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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Intellectual enlightenments'
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Zahiri, Abdollah. "From enlightenment myopia to intellectual thaw: Negotiating rationality in V.S. Naipaul." Thesis, Zahiri, Abdollah (1997) From enlightenment myopia to intellectual thaw: Negotiating rationality in V.S. Naipaul. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 1997. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/52931/.
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FROM ENLIGHTENMENT MYOPIA TO INTELLECTUAL THAW: Negotiating Rationality in V. S. Naipaul
In this thesis I examine V.S.Naipaul’s rationality as it is reflected and foregrounded in his fiction and non-fiction. Naipaul’s texts reveal a consistent valuing of a coolly rational outlook and a fear of the irrational. I argue that before 1983 Naipaul’s attitude is governed by an instrumental rationality that serves the political interests of the empire and justifies the cultural violence that has been committed in the name of Enlightenment rationality. Enlightenment reason — read here as an instrumental application of reason —and to be distinguished from “ideal reason” was used in the imperial project as the justificatory imperative for the West’s civilising mission. This notion of rationality is in fact an instrumental rationality directly related to the dream of success and progress at the expense of the cultural traditions and historical integrity of the colonised. In the hands of nineteenth-century thinkers like John Stuart Mill, this instrumental rationality developed into the linchpin of the imperial project. What I attempt to prove in this thesis is that it is this flawed reading of Enlightenment rationality that Naipaul accepted for a large part of his literary career. During this period he becomes an apologist of instrumental rationality proper.
I have probed Naipaul’s works and have identified specific ways in which an apology of instrumental rationality operates in his travel writings and fiction. In examining the material I came across two distinct phases of his episteme which I call Enlightenment myopia and intellectual thaw. I have, therefore, thematically divided his works into two distinct categories: a first group in which his apology of instrumental rationality speaks for itself (here I deploy the counter-hegemonic cultural politics of Bhakti (India), Islam (Iran), Calypso (Caribbean), Jazz (American South) to rebut his homogenizing discourse); and a second group beginning with Finding the Centre (1984) in which an intellectual thaw sets in. The second phase marks Naipaul's self-reflexivity and a broader, lateral vision that transcends the boundaries set by instrumental rationality through a greater concern with what Habermas has called “communicative rationality”. At this stage Naipaul explicitly becomes conscious of the fact that he had been party to a narrative that was not his own. He becomes cognisant of how this unconscious reliance on a flawed notion of rationality had induced him to such a massive misreading of diverse cultures, their traditions, and histories. The focus of the thesis is on demonstrating that Naipaul employs instrumental reason in his early travel and this aspect of his approach gets in the way of a more open and critical engagement with peoples and cultures he examines. Furthermore, the distinctions made in this thesis allow us to distinguish (as postcolonial theory so far has failed to do so) between “ideal” and “instrumental reason”.
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Chen, Jeng-Guo. "James Mill's 'History of British India' in its intellectual context." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/15798.
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This thesis argues that James Mill's History of British India is, on the one hand, intellectually linked to the Scottish Enlightenment, while, on the other hand, moves beyond that intellectual tradition in the post-French Revolution age. This thesis makes three central claims. First, it argues that in reacting to Montesqueiu's idea of oriental society, the contributors to the Scottish Enlightenment used ideas of moral philosophy, philosophical history and political economy in order to create an image of a wealthy Asia whose societies possessed barbarous social manners. Some new writings about Asian societies that were published in the 1790s adopted Montesquieu' s views of oriental societies, and started to consider the history of manners and of political institutions as the true criteria of the state of civilisation. These works criticised some Asian social manners, such as female slavery, and questioned previous assumptions about the high civilisation of Indian and Chinese societies. This thesis argues that Mill's History, following William Robertson's History of America, was based on a study of the historical mind to interpret the texts published in the 1790s and the early nineteenth century. Second, this thesis argues that Mill adopted Francis Jeffrey's idea of semi-barbarism in his study of India. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, William Alexander and Francis J effrey started to think of history in the context of a tri -stadia! theory, which was more idealist and less materialist than the earlier four-stages theory. Mill tried to develop a holistic view of Asian society. In so doing, he came to criticise the British government's mistaken mercantilist view of government, which he regarded as unsuitable for the conditions of Indian society. Following Adam Smith's moral philosophy, and inspired by the socio-economic progress of North America, Mill suggested that the primary goals for the British government in India should be to improve its agriculture and to secure social freedom. This thesis also concludes that the discussions about Chinese society played an important part in shaping Mill's view of the concept of semi-barbarism. The theory of semi-barbarism helped Mill to reject the cultural ideology of Hindu superiority over Muslim societies. Lastly, this thesis argues that Mill's History was influenced by and sought to accommodate Benthamite Utilitarianism. Mill believed the supposed semi-barbarous and problematic native of Indian society could be reformed without following the steps taken by European history or institutions. He prescribed a powerful state for India in order to remove the mercantilist view of government, and to execute administrative and judicial reforms. This thesis concludes that, while Scottish philosophical history helped Mill to create a critique of the British government's attempts to govern India as a commercial society, Benthamite Utilitarianism taught Mill to see history from a teleological viewpoint.
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Wilkins-Jones, Clive. "Norwich City Library and its intellectual milieu : 1608-1825." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365012.
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Webster, William Mark. "Novikov, freemasonry and the Russian enlightenment." Thesis, McGill University, 1988. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=22358.
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Bow, Charles Bradford. "End of the Scottish Enlightenment in its transatlantic context : moral education in the thought of Dugald Stewart and Samuel Stanhope Smith, 1790-1812." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/8236.
