Early Modern Intellectual History

As the title of this survey course suggests, we will study the trajectory of modern Western history. A succinct description of that trajectory may aptly serve as the unofficial subtitle of the course: "The slow death of feudal Christendom followed by the difficult birth of the liberal-democratic nation-state." This radical shift in the theological and political orientation of the West was partly the cause and partly the product of a radical shift in our understanding of what man is and what man's relation to God and society is. The individual, understood as capable of attaining salvation without the aid of ecclesiastical intermediaries standing between himself and God, was a theological discovery or invention of modernity. Similarly the individual, understood as being by nature free from political authority and as being by nature equal to all other individuals with respect to his right to rule, was a political discovery or invention of modernity.

A fresh translation and in-depth commentary of Leibniz's seminal text, the Monadology.

Written in 1714, the Monadology is widely considered to be the classic statement of Leibniz's mature philosophy. In the space of 90 numbered paragraphs, totalling little more than 6000 words, Leibniz outlines - and argues for - the core features of his philosophical system. Although rightly regarded as a masterpiece, it is also a very condensed work that generations of students have struggled to understand.

Lloyd Strickland presents a new translation of the Monadology, alongside key parts of the Theodicy, and an in-depth, section-by-section commentary that explains in detail not just what Leibniz is saying in the text but also why he says it. The sharp focus on the various arguments and other justifications Leibniz puts forward makes possible a deeper and more sympathetic understanding of his doctrines.

The book takes an interdisciplinary approach and covers the origins of the Italian Renaissance through the Baroque period. It is comprised of fifteen chapters, organized chronologically, along with an introduction and conclusion. As the Renaissance is central to the teaching of Western Civilization courses, often functioning as a bridge between first and second semesters, this book will help provide background to the social, cultural, and political scene in Italy between the Medieval and Modern eras.

The First of the Modern Ottomans blends biography with intellectual history. On the one hand, it is the story of an Ottoman life – the life of the scribe, ambassador, and prolific historian Ahmed Vâsıf (ca. 1735-1806), a man who improbably rose from obscurity in Baghdad to travel the empire, fight its wars, advise its sultans, and, in time, write its history. As a full-scale biography, the book is a rarity for the field of Ottoman history and reconstructs Vâsıf’s life, career, and opinions through meticulous research in both Ottoman and European sources. On the other hand, The First of the Modern Ottomans is also one of the first detailed intellectual studies of the early modern Ottoman Empire. Weaving together Vâsıf’s life and thought with the larger intellectual currents of the day – especially at the court of Sultan Selim III in Istanbul – it explores central debates among the Ottoman ruling elite over Europe, political reform, war and peace, justice, and the empire’s renewal. Vâsıf’s life reveals a vital response to the empire’s challenges at the turn of the nineteenth century – one that was novel and deeply enmeshed in Islamic philosophy, ethics, and statecraft.

This most recent edition of the bibliography contains almost 21,200 titles in English (64%) and French (36%), with an introductory section on historiography. It deals with every aspect of Italian history and culture from the Late Renaissance to the French Revolution.

Τὸν Ὀκτώβρη τοῦ 1790 μία ὀθωμανικὴ ἔκτακτη πρεσβεία ἀναχώρησε ἀπὸ τὴν Κωνσταντινούπολη κατευθυνόμενη πρὸς τὸ Βερολίνο προκειμένου νὰ ἐπιτευχθεῖ ἡ συμμετοχὴ τῆς Πρωσίας στὸ πλευρὸ τῆς Πύλης στὸν Αὐστρο-Ρωσο-Ὀθωμανικὸ πόλεμο τοῦ 1787-1792. Ἡ ὀθωμανικὴ ἀντιπροσωπεία ἔφτασε στὴν πρωσικὴ πρωτεύουσα τὶς τελευταῖες μέρες τοῦ Ἰανουαρίου τοῦ 1791 καὶ ἀναχώρησε ἀπὸ ἐκεῖ στὰ τέλη Δεκεμβρίου τῆς ἴδιας χρονιᾶς. Κατὰ τὴν ἑνδεκάμηνη παραμονὴ τῆς πρεσβείας στὸ Βερολῖνο ὁ δραγομάνος τῆς πρεσβείας, ὁ Κωνσταντῖνος Καρατζᾶς (c. 1735-1815) εἶχε τὴν εὐκαιρία νὰ παρακολουθήσει πολλὲς φορὲς παραστάσεις τῆς ὄπερας.  Στὶς Ἐφημερίδες, ὅπως ἔλεγαν τότε τὰ ἡμερολόγια, ποὺ κρατοῦσε κατὰ τὸ ταξίδι στὸ Βερολῖνο σημείωνε τὰ σχόλιά του γιὰ τὶς παραστάσεις, τὰ ὁποῖα ἀποτελοῦν κατὰ μίαν ἔννοια κάποια ἀπὸ τὰ πρωιμότερα δείγματα θεατρικῆς κριτικῆς στὰ ἑλληνικά.

