Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and Free Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe

Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and Free Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe PDF Author: Silvia Berti
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401587353
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 542

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Book Description
'the oldest biography of Spinoza', La Vie de Mr. Spinosa, which in the manuscript copies is often followed by L'Esprit de M. Spinosa. Margaret Jacob, in her Radical Enlightenment, contended that the Traite was written by a radical group of Freemasons in The Hague in the early eighteenth century. Silvia Berti has offered evidence it was written by Jan Vroesen. Various discussions in the early eighteenth century consider many possi ble authors from the Renaissance onwards to whom the work might be attributed. The Trois imposteurs has attracted quite a bit of recent attention as one of the most significant irreligious clandestine writings available in the Enlightenment, which is most important for understanding the develop ment of religious scepticism, radical deism, and even atheism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Scholars for the last couple of decades have been trying to assess when the work was actually written or compiled and by whom. In view of the widespread distribution of manu scripts of the work all over Europe, they have also been seeking to find out who was influenced by the work, and what it represented for its time. Hitherto unknown manuscripts are being turned up in public and private libraries all over Europe and the United States.

Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and Free Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe

Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and Free Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe PDF Author: Silvia Berti
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401587353
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 542

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Book Description
'the oldest biography of Spinoza', La Vie de Mr. Spinosa, which in the manuscript copies is often followed by L'Esprit de M. Spinosa. Margaret Jacob, in her Radical Enlightenment, contended that the Traite was written by a radical group of Freemasons in The Hague in the early eighteenth century. Silvia Berti has offered evidence it was written by Jan Vroesen. Various discussions in the early eighteenth century consider many possi ble authors from the Renaissance onwards to whom the work might be attributed. The Trois imposteurs has attracted quite a bit of recent attention as one of the most significant irreligious clandestine writings available in the Enlightenment, which is most important for understanding the develop ment of religious scepticism, radical deism, and even atheism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Scholars for the last couple of decades have been trying to assess when the work was actually written or compiled and by whom. In view of the widespread distribution of manu scripts of the work all over Europe, they have also been seeking to find out who was influenced by the work, and what it represented for its time. Hitherto unknown manuscripts are being turned up in public and private libraries all over Europe and the United States.

Epicureans and Atheists in France, 1650-1729

Epicureans and Atheists in France, 1650-1729 PDF Author: Alan Charles Kors
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107132649
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
This book describes how French Christian culture allowed the dissemination of Epicureanism, which denied divine design. In its wake, an assertive atheism appeared.

De Tribus Impostoribus, A. D. 1230: The Three Impostors

De Tribus Impostoribus, A. D. 1230: The Three Impostors PDF Author: Various
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
This work is a hard look into the philosophical issues with the three main faiths that developed in the Levant Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. It's a brutal attack on Christianity, Judaism and Islam, all in a single treatise in which, one by one, the foundation of each faith is examined and dismantled.

The Virtues of Abandon

The Virtues of Abandon PDF Author: Charly Coleman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 080479121X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
France in the eighteenth century glittered, but also seethed, with new goods and new ideas. In the halls of Versailles, the streets of Paris, and the soul of the Enlightenment itself, a vitriolic struggle was being waged over the question of ownership—of property, of position, even of personhood. Those who championed man's possession of material, spiritual, and existential goods faced the successive assaults of radical Christian mystics, philosophical materialists, and political revolutionaries. The Virtues of Abandon traces the aims and activities of these three seemingly disparate groups, and the current of anti-individualism that permeated theology, philosophy, and politics throughout the period. Fired by the desire to abandon the self, men and women sought new ways to relate to God, nature, and nation. They joined illicit mystic cults that engaged in rituals of physical mortification and sexual license, committed suicides in the throes of materialist fatalism, drank potions to induce consciousness-altering dreams, railed against the degrading effects of unfettered consumption, and ultimately renounced the feudal privileges that had for centuries defined their social existence. The explosive denouement was the French Revolution, during which God and king were toppled from their thrones.

