place centrale. | : We shall analyze some Cartesian texts able to enlighten a trend of the ego to mimic or to endorse a sort of resemblance to God. For this purpose, we shall consider the cogito, as it is formulated in the Meditations on First Philosophy, and we shall suggest that the ego mimics, in the limits of its own power, the performative power of the word of God. Then, we shall examine how the Meditations on First Philosophy are built as an hexameron which creates again the world at the end of a meditation exercise where the subject gets back to a central position. (shrink)

Poséidon a été maintenu à l’écart de la plupart des travaux qui, s’inspirant de l’anthropologie historique, ont cherché à renouveler la conception des dieux grecs en montrant comment leur action dans le monde doit être comprise comme l’exercice d’une puissance dans des contextes dont les configurations dessinent des champs d’action multiformes. Le dieu reste souvent perçu comme une puissance déchue ou négative. La présente étude vise au contraire à mettre en lumière certains des ressorts, modalités et contextes des interventions de (...) Poséidon en dessinant, par delà la diversité des situations, les contours d’un « paysage poséidonien » où apparaissent quelques traits fondamentaux des modes d’action du dieu. Passages, ouvertures et fermetures, maritimes et terrestres, révèlent les formes d’un « tenir ensemble » que le dieu, parfois en compagnie de géants, exerce en tenant « sous le joug » aussi bien les rivages que les attelages. (shrink)

Résumé Descartes a adopté envers le scepticisme une attitude que d’aucuns parmi ses adversaires ont jugée ambiguë voire coupable. Il a recouru à des arguments sceptiques pour mettre en œuvre son célèbre doute qu’il concevait néanmoins comme l’acte inaugural d’une philosophie en quête de certitude scientifique. Descartes rejetait ainsi la fin poursuivie par les sceptiques et entendait user du doute contre le doute. Cette stratégie fondée sur un scepticisme des moyens pour combattre la fin et l’esprit même du scepticisme s’est-elle (...) révélée pertinente? Richard Popkin a pensé que non, dans son histoire du scepticisme, et conclu à l’échec d’un Descartes « sceptique malgré lui ». Je me propose de nuancer cette thèse de manière significative, suggérant que Descartes, sceptique à un second degré, était bien conscient de la finitude de l’esprit humain et des limites assignables à la recherche de la vérité des choses telles qu’elles sont en soi. (shrink)

Summary In his novel The Adventures of Telemachus, François de la Mothe-Fénelon (1651–1715) presents a utopian society, Boetica, in which the role of luxury, war and trade is extremely limited. In unreformed Salentum, on the other hand, Fénelon shows the opposite image, one in which the three elements reinforce each other in a fatal feedback-loop. I analyse the relationship between luxury, war and trade in the Telemachus and I sketch the background to Fénelon's views, with special attention to the (...) military expansion and the mercantilism of Louis XIV, Fénelon's quietist spirituality, and the development of the concept of self-interest in seventeenth-century philosophy by mechanicist philosophers and economic thinkers. (shrink)

According to a broadly accepted interpretation, the doubt of the First Meditation gets stronger due to an increasing effectiveness of the reasons for said doubt. I defend a deflationary reading of the doubt of the Meditations insofar as the sceptical arguments used by René Descartes gradually lose power. This reading is obviously not without consequences, which will be mentioned in the conclusion, for the interpretation of the exercise of doubt and, more fundamentally, of the Cartesian doctrine of knowledge.

La tradition française du commentaire cartésien a peu traité du thème des Méditations métaphysiques en tant que méditations. Elle ne l’a toutefois pas totalement ignoré, d’où l’intérêt de faire un point sur les antécédents et les esquisses de ce thème dans la critique philosophique française contemporaine, d’en mesurer la portée en situant les Méditations à l’égard du genre méditatif et de proposer une double interprétation du texte de Descartes, non seulement comme traité de métaphysique, mais aussi comme suite d’exercices volontaires. (...) Cette qualité d’exercices volontaires qui contribue, en grande partie, à son originalité, assigne au texte réputé théorique des Méditations métaphysiques, une finalité éminemment pratique : l’assimilation des vérités métaphysiques et non leur seule démonstration. (shrink)

Philosophisch gelangte Maine de Biran (1766-1824) über den Sensualismus von Condillac, Helvétius, La Mettrie und Cabanis hinaus, war dem Idealismus Kants und Fichtes zugeneigt und bereitete einen neuen Spiritualismus in der französischen Metaphysik vor. Seine Tagebuchaufzeichnungen zeigen ihn auch als Psychologen und politisch unorthodoxen Menschen.