This article explores the complex and contested intellectual relationship between two of the key thinkers of the Early Enlightenment: Spinoza and Bayle. The key issue of contention between them is not, it is argued, the question of the existence and nature of God, but their profoundly contrasting visions of the nature of philosophy as a politically emancipatory practice. The article analyzes Bayle's rejection of Spinoza's systemic certainty, and the significance of this rejection in relation to Bayle's own anti-systemic philosophy of (...) openness and incompletion. This contrast between Bayle and Spinoza is deployed to clarify the interpretation of Bayle's theory of toleration and of his late writings. (shrink)

It has already been noted that Jewish anti-Christian arguments, circulating clandestinely, were a notable inspiration of radical Enlightenment critiques of Christianity. Judaism itself, however, was simultaneously also a prime target of irreligious polemic, most prominently in the work of Voltaire. This paper explores the tension between these two strands of critique, through an examination of the highly ambiguous and unstable status of Judaism in the French clandestine philosophical literature of the early eighteenth century, which were an important source for Voltaire. (...) These texts highlight the intricate dynamics of fascination and hostility that characterized early Enlightenment attitudes towards Jewish difference. (shrink)

Looking to contexts ranging from premodern Spain and Italy to nineteenth-century Russia, Germany, and America, the contributors to this volume explore the ways the political and intellectual aspirations of successive historical presents have repeatedly reshaped the forms and narratives of Jewish cultural memory.