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The thesis explores the history of the Scottish Enlightenment in its transatlantic context and, in particular, the diffusion of Scottish Enlightenment moral philosophy in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Scotland and the United States. This project is the first full-scale attempt to examine the tensions between late eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment intellectual culture and counter-Enlightenment interests in the Atlantic World. My comparative study focuses on two of the most influential university educators in Scotland and the newly-founded United States. These are Dugald Stewart at the University of Edinburgh and Samuel Stanhope Smith at the College of New Jersey (which later became Princeton University). Stewart and Smith are ideal for a transatlantic comparative project of this kind, because of their close parallels as moral philosophy professors at the University of Edinburgh (1785-1810) and the College of New Jersey (1779-1812) respectively; their conflicts with ecclesiastical factions and counter-Enlightenment policies in the first decade of the nineteenth century; and finally their uses and adaptations of Scottish Enlightenment moral philosophy. The broader question I address is how the diffusion and fate of Scottish Enlightenment moral thought was affected by the different institutional and, above all, religious contexts in which it was taught. Dugald Stewart’s and Stanhope Smith’s interpretations of central philosophical themes reflected their desire to improve the state of society by educating enlightened and virtuous young men who would later enter careers in public life. In doing so, their teaching of natural religion and metaphysics brought them into conflict with religious factions, namely American religious revivalists on Princeton’s Board of Trustees and members of the Scottish ecclesiastical Moderate party, who believed that revealed religion should provide the foundation of education. The controversies that emerged from these tensions did not develop in an intellectual vacuum. My research illustrates how the American and Scottish reception of the French Revolution; the 1793-1802 Scottish Sedition Trials; Scottish and American ‘polite’ culture; Scottish secular and ecclesiastical politics; American Federalist and Republican political debates; American student riots between 1800 and 1807; and American religious revivalism affected Smith’s and Stewart’s programmes of moral education. While I identify this project as an example of cultural and intellectual history, it also advances interests in the history of education, ecclesiastical history, transnational history, and comparative history. The thesis has two main parts. The first consists of three chapters on Dugald Stewart’s system of moral education: the circumstances in which Stewart developed his moral education as a modern version of Thomas Reid’s so-called Common Sense philosophy, Stewart’s applied ethics, and finally, his defence of the Scottish Enlightenment in the context of the 1805 John Leslie case. Complementing the chronology and themes in part one, the second part consists of three chapters on Smith’s programme of moral education: the circumstances that gave rise to Smith’s creation of the Princeton Enlightenment, Smith’s applied ethics, and finally, Smith’s defence of his system of moral education in the contexts of what he saw as two converging counter- Enlightenment factions (religious revivalists and rebellious students) at Princeton. In examining these areas, I argue that Dugald Stewart and Samuel Stanhope Smith attempted to systematically sustain Scottish Enlightenment ideas (namely Scottish philosophy) and values (‘Moderatism’) against counter-Enlightenment movements in higher education.
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Rubin-Detlev, Kelsey. "The letters of Catherine the Great and the rhetoric of Enlightenment." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b9199484-a774-485d-9e6c-3fef125a361c.
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This thesis offers the first reading of the letters of Catherine the Great as a unified epistolary corpus with literary merit as well as historical value. It explores how the empress employed a key eighteenth-century literary form - the letter - not only to make tactical interventions in political and cultural life, but also to shape her persona. The often contrastive style of her letters balances a charming epistolary voice, suited to the letter as a practice of sociability, with exhibitions of the empress's power and stature as a great individual on the historical stage. The interplay between these two facets, sociability and grandeur, defines her unique approach to the letter form as well as the image of the enlightened monarch as she created it. She displayed her mastery, both literary and political, by creatively manipulating all aspects of the letter, from language choice through etiquette and materiality. Both her lively and seductive personal style and her regal character as an Enlightenment great man derived from and reappropriated available literary models. Seeking to ensure that this image reached receptive audiences, Catherine also carefully controlled the circulation of her letters: in keeping with the semi-privacy of the eighteenth-century letter, she wrote first and foremost to win a reputation with cultural and social elites who exchanged letters out of print. At the same time, she manipulated indirectly through her correspondents the image received by a broader public of her contemporaries and of future generations. The French Revolution challenged all her values, troubling also her elite mode of sociable correspondence and her eighteenth-century version of glory. Yet, to the end of her days Catherine employed her dual style as the best means of writing herself into history.
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Towsey, Mark R. M. "Reading the Scottish Enlightenment : libraries, readers and intellectual culture in provincial Scotland c.1750-c.1820." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/412.
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The thesis explores the reception of the works of the Scottish Enlightenment in provincial Scotland, broadly defined, aiming to gauge their diffusion in the libraries of private book collectors and 'public' book-lending institutions, and to suggest the meanings and uses that contemporary Scottish readers assigned to major texts like Hume's History of England and Smith's Wealth of Nations. I thereby acknowledge the relevance of more traditional quantitative approaches to the history of reading (including statistical analysis of the holdings of contemporary book collections), but prioritise the study of sources that also allow us to access the 'hows' and 'whys' of individual reading practices and experiences. Indeed, the central thrust of my work has been the discovery and interrogation of large numbers of commonplace books, marginalia, diaries, correspondence and other documentary records which can be used to illuminate the reading experience itself in an explicit attempt to develop an approach to Scottish reading practices that can contribute in comparative terms to the burgeoning field of the history of reading. More particularly, such sources allow me to assess the impact that specific texts had on the lives, thought-processes and values of a wide range of contemporary readers, and to conclude that by reading these texts in their own endlessly idiosyncratic ways, consumers of literature in Scotland assimilated many of the prevalent attitudes and priorities of the literati in the major cities. Since many of the most important and pervasive manifestations of Enlightenment in Scotland were not particularly Scottish, however, I also cast doubt on the distinctive Scottishness of the prevailing 'cultural' definition of the Scottish Enlightenment, arguing that such behaviour might more appropriately be considered alongside cultural developments in Georgian England.
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Sullivan, Marek. "Secular assemblages : affect, Orientalism, and power in the French enlightenment." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2018. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3f0c316d-91ec-4568-9bf9-699038024321.
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Taking Saba Mahmood's question 'Can secularism be other-wise?' (2010) as the starting point for a critical-historical investigation of the 'secular body' (Asad 2003; Hirschkind 2011), my thesis develops in two stages. In the first, I argue that current works of secular theory - particularly A Secular Age (Taylor 2007) - tend to rely on an excessively rationalistic conception of Enlightenment thought for the construction of their central conceptual categories (e.g. the 'immanent frame', 'buffered self', or 'modern exclusive humanism'), thus reinforcing a double-binary linking rationality to Euro-American secularity, and emotion to subaltern 'religion'. Against Taylor and others, I emphasise the contradictory, 'assembled' nature of Enlightenment discourse, and point to alternative, more body-centred strands of thought in key figures of the seventeenth-eighteenth-century French Enlightenment, such as Descartes, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Helvétius, and Holbach. Against common perceptions, and drawing on a range of philosophical works, institutional reports, and stage plays in French and in translation, I suggest these figures in some ways reinstated emotion and the body against the rationalistic tendencies of the past. Insofar as 'the secular' was shaped by the Enlightenment, it emerged out of a conscious project of nationalist cultivation, based fundamentally on manipulating the body and emotions. In the second stage, I consider the way Orientalist representations of non-Western religions meshed with prevalent theories of political manipulation to generate an affective system of anti-Catholic propaganda geared towards the national good. Though existing critiques of Taylor tend to focus on the importance of religious (i.e. Christian) constructions of Oriental religions for the genealogy of secularity (e.g. Mahmood 2010), I suggest a distinctively secular form of Orientalism emerged in the eighteenth century, in which anti-religion, racism, and nationalism merged into a powerful weapon of republican discourse, congruent with ambient theories of emotion. The aesthetic manipulation of racist and Orientalist tropes in Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes (1721) and Voltaire's Le Fanatisme (1741), for example, can be read as a practical response to existing theory on the power of images to regulate people's passions in the national interest.