This study considers sixteenth century evangelicals’ vision of a 'godly' commonwealth within the broader context of political, religious, social, and intellectual changes in Tudor England. Using the clergyman and bestselling author, Thomas Becon (1512–1567), as a case study, Brian L. Hanson argues that evangelical views of the commonwealth were situation-dependent rather than uniform, fluctuating from individual to individual. His study examines the ways commonwealth rhetoric was used by evangelicals and how that rhetoric developed and changed. While this study draws from English Reformation historiography by acknowledging the chronology of reform, it engages with interdisciplinary texts on poverty, gender, and the economy in order to demonstrate the intersection of commonwealth rhetoric with Renaissance humanism. Furthermore, the experience of exile and the languages of prophecy and companionship directly influenced commonwealth rhetoric and dictated the priorities, vocabulary, and political expression of the evangelicals. As sixteenth-century England vacillated in its religious direction and priorities, the evangelicals were faced with a political conundrum and the tension between obedience and 'lawful' disobedience. There was ultimately a fundamental disagreement on the nature and criteria of obedience. Hanson’s study makes a further contribution to the emerging conversation about English commonwealth politics by examining the important issues of obedience and disobedience within the evangelical community. A correct assessment of the issues surrounding the relationship between evangelicals and the commonwealth government will lead to a rediscovery of both the complexities of evangelical commonwealth rhetoric and the tension between the biblical command to submit to civil authorities and the injunction to 'obey God rather than man'.

Il saggio intende dimostrare che, subito dopo la pubblicazione, da parte di Alberico Gentili, dei De iuris interpretibus Dialogi sex (1582) e delle Lectiones et Epistolae (1583-1584) i rapporti fra Jean Hotman e il giurista di San Ginesio divennero molto difficili e burrascosi. Lo dimostrano alcune epistole scritte da Hotman ad autorevoli giuristi (ad es. Bodin), e ad alcuni umanisti (Bergmann, Payne, Cuffe, Th. Savile) contenenti critiche molto dure e severe ai Dialogi gentiliani. Malgrado ciò, e malgrado le opposizioni dei puritani, Gentili riuscirà ad ottenere la cattedra di Civil Law a Oxford.Il saggio contiene anche notizie circa il tentativo compiuto, dal Gentili, di ottenere un insegnamento a Tubinga nel 1580.

This is the first of several discourses for all intellectuals about dogma, mental expansion and the liberation of intellect.  “For intellectuals, spiritual progress is always delayed, and the reason is this – that their intellectual body goes on increasing,” according to P. R. Sarkar, “but for want of the apexed mentality, the goal remains far away. But when the intellectual body is highly enlarged, it is sure to become one with the Macrocosm. And when this enlarged ectoplasmic structure becomes one with the Cosmic ectoplasmic structure, certainly a person will feel his oneness with the Supreme.” P. R. Sarkar, (1921-1990), was a spiritual teacher (also known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti) in the tradition of Shiva and Krishna, who founded Renaissance Universal to promote a new global renaissance, and who founded the socio-spiritual movement Ananda Marga (“the Path of Bliss”).  –  Richard Gauthier, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California, USA, May 6, 2021.

