Discussions about the morality of slavery are a central part of the history of early modern philosophy. This book explores the philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that occur in eighteenth-century debates about slavery, with a particular focus on the role that race plays in these debates. This exploration reveals how closely Blackness and slavery had come to be associated and how common it was to believe that Black people are natural slaves, or naturally destined for (...) slavery. The book examines not just well-known authors like David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but also less widely studied philosophers like Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Lemuel Haynes, and Olympe de Gouges. By presenting philosophically important aspects of debates about slavery in eighteenth-century North America and Europe, the book aims to be a valuable resource for scholars, instructors, and students who are curious about a topic that historians of philosophy have so far neglected. (shrink)

This is the second of two collections of correspondence written by early modern English women philosophers. In this volume, Jacqueline Broad presents letters from three influential thinkers of the eighteenth century: Mary Astell, Elizabeth Thomas, and Catharine Trotter Cockburn. Broad provides introductory essays for each figure and explanatory annotations to clarify unfamiliar language, content, and historical context for the modern reader. Her selections make available many letters that have never been published before or that live scattered in various (...) archives, obscure manuscripts, and rare books. The discussions range in subject from moral theology and ethics to epistemology and metaphysics; they involve some well-known thinkers of the period, such as John Norris, George Hickes, Mary Chudleigh, John Locke, and Edmund Law. By centering epistolary correspondence, Broad's anthology works to reframe early modern philosophy, the foundation for so much of twentieth-century philosophy, as consisting of collaborative debates that women actively participated in and shaped. Together with its companion volume, Women Philosophers of Eighteenth-Century England: Selected Correspondence is an invaluable primary resource for students, scholars, and those undertaking further research in the history of women's contributions to the formation and development of early modern thought. (shrink)

This article introduces several aspects of eighteenth-century discussions of slavery that may be unfamiliar or surprising to present-day readers. First, even eighteenth-century philosophers who were opponents of slavery often exhibited marked racism and helped develop racial concepts that would later serve pro-slavery theorists. Such thinkers include Hume, Voltaire, and Kant. Second, we must see slavery debates in the context of larger scientific and political debates, including those about climate and character, just political systems, the (...) superiority or inferiority of the moderns to the ancients, and the status of women. This section of the paper discusses the views of Montesquieu, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Sarah Chapone, and Mary Astell. Finally, many anti-slavery arguments of the time may seem too ‘soft’ to contemporary readers, as they appeal to negative effects or aspects of slavery rather than arguing for its absolute injustice. The last section of the paper compares Rousseau's arguments against slavery in The Social Contract with such arguments and concludes with a discussion of how Hume's understanding of humanity as a virtue may serve as a bridge between the two. (shrink)

Within eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition we can distinguish at least three main theoretical positions: (i) Buffon’s mechanism, (ii) Reimarus’ theory of instincts, and (iii) the sensationalism of Condillac and Leroy. In this paper, I adopt a philosophical perspective on this debate and argue that in order to fully understand the justification Buffon, Reimarus, Condillac, and Leroy gave for their respective theories, we must pay special attention to the theoretical virtues these naturalists alluded to while justifying (...) their position. These theoretical virtues have received little to no attention in the literature on eighteenth-century animal cognition, but figure prominently in the justification of the mechanist, instinctive, and sensationalist theories of animal behavior. Through my philosophical study of the role of theoretical virtues in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition, we obtain a deeper understanding of how theoretical virtues were conceptualized in eighteenth-century science and how they influenced the justification of theories of animal cognition. (shrink)

Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries explores philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that are central to early modern discussions of slavery. Jorati explores a topic that is widely neglected by historians of philosophy: debates about the morality of slavery in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century America and Europe. Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries explores philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that are central to early (...) modern discussions of slavery. It is a companion volume to Jorati's Slavery and Race: Philosophy Debates in the Eighteenth Century (OUP 2023). (shrink)

A case-study of the interaction between philosophical context and observational data in the practice of Science.

The eighteenth century was a time of brilliant philosophical innovation in Britain. In Of Liberty and Necessity James A. Harris presents the first comprehensive account of the period's discussion of what remains a central problem of philosophy, the question of the freedom of the will. He offers new interpretations of contributions to the free will debate made by canonical figures such as Locke, Hume, Edwards, and Reid, and also discusses in detail the arguments of some less familiar (...) writers. Harris puts the eighteenth-century debate about the will and its freedom in the context of the period's concern with applying what Hume calls the "experimental method of reasoning" to the human mind. His book will be of substantial interest to historians of philosophy and anyone concerned with the free will problem. (shrink)

