‘Belief’, ‘Opinion’, and ‘Knowledge’: The Idiot in Law in the Long Eighteenth Century

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Jarrett
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Legal Concepts ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

This chapter explores the development of the legal concepts of idiocy and imbecility over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, examining legal theory as well as evidence from civil court cases to reveal an ongoing conflict between libertarian resistance to state intervention in the lives of citizens, however mentally incapacitated they might be, and a belief that the state should be responsible for protecting individuals against exploitation and the corruption of bloodlines. From the late eighteenth century, French medico-legal theorists, supported by the ‘scientific’ enlightenment ideals of the French revolution, proposed a medicalised appropriation of legal decision-making over capacity. While these ideas gained some currency among a small group of British medical men working in the field of idiocy, they faced strong public and legal resistance throughout the nineteenth century on the grounds of liberty of the subject. Both legal and medical formulations of idiocy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries borrowed heavily from popular, ‘common-sense’ public notions about what constituted an idiot.

Liberty, Property and Popular Politics

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
British History ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Thomas Paine ◽  
Parliamentary History ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Scottish History ◽  
The University

Few scholars can claim to have shaped the historical study of the long eighteenth century more profoundly than Professor H. T. Dickinson, who, until his retirement in 2006, held the Sir Richard Lodge Chair of British History at the University of Edinburgh. This volume, based on contributions from Dickinson's students, friends and colleagues from around the world, offers a range of perspectives on eighteenth-century Britain and provides a tribute to a remarkable scholarly career. Dickinson's work and career provides the ideal lens through which to take a detailed snapshot of current research in a number of areas. The book includes contributions from scholars working in intellectual history, political and parliamentary history, ecclesiastical and naval history; discussions of major themes such as Jacobitism, the French Revolution, popular radicalism and conservatism; and essays on prominent individuals in English and Scottish history, including Edmund Burke, Thomas Muir, Thomas Paine and Thomas Spence. The result is a uniquely rich and detailed collection with an impressive breadth of coverage.

Paine, Thomas (1737–1809)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Political System ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Thomas Paine ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
Revolutionary Politics

Thomas Paine, born in Norfolk, England, spent his early years as an undistinguished artisan and later excise officer. In 1774 he emigrated to America and settled in Philadelphia where he became a journalist and essayist. His Common Sense (1776) and sixteen essays on The Crisis (1776–83) were stunning examples of political propaganda and theorizing. In the late 1780s, in Europe, Paine wrote The Rights of Man (1791–2) and attacked the English political system. During the French Revolution he was a Girondin in the French Convention and wrote The Age of Reason (1794, 1796), savagely criticizing Christianity. He died in New York in 1809, an important figure in the sweep of the revolutionary politics in America, England, and France at the end of the eighteenth century.

The Oxford Handbook of Eighteenth-Century Satire

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Eighteenth Century Britain ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

Eighteenth-century Britain thought of itself as a polite, sentimental, enlightened place, but often its literature belied this self-image. This was an age of satire, and the century’s novels, poems, plays, and prints resound with mockery and laughter, with cruelty and wit. The street-level invective of Grub Street pamphleteers is full of satire, and the same accents of raillery echo through the high scepticism of the period’s philosophers and poets, many of whom were part-time pamphleteers themselves. The novel, a genre that emerged during the eighteenth century, was from the beginning shot through with satirical colours borrowed from popular romances and scandal sheets. This handbook is a guide to the different kinds of satire written in English during the ‘long’ eighteenth century. It focuses on texts that appeared between the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 and the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. Outlier chapters extend the story back to first decade of the seventeenth century, and forward to the second decade of the nineteenth. The scope of the volume is not confined by genre, however. So prevalent was the satirical mode in writing of the age that this book serves as a broad and characteristic survey of its literature. The Handbook of Eighteenth-Century Satire seeks to reflect developments in historical criticism of eighteenth-century writing over the last two decades, and to provide a forum in which the widening diversity of literary, intellectual, and socio-historical approaches to the period’s texts can come together.

