In the wake of the Scientific Revolution, the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the complete demolition of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, including Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. The Radical Enlightenment played a part in this revolutionary process, which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as well as man's dominance over woman, theological dominance of education, and slavery. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of (...) the eighteenth century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have received limited scholarly attention. The greatest obstacle to the movement finding its proper place in modern historical writing is its international scope: the Racial Enlightenment was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish or Dutch, but all of these at the same time. In this wide-ranging volume, Jonathan Israel offers a novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents. Particular emphasis is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism. (shrink)

John Locke's subtle and influential defense of religious toleration as argued in his seminal _Letter Concerning Toleration_ appears in this edition as introduced by one of our most distinguished political theorists and historians of political thought.

Recovers a sense of John Locke's central role in the making of the modern world. It demonstrates that his vision of modern life was constructed on a philosophy of human freedom that is the intellectual nerve connecting the various strands of his thought. By revealing the depth and originality of Locke's critique of the metaphysical assumptions and authoritative institutions of pre-modern life, this book rejects the notion of Locke as an intellectual anachronism. Indeed, the radical core of Locke's modern project (...) was the 'democratization of mind', according to which he challenged practically every previous mode of philosophical analysis by making the autonomous individual the sole determinant of truth. It was on the basis of this new philosophical dispensation that Locke crafted a modern vision not only of government but also of the churches, the family, education, and the conduct of international relations"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

This book tells for the first time the long and complex story of the involvement of Locke's suggestion that God could add to matter the power of thought in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding in the growth of French materialism. There is a discussion of the 'affaire de Prades', in which Locke's name was linked with a censored thesis at the Faculty of Theology in Paris. The similarities and differences between English "thinking matter" and the French "matiere pensante" of the (...) philosophes are also discussed. (shrink)

The paper tries to show the importance of the writings of John Locke in preparing the way for secularism. He provides a theory for disentangling religion and the state for several main reasons, including the avoidance of religious persecution of minorties; the avoidance of civil strife; and the need to leave it to individuals to work out their own salvation by exercising their conscience free of state interference. Locke is a creative theorist; his creativity shows itself in the new arguments (...) he formulates and publishes on behalf of the freedom of religion from the state and the freedom of the state from religion. The influence of his Letter on Toleration and the Second Treatise in Two Treatises of Government has proved worldwide and lasting. The paper also takes up a later work by Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, where Locke retreats to some extent from the religious individualism, but not the religious toleration, of his most famous works. But even that retreat gives only a little comfort to those who deplore secularism. (shrink)

This comprehensive collection brings together the main published works (excluding polemical attacks on other people's views) with the most important surviving ...