My aim is twofold. On one hand I will make a survey of the struggles for and calamities involving individuality on the part of 17 th century philosophers with respect to different corporations and institutions. This is the proper task of my paper. Further, while accomplishing this proper job I will present a specimen of a renewed philosophical history of philosophy, which turns its back on two methodological extremes. At one extreme, referring to the history of philosophy is hardly more than a purely ornamental illustration of the proper thesis or argument elaborated independently of all historical refl ection. At the other extreme lies a hyperphilological way of looking at historical facts loosing all contact with contemporary philosophical research and research communities. Both extremes can be found in contemporary thinking abundantly. Let me start with the best-known declaration of the philosopher's independence, not only from the traditional wisdom of the theologian, the rhetorician, and the phi-lologist, but also, and foremost the institutions traditional wisdom traditionally inhabited. None of the religious orders famous for philosophical scholarship, not even the Jesuits who nourished him in their college are accepted and acknowledged by the philosopher of the Discourse on Method without reserve. Nor do their secular successors fare better: The spirit that breathes through the sixth part of this text is that of deep suspicion against the typical scientifi c-scholarly corporation of the age, the private circles around a patron, semi-organizations whose existence depends not only on the providers of the fi nancial means but also on eager secretaries like Mersenne and Oldenburg. However deeply Descartes himself must have depended on the system of patronage, the passion in his colleagues' mind he suspected of dominating their but not his scientifi c research was not curiosity, but rather envy-just enough for the wish to remain separated from them: the tension between dependence and separation could not but be eased by the publishing of the Essays anonymously by an alien in the Nether-lands. As is also well-known, the story of an individual mind comprised in the Discours de la methode (»histoire de mon esprit«) came to be considered as the outer shell of an inner core, as it were, a real philosophical conviction that the individual, as a continuously thinking being, who, in rare instants of her life performs-ought to perform-what has traditionally been termed the cogito argument, is superior over the multitude, and even the community. Nothing really prevents us from seeing the cogito-like specifi c way of overcoming the certainty available in mathematics-apparently still all too »communitarian« in character-in the discovery of and reliance on the metaphysical solitude of the ego as an act of separation from institutionalized communities and even from the most sublime ones.

Descrivere, seguendone le tappe principali, il percorso della "solitudine" nella cultura occidentale non è compito semplice. Lo svolge con acribia e attenzione Aurelio Musi in Storia della solitudine (Neri Pozza, 2021): libro che può tra l'altro essere, e certamente lo diventerà, perfetta compagnia per i solitari, appunto, o per coloro che non per scelta, ma per costrizione, vivono in solitudine, più o meno temperata da "compagnie" differenti, assai spesso non umane: animali, macchine, giardini, panorami, di solito. Come ben s'avvede lo storico, la nostra lingua non ha la diade illuminante, ed estremamente funzionale, propria di quella inglese, ad esempio: «solitude» e «loneliness» esprimono la differenza, fondamentale, tra la solitudine come condizione oggettiva ed "il sentirsi soli", la solitudine come esperienza esistenziale, con tutte le sfumature situazionali, per dir così, tra le due condizioni/situazioni prese nella loro forma estrema...

The article offers a case study in the nature of uses of the European past in East Asia at a time when the search for the knowledge of the West was not yet motivated primarily by any sense of its civilizational, moral, or technological superiority. In the course of the later eighteenth century, as Dutch philological expertise gradually became another available tool – alongside the long-established Sinological erudition – for generating knowledge about the world, commentators around the Japanese archipelago began to turn not only to the medical and astronomical manuals of the occidentals but also to their histories. The translation-cum-commentary Miscellanea from the western seas by Yamamura Saisuke (1801) is a case in point. The text became effectively a crossroads of two philological and historiographical bodies of knowledge that intersected in unexpected ways as the European past was subjected to a reinterpretation in terms of the classical Chinese precedent, while the product of that reinterpretation informed a different understanding of the recent and contemporary historical trajectory of a Japan now exposed to the dynamics of the global European presence.