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Bruton, Roger Neil. "The Shropshire Enlightenment : a regional study of intellectual activity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2015. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5830/.
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The focus of this study is centred upon intellectual activity in the period from 1750 to c1840 in Shropshire, an area that for a time was synonymous with change and innovation. It examines the importance of personal development and the influence of intellectual communities and networks in the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. It adds to understanding of how individuals and communities reflected Enlightenment aspirations or carried the mantle of ‘improvement’ and thereby contributes to the debate on the establishment of regional Enlightenment. The acquisition of philosophical knowledge merged into the cultural ethos of the period and its utilitarian characteristics were to influence the onset of Industrial Revolution but Shropshire was essentially a rural location. The thesis examines how those progressive tendencies manifested themselves in that local setting. The study therefore explores contemporary knowledge acquisition and dissemination, both within and beyond the industrial environment for which the county has become historically known. Comparisons are made with similar processes in other localities and conclusions drawn on local specificity in the context of economic and agricultural improvement and the enhancement of infrastructure. It acknowledges in the process, the cultural change effected in the lives of many individuals across the social spectrum.
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Ward, Madeleine. "The intellectual context for the development of Quakerism, 1647-1700." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b82ce5ff-d11d-417a-9569-ac03f83a18fd.
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This thesis considers the development of Quakerism from 1647 to 1700. Changes affecting the movement in this period are often explained as the result of the Quakers' desire for socio-political respectability â that is, their desire to reduce persecution and social exclusion. This thesis does not deny the importance of socio-political factors. However, it argues that they have been exaggerated as a historical force, and that theological factors driving change have been comparatively neglected. The thesis therefore explores the Quakers' desire for 'theological respectability', by examining the scope and impact of their constructive engagement with outsiders. The project begins with an investigation into the Quakers' understanding of their personal experience, noting both continuities and underlying theological changes which cannot be explained in socio-political terms â namely, a changed view of divine immanence, a strengthened group identity, and the loss of a sense of prophetic vocation. The rest of the thesis explains these developments in their theological context. The Quakers' engagement in Christological debate forms the central case-study. Individual chapters examine the Quakersâ earliest Christology, first responses to criticism, the early career of William Penn, the intellectual development of Robert Barclay's Vehiculum Dei, the Quakers' place in the early Enlightenment, and the Keithian controversy. In particular, the need to articulate a positive theology of the Incarnation led the Quakers into conversation with many influential figures outside the movement, which in turn encouraged an increasingly derivative understanding of the Light within and more optimistic view of physical matter. These shifts relate directly to the religious changes explored in the first part of the thesis. This study illustrates the necessity of theological analysis as part of historical investigation and provides a sustained intellectual history of seventeenth-century Quakerism, demonstrating its important contribution to the intellectual landscape of the early Enlightenment.
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Chan, Stefanie. "The Regeneration of Hellas: Influences on the Greek War for Independence 1821-1832." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2011. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/188.
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Justo, Tainá Veloso [UNESP]. "Reflexões em voz alta: uma investigação sobre a sociabilidade dos literati na Escócia do século XVIII." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/154743.
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Previous issue date: 2018-05-29<br>Investiga-se o meio em que se dá o desenvolvimento das ideias dos pensadores escoceses do século XVIII por meio da identificação de linguagens políticas comuns, reconstituição histórica, estudo do pensamento político e sociabilidade, sobretudo, em relação os clubes intelectuais nos quais participavam. Trabalhamos os conceitos de “intelectual” e de “sociabilidade”. Utilizamos técnica de pesquisa histórica conhecida como ‘contextualismo linguístico de Cambridge’, cujos grandes expoentes são Quentin Skinner e John G. A. Pocock; também está contida a “história dos conceitos” trabalhada por Reinhart Koselleck. Por meio de pesquisa qualitativa e estudo bibliográfico, analisamos textos que abordam a temática “Iluminismo Escocês” tais como coletâneas de artigos, diários de observações, revistas da época, correspondências dos membros do clube, bem como algumas obras de relevo sobre o pensamento político escocês do século XVIII.<br>We investigate the development of the ideas of Scottish thinkers of the eighteenth century through the identification of common political languages, historical reconstitution, study of political thought and sociability, especially in relation to the intellectual clubs in which they participated. We work on the concepts of "intellectual" and "sociability". We use historical research technique known as 'Cambridge linguistic contextualism', whose great exponents are Quentin Skinner and John G. A. Pocock; is also contained the "history of concepts" worked by Reinhart Koselleck .Through qualitative research and bibliographical study, we analyze texts that deal with the theme of "Scottish Enlightenment" such as collections of articles, journals of remarks, periodicals, correspondence of the members of the club, as well as some important works on Scottish political thought of the eighteenth century
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Platon, Mircea Alexandru. "‘TOUCHSTONES OF TRUTH’: THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF JEAN-BAPTISTE-LOUIS GRESSET, LÉGER-MARIE DESCHAMPS, AND SIMON-NICOLAS-HENRI LINGUET." The Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1330711134.
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Nicolai, Katherine Cecilia. "'Scottish Cato'? : a re-examination of Adam Ferguson's engagement with classical antiquity." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/8248.
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Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) was one of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, an influential eighteenth-century moral and political philosopher, as well as a professor of ethics at the University of Edinburgh from 1764 to 1785. There has been a wealth of scholarship on Ferguson in which central themes include his role as a political theorist, sociologist, moral philosopher, and as an Enlightenment thinker. One of the most frequent topics addressed by scholars is his relationship to ancient philosophy, particularly Stoicism. The ease with which scholars identify Ferguson as a Stoic, however, is problematic because of the significant differences between Ferguson‟s ideas and those of the „schools‟ of classical antiquity, especially Stoicism. Some scholars interpret Ferguson‟s philosophy as a derivative, unsystematic „patchwork‟ because he drew on various ancient sources, but, it is argued, did not adhere to any particular system. The aim of my thesis is to suggest an alternative interpretation of Ferguson‟s relationship to ancient philosophy, particularly to Stoicism, by placing Ferguson in the context of the intellectual history of the eighteenth century. The first section of this thesis is an examination of Ferguson‟s response to the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns, modern eclecticism and the experimental method to demonstrate how Ferguson‟s approach to and engagement with ancient philosophy is informed by these intellectual contexts. The second section is a close analysis of the role that ancient schools play in his discussion of the history of philosophy as well as the didactic purpose found in his lectures and published works thereby determining the function of ancient thought in his philosophy. The third section is a re-examination of Ferguson‟s concept of Stoicism and his engagement with Stoic ethics in his moral philosophy re-interpreting his relationship to the ancient school. With a combination of a new understanding of Ferguson‟s methodology and new assessment of his engagement with ancient thought, a new interpretation of Ferguson‟s moral philosophy demonstrates his unique contribution to eighteenth-century thought.
