Many people today glorify wild nature. This attitude is diametrically opposed to the denigration of wild nature that was common in the seventeenth century. One of the most significant initiators of the modern revaluation of nature was Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury. I elucidate here Shaftesbury’s pivotal view of nature. I show how that view emerged as Shaftesbury’s solution to a problem he took to be of the deepest philosophical and personal importance: the problem of how worship (...) of God can be both transportingly emotional and entirely rational. In section 1 I sketch the denigration of wild nature in two of Shaftesbury’s predecessors: Burnet and Locke. I next turn to Shaftesbury’s problem, describing in section 2 the love of God he aspired to and in section 3 his commitment to rational religion. I then explain Shaftesbury’s solution, describing in section 4 his view of beauty in general and in section 5 his view of the beauty of nature. (shrink)

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, was the grandson of the First Earl of Shaftesbury. The First Earl, along with John Locke, was a leader and founder of the Whig movement in Britain. Locke was the First Earl's secretary and also the tutor of the Third Earl. Both the First and Third Earls were members of parliament and supporters of Whig causes. Although both the First and Third Earls were involved in politics, the Third Earl is better known (...) for intellectual pursuits. Indeed, the Third Earl is second only to Locke in terms of influence during the eighteenth century. Yet if one takes into account effects upon literature, the arts, and manners, as well as upon philosophical trends and theories, Shaftesbury might be even more influential. Even if we restrict ourselves to philosophy, Shaftesbury's ideas were admired by thinkers as different as Leibniz and Montesquieu—something which could obviously not be said about Locke. Within ethics, Shaftesbury influenced Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Samuel Butler, and Adam Smith and is credited with founding the “moral sense” school of thought. (shrink)

Rather than reading Shaftesbury in anticipation of later forms of disinterestedness, this essay seeks to unpack the larger significance of his aesthetics by tracing his ideas back to their ancient sources. This essay looks to the venerable tradition of world contemplation. It argues that Shaftesbury advances a specifically Stoic model of world contemplation in The Moralists. The text’s principal concern is not with this or that beautiful object but with the whole of which it and the viewer are indivisibly a (...) part; its aim is not so much to account for how we perceive beauty as to foster a characteristically Stoic orientation toward the world, one in which we overcome our egocentric view of things and align ourselves with the natural workings of the world or universe in its entirety. Far from being ‘autonomous’ from the rest of life, the Stoic world contemplation Shaftesbury advocates entails a robust affirmation of existence, clear-eyed gratitude for being part of the universe, whatever the challenges and however fleeting our time in it may be. (shrink)

The term “priestcraft” became fashionable in the 1690s. This essay explores its use among the anti-clericals in John Locke’s circle and examines the critique of priestcraft in his own Reasonableness of Christianity (1695). The commentaries and church histories, in correspondence and published treatises, of Benjamin Furly, William Popple, Damaris Masham, William Stephens, and Sir Robert Howard are examined. The Lockean circle remained committed to Christian revelation and, for the most part, to a reformed Church of England, and it is argued (...) that it is a mistake to identify the critique of priestcraft exclusively with deism and the subversion of Christianity. The polemical critique of the priestly deformations of Christianity, though often scabrously hostile to clergies, served equally the ecclesiastical and political causes of post-Revolution latitudinarian Anglicanism. The Lockean circle was committed to constructing a Church Whig ecclesiology. (shrink)

Segundo Shaftesbury e seus sucessore (James Harris, Adam Smith, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing), uma obra de arte imitativa, corretamente produzida, exprime um conteúdo moral no sentido geral do termo (mental, intelectual, bem como ético). O que esses autores têm no espírito é a expressão não somente enquanto função geral da arte, mas também e sobretudo enquato estrutura particular de cada obra. A expressão não é somente o objetivo de uma obra de arte, mas também a maneira segundo a qual ela funciona. (...) Este artigo mostra como as reflexões de Shaftesbury em A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgement of Hercules abrem a via para uma nova maneira de considerar cada obra de arte individual como uma solução para um problema da expressão que não depende do meio empregado. No artigo se estuda também o contexto histórico desse escrito de Shaftesbury bem como de sua posteridade em Harris, Smith, e Lessing. (shrink)

When Anthony Ashley-Cooper, third earl of Shaftesbury, read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Roman emperor was a relatively new member of the Stoic tradition as it was seen through early modern eyes. This article discusses two books owned and annotated by Shaftesbury, one a translation of Marcus Aurelius into English, the other a version of the Greek text. These books are a record of his study of earlier scholarship on the Meditations, primarily (...) the edition and notes of Thomas Gataker. This article gives a sense of how a reader who was influential in the dissemination of Stoic thought, studied the scholarship of an earlier age. (shrink)