Court, Salon and Republic of Letters

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Randall
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Political World ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Ideal

The humanist educational project to educate the elite of Western Europe produced as one of its dizzy successes the application of conversation to the speech and behavior of nobleman at court. This, the development of the ideal of the courtier, took conversation from the leisurely retreat from the ancient political world to the courtly heart of the Renaissance political world. The salons of seventeenth-century France further transformed the conversational tradition of the court: in principle, the conversation of the salons began quietly to set itself to rival the world of oratory, to address itself to the same worldly subject matter. The Republic of Letters provided an alternate social matrix for sermo, scholarly rather than courtly—and one which migrated away from its Ciceronian roots towards the mode of Baylean critique. Where the courtly and scholarly traditions of sermo acted as complementary modes during the Renaissance, the increasing scope of salonnier conversation and the increasing abandonment of sermo by the Republic of Letters set them at odds with one another in the opening of the Enlightenment. Both now harbored universalizing ambitions, which would set these sibling modes to fierce conflict.

The Ideal and Reality of the Republic of Letters in the Enlightenment

1991 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorraine Daston
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Brick And Mortar ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Urban Versus ◽  
The Ideal

The ArgumentThe Republic of Letters of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries teaches us two lessons about style in science. First, the bearer of style—individual, nation, institution, religious group, region, class—depends crucially on historical context. When the organization and values of intellectual life are self-consciously cosmopolitan, and when allegiances to other entities (e.g., Protestant versus Catholic, or urban versus rural) are culturally more compelling than those to the nation-state, distinctivelynationalstyles are far to seek. This was largely the case for the Republic of Letters, that immaterial (it lacked location, formal administration, and brick and mortar) but nonetheless real (it exercised dominion over thoughts and deeds) realm among the sovereign states of the Enlightenment. Second, that form of objectivity which made science seem so curiously detached from scientists, and therefore so apparently unmarked by style at any level, also has a history. The unremitting emphasis on impartial criticism and evaluation within the Republic of Letters encouraged its citizens to distance themselves first from friends and family, then from compatriots and contemporaries, and finally, in the early nineteenth century, from themselves as well. Although this psychological process of estrangement and ultimately of self-estrangement may seldom have been completely realized, the striving was genuine and constitutes part of the moral history of objectivity.

Promoting Civility in the Republic of Letters: Three Sedan Scholars and the Secular Muse

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-154
Author(s):  
Alexander J.K. Farquhar
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Latin Poetry ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Classical World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic

In the Reformed academy of Sedan in the early seventeenth century a manuscript was compiled containing poems which have remained largely understudied, despite the manuscript’s publication in 1913. The poems were the work of Arthur Johnston, Andrew Melville, and Daniel Tilenus, two Scots and a Silesian; all were professors in the Huguenot Academy. As teachers there they operated in the world of Reformed scholasticism, and historiography has understandably tended to view their lives, therefore, through a religious lens. The poems in this manuscript suggest, however, that such a perspective is misleading. Intertwined with the Reformed context of their lives in Sedan was a strong sense of humanist community, focusing upon the classical world; the writing of neo-Latin poetry allowed these men, who could be at variance in the confessional world, to share concerns and offer supportive advice to each other. The poems reveal a friendship among them which was public enough for their poems to be grouped as the spine of this manuscript.

Biblical Philology and Hermeneutical Debate in the Dutch Republic in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Conflicting Interests ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Held Back

Spinoza’s time was rife with conflicts. Historians tend to structure these by grouping two opposing forces: progressive Cartesio-Cocceian-liberals versus conservative Aristotelian-Voetian-Orangists. Moderately enlightened progressives, so the story goes, endorsed notions such as human dignity, toleration, freedom of opinion, but shied away from radicalism, held back by the conservative counterforce. Yet the drift was supposed to be inevitably towards the Enlightenment. This chapter tries to capture theological conflicts in the Dutch Republic of the Early Enlightenment in a triangular scheme, that covers a wider range of conflicting interests. Its corners are constituted by ‘dogmatism’ (Dordrecht orthodoxy), ‘scripturalism’ (Cocceianism), and ‘rationalism’ (theology inspired by Cartesianism, Spinozism, or any other brand of new philosophy). Dogmatics and rationalists battled in terms of philosophy, whereas the scripturalists and their respective opponents fought each other rather in the field of biblical scholarship. This multilateral conflict within Dutch Calvinism made the ideal of a unified church untenable.

