"The Limits of Optimism" worksto dispel persistent notions about
Jefferson's allegedly paradoxical and sphinx-likequality. Maurizio
Valsania shows that Jefferson's multifaceted character
andpersonality are to a large extent the logical outcome of an
anti-metaphysical, enlightened, and humility-oriented approach to
reality. That Jefferson's mind andpriorities changed over time and
in response to changing circumstances indicatesneither incoherence,
hypocrisy, nor pathology.
Valsania's reading ofJefferson, the Enlightenment, and
negativity helps to make sense of the manyparadoxes typically
associated with that eighteenth-century thinker. At the sametime,
it provides a corrective to the common though erroneous equation
ofEnlightenment thinking with rationalism and shallow optimism.
"Jeffersonian America"
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