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Letis, Theodore P. "From sacred text to religious text : an intellectual history of the impact of Erasmian lower criticism on dogma as a contribution to the English Enlightenment and the Victorian crisis of faith." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.511292.
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A religious belief in verbal inspiration gave the Christian Bible its sacred text status within the matrix of the Church. The lower, or textual criticism, first practised outside the sanction of the Church by Erasmus and developed further by non-Trinitarians initially, offered the first significant direct challenge to this belief in the early modern period. This, the dissertation argues, was the proper beginning, phenomenologically speaking, of the process of desacralization. Moreover, it is argued that the desacralizing role of the lower criticism was further manifested when it was discovered that certain theologically significant passages, perceived by those in the Erasmian school to have resulted from later interpolation into the text of Scripture, illegitimately lent support to dogmas such as the Trinity, the deity of Christ and the virgin birth. The practice of lower criticism set in motion, well before the arrival of the higher criticism, a rather significant awakening of a historical consciousness about the developmental stages of the N. T. text, which in later recensions reflected a more full-blown orthodox expression of christological themes. The role that the lower criticism played in introducing this historical consciousness has not been readily acknowledged by either historians or practitioners of the discipline of lower criticism. The dissertation argues that this is because of an ideological framing of the historical details of the discipline in development. This ideological component and the historical circumstances prompting it are brought into relief revealing why two schools arose during the English Enlightenment and carried on into the Victorian era, responding to the data of text criticism in two directions: one interpreting the data as affecting dogma, the other interpreting the data as not affecting dogma. In answering why this came about the dissertation helps to explain how the quest for the historical text culminated in the quest for the historical Jesus
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Soderstrom, Mark A. "Enlightening the Land of Midnight: Peter Slovtsov, Ivan Kalashnikov, and the Saga of Russian Siberia." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1311961669.
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Duoji, Nyingcha. "Gha rung pa Lha'i rgyal mtshan as a Scholar and Defender of the Jo nang Tradition: a Study of His Lamp That Illuminates The Expanse of Reality with an Annotated Translation and Critical Edition of the Text." Thesis, Harvard University, 2014. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:11533.
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During the fourteenth century, with the rise of Dol po pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan (1292-1361), the gzhan stong philosophical tradition became a source of great controversy in Tibet. Dol po pa taught this new philosophical tradition for the first time to the wider Tibetan intellectual community. As Dol po pa's Jo nang teachings attracted an audience, many other philosophical giants of the day, such as Bu ston Rin chen grub (1290-1364), Red mda' ba Gzhon nu blo gros (1349-1412/13), and their students composed polemical works to refute Jo nang tradition. Lamp that Illuminates the Expanse of Reality was composed in the midst of this controversy to defend the Jo nang point of view. In it, its author, Gha rung pa Lha'i rgyal mtshan (1319-1402/03), attempts to prove that the Jo nang philosophical tradition is the definitive teaching and the quickest path to achieve the Buddhahood.
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Nicholas-Twining, Timothy. "Biblical criticism and confessional division from Jean Morin to Richard Simon, c. 1620-1685." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2017. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/264155.
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This thesis aims to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of biblical criticism in the seventeenth century. Its central objective is to put forward a new interpretation of the work of the Oratorian scholar Richard Simon. It does so by placing Simon's work, above all his Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (1678), in the context of the great increase in critical study of the text of the Bible that occurred after 1620. The problems and questions that confronted European scholars at this time were profound, as new manuscript discoveries combined with existing learned and polemical debates in such a way that scholars were forced reconsider their opinions on the history and text of the Old Testament. Rather than study these works solely in the discrete tradition of the history of scholarship, however, this thesis shows why they have to be considered in the context of the print culture that made their production possible, the confessional divisions that shaped and deepened the significance of their philological arguments, and the intellectual cooperation, exchange, and disagreement that determined how contemporaries understood them. The results of this research contribute to existing scholarship in several significant ways, of which four stand out for special emphasis. First, through extensive archival research it markedly revises our current understanding of the work of Jean Morin, Louis Cappel, Johannes Buxtorf II, and Richard Simon. Second, it shows that the history of biblical criticism must consider the work of Catholic scholars in the same level of detail as Protestant scholars. Third, it breaks the link between innovative philological and historical work and radical theological or political thought. Fourth, it calls into doubt the current consensus that seventeenth-century scholarly life is best understood through the concept of the international and inter-confessional 'Republic of Letters'.
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Ferreira, Breno Ferraz Leal. "Contra todos os inimigos - Luís Antonio Verney: historiografia e método crítico (1736-1750)." Universidade de São Paulo, 2009. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8138/tde-01122009-110924/.
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Esta dissertação analisa o pensamento de Luís António Verney (1713-Lisboa 1792- Roma) nos primeiros anos em que viveu na Itália (1736-1750). Em primeiro lugar, procura-se expor os diferentes sentidos conferidos pela historiografia à sua obra (em especial ao Verdadeiro método de estudar, de 1746), desde o século XVIII até o presente. Notadamente, discutem-se o papel atribuído às suas ideias nas discussões sobre a decadência de Portugal e como foram associadas ao Iluminismo católico e às reformas pombalinas, efetuadas no reinado de D. José I (1750-1777). Em um segundo momento, parte-se para a reconstrução do ambiente intelectual e político no qual Verney escreveu a obra mencionada. Nela, defendeu acentuadamente a conciliação entre Teologia e Filosofia moderna. Por fim, examina-se a sua concepção de História, particularmente sua proposta de utilização do método crítico como instrumento de defesa da religião católica.<br>This dissertation analyzes the thought of Luís António Verney (1713-Lisbon - 1792- Rome) during the first years of the time he lived in Italy (1736-1750). First, it presents the different meanings conferred by the historiography to his work (especially to Real way method of studying, from 1746), from the 18th century to the present. It gives special emphasis to the role attributed to his ideas in the discussions of Portugals decadence, and how they were associated with the Catholic Enlightenment and the Pombal reforms, made during the reign of Dom José I (1750-1777). Next, it reconstructs the intellectual and political environment in which Verney wrote the aforementioned work. In it, he strongly defended reconcilement between Theology and modern Philosophy. Finally, his conception of History is examined, particularly his proposal for using the critical method as an instrument of the Catholic religion.
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Brereton, Mary Catherine. "Philosophic historiography in the eighteenth century in Britain and France." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2007. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e134dabe-301d-4e81-a282-8c2204499fbb.
