Reading the French Enlightenment: System and Subversion

ISBN-13: 9780521651288 / Angielski / Twarda / 1999 / 258 str.

Virginia) Julie Candler Hayes (University of Richmond

Opis

Reading the French Enlightenment offers an ambitious reinterpretation of a crucial aspect of eighteenth-century thought, the rationalizing and classifying impulse or "systematic spirit." Julie Candler Hayes surveys the past fifty years of philosophical reflection on the Enlightenment, and takes issue both with traditional liberal and with contemporary critical accounts, arguing instead for a new understanding of "systematic reason" as complex, paradoxical, and ultimately liberating. Through close analysis of philosophical, scientific, and literary texts, she emphasizes the urgency of maintaining a dialogue between past and present, Enlightenment and modernity.

Recenzje

"This is a rich and impressive study." International Studies in Philosophy, Harvey Chisick

Spis treści

Acknowledgments; Author's note; Prologue: despotic Enlightenment; Introduction: the critique of systematic reason; 1. 'Système': origins and itineraries; 2. The epistolary machine; 3. Physics and figuration in Du Châtelet's Institutions de physique; 4. Condillac and the identity of the other; 5. Diderot: changing the system; Conclusion: labyrinths of Enlightenment; Notes; Bibliography; Index.