Author: Gianni Paganini
Publisher: Honoré Champion
ISBN:
Category : Enlightenment
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
Scepticism, clandestinity and free-thinking
Author: Gianni Paganini
Publisher: Honoré Champion
ISBN:
Category : Enlightenment
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
Publisher: Honoré Champion
ISBN:
Category : Enlightenment
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
The Return of Scepticism
Author: Gianni Paganini
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401701318
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 501
Book Description
This collection of articles (the Vercelli conference proceedings) places the theme of scepticism within its philosophical tradition. It explores the English philosophical thinkers, the French context, as well as major Italian figures and Spanish culture. It pays special attention to the relationships between history of philosophical ideas and the problems rising from the history of sciences (medicine, physics, linguistics, historical scholarship) in the 17th and the18th centuries.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401701318
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 501
Book Description
This collection of articles (the Vercelli conference proceedings) places the theme of scepticism within its philosophical tradition. It explores the English philosophical thinkers, the French context, as well as major Italian figures and Spanish culture. It pays special attention to the relationships between history of philosophical ideas and the problems rising from the history of sciences (medicine, physics, linguistics, historical scholarship) in the 17th and the18th centuries.
Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present
Author: Diego Machuca
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472511492
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 763
Book Description
Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present is an authoritative and up-to-date survey of the entire history of skepticism. Divided chronologically into ancient, medieval, renaissance, modern, and contemporary periods, and featuring 50 specially-commissioned chapters from leading philosophers, this comprehensive volume is the first of its kind. By exploring each of the distinct traditions and providing expert insights, this extensive reference work: - covers major thinkers such as Sextus Empiricus, Cicero, Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, and Wittgenstein. - acknowledges the influence of ancient skeptical traditions on later philosophy and explains why it is still a fertile topic of inquiry among today's philosophers and historians of philosophy. - analyzes various forms of skepticism including Pyrrhonian, Academic, religious, moral, and neo-Pyrrhonian. - addresses issues in contemporary epistemology and indicates new directions of study. Skepticism, a driving force in the history of philosophy, remains at the center of debates in ethics, philosophy of religion, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present is an essential point of reference for any student, researcher, or practitioner of philosophy, presenting a systematic and historical survey of this core philosophical topic.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472511492
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 763
Book Description
Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present is an authoritative and up-to-date survey of the entire history of skepticism. Divided chronologically into ancient, medieval, renaissance, modern, and contemporary periods, and featuring 50 specially-commissioned chapters from leading philosophers, this comprehensive volume is the first of its kind. By exploring each of the distinct traditions and providing expert insights, this extensive reference work: - covers major thinkers such as Sextus Empiricus, Cicero, Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, and Wittgenstein. - acknowledges the influence of ancient skeptical traditions on later philosophy and explains why it is still a fertile topic of inquiry among today's philosophers and historians of philosophy. - analyzes various forms of skepticism including Pyrrhonian, Academic, religious, moral, and neo-Pyrrhonian. - addresses issues in contemporary epistemology and indicates new directions of study. Skepticism, a driving force in the history of philosophy, remains at the center of debates in ethics, philosophy of religion, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present is an essential point of reference for any student, researcher, or practitioner of philosophy, presenting a systematic and historical survey of this core philosophical topic.
Skepticism and Political Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Author: John Christian Laursen
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442619732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299
Book Description
In this collection, thirteen distinguished contributors examine the influence of the ancient skeptical philosophy of Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus on early modern political thought. Classical skepticism argues that in the absence of certainty one must either suspend judgment and live by habit or act on the basis of probability rather than certainty. In either case, one must reject dogmatic confidence in politics and philosophy. Surveying the use of skepticism in works by Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Smith, and Kant, among others, the essays in Skepticism and Political Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries demonstrate the pervasive impact of skepticism on the intellectual landscape of early modern Europe. This volume is not just an authoritative account of skepticism’s importance from the Enlightenment to the French Revolution, it is also the basis for understanding skepticism’s continuing political implications.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442619732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299
Book Description
In this collection, thirteen distinguished contributors examine the influence of the ancient skeptical philosophy of Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus on early modern political thought. Classical skepticism argues that in the absence of certainty one must either suspend judgment and live by habit or act on the basis of probability rather than certainty. In either case, one must reject dogmatic confidence in politics and philosophy. Surveying the use of skepticism in works by Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Smith, and Kant, among others, the essays in Skepticism and Political Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries demonstrate the pervasive impact of skepticism on the intellectual landscape of early modern Europe. This volume is not just an authoritative account of skepticism’s importance from the Enlightenment to the French Revolution, it is also the basis for understanding skepticism’s continuing political implications.