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The subject of this thesis is the by now traditional grouping of certain innovative works of historiography produced in eighteenth-century Britain and France; namely the historical works of Voltaire, and the historical writings of the philosophes; and, in Britain, the histories of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. This thesis gives a historical and expository analysis of the individual strategies of literary self-fashioning and generic appropriation which underlie this impression of resemblance. It particularly demonstrates that the major characteristics of the contemporary vision of philosophic historiography – the idea of a European history of manners or l’esprit humain, and the insistence on the rejection of the practices of the érudits – which have become incorporated within scholarly definitions of ‘Enlightenment historiography’, are well-established generic tropes, adapted and affected in France as in Britain, by authors of diverse ambitions. The invitation to assume inauthentic connections contained within the practice of philosophic historiography is shown to be embraced by Gibbon, in a notable literary challenge to the paradigms of intellectual history. This study contrasts the textual evidence of these authors’ experience of literary, personal, and political challenges regarding the definition of their role as public, intellectual writers, to the acquired image of an ideal of ‘Enlightenment writing’. It considers the Frenchness of philosophie, and the potential Britishness of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. As part of its wider analysis of the practice of intellectual writing with a historical focus, its scope includes the writings of British clerics and writers on religion; of French academicians; and of the late philosophe Volney, and Shelley his interpreter. The major conclusion of this thesis is that eighteenth-century British and French history writing does not support any synthesis of an Enlightenment historical philosophy, narrative, or method; while it is suggested that one of the costs of the construct of ‘Enlightenment’, has been the illusion of familiarity with eighteenth-century intellectual culture, in France as well as Britain.
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Hill, Mark J. "Founding and re-founding : a problem in Rousseau's political thought and action." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b41e1417-05c9-4c46-bcad-f0f0bdc83dde.
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protein chemistry, unnatural amino acids, chemical biology, proteomicsThe foundation of political societies is a central theme in Rousseau's work. This is no surprise coming from a man who was born into a people who had their own celebrated founder and foundations, and immersed himself in the writings of classical republicans and the quasi-mythical histories of ancient city-states where the heroic lawgiver played an important and legitimate role in political foundations. However, Rousseau's propositional political writings (those written for Geneva, Corsica, and Poland) have been accused of being unsystematic and running the spectrum from conservative and prudent to radical and utopian. It is this seeming incongruence which is the subject of this thesis. In particular, it is argued that this confusion is born out the failure to recognize a systematic distinction between "founding" and "re-founding" political societies in both the history of political thought, and Rousseau's own work (a distinction in Rousseau which has rarely been noted, let alone treated to a study of its own). By recognizing this distinction one can identify two Rousseaus; the conservative and prudent thinker who is wary of making changes to established political systems and constitutional foundations (the re-founder), and the radical democrat fighting for equality, and claiming that no state is legitimate without popular sovereignty (the founder). In demonstrating this distinction, this thesis examines the ancient concept of the lawgiver, the growth and expansion of the idea leading up to the eighteenth century, Rousseau's own philosophic writings on the topic, and the differing political proposals he wrote for Geneva, Corsica, and Poland. The thesis argues that although there is a clear separation between these two types of political proposals, they remain systematically Rousseauvian.
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Roberts, Gabriel C. B. "Historical argument in the writings of the English deists." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f4f32628-8e30-49b4-b2ab-449dc0b94b64.
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This study examines the role of history in the writings of the English deists, a group of heterodox religious controversialists who were active from the last quarter of the seventeenth century until the middle of the eighteenth century. Its main sources are the published works of the deists and their opponents, but it also draws, where possible, on manuscript sources. Not all of the deists were English (one was Irish and another was of Welsh extraction), but the term ‘English Deists’ has been used on the grounds that the majority of deists were English and that they published overwhelmingly in England and in English. It shows that the deists not only disagreed with their orthodox opponents about the content of sacred history, but also about the relationship between religious truth and historical evidence. Chapter 1 explains the entwining of theology and history in early Christianity, how the connection between them was understood by early modern Christians, and how developments in orthodox learning set the stage for the appearance of deism in the latter decades of the seventeenth century. Each of the following three chapters is devoted to a different line of argument which the deists employed against orthodox belief. Chapter 2 examines the argument that certain propositions were meaningless, and therefore neither true nor false irrespective of any historical evidence which could be marshalled in their support, as it was used by John Toland and Anthony Collins. Chapter 3 traces the argument that the actions ascribed to God in sacred history might be unworthy of his goodness, beginning with Samuel Clarke’s first set of Boyle Lectures and then progressing through the writings of Thomas Chubb, Matthew Tindal, Thomas Morgan, and William Warburton. Chapter 4 charts the decline of the category of certain knowledge in the latter half of the seventeenth century, the rise of probability theory, and the effect of these developments on the deists’ views about the reliability of historical evidence. Chapter 5 is a case-study, which reads Anthony Collins’s Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion (1724) in light of the findings of the earlier chapters. Finally, a coda provides a conspectus of the state of the debate in the middle decades of the eighteenth century, focusing on the work of four writers: Peter Annet, David Hume, Conyers Middleton, and Edward Gibbon.
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Goldin, Marcovich Gabriela. "Voix créoles : les savants de la Nouvelle-Espagne entre Mexico et l'exil italien (1767-1814)." Thesis, Paris, EHESS, 2020. http://www.theses.fr/2020EHES0114.
