Showing papers on "Enlightenment published in 2018"

Ghosts in Enlightenment Scotland

Abstract: An examination of how and why Scotland gained its reputation for the supernatural, and how belief continued to flourish in a supposed Age of Enlightenment.

What is conservatism? History, ideology and party:

Abstract: Is there a political philosophy of conservatism? A history of the phenomenon written along sceptical lines casts doubt on the existence of a transhistorical doctrine, or even an enduring conservati...

Jews and the Sources of Religious Freedom in Early Pennsylvania

Abstract: Degree Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Department History Document Type Dissertation Abstract Historians’ traditional narrative regarding religious freedom in the colonial period and early republic focuses on Protestants and sometimes Catholics to the exclusion of other religious groups; the literature also emphasizes the legal dimensions of freedom at the expense of its cultural manifestations. This study, conversely, demonstrates that Jews, the only white non-Christian minority group in early Pennsylvania, experienced freedom far differently than its legality can adequately explain. Jews, moreover, reshaped religious freedom to include religious groups beyond Protestant Christians alone. But such grassroots transformations were neither quick nor easy. Like most of the AngloAmerican world, William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” excluded Jewish émigrés and other non-Protestants from citizenship and full participation in civil society. Jews, though, played active, not passive, roles in redrawing the boundaries around freedom. Jews participated in the secular marketplace, enlightenment culture, and newspaper politics, which normalized Jews and Judaism in public life and forged important relationships between Jews and economic and political patrons of cultural and political authority. Although Jews contended with prejudices, their activities in the public square and relationships with patrons granted them enough influence among enlightened elites to demand wider parameters for their public religious expressions and political participation. After about 1800, Jews enjoyed full religious freedom, cultural integration, and citizenship, but waves of nineteenth-century Jewish migrations revived dormant antiJewish and anti-Semitic sentiments. Despite pervasive prejudice that sometimes negated their statuses in civil society, Jews utilized cultural institutions to refashion their reputations, honor, and respectability in the eyes of their Protestant neighbors. As activists, not victims, Jews sat in the vanguard of the cultural transformations that made a meaningful religious pluralism in antebellum culture a reality. Date 4-3-2018 Recommended Citation Awtrey, Jonathon Derek, "Jews and the Sources of Religious Freedom in Early Pennsylvania" (2018). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4544. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4544

Science, Form, and the Problem of Induction in British Romanticism

Abstract: Exploring a topic at the intersection of science, philosophy and literature in the late eighteenth century Dahlia Porter traces the history of induction as a writerly practice - as a procedure for manipulating textual evidence by selective quotation - from its roots in Francis Bacon's experimental philosophy to its pervasiveness across Enlightenment moral philosophy, aesthetics, literary criticism, and literature itself. Porter brings this history to bear on an omnipresent feature of Romantic-era literature, its mixtures of verse and prose. Combining analyses of printed books and manuscripts with recent scholarship in the history of science, she elucidates the compositional practices and formal dilemmas of Erasmus Darwin, Robert Southey, Charlotte Smith, Maria Edgeworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In doing so she re-examines the relationship between Romantic literature and eighteenth-century empiricist science, philosophy, and forms of art and explores how Romantic writers engaged with the ideas of Enlightenment empiricism in their work.