scholarly journals Batalia „szklanej rury”. Współzawodnictwo „starego” i „nowego” w debacie wokół doświadczeń z próżnią z 1647 roku

1970 ◽  
pp. 167-190
Author(s):  
Anna Kołos
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Blaise Pascal ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Knowledge Formation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic

The article addresses the issue of one of the more intense and captivating European scientific disputes, likewise common to Poland, in the era of the seventeenth-century transformation of knowledge formation, which centered around the possibility of the existence of vacuum, and which culminated in 1647. The fundamental aim of the article comes down to an attempt to determine a position in the scientific-cognitive debate, from which the pro and anti-Polish and European representatives of The Republic of Letters (Respublica literaria)  could voice their opinions. In the course of the analysis of the mid-seventeenth century scientific discourse, the reflections of Valeriano Magni, Torricelli, Jan Brożek, Wojciech Wijuk Kojałowicz, Blaise Pascal, Giovanni Elefantuzzi, Jacob Pierius, and Pierre Guiffart are subjected to close scrutiny. From the perspective of contextualism in the history of science, experiments demonstrating the existence of vacuum are perceived as anomalies that fall into the crisis of normal science, largely based on Aristotle’s physics. The conflict between the old and the new is not, however, presented as a battle of progression with epigonism, but merely as a contest between opposing individual views and the concept of science, which before the formation of the new paradigm was accompanied by ambiguous verification criteria.

Prize Law and Modern Conditions

1931 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-641
Author(s):  
Thomas Baty
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Ideal

It has been the peculiar glory of the United States in history to be a great neutral Power and the champion of neutral rights. From the earliest days of the republic, the sentiments of her statesmen, of Washington and Hamilton no less than of Jefferson and Franklin, were whole-heartedly for peace and neutrality, for the protection of the merchant against the soldier. And throughout the nineteenth century, the world acclaimed neutrality with her, and regarded the United States as the standing exemplar of a Peace Power. It was recognized that there might indeed be excusable wars, just wars, necessary wars. But the ideal of the nineteenth century was peace. Just and necessary as his cause might be, the belligerent was an ipso facto nuisance. He must be allowed to interfere as little as possible with the peaceful affairs of the world. On any doubtful question of interference with neutral commerce, the presumption was against him. He had always been a nuisance, and he was coming to be an anachronism. As an anachronistic nuisance, the scales were heavily poised against a belligerent.

scholarly journals Presentimiento de la ciudad fronteriza (sobre la Politeia de Platón)

2003 ◽  
pp. 17-37
Author(s):  
Eugenio Trías
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Conception ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
The World ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The Republic ◽  
To Come ◽  
The City ◽  
The Ideal

This essay tries to think with Plato (not against nor from him) the idea of justice, which structures the city and the human soul in the Republic, and the platonic self-critique displayed in several late dialogues, viewed as a basis for a philosophy that can make sense of human existence in the bordering city. The bordering city –itself a metaphor of Limit–, inhabited by intermediary characters (love and creation, reminiscence and reason, halfway between the Ideal city and the cave), is what makes possible the interchange between transcendent Being (the Good, Beauty, Truth) and Becoming (which characterizes human existence). The bordering city is Plato’s greatest discovery, through which we can think an alternative city and the corresponding human condition, and even the world (cosmos). Plato gave the necessary clues to come to this alternative conception, and his recourse to myth can be seen as a symbolic addition that allows access to truth. What is, what exists and happens, is an unceasing return of “archetypes” (ideas joined with symbols). This gives consistency to what is, what exists and what we ourselves are. Philosophical truth is the awareness of the fact that we live within these archetypes, relatively to which we determine and decide our existence. Still, Plato’s thought, as a philosophy of limit, remains distant from the sensible and changing individual, which can be recreated by Limit and the being of Limit. In fact, what is recreated in Limit is a being (perceptible by the senses, singular, and in change): a being of limit which, through ideas and symbols can become accessible to understanding.

scholarly journals The Zionist Press on Lithuanian-Jewish Economic Rivalry in the 1930s

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-144
Author(s):  
Eglė Bendikaitė
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Press ◽  
National Economic ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Ideal

