The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
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Overview
In a brilliant and significant revisionist history of the Enlightenment, Ritchie Robertson challenges orthodox tropes, tapping into a wealth of new sources — literature, philosophy, science and religion — to show that the era was indeed sprawling in thought. This is “big” history and it is delicious!
Robertson returns to the era’s original texts to show that above all, the Enlightenment was really about increasing human happiness – in this world rather than the next – by promoting scientific inquiry and reasoned argument. In so doing Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against evils like capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot alongside ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment.
In answering the question 'What is Enlightenment?' in 1784, Kant famously urged men and women above all to “have the courage to use your own intellect”. Robertson shows how the thinkers of the Enlightenment did just that, seeking a well-rounded understanding of humanity in which reason was balanced with emotion and sensibility. Drawing on philosophy, theology, historiography and literature across the major western European languages, The Enlightenment is a master-class in big picture history about the foundational epoch of modern times.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781094118970 |
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Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
Publication date: | 02/23/2021 |
Product dimensions: | 5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Jonathan Keeble, winner of four AudioFile Earphones Awards, combines his audio work with a busy theater and television career. He has been featured in over six hundred radio plays for the BBC, appearing in everything from Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Who and The Archers, in which he played the evil Owen. As an Earphones Award–winning narrator, he is in high demand for his voice work. He has recorded over two hundred audiobooks.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations xiii
Preface xv
Note on Translations xxiii
1 Happiness, Reason and Passion 1
Is Happiness Possible? 4
Freedom from Fear 9
The Witch Craze and its End 14
Reason 21
The Passions 32
Interpreting the Enlightenment 37
2 The Scientific Revolution 42
Bacon or Descartes? 44
Newton and Newtonianism 56
Experimental Philosophy 65
The Heavens and the Earth 71
Science and the Enlightenment Public 77
The Harmony of Science and Religion 82
3 Toleration 85
Against Toleration 87
Persecution in France 91
Toleration in the Dutch Republic 94
Britain: 'a Persecuting Society' 99
Toleration in the Holy Roman Empire 105
William Penn's Holy Experiment 108
Arguments for Toleration 111
Bayle 115
Voltaire 123
Lessing 126
Goethe 130
Beyond Toleration 133
4 The Religious Enlightenment 136
Optimism 137
Physico-Theology 147
Religious Moderation in England and Scotland 157
Theological Enlightenment in Germany 166
The Catholic Enlightenment 170
Enlightenment in the Orthodox World 176
The Jewish Enlightenment 179
The Study of the Bible 182
The New Testament 191
5 Unbelief and Speculation 199
The Disenchantment of the World 200
Medicalization 206
Secularization? 210
The Fear of Hell 215
Natural Religion 220
Voltaire and the Bible 224
Atheism 232
An Evil God? 241
New Religious Speculations 245
The Power of Feeling 249
Enlightened Dying 253
6 Science and Sensibility 261
Self-Love and Sympathy 262
The Science of Man: Hume's Treatise 274
Anthropologies 282
The Science of Woman 293
Sexual Relations without Sin 301
Classifying Humanity 307
Diderot and the Grey Areas of Humanity 317
Empathetic Fiction 323
Sentiment and Society 340
7 Sociability 351
Politeness 353
The Public Sphere 358
Societies 365
The Republic of Letters 373
The Ethos of Scholarship 377
The Virtual Public Sphere 382
Censorship 389
Unsociability: Hume vs Rousseau 395
8 Practical Enlightenment 401
Police 401
The Encyclopédie 412
Agriculture 420
Medicine 427
Bringing up Children 434
Schools and Universities 445
Punishment 450
9 Aesthetics 464
Arts, Art, Aesthetics 465
Cartesian Aesthetics: Neoclassicism 468
Taste 474
Genius 483
Art and Morality 490
Imitation 493
Tragedy 500
The Sublime 506
10 The Science of Society 512
Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws 513
Commerce 521
Political Economy 529
Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations 535
Luxury 543
11 Philosophical History 555
Writing Secular History 555
Two Centres of History: Göttingen and Edinburgh 562
Two Histories of England: David Hume and Catharine Macaulay 572
Gibbon's Decline and Fall 582
The Future 595
12 Cosmopolitanism 600
Citizens of the World 600
Travel and Travel Writers 606
Myths of China 621
Empire 626
The Histoire des deux Indes 631
The Discovery of Asia 637
The Primitive 642
Cultural Cosmopolitanism: Forster and Herder 648
13 Forms of Government 655
Monarchy 656
Enlightened Absolutism 662
Republics 683
Rousseau and the Social Contract 692
14 Revolutions 706
The American Revolution 707
The French Revolution 717
At Long Last, an English Enlightenment 735
Some Enlightenment Legacies 745
Conclusion: The Battle over the Enlightenment 769
References 781
Select Bibliography 893
Index 927