Philadelphia's Enlightenment, 1740-1800: Kingdom of Christ, Empire of Reason

by Nina Reid-Maroney

Overview

Rather than treating the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment as defining opposites in 18th century American culture, this study argues that the imperatives of the great revival actually shaped the pursuit of enlightened science. Reid-Maroney traces the interwoven histories of the two movements by reconstructing the intellectual world of the Philadelphia circle. Prophets of the Enlightenment had long tried to resolve pressing questions about the limitations of human reason and the sources of our knowledge about the created order of things. The leaders of the Awakening addressed those questions with a new urgency and, in the process, determined the character of the Enlightenment emerging in Philadelphia's celebrated culture of science.

Tracing the influence of evangelical sensibility and the development of a Calvinist parallel to the philosophical skepticism of enlightened Scots, Reid-Maroney finds that the Philadelphians' love of science rested on a radical critique of human reason, even while it acknowledged that reason was the dignifying and distinguishing property of human nature. Benjamin Rush alluded to an enlightenment wrought by grace in his image of the Kingdom of Christ and the Empire of Reason. In the post-Revolutionary period, the redemptive Enlightenment of the Philadelphia circle reached its greatest cultural power as a vision for scientific progress in the new republic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313314728
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/30/2000
Series:	Contributions to the Study of World History , #81
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

NINA REID-MARONEY teaches History and Women's Studies at the University of Windsor./e

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Awakening: Science and Culture
"To Glorify God in Harmonious Quiet"
A Balm in Gilead
Awakening and Enlightenment in the New Side Academies
A "Hotbed of Hypothesis": The Edinburgh Medical School
The Enthusiast-Practitioner: Benjamin Rush
The Circle Widens: Samuel Stanhope Smith
The Kingdom of Christ and the Empire of Reason
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Once Reid-Maroney (history and women's studies, U. of Windsor) began to ask how Christianity, and particularly the Great Awakening, influenced the course of Philadelphia's Enlightenment, she discovered that reversing the model use by Leslie Stephens over a century ago liberated her from the presumption that her historical subjects could not see and avoid the potential irony of their intellectual position for themselves. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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