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Modernity and the Final Aim of History
This book is intended for scholars and students in humanities, history, Jewish studies, philosophy, Christian theology, and for those concerned with the roots of anti-Semitism and with the need for toleration and intercultural pluralism. The book combines the development of German philosophy from the Enlightenment to Idealism, and from Idealism to the revolutionary turning-point of the mid-nineteenth century with the Jewish question.
Philosophia perennis
The study features the five most important and most efficacious themes of Western spirituality in their ancient historical origins and in their unfolding up to early modernity: Divine names, Microkosmos-Makrokosmos, theories of creation, the idea of spiritual spaces, and the concepts of eschatological history.
A Rosicrucian Utopia in Eighteenth-Century Russia
This is the first investigation of the history of Russian Freemasonry, based on the premise that the facts of the Russian Enlightenment preclude application of the interpretative framework commonly used for the history of western thought. Coverage includes the development of early Russian masonry, the formation of the Novikov circle in Moscow, the ‘programme’ of Rosicrucianism and its Russian variant and, finally, the clash between the Rosicrucians and the State.
Cartesian Theodicy
Almost all interpreters of Cartesian philosophy have hitherto focused on the epistemological aspect of Descartes' thought. In his Cartesian Theodicy, Janowski demonstrates that Descartes' epistemological problems are merely rearticulations of theological questions. For example, Descartes' attempt to define the role of God in man's cognitive fallibility is a reiteration of an old argument that points out the incongruity between the existence of God and evil, and his pivotal question `whence error?' is shown here to be a rephrasing of the question `whence evil?' The answer Descartes gives in the Meditations is actually a reformulation of the answer found in St. Augustine's De Libero Arbitrio a...
Fallen Angels
Dutch Reformed pastor Balthasar Bekker (1634-1698) has long been recognized as a key figure in the end of the witchcraft persecutions in early modern Europe. With the publication of his monumental four-volume work The World Bewitched Bekker argued against the temporal activity of the devil and evil spirits as well as against the reality of witchcraft, sorcery, and spirit possession. Yet Bekker's ideas drew opposition from Dutch Reformed clergymen who charged that his use of Cartesian philosophy to reject the temporal activity of spirits threatened much of traditional religious faith. This book argues that it wa Bekker's exegesis of biblical passages in which spirits and spirit activity were ...
Botanophilia in Eighteenth-Century France
The book describes the innovations that enabled botany, in the Eighteenth century, to emerge as an independent science, independent from medicine and herbalism. This encompassed the development of a reliable system for plant classification and the invention of a nomenclature that could be universally applied and understood. The key that enabled Linnaeus to devise his classification system was the discovery of the sexuality of plants. The book, which is intended for the educated general reader, proceeds to illustrate how many aspects of French life were permeated by this revolution in botany between about 1760 to 1815, a botanophilia sometimes inflated into botanomania. The reader should emerge with a clearer understanding of what the Enlightenment actually was in contrast to some popular second-hand ideas today.
Heaven Upon Earth
This book contributes to the ongoing revision of early modern British history by examining the apocalyptic tradition through the life and writings of Joseph Mede (1586-1638). The history of the British apocalyptic tradition has yet to undergo a thorough revision. Past studies followed a historiographical paradigm which associated millenarianism with a revolutionary agenda. A careful study of Joseph Mede, one of the key individuals responsible for the rebirth of millenarianism in England, suggests a different picture of seventeenth-century apocalypticism. The roots of Mede's apocalyptic thought are not found in extreme activism, but in the detailed study of the Apocalypse with the aid of ancient Christian and Jewish sources. Mede’s legacy illustrates the geographical prevalence and long-term sustainability of his interpretations. This volume shows that the continual discussion of millenarian ideas reveals a vibrant tradition that cannot be reconstructed to fit within one simple historiographical narrative.
The Passionate Society
Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) was a major figure of the Scottish Enlightenment whose thought was, in many respects, original and distinctive. This book is a study of his ideas and of the intellectual forces that shaped them. Though somewhat overlooked in the nineteenth century, Ferguson was rescued from obscurity in the first half of the twentieth century by scholars interested in the origins of sociology and early critiques of modernity. Ferguson’s interest in the mechanics of social life and especially social change led him to many groundbreaking insights. In fact, he is sometimes identified as the 'Father of Modern Sociology'. In addition to exploring whether or not he merits this title, th...
Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture
The influence of millenarian thinking upon Cromwell's England is well-known. The cultural and intellectual conceptions of the role of millenarian ideas in the `long' 18th century when, so the `official' story goes, the religious sceptics and deists of Enlightened England effectively tarred such religious radicalism as `enthusiasm' has been less well examined. This volume endeavors to revise this `official' story and to trace the influence of millenarian ideas in the science, politics, and everyday life of England and America in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Rousseau’s Economic Philosophy
An increasing body of literature concerns the economics of those highly appreciated qualities of life that are not easily provided by market exchange. Today these problems are visible as never before, for example environmental problems. But already at the dawn of industrial society the problem had been observed by Rousseau. His statements on the economy claim to take these problems into account with due importance. In this way his economic philosophy concerns a different domain of the economy from, for example, Adam Smith's work. Rousseau's philosophy attempts to consider phenomena later labeled information asymmetries and information costs, bargaining, collective good problems. Some of Rous...
