Originally published in 1959. This book examines the French Enlightenment by analyzing critical thought in eighteenth-centruy France. It examines the philosophes' views on evil, free will and determinism, and human nature. This is an interesting group to look at, according to Crocker, because French Enlightenment thinkers straddled two vastly different time periods.

Lancees six ans apres le "Dictionnaire philosophique", les "Questions sur l'Encyclopedie" sont un des derniers chefs-d'oeuvre de Voltaire. OEuvre alphabetique, oeuvre polemique comme le "Dictionnaire", les "Questions" offrent une richesse thematique sans equivalent et constituent un veritable condense des idees de Voltaire sur une impressionnante diversite de sujets. La nouvelle edition des "Questions" en sept volumes de la Voltaire Foundation est la premiere edition fidele au texte original a paraitre apres plus de deux siecles. Pour la premiere fois, dans cette edition critique integrale, les experts explorent a fond les relations entre les "Questions" et l'objet avoue sur lequel elles se centrent - l'"Encyclopedie" de Diderot et D'Alembert. Collaborateurs: David Adams, Christophe Cave, Nicholas Cronk, Olivier Ferret, Russell Goulbourne, Antonio Gurrado, James Hanrahan, Laurence Mace, Myrtille Mericam-Bourdet, Christiane Mervaud, Michel Mervaud, Francois Moureau, Christophe Paillard, Gillian Pink, John Renwick, Gerhardt Stenger, Claire Trevien.

A lively examination of the life and work of one of the great Enlightenment intellectuals Philosopher, translator, novelist, art critic, and editor of the Encyclopedie, Denis Diderot was one of the liveliest figures of the Enlightenment. But how might we delineate the contours of his diverse oeuvre, which, unlike the works of his contemporaries, Voltaire, Rousseau, Schiller, Kant, or Hume, is clearly characterized by a centrifugal dynamic? Taking Hegel's fascinated irritation with Diderot's work as a starting point, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht explores the question of this extraordinary intellectual's place in the legacy of the eighteenth century. While Diderot shared most of the concerns typically attributed to his time, the ways in which he coped with them do not fully correspond to what we consider Enlightenment thought. Conjuring scenes from Diderot's by turns turbulent and quiet life, offering close readings of several key books, and probing the motif of a tension between physical perception and conceptual experience, Gumbrecht demonstrates how Diderot belonged to a vivid intellectual periphery that included protagonists such as Lichtenberg, Goya, and Mozart. With this provocative and elegant work, he elaborates the existential preoccupations of this periphery, revealing the way they speak to us today.

In Kant and Theodicy: A Search for an Answer to the Problem of Evil, George Huxford proves that Kant's engagement with theodicy was career-long and not confined to his short treatise of 1791, On the Failure of All Attempted Philosophical Theodicies, which dealt explicitly with the subject. Huxford treats Kant's developing thought on theodicy in three periods, each with its own special character: pre-Critical (exploration), early-Critical (transition), and late-Critical (conclusion). Illustrating the advantage of approaching Kant through this innovative route, Huxford argues that Kant's stance developed through his career, from an essentially Leibnizian starting point to his own unique authentic theodicy; Kant rejected so-called philosophical theodicies based on theoretical/speculative reason but advanced authentic theodicy grounded in practical reason, finding a middle ground between philosophical theodicy and fideism, both of which he rejected; Kant's work in natural science and his Critical epistemology served to constrain his theodicy; and Metaphysical Evil conceived as limitation and Kant's Radical Evil perform the same function, namely providing the ground for the possibility of moral evil in the world. nevertheless, Huxford concludes that Kant's authentic theodicy fails because it fails to meet his own definition of a theodicy.

The Enlightenment era saw European thinkers increasingly concerned with what it meant to be human. This collection of essays traces the concept of 'humanity' through revolutionary politics, feminist biography, portraiture, explorer narratives, libertine and orientalist fiction, the philosophy of conversation, and musicology.

This collection of reading and essays on the Standard of Taste offers a much needed resource for students and scholars of philosophical aesthetics, political reflection, value and judgments, economics, and art. The authors include experts in the philosophy of art, aesthetics, history of philosophy as well as the history of science. This much needed volume on David Hume will enrich scholars across all levels of university study and research.

