Diderot, Denis (1713–84)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wokler
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Chief Editor ◽  
Physiological Characteristics ◽  
Natural Evolution ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Moral Improvement ◽  
Secular Education ◽  
The Arts

Chief editor of the great eighteenth-century Encyclopédie (1751–72), Diderot set out a philosophy of the arts and sciences which took the progress of civilization to be a measure of mankind’s moral improvement. He did not regard that progress as having produced universal benefits, however, and perceived the Christian religion which had accompanied it as morally harmful to those who subscribed to it and even more dangerous to societies thus far untouched by it. Religious dogmas tended to pervert the organic development of human passions, and secular education which presumed that all minds were equally receptive to instruction threatened to thwart the natural evolution of human faculties in other ways. Like Rousseau, Diderot subscribed to a philosophy of education which encouraged curiosity rather than promoted truth. He stressed the need for the adaptability of moral rules to the physiological characteristics of the individuals to whom they applied, pointing to a connection between human cultures and biology in a manner that would influence fresh outlooks upon the sciences of man at the end of the Age of Enlightenment.

A Cultural History of Memory in the Eighteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Age Of Revolution ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic

The Cultural History of Memory in the Eighteenth Century places in sharp relief the contrast between inspiring ideas that heralded an auspicious future and immemorial traditions that cherished a vanishing past. Waxing large during that era was the European Enlightenment, with its projects for reform and optimistic forecasts about the prospect of making a better world. Heritage was reframed, as martyrs for the cause of religious liberty and heroes for the promotion of the arts and sciences were enshrined in a new pantheon. They served as icons marking a pathway toward a presumed destiny, amid high hopes that reason would triumph over superstition to guide the course of human affairs. Such sentiments gave reformers a new sense of collective identity as an imagined community acting in the name of progress. Against this backdrop, this volume addresses a variety of themes in memory’s multi-faceted domain, among them mnemonic schemes in the transition from theist to scientific cosmologies; memory remodeled in the making of print culture; memory’s newfound resources for introspection; politics reimagined for the modern age; the nature of tradition reconceived; the aesthetics of nostalgia for an aristocracy clinging to a tenuous identity; the lure of far-away places; trauma in an age of revolution; and the emerging divide between history and collective memory. Along the way, contributors address such topics as the idea of nation in early modern politics; the aesthetic vision of Hubert Robert in his garden landscapes; the transforming effects of the interaction between mind and its mnemonic satellites in print media; Shakespeare remembered and commemorated; the role of memory in the redesign of historiography; the mediation of high and popular culture through literature; soul-searching in female autobiography; and commemorative practices during the French Revolution.

Enlightenment, Continental

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wokler
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
History Of Western Civilization

The Enlightenment is frequently portrayed as a campaign on behalf of freedom and reason as against dogmatic faith and its sectarian and barbarous consequences in the history of Western civilization. Many commentators who subscribe to this view find the Enlightenment’s cosmopolitan opposition to priestly theology to be dangerously intolerant itself, too committed to uniform ideals of individual self-reliance without regard to community or diversity, or to recasting human nature in the light of science. Modern debates about the nature of the Enlightenment have their roots in eighteenth-century controversies about the arts and sciences and about ideas of progress and reason and the political consequences of promoting them. Even when they shared common objectives, eighteenth-century philosophers were seldom in agreement on substantive issues in epistemology or politics. If they were united at all, it was by virtue only of their collective scepticism in rejecting the universalist pretensions of uncritical theology and in expressing humanitarian revulsion at crimes committed in the name of sacred truth.

James Spilman, F. R. S. (1680-1763), and Anglo-Russian commerce

1994 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-29 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
The Body ◽  
Trading Partner ◽  
Literature And Science ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Chief Physician

On 25 October 1714 the President of the Royal Society addressed the following letter to Peter the Great’s chief lieutenant: Isaac Newton greets the most powerful and honourable Mr Alexander Menshikov, Prince of the Roman and Russian Empire, Lord of Oranienburg, Chief Councillor of his Caesarian Majesty, Master of the Horse, Ruler of the Conquered Provinces, Knight of the Order of the Elephant, of the White and Black Eagle, etc. Whereas it has long been known to the Royal Society that your Emperor his Caesarian Majesty, has furthered very great advances in the arts and sciences in his Kingdom, and that he has been particularly aided by your administration not only in military and civil affairs, but also in the dissemination of literature and science, we were all filled with the greatest joy when the English merchants informed us that Your Excellency (out of his high courtesy, singular regard for the sciences, and lover of our nation) designs to join the body of our Society. At that time we had concluded our meetings until the summer and autumn seasons should be past, as is our custom. But hearing of this we at once assembled, so that by our votes we might elect Your Excellency, which we unanimously did. And now, as soon as it is possible to renew our postponed meetings, we have confirmed the election by a diploma under our common Seal. The Society, however, has instructed its Secretary that when he has sent the Diploma off to you, he should advise you of the election. Farewell. Menshikov was elected a Fellow of the Society on 29 July 1714, as the result of a letter written on 25 June by two English merchants at St. Petersburg, James Spilman and Henry Hodgkin, his trading partner, to Samuel Shepherd, an influential London merchant, intimating that the Prince sought election. This paper endeavours to explain how a Russia Company merchant, who was not himself elected a Fellow of the Royal Society until 1734, came to engineer the election to the Society of Russia’s second most powerful figure - despite the fact that Menshikov could neither read nor write. At the same time it will illustrate the close links between science and commerce in the first two decades of the eighteenth century and the significance of Spilman’s associations with Robert Erskine, F.R.S., Peter the Great’s chief physician.

