The Nature Doctrine of Voltaire

PMLA ◽  
1925 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 852-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
George R. Havens
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Mental Attitude ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
The Subject ◽  
El Dorado ◽  
The Temple

The importance of the appeal to Nature in the eighteenth century is well known, but the subject as a whole is so vast that it still awaits its historian. The present article aims to present in brief space the results of a study of this particular topic in the works of Voltaire. It is evident at once that in Voltaire the nature doctrine has less importance than it does in Diderot or in Rousseau or in a host of lesser writers, but this is not to say that it is negligible. On the contrary, it is much more influential in his thinking than one might at first be inclined to suspect, and it leads him to express ideas which one does not ordinarily associate with his name. Yet it is not at all surprising, on second thought, that Voltaire in this respect, as in others, should share the mental attitude of predecessors and contemporaries. Rabelais and Montaigne had appealed to nature. Fénelon had drawn for the readers of Télémaque an idyllic picture of Bétique and its inhabitants. Montesquieu's Troglodytes in the Lettres persanes make one think, not only of Rousseau, but of El Dorado in Voltaire's Candide. Then there was the Epicurean school of the Temple, with which Voltaire was in close contact when he was a youth of eighteen or twenty. In that group were men like Chaulieu and La Fare,1 who were imbued with a natural religion, which appears in Voltaire as early as 1716 and never disappears from his thought.

scholarly journals Onset and Contiguity

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Carter-Ényì ◽  
Gilad Rabinovitch
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Pattern Discovery ◽  
Simple Method ◽  
Algorithmic Approach ◽  
Contextual Features ◽  
Symbolic Data ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Form

Onset (metric position) and contiguity (pitch adjacency and time proximity) are two melodic features that contribute to the salience of individual notes (core tones) in a monophonic voice or polyphonic texture. Our approach to reductions prioritizes contextual features like onset and contiguity. By awarding points to notes with such features, our process selects core tones from melodic surfaces to produce a reduction. Through this reduction, a new form of musical pattern discovery is possible that has similarities to Gjerdingen’s (".fn_cite_year($gjerdingen_2007).") galant schemata. Recurring n-grams (scale degree skeletons) are matched in an algorithmic approach that we have tested manually (with a printed score and pen and paper) and implemented computationally (with symbolic data and scripted algorithms in MATLAB). A relatively simple method successfully identifies the location of all statements of the subject in Bach’s Fugue in C Minor (BWV 847) identified by Bruhn (".fn_cite_year($bruhn_1993).") and the location of all instances of the Prinner and Meyer schemata in Mozart’s Sonata in C Major (K. 545/i) identified by Gjerdingen (".fn_cite_year($gjerdingen_2007)."). We also apply the method to an excerpt by Kirnberger analyzed in Rabinovitch (".fn_cite_year($rabinovitch_2019)."). Analysts may use this flexible method for pattern discovery in reduced textures through software freely accessible at https://www.atavizm.org. While our case studies in the present article are from eighteenth-century European music, we believe our approach to reduction and pattern discovery is extensible to a variety of musics.

scholarly journals Idleness and the Very Sparing Hand of God: The invisible tie between Hume’s "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" and Smith’s "Wealth of Nations"

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Santori
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

In the eighteenth-century Scottish and British cultural context, idleness was a central issue for religion, literature, art, and philosophy. This paper analyzes the reflections of David Hume and Adam Smith on idleness and commercial society. Hume advanced his most provocative view on the subject in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), where idleness is represented as the endowment made by the “very sparing hand” of the “author of nature” to humanity. My argument is that Smith’s view on idleness advanced in the Wealth of Nations (1776) is connected to Hume’s Dialogues, as Smith’s invisible hand defeats idleness through a combination of self-interest, the propensity to exchange, and the division of labor. The broader aim of this study is to add to the philosophical relationship between the Scottish philosophers.

Nicolas Gueudeville's Enlightenment Utopia

Moreana ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (Number 209) (1) ◽  
pp. 24-60
Author(s):  
Russ Leo
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Political Anthropology ◽  
French Translation ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
Original Length ◽  
English Law