While many periods of history are popularly known by their 'great men', the Enlightenment stands out for the prominence of its 'great groups'. This volume assembles leading scholars using data-driven scholarship to study the networks that made the Enlightenment possible, and contributed to creating a new sense of European identity. From Voltaire's correspondence with Catherine the Great, to Adam Smith's travels on the European continent, mediated and unmediated communication networks were the lifeline of the Enlightenment. What is particularly notable about the Enlightenment is how these different networks were central to their participants' identity. One could not take part in the Enlightenment on one's own. Although some older historical studies highlight the importance of social networks in the Enlightenment, data-driven approaches allow for a more comprehensive and granular understanding of the many different types of networks that formed the intellectual and cultural infrastructure of the Enlightenment throughout Europe. The recent influx of metadata from the correspondences of major Enlightenment figures now allows scholars to study these networks at both the micro and macro levels, and to explore the worlds of the philosophes and the "nodes" in their networks in rich detail. It is at this intersection of Enlightenment historiography, data capture, and social network analysis that the essays collected in this volume all fall, taking advantage of new data sources, configurations, and modes of analysis to deepen our understanding of how Enlightenment sociability worked, who it included, and what it meant for participants.

The fifth volume of the "Corpus des notes marginales", long since out of print, was first published by Akademie-Verlag in Berlin, East Germany, in 1994. It was reissued in the OEuvres completes de Voltaire Oxford edition, where the remaining volumes of the 'Corpus' (unfinished since 1994) began to be published in 2006. This volume has been made easier to use in the reissue by the addition of running heads and by a new index of Voltaire's works cited in the notes of the present volume and the four that preceded it. This volume contains an additional piece by Nikolai Kopanev, 'V. S. Lublinski et le Corpus des notes marginales'.

Liberty Fund recognises the significance of George Turnbull, one of the earliest of the authors in the Scottish tradition, with the publication of new editions of his 'Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy', his 'Observations upon Liberal Education', and his translation of Heineccius. These major works testify to Turnbull's distinctive voice in presenting natural-law theory on a scientific model, in harnessing the arts to promote the principles of moral and civil virtue, and in extolling reason as the foundation of liberty. The short pieces in EDUCATION FOR LIFE supplement Turnbull's larger and more sprawling works and give a more concentrated presentation of his ideas. These extremely rare works include two Aberdeen graduation theses, three tracts on religion, various writings on education and art, and, for the first time in print, the correspondence of Turnbull.

Allen W. Wood presents the first book-length systematic exposition in English of Fichte's most important ethical work, the System of Ethics (1798). He places this work in the context of Fichte's life and career, of his philosophical system as conceived in the later Jena period, and in relation to his philosophy of right or justice and politics. Wood discusses Fichte's defense of freedom of the will, his grounding of the moral principle, theory of moral conscience, transcendental deduction of intersubjectivity, and his conception of free rational communication and the rational society. He develops and emphasizes the social and political radicalism of Fichte's moral and political philosophy, and brings out the philosophical interest of Fichte's positions and arguments for present day philosophy. Fichte's Ethical Thought defends the position that Fichte is a major thinker in the history of ethics, and the most important figure in the history of modern continental philosophy in the past two centuries.

When scholars of cultural studies consider representations of the land by British writers, the Romantic poets continue to dominate the enquiry, as though the period right before the intensification of the Industrial Revolution offers readers one last glimpse of untarnished nature. Denys Van Renen instead examines the British authors writing in the decades following the Restoration of Charles II, writers whose literary works re-animate and re-embody the land as a site of dynamic interactions, and, through this, reveal how various cultural systems and ecologies shape notions of self and national identity. Van Renen presents a rich and varied cultural history of ecological exchange-a history that begins in the 1660s, with Milton and Marvell's rejection of established Renaissance constructs, and ends with Defoe's Farther Adventures, in which the noise of the persistent howls of animals pierces human representational systems, arguing that British literature from 1665-1726 represents a cognitive symbiosis between human and non-human. As humans attempt to reduce the adverse effect of the Anthropocene, the author ultimately proposes that the aesthetics of British writers from the Restoration and early eighteenth century might be mobilized in order to rebind humans to their environs.

'Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.' These are the famous opening words of a treatise that has stirred vigorous debate ever since its first publication in 1762. Rejecting the view that anyone has a natural right to wield authority over others, Rousseau argues instead for a pact, or 'social contract', that should exist between all the citizens of a state and that should be the source of sovereign power. From this fundamental premise, he goes on to consider issues of liberty and law, freedom and justice, arriving at a view of society that has seemed to some a blueprint for totalitarianism, to others a declaration of democratic principles. Translated by Quintin Hoare With a new introduction by Christopher Bertram

Early modern Europe was the birthplace of the modern secular outlook. During the seventeenth century nature and human society came to be regarded in purely naturalistic, empirical ways, and religion was made an object of critical historical study. John Locke was a central figure in all these events. This study of his philosophical thought shows that these changes did not happen smoothly or without many conflicts of belief: Locke, in the role of Christian Virtuoso, endeavoured to resolve them. He was an experimental natural philosopher, a proponent of the so-called 'new philosophy', a variety of atomism that emerged in early modern Europe. But he was also a practising Christian, and he professed confidence that the two vocations were not only compatible, but mutually sustaining. He aspired, without compromising his empirical stance, to unite the two vocations in a single philosophical endeavour with the aim of producing a system of Christian philosophy.