A thorough examination of the role which David Hume''s writings played upon the founders of the United States.This book explores the reception of David Hume''s political thought in eighteenth-century America. It presents a challenge to standard interpretations that assume Hume''s thought had little influence in early America. Eighteenth-century Americans are often supposed to have ignored Hume''s philosophical writings and to have rejected entirely Hume''s "Tory" History of England. James Madison, if he used Hume''s ideas in (...) Federalist No. 10, it is commonly argued, thought best to do so silently -- open allegiance to Hume was a liability. Despite renewed debate about the impact of Hume''s political ideas in America, existing scholarship is often narrow and highly speculative. Were Hume''s works available in eighteenth-century America? If so, which works? Where? When? Who read Hume? To what avail? To answer questions of that sort, this books draws upon a wide assortment of evidence. Early American book catalogues, periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume''s impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume''s influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume''s Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequentlyof all, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume''s History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume''ssubsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006). periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume''s impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume''s influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume''s Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequentlyof all, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume''s History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume''ssubsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006).eputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006). periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume''s impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume''s influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume''s Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequentlyof all, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume''s History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume''ssubsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006). periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume''s impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume''s influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume''s Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequentlyof all, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume''s History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume''ssubsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006).eputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006).eputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006). periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume''s impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume''s influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume''s Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequentlyof all, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume''s History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume''ssubsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006).eputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World (2006).rough the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume''s History (published in Philadelphia in 1795-96) are more representative of the History''s friendlyreception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson''s latter-day rejection of Hume''s political thought foreshadowed Hume''s falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor''s Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume''s Reception in Early America (2002), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 (2005),and Ulster Presbyterians in. (shrink)

“It is less a matter of happiness and unhappiness than of darkness and light: one does not consist in a pure and simple privation of the other.” In contrast to Condillac, Diderot begins with the recognition of the mutually reflexive character of the state of suffering, which is independent of an alternation of pleasure and pain. Or rather, the painful state is spontaneously devalued without any invocation of a hypothetical state of constant happiness. The emergence of an affirmation of physical (...) pain belongs to the condition of the living being and assumes an immediate conceptualization of suffering, even in the imaginary state of an eternal suffering. For Diderot, questioning the meaning of existence goes hand in hand with this innate and unconditioned positing of an unhappy state. Such a postulate makes it more difficult to maintain the stereotypical view that the materialist attitude is one of indifference. Recognizing the necessary laws of matter and identifying disorders as rational productions does not amount to saying that whatever turns out to be necessary is in fact allowable. Matter conditions the constitution of morality, feelings, and thoughts. The human being, however, displays signs of revolt, as well as a capacity to adjust to his deficient states by drawing on the universal tendency of living beings to complicate the necessity of determining what is preferable and rejecting what is painful. To persevere in one’s being, and thereby lay down conditions for an assent to existence, is thus to weaken the pessimism of a blind necessitarianism. The establishment of a natural and material axiology then allows one to grasp the metaphysical implications of this medically grounded vitalism. (shrink)

This collection contains the first English translations of a group of important eighteenth-century German essays that address the question, "What is Enlightenment?" The book also includes newly translated and newly written interpretive essays by leading historians and philosophers, which examine the origins of eighteenth-century debate on Enlightenment and explore its significance for the present. In recent years, critics from across the political and philosophical spectrum have condemned the Enlightenment for its complicity with any number of (...) present-day social and cultural maladies. It has rarely been noticed, however, that at the end of the Enlightenment, German thinkers had already begun a scrutiny of their age so wide-ranging that there are few subsequent criticisms that had not been considered by the close of the eighteenth century. Among the concerns these essays address are the importance of freedom of expression, the relationship between faith and reason, and the responsibility of the Enlightenment for revolutions. Included are translations of works by such well-known figures as Immanuel Kant, Moses Mendelssohn, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Johann Georg Hamann, as well as essays by thinkers whose work is virtually unknown to American readers. These eighteenth-century texts are set against interpretive essays by such major twentieth-century figures as Max Horkheimer, Jürgen Habermas, and Michel Foucault. (shrink)

Studies of hermeneutics have rarely dealt with eighteenth-century British thought, yet during this period debates over the interpretation of texts plagued and invigorated religious, intellectual, and political life in England. This important book is the first to deal with hermeneutical issues in British scriptural, legal, historical, political, and literary interpretation. Examining the work of Swift, Locke, Toland, Bolingbroke, Hume, Reid, Blackstone, and Burke, Joel C. Weinsheimer discusses common philosophical problems of understanding, concentrating especially on their theories (...) about the application of taste to discern interpretive truth. Weinsheimer's approach is primarily philosophical. In each area of hermeneutic endeavor, he asks such questions as why it is necessary to interpret, what it means to interpret, what does not need interpreting, what constitutes the signs of right understanding, and what accounts for the multiplicity of interpretations. He concludes that hermneutics in eighteenth-century England became the site of a contest and possible reconciliation between reason and history. Driven by the need to escape rationalist formalism as well as an opposite though equally sterile antiquarianism, interpretation offered a new way of thinking about truth, as belonging to reason and history together. (shrink)

This chapter describes various aspects of the impact on philosophy of Newton’s Principia. It shows how Newton’s achievement dramatically influenced debates over the way subsequent philosophers conceived of their activity, and thus prepared the way for an institutional and methodological split between philosophy and science. These large-scale themes are illustrated by attention to a number of detailed debates over the nature and importance of Newton’s legacy: debates concerning gravity and matter theory, the status of Newton’s “laws of (...) motion”, the role of final causes in natural philosophy, and the interpretation of Newton’s “rules for the study of natural philosophy”. Important contributors to these debates included Hume, Colin Maclaurin, Priestley, and Reid. The chapter also includes discussion of how eighteenth-century philosophers understood Newton’s place in the history of science. (shrink)