La critique spinozienne des miracles est, avec le nécessitarisme et le rejet de l'autorité mosaïque du Pentateuque, une des théories qui ont le plus choqué les contemporains de Spinoza. Nous en avons une preuve dans la réaction de Henry Oldenburg qui, en 1675, demande à son correspondant de s'expliquer davantage sur ce sujet et lui signale très clairement que mettre en doute les miracles revient à saper la révélation qui leur doit sa certitude 1. Le chapitre VI du TTP soulève plusieurs problèmes. Notre but est double : nous voudrions d'une part essayer de mettre en rapport les opinions de Spinoza et celles de certains auteurs qu'il connaissait ou qu'il pouvait connaître ; d'autre part, en généralisant des résultats de l'interprétation avancée par Steven Nadler, nous nous proposons de répondre à certaines lectures de ce chapitre qui l'opposent à d'autres sections du TTP. Nous commencerons par situer le chapitre sur les miracles dans l'économie de l'ensemble du texte. Comme le titre de l'ouvrage l'indique, le TTP est composé de deux parties, l'une consacrée à un examen des Écritures et de la religion, l'autre explorant les fondements de l'État. Il est possible de tracer une autre division : la première section, consacrée à la théologie, se compose de six chapitres qui traitent de notions clé de la religion et de la théologie (la prophétie, les prophètes, l'élection des juifs, la loi divine, les rites, les miracles). Les neuf chapitres suivants détaillent les règles de l'herméneutique

Although European travelers to the Ottoman Empire often noted the inhabitants’ “fatalism,” historians have never seriously examined this intellectual phenomenon. Whether or not we can credit such sources, the testimony of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Turkish and Arabic sources points to a robust debate over fate, free will, and predestination. What were the reasons behind these discussions? What issues were at stake? This article outlines the context and content of the debate. It then offers some observations about the wider significance of free will and predestination in the Ottoman intellectual universe – particularly their relation to early modern bureaucratic and military reform.

Horkay Hörcher Ferenc: Esztétikai gondolkodás a felvilágosodás korában (1650-1800) (Aesthetic Thought in the Age of Enlightenment, in Hungarian), Gondolat, Budapest, 2013, pp. 27-66.

A comparison of 17th century French aesthetic views based on Descartes' and Pascal's philosophy.

A Descartes és Pascal filozófiáján alapuló esztétikák vitája a 17. században.

The Theses LVI belong to a series of hitherto unpublished early manuscripts of the Dutch humanist and jurisconsult Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) that were acquired by the University of Leiden in 1864. It is not certain when the Theses were written, but preliminary research on the physical manuscript and the sources cited indicate two possible windows. The first is around 1602-1605, that is roughly at a time when Grotius was also working on his Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (De Iure Praedae Commentarius). The second dating places the genesis of the manuscrbipt around 1613-1615.
In the context of Grotius’ writings, the Theses LVI assume an important position for several reasons: They raise questions about state formation, the duty of citizens to the state and the right of political resistance in far greater detail than in any other work of the celebrated Dutch humanist. The Theses LVI also feature important reading notes that yield priceless insights into the sources that Grotius directly consulted and their influence on his ideas. The manuscript grants modern scholars a unique glimpse into the working mind of its author. Evidence points not only to the ferocious haste with which Grotius wrote his works, but also the occasional sloppiness of his reading and research habits."""