Kant is widely acknowledged as the greatest philosopher of modern times. He undertook his famous critical turn to save human freedom and morality from the challenge of determinism and materialism. Intertwined with his metaphysical interests, however, he also had theological commitments, which have received insufficient attention. He believed that man is a fallen creature and in need of 'redemption'. He intended to provide a fortress protecting religious faith from the failure of rationalist metaphysics, from the atheistic strands of the Enlightenment, from the new mathematical science of nature, and from the dilemmas of Christian theology itself. Kant was an epistemologist, a philosopher of mind, a metaphysician of experience, an ethicist and a philosopher of religion. But all this was sustained by his religious faith. This book aims to recover the focal point and inner contradictions of his thought, the 'secret thorn' of his metaphysics (as Heidegger once put it). It first locates Kant in the tradition of reflection on the human weakness from Luther to Hume, and then engages in a critical, but charitable, manner with Kant's entire pre-critical work, including his posthumous fragments. Special attention is given to The Only Possible Ground (1763), one of the most difficult, interesting and underestimated of Kant's works. The present book takes its cue from an older approach to Kant, but also engages with recent Anglophone and continental scholarship, and deploys modern analytical tools to make sense of Kant. What emerges is an innovative and thought-provoking interpretation of Kant's metaphysics, set against the background of forgotten religious aspects of European philosophy.

What Socrates's greatest failure says about a 2,000-year-old question: is it possible to teach ourselves and others to become better people? Can we make ourselves into better human beings? Can we help others do the same? And can we get the leaders of our society to care that humanity prospers, not just economically, but also spiritually? These questions have been asked for over two millennia and attempting to answer them is crucial if we want to live a better life and build a more just society. How to Be Good uses the story of Socrates and Alcibiades and examples from Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius and Machiavelli, alongside modern interpretations to explore what philosophy can teach us about the quest for virtue today. Whether we are statesmen or ordinary individuals Pigliucci argues that with a little work day by day we all have the power to pursue the timely and timeless art of living well.

Peut-on se contenter d'un triomphalisme des Lumieres pour penser nos liens sociaux aujourd'hui? Ne faut-il pas reflechir sur un art d'heriter qui reglerait la passion democratique du neuf? La culture de la perte nait autour du 'moment 1800' - la formule, de Marcel Gauchet, designe l'epoque ou une nouvelle apprehension de l'historicite emerge. Souvent negligee mais neanmoins devenue une composante permanente de notre conscience historique, l'experience de la perte contribue a ce que la democratie se garde du presentisme en se rememorant l'heritage qui la fait vivre. Philip Knee examine cette experience chez quelques auteurs attentifs au destin du legs religieux apres la Revolution. Il rappelle comment Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal et Rousseau envisagent l'autorite avant 1789, puis aborde quatre facettes de la perte: la dynamique de rupture qui procede de la Revolution et le desarroi qu'elle engendre (Jouffroy); l'imperatif de resister a cette dynamique en redonnant vie a l'ordre perdu (Maistre, Bonald); l'effort de repenser la continuite de la tradition chretienne apres les Lumieres (Lamennais, Chateaubriand); la tentative de ruser avec la perte pour assurer a la liberte l'autorite dont elle a besoin (Tocqueville). Philip Knee se fait l'echo de ces ecrivains qui, obliges de se regarder eux-memes comme des acteurs du temps et d'admettre, fut-ce a contrecoeur, l'actualite des valeurs d'egalite et de liberte, insistent sur l'heritage d'une education chretienne seculaire sans laquelle ces valeurs, et la question democratique elle-meme, ne se seraient pas imposees.

