Materialism and the Early Modern “Natural History of Man”

2020 ◽  
pp. 640-670
Author(s):  
Ann Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
De Rerum Natura ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
History Of

This chapter looks at the use of Epicureanism in early modern attempts to explain the human being in purely naturalistic and material terms, mainly in Britain and France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, excluding the moral and political implications of these attempts. After discussing the principal vectors of Epicurean materialism and the difficulties of providing a convincing naturalistic explanation of human beings on Epicurean principles, it looks at how thinkers in the early modern period attempted to solve these problems. The main question concerned the activity of matter, which was linked to discussions of the soul and animal generation. Hence the chapter looks at debates firstly on the properties of atoms, then on human and animal souls, before discussing in more detail the eighteenth-century writers who attempted to provide a purely material explanation of human beings and their use of Lucretius’s poem De rerum natura in particular. We see that Epicurean philosophy was a permanent presence in naturalistic theories, but was normally part of a more eclectic framework. Thinkers took those aspects which corresponded to their aim and combined them with different scientific theories, without necessarily subscribing to the central tenets of Epicureanism. Reference to Epicureanism increasingly functioned as a symbol of the rejection of central Christian doctrines and as a way of proclaiming one’s materialism.

College Communities Abroad

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

In the early modern period, Catholic communities in Protestant jurisdictions were impelled to establish colleges for the education and formation of students in more hospitable Catholic territories. The Irish, English and Scots Colleges founded in France, Flanders, the Iberian peninsula, Rome and elsewhere are the best known, but the phenomenon extended to Dutch and Scandinavian foundations in southern Flanders and the German lands. Similarly colleges were established in Rome for various national communities, among whom the Maronites are a striking example. The first colleges were founded in the mid-sixteenth century and tens of thousands of students passed through them until their closure in late eighteenth century. Only a handful survived the disruption of the French Revolutionary wars to re-emerge in the nineteenth century. Historians have long argued that these exile colleges played a prominent role in maintaining Catholic structures by supplying educated clergy equipped to deal with the challenges of their domestic churches. This has ensured that the Irish, English and Scots colleges in particular have a rich historiography laid out in the pages of Archivium Hibernicum, the Records of the Scots Colleges or the volumes published under the aegis of the Catholic Record Society in England. Until recently, however, their histories were considered in isolating confessional and national frameworks, with surprisingly little attempt to examine commonalities or connections. Recent research has begun to open up the topic by investigating the social, economic, cultural and material histories of the colleges. Meanwhile renewed interest in the history of early modern migration has encouraged historians to place the colleges within the vibrant migrant communities of Irish, English, Scots and others on the continent. The Introduction begins with a survey of the colleges. It assesses their historiographies, paying particular attention to the research of the last three decades. The introduction argues that an obvious next step is to examine the colleges in transnational and comparative perspectives. Finally, it introduces the volume's essays on Irish, English, Scots, Dutch, German and Maronite colleges, which provide up-to-date research by leading historians in the field and point to the possibilities for future research on this exciting topic.

The Naturalized Female Intellect

1992 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorraine Daston
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Differences Of Opinion ◽  
Actual Content ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth

The ArgumentNaturalization confers authority on beliefs, conventions, and claims, but what kind of authority? Because the meaning of nature has a history, so does that of naturalization:naturalization is not the same tactic when marshaled in, say, eighteenth-century France and in late nineteenth-century Britain. Although the authority of nature may be invoked in both cases, the import of that authority depends crucially on whether nature is understood normatively or descriptively, within the framework of the natural laws of jurisprudence or within that of the natural laws of mechanics. During the early modern period, the denotative center of gravity of the word “nature” shifted dramatically. Writings about the female intellect are particularly well suited to reflect and focus these changes for three reasons: first, as with so many aspects of gender identity, what was distinctively female about women's way of thinking was usually alleged to be part and parcel of their “nature”; second, thepolitical and social implications of the female intellect were debated heatedly and in unprecedented detail, particularly in France; and third, the actual content of beliefs about what traits sex the intellect as female remained relatively constant during this period, despite sharp differences of opinion over their putative “natural” causes. The female intellect was naturalized not once but repeatedly, and therein lies its value for a history of naturalization.

A Key Institution for Writing the Economic and Political History of Ottoman Muslims in the Early Modern Period

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Spyropoulos
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political History ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslim Communities

Abstract This articles main argument is that in the course of the eighteenth century, the Janissary corps evolved into a powerful platform for the exchange of people, goods, and ideas between different localities covering a vast geographical area. By elaborating on this idea this paper maintains that the Janissaries should be treated as a key institutionfor the examination of Muslim economic and political history in the Ottoman periphery.We claim thatthe studyof their networkshas the potential to drastically redefine our current perception of the sociopolitical and financial role of Muslims in the early modern Ottoman Empire.Such a research can help us create a more balanced and less Eurocentric picture of the trading operations of Muslims in the regionand better understandthe dissemination of ideas and political movements between a number of Muslim communities where the Janissaries had a strong presence.Аннотация Главныи тезис статьи то, что на протяжении XVIII века, корпус янычар эволюционировал в мощную платформу перемещения людеи, товаров и идеи между различными регионами обширного географического пространства. Обосновывая эту идею, автор статьи подчеркивает, что янычары как институт являются своеобразным ключом к исследованию экономическои и политическои истории исламских общин на периферии Османскои империи. На взгляд автора, исследование этих сетеи взаимодеиствия позволяет радикально пересмотреть нынешнее восприятие социополитическои и финансовои роли мусульман в Османскои империи раннего Нового времени. Подобные исследования дают возможность выработать более сбалансированную и менее евроцентричную картину мусульманских торговых операции в регионе, и лучше понять распространение идеи и политических движении среди различных исламских общин в тех регионах, где присутствие янычар было значимым.

