The Enlightenment The pursuit of happiness, 1680-1790

Ritchie Robertson

Book - 2021

A magisterial history that recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness. One of the formative periods of European and world history, the Enlightenment is the fountainhead of modern secular Western values: religious tolerance, freedom of thought, speech and the press, of rationality and evidence-based argument. Yet why, over three hundred years after it began, is the Enlightenment so profoundly misunderstood as controversial, the expression of soulless calculation? The answer may be that, to an extraordinary extent, we have accepted the account of the Enlightenment given by its conservative enemies: that enlightenment necessa...rily implied hostility to religion or support for an unfettered free market, or that this was "the best of all possible worlds." Ritchie Robertson goes back into the "long eighteenth century," from approximately 1680 to 1790, to reveal what this much-debated period was really about. Robertson returns to the era's original texts to show that above all, the Enlightenment was really about increasing human happiness in this world rather than the next by promoting scientific inquiry and reasoned argument. In so doing Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against evils like capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot alongside ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment. In answering the question "What is Enlightenment?" in 1784, Kant famously urged men and women above all to "have the courage to use your own intellect." Robertson shows how the thinkers of the Enlightenment did just that, seeking a well-rounded understanding of humanity in which reason was balanced with emotion and sensibility. Drawing on philosophy, theology, historiography and literature across the major western European languages, 'The Enlightenment' is a master-class in big picture history about the foundational epoch of modern times.

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Subjects
Published
New York, NY : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers [2021]
Language
English
French
German
Italian
Main Author
Ritchie Robertson (author)
Edition
First U.S. edition
Item Description
"Originally published in Great Britain in 2020 by Allen Lane"--Title page verso.
Physical Description
xxii, 984 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 893-925) and index.
ISBN
9780062410658
  • List of Illustrations
  • Preface
  • Note on Translations
  • 1. Happiness, Reason and Passion
  • Is Happiness Possible?
  • Freedom from Fear
  • The Witch Craze and its End
  • Reason
  • The Passions
  • Interpreting the Enlightenment
  • 2. The Scientific Revolution
  • Bacon or Descartes?
  • Newton and Newtonianism
  • Experimental Philosophy
  • The Heavens and the Earth
  • Science and the Enlightenment Public
  • The Harmony of Science and Religion
  • 3. Toleration
  • Against Toleration
  • Persecution in France
  • Toleration in the Dutch Republic
  • Britain: 'a Persecuting Society'
  • Toleration in the Holy Roman Empire
  • William Penn's Holy Experiment
  • Arguments for Toleration
  • Bayle
  • Voltaire
  • Lessing
  • Goethe
  • Beyond Toleration
  • 4. The Religious Enlightenment
  • Optimism
  • Physico-Theology
  • Religious Moderation in England and Scotland
  • Theological Enlightenment in Germany
  • The Catholic Enlightenment
  • Enlightenment in the Orthodox World
  • The Jewish Enlightenment
  • The Study of the Bible
  • The New Testament
  • 5. Unbelief and Speculation
  • The Disenchantment of the World
  • Medicalization
  • Secularization?
  • The Fear of Hell
  • Natural Religion
  • Voltaire and the Bible
  • Atheism
  • An Evil God?
  • New Religious Speculations
  • The Power of Feeling
  • Enlightened Dying
  • 6. Science and Sensibility
  • Self-Love and Sympathy
  • The Science of Man: Hume's Treatise
  • Anthropologies
  • The Science of Woman
  • Sexual Relations without Sin
  • Classifying Humanity
  • Diderot and the Grey Areas of Humanity
  • Empathetic Fiction
  • Sentiment and Society
  • 7. Sociability
  • Politeness
  • The Public Sphere
  • Societies
  • The Republic of Letters
  • The Ethos of Scholarship
  • The Virtual Public Sphere
  • Censorship
  • Unsociability: Hume vs Rousseau
  • 8. Practical Enlightenment
  • Police
  • The Encyclopédie
  • Agriculture
  • Medicine
  • Bringing up Children
  • Schools and Universities
  • Punishment
  • 9. Aesthetics
  • Arts, Art, Aesthetics
  • Cartesian Aesthetics: Neoclassicism
  • Taste
  • Genius
  • Art and Morality
  • Imitation
  • Tragedy
  • The Sublime
  • 10. The Science of Society
  • Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws
  • Commerce
  • Political Economy
  • Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations
  • Luxury
  • 11. Philosophical History
  • Writing Secular History
  • Two Centres of History: Gottingen and Edinburgh
  • Two Histories of England: David Hume and Catharine Macaulay
  • Gibbon's Decline and Fall
  • The Future
  • 12. Cosmopolitanism
  • Citizens of the World
  • Travel and Travel Writers
  • Myths of China
  • Empire
  • The Histoire des deux Indes
  • The Discovery of Asia
  • The Primitive
  • Cultural Cosmopolitanism: Forster and Herder
  • 13. Forms of Government
  • Monarchy
  • Enlightened Absolutism
  • Republics
  • Rousseau and the Social Contract
  • 14. Revolutions
  • The American Revolution
  • The French Revolution
  • At Long Last, an English Enlightenment
  • Some Enlightenment Legacies
  • Conclusion: The Battle over the Enlightenment
  • References
  • Select Bibliography
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