«In un mondo nuovo, diverso da questo»: il porto dell'Utopia Giova, soprattutto in tempi di crisi, riflettere sulla storia intellettuale, culturale e politica dell'Utopia. Quel "non luogo" proiettato di volta in volta in un remoto passato, in un futuro indistinto, finalmente in luoghi diversamente esotici: l'Oriente dall'arcana, antichissima sapienza, o l'Occidente estremo, l'America, nuovissimo orizzonte tanto più idealizzato, quanto meno conosciuto; ove non vi è sapienza ma evidenza, quella della molteplicità di società "naturali"-con le dovute ma non piccole eccezioni di imperi complessi come quello Azteco e Incas, o quello morente dei Maya-ognuna alla fine diversa dall'altra, fatte da "selvaggi" in modo affatto manicheo divisi tra "buoni" e cattivi", da interessati interpreti occidentali, assai spesso, se non sempre, in possesso di informazioni estremamente parziali. Dopo un anno di malattia, stranito ed estraniante, ci pare già-o pare tale, quantomeno, ad alcuni soltanto-"età dell'oro" lo status quo antea, non un passato mitico e arcano, ma l'inizio dell'anno 2020, forse fino al 24 febbraio, e tutto o quasi il tempo che quel giorno ha preceduto. L'utopia è narrativa estesa, o formulazione icastica, di una promessa di felicità: realizzata, o da realizzarsi, e da realizzarsi proprio perché una volta, "tanto tempo fa" effettivamente, si è realizzata: e non felicità individuale-e qui comincia il problema, o forse la tragedia-ma felicità collettiva, di una società, di uno Stato, del mondo intiero, finalmente. Ogni favola che inizia con «C'era una volta» fa sognare il bimbo, che intende «Ci sarà ancora». L'Utopia come"self-fulfilling prophecy", vive nella tensione, quasi una bipolarità, tra l'universo del meramente fantastico, della pura letteratura, della fantascienza (poi declinata nell'infelice lemma «fantapolitica»), da una parte, e dall'altra, quello degli ingegneri sociali e politici che vogliono effettivamente realizzare la "società perfetta" da quel "legno storto" che è l'uomo, come bene intuirono Voltaire e Kant (il quale ultimo peraltro un'utopia e non piccola abbozzò, nel suo sogno di governo mondiale, antica eredità dantesca tra l'altro, qui deprivata di contorni teologici, anche se non del tutto, come appare nel progetto di pace perpetua-Zum ewigen Frieden-del 1795, scritto in un'Europa all'inizio delle tragiche devastazioni apportate dalle guerre rivoluzionario-napoleoniche, iniziate nel 1792, e che termineranno solo nel 1815). Molto opportunamente Girolamo Imbruglia-studioso dalla lunga esperienza, autori di sostanziali lavori tra cui quello dedicato ad una comunità utopica "realizzata", le comunità gesuitiche in Paraguay (The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay and the Cultural History of Utopia, Brill 2017), ha appena pubblicato presso Carocci Utopia. Una storia politica da Savonarola a Babeuf, scritto che riprende tra l'altro numerosi temi aperti nel libro del 2017. Un libro che ha tra gli altri meriti quello di ridefinire i terminus post ed

A focal point of twentieth-century commentary on Hobbes has been the few paragraphs in chapter 15 of Leviathan where Hobbes presents the objections of someone he calls the Foole and then sets out to meet these objections. The Foole maintains that it is reasonable to break ...

If the greatness of a philosophical work can be measured by the volume and vehemence of the public response, there is little question that Rousseau's Social Contract stands out as a masterpiece. Within a week of its publication in 1762 it was banished from France. Soon thereafter, Rousseau fled to Geneva, where he saw the book burned in public. At the same time, many of his contemporaries, such as Kant, considered Rousseau to be “the Newton of the moral world,” as he was the first philosopher to draw attention to the basic dignity of human nature. The Social Contract has never ceased to be read in the 250 years since it was written. Rousseau's “Social Contract”: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text. David Lay Williams offers readers a chapter-by-chapter reading of the Social Contract, squarely confronting these interpretive obstacles, leaving no stones unturned. The conclusion connects Rousseau's text both to his important influences and those who took inspiration and sometimes exception to his arguments. The book also features a special extended appendix dedicated to outlining his famous conception of the general will, which has been the object of controversy since the Social Contract's publication.

I am very excited to announce the publication of a Special issue on “The Uses of History in Religious Controversies from Erasmus to Baronio” (Renaissance Studies, 35, 2021, no. 1).

The journal can be accessed by clicking here (FREE ACCESS for a limited time only): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14774658/2021/35/1 .



Special Issue Articles:

Stefan BAUER:
The uses of history in religious controversies from Erasmus to Baronio;

Stefan BAUER:
Pontianus Polman re-imagined: how (not) to write a history of religious polemics;

Marie BARRAL-BARON:
A Church without history? Luther and historical argument in the context of humanist polemics;

Sam KENNERLEY:
Students of history, masters of tradition: Josse Clichtove,
Noël Beda and the limits of historical criticism;

David V. N. BAGCHI:
The historical argument in early Reformation controversy revisited: the Council of Constance in the writings of Eck and Cochlaeus;

Harald BOLLBUCK:
Searching for the true religion: the Church History of the
Magdeburg Centuries between critical methods and confessional polemics;

Thomas S. FREEMAN:
1077 and all that: Gregory VII in Reformation historical writing;