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Dans la deuxième moitié du XVIIIe siècle et les débuts du XIXe siècle, les savants créoles mexicains s’intéressent à l’histoire naturelle, ancienne et civile de la Nouvelle-Espagne. Ces auteurs, dont une partie sont des jésuites, séparés de part et d’autre de l’Atlantique depuis l’expulsion de la Compagnie de Jésus (1767), écrivent depuis une multiplicité de lieux et de positions et forment à la fois un groupe par leur parcours collectif clivé par l’exil, et un réseau par la réciprocité des échanges aussi bien dans les villes où ils se trouvent – Mexico, Rome et Bologne – qu’entre celles-ci. En contextualisant ces trajectoires, cette étude cherche à éviter une histoire des idées à partir de leur production écrite telle qu’elle a été travaillée en particulier autour de la Querelle du Nouveau Monde, aussi bien qu’une lecture indexée sur des problématiques politiques proto-nationales. Comment ces intellectuels s’inscrivent-ils dans l’espace et les problématiques des Lumières ? En privilégiant l’échelle urbaine, il s’agit de cartographier les savoirs que ces savants produisent en dialogue avec l’Europe, mais aussi avec l’Amérique caraïbe. Par une histoire matérielle et sociale des pratiques d’écriture, ce travail revient sur l’expérience politique et urbaine de la Nouvelle Espagne et de Mexico à la fin de la période coloniale comme espace vécu et comme espace de réflexion savante. Par-delà l’expression de thèmes communs tels que le patriotisme mexicain et l’orgueil créole, il s’agit de comprendre la pluralité des voix, par les tensions et les effets de contraste, en étudiant comment les divers agendas politiques et situations institutionnelles s’articulent avec les activités savantes de ces acteurs<br>In the second half of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, Mexican creole intellectuals took an interest in the natural, ancient, and civil history of New Spain. Those authors, some of whom were Jesuits, were separated across the Atlantic by the expulsion of the Company of Jesus (1767), and as a result they wrote from multiple geographic as well as institutional locations. While the expulsion of the jesuits separated them, they remained a network through their epistolary and intellectual exchanges. This study contextualizes their biographical trajectories, avoiding a history of the ideas merely based on their intellectual production such as has been thus far pursued, in particular in relation to the Dispute of the New World. On the other hand, it also avoids reducing the complexity of their intellectual production to its political, proto-national dimension. In what ways do these intellectuals inscribe themselves within the Enlightenment? By privileging the urban scale, this study maps their production of knowledge, engaged in a close dialogue not only with Europe but also with Caribbean America. Through a material and social history of writing practices, this dissertation approaches the political and urban experience of New Spain and Mexico at the end of the colonial period as a lived arena of intellectual reflection. Going beyond the recognition of common themes, such as Mexican patriotism and creole pride, this study attempts to hearken to a plurality of creole voices by paying attention to contrasts and tensions and by studying the relationship between the scholarly activities of those authors and their different political agendas and institutional circumstances
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Harris, Eleanor M. "The Episcopal congregation of Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh, 1794-1818." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/19991.
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This thesis reassesses the nature and importance of the Scottish Episcopal Church in Edinburgh and more widely. Based on a microstudy of one chapel community over a twenty-four year period, it addresses a series of questions of religion, identity, gender, culture and civic society in late Enlightenment Edinburgh, Scotland, and Britain, combining ecclesiastical, social and economic history. The study examines the congregation of Charlotte Episcopal Chapel, Rose Street, Edinburgh, from its foundation by English clergyman Daniel Sandford in 1794 to its move to the new Gothic chapel of St John's in 1818. Initially an independent chapel, Daniel Sandford's congregation joined the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1805 and the following year he was made Bishop of Edinburgh, although he contined to combine this role with that of rector to the chapel until his death in 1830. Methodologically, the thesis combines a detailed reassessment of Daniel Sandford's thought and ministry (Chapter Two) with a prosopographical study of 431 individuals connected with the congregation as officials or in the in the chapel registers (Chapter Three). Biography of the leader and prosopography of the community are brought to illuminate and enrich one another to understand the wealth and business networks of the congregation (Chapter Four) and their attitudes to politics, piety and gender (Chapter Five). The thesis argues that Daniel Sandford's Evangelical Episcopalianism was both original in Scotland, and one of the most successful in appealing to educated and influential members of Edinburgh society. The congregation, drawn largely from the newly-built West End of Edinburgh, were bourgeois and British in their composition. The core membership of privileged Scots, rooted in land and law, led, but were also challenged by and forced to adapt to a broad social spread who brought new wealth and influence into the West End through India and the consumer boom. The discussion opens up many avenues for further research including the connections between Scottish Episcopalianism and romanticism, the importance of India and social mobility within the consumer economy in the development of Edinburgh, and Scottish female intellectual culture and its engagement with religion and enlightenment. Understanding the role of enlightened, evangelical Episcopalianism, which is the contribution of this study, will form an important context for these enquiries.
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Long, Katya. "Security and Liberty: the Republican dilemma in the Early American Republic." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/210320.
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A la fin du 18ème siècle, les Etats-Unis inaugurent les révolutions fondatrices ou refondatrices, directement inspirée des Lumières et ayant dialoguées par-delà l’Atlantique. La période révolutionnaire a vue une élite politique nouvelle aux prises avec la nécessité de bâtir un «ordre nouveau», c'est-à-dire de créer un gouvernement et de définir le rapport au monde de ce nouvel Etat. Cette quête a amené les acteurs politiques de la révolution à chercher un modèle politique différent de celui, dominant, des monarchies absolues. L’idée de république s’impose dès la déclaration d’indépendance. En effet, les Lumières avaient redécouvert le républicanisme qui pouvait incarner l’espoir d’un ordre politique réformé. Cependant, les républiques classiques et les exemples contemporains confirment l’idée alors partagée par tous qu’une république ne peut être qu’une petite entité politique au sein de laquelle vit une population restreinte d’hommes libres et où les différences sociales sont relativement faibles. Non seulement cette petite taille des républiques était-elle un phénomène empirique mais elle semblait être une loi d’airain. Depuis la reformulation du dilemme républicain par Machiavel, l’idée qu’une république ne puisse pas être libre et étendue faisait consensus. Cette première république moderne, fille des Lumières pacifistes, a pourtant mené une expansion quasi-continentale. Comment cette petite république à la périphérie du monde pouvait-elle réconcilier sa volonté de rompre avec les tentations hégémoniques et son désir de puissance ?Comment pouvait-elle s’étendre tout en préservant sa liberté républicaine ?Nous avons formulé l’hypothèse que la réponse à ces questions se trouve dans une redéfinition des principes et des méthodes de leur politique étrangère. Afin de minimiser les risques de corruption de la république, les acteurs de la révolution ont cherché à mettre en place une politique étrangère républicaine fondée sur les idées des Lumières. <p>Cette hypothèse nous a mené à articuler notre travail autour de trois axes de recherche :le premier portant sur la théorie politique internationale, le second sur le débat idéologique autour de la politique étrangère et le troisième sur les institutions de prise de décision et de mise en œuvre de cette politique étrangère. Ces trois axes sont reliés par les idées qui forment la structure intellectuelle des débats entre les acteurs ainsi que les déterminants de la création institutionnelle. <p>C’est là le cœur de notre thèse. En faisant appel à la méthodologie originale développée par Pierre Rosanvallon, qu’il décrit comme une histoire conceptuelle du politique, nous avons tout d’abord procédé à une étude du cadre intellectuel de la révolution américaine en mettant en lumière les évolutions des concepts-clefs de la philosophie des relations internationales par une analyse de la contribution de Montesquieu à la théorie politique internationale. <p>La thèse porte ensuite sur les débats révolutionnaires, la tension entre les idéologies des Lumières telles qu’illustrées par la pensée de Montesquieu et le désir d’expansion territoriale ou de grandeur des acteurs de la révolution. Nous avons choisi de consacrer notre étude aux élites, non pas que nous ne considérions pas l’histoire sociale digne d’intérêt mais nous avons postulé que dans cette phase de bouleversement politique, ce sont les élites politiques qui ont joué le rôle déterminant. Enfin, la troisième partie de la thèse consiste en une étude du cadre constitutionnel, législatif et institutionnel de la politique étrangère républicaine issue de l’interaction entre la structure intellectuelle des Lumières et son interprétation par les acteurs. <p>Ainsi, notre analyse des idées, des acteurs et des institutions de la république américaine nous a permis de contribuer d’une part à la théorie des relations internationales en mettant en lumière les évolutions des concepts-clefs de la politique internationale au cours du 18ème siècle et d’autre part à l’histoire des idées politiques en étendant son champ aux questions internationales. Cela nous a permis également de mettre en lumière le lien étroit entre la structure idéelle, les intérêts et les stratégies des acteurs et la création des institutions politiques.<br>Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished
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Barton, Michelle Renee. "Illuminated dimensions providing an intellectual or spiritual enlightenment through existence /." 2008. http://etd.utk.edu/August2008MastersTheses/BartonMichelleRenee.pdf.
