The Significance of Diderot's Essai Sur Le Merite Et la Vertu PDF Download
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Author: Gordon B. Walters
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 634
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Book Description
Author: Gordon B. Walters
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 634
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author:
Publisher: Librairie Droz
ISBN: 9782600039352
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 472
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Book Description
Author: Louise Crowther
Publisher: MHRA
ISBN: 1906540888
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
Renowned as the chief challenger of traditional views of morality, man's freedom, and religion from 1650-1750, Benedict de Spinoza (1632-77) spread alarm and confusion throughout Europe through his writings. Theologians and rulers desperately sought to ban the spread of Spinozist ideas, and, in the post-Spinozist climate, eighteenth- century thinkers, often exasperated and perplexed, attempted to cope with the fallout from this intellectual explosion. The philosophical radicalism of Denis Diderot (1713-84), a French philosophe, and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-81), a German philosopher, well exemplifies the post-Spinozist mentality that permeated eighteenth-century thinking. As they grapple with the loss of intellectual, moral, and theological certainties, Diderot and Lessing re-work post-Spinozist ideas and in many instances elucidate even more radical ideas than Spinoza himself had envisaged.
Author: B. Lynne Dixon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
The title of this work may seem to beg an important question, since it rests on the assumption that Diderot has a 'concept of physical energy'. Indeed the aim of the study is, in part, to assemble evidence in support of the acte de foi implicit in its title. I am using 'physical energy' in a loose sense, as a convenient term to denote 'what matter can do' as distinct from 'what matter is made of'. Hence it may be taken as broadly synonymous with 'power' or 'force', encompassing both active and potential forms, and thus corresponding to a combination of the fourth and fifth senses identified by the Oxford English Dictionary: 4. Power actively and efficiently displayed or exerted. 5. Power not necessarily manifested in action; ability or capacity to produce an effect. Modern subatomic physics, of course, recognises no such distinction between 'being' and 'doing'; at a fundamental level, matter-as-substance and matter-as-energy are interchangeable (and, as I shall argue towards the end of the study, Diderot himself comes close to a similar position). Nevertheless, the division is both justifiable and useful within the context of eighteenth-century philosophies of nature. For, as many scholars have pointed out, the trend towards nature as an integrated, active phenomenon, in place of the cartesian view of passive étendue only incidentally endowed with motion, was crucial to the development of scientific thought in the mid-eighteenth century. Debate and development on such issues as Newtonian attraction, inertia, electricity and magnetism, chemical reactions, not only contributed directly to the advancement of physics and chemistry, but also (like cartesian mechanism) impinged upon the perennial biological questions, themselves being investigated from a new and exciting angle. As a philosopher rather than a practising scientist, Diderot was ideally placed to draw freely and creatively on all these areas, and his speculations on what we might call 'the nature of nature' are highly characteristic of the new approach. He comes increasingly to discuss and define natural phenomena (organic and inorganic alike) from the point of view of nature's powers - in the spirit of Renaissance naturalism, but from the perspective of up-to-date scientific findings. It is in this sense that I refer to a 'concept of physical energy'. Given the organic quality of Diderot's thought, it is not surprising to find the idea of energy recurring in other areas of his works. If man is composed of matter - active matter - than all human activity, be it moral, political, aesthetic, becomes capable of interpretation in terms of energy. I share Chouillet's conviction that this is a crucial aspect of Diderot's overall philosophy, which deserves to be more widely recognised and more fully understood.
Author: Eric M. Steel
Publisher: Ardent Media
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Author: Antony Strugnell
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401024472
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 259
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Book Description
I t is only relatively recently that serious attempts have been made to rescue Diderot's political writings from obscurity and neglect, and ascribe to the ideas expressed therein their due place in the panoply of his intellectual and artistic achievements. This has been largely made possible by the transference of the Fonds Vandeul from Diderot's descendants to the Bibliotheque Nationale in 1954. This important collection of manuscripts and papers, to which scholars have previously had very inadequate access, contains the bulk of the political writings, most of which had either never been published, or were only obtainable in badly prepared or rare editions. In recent years, however, excellent critical editions of the most impor tant political texts have appeared; the Textes Politiques edited by Yves Benot, and the Oeuvres Politiques and the Memoires pour Catherine II edited by Paul Verniere are all notable contributions. Meanwhile Jacques Proust has written a major thesis on Diderot et l'Encyclopedie which con tains a detailed study of Diderot's political ideas during the years he de voted to the construction of that great intellectual monument. Most re cently Yves Benot has published a general work with an important study of Diderot's hostility to European colonial policies, Diderot, de l'atheisme a l'anticolonialisme. Furthermore, Diderot's contributions to the three editions of Raynal's Histoire des deux Indes have been identified with virtual certainty by Michele Duchet and Hans Wolpe, thereby opening up a further valuable source for his political ideas.