BRITISH PERCEPTIONS OF FLORENCE IN THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 837-859 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROSEMARY SWEET
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Grand Tour ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
First Time

ABSTRACTStudies of the Grand Tour conventionally focus upon the art and antiquities of Italy rather than the urban environment in which the tourists found themselves, and they generally stop short in the 1790s. This article examines the perceptions and representations of Florence amongst British visitors over the course of the long eighteenth century up to c. 1820 in order to establish continuity between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It considers why it was that British travellers appeared to be particularly attracted to Florence: initially they responded to congenial and pleasant surroundings, the availability of home comforts, and a sparkling social life. In the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Florence acquired new meanings for the British, who began to identify and admire a civilization which had been based upon mercantile wealth and liberty: the foundations for the Victorian celebration of Florence were laid. But the experience of Florence as a city had also changed: it was no longer simply the showcase of the Medici dukes. As a consequence the buildings, monuments, and paintings of the republican period, as well as the history which they embodied, came into focus for the first time.

scholarly journals Między utopią i antyutopią. Krytycznie o doktrynie Jana Jakuba Rousseau w świetle kontrowersji wokół jego poglądów na istotę woli powszechnej

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-332
Author(s):  
Paweł Wiązek
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Applied Method ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Subject

The article is devoted to the controversy related to the interpretation of key concepts in the doctrine of one from among the most important thinkers of the eighteenth-century Europe — Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The considerations are carried out on many levels, focusing on the key concept of volonté générale in the treatise Du Contrat social ou principes de droit politique. The applied method, exegesis of the source text, corresponds with the polemic that has been conducted for decades, creating a rich literature on the subject. Selecting the positions of many distinguished researchers, the author attempts to confront Rousseau’s views with the flagship triad of basic values of the Great French Revolution: freedom, equality, and fraternity. This allowed the formulation of numerous comments, assessments, and opinions, at least some of which could be considered polemical or directly controversial.

scholarly journals Mythologisation of Law by Historical Consciousness

wisdom ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-137
Author(s):  
Valery MALAKHOV ◽  
Galina LANOVAYA ◽  
Yulia KULAKOVA
Keyword(s):  
Legal Theory ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
Legal Concepts ◽  
Legal Understanding

The main objective of this article is to substantiate the fact that historical consciousness as a form of social consciousness is full of the mythologisation of law. The main hypothesis is that only such forms of law as customary law and international law may be considered historical phenomena. Standalone in law, mainly subjective law is not actually a historical phenomenon; therefore, any historical interpretation of it leads to mythologisation. The subject of this study is the mythologisation of law, found in the content of several legal concepts and being present in correlations with basic historical concepts. The complexity of the problem posed is that the very phenomenon of history outside historical consciousness, especially in our time, is constantly subjected to serious mythologisation. The result of the study is the statement that historical legal understanding is not connected with the understanding of the nature of law and does not reveal its essence. The methodological consequence of this for legal theory is the need for concentration on the understanding of the development of law not as a historical, but only as a social process, and for the law itself – as something that exists and makes sense only in the present.

Improvement, Repair, and the Uses of the Gothic Past

2019 ◽  
pp. 179-220
Author(s):  
Dale Townshend
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Gothic Architecture ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Radicalism ◽  
The French Revolution

This chapter confronts the question of the politics of Gothic architecture in the long eighteenth century. Exploring manifestations of its Whiggish appeal, the argument also points to a number of notable Tory appropriations of the revived Gothic style. If the political significance of the Gothic was thus open to dispute, notions of improvement and repair were almost uniformly inflected with intimations of political radicalism, particularly after the French Revolution of 1789. Exploring the political meanings of improvement, repair, and ruination in the work of John Carter, the discussion extends this into a reading of political discourse of the 1790s, tracing political writers’ extensive appropriations of architectural metaphor. The chapter concludes with a reading of 1790s political Gothic fiction, showing how radical writers of the decade engaged with the politics of Gothic architecture while questioning the extent to which chivalry, romance, and other aesthetic ‘remains’ of the Gothic past could serve the needs of the present.