Self-love was a pivotal topic of debate for moral philosophers in the first half of the eighteenth century. But, as was also the case for related concepts like sociability and virtue, philosophers meant many different things by ‘self-love.’ The historians of philosophy who discuss self-love often do as well. A great virtue of Christian Maurer’s Self-Love, Egoism, and the Selfish Hypothesis is to disambiguate five senses of self-love in eighteenth-century discussions. ‘Self-love’ and its synonyms variously refer (...) to egoistic desire, love of praise, self-esteem, amour propre, and self-respect. Maurer uses these ideal types forensically to provide a better understanding of what is being debated by... (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 35, Issue 1, pp 168 - 190 While there is ample evidence for the popularity and influence up to the mid-eighteenth century of Grotius’s demonstration of the exclusive truth of the Christian religion, a fresh look at the reasons for the discontinuation of this line of apologetics can be attempted. In Germany in the late 1770s, G. E. Lessing claimed that all available arguments of Christian apologetics would ‘evaporate’ when analysed from a critical philosophical (...) perspective. This did not simply refer to the issue of the historicity of biblical narratives. Since rabbinic Judaism as well as Islam belonged to the targets of the apologetic tradition, it turns out that the concept of the plurality of religions which had found its expression in Boccaccio’s work in the ‘parable of the three rings’ only to be rejected, e.g., by Campanella, acquired a new significance in debates about the truth of natural and revealed religion. (shrink)

The diminution of emphasis on the arts and the humanities and the corresponding increased emphasis on business and STEM disciplines has resulted in a normative conception of national progress that excludes aesthetic education. Scholars in the arts and the humanities have responded to this marginalization either by calling for more esotericism or by underscoring the importance of aesthetic education to the future of democracy and humanity. These arguments have failed to capture the public’s attention. In this essay, I argue that (...) there is a third way: aesthetic educators should challenge the normative understanding of national progress. To this end, I return to the dawn of the split between scientific inquiry and humanist understanding to highlight French Enlightenment debates around the understanding of progress. Specifically, I call attention to the writings of the French philosopher Germaine de Staël because in the adaptation of her notion of progress lies possible hope for the future of the humanities and the arts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women and Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Germany ed. by Corey W. DyckJulia BorcherdingCorey W. Dyck, editor. Women and Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 272. Hardback, $85.00.In more ways than one, this volume constitutes an important contribution to ongoing efforts to reconfigure and enrich our existing philosophical canon and to question the narratives that have led to its current shape. (...) To start, while there is a growing amount of research dedicated to recovering the contributions of women to early modern philosophy, much of this work focuses on the seventeenth century, and geographically centers on England, France, and Italy. By turning the spotlight on eighteenth-century Germany, this volume broadens the scope of these efforts in an important way. Further, with the historiography of this period still shaped by a long-standing dismissive treatment of post-Leibnizian German philosophy and by the long shadow cast by the success of Kant's Critical philosophy, which eclipsed many of the thinkers opposed to it, challenges to its traditional narratives seem especially important. The editor's earlier collection (coedited with Falk Wunderlich) on Kant and his German contemporaries already succeeded in mounting such a challenge by showing that German philosophy throughout the eighteenth century in fact presents us with an extraordinarily rich tableau of intellectual life (Kant and His German Contemporaries. Vol. 1: Logic, Mind, Epistemology, Science and Ethics [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018]).The present volume stands as a further valuable contribution to relativizing the still dominant narrative of German philosophy as the story of a select few brilliant minds. It successfully dispenses not only with the idea that those minds were few, but also with the equally persistent one that they were exclusively male. Already in the nineteenth century, we find historians such as Karl Joël explicitly casting the new age of German philosophy inaugurated by Kant as its "masculine epoch"—an image undoubtedly furthered by its main protagonist, who cast philosophical acumen in decidedly male terms when he observed that "[a] woman who has a head full of Greek, like Madame Dacier, or one who engages in debate about the intricacies of mechanics, like the Marquise du Châtelet, might just as well have a beard; for that expresses in a more recognizable form the profundity for which she strives" (Karl Joël, Die Frauen in der Philosophie [Hamburg, 1896], 48; Immanuel Kant, Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen [Königsberg, 1764], translation in Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989], 146; both cited in Eileen O'Neill, "Disappearing Ink: Early Modern Women Philosophers and Their Fate in History," in Philosophy in a Feminist [End Page 154] Voice: Critiques and Reconstructions, ed. Janet A. Kourany [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997], 17–62). Yet as the contributions to this volume forcefully illustrate, women in the period did—in spite of the numerous severe social, religious, and political obstacles they faced—in fact manage to gain access to its intellectual sphere, and actively shaped its philosophical landscape.While the papers collected here are of high quality throughout, they do vary in their approach. Many chapters, especially in the earlier parts of the volume, investigate female figures as philosophers in their own right, and carve out their self-standing contributions to prominent philosophical movements and debates. Focusing on Sophie of Hanover's correspondence with Leibniz, Christian Leduc's chapter begins by examining her metaphysical views and argues, against standing interpretations, that her main aim is to defend a version of the doctrine of physical influence as an account of mind-body interaction while rejecting metaphysical commitments regarding the nature of the soul in favor of a more agnostic, Lockean empiricist approach. In chapter 3, Stefanie Buchenau shows how women engaging with Wolffian Schulphilosophie began to view themselves as more than teachers and translators and started to claim the title of philosophers. Using the example of Johanna Charlotte Unzer, Buchenau convincingly argues that despite the "feminine," aesthetic garb of her thought, Unzer in fact offers a serious critique and revision of the Wolffian model of... (shrink)