Nicolas Gueudeville's 1715 French translation of Utopia is often dismissed as a “belle infidèle,” an elegant but unfaithful work of translation. Gueudeville does indeed expand the text to nearly twice its original length. But he presents Utopia as a contribution to emergent debates on tolerance, natural religion, and political anthropology, directly addressing the concerns of many early advocates of the ideas we associate with Enlightenment. In this sense, it is not as much an “unfaithful” presentation of More's project as it is an attempt to introduce Utopia to eighteenth-century francophone audiences—readers for whom theses on political economy and natural religion were much more salient than More's own preoccupations with rhetoric and English law. This paper introduces Gueudeville and his oeuvre, paying particular attention to his revisions to Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce, Baron de Lahontan's 1703 Nouveaux Voyages dans l'Amérique Septentrionale. Published in 1705, Gueudeville's “revised, corrected, & augmented” version of Lahontan's Voyages foregrounds the rational and natural religion of the Huron as well as their constitutive aversion to property, to concepts of “mine” and “yours.” Gueudeville's revised version of Lahontan's Voyages purports to be an anthropological investigation as well as a study of New World political economy; it looks forward, moreover, to his edition of Utopia, framing More's work as a comparable study of political economy and anthropology. Gueudeville, in other words, renders More's Utopia legible to Enlightenment audiences, depicting Utopia not in terms of impossibility and irony but rather as a study of natural religion and attendant forms of political, devotional, and economic life. Gueudeville's edition of Utopia even proved controversial due, in part, to his insistence on the rationality as well as the possibility of Utopia.

Features of optative modality in Macedonian language (with emphasis on the functionalities of independent da-construction)

2020 ◽  
pp. 301-323
Author(s):  
Natalya I. Kikilo ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Natural Context ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Text Types ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ritual Context

In the Macedonian literary language the analytic da-construction used in an independent clause has a wide range of possible modal meanings, the most common of which are imperative and optative. The present article offers a detailed analysis of the semantics and functions of the Macedonian optative da-construction based on fiction and journalistic texts. The first part of the article deals with the specificities of the optative as a category which primarily considers the subject of a wish. In accordance with the semantic characteristics of this category, optative constructions are used in those discourse text types where the speakers are explicitly designated (the most natural context for the optative is the dialogue). The analysis of the Macedonian material includes instances of atypical usage of the optative da-construction, in which the wish of the subject is not apparent and thereby produces new emotional tonalities perceptible to the reader of a fiction/journalistic text. The study describes Macedonian constructions involving two different verb forms: 1) present tense form (da + praes) and 2) imperfective form (da + impf). These constructions formally designate the hypothetical and counterfactual status of the optative situation, respectively. Thus, the examples in the analysis are ordered according to two types of constructions, which reflect the speaker’s view on the probability of the realisation of his/her wish. Unrealistic wishes can be communicated through the present da-construction, while the imperfective construction denotes situations in which the wish can be realised in the future. The second part of the article is devoted to performative optative da-constructions, which express formulas of speech etiquette, wishes and curses. The analysis demonstrates that these constructions lose their magical functions, when used outside of the ritual context, and begin to function as interjections.

Historical Fragments’ Mobile Echo

Transfers ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Bell ◽  
Kathy Davis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Ming Dynasty ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The Third ◽  
Opium War ◽  
The Subject

Translocation – Transformation is an ambitious contribution to the subject of mobility. Materially, it interlinks seemingly disparate objects into a surprisingly unified exhibition on mobile histories and heritages: twelve bronze zodiac heads, silk and bamboo creatures, worn life vests, pressed Pu-erh tea, thousands of broken antique teapot spouts, and an ancestral wooden temple from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) used by a tea-trading family. Historically and politically, the exhibition engages Chinese stories from the third century BCE, empires in eighteenth-century Austria and China, the Second Opium War in the nineteenth century, the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the mid-twentieth century, and today’s global refugee crisis.

The Laws of Hammurabi

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Barmash
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

The Laws of Hammurabi is one of the earliest law codes, dating from the eighteenth century BCE Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq). It is the culmination of a tradition in which scribes would demonstrate their legal flair by composing statutes on a repertoire of traditional cases, articulating what they deemed just and fair. The book describes how the scribe of the Laws of Hammurabi advanced beyond earlier scribes in composing statutes that manifest systematization and implicit legal principles. The scribe inserted the statutes into the structure of a royal inscription, skillfully reshaping the genre. This approach allowed the king to use the law code to demonstrate that Hammurabi had fulfilled the mandate to guarantee justice enjoined upon him by the gods, affirming his authority as king. This tradition of scribal improvisation on a set of traditional cases continued outside of Mesopotamia, influencing biblical law and the law of the Hittite Empire and perhaps shaping Greek and Roman law. The Laws of Hammurabi is also a witness to the start of another stream of intellectual tradition. It became a classic text and the subject of formal commentaries, marking a Copernican revolution in intellectual culture.