The Zionists were fully aware that the ideal that they propagated in relation to the creation of a political home for the whole Jewish nation could not be implemented overnight. Therefore, the concern about the socio-economic situation of the Jewish community was one of the main issues of Zionist activity in the Diaspora. The consequences of the world Depression of the 1930s, domineering nationalistic ideology, a big wave of anti-Semitism in Western Europe aroused strong public emotions in Lithuania, which manifested themselves mainly in the struggle for the ‘neglected’ economic positions in the country. This article attempts to reveal how the economic rivalry between the Lithuanians and the Jews was seen and presented in the Zionist press, most widespread and widely read by people of various political viewpoints in the 1930s. The information contained in the Zionist press throws light on the formation of the attitude towards the national economic programme conducted by Lithuanian authorities, placing emphasis on the importance of export and import, the qualification examination of artisans, the law on holidays and rest days, etc. Attention is also paid to the propaganda of the Association of Lithuanian Merchants, Manufacturers and Artisans (established in 1930), and the specifics of their rhetoric. The press response to professional competition, narrowing the spheres of the engagement of Jews and the propaganda of hatred towards the Jewish nation are also dealt with.

Was There a Scientific Revolution?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Heilbron
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
The Republic

This article asks whether there was a Scientific Revolution (SR) at anytime between 1550 and1800. The label ‘Scientific Revolution’ to indicate a period in the development of natural knowledge in early modern Europe has carved a place in historiography. This article suggests that there was SR, if SR signifies a period of time; perhaps, if it is taken as a metaphor. It illustrates how the deployment of the metaphor to seventeenth-century natural knowledge might be accomplished. It also considers the physics of René Descartes, the influence of Cartesianism throughout the Republic of Letters, and the academies. The metaphor can be useful if it is taken in analogy to a major political revolution. The analogy points to a later onset, and a swifter career, for the SR than is usually prescribed, and shows that Isaac Newton was its counter rather than its culmination.

Courtier, Scholar, and Man of the Sword

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Ben Jonson ◽  
John Donne ◽  
Country House ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
European Republic

Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1582–1648) was a flamboyant Stuart courtier, county governor, soldier, and diplomat who acquired a reputation for duelling and extravagant display but also numbered among the leading intellectuals of his generation. He travelled widely in the British Isles and Europe, enjoyed the patronage of princely rulers and their consorts, acquired celebrity as the embodiment of chivalric values, and defended European Protestantism on the battlefield and in diplomatic exchanges. As a scholar and author of De veritate and The Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth, he commanded respect in the European Republic of Letters and accumulated a substantial library. As a courtier, he penned poetry and exchanged verses with John Donne and Ben Jonson, compiled a famous lute-book, wrote an autobiography, commissioned portraits, and built a new country house. Herbert was a Janus figure who cherished the masculine values and martial lifestyle of his ancestors but embraced the Renaissance scholarship and civility of the early modern court and anticipated the intellectual and theological liberalism of the Enlightenment. His life and writings provide a unique window into the aristocratic world and cultural mindset of the early seventeenth century and into the outbreak and impact of the Thirty Years War and British Civil Wars. This book examines his career, lifestyle, political allegiances, religious beliefs, and scholarship within their contemporary European context, challenges the reputation he has acquired as a dilettante scholar, boastful autobiographer, royalist turncoat, and early deist, and offers a new assessment of his life and achievement.

What he may seem to the world: Isaac Newton's autograph book epigrams

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-452
Author(s):  
George Gömöri ◽  
Stephen D. Snobelen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Social Utility ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Scholarly Projects

This paper identifies, describes and analyses Isaac Newton's known inscriptions in alba amicorum (autograph books). It begins with an introduction to the early modern autograph book and its social utility for travelling students. Each Newton inscription is contextualized with brief biographies of the individual album owners. The potential reasons for Newton's use of his chosen epigrams are considered, as are possible reflexive dynamics between him and the album owners that may have helped to inform these choices. An allied consideration is the degree to which Newton's epigrams relate to scholarly projects with which he was engaged when he penned them. A special feature is the identification of the owner of an album from which a Newton inscription was stolen more than half a century ago. This study offers a glimpse of Newton's intellectual reputation across several decades, both on the Continent and in his native England. More broadly, this paper makes contributions to our understanding of Newton's personal life and the strategic use of alba amicorum in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries within the Republic of Letters.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document