1. Radical Enlightenment
Dr. Andy Mansfield

3. Views of the Enlightenment
‘French’ Perspective
‘English’ View
Enlightenments
Radical Enlightenment

4. Israel’s Two Objectives
European Enlightenment a single entity
(a) Radical Enlightenment driving force
(b) Spinoza has a primary role – ‘backbone of
the Radical Enlightenment’

5. The birth of Philosophy
Pre-1650
Post-1650
Confessional society
Church ‘monopoly of truth’
Theology dominates intellectual activity
Rationalisation & secularisation
Everything challenged in new intellectual culture
New Philosophy

6. Mainstream & Radical Enlightenment
Mainstream Enlightenment:
Moderate reforms within old structures
Radical Enlightenment:
No compromise as old-order swept away

7. Crisis of the European Mind
Paul Hazard (1935)
European turmoil after Thirty Years War
Philosophy of Descartes & Spinoza undermines religion
The ‘New Philosophy’

8. Cartesianism René Descartes (1596-1650) Cartesian Doubt & Knowledge
Cogito ergo sum - Dualism
‘Mechanistic world-view’

9. Baruch Spinoza ( )

10. Ethics/ Ethica (1677)
God is (infinite) Substance ‘Whatever is, is in God, and nothing else can exist or be conceived without God’ (I, prop. 15) Morality Reason is virtue: self-preservation of one’s being is the essence of man (IV, prop. 24)

11. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670)
Secularisation ‘[R]eligion and piety must be adapted to the peace and welfare of the state.’ Freedom ‘It is necessary to allow freedom of judgement, & so to govern men that they can express different opinions.’

12. Tractatus Politicus (unfinished 1677)
Democracy ‘Men should be governed… as following their own bent and their own free choice… restrained only by their love of freedom.’ Toleration ‘The more a man loves God… the more free he is, and the more completely he obeys himself.’

13. Three Types of Toleration
Confessional Confrontation
Locke: not for non-Protestants or Atheists.
Bayle: not based on faith but ‘philosophic reason & equity’
Spinoza: expanded into public (secular) sphere

14. Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) Bayle’s Comet (1682)
Attack on superstition & idolatry
The ‘virtuous atheist’

15. Henri de Boulainvilliers (1658-1722)
Member of Burgundy Circle
Attack on Louis XIV
Mohammed & Islam – true essence of God’s message (rational & pure)

16. Bernard Mandeville (1670 - 1733) & Denis Diderot (1713 - 84)

17. Spinozism Spinozism hugely influential Spinoza’s ideas understood
Spinoza’s Atheism
Spinozism Opposed – Malebranche: intellectual union with God
Nicolas Malebranche (1638 – 1715)

18. Gottfried von Leibniz (1646-1716)
Correspondent of Spinoza
Maintain Church
Rival Philosophy

19. ‘Anglomania’ Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) Locke & Newton
Importance of Newtonianism
Newton’s God: left space for an eternal governor & providence
‘Anglomania’: politics, economics & science post-1688
‘Anti-Anglicisme’: post-1740

20. Epilogue
In Revolutionary age (from 1780s) ‘monarchy, aristocracy, & Church’ were swept away
Philosophy ‘demolished the ancien régime’ its ideas, belief and loyalties destroyed long before the Bastille
Spinoza’s influence evident throughout and in leading philosophes Rousseau & Diderot