Gianmarco GIULIANI:
Reformatio or restauratio? The rehabilitation of Pope Gregory VII in Catholic historiography after Trent

Regulating relationships among strangers was a primary concern of the early modern world. Both the rediscovery of classical texts and new encounters between Europeans and Arabs, Asians, and Native Americans required a rethinking of the laws and customs of hospitality on both a local and a global scale. Theological conflicts and shifting national alignments in Europe itself also imperiled traditional conceptions of host and guest, forcing thinkers to envision their responsibilities to others in new ways. The thirteen articles in this collection offer case studies that examine the philosophies and dynamics of hospitality in early modern Italy, England, Central Europe, and the Ottoman Empire. In so doing, they explore practices, symbols, and philosophies of hospitality and obligation in the early modern world.

It has been common to begin histories of probability with the calculations of Fermat and Pascal  on  games  of  chance  in  1654.  Those  calculations  were  the  first  substantial mathematical results on stochastic phenomena, which, according to a frequentist philosophy of probability, are the true subject-matter of the field. But there is great philosophical interest in studying earlier ideas. That is because we see a struggle to understand a range of basic concepts about probability and uncertain evidence, before the straightjacket of a single formalization was imposed. There is still much to learn from seeing how the problems now studied with the aid of probability theory were dealt with in “bare hands” fashion before that formalization was available.

This essay traces the history, current state, and potential future of comparative literature. The great expansions have coincided with aspirations for international understanding. The term first emerged after the Napoleonic wars. The field soared in the late 19th century, became a discipline after the Second World War, and experienced its most vigorous growth (of departments and programs) in the U.S. during the Vietnam War.

Comparative literature has always worried its supporters as well as its skeptics. At the same time it has experienced a constant crisis within. In each episode it has responded by enlarging its purview and self-definition. Thus in the late 20th century it transcended the European literatures that had long been its bedrock to embrace East-West literary and cultural relations in ever-broader outward orbits, encompassing eventually first Edward Said's orientalism, then Homi Bhabha's deconstructivist postcolonialism, and finally Gayatri Spivak's eclecticism. The models that served during the extended pax americana seem poorly suited to terrorism, war, and globalization. Supranationalism cannot be lightly readjusted to fit transnationalism. But comparative literature can and will survive, so long as balances persist between theory and practice, so long as interdisciplinarity does not come at the cost of disciplinarity, and so long as the indivisible relationships uniting humanism, humanities, and humaneness are not forgotten. While comparative literature retains its emphases on language-training and critical skills, and while it satisfies desires of students to transcend boundaries culturally, interpretatively, and otherwise, it will not only always remain alive but even often thrive.

Until recently, his name has been associated with the vast and multifaceted European tradition of utopian thought on account of the presumed impracticability of his numerous projects and designs. His Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe (1713-1717), a pacifist plan for a European federation, has, most notably, sustained criticism since its first publication. Only in the last decades have historians recognised Saint-Pierre for who he really was: an audacious, original, and learned reformer whose radical views on politics, institutions, international relations, culture, and education expressed the first utilitarian trends of the Enlightenment and envisioned the foundation in France of a new kind of state aimed at the "bonheur du plus grand nombre" ("happiness of the majority"). The abbé's cultural legacy and intellectual impact mark him out as one of the most intriguing and significant voices of the early French lumières.

Hans Baldung Grien, the most famous apprentice and close friend of German artist Albrecht Dürer, was known for his unique and highly eroticised images of witches. In paintings and woodcut prints, he gave powerful visual expression to late medieval tropes and stereotypes, such as the poison maiden, venomous virgin, the Fall of Man, 'death and the maiden' and other motifs and eschatological themes, which mingled abject and erotic qualities in the female body.

This is the table of contents of my forthcoming book, Political Theology of International Order, Oxford University Press, 2020. It investigates presuppositions of international order that originate in medieval theology. The main argument is that international order understood in terms of individuals—either states or human beings—and artificial relations, established by the operation of an impersonal mechanism or the adoption of positive rules, is a worldly application of a theological pattern. The book uncovers these presuppositions as they emerged in a medieval dispute about the nature of God and the extent of his power and its traces their assimilation into modern politics and law.