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ONOFRIICHUK, Tetiana. "Provincializing enlightenment : the ideas and portrayals of Volhynia and Podole by its residents." Doctoral thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/48047.
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Defence date: 19 September 2017<br>Examining Board: Professor Pavel Kolář, European University Institute; Professor Ann Thomson, European University Institute; Associate Professor Kateryna Dysa, National University of 'Kyiv-Mohyla Academy'; Dr. Bernhard Struck, University of St Andrews<br>This thesis explores how the szlachta and residents of the geographically, socially, and politically distinctive regions of Volhynia and Podole reflected on and made representations of the Enlightenment in the 1790s – 1860s. By focusing primarily on the memoirs of the local actors in Volhynia and Podole, this dissertation addresses the ways they experienced and responded to changes in social practices and intellectual communication within their local context and environment. The chapters of this dissertation tackle issues such as education, reading habits, the practice of translation, scientific exploration, emancipation, toleration, and the role of religion in society. By building on these topics, this thesis argues for the importance of peripheral areas in order to uncover the geographical diversity of the Enlightenment. It also contributes to the discussions on cultural superiority/inferiority that were prevalent during the age of Enlightenment, and elucidates the new vocabulary that the residents adopted in their works between the 1790s and 1860s. By focusing on the narratives offered by the landed nobility and residents, this study makes a case for the transfer of ideas and their cultural (dis)placement. The ambition of this work is to trace the full spectrum of changes that occurred within this provincial community, in order to provide a fresh perspective on blending and transformation of ideas in a specific context. Simultaneously, the local actors’ works are also examined as indicators of identity formation in the face of foreign imperial domination.
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Chen, Chien-Yuen, and 陳建元. "Josiah Tucker on Free Trade and American Revolution: A Study on Intellectual History of Enlightenment." Thesis, 2013. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/75663760567396222972.
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碩士<br>國立臺灣大學<br>歷史學研究所<br>101<br>Josiah Tucker is a Anglican clergyman in eighteenth-century England. Though as a dean in church, he wrote a certain amount of works concerning economics and politics, and was deemed as of importance. Past articles and monograph dealing with Dean Tucker were either focusing on his pre-Smithian insistence on "free trade", or on his efforts to persuade the Britons and leaders of government to abandon the North-American colonies during the War of Independence. The past studies, however, did not notice the religious sphere which is not unimportant of Tucker''s works and thoughts. The religious part in Dean''s political and economic thoughts posed some important questions and even paradoxes which still needed to be solved, and this is one of the themes to be discussed in this thesis. Through mapping out Tucker''s thoughts on the theology and ecclesiastical affairs, this study aims to provide a more comprehensive and coherent picture of Dean''s mind. In a word, this thesis argues that Dean deemed the idea of free-trade as the benevolence of Province, thus he advocates it with a highly enthusiastic motivation. Besides, the research also combines the above-mentioned argument with the already-abundant studies on the English Enlightenment, tracking Tucker on the map of the Enlightenment world. All in all, through the discussion and examination of Josiah Tucker''s works and thoughts, this dissertation provides a deeper understanding of not only Dean himself but the essence of the multi-directional dialogue between the Enlightenment and Christianity.
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LeFlem, Michael M. "The specter of reason American intellectuals and the histotoricization [sic] of the Enlightenment, 1910-1969 /." 2008. http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04122008-201225.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2008.<br>Advisor: Neil Jumonville, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of History. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 23, 2008). Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 65 pages. Includes bibliographical references.
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OLESEN, Brian Kjær. "Monarchism, religion, and moral philosophy : Ludvig Holberg and the early northern enlightenment." Doctoral thesis, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/40947.
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Defence date: 22 April 2016<br>Examining Board: Professor Martin van Gelderen (EUI/ Lichtenberg-Kolleg, The Göttingen Institute for Advanced Studies, Supervisor); Professor Ann Thomson (EUI, Second reader); Professor Knud Haakonssen (University of Erfurt), Doctor Timothy Stanton (University of York)<br>This thesis deals with the thought of Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754) from the perspective of intellectual history; its aim, to think about the enlightenment anew. The historical problem, to which the thesis offers an answer, is twofold. What was the nature of Holberg's thought in relation to the enlightenment and how can it be said to have constituted an early Northern enlightenment more specifically? To the extent that we can talk historically of a specific early Northern enlightenment, it cannot, of course, be reduced to the case of Holberg. Yet, this thesis argues that any proper understanding of the question whether there was a particular early Northern enlightenment, as one amongst a multitude of enlightenments, must necessarily begin from an understanding of the thought of Holberg, the most prominent writer in the early eighteenth century. Describing Holberg as an eclectic thinker, the main argument of the thesis is that the early Northern enlightenment is best understood in light of Holberg's engagement with a wide range of intellectual traditions, both secular and religious. Thus, the thesis aims to reconstruct the trajectories of Holberg's thought and to situate his thinking about monarchism, religion, and moral philosophy in relation to a broader range of European enlightenments. It aims to show that the key to understanding the early Northern enlightenment is to be found in the connection between the thought of Ludvig Holberg and the multiple enlightenments with which he was engaged. In addressing such issues, the thesis sets an essentially revisionist agenda: the enlightenment of Holberg is best understood as an eclectic blend of Lutheranism, Arminianism, and modern natural law.
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ORTOLJA-BAIRD, Alexandra. "Where philosophy meets bureaucracy : Cesare Beccaria's social contract from page to practice." Doctoral thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/49327.