Early modern historians and philosophers interested in human freedom can profitably read this book, which provides a synoptic view of the eighteenth-century British free will debate from Locke through Dugald Stewart. Scholars have not ignored the debate, but as they have tended to focus on canonical figures , the author’s inclusion of lesser-known yet significant thinkers such as Lord Kames, Jonathan Edwards, and James Beattie is especially welcome. The main thesis of James Harris’s book is that the (...) class='Hi'>eighteenth-century British debate was animated by a general commitment to “experimentalism,” i.e., the view that we should be faithful to the data of our experiences of willing. Locke initiated the turn to experimentalism, but in Harris’s judgment it was Hume who first fully adopted it. Of course, Hume’s deflationary moves did nothing to slow the debate, let alone settle it, and necessitarians continued to battle libertarians. (shrink)

This paper analyzes debates on animal language in eighteenth-century German philosophy and science. Adopting a history of ideas approach, I explain how the study of animal language became tied to the investigation into the origin and development of language towards the end of the eighteenth century. I argue that for large parts of the eighteenth century, the question of the existence of animal languages was studied within the context of the philosophical question (...) of whether animals possess reason. In Germany, the debate concerning animal reason was influenced by Christian Wolff and was taken up by diverse thinkers such as Winkler, Meier, and Reimarus. I argue that in the second half of the eighteenth century the study of animal language became more loosely related to the question of whether animals possess reason: animal language was studied not only in light of the debate on animal reason but also because it sheds light on the nature of animals, on the differences and similarities between animals and humans, and on the origin and development of language. This systematic study of animal language coincided with the rise of linguistics, anthropology, and biology as independent sciences. (shrink)

This essay deals with a particularly recalcitrant problem in the history of ideas, that of irrationalism. It emerged to full consciousness in mid-eighteenth century thought. Irrationalism was a logical consequence of individualism which in turn was a direct outcome of the Cartesian self-reflective subject. In time these tendencies produced the "critical" Zeitgeist and the "epoch of taste" during which Kant began thinking about such matters. Like Alfred Bäumler, I argue that irrationalism could not have arisen in ancient or (...) medieval philosophical discourse, as they both lacked a certain type of rationalism required as its conceptual antipode. Only after the Lisbon earthquake (1755), and the ensuing reason vs. passion debate acknowledging for the first time both human powers as equal contenders, did the specter of irrationalism arise and become a focus. Kant's revolution in thought produced "transcendental psychology" reconciling "pure" sensibility and "pure" reason and provided, I argue, the conceptual wherewithal to grant aesthetic feeling and irrationalism a philosophical niche. (shrink)

This essay deals with a particularly recalcitrant problem in the history of ideas, that of irrationalism. It emerged to full consciousness in mid-eighteenth century thought. Irrationalism was a logical consequence of individualism which in turn was a direct outcome of the Cartesian self-reflective subject. In time these tendencies produced the "critical" Zeitgeist and the "epoch of taste" during which Kant began thinking about such matters. Like Alfred Bäumler, I argue that irrationalism could not have arisen in ancient or (...) medieval philosophical discourse, as they both lacked a certain type of rationalism required as its conceptual antipode. Only after the Lisbon earthquake (1755), and the ensuing reason vs. passion debate acknowledging for the first time both human powers as equal contenders, did the specter of irrationalism arise and become a focus. Kant's revolution in thought produced "transcendental psychology" reconciling "pure" sensibility and "pure" reason and provided, I argue, the conceptual wherewithal to grant aesthetic feeling and irrationalism a philosophical niche. (shrink)

This new history of Scottish philosophy will include two volumes that focus on the Scottish Enlightenment. In this volume a team of leading experts explore the ideas, intellectual context, and influence of Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, Reid, and many other thinkers, frame old issues in fresh ways, and introduce new topics and questions into debates about the philosophy of this remarkable period. The contributors explore the distinctively Scottish context of this philosophical flourishing, and juxtapose the work of canonical philosophers (...) with contemporaries now very seldom read. The outcome is a broadening-out, and a filling-in of the detail, of the picture of the philosophical scene of Scotland in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

This new history of Scottish philosophy will include two volumes that focus on the Scottish Enlightenment. In this volume a team of leading experts explore the ideas, intellectual context, and influence of Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, Reid, and many other thinkers, frame old issues in fresh ways, and introduce new topics and questions into debates about the philosophy of this remarkable period. The contributors explore the distinctively Scottish context of this philosophical flourishing, and juxtapose the work of canonical philosophers (...) with contemporaries now very seldom read. The outcome is a broadening-out, and a filling-in of the detail, of the picture of the philosophical scene of Scotland in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