The acquisition of self-knowledge is often described as one of the main goals of philosophical inquiry. At the same time, some sort of self-knowledge is often regarded as a necessary condition of our being a human agent or human subject. Thus self-knowledge is taken to constitute both the beginning and the end of humans' search for wisdom, and as such it is intricately bound up with the very idea of philosophy. Not surprisingly therefore, the Delphic injunction 'Know thyself' has fascinated philosophers of different times, backgrounds, and tempers. But how can we make sense of this imperative? What is self-knowledge and how is it achieved? What are the structural features that distinguish self-knowledge from other types of knowledge? What role do external, second- and third-personal, sources of knowledge play in the acquisition of self-knowledge? How can we account for the moral impact ascribed to self-knowledge? Is it just a form of anthropological knowledge that allows agents to act in accordance with their aims? Or, does self-knowledge ultimately ennoble the self of the subjects having it? Finally, is self-knowledge, or its completion, a goal that may be reached at all? The book addresses these questions in fifteen chapters covering approaches of many philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Edmund Husserl or Elisabeth Anscombe. The short reflections inserted between the chapters show that the search for self-knowledge is an important theme in literature, poetry, painting and self-portraiture from Homer.

Explores early modern interpretations of Roman Scotland Examines an important aspect of the development of Scottish identity, a subject being brought to the fore again in recent debates surrounding Scottish independence Offers an in-depth study of a largely overlooked aspect of Scottish historiography Makes extensive use of archival and manuscript material, much of it previously unpublished Takes a broad, multidisciplinary approach Examines the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment, James Macpherson's Ossianic poems and the rise of Romanticism This book focuses on early modern attitudes towards Scotland's ancient past and looks in particular at the ways in which this past was not only misunderstood, but also manipulated in attempts to create a patriotic history for the nation. Adding a new perspective on the formation of Scotland's national identity, the book documents a century-long, often heated debate regarding the extent of Roman influence north of Hadrian's Wall. By exploring the lives and writings of antiquarians, poets and Enlightenment thinkers, it aims to uncover the political, patriotic and intellectual influences which fuelled this debate. Classical Caledonia will cast light on a rarely discussed aspect of Scotland's historiography, one which played a vital role in establishing early modern notions of 'Scottishness' at a time when Scotland was coming to terms with radical and traumatic changes to its position within Britain and the wider world.

Les 'Vies privees', ecrits scandaleux destines a detruire l'image officielle de personnes distinguees, ou, plus rarement, ecrits louangeurs pour sauver une reputation, offrent des perspectives nouvelles sur l'evolution des rapports entre domaines publics et prives. Ces textes rares ou mal connus sont un temoignage capital sur l'histoire de l'opinion publique dans la France pre- et post-revolutionnaire et sur la constitution du genre de la biographie. Apres des recherches minutieuses menees dans des bibliotheques en France et a l'etranger, les editeurs proposent la premiere vue d'ensemble de ces 'Vies'. Un 'Dictionnaire' rassemble les notices, classees par ordre alphabetique des noms des personnages evoques, presentant l'analyse de chacune des 'Vies' recensees - des figures majeures, de la fin de l'Ancien regime et de la Restauration, rois et reines, membres de la famille de Napoleon, mais aussi des ministres, des prelats, et des brigands. Il est precede par un essai, intitule Vie privee et politique, qui etudie le phenomene editorial, litteraire et ideologique de ces textes. Ces 'Vies', souvent fantaisistes et caricaturales, ouvrent des perspectives nouvelles sur la manipulation de l'opinion par le recit au dix-huitieme siecle: le 'storytelling' des medias de nos jours n'est guere nouveau.

Isaiah Berlin (1909-97) was recognized as Britain's most distinguished historian of ideas. Many of his essays discussed thinkers of what this book calls the 'long Enlightenment' (from Vico in the eighteenth century to Marx and Mill in the nineteenth, with Machiavelli as a precursor). Yet he is particularly associated with the concept of the 'Counter-Enlightenment', comprising those thinkers (Herder, Hamann, and even Kant) who in Berlin's view reacted against the Enlightenment's naive rationalism, scientism and progressivism, its assumption that human beings were basically homogeneous and could be rendered happy by the remorseless application of scientific reason. Berlin's 'Counter-Enlightenment' has received critical attention, but no-one has yet analysed the understanding of the Enlightenment on which it rests. Isaiah Berlin and the Enlightenment explores the development of Berlin's conception of the Enlightenment, noting its curious narrowness, its ambivalence, and its indebtedness to a specific German intellectual tradition. Contributors to the book examine his comments on individual writers, showing how they were inflected by his questionable assumptions, and arguing that some of the writers he assigned to the 'Counter-Enlightenment' have closer affinities to the Enlightenment than he recognized. By locating Berlin in the history of Enlightenment studies, this book also makes a contribution to defining the historical place of his work and to evaluating his intellectual legacy.