Clandestine Philosophy
Author: Gianni Paganini
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487530552
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
Clandestine philosophical manuscripts, made up of forbidden works including erotic texts, political pamphlets, satires of court life, forbidden religious texts, and books about the occult, had an avid readership in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, becoming objects of historical research by the twentieth century. The purveyors of the clandestine could be found in the Dutch Republic, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, and not least in Paris or London. Despite the heavy risks, including prison, the circulation of these manuscripts was a prosperous venture. After Ira Wade’s pioneering contribution (1938), Clandestine Philosophy is the first work in English entirely focused on the philosophical clandestine manuscripts that preceded and accompanied the birth of the Enlightenment. Topics from philosophy, political and religious thought, and moral and sexual behaviour are addressed by contemporary authors working in both America and Europe. These manuscripts shed light on the birth of pornography and provide an important avenue for investigating philosophical, religious, political, and social critique.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487530552
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
Clandestine philosophical manuscripts, made up of forbidden works including erotic texts, political pamphlets, satires of court life, forbidden religious texts, and books about the occult, had an avid readership in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, becoming objects of historical research by the twentieth century. The purveyors of the clandestine could be found in the Dutch Republic, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, and not least in Paris or London. Despite the heavy risks, including prison, the circulation of these manuscripts was a prosperous venture. After Ira Wade’s pioneering contribution (1938), Clandestine Philosophy is the first work in English entirely focused on the philosophical clandestine manuscripts that preceded and accompanied the birth of the Enlightenment. Topics from philosophy, political and religious thought, and moral and sexual behaviour are addressed by contemporary authors working in both America and Europe. These manuscripts shed light on the birth of pornography and provide an important avenue for investigating philosophical, religious, political, and social critique.
Bodies of Thought
Author: Ann Thomson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191553085
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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.
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191553085
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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.
Renaissance Scepticisms
Author: Gianni Paganini
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402085184
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Even if specific pieces of research (on the sources or on individual authors, such as Pico, Agrippa, Erasmus, Montaigne, Sanches etc.) have given and are still producing significant results on Renaissance scepticism, an overall synthesis comprising the entire period has not been achieved yet. No predetermined idea of that complex historical subject that is Renaissance scepticism underlies this book, and we want to sacrifice the complexity of movements, personalities, tendencies and interpretations to any sort of a priori unity of theme even less. We acknowledge unhesitatingly that we had always thought of “scepticisms” in the plural, and believe that the different contexts (philosophical, religious, cultural) in which these forms grew up must also be taken into account. Furthermore, given the transversal nature and provocative character of the sceptical challenge, this book contains essays also on philosophers who, without being sceptics and sometimes engaged in fighting scepticism, nevertheless took up its challenge. The main authors considered in this book are: Vives, Castellio, Agrippa, Pedro de Valencia, Pico, Sanchez, Montaigne, Charron, Bruno, Bacon, and Campanella. The various essays in the book show the relevance of the philosophical thought of authors little known by the general public and put in new perspective important aspects of the thought of some of the great thinkers of the Renaissance.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402085184
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Even if specific pieces of research (on the sources or on individual authors, such as Pico, Agrippa, Erasmus, Montaigne, Sanches etc.) have given and are still producing significant results on Renaissance scepticism, an overall synthesis comprising the entire period has not been achieved yet. No predetermined idea of that complex historical subject that is Renaissance scepticism underlies this book, and we want to sacrifice the complexity of movements, personalities, tendencies and interpretations to any sort of a priori unity of theme even less. We acknowledge unhesitatingly that we had always thought of “scepticisms” in the plural, and believe that the different contexts (philosophical, religious, cultural) in which these forms grew up must also be taken into account. Furthermore, given the transversal nature and provocative character of the sceptical challenge, this book contains essays also on philosophers who, without being sceptics and sometimes engaged in fighting scepticism, nevertheless took up its challenge. The main authors considered in this book are: Vives, Castellio, Agrippa, Pedro de Valencia, Pico, Sanchez, Montaigne, Charron, Bruno, Bacon, and Campanella. The various essays in the book show the relevance of the philosophical thought of authors little known by the general public and put in new perspective important aspects of the thought of some of the great thinkers of the Renaissance.