Although there are many books on Samuel Johnson's moral and religious thought, none have managed to provide a complete analysis of his relationship to the ethics and theology of the eighteenth-century. This major new study examines the background to Johnson's views on a wide range of issues that were debated by the philosophers and divines of the age, emphasizing the ambivalence and contradiction inherent in his orthodoxy, while challenging the assumption that his religious beliefs were unstable and filled (...) with anxiety. (shrink)

"Recent years have seen a growing interest among scholars of 18th-century German philosophy in the period between Wolff and Kant. This book challenges traditional interpretations of this period that focus largely on post-Leibnizian rationalism and, accordingly, on a depreciation of the contribution of the senses to knowledge about the world and the self. It addresses the divergent ways in which eighteenth-century German philosophers reconceived the notion and role of experience in their efforts to identify, defend, and contest (...) the contribution of foundational a priori principles and empirical data to the various branches of metaphysics, the natural sciences, and emerging disciplines such as psychology and aesthetics. The chapters are organized according to the four major schools that defined the various phases of German Enlightenment philosophy: Wolff and Wolffianism, Eclecticism and Populärphilosophie, the Berlin Academy, and Kant. Each chapter is devoted to one or more philosophers, several of whom are seriously under investigated or even unknown outside small circles of specialists. By framing the period in terms of the notion of experience, this book presents a more nuanced understanding of the German reception of British and French ideas and theories, dismisses the prevailing view that German philosophy was largely isolated from European debates, introduces a number of relatively unknown, but highly relevant philosophers and developments to non-specialized scholars, and contributes to a better understanding of the richness and complexity of the German Enlightenment"--. (shrink)

This is a very informative and lucid account of the career of a central philosophical topic in eighteenth‐century Britain, the debate between libertarians and necessitarians, from Locke to Dugald Stewart. The work has many strengths, and I learnt much from it. It will be of great interest to historians of the period, but the readership should be wider than that. Those working on the debate today should also read this book. Harris (quite legitimately) does not see his (...) task as that of a historian of philosophy, mining old texts in pursuit of contemporary discussion. Instead he seeks to understand the philosophers and their problems on their own terms. In doing so, however, he offers an alternative perspective that may be enlightening to those in the thick of present‐day trench warfare. He not only discusses some neglected figures but also changes our understanding of those with whom we are familiar, especially Hume. I begin by laying out the main themes of the book and its contents. I then discuss Harris' treatment of Hume in more detail. (shrink)

The possible existence of extraterrestrial life led in the eighteenth century to a heated debate on the unique status of the human being and of Christianity. One of those who discussed the new scientific worldview and its implications for theology was the Swedish natural philosopher and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg. This article discusses Swedenborg's astrotheological transformation, his use of theological arguments in his early cosmology, and his cosmogony that later on ended up in his use of contemporary natural philosophy (...) in his theology, especially concerning the question of the plurality of worlds. I will first sketch the astrotheology found in his natural philosophical works, and then turn to the astrotheology of his later spiritual teachings. In Swedenborg's works we find teleological arguments and a stress on the universality of the divine creation and Christianity, as well as anthropomorphic descriptions of extraterrestrial life. By reconciling contemporary astronomical ideas, among others the concept of the plurality of worlds, with Christian dogmas, Swedenborg refuted deistic conclusions that Jesus was merely a mortal, while at the same time keeping his belief in the modern astronomical worldview. (shrink)

Through a wide-ranging study of primary sources, Christopher Fox identifies and details a decisive moment in the history of the concept of the self. A key figure here is John Locke; the crucial document, his chapter on "Identity and Diversity" added to the second edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1694). Locke's new concept of "identity of consciousness" was hotly debated for the next half century in philosophical, theological, and literary circles, and Fox makes a significant contribution (...) in drawing attention to this controversy. By situating The Memoirs of Scriblerus in the debates, Fox also brings needed attention to a Scriblerian performance that deserves to be better known today. Fox's book is necessary reading for anyone interested in the eighteenth century, in Locke and the Scriblerians, and in the larger history of the concepts of "self" and "consciousness.". (shrink)