n 1695 John Locke published The Reasonableness of Christianity, an enquiry into the foundations of Christian belief. He did so anonymously, to avoid public involvement in the fiercely partisan religious controversies of the day. In the Reasonableness Locke considered what it was to which all Christians must assent in faith; he argued that the answer could be found by anyone for themselves in the divine revelation of Scripture alone. He maintained that the requirements of Scripture were few and simple, and therefore offered a basis for tolerant agreement among all Christians, and the promise of peace, stability, and security through toleration. This is the first critical edition of the Reasonableness: for the first time an authoritative annotated text is presented, with full information about sources, variants, amendments, and the publishing history of the work. Also provided in the editorial notes are cross-references, references to other works by Locke, definitions of terms, and other information conducive to an understanding of the text. Though modern interest has focused particularly on Locke's philosophy and political theory, increasing attention is being paid to his religious thought. These different strands cannot be understood properly in isolation from each other: so the broader aim of this edition is to help towards an improved understanding of his religious thought in the context of his work as a philosopher, political theorist, and exponent of religious toleration. In his editorial introduction John Higgins-Biddle investigates how Locke's ideas developed, and offers a critical assessment of the three main contemporary and subsequent interpretations of Locke's religious thought, all of which are shown to be unsatisfactory.

Voltaire's most scathingly anti-Christian text, the "Sermon des cinquante", of which he consistently denied authorship, develops the arguments he was to use over the coming decades in a multitude of virulent texts. In the period 1758-1759, biblical questions remain prominent with the "Lettre sur le Messie" and, in a gentler tone, the "Precis de l'Ecclesiaste" and "Precis du Cantique des cantiques". These years also saw the culmination of a long-brewing quarrel over the reputation of the deceased minister Joseph Saurin, which brought Voltaire's stay in Lausanne to a close. A series of philosophical dialogues and a conte round out his literary productions of this two-year span.

The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships--and how it influenced modern thought David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy, and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism. Remarkably, the two were best friends for most of their adult lives, sharing what Dennis Rasmussen calls the greatest of all philosophical friendships. The Infidel and the Professor is the first book to tell the fascinating story of the friendship of these towering Enlightenment thinkers--and how it influenced their world-changing ideas. The book follows Hume and Smith's relationship from their first meeting in 1749 until Hume's death in 1776. It describes how they commented on each other's writings, supported each other's careers and literary ambitions, and advised each other on personal matters, most notably after Hume's quarrel with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Members of a vibrant intellectual scene in Enlightenment Scotland, Hume and Smith made many of the same friends (and enemies), joined the same clubs, and were interested in many of the same subjects well beyond philosophy and economics--from psychology and history to politics and Britain's conflict with the American colonies. The book reveals that Smith's private religious views were considerably closer to Hume's public ones than is usually believed. It also shows that Hume contributed more to economics--and Smith contributed more to philosophy--than is generally recognized. Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship that had great consequences for modern thought.

The writings gathered together in volume 73 of the Complete works were substantially written in 1771, when Voltaire was seventy-six years old. Despite periods of illness and difficulties with his failing eyesight, Voltaire maintained a literary output of astonishing energy and variety. His commitment to la philosophie, his political convictions, and his emerging passion for justice, led him to participate in crucial public debates. In the 'age of reform' which was beginning, Voltaire eagerly took up the challenge of influencing events with his writings.

Henry E. Allison presents an analytical and historical commentary on Kant`s transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding in the Critique of Pure Reason. He argues that, rather than providing a new solution to an old problem (refuting a global skepticism regarding the objectivity of experience), it addresses a new problem (the role of a priori concepts or categories stemming from the nature of the understanding in grounding this objectivity), and he traces the line of thought that led Kant to the recognition of the significance of this problem in his 'pre-critical' period. Allison locates four decisive steps in this process: the recognition that sensibility and understanding are distinct and irreducible cognitive powers, which Kant referred to as a 'great light' of 1769; the subsequent realization that, though distinct, these powers only yield cognition when they work together, which is referred to as the 'discursivity thesis' and which led directly to the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments and the problem of the synthetic a priori; the discovery of the necessary unity of apperception as the supreme norm governing discursive cognition; and the recognition, through the influence of Tetens, of the role of the imagination in mediating between sensibility and understanding. In addition to the developmental nature of the account of Kant`s views, two distinctive features of Allison'sreading of the deduction are a defense of Kant`s oft criticized claim that the conformity of appearances to the categories must be unconditionally rather than merely conditionally necessary (the 'non-contingency thesis') and an insistence that the argument cannot be separated from Kant`s transcendental idealism (the 'non-separability thesis').