Showing papers on "Jansenism published in 1996"

Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole: Logic or the Art of Thinking

Abstract: Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole were philosophers and theologians associated with Port-Royal Abbey, a centre of the Catholic Jansenist movement in seventeenth-century France. Their enormously influential Logic or the Art of Thinking, which went through five editions in their lifetimes, treats topics in logic, language, theory of knowledge and metaphysics, and also articulates the response of 'heretical' Jansenist Catholicism to orthodox Catholic and Protestant views on grace, free will and the sacraments. In attempting to combine the categorical theory of the proposition with a Cartesian account of knowledge, their Logic represents the classical view of judgment which inspired the modern transformation in logic and semantic theory by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and recent philosophers. This edition presents a new translation of the text, together with a historical introduction and suggestions for further reading.

The formation of the Parisian bourgeoisie, 1690-1830

Abstract: Part I The Jansenist years: the work of Satan the elect the ruling families power and local politics. Part II The changing of the guard: the decline of lineage the new families and the new politics. Part III Revolution: the revolution in local politics. Part IV Paris of the notables, 1795-1830: interregnum commerce, science, administration the tutelage of the State.

Arnauld Versus Leibniz and Malebranche on the Limits of Theological Knowledge

Abstract: In Chapter I of The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, Richard Popkin offers a succinct and accurate account of the dispute over the basis of religious knowledge that was a central quarrel of the Reformation. The idea is this: In Luther’s initial criticism of Catholic practices he accepted the Catholic position that religious propositions are to be tested for truth by their agreement with Church tradition, councils, and Papal pronouncement. But in subsequent writings Luther took the decisive step of recommending replacement of the Catholic criterion by a test phrased in terms of consistency with Scripture, as interpreted by the conscience of the faithful. Popkin went on to note that Calvin transformed this simple test into an elaborate epistemology of religious knowledge without thereby denying Luther’s basic claims. Popkin then traced the history of the alliance between Catholic Counter Reformation thinkers and sixteenth and seventeenth century Pyrrhonian sceptics, in their efforts to undermine Calvin’s epistemology of religious knowledge. In Chapter VI Popkin noted the Jansenists uses of Catholic Pyrrhonism in defense of their antiphilosophical views and their opposition to rational theology. And in his seminal paper “Scepticism, Theology, and the Scientific Revolution in the Seventeenth Century,”1 Popkin clarified the ways in which the new sciences and traditional theology interfaced in the seventeenth century.

Authority in ancien regime France : the understanding of Jacques du Bosc

Abstract: This thesis addresses the question of authority in seventeenth-century France and argues that through the writings of Jacques Du Bosc we are able to come to a particular, though recognizably common, understanding of the foundations of authority and how different structures (e.g., political, social, religious) were integrated through the organizing principle of grace. The writings of Jacques Du Bosc reflect numerous interests of seventeenth-century France (philosophy, feminism, Jansenism and hagiography and political panegyrics) and he has variously been described as a feminist, a libertin, a honnete homme, a philosopher and a courtier. Each of these descriptions is true but an additional description, that of priest, must also be included. His principle perceptions were formed by his culture and his vocation and consequently addresses his culture: the religious, social, and political structures, the intellectual milieu and various debates he engaged to better understand the complexity of lived experience (Chapter Two). In Le Philosophe indifferent, Du Bosc presents a progressive philosophy of history to counter sectarian thinking which begins with Natural Law, is developed in Mosaic Law and culminates in Christian Law. Christian Law, which is validated by the lumiere revelee, the revelation of Christ, animates all life via grace. By this immediacy he is able to steer a path between stoic and sceptic. In his attempt to find a middle ground, however, Du Bosc applies Aristotelian and Thomistic moral theory to theology and philosophy which neither philosopher would have accepted as valid and which ultimately undermines his own arguments both in this work and in those works that address Jansenism (Chapter Three). Du Bosc also incorporates grace as the authority in his writings about women. Du Bosc does not limit himself to Christian women but also addresses the heroism of pre-Christian women. Throughout these works he argues for the viability of an informed, thoughtful womanhood and that what is good, is also true, and beautiful (Chapter Four). In the Jansenist controversy, his last debate, he again invokes the authority of grace and the structures that safeguard it: Church and State. He initially attempts a balance in his approach though this soon gives way to impatience and he condemns them as heretics for their arrogance. The integrated graceful behaviour he espoused, personified in l'honnete homme, comes undone in the face of intransigence, as does his argument for detachment, and authoritarianism replaces detachment. In this analysis of authority it is apparent that Du Bosc had a definite understanding of the source of authority and the means by which it was communicated: grace. All of nature, he argued, was united in an organic whole from the grand political gesture to the least action, from the ranking of the estates to the description of the heavens. Any conflict could be resolved, given a proper understanding of history, through a universalism arrived at through indifference. This detachment held the choice of the…

Revolt in prerevolutionary France : the Prince de Conti's conspiracy against Louis XV, 1755-1757

Abstract: On the eve of the Seven Years' War, the prince de Conti - cousin and confidant of King Louis XV - turned renegade and masterminded a plot to topple the king from his throne. Although the event is pivotal for the political and religious history of 18th-century France, the details of the conspiracy have long been shrouded in mystery. In this book historian John Woodbridge draws on ten years' research to solve the mystery and throw light on questions that ultimately led to the French Revolution and the downfall of the monarchy. Woodbridge explores the ways in which the prince de Conti's involvement of French Huguenots - and, tangentially, English troops - in a "Fronde"-like conspiracy challenged Louis XV's ideology and rocked his government to its foundations. He describes the links between the Conti conspiracy and the Jansenist parliamentary victory of 1757. And he discusses the effects of the conspiracy on Louis XV himself, who was described by one well placed English spy as being so "melancholic" as to have considered abdication. Woodbridge also shows how understanding the conspiracy illuminates previously obscure actions of such figures as Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour, William Pitt the Elder, George II, and the prince de Conti himself. He demonstrates how Louis XV's gratitude toward those Protestants who had remained loyal to him led to a de facto toleration that further undermined the king's position, which recognized only Roman Catholics as legitimate citizens or subjects.

L'erreur et son juge. Remarques sur les censures doctrinales à l'époque moderne by Bruno Neveu (review)

Abstract: L'erreur et son juge. Remarques sur les censures doctrinales a l'epoque moderne. By Bruno Neveu. Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, Serie Studi XII. (Naples: Bibliopolis. 1993. Pp. 758. Lire 160.000 paperback.) In a yet-to-be-written historical survey of the concept of Magisterium in the Catholic Church an important chapter will be devoted to the issues related Jansenism. This is the indisputable conclusion of Professor Bruno Neveu's erudite monograph. His work is a progressive survey that approaches the question of magisterial pronouncements, more precisely the discernment of theological "error," from the perspective of Jansenism. In the background is an issue still familiar to most students of church history: the five propositions condemned by the bull Cum Occasione and their relationship with Augustinus, the book written by Cornelius Jansenius. Most probably the propositions came from theses defended by students of the faculty of Theology of Paris, who had chosen them for their ambiguous expression: they could have a good Augustinian sense, or they could be interpreted in a bad, unorthodox way. They offered, therefore, the matter for a brilliant exercise in theological dispute. It was the heretical sense that was noticed and eventually condemned in Rome by a special commission that prepared the dogmatic constitution Cum Occasione of Innocent X (1653) The document made a connection between the book and the propositions, but not an explicit one; this was established by a commission of French bishops who declared them excerpted from Augustinus. Eventually this association was declared by Alexander VII's Ad Sacram; he also demanded in his Regiminis Apostolici an inward acceptance of this fact. The Jansenists had two reasons to challenge these decisions. First, they maintained an orthodox sense of the propositions, based upon Augustinian theology; second, they denied the presence of the propositions in the incriminated book. In other terms, they suggested that the Roman decisions were flawed and even possibly wrong. That this question of authority was at least as important as the issue of grace has been perceived often by historians, but never has anybody tried to observe it from within, as it were, in bringing together all the elements of a very intricate issue. This Neveu accomplishes in a very meticulous and systematic way. His first chapter ("Vestigia") is a description of the traditional system of theological censures elaborated by universities. The second ("Antiquitas redux") shows how the development of positive theology, associated with religious controversy, brought forth a renewed interest in the writings of the Church Fathers and an absolutization of their authority. This happened, the author shows in the next chapter ("Ars censoria"), at a time when the technique of qualifying theological error was becoming very precise, even persnickety, as he exhibits in his examples. Now applied by the inquisitorial institutions, especially Roman (Chapter Four, "Pervigil argus") this procedure, all negative, it must be stressed, was the way the papacy intervened in dogmatic matters, thus pressing her teaching authority. …