Common opinion ascribes to Immanuel Kant the view that psychology cannot become a science properly so called, because it cannot be mathematized. It is equally common to claim that this reflects the state of the art of his times; that the quantification of the mind was not achieved during the eighteenth century, while it was so during the nineteenth century; or that Kant's so-called “impossibility claim” was refuted by nineteenth-century developments, which in turn opened one path (...) for psychology to become properly scientific. These opinions are often connected, but they are misguided nevertheless. -/- In Part I, I show how the issue of a quantification of the mind was discussed before Kant, and I analyze the philosophical considerations both of pessimistic and optimistic authors. This debate reveals a certain progress, although it remains ultimately undecided. In Part II, I present actual examples of measuring the mind in the eighteenth century and analyze their presuppositions. Although these examples are limited in certain ways, the common view that there was no such measurement is wrong. In Part III, I show how Kant's notorious “ impossibility claim” has to be viewed against its historical background. He not only accepts actual examples of a quantitative treatment of the mind, but also takes steps toward an explanation of their possibility. Thus, he does not advance the claim that the mind as such cannot be mathematized. His claim is directed against certain philosophical assumptions about the mind, assumptions shared by a then-dominating, strongly introspectionist conception of psychology. This conception did and could not provide an explanation of the possibility of quantifying the mind. In concluding, I reflect on how this case study helps to improve the dispute over when and why psychology became a science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Eighteenth-Century Hermeneutics: Philosophy of Interpretation in England from Locke to BurkePaul J. KorshinEighteenth-Century Hermeneutics: Philosophy of Interpretation in England from Locke to Burke, by Joel Weinsheimer; xiii & 275 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993, $30.00.Hermeneutics has until the present study had little application to eighteenth-century England. The omission is curious for, although there were few advances in biblical scholarship during the (...) Restoration and eighteenth century, modern literary criticism begins in this century with Dryden and Johnson, modern aesthetics with Shaftesbury and the Scottish school of taste, and modern theories of art with Reynolds and writers on the picturesque. Joel Weinsheimer’s treatment of this topic, then, instantly possesses originality, not only from a lack of serious competition but because of its approach to [End Page 365] hermeneutics. He “does not offer a historical narrative” of what happened in hermeneutics in eighteenth-century England (p. xi). Rather, Weinsheimer prefers to see hermeneutics as a series of snapshots of how various writers, of whom only a few are conventional exegetes, deal with matters of interpreting texts. In all, the book treats eight major figures (Swift, Locke, Toland, Bolingbroke, Hume, Reid, Blackstone, and Burke), devoting a chapter to each.The method in each one is approximately the same: Weinsheimer produces a reading not of a single work alone but of all, or almost all that an author writes about interpretation. In the case of Swift, for instance, his principal contribution on exegesis, A Tale of a Tub, is a satire on styles of exegesis Swift considered ridiculous. This chapter adds little to what we know of Swift but, in relation to Weinsheimer’s analysis of Sir William Blackstone, we can see that there is a legal background to parts of the debate among the three brothers on the meaning of Scripture. Locke (pp. 23–45) also dealt with the Bible extensively, but his tendency to prefer the doctrine of “sola scriptura” limits what an author can say about his hermeneutics. John Toland (pp. 46–71), in his Christianity Not Mysterious, proposes radical notions of biblical exegesis, and Weinsheimer gives us a lucid reading of the first English skeptical exegete. All the other figures he studies, however, had little interest in traditional literary exegesis. Weinsheimer sees Bolingbroke (pp. 72–102) as a philosopher of history who tried to generate a theory of decoding the past, but he does not clearly distinguish Bolingbroke’s rules for writing history. Hume (pp. 103–34) wrote extensively on exegetical topics without actually being an exegete; although this is one of Weinsheimer’s more opaque chapters, it does succeed in showing the diversity of Hume and his inability to reason conclusively on matters of interpretation. Hume basically did not think that there is any problem in understanding others, so his theories of exegesis are not coherent. So, too, Thomas Reid (pp. 135–65) considered language, properly used, as lacking in opacity; hence elaborate theories of interpretation have little use for him.However, with Blackstone and Edmund Burke, Weinsheimer contributes his two most interesting chapters. The law, as Blackstone conceived of it, is extremely difficult to understand, so his Commentaries on the Laws of England is an attempt to read legal texts “in the context of general literacy” (p. 168); Bentham would later imitate him. Burke, Weinsheimer argues, started as an aesthetician and ended applying principles of good and bad taste to political behavior, always one of the weaknesses of reactionary politics.In a brief epilogue (pp. 226–33), Weinsheimer speculates on the effort of eighteenth-century hermeneutics to understand historical reason, but he does not comment on the failure of the period to produce a single important hermeneuticist. His own choice to avoid major exegetes such as Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds abridges his results dramatically, but a study based on scholarly snapshots always courts this risk. Hermeneutics is a [End Page 366] recondite concept, yet Weinsheimer renders his topic more difficult than it need be by frequent shifts in its definition and a complex, often unclear, style. Eighteenth-Century Hermeneutics provides a start, if not a definitive treatment, for later students of exegesis in the English Enlightenment.Paul... (shrink)