Second Sight in Scotland

2020 ◽  
pp. 144-166
Author(s):  
Michael Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
The Universe

This chapter considers changing attitudes during the long eighteenth century to second sight — the uncanny ability of certain individuals to foresee the future — in Scotland. This was a topic which fascinated Boyle in the late seventeenth century. This chapter illustrates how his enquiries on the subject began a tradition of empirical study of the phenomenon which continued into the eighteenth century. But then a change came, and by about 1800 the possibility of second sight was increasingly rejected among English and Scottish intellectuals on the grounds that it was incompatible with the ‘principles’ by which the universe operated. In parallel with this, however, a separate tradition emerged in which second sight and related phenomena were deemed appropriate for imaginative interpretation by poets and others, which is significant in itself.

scholarly journals Política imperial y administración de industrias estratégicas: la Armada española en el largo siglo XVIII. Introducción = Imperial Policy and Strategic Industry Administration: the Spanish Navy in the Long Eighteenth Century. Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Agustín González Enciso
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cast Iron ◽  
Present Knowledge ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Supply Systems ◽  
Quality Production

Este trabajo trata de la provisión de armas de fuego, en particular las fabricadas con hierro colado, como son los cañones y su munición, en España, en el largo siglo XVIII. También se hará referencia a armas portátiles. Se estudia la continuidad entre los siglos XVII y XVIII, una cronología de los sistemas de provisión y la dimensión imperial de las necesidades. Se dedica atención a la importación de cañones y municiones, y a las limitaciones tecnológicas y de calidad que afectaron a los cambios en los modos empresariales de provisión. Se trata de una síntesis, unas líneas generales de lo que hoy sabemos.AbstractThis article deals with supply systems for cannons and ammunitions, those made of cast iron in particular, for the Spanish state in the eighteenth century. There is also a short reference to personal arms. Main subjects discussed are the continuity between seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the chronology of changes in the supply systems, and the imperial dimension of needs. Other topics are the import of cannons and ammunition, and technology failures as a factor for quality production and changes in supply methods. It is mainly and overview of present knowledge of the subject.

scholarly journals Estudo comparativo das receitas das câmaras de Vila Rica e Vila de São João del Rei, 1719-1750 (Comparative study of the revenue of the council of Vila Rica and Vila de São João del Rei, 1719-1750)

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (25) ◽  
pp. 208
Author(s):  
Fernanda Fioravante Kelmer Mathias
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The People ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship

<p>O presente artigo tem por objetivo a discussão acerca das receitas das câmaras mineiras de Vila Rica e Vila de São João del Rei entre os anos de 1719 e 1750. De modo geral, a historiografia sobre o tema, seja em Portugal, seja no Brasil, apesar de pouco sistemática, defende o senso comum de que as receitas das câmaras no período moderno eram bastante modestas. Dessa forma, para melhor compreender os números da receita camarária, especialmente no que concerne à atuação da câmara frente ao bem comum dos povos e ordenação da sociedade, busquei realizar uma análise pormenorizada e sistemática da receita anual de duas importantes câmaras mineiras na primeira metade do século XVIII, bem como inserir a discussão dentro do debate historiográfico atinente aos recursos da câmara. Para além, o artigo em questão assume uma perspectiva comparativa tanto no que concerne aos dados fornecidos pela historiografia, quanto em relação às duas câmaras em apreço.</p><p><strong><br /></strong></p><p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>In general, both in Portugal and in Brazil, the historiography on the subject, although unsystematic, defends the common sense that the revenue from the council in the modern period was rather modest. Thus, to better understand the revenue of the council, especially in relation to the performance of the council in the common good of the people and in the ordering of society, the article examines in detail the revenue of the two major councils of captaincy of Minas Gerais in the first half eighteenth century. The text also contextualizes the discussion within the historiographical debate on the subject. The article analyses the data provided by the historiography, and the relationship between the two councils, from a comparative perspective.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: Colonial Minas; Council’s revenue; Council’s function.</p>

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