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Defence date: 14 December 2017<br>Examining Board: Prof. Ann Thomson, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof. Pavel Kolář, European University Institute; Prof. Clorinda Donato, California State University; Prof. Richard Whatmore University of St. Andrews<br>Cesare Beccaria, renowned author of the 1764 Enlightenment treatise Dei delitti e delle pene, has long been celebrated as the voice of the abolitionist movement against the death penalty, the founding father of modern criminology, and the go-to source on penal reform. These personalities have been fuelled by the instant global success of Beccaria’s text, however this celebrity trajectory has clouded many of his less sensational identities in its wake: Beccaria, reluctant man of letters, enlightened Habsburg bureaucrat and practical philosopher. This thesis recovers these entangled personas and, in so doing, provides an intellectual history of Cesare Beccaria that emphasises his substantial contribution as a philosopher, not just on the page, but in practice. Beccaria envisioned an ambitious social project. Proposing a vision of society in which the social contract served to protect “the greatest happiness divided between the greater number” and which was based upon a hedonistic calculation of human nature, Beccaria concluded that individuals had the equal right to pursue pleasure and that government was obliged to provide this opportunity. Interpreting this in economic terms, Beccaria presented a case for the removal of all institutionalised obstacles to the pursuit of wealth: while not everyone could achieve riches, all had the equal chance at improving their lot. His philosophy was the product of both a rich reading culture and intellectual network, which were simultaneously patriotic and cosmopolitan. On the one hand, local, specialised and concerned with matters of public utility, on the other, internationally, intellectually and socially diverse. However, the social contract was no utopian vision, but rather a blueprint for the political classes. In the field of public health in particular, Beccaria demonstrated his commitment to providing equal access to the pursuit of pleasure, abiding by the tenets of his contract at all costs. It is this practically inclined philosophy that the thesis argues is Beccaria’s most important contribution to the Enlightenment.
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LUNA, GONZALEZ Adriana. "From self-preservation to self-liking in Paolo Mattia Doria : civil philosophy and natural jurisprudence in the early Italian Enlightenment." Doctoral thesis, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/12705.
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Defence Date: 07/09/2009<br>Examining Board: Prof. Martin van Gelderen (European University Institute) supervisor; Prof. Vittor Ivo Comparato (Università di Perugia); Prof. Sebastian Conrad (European University Institute); Prof. Maurizio Viroli (Princeton University) external supervisor<br>PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses<br>From the outset of his intellectual life Doria had been a civil philosopher interested in reflecting, in a secular manner on the foundations of civil society thereby departing from the more traditional discussions that took as their framework moral philosophy and natural law theories. Unlike other Catholic thinkers, when discussing happiness Doria was not interested in debating religious issues such as salvation, revelation, or the states of beatitude or contemplation and how these might give meaning to ‘ happiness’. For this reason this thesis explores Doria’s varying and evolving conceptions of human nature and happiness, trying to follow their development and their role in shaping Doria’s political thought. A further aim is to ascertain the implications of these developments and to analyse Doria’s discussions of the foundations of the civil life, his understanding of men as individuals, their sociability and the legitimation of human politics. I am interested in elucidating to what extent he believed that men act as moral beings in Doria’s political philosophy, which features of their psychologies he considers decisive in judging men’s rationality and morality, i.e. how he grounds their judgements and acts in order to justify their legitimacy. In short the key question here is: How, in other words, does Doria ground his theory of human agency and men’s freedom to act in politics? Doria is writing at a critical moment in the history of civil and moral philosophy not only in the Neapolitan but also, in the European context.
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Afanador, Maria Jose. "The unmaking of empire : nature and politics in the early Colombian imagination, 1808-1821." Thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2011-05-2745.
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In this report I argue that during the independence wars from Spain and the first decade of republican rule, the learned elite of the viceroyalty of New Granada—present day Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Panama—articulated narratives of nature and science to debates over provincial hierarchies, to justify provincial unity, foreign commercial integration, and the creation of political symbols for the new polity. In the process of undoing the Spanish empire, the lettered elite conceived of their homeland’s natural bounties as key cultural capital, and as the language with which to frame their aspirations as political community, as part of a national polity or of regional patrias. By using newspapers, constitutional debates, scientific writings, and visual evidence, I place the elite’s sensibilities and concerns about their fatherland’s nature in the wider context of political transformations that took place from 1808 and on. In the first section, I explore eighteenth-century assessments of New Granada’s nature, offering an overview of key conceptions of New Granada’s geopolitical situation and nature that shaped the Creole imagination. In the second section, I characterize the reforms brought about by the Bourbon monarchy in New Granada, giving weight to the socialization of practices of the utility of science among the learned elite. The third section illustrates how Neogranadians deployed nature in assessing provincial fragmentation, and in the debate over the preeminence of Santafé as capital when the monarchic crisis exploded. The fourth section explores how nature was employed as an argument in debates over the integration of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador into a single republic, and the adoption of a federal or a central state. Finally, section five discusses the role of New Granada’s natural landmarks in discourses of provincial and foreign commercial integration, along with a reflection on the use of nature as political symbol for the new republic. My aim is to explore the ways that the lettered elite incorporated nature into geopolitical discourses of a polity separate from Spain, and to uncover the tensions embedded in the ways they imagined their desired nation.<br>text
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Sarbazevatan, Sourena. "La place de Jean-Jacques Rousseau dans la philosophie kantienne de l'éducation." Thèse, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1866/5280.
Full textAbstract:
En vue de saisir la pensée kantienne dans toute sa virulence, on ne peut jamais faire abstraction de la place éminente de Jean-Jacques Rousseau dans cette philosophie qui ne cesse pas à marquer, à définir et à poser des jalons de la pensée moderne. À cet égard, si le Genevois communique les grandes leçons de sa théorie de l’homme sous la guise d’une éducation, il s’agit ici non pas d’une philosophie de l’éducation mais bien plus d’une philosophie comme éducation.
C’est effectivement cette thèse que Kant reprend, suit et enrichie d’une manière sui generis pour renverser l’ordre théorique mais surtout pratique de religion-moralité-devoir et libérer une fois pour toutes la morale des dogmes théologiques et finalement pour édifier une philosophie pratique comme l’éducation de l’espèce humaine. Le but de cette étude est de jeter quelques lumières sur la place sans pareille de Jean-Jacques Rousseau dans la philosophie kantienne de l’éducation.<br>The decisive influence of Immanuel Kant in the course of modern philosophy is incontrovertible. In a sense, had it not been for this monumental figure of the 18th century, philosophy would have never reached the flair to convey the existential, analytical and phenomenological questions of modernity.
However, if Kant set the agenda for any posterior thought, he was not himself Kantian until Jean-Jacques Rousseau disenchanted him. In this regard, if the Genevois philosopher communicated his philosophy in the guise of an education, philosophy in itself is defined by the education of humanity. It is indeed this perspective of Rousseau that put the German philosopher on the right track to find the ultimate goal of philosophy in the moral education as the sum and substance of the practical philosophy. The objective of this study is to shed some lights on the unparalleled role of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Kant’s philosophy of education as the harbinger of the universal ethics beyond the dogmas of a blind theology: the question which still remains crucial today.