Of all the Enlightenment questions reopened in Britain by the French Revolution, none was more hotly debated and none became more politically charged than universal benevolence -the ideathat benevolence and sympathy can be extended to all humanity. Inthe British controversy overthe Revolution, issues that had been argued by eighteenth-century moral philosophers surfaced not only with a new urgency but also with a fresh sense of possible political and social implications; taking a stance on universal benevolence quickly came to (...) imply an attitude towards the Revolution and apolitical position. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 65.4 (2004) 603-625 [Access article in PDF] Noting the Mind: Commonplace Books and the Pursuit of the Self in Eighteenth-Century Britain Lucia Dacome University College London Ae for "Adversariorum methodus." Be for "Beauty, Beneficience, Bread, Bleeding, Blemishes."1 By associating the first letter with the initial vowel of a word, generations of eighteenth-century readers, students, and observers diligently regulated access (...) to information they reputed worth retaining. Following this rule, they organized the notes they took on a certain subject, the thoughts and observations they believed were worth remembering, and the exemplary words of their favorite authors. The rule was devised by John Locke for his "new method of making commonplace-books," a method characterized by a particular system for indexing the entries of a notebook that became popular in the eighteenth century. Before Locke developed his new method readers had already familiarized themselves with the practice of keeping an account of their readings, excerpting passages of texts, and copying them in their notebooks under a relevant heading. Throughout the early modern period commonplace books provided repositories for arranging notes, excerpts, drawings, and objects.2 Regarded as aids to memory and storehouses of knowledge, they were part of a pedagogic tradition related to rhetoric and the art of memory that dated back to the classical period. Reducing vast amounts of knowledge to a [End Page 603] manageable form, they instantiated a special relationship between the accumulation of knowledge and the organization of space. At the turn of the eighteenth century Locke's new method promised to facilitate compilers' task by providing a new way of accumulating multum in parvo at a time of increasing concern for the uncontrollable growth of the "Stock of Knowledge."3 It did so by seeking to increase the amount of information one could annotate in the notebook, while also speeding up its retrieval. Many eighteenth-century compilers relied on it in order to reduce the volume of their notebooks and save time. Some were lured by the promise that this technique could also help them to order their minds and thus turn them into better people.Although commonplace books have dropped out of usage today, they were still mentioned in nineteenth-century educational manuals. As tools that lay at the intersection between practices of collecting, reading, classifying, learning, and the arts of rhetoric, they have come to the fore of historical discussion.4 In some cases, commonplace books have been regarded as capable of providing insights into compilers' reading patterns and as biographical sources casting light on compilers' personal idiosyncrasies and cataloguing manias.5 The intellectual and cultural significance of Locke's own new method of compiling has [End Page 604] accordingly been discussed in relation to Locke's own intellectual biography (and in particular his medical interests), in the context of shifting patterns of systematization of knowledge and in light of the dissemination of eighteenth-century encyclopedic projects.6 However, still little is known about the uses and the popularity of the Lockean method in the eighteenth century.What follows considers the spreading of Lockean commonplacing in the context of eighteenth-century discussions on the nature of the self. Locke himself contributed to these discussions when, in the second edition of his Essay concerning Human Understanding (1694), he famously suggested that self-identity lay in the mind and resided in the continuity of memory and consciousness.7 Now a widely shared assumption of Western modernity, the view that self lies in the mind has long been dated back to the Age of Enlightenment. Yet early in this period Locke's proposal to make self-identity coextensive with memory and self-knowledge proved controversial. The debate that followed is now part of the canon of the history of philosophy and of the philosophical literature as a whole.8 In the course of the debate some of Locke's critics doubted that it was possible to found the self in conscious memory: they wondered about the destiny of the self during intervals... (shrink)

How do we refer to chemical substances, and in particular to chemical elements? This question relates to many philosophical questions, including whether or not theories are incommensurable, the extent to which past theories are later discarded, and issues about scientific realism. This chapter considers the first explicit reference to types of colorless air in late-eighteenth-century chemical practice. Reference to a gas by one chemist was generally intended to give others epistemological, methodological, and practical access to the gas. (...) This chapter proposes a causal-descriptive theory of reference for chemical substances. Implications for debates about incommensurability and realism are also briefly noted. (shrink)

Leslie Stephen was a writer, philosopher and literary critic whose work was published widely in the nineteenth century. As a young man Stephen was ordained deacon, but he later became agnostic and much of his work reflects his interest in challenging popular religion. This two-volume work, first published in 1876, is no exception: it focuses on the eighteenth-century deist controversy and its effects, as well as the reactions to what Stephen saw as a revolution in thought. Comprehensive (...) and full of detailed analysis, this is an important work in the history of ideas. Volume 1 contains a thorough discussion of the arguments for and against deism. The debate is placed in a wider philosophical context and the works of Descartes, Locke and Hume are all discussed in detail. The volume concludes with an examination of theological thought at the end of the century. (shrink)

This article focuses on Francis Hutcheson'sReflections Upon Laughter, which was originally published in 1725 as a series of three letters toThe Dublin Journalduring his time in the city. Although rarely considered a significant example of Hutcheson's published work,Reflections Upon Laughterhas long been recognised in the philosophy of laughter as a foundational contribution to the ‘incongruity theory’ – one of the ‘big three’ theories of laughter, and that which is still considered the most credible by modern theorists. The article gives an (...) account of Hutcheson's text but, rather than evaluating it solely as an explanation of laughter, the approach taken is an historical one: it emphasises the need to reconnect the theory to the cultural and intellectual contexts in which it was published and to identify the significance of Hutcheson's arguments in time and place. Through this, the article argues that Hutcheson's theory of laughter is indicative of the perceived significance of human risibility in early eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland and, more broadly, that it contributed both to moral philosophical debate and polite conduct guidance. (shrink)

How did humans respond to the eighteenth-century discovery of countless new species of animals? This book explores the gamut of human-animal interactions: from love to cultural identifications, moral reflections, philosophical debates, classification systems, mechanical copies, insults and literary creativity.