In this delightful book, Robertson (Univ. of Oxford, UK) provides the context for, and pellucidly explains the ideas of, those late-17th- to late-18th-century thinkers whose goal was the betterment of human life. The book is arranged topically, and each chapter critically explores the major ideas (e.g., toleration, religion, sociability, aesthetics, history, cosmopolitanism) advocated in the writings of Enlightenment thinkers. It soon becomes clear that their views on almost any topic cannot be homogenized, that salons and coffee houses were more venues for sociability than ideational hothouses, and that the Enlightenment equally included atheists, deists, and theists. The chapter titled "Practical Enlightenment" nicely discusses the impact of philosophes' writings on the punishment of criminals, education, child-rearing, and medicine. The penultimate chapter assesses the Enlightenment's legacies regarding liberalism, patriotism, world peace, and human rights, and explores the impact of its political ideas on the American and French Revolutions. The conclusion outlines the assault on the Enlightenment by thinkers on both the Right and Left. One caveat: tracking references in the 110 pages of endnotes can be trying given the very small typeface and lack of line breaks. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty. --Robert T. Ingoglia, St. Thomas Aquinas College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review

Robertson argues in his robust re-examination of the Enlightenment that the so-called Age of Reason was also very much an age of empathy, during which new ways of thinking about humanity were shaped by newfound attention to emotion and individual experience. Traditional accounts of the European eighteenth century have emphasized scientific advancement, the rejection of religion, and France. Robertson allows for more complexity, sketching the Enlightenment as a sprawling movement in which developments in different intellectual spheres overlapped in a pursuit of greater human happiness. The new "science of man" (David Hume's idea) and new means of social and cross-cultural interaction prompted a new focus on humanitarian values. Social reforms, including opposition to slavery, followed. A scholar of German literature, Robertson underscores contributions from Herder, Lessing, and Schiller, among other German speakers. But the book's most fascinating insights connect popular novels--Rousseau's Julie, or The New Heloise, Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Samuel Richardson's Clarissa--to a "sea change in sensibility, in which people became more attuned to other people's feelings." The result is a fresh and expansive discussion of the philosophical substrate from which many cherished ideals first sprouted and a potent defense of an era that has been much piled-upon of late.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The so-called "Age of Reason" also put emotion and conscience at the center of a new social ideology, according to this sweeping study of the Enlightenment. Robertson (Goethe: A Very Short Introduction), a professor of German at Oxford University, defends Enlightenment thinkers against criticisms from the reactionary right and the postmodern left. Rather than preaching an arid rationalism, he contends, "Enlighteners" extolled sympathy and innate moral feelings as "the glue holding society together" and played on human emotions to support the abolition of capital punishment and slavery. They also were eager to reconcile science with belief in God; preferred persuasion and reform to violent change and state regimentation (most, Robertson claims, were antagonistic to the French Revolution); put empirical evidence and individual freedom above doctrine and authority; and held out happiness as the ultimate goal of inquiry and policy. Robertson's far-flung thematic survey probes the work of philosophers and ideologues, among them Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, and Immanuel Kant, and expertly interprets the period's art and literature, including Samuel Richardson's melodramatic novel Clarissa, which set all of Europe to weeping. Thanks to Robertson's elegant prose and lucid analyses, this massive and deeply erudite work serves as a stimulating and accessible introduction to a watershed period in the intellectual development of the West. (Feb.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Distinguished German scholar Robertson (Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford Univ.; Goethe: A Very Short Introduction) has produced a monumental work on a monumental topic. The Enlightenment is often credited with the formation of modern Western society, with its emphasis on reason, scientific inquiry, religious tolerance, and democratic developments. Robertson shows that some of these assumptions are actually misconstrued; for instance, as opposed to being disimpassioned, Enlightened philosophers, scholars, and scientists were often quite passionate and emotionally involved in their beliefs and callings. The work spans the long 18th century (1680--1790), discussing the scientific discoveries, religious toleration advances, and revolutions in politics and economics spawned by this era. In addition to citing the great names of the Enlightenment, including Isaac Newton, Adam Smith, and Benjamin Franklin, Robertson also includes the thoughts and opinions of poets such as Goethe and novelists such as Defoe, providing a view of the Enlightenment from artists. Robertson does not talk down to his audience, and this information-rich volume, with its giant cast of characters and intensive philosophical discussions, is no introductory work. VERDICT A giant tome that will be indispensable for advanced students and readers of history, especially those wishing to learn more about this pivotal era.--Jeffrey Meyer, Iowa Wesleyan Univ.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A long, thoroughly satisfying history of an era that was not solely about reason but was "also the age of feeling, sympathy and sensibility." Robertson, a professor of German at Oxford, has clearly read all the original sources and most modern scholars and arrived at his own conclusions, which are alternately unsettling and stimulating and consistently engaging. He begins by questioning the picture of the Enlightenment as an "age of reason." In fact, obtaining truth through logic and calculation was an old tradition. The ancients denigrated observation because human senses were imperfect. Augustine condemned curiosity as an insult to God. Robertson prefers to consider this era as an age of "good sense." Thinkers began to examine time-honored institutions such as government or the church for evidence that they achieved their purpose: human well-being or "happiness" as expressed by the Declaration of Independence. This period also saw the scientific revolution, and Robertson delivers a masterly overview, but he devotes far more text to religion, which, unlike science, preoccupied almost everyone. Despite the belief among some conservatives today, it was not an era of irreligion. Almost all Enlighteners believed that "God had planned the universe in accordance with laws (which had recently been discovered by Isaac Newton), and had then left it to run its orderly course. Only a small minority thought there was no God, and they took care not to advertise their skepticism." The author covers atheism in only nine pages. Except for the near absence of politics, war, and trade, this is a magisterial history of Europe and the West during this period, featuring more than 100 chapters, each rarely longer than 10 pages, and offering delightful analyses of its ideas, individuals, and controversies. Other authors compose entire volumes on medicine, child-rearing, the American Revolution, and women's history; innumerable biographies examine Voltaire, Hume, Gibbon, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and lesser-known contemporaries. Robertson delivers his thoughts on each in short chapters, most of them jewels. An entirely absorbing doorstop history of ideas. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.