The Atheist's Bible

The Atheist's Bible PDF Author: Georges Minois
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226821064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
A comprehensive biography of the Treatise of the Three Impostors, a controversial nonexistent medieval book. Like a lot of good stories, this one begins with a rumor: in 1239, Pope Gregory IX accused Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor, of heresy. Without disclosing evidence of any kind, Gregory announced that Frederick had written a supremely blasphemous book—De tribus impostoribus, or the Treatise of the Three Impostors—in which Frederick denounced Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad as impostors. Of course, Frederick denied the charge, and over the following centuries the story played out across Europe, with libertines, freethinkers, and other “strong minds” seeking a copy of the scandalous text. The fascination persisted until finally, in the eighteenth century, someone brought the purported work into actual existence—in not one but two versions, Latin and French. Although historians have debated the origins and influences of this nonexistent book, there has not been a comprehensive biography of the Treatise of the Three Impostors. In The Atheist’s Bible, the eminent historian Georges Minois tracks the course of the book from its origins in 1239 to its most salient episodes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, introducing readers to the colorful individuals obsessed with possessing the legendary work—and the equally obsessive passion of those who wanted to punish people who sought it. Minois’s compelling account sheds much-needed light on the power of atheism, the threat of blasphemy, and the persistence of free thought during a time when the outspoken risked being burned at the stake.

Naturalism and Unbelief in France, 1650-1729

Naturalism and Unbelief in France, 1650-1729 PDF Author: Alan Charles Kors
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110710663X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
This book shows how absolute naturalism, deciphering nature without reference to God, emerged from the inheritance, dynamics and debates of orthodox culture.

Disguised and Overt Spinozism Around 1700

Disguised and Overt Spinozism Around 1700 PDF Author: Wiep Van Bunge
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004103078
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
This volume consists of 25 papers delivered at an international Spinoza conference held at the Erasmus University (Rotterdam) in October 1994 on the impact of Spinoza on the European Republic of Letters around 1700.

Bodies of Thought

Bodies of Thought PDF Author: Ann Thomson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191553085
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Examining the development of a secular, purely material conception of human beings in the early Enlightenment, Bodies of Thought provides a fresh perspective on the intellectual culture of this period, and challenges certain influential interpretations of irreligious thought and the 'Radical Enlightenment'. Beginning with the debate on the soul in England, in which political and religious concerns were intertwined, and ending with the eruption of materialism onto the public stage in mid-eighteenth-century France, Ann Thomson looks at attempts to explain how the material brain thinks without the need for an immaterial and immortal soul. She shows how this current of thinking fed into the later eighteenth-century 'Natural History of Man', the earlier roots of which have been overlooked by many scholars. Although much attention has been paid to the atheistic French materialists, their link to the preceding period has been studied only partially, and the current interest in what is called the 'Radical Enlightenment' has served to obscure rather than enlighten this history. By bringing out the importance of both Protestant theological debates and medical thinking in England, and by following the different debates on the soul in Holland and France, this book shows that attempts to find a single coherent strand of radical irreligious thought running through the early Enlightenment, coming to fruition in the second half of the eighteenth century, ignore the multiple channels which composed Enlightenment thinking.

Radicalism in British Literary Culture, 1650-1830

Radicalism in British Literary Culture, 1650-1830 PDF Author: Timothy Morton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052112087X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Publisher Description (unedited publisher data) In this volume of interdisciplinary essays, leading scholars examine the radical tradition in British literary culture from the English Revolution to the French Revolution. They chart continuities between the two periods and examine the recuperation of ideas and texts from the earlier period in the 1790s and beyond. Contributors utilize a variety of approaches and concepts: from gender studies, the cultural history of food and diet and the history of political discourse, to explorations of the theatre, philosophy and metaphysics. This volume argues that the radical agendas of the mid-seventeenth century, intended to change society fundamentally, did not disappear throughout the long eighteenth-century only to be resuscitated at its close. Rather, through close textual analysis, these essays indicate a more continuous transmission. Library of Congress subject headings for this publication: English literature 18th century History and criticism, Radicalism in literature, English literature Early modern, 1500-1700 History and criticism, English literature 19th century History and criticism, Revolutionary literature, English History and criticism, Politics and literature Great Britain History, Radicalism Great Britain History.

Spinoza Past and Present

Spinoza Past and Present PDF Author: Wiep van Bunge
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004233520
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Spinoza Past and Present consists of twelve essays on Benedictus de Spinoza’s Jewish background, his views on metaphysics, mathematics, religion and society. Special attention is paid to the various ways in which Spinoza’s works have been interpreted from the late seventeenth century to the present day. In particular, Spinoza’s recent popularity among advocates of the Radical Enlightenment is discussed: Van Bunge proposes a new interpretation of Spinoza’s role in the early Dutch Enlightenment.