INTRODUCTIONThe contemporary debate over the moral status of animals reflects a mixture of traditions. Utilitarianism, which measures moral standing in terms of the ability to suffer, has been used to defend the widening-circle conception of morality. The difference between humans and other animals vis-à-vis moral standing diminishes in its light. Focusing on questions of agency, conscience, and reflective powers, the differences between humans and nonhumans seem greater. Darwinism has been invoked to bridge the gaps between the intellectual and moral capacities (...) of humans and those of other animals. This has led some to argue either that differences in agency, conscience, and the power to reflect are overrated or that they may not be absolute indicators of moral consideration.Debates over the moral status of nonhuman animals have had a long and stormy history. The considerations that drive the current debate – questions of the intellectual capacities of animals, questions about their moral sensibilities, and questions about their sensitive capacities – are ancient. Nonetheless, they first began to assume their modern form in the writings of the eighteenth-century British moral philosophers. Those individuals were struggling with the moral implications of discoveries in the natural sciences and an increasingly secularized approach to philosophical issues. Vivisection experiments and rudimentary anatomical studies not only showed that the bodies of animals were remarkably similar to the bodies of human beings but also showed that the brutes were capable of experiencing pain and suffering. (shrink)

During the intellectual and cultural flowering of Scotland in the 18th century few subjects attracted as much interest among men of letters as aesthetics - the study of art from the subjective perspective of human experience. All of the great philosophers of the age - Hutcheson, Hume, Smith and Reid - addressed themselves to aesthetic questions. Their inquiries revolved around a cluster of issues - the nature of taste, beauty and the sublime, how qualitative differences operate upon the mind (...) through the faculty of taste, and how aesthetic sensibility can be improved through education. This volume brings together and provides contextual introductions to the most significant 18th century writing on the philosophy of art. From the pioneering study of beauty by Francis Hutcheson, through Hume's seminal essays on the standard of taste and tragedy, to the end of the tradition in Dugald Stewart, we are swept up in the debate about art and its value that fascinated the philosophers of enlightenment Scotland - and continues to do so to this day. Jonathan Friday is Senior Lecturer in History and Theory of Art at the University of Kent. He has published on the philosophy of art and aesthetics, the history of philosophy and moral philosophy. (shrink)

Originally published under title: Dictionary of eighteenth-century German philosophers: London: Continuum, 2010.

Here a distinguished American historian challenges the belief that the eighteenth century was essentially modern in its temper. In crystalline prose Carl Becker demonstrates that the period commonly described as the Age of Reason was, in fact, very far from that; that Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, and Locke were living in a medieval world, and that these philosophers “demolished the Heavenly City of St. Augustine only to rebuild it with more up-to-date materials.” In a new foreword, Johnson Kent Wright (...) looks at the book’s continuing relevance within the context of current discussion about the Enlightenment. “Will remain a classic—a beautifully finished literary product.”—Charles A. Beard, _American Historical Review_ “_The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers _remains_ _one of the most distinctive American contributions to the historical literature on the Enlightenment.... [It] is likely to beguile and provoke readers for a long time to come.”—Johnson Kent Wright, from the foreword. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMany recent studies either assert that the concept of virtue in eighteenth-century Italian intellectual culture is a polysemous term without really explaining its meaning, or concentrate on just one of its many facets. However, so far no study has explored the shades of meaning ascribed to ‘virtue’ to their full extent. This study is an attempt to reconstruct the eighteenth-century Italian intellectual perspective on virtue and to reveal its geographical complexities, its semantic evolutionary curve, and its (...) interconnections in different fields. The aim is not to create a simple ‘map’, but rather to focus on the limits of the intellectual debate in defining and communicating virtue, and to envisage the understanding of the political functions of virtue through more popular and widespread media such as poetic texts. Despite its ever-changing meaning, virtue remains not only a keyword of political discourse over the century, but also stands as one of the very pillars on which powerful imageries of political communication were constructed. Therefore, this article provides a first step towards an analysis of political communication in eighteenth-century Italy, which, in subsequent studies, will take into account poetic sources, which at that time were regarded as an effective instrument to overcome the aforementioned intellectual limits and better exploit the possibilities of a rhetoric of virtue. (shrink)

This article describes a debate about the basis of allegiance to government that is obscured from view by the historiographical controversy about whether it is liberalism or republicanism that is the key to understanding eighteenth-century Anglophone political thought. This debate is between those who subscribe, more or less, to the principles of Locke, and those who subscribe, more or less, to the principles of Filmer. Taking the Hanoverian succession as my point of departure, I present an outline account (...) of what I take to be the mainstream eighteenth-century argument about the origin of government, up to and including the aftermath of the French Revolution. It played out largely in sermons and occasional pamphlets, written by individuals who, for the most part, did not acquire significant reputations, even in their own age. I then turn to a succession of more familiar writers, from Hume to Burke, who sought to transform argument about the source of political legitimacy by abandoning the question of the origins of government in favour, usually, of considerations of utility. Yet, as they attempted to change the terms of debate about the principles of government, these writers made constructive use of ideas and arguments usually associated with Filmer. (shrink)