Edmund Burke's German readers at the end of Enlightenment, 1790-1815

Abstract: legalistic sense (i.e., a right to act), but in the hard-nosed, Schmittian sense of Macht. For Burke, in other words, the fate of liberty was inseparable from the practical dynamics of constitutional realpolitik. Underneath law, lie politics. This made Burke deeply wary of reformers who use abstract moral theories to indict concrete political institutions. As he explained in 1784, an abstract theory of politics, unmoored from practical considerations, were a threat to liberty: A prescriptive Government, such as ours, never was the work of any Legislator, never was made upon any foregone theory. It seems to me a preposterous way of reasoning and a perfect confusion of ideas, to take the theories which learned and speculative men have made [and] to accuse the Government as not corresponding with them. ... Whenever I speak against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious, unfounded or imperfect theory; and one of the ways of discovering, that it is a false theory, is by comparing it with practice. This is the true touchstone of all theories, which regard man and the affairs of men—does it suit his nature in general;—does it suit his nature as modified by his habits?54 In ‘Geist Englands’, Brandes posited this sort of practically-minded liberalism as the lynchpin of the British system. Following Burke, he argued that the Constitution was threatened by moralizing politicians who ‘fantasize about Platonic republics’ and are ‘led astray by the cries of republican ideologues – those who always criticize established systems of government, who only want to tear down, but never to build up.’ What such men fail to understand is that ‘acting and reasoning, practically participating and passively observing, are two very different things’.55 54 Burke, ‘Speech on Parliamentary Reform’ (16 June 1784), in W&S, vol. 4, pp. 215-226, at pp. 22021. 55 Brandes, ‘Geist Englands’, p. 320; cf. ibid, p. 121, where Brandes complains of ‘philosophers’ who ‘do not want to adapt their schemes to men, but men to their schemes’, and pp. 109, 219, 299. Chapter 3: August Wilhelm Rehberg 62 Explaining the practical operations of the British system to German readers was difficult. The writers who had grasped Britain’s ‘true constitution, the spirit that upholds it, the causes and effects of partisanship: in short, that through which England truly is what it is, and remains what it is’ – he pointed to Hume, Blackstone, and de Lolme in particular – were largely unknown in Germany.56 Further complicating matters, the misguided definitions of ‘Freiheit’ that prevailed among his compatriots were insufficient to comprehend Britain’s ‘exceptional constitution and national spirit’.57 The German aristocracy was too quick to associate freedom with ‘anti-noble ressentiment’ ‹Fürstenhaß› and the threat of rebellion. Their bourgeois counterparts, on the other hand, cynically conflated the cause of liberty with the defense of the nobility’s legal privileges, especially their exemption from taxation. Philosophers, finally, confused liberty and popular sovereignty: following Rousseau, they held that liberty entailed ‘a very precise equality’ of rights and was inimical to any social hierarchy that contravened the ‘original equality of men’.58 But as Brandes went on to argue, each of these assumptions were undermined in the case of Britain. Its example proved that liberty and aristocracy were not incompatible; that taxes on noble property were not (necessarily) a prelude to absolutism; and, above all, that the rule of law did not imply a precise equality of rights. Citing Möser on the distinction between ‘human rights and civil rights’ ‹Menschenrechte und Bürgerrechte›, Brandes explained that different groups in British society held distinct responsibilities under its constitution. It was entirely fitting that their legal rights corresponded to their particular duties. He defended property-based restrictions on the franchise, the right of hereditary Peers to sit in the Lords, and the immunities given to Parliamentarians as indispensable elements of constitutional order in Britain. Each of these prerogatives were vital in order to maintain an effective legislature powerful enough to set limits to executive power.59 It was this political balance of power, he explained, that safeguarded what was fundamental about British liberty – namely, the 56 Ibid., p. 105. According to Brandes, the best systematic overview of the British Constitution was de Lolme’s Constitution de l'Angleterre (1771), but it had been poorly received in Germany – perhaps because of the author’s suspicious background as a ‘Genevan’ and a ‘republican’, or perhaps because his analysis was too empirical for the taste of German natural lawyers (pp. 108-9). 57 Brandes, ‘Geist Englands’, p. 102. 