Joseph Priestley
Author: Isabel Rivers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191526894
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Joseph Priestley was one of the most remarkable thinkers of the eighteenth century. Best known today as the scientist who discovered oxygen, he also made major contributions in the fields of education, politics, philosophy, and theology. This collection of essays by a team of experts covers the full range of Priestley's work and provides a new and up to date account of all his activities, together with a summary of his life and an account of his last years in America. The book will re-establish him as a major intellectual figure in Britain and America in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191526894
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Joseph Priestley was one of the most remarkable thinkers of the eighteenth century. Best known today as the scientist who discovered oxygen, he also made major contributions in the fields of education, politics, philosophy, and theology. This collection of essays by a team of experts covers the full range of Priestley's work and provides a new and up to date account of all his activities, together with a summary of his life and an account of his last years in America. The book will re-establish him as a major intellectual figure in Britain and America in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Atheism and Deism Revalued
Author: Wayne Hudson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317177584
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
Given the central role played by religion in early-modern Britain, it is perhaps surprising that historians have not always paid close attention to the shifting and nuanced subtleties of terms used in religious controversies. In this collection particular attention is focussed upon two of the most contentious of these terms: ’atheism’ and ’deism’, terms that have shaped significant parts of the scholarship on the Enlightenment. This volume argues that in the seventeenth and eighteenth century atheism and deism involved fine distinctions that have not always been preserved by later scholars. The original deployment and usage of these terms were often more complicated than much of the historical scholarship suggests. Indeed, in much of the literature static definitions are often taken for granted, resulting in depictions of the past constructed upon anachronistic assumptions. Offering reassessments of the historical figures most associated with ’atheism’ and ’deism’ in early modern Britain, this collection opens the subject up for debate and shows how the new historiography of deism changes our understanding of heterodox religious identities in Britain from 1650 to 1800. It problematises the older view that individuals were atheist or deists in a straightforward sense and instead explores the plurality and flexibility of religious identities during this period. Drawing on the most recent scholarship, the volume enriches the debate about heterodoxy, offering new perspectives on a range of prominent figures and providing an overview of major changes in the field.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317177584
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
Given the central role played by religion in early-modern Britain, it is perhaps surprising that historians have not always paid close attention to the shifting and nuanced subtleties of terms used in religious controversies. In this collection particular attention is focussed upon two of the most contentious of these terms: ’atheism’ and ’deism’, terms that have shaped significant parts of the scholarship on the Enlightenment. This volume argues that in the seventeenth and eighteenth century atheism and deism involved fine distinctions that have not always been preserved by later scholars. The original deployment and usage of these terms were often more complicated than much of the historical scholarship suggests. Indeed, in much of the literature static definitions are often taken for granted, resulting in depictions of the past constructed upon anachronistic assumptions. Offering reassessments of the historical figures most associated with ’atheism’ and ’deism’ in early modern Britain, this collection opens the subject up for debate and shows how the new historiography of deism changes our understanding of heterodox religious identities in Britain from 1650 to 1800. It problematises the older view that individuals were atheist or deists in a straightforward sense and instead explores the plurality and flexibility of religious identities during this period. Drawing on the most recent scholarship, the volume enriches the debate about heterodoxy, offering new perspectives on a range of prominent figures and providing an overview of major changes in the field.
Anticlerical legacies
Author: Elad Carmel
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526168812
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Anticlerical legacies is the first comprehensive study of the reception of Thomas Hobbes’s ideas by the English deists and freethinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One of the most important English philosophers of all time, Hobbes’s theories have had an enduring impact on modern political and religious thought. This book offers a new perspective on the afterlife of Hobbes’s philosophy, focusing on the readers who were most sympathetic to his critical and radical ideas in the decades following his death. It investigates how Hobbes’s ideas shaped the English anticlerical campaign that peaked in the early eighteenth century and that was essential for the emergence of the early Enlightenment. The book shows that a large number of writers – Charles Blount, John Toland, Anthony Collins, Matthew Tindal, Thomas Morgan, and many others – were more Hobbesian than has ever been appreciated. Not only did they engage consistently with Hobbes’s ideas, they even invoked his authority at a time when doing so was highly unpopular. Most fundamentally, they carried on Hobbes’s war against the kingdom of darkness and used various Hobbesian weapons for their own war against priestcraft. Analysing the ways in which the deists and freethinkers developed their nuanced theories and conducted their heated dialogues with the orthodoxy, they emerge from this study as sophisticated and valuable theorists in their own right. The case of Hobbes and his successors demonstrates that anticlericalism was a key component of a much larger programme whose primary aim was to secure civil harmony, peace, and stability.
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526168812
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Anticlerical legacies is the first comprehensive study of the reception of Thomas Hobbes’s ideas by the English deists and freethinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One of the most important English philosophers of all time, Hobbes’s theories have had an enduring impact on modern political and religious thought. This book offers a new perspective on the afterlife of Hobbes’s philosophy, focusing on the readers who were most sympathetic to his critical and radical ideas in the decades following his death. It investigates how Hobbes’s ideas shaped the English anticlerical campaign that peaked in the early eighteenth century and that was essential for the emergence of the early Enlightenment. The book shows that a large number of writers – Charles Blount, John Toland, Anthony Collins, Matthew Tindal, Thomas Morgan, and many others – were more Hobbesian than has ever been appreciated. Not only did they engage consistently with Hobbes’s ideas, they even invoked his authority at a time when doing so was highly unpopular. Most fundamentally, they carried on Hobbes’s war against the kingdom of darkness and used various Hobbesian weapons for their own war against priestcraft. Analysing the ways in which the deists and freethinkers developed their nuanced theories and conducted their heated dialogues with the orthodoxy, they emerge from this study as sophisticated and valuable theorists in their own right. The case of Hobbes and his successors demonstrates that anticlericalism was a key component of a much larger programme whose primary aim was to secure civil harmony, peace, and stability.