Author: Leon Schwartz
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838623770
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214
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Book Description
Explores the many articles that appeared in the Encyclopedie, of which Diderot was the editor, in order to more clearly define and interpret the philosopher's true attitudes. Although many of these articles were indeed harsh in their treatment of the Jews, Diderot's thinking evolves to reveal a genuine regard for this group.
Author: Stephen Baxter
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520310985
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
In 1660 England was already prosperous, free, civilized, and the possessor of the makings of an empire. In the century to follow, the island nation became the world's greatest power. This cohesive collection of essays on a wide range of topics illuminates important facets of the political history of England from the Restoration to the American War of Independence. Arthur J. Slavin of the university of Louisville discusses and important problem in legal history in his "Craw v. Ramsey: New light on an Old Debate." Jacob M. Price of the University of Michigan takes another look at the Excise Crisis. Ragnhild M. Hatton of the London School of Economics sheds new light on George I. Daniel A. Baugh of Cornell University considers "pauperism, Protestantism, and Political Economy: English Attitudes toward the Poor 1660 - 1800." Anglo-Savoyard relations are the topic of Geoffrey Symocox of the University of California, Los Angeles. The late Arthur M. Wilson of Dartmouth is represented by a wise and charming paper entitled "The Enlightenment Came First to England." Lois G. Schwoerer of George Washington University finds new perspectives while examining the Glorious Revolution. John Brewer of Harvard explains "the Number 45: A Wilkite Political Symbol." Clayton Roberts of the Ohio State University discusses "Party and the Patronage in Later Stuart England," while Stephen Baxter of the University of North Carolina takes up some aspects of the conduct of the Seven Years War. All of the contributions were originally delivered at the Wiliam Andrews Clark Memorial Library during Stephen Baxter's tenure as Clark Library Professor in 1977 - 1978. Each of the essays will appeal to a learned audience of specialists, and the variety of topics will interest the general reader. This collection represents the leading scholarship on this remarkable period of English history. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.
Author: Tracy Chevalier
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135314101
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 1032
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Book Description
This groundbreaking new source of international scope defines the essay as nonfictional prose texts of between one and 50 pages in length. The more than 500 entries by 275 contributors include entries on nationalities, various categories of essays such as generic (such as sermons, aphorisms), individual major works, notable writers, and periodicals that created a market for essays, and particularly famous or significant essays. The preface details the historical development of the essay, and the alphabetically arranged entries usually include biographical sketch, nationality, era, selected writings list, additional readings, and anthologies
Author: Stefanie Buchenau
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350142948
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
What makes us human beings? Is it merely some corporeal aspect, or rather some specific mental capacity, language, or some form of moral agency or social life? Is there a gendered bias within the concept of humanity? How do human beings become more human, and can we somehow cease to be human? This volume provides some answers to these fundamental questions and more by charting the increased preoccupation of the European Enlightenment with the concepts of humankind and humanity. Chapters investigate the philosophical concerns of major figures across Western Europe, including Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Locke, Hume, Ferguson, Kant, Herder, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and the Comte de Buffon. As these philosophers develop important descriptive and comparative approaches to the human species and moral and social ideals of humanity, they present a view of the Enlightenment project as a particular kind of humanism that is different from its Ancient and Renaissance predecessors. With contributions from a team of internationally recognized scholars, including Stephen Gaukroger, Michael Forster, Céline Spector, Jacqueline Taylor, and Günter Zöller, this book offers a novel interpretation of the Enlightenment that is both clear in focus and impressive in scope.