Narratives and Machines in Enlightenment Britain

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Drury
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Moral Development ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Useful Knowledge ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Scientific Principles ◽  
Natural Philosophers

The affinity between narratives and machines in the eighteenth century reflects the early modern effort to break down the traditional barriers separating the arts and sciences. Leading practitioners sought to establish the foundation of their arts in the sciences and natural philosophers transformed the sciences by incorporating the machines and techniques of artisans. Inspired by these developments, neoclassical critics sought to identify the fundamental mechanics of narrative. Like the machines used in other arts, the novel was understood to be a technical ‘invention’, recently imported from Europe, which needed to be rationalized for an enlightened nation. Once established on scientific principles, the novel could become a simulation device that produced useful knowledge of the principles underlying human behaviour. From these circumstances emerged one of the dominant technical codes of eighteenth-century fiction, a narrative of progress that extended the practical goals of the Industrial Enlightenment into the realm of individual moral development.

THE LOST CAUCASIAN CIVILIZATION: JEAN-SYLVAIN BAILLY AND THE ROOTS OF THE ARYAN MYTH

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-306
Author(s):  
DAVID ALLEN HARVEY
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Far North ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Classical Mythology ◽  
Original Interpretation

Jean-Sylvain Bailly, an eighteenth-century French astronomer and polymath, elaborated an original interpretation of the prehistoric origins of civilization which anticipated many of the details of the “Aryan myth.” Bailly argued that Atlantis was the root civilization of mankind, which had invented the arts and sciences and civilized the Chinese, Indians, and Egyptians. He situated this primordial people in the far north of Eurasia, and argued that as the cooling of the Earth buried their ancestral home beneath sheets of ice, the Atlanteans were lost to history. Bailly drew eclectically upon science, classical mythology, linguistics, and orientalism to substantiate his case, and argued that the Brahmans who shaped Indian civilization were Sanskrit-speaking Atlanteans. His theories reflected many of the prevailing ideas of the age, such as the climate determinism of Montesquieu and Buffon and the superiority of the dynamic West over the decadent Orient. Though Bailly did not racialize the Atlanteans, his works laid the foundations for the subsequent emergence of the Aryan myth.

Acheson vs. Congress

1960 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-44
Author(s):  
Oscar William Perlmutter
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Specialized Knowledge ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Competing Power

The age of the amateur in politics is over according to Dean Acheson. Up until the eighteenth century it was possible, owing to the nature and development of the arts and sciences, for a gifted amateur to hold his own with the experts in many fields, but in the twentieth century the amateur is no longer capable of mastering more highly specialized fields of knowledge. The expansion of knowledge has been so great that no amateur can hope to vie in competence with an expert in a given field. This point of view, while somewhat general and a priori, would arouse little opposition among philosophers and historians of ideas. Congress, according to Acheson, is composed primarily of amateurs, and collectively, it represents the point of view of the untrained and unspecialized. It is an eighteenth-century conception which has survived into the twentieth. If we make Acheson's argument explicit—which he diplomatically declines to do—we get the following: amateurs are not competent to formulate public policy under modern conditions. Congress is a collection of amateurs. Therefore, it follows, that Congress is not competent to formulate public policy. The executive branch, on the other hand, attracts the specialist, depends upon him, and uses him extensively. Congress, because of its situation, that is, its deficiency in specialized knowledge and because of its position as a competing power with the executive, is constantly trying to frustrate the executive. A fundamental problem for American democracy, according to Acheson, is to discover which tasks are suitable for the experts (the executive) and which for the amateurs (Congress) and to facilitate the appropriate performance of each accordingly.

The Poetry and Music of Science

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom McLeish
Keyword(s):  
School Leaver ◽  
Creative People ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Personal Accounts ◽  
Poetry And Music

‘I could not see any place in science for my creativity or imagination’, was the explanation, of a bright school leaver to the author, of why she had abandoned all study of science. Yet as any scientist knows, the imagination is essential to the immense task of re-creating a shared model of nature from the scale of the cosmos, through biological complexity, to the smallest subatomic structures. Encounters like that one inspired this book, which takes a journey through the creative process in the arts as well as sciences. Visiting great creative people of the past, it also draws on personal accounts of scientists, artists, mathematicians, writers, and musicians today to explore the commonalities and differences in creation. Tom McLeish finds that the ‘Two Cultures’ division between the arts and the sciences is not after all, the best classification of creative processes, for all creation calls on the power of the imagination within the constraints of form. Instead, the three modes of visual, textual, and abstract imagination have woven the stories of the arts and sciences together, but using different tools. As well as panoramic assessments of creativity, calling on ideas from the ancient world, medieval thought, and twentieth-century philosophy and theology, The Poetry and Music of Science illustrates its emerging story by specific close-up explorations of musical (Schumann), literary (James, Woolf, Goethe) mathematical (Wiles), and scientific (Humboldt, Einstein) creation. The book concludes by asking how creativity contributes to what it means to be human.

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