58 Ibid., pp. 115, 117. Cf. ibid., 125-6, where Brandes criticizes Rousseau’s suggestion that ‘the liberty of the English is an illusion, and that they are slaves except during the season of parliamentary elections’. Burke had earlier denounced the same passage in the ‘Debate on the Conduct of Government during Tumults’ (8 March 1769); qtd. in Richard Bourke, Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), at p. 264. 59 Ibid., p. 118. Chapter 3: August Wilhelm Rehberg 63 freedom from caprice or despotism that was afforded to all subjects, regardless of their station in society.60 As matters stood in 1785, Brandes told his readers, the constitution was in relatively good health: royal prerogative was limited by Parliament’s powers of review and by its control of the Treasury, while the Parliament was checked by the king’s veto and, more subtly, by the growing influence of his ministers in the Commons.61 But this balance was extremely delicate. In ‘Geist Englands’, Brandes intimated that George III’s attempts to consolidate his authority begun to jeopardize this equilibrium, imperiling a constitution which, as Hume had noted decades ago, was more towards monarchy than republicanism.62 Because he believed that the Parliament was under assault from the executive, Brandes, like Burke, had little patience for Pitt the Younger’s proposed electoral reforms. It was obvious why ‘those who brood on politics’ ‹Staatsgrüblern› in abstraction would endorse the abolition of ‘pocket boroughs’, the standardization of constituency sizes, and the expansion of the franchise, he conceded; indeed, when considered in abstraction the preservation of the status quo seemed self-evidently unjust. Yet as ‘the wisest’ voices in this debate understood – it is difficult not to hear Brandes speaking of Burke here – ‘the English constitution consists in an artificial synthesis ‹Gewebe› of three forms of government [i.e. monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy]; their relation to each other cannot be articulated or determined in mathematical terms’.63 Pitt’s proposed reforms would cripple the Prime Minister’s ability to form a durable, competent government (a process in which allocating party-controlled seats was vital). Thus enervated, Parliament would be unable to exercise its constitutional duties, creating a power vacuum that would be filled by the king’s ministers. Ironically, then, a reform movement that was meant to expand popular liberty would in fact radically augment the power of the executive, imperiling constitutional order and threatening liberty itself.64 Brandes picked out three additional, indispensable elements of the British constitution. First, he argued that the uniquely ‘republican’ character of the British people – woven into their culture, education, institutions, religion, and mœurs – was the sine qua non of their exceptional liberty. This ‘Nationalgeist’ was the motor that drove the British 60 Ibid., p. 217. 61 Brandes depicted the ‘royal veto’ as a legal fact (see ibid., p. 218); Rehberg suggested the same in his Untersuchungen (vol. 1, p. 143). In fact, its constitutionality was contested throughout the eighteenth century: see Eric Nelson, The Royalist Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 9-23. 62 ‘By all indications, if a great alteration in the Constitution were to take place, an unconstrained monarchy would be far more likely to emerge than a headless republic’: ibid., p. 234. 63 Ibid., pp. 240-41. 64 For discussion of Burke’s identical argument, which he made in Parliament one year before Brandes’s visit, see Bourke, Empire and Revolution, pp. 440-47. Chapter 3: August Wilhelm Rehberg 64 constitution.65 From a young age, Britons were taught to see deliberative government as a positive good to be defended, and their liberties as a prize to be protected. He considered the latitude granted to the British press; the English Church’s tolerant attitude towards heterodoxy; the British university system, and the love of rhetoric that its curriculum inspired. All these institutions fostered a civic-minded ‘public spirit’ that pervaded all levels of British society.66 It was not true, he insisted, that ‘Publicität’ debased British political discourse relative to Germany. Channeling Burke’s arguments for the dignity of parliamentary deliberation, he insisted that the British system of government in fact conferred gravity on vital matters of state. Popular scrutiny focused the attention of government officials, and incentivized the virtues of persuasion, eloquence, and probity. ‘It is not merely the eyes of England that observe the proceedings of Parliament’, he wrote in ‘Geist Englands’, in language redolent of Burke’s ‘Speech on Fox’s India Bill’; ‘the great orator [in Parliament] ... sees that the eyes of the whole civilized world are upon him.’67 Obliquely, Brandes used this point to suggest that the Räte of Hanover would become more effective, not less, if their opaque proceedings were opened to the public. Similarly, he intimated that Hanover’s political culture would be improved if its rigid class system were gradually softened. In Br