Clausewitz and the Eighteenth-Century Context of Partisan Warfare

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibylle Scheipers
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Small Wars ◽  
System P ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Partisan Warfare

Clausewitz was an ardent analyst of partisan warfare. In 1810 and 1811, he lectured at the Berlin Kriegsschule, the war academy, on the subject of small wars. Clausewitz’s lectures focused on the tactical nature of small wars. However, the eighteenth-century context was by no means irrelevant for Clausewitz’s further intellectual development. On the contrary, he extrapolated from his analysis of the tactical nature of small wars their strategic potential, as well as their exemplary nature for the study of war as such. The partisan, in Clausewitz’s eyes, possessed exemplary qualities in that he acted autonomously and, in doing so, had to draw upon all his human faculties. As such, he was the paradigmatic antagonist to the regular soldier who displayed a ‘cog mentality’ fostered by the Frederickian military system.

Gravity Models in International Trade: An Exploration in Econo-Physics

2021 ◽  
pp. 227797872198992
Author(s):  
Iman Pal ◽  
Saibal Kar
Keyword(s):  
Pattern Recognition ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Gravity Models ◽  
Scientific Applications ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Trade Patterns ◽  
Pattern Recognition Techniques ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Jel Classifications

Several strands of the static and dynamic theoretical constructs and the empirical applications in the subject of economics owe substantially to the well-known principles of physical sciences. The present article explores as to how the development of the popular gravity models in international trade can be traced back to Newton’s law of gravitation, and to both Ohm’s Law and Kirchhoff’s Law of current electricity, as well as to the pattern recognition techniques commonly deployed in scientific applications. In addition to surveying these theoretical analogies, the article also offers numerical applications for observed trade patterns between India and a set of countries. JEL Classifications: F41, F42, C61, F47

The Round Temple in the Forum Boarium

1960 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. E. Strong ◽  
J. B. Ward-Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Definitive Solution ◽  
Restoration Work ◽  
The Temple ◽  
General Opinion ◽  
Ancient Remains

The name and date of the little round temple in the Forum Boarium at Rome (popularly known as the ‘Temple of Vesta’) are long-standing problems of Roman topography. Its identification is still quite uncertain. On the chronology, however, general opinion seems to have hardened and, for reasons which are discussed below, most scholars appear now to believe that the building is Augustan, rejecting the attractive theory of Altmann and Delbrueck that it was erected some time in the later second century B.C. The present article is not concerned at all with the problem of identification, nor does it attempt the full and detailed study of the design and construction without which a definitive solution of the problem of dating is clearly impossible. Its purpose is twofold: to draw attention to some significant features of the architectural design and decoration, and to illustrate and discuss some surviving fragments which can be shown to belong to the lost entablture, but which seem hitherto to have escaped attention.The foundations of the temple were first exposed by Valadier in the early nineteenth century, in the course of restoration work undertaken to free the building of later accretions and to consolidate the ancient remains.

Art and Archaeology

2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 176-179
Author(s):  
Nigel Spivey
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Attractive Feature ◽  
Personal View ◽  
Subsistence Economy ◽  
Islamic School ◽  
The People ◽  
Annales School ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Of Greece

The front cover of John Bintliff's Complete Archaeology of Greece is interesting. There is the Parthenon: as most of its sculptures have gone, the aspect is post-Elgin. But it stands amid an assortment of post-classical buildings: one can see a small mosque within the cella, a large barrack-like building between the temple and the Erechtheum, and in the foreground an assortment of stone-built houses – so this probably pre-dates Greek independence and certainly pre-dates the nineteenth-century ‘cleansing’ of all Byzantine, Frankish, and Ottoman remains from the Athenian Akropolis (in fact the view, from Dodwell, is dated 1820). For the author, it is a poignant image. He is, overtly (or ‘passionately’ in today's parlance), a philhellene, but his Greece is not chauvinistically selective. He mourns the current neglect of an eighteenth-century Islamic school by the Tower of the Winds; and he gives two of his colour plates over to illustrations of Byzantine and Byzantine-Frankish ceramics. Anyone familiar with Bintliff's Boeotia project will recognize here an ideological commitment to the ‘Annales school’ of history, and a certain (rather wistful) respect for a subsistence economy that unites the inhabitants of Greece across many centuries. ‘Beyond the Akropolis’ was the war-cry of the landscape archaeologists whose investigations of long-term patterns of settlement and land use reclaimed ‘the people without history’ – and who sought to reform our fetish for the obvious glories of the classical past. This book is not so militant: there is due consideration of the meaning of the Parthenon Frieze, of the contents of the shaft graves at Mycenae, and suchlike. Its tone verges on the conversational (an attractive feature of the layout is the recurrent sub-heading ‘A Personal View’); nonetheless, it carries the authority and clarity of a textbook – a considerable achievement.

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