Radical education

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789), radical educator, atheist , encyclopaedist - portrait of Louis Carmontelle .
Julien Offray de La Mettrie ,
radical Enlightenment materialist , atheist . Author of the "scandalous" book "L'Homme-Machine" , Leyden , 1747; German: "Human machine".

The history of philosophy term radical enlightenment (English: radical enlightenment , French: lumières radicales ) has emerged in recent decades from a transatlantic debate about the intellectual historical causes of the emergence of the English civil war , the American and French revolutions.

This debate was initiated by a book by the American historian Margaret C. Jacob from 1981: The Radical Enlightenment, Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans . Since then, the term radical education has appeared in numerous monographs and anthologies, such as B. in the monumental trilogy by Jonathan I. Israel, further elucidated and controversially discussed. Enlightenment historians such as Margaret C. Jacob, Jonathan I. Israel, and Martin Mulsow no longer regard the Age of Enlightenment as uniform in itself.

They distinguish between two main ideological currents that emerged in the late 17th century and continued throughout the 18th century:

The radical scouts were particularly combative and subversive against the pact of nobility and clergy , spreading subversive, republican ideas, so that their works could only be disseminated clandestinely and anonymously. They were censored , repeatedly banned and publicly burned . These “godless” materialistic and Spinozist-pantheistic radical enlighteners, the so-called “ evil philosophers ” by Philipp Blom (2011) , e.g. B. Diderot , Helvétius , Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach , Julien Offray de La Mettrie , Thomas Paine , Marquis de Sade , risked prison sentences, banishment or even the stake.

It is from this radical Enlightenment trend in particular that the historical foundations of the revolutions of the 18th century stem.

Thought leader

“The philosophy in the boudoir or the vicious teachers. Dialogues for the Education of Young Women ” , 1795.
Dialogical text by the Marquis de Sade . In seven obscene-erotic dialogues, the nihilistic radical enlightener de Sade tries , " anticipating Nietzsche by a hundred years, to inflict the death blow on morality " and explains his radical libertine doctrine. The author was repeatedly imprisoned because of his immoralism and anti-nomism . His "sado" (!) - pornographic works were repeatedly confiscated by the royal censors . The Marquis spent a