The emergence & evolution of the concepts of “the author”, “the work” and “literary property” with specific reference to enlightenment england 1450-1769: The role and influence of John Locke in the case of Millar v Taylor (1769)

Abstract: ........................................................................................................ 4 CHAPTER ONE .................................................................................................. 5 CHAPTER TWO ................................................................................................ 21 CHAPTER THREE ............................................................................................ 35 CHAPTER FOUR .............................................................................................. 52 CHAPTER FIVE ................................................................................................ 72 CHAPTER SIX ................................................................................................... 92 CHAPTER SEVEN .......................................................................................... 118 CHAPTER EIGHT ........................................................................................... 143 CHAPTER NINE ............................................................................................. 173 CHAPTER TEN ............................................................................................... 228 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................. 247

Utilitarianism in the Age of Enlightenment : The Moral and Political Thought of William Paley

Abstract: This is the first book-length study of one of the most influential traditions in eighteenth-century Anglophone moral and political thought, 'theological utilitarianism'. Niall O'Flaherty charts its development from its formulation by Anglican disciples of Locke in the 1730s to its culmination in William Paley's work. Few works of moral and political thought had such a profound impact on political discourse as Paley's Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). His arguments were at the forefront of debates about the constitution, the judicial system, slavery and poverty. By placing Paley's moral thought in the context of theological debate, this book establishes his genuine commitment to a worldly theology and to a programme of human advancement. It thus raises serious doubts about histories which treat the Enlightenment as an entirely secular enterprise, as well as those which see English thought as being markedly out of step with wider European intellectual developments.

Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia

Abstract: How Enlightenment Europe rediscovered its identity by measuring itself against the great civilizations of Asia During the long eighteenth century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony, and openness. In this panoramic and colorful book, Jurgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with the great civilizations of the East, from the Ottoman Empire and India to China and Japan. Here is the acclaimed book that challenges the notion that Europe's formative engagement with the non-European world was invariably marred by an imperial gaze and presumptions of Western superiority. Osterhammel shows how major figures such as Leibniz, Voltaire, Gibbon, and Hegel took a keen interest in Asian culture and history, and introduces lesser-known scientific travelers, colonial administrators, Jesuit missionaries, and adventurers who returned home from Asia bearing manuscripts in many exotic languages, huge collections of ethnographic data, and stories that sometimes defied belief. Osterhammel brings the sights and sounds of this tumultuous age vividly to life, from the salons of Paris and the lecture halls of Edinburgh to the deserts of Arabia, the steppes of Siberia, and the sumptuous courts of Asian princes. He demonstrates how Europe discovered its own identity anew by measuring itself against its more senior continent, and how it was only toward the end of this period that cruder forms of Eurocentrism--and condescension toward Asia-prevailed. A momentous work by one of Europe's most eminent historians, Unfabling the East takes readers on a thrilling voyage to the farthest shores, bringing back vital insights for our own multicultural age.

Decolonizing the Study of Religions: Muslim Intellectuals and the Enlightenment Project of Religious Studies

Abstract: The term ‘religion’ as a discursive term occupies a dominant, but neglected feature of Muslim intellectual reflections since the 19th century. Intellectuals from Muḥammad ʿAbduh (he died in 1905) to recent scholars like Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd (he died in 2010) have used religion as a critical term to develop a critique of tradition and modernity, and a strategy for renewal. This discourse may be compared with the study of religion since the 19th century that has also used religion to develop a perspective on the religious history of humankind. In this contribution, I argue that the two intellectual traditions that have employed religion – Kantian and the modern Islamic – point to very different ways of relating to the world, to the self and the ‘other’, and to the political condition of modernity. Rather than using the hegemonic Western tradition to make a judgment on the modern Islamic, I use the latter to point to the former’s peculiar proclivities. Using the modern tradition among Muslim intellectuals, I invite an inquiry into both from each other’s positions.Keywords: Islamic studies, Islamic modernism, Islamic reform, religious studies, religion, Talal Asad, postcolonial, decolonial