Mapping the early modern city

Urban History ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Hills
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Spanish Empire ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Internal Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This paper analyses in their political context the festival decorations created by Paolo Amato, architect to the Senate of Palermo, in 1686 for the festival of the patron saint of that city. One of these decorations, that of the main altar in the cathedral, is of particular interest in that it represents a map of the city itself. An analysis of this map in relation to other seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century maps of Palermo reveals its political and social aim and biases, but also shows that it was unusually up to date and accurate as a representation of the city at that date. Such a representation not only marks a striking cul-de-sac in the history of the development of cartography, but sheds light on the relationship between forging politically acceptable identities for a city and their representation in the early modern period. The map in particular, but all the decorations, or apparati, in general are interpreted in the context of the weakened Spanish empire (to which Sicily belonged) and of the internal politics of the island and of Palermo.

The Rise of Natural Law in the Early Modern Period

2016 ◽  
pp. 624-641
Author(s):  
Robert von Friedeburg
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
Civil Authority

This article traces the history of the rise of natural law from the classical and medieval periods to the eighteenth century, considering the publications and debates that began to mushroom from the Reformation, and how the works of Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, and von Pufendorf transformed the political philosophy and learned architecture of Latin Europe. It examines how confessional revelation theology on the will of God, as revealed in scripture, was marginalized by jurists and philosophers and goes on to discuss the role of civil authority as obligating agency within each sovereign state; natural law’s emphasis on rights and obligations; and the arguments of Aristotle and Cicero. It explores three interrelated developments seen as responsible for the rise of natural law during the early modern period, and concludes with an analysis of its further development in relation to the philosophical scene and political environment in each polity during the eighteenth century.

India and the Reshaping of the French Colonial Policy (1759-1789)

Itinerario ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
François-Joseph Ruggiu
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Trading Posts ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
French India

It is well-known that in 1763 the French presence in India was reduced by the treaty of Paris to five trading posts, or comptoirs, whose names—Pondichéry, Yanaon, Karikal, Mahé and Chandernagor—were erstwhile learned by heart by the French schoolchildren. French India lasted until 1954 and sparked a wide scientific interest in France at least until the beginning of the 1970s. Since that time, along with the history of French colonial policy during the early modern period as a whole, the study of French India has largely gone out of fashion. The last decades of the Ancien Regime have especially been concerned by this disaffection. The best current French specialists of these parts of the world, like Philippe Haudrère, have focused on the activities of the Compagnie françaises des Indes, which was suspended in 1769, or, like Jacques Weber, devoted themselves to the history of the French presence in India during the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Even if the period of Dupleix is more studied, the history of French India during the eighteenth century does not seem to tempt many researchers nowadays.

Sources for the History of Women in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: The Case of Dorothea Herberts Retrospections

2014 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
Poor Survival ◽  
Evidential Value ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of

The poor survival rate of primary sources for the history of Irish women in the early modern period is mitigated by the sophistication with which extant sources are now being analysed. When re-examined without reference to the demands of the traditional historical grand narrative, when each text itself is permitted to guide its own interrogation, previously undervalued texts are revealed to be insightful of individual existential experience. The memoir of eighteenth-century Dorothea Herbert, hitherto much ignored due to the authors mental illness, is becoming increasingly respected not just for its historic evidential value but for the revelations it contains of a distressed individuals use of literature to manage her circumstances. The interpretive tools deployed on such a text by different research specialisms necessarily lead to divergent conclusions; this in turn may lead to creative re-imagining of history although they cannot all equally reflect what was likely to have been the lived reality of the original author.

Agriculture

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Institutional Reform ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Agricultural History ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of

The agricultural history of the Ancien Régime is inseparable from the socio-economic history of France between 1660 and 1789 if only for the reason that husbandry remained the principal wealth-generating activity and by far the largest sector of the economy. Even after 1789 this situation would not alter radically. Notwithstanding the collapse of Bourbon absolutism, the broad thrust of change in the countryside proceeded without major interruption. The agrarian history of western Europe in the early modern period provides scant evidence of climactic moments, and researchers are in general agreement that its rhythms can only be discerned over a time span of many decades. In France specifically there were no agricultural breakthroughs in the eighteenth century—whether in land-use, tenurial practice, agronomic technique, or institutional reform.

Translating the Life of Antichrist into German and Czech in the Early Modern Period

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 242-256
Author(s):  
Alena A. Fidlerová
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Functional Approach ◽  
German Version ◽  
Frankfurt Am Main ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Translation

Based on a sociocultural and functional approach to the history of translation, this article introduces the Leben Antichristi by the German Capuchin and famous preacher Dionysius of Luxemburg, first published in 1682 at Frankfurt am Main, as an example of the transmission of formerly elite content to a popular readership via its translation into simple vernacular prose. It then discusses possible reasons why three Czech translations of the book, created independently during the eighteenth century and preserved in manuscript, were never printed, although the German version went through twelve editions and similar works by Dionysius's fellow brother Martin of Cochem were among the most often printed books of the Czech Baroque.

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