The Notion of Civility in Contemporary Society

1980 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis A. Coser
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Human Kind

Ever since the Enlightenment, most intellectuals on the liberal and radical end of the ideological spectrum have tended to stand for a morality and politics of authenticity, sincerity, and naturalness; while their conservative opponents defended the need for decorum, civility, and restraints. These differences were, of course, largely rooted in differing basic conceptions about the nature of the human animal. Traditionally, the conservatives had a pessimistic view of human nature and hence believed that it had to be curbed; they pitted their views against the progressive belief in the basic goodness of human-kind that emerged in the eighteenth century. When Rousseau proclaimed in Émile: ‘Coming from the hands of the author of all things, everything is good; in the hands of man, everything degenerates’, Bonald, the great critic of Enlightenment thought, answered: ‘We are bad by nature, good through society. The savage is not a man, he is not even a childish man, he is only a degenerate man’.

scholarly journals „Rasa czyli plemię”. Problemy z nomenklaturą u początku polskiej antropologii

2021 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Nowak
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Human Science ◽  
Classification Systems ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Organic World ◽  
Human World ◽  
Human Kind ◽  
Cultural Features

“Race or Tribe”: Problems with Nomenclature in the Early Days of Polish Anthropology This article presents the early stage of shaping Polish terminology connected with the human science, the origins of man and differentiation of humankind in the period when anthropology only began to separate from natural history, and its representatives attempted to make the scope of their research clear and distinct. This process of organising the organic world within the classification systems created for this purpose, including divisions of the mankind on the basis of physical and cultural features of people, was accompanied by an effort to unify scholarly nomenclature and establish a “systematic language”. This was a slow and often chaotic phase because scholars did not object to inconsistent nomenclature at all. In works popularising knowledge and in journalism even more disinformation appeared.The notion of race was accepted as a superior category that was to show a complexity of terms reflecting the divisions of the human kind. This term, from the second half of the eighteenth century used in Western literature to denote individual physical types of man, in the Polish writings was little known and as a rule other notions were in common use instead. Plenty of meanings, diverse and arbitrary application of notions made it necessary to organise this chaos and explain the most typical categories that the Polish authors of the Enlightenment and Romantic periods started to apply in order to describe the diversity of the human world. „Rasa czyli plemię”. Problemy z nomenklaturą u początku polskiej antropologiiW artykule zaprezentowano początki kształtowania się polskiej terminologii związanej z nauką o człowieku, jego pochodzeniu i zróżnicowaniu, w okresie, kiedy antropologia dopiero zaczynała wyodrębniać się z historii naturalnej, a jej przedstawiciele próbowali doprecyzować zakres badanego przedmiotu. Procesowi uporządkowania świata organicznego w ramach powstałych systemów klasyfikacyjnych, w tym podziałów rodzaju ludzkiego ze względu na cechy fizyczne i kulturowe, towarzyszyło ujednolicenie nazewnictwa naukowego, tworzenie „języka systematycznego”. Jego powstawanie dokonywało się powoli, często chaotycznie za sprawą samych badaczy, którym nie przeszkadzała nomenklaturowa niekonsekwencja. Jeszcze większa dezinformacja panowała w pracach popularyzujących wiedzę i publicystyce.Za kategorię nadrzędną, która posłużyła do ukazania złożoności formowania się terminów związanych z podziałami ludzkości, przyjęto pojęcie rasy. Termin ten, używany w literaturze zachodniej do opisów odrębnych typów fizycznych człowieka od drugiej połowy XVIII wieku w piśmiennictwie polskim był słabo upowszechniony i konsekwentnie zastępowany innymi określeniami. Bogactwo znaczeń, różnorodność i dowolność ich stosowania zrodziły potrzebę uporządkowania tego pojęciowego zamieszania i wyjaśnienia najbardziej typowych kategorii, które służyły polskim autorom formacji oświeceniowej i romantycznej do opisów zróżnicowania świata ludzkiego.

Human nature, science of, in the 18th century

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Sense Experience ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Mode Of Operation ◽  
General Convergence

Eighteenth-century speculation on human nature is distinguishable by its approach and underlying assumptions. Taking their cue from Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, many philosophers of the Enlightenment endeavoured to extend the methods of natural science to the moral sciences. Perhaps the most explicit of such endeavours was David Hume’s ambition for a ‘science of man’, but he was not alone. There was a general convergence on the idea that human nature is constant and uniform in its operating principles – that is, its determining motives (passions), its source of knowledge (sense experience) and its mode of operation (association of ideas). By virtue of this constancy human nature was predictable, so that once it was scientifically understood, then social institutions could be designed to effect desired outcomes.

The “New Empire of Common Sense”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul B. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Joseph Priestley ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy

Although the rise of Scottish common sense philosophy was one of the most important intellectual developments of the Enlightenment, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the reception of Scottish common sense philosophy in the Atlantic world during the second half of the eighteenth century. This chapter focuses on the British context in the period 1764–93, and examines published responses to James Oswald, James Beattie, and, especially, Thomas Reid. The chapter contextualizes the polemics of Joseph Priestley against the three Scots and argues that it was Joseph Berington rather than Priestley who was the first critic to claim that the appeal to common sense was the defining feature of “the Scotch school” of philosophy. It also shows that Reid was widely acknowledged to be the founder and most accomplished exponent of the “school”, whereas Beattie and Oswald were typically dismissed as being derivative thinkers.

Classical Learning in Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic, 1690-1750

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Floris Verhaart
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
General Point ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
The Enlightenment

The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was a moment when scholars and thinkers across Europe reflected on how they saw their relationship with the past, especially classical antiquity. Many readers in the Renaissance had appreciated the writings of ancient Latin and Greek authors not just for their literary value, but also as important sources of information that could be usefully applied in their own age. By the late seventeenth century, however, it was felt that the authority of the ancients was no longer needed and that their knowledge had become outdated thanks to scientific discoveries as well as the new paradigms of rationalism and empiricism. Those working on the ancient past and its literature debated new ways of defending their relevance for society. The different approaches to classical literature defended in these debates explain how the writings of ancient Greece and Rome could become a vital part of eighteenth-century culture and political thinking. Through its analysis of the debates on the value of the classics for the eighteenth century, this book also makes a more general point on the Enlightenment. Although often seen as an age of reason and modernity, the Enlightenment in Europe continuously looked back for inspiration from preceding traditions and ages such as Renaissance humanism and classical antiquity. Finally, the pressure on scholars in the eighteenth century to popularize their work and be seen as contributing to society is a parallel for our own time in which the value of the humanities is a continuous topic of debate.

‹ Rococo › : du jargon à la catégorie de style

2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 474-487
Author(s):  
Marie-Pauline Martin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Louis Xv ◽  
Objective Existence

Abstract Today there is a consensus on the definition of the term ‘rococo’: it designates a style both particular and homogeneous, artistically related to the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. But we must not forget that in its primitive formulations, the rococo has no objective existence. As a witty, sneering, and impertinent word, it can adapt itself to the most varied discourses and needs, far beyond references to the eighteenth century. Its malleability guarantees its sparkling success in different languages, but also its highly contradictory uses. By tracing the genealogy of the word ‘rococo’, this article will show that the association of the term with the century of Louis XV is a form of historical discrimination that still prevails widely in the history of the art of the Enlightenment.

THE “HARD FORM” OF SCULPTURE: MARBLE, MATTER AND SPIRIT IN EUROPEAN SCULPTURE FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT THROUGH ROMANTICISM

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
LINDA WALSH
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
External Appearance ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Familiar World ◽  
A Site ◽  
Aesthetic Values

The apparently distinct aesthetic values of naturalism (a fidelity to external appearance) and neoclassicism (with its focus on idealization and intangible essence) came together in creative tension and fusion in much late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century sculptural theory and practice. The hybrid styles that resulted suited the requirements of the European sculpture-buying public. Both aesthetics, however, created difficulties for the German Idealists who represented a particularly uncompromising strain of Romantic theory. In their view, naturalism was too closely bound to the observable, familiar world, while neoclassicism was too wedded to notions of clearly defined forms. This article explores sculptural practice and theory at this time as a site of complex debates around the medium's potential for specific concrete representation in a context of competing Romantic visions (ethereal, social and commercial) of modernity.

A Russian Mystic Faces the Age of Rationalism and Revolution: Thought and Activity of Ivan Vladimirovich Lopukhin

1967 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-188
Author(s):  
Alexander Lipski
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Russian Culture ◽  
Peter The Great ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Western Influence ◽  
The World ◽  
Extreme Degree ◽  
State Of Mind

It is generally accepted that even though rationalism was predominant during the eighteenth century, a significant mystical trend was simultaneously present. Thus it was not only the Age of Voltaire, Diderot, and Holbach, but also the Age of St. Martin, Eckartshausen and Madame Guyon. With increased Western influence on Russia, it was natural that Russia too would be affected by these contrary currents. The reforms of Peter the Great, animated by a utilitarian spirit, had brought about a secularization of Russian culture. Father Florovsky aptly summed up the state of mind of the Russian nobility as a result of the Petrine Revolution: “The consciousness of these new people had been extroverted to an extreme degree.” Some of the “new people,” indifferent to their previous Weltanschauung, Orthodoxy, adopted the philosophy of the Enlightenment, “Volter'ianstvo” (Voltairism). But “Volter'ianstvo” with its cult of reason and belief in a remote creator of the “world machine,“ did not permanently satisfy those with deeper religious longings. While conventional Orthodoxy, with its emphasis on external rites, could not fill the spiritual vacuum, Western mysticism, entering Russia chiefly through freemasonry, provided a satisfactory alternative to “Volter'ianstvo.”

Pen, print and communication in the eighteenth century

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Production Distribution ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Original Narrative ◽  
General Record ◽  
Printed Word ◽  
Political Economic

Pen, print and communication in the eighteenth century is a volume of fourteen essays each of which explores the production, distribution and consumption of both private and public texts during the Enlightenment from a variety of historical, theoretical and critical perspectives.  During the eighteenth century there was a growing interest in recording, listing and documenting the world, whether for personal interest and private consumption, or general record and the greater good. Such documentation was done through both the written and printed word. Each genre had its own material conventions and spawned industries which supported these practices. This volume considers writing and printing in parallel: it highlights the intersections between the two methods of communication; discusses the medium and materiality of the message; considers how writing and printing were deployed in the construction of personal and cultural identities; and explores the different dimensions surrounding the production, distribution and consumption of private and public letters, words and texts during the eighteenth-century. In combination the chapters in this volume consider how the processes of both writing and printing contributed to the creation of cultural identity and taste, assisted in the spread of knowledge and furthered bother personal, political, economic, social and cultural change in Britain and the wider-world. This volume provides and original narrative on the nature of communication and brings a fresh perspective on printing history, print culture and the literate society of the Enlightenment.

Fielding and Richardson

PMLA ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 81 (5) ◽  
pp. 381-388
Author(s):  
William Park
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
General Type ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Tom Jones ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

But the Discovery [of when to laugh and when to cry] was reserved for this Age, and there are two Authors now living in this Metropolis, who have found out the Art, and both brother Biographers, the one of Tom Jones, and the other of Clarissa.author of Charlotte SummersRather than discuss the differences which separate Fielding and Richardson, I propose to survey the common ground which they share with each other and with other novelists of the 1740's and 50's. In other words I am suggesting that these two masters, their contemporaries, and followers have made use of the same materials and that as a result the English novels of the mid-eighteenth century may be regarded as a distinct historic version of a general type of literature. Most readers, it seems to me, do not make this distinction. They either think that the novel is always the same, or they believe that one particular group of novels, such as those written in the early twentieth century, is the form itself. In my opinion, however, we should think of the novel as we do of the drama. No one kind of drama, such as Elizabethan comedy or Restoration comedy, is the drama itself; instead, each is a particular manifestation of the general type. Each kind bears some relationship to the others, but at the same time each has its own identity, which we usually call its conventions. By conventions I mean not only stock characters, situations, and themes, but also notions and assumptions about the novel, human nature, society, and the cosmos itself. If we compare one kind of novel to another without first considering the conventions of each, we are likely to make the same mistake that Thomas Rymer did when he blamed Shakespeare for not conforming to the canons of classical French drama.

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