Kant on the Vocation and Formation of the Human Being

Abstract: One central debate in the German Enlightenment concerned the “Bestimmung” or vocation of humankind, involving authors such as Spalding, Abbt, Mendelssohn, and Schiller, continued by authors such as Fichte and Reinhold. While originally developed as a theological concept, the idea of a vocation was easily adapted in other contexts, such as philosophy of nature (Blumenbach, Mendelssohn) or philosophy of art (Schiller). It also had a remarkably strong impact on Kant’s philosophy that is not yet entirely understood. Kant is one of the very few modern thinkers who explicitly writes about the origins of humankind, as well as the way we can conceive the passage of humanity through time, and finally about our conception of the distant future of humankind. It seems clear that the concept of vocation connects the (conjectural) beginning of humankind to its (ideal) future. In this paper, I will elaborate this aspect, focusing primarily on both the origins and future of humankind and the way they are connected by this specific conception of a vocation. I argue that Kant picks up on the Enlightenment debate on the vocation of the human being and combines it not only with core ideas of the philosophy of pedagogy of his time, but it is also inspired by the philosophy of history, as he develops his perspective on the formation and cultivation also in his critical engagement with Herder’s philosophy (see, e.g., Review of Herder’s Ideas, AA 8:56). The germs for humankind’s future have already been implanted in the very beginning of its existence, yet only freedom and self-determination can work on removing their internal and external limitations to achieve the fulfillment of this vocation. So the vocation is not an external ‘calling’, but rather an internal striving towards self-fulfillment. This striving, however, should not only be conceived on the individual level, but needs to be related to an ideal of society, in which the relevant human actions are both facilitated and enticed. The vocation of humankind as a collective thus relates to the achievement of individual freedom in a just society. In this sense, it can be made clear that Kant’s concept of humankind’s vocation is not only a yet underrated core concept in Kant’s moral philosophy and his pedagogical ideas, but serves as a nexus to connect them both to his philosophy of history.

Critical International Theory: An Intellectual History

Abstract: Whether inspired by the Frankfurt School or Antonio Gramsci, the impact of critical theory on the study of international relations has grown considerably since its advent in the early 1980s. This book offers the first intellectual history of critical international theory. Richard Devetak approaches this history by locating its emergence in the rising prestige of theory and the theoretical persona. As theory's prestige rose in the discipline of international relations it opened the way for normative and metatheoretical reconsiderations of the discipline and the world. The book traces the lines of intellectual inheritance through the Frankfurt School to the Enlightenment, German idealism, and historical materialism, to reveal the construction of a particular kind of intellectual persona: the critical international theorist who has mastered reflexive, dialectical forms of social philosophy. In addition to the extensive treatment of critical theory's reception and development in international relations, the book recovers a rival form of theory that originates outside the usual inheritance of critical international theory in Renaissance humanism and the civil Enlightenment. This historical mode of theorising was intended to combat metaphysical encroachments on politics and international relations and to prioritise the mundane demands of civil government over the self-reflective demands of dialectical social philosophies. By proposing contextualist intellectual history as a form of critical theory, Critical International Theory: An Intellectual History defends a mode of historical critique that refuses the normative temptations to project present conceptions onto an alien past, and to abstract from the offices of civil government.

Rethinking the Mythical Standard Accounts of the Enlightenment

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What Is Left of the Enlightenment

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The Presbyterian Enlightenment: The confluence of evangelical and enlightenment thought in British America

Abstract: Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Christianity Commons, Cultural History Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, European History Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, History of Christianity Commons, History of Religion Commons, Intellectual History Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Natural Law Commons, Other Philosophy Commons, Political History Commons, Political Theory Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Religion Law Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons, Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons, Social History Commons, and the United States History Commons

The Enlightenment on Trial: Ordinary Litigants and Colonialism in the Spanish Empire

Abstract: the enlightenment on trial ordinary litigants and colonialism in the spanish empire by is among the very best vendor publications in the world? Have you had it? Not at all? Ridiculous of you. Currently, you could get this outstanding publication simply right here. Find them is format of ppt, kindle, pdf, word, txt, rar, as well as zip. Exactly how? Merely download and even check out online in this website. Currently, never ever late to read this the enlightenment on trial ordinary litigants and colonialism in the spanish empire.

William Falconer’s Remarks on the Influence of Climate (1781) and the study of religion in Enlightenment England

Abstract: This study argues that the English-born, Edinburgh-educated and Bath-based physician William Falconer (1744–1824) authored the only stadial history published during the British Enlightenment that analysed the influence of socio-economic context upon religious belief. A survey of the conjectural histories of religion written by the leading literati demonstrates that discussion of religion by the Scottish literati was undertaken separate from the “Scottish narrative” of stadial economic and political progress. We have to turn to Falconer’s Remarks on the Influence of Climate (1781) to see a four-stage history of religion that related belief and practice to wider social and economic developments. While heavily derivative of Montesquieu’s De l’Esprit des Lois (1748), Falconer’s Remarks has some claim to theoretical innovation and used his conjectural history to tell a story of English (not British) religious exceptionalism. Moreover, the work was received as a serious contribution to the late Enlighte...

Editorial. Prone to error, or enlightenment?

Abstract: StamateS and colleagues report a moderately large series of patients undergoing evaluation for tethered spinal cord by using MRI to measure ventral excursion of the conus medullaris in the prone position.6 Based on the widely held theory that spinal cord tethering reflects distal traction on the cord, the authors propose that tethering results in a statistically significant reduction in ventral excursion. The study was meticulously conducted by an expert group and represents a very important contribution to the literature. Nevertheless, its value is limited by a number of factors that are extremely common in published studies of tethered cord (including my own): retrospective analysis, heterogeneous dysraphic anatomy, inadequate or inappropriate controls, mixed age groups, a combination of symptomatic and asymptomatic patients (the latter generally young children with external gluteal abnormalities), and most importantly, a lack of reference to validated outcomes. In fact, Stamates and colleagues define the study’s dependent variable, spinal cord tethering, by their own decision to operate rather than by observed natural history, proven response to treatment, or other objective finding. Stamates and colleagues acknowledge in their abstract that “imaging sensitivity and specificity for tethered cord can be low.” In actuality, imaging sensitivity and specificity for tethered spinal cord are impossible to quantify because this entity’s diagnostic boundaries are so uncertain. Sensitivity and specificity are meaningful only in the context of the population investigated. Because patient selection for tethered cord surgery on clinical grounds is so variable, and indications for surgery so controversial, sensitivity and specificity measures derived from a moderately sized single-institution study have limited meaning in general practice. As the authors themselves state, “complaints such as back pain or subtle decreases in gait or bladder function are nonspecific and can be difficult to objectively assess clinically.” The positive predictive value and the negative predictive value of a positive or negative test result are probably the most useful descriptive variables for patient counseling and clinical decision making. In this case, the positive predictive value of impaired ventral cord excursion in the prone position is perfect (100%), and the negative predictive value of normal cord excursion in the prone position is very high (91%). In other words, prone MRI in these authors’ hands perfectly predicts the occurrence of surgery for tethered or retethered cord, and correctly excludes the diagnosis of tethered cord 91% of the time. This pattern is especially favorable because the authors propose the use of prone MRI for high-stakes surgical decision making. If generalizable, these results suggest that prone imaging will never falsely indicate an unnecessary intervention and will prevent a needed intervention less than 10% of the time. Unfortunately, this only tells us whether prone imaging alone would have accurately indicated detethering surgery in comparison to these authors’ own clinical judgment. Previous studies of children with a significantly low conus and a terminal lipoma suggest that prone imaging does not provide additional diagnostic information to standard MRI.5,10 Of note, there is relatively little clinical controversy about indicating untethering in these children.4 By contrast, there is considerable controversy regarding indications for surgery in children with a normal-level conus medullaris and a normal-caliber filum terminale: so-called imaging-negative or occult tethered cord syndrome (OTCS).3 Prone MRI might therefore be more useful in patients with OTCS. Using prone MRI, Nakanishi and colleagues demonstrated perfect discrimination between patients with OTCS and those with normal spinal cords who were used as a reference group.1 By contrast, Stamates and colleagues describe highly variable ventral conus motion in a handful of patients with OTCS who were excluded from their principal analysis. Further study is needed to definitively assess the utility of prone MRI in these patients. EDITORIAL Prone to error, or enlightenment?

Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and the Modern Debate on the Enlightenment

Abstract: This article discusses Tocqueville’s and Mill’s views of the cultural progress of indigenous colonial societies in the context of the current debate about the Enlightenment. The analysis of their p...

Guarding Traditions and Laws—Disciplining Bodies and Souls: Tradition, science, and religion in the age of Ottoman reform

Abstract: This article examines the religious and intellectual dynamics behind the Ottoman military reform movement, known as the New Order, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Conventionally, the New Order has been examined within the framework of the Westernization of Ottoman military and administrative institutions. The Janissary-led popular opposition to the New Order, on the other hand, has been understood as a conservative resistance, fashioned by Muslim anti-Westernization. This article challenges this assumption, based on a binary between Westernization reforms versus Islamic conservatism. It argues that the Janissary-led popular opposition, which was consolidated long before the New Order, developed as a form of resistance by antinomian elements blocking the top-down disciplinary policies of the central state throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The New Order programme, which was unleashed in 1792, was also opposed by the Janissary-led coalition, on the basis that it would wipe out vested privileges and traditions. Supporting the New Order, we see a coalition and different intellectual trends, including: (i) the Euro-Ottoman military enlightenment, led by military engineers and scientists, which developed an agenda to reorganize and discipline the social-military order with universal principles of military engineering and (ii) Islamic puritan activism, which developed an agenda to rejuvenate the Muslim order by eliminating invented traditions, and to discipline Muslim souls with the universal principles of revelation and reason. While the Euro-Ottoman military enlightenment participated in military reform movements in Europe, Islamic activism was part of a trans-Islamic Naqshibandi-Mujaddidi network originating in India. We thus witness a discursive alliance between military enlightenment and Muslim activism, both of which had trans-Ottoman connections, against a Janissary-led popular movement, which mobilized resistance to protect local conventions and traditions.

The French Enlightenment attempts to create a philosophy without reason: the case of Diderot and the effect of Helvétius

Abstract: It is a well-worn, yet astonishingly resilient, cliche that the Enlightenment was the “Age of Reason”. By focusing on Diderot and Helvetius this paper shows that, rather than proceeding in the name...

The birth of enlightenment secularism from the spirit of Confucianism

Abstract: The aim of the essay is to demonstrate that the contact of European philosophy with Chinese thought in the second half of the 17th and 18th century influenced the rise and development of secularism...

Nostalgia, Melancholy, and the Emotional Economy of Replacement: Feeling for La France Profonde in the Novels of Michel Houellebecq

Abstract: Michel Houellebecq’s two most recent novels, The Map and the Territory (2010) and Submission (2015), call attention to the powerful affective pull of the premodern past within late capitalist and multicultural France, portraying the conflicting emotions of loss this past evokes. The Map and the Territory explores the survival, and revival, of traditional arts and crafts in a cultural scene where “la France profonde” has been commodified through the lifestyle and heritage industries, and medievalist nostalgia has been recuperated into a neoliberal economy where the yearning for authenticity is harnessed to the desire to consume. Submission explores the significance of the premodern for a near-future France characterized by the return of religious impulses that have been only superficially suppressed by the Enlightenment and secular republicanism. Here, France’s contact with “la France profonde” via religious tourism, patriotic poetry, and neoreactionary politics revisits its Catholic and patriarcha...

The Experimental Imagination: Literary Knowledge and Science in the British Enlightenment

Abstract: This book is about experimental imagination in the British Enlightenment. It tells the story of how literariness came to be distinguished from its epistemological sibling, science, as a source of truth about the natural and social worlds. Early scientists used metaphor to define the phenomena they studied. They likewise used metaphor to imagine themselves into their roles as experimentalists. Late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century British literature includes countless references to early science to make the case for the epistemological superiority of literary knowledge, whose truths challenge the dominant account of the scientific revolution as the sine qua non epistemological innovation of the long eighteenth century. The Experimental Imagination considers traditional scientific writings alongside poems, plays, and prose works by canonical and non-canonical authors to argue that ideas about science facilitated new forms of evidence and authority. The noisy satiric rancor and quiet concern that science generated among science advocates, dramatists, essayists, and poets reveal a doubled epistemological trajectory: experimental observation utilizes imaginative speculation and imaginative fancy enables new forms of understanding. Early scientific practice requires yet often obscures that imaginative impulse, which literary knowledge embraces as a way of understanding the world at large. Reciprocally, the period’s theory of aesthetics arises from the observational protocols of science, ultimately laying claim to literature as epistemologically superior. Early science finds its intellectual and conceptual footing in the metaphoric thinking available through literary knowledge, and literary writers wield science as a trope for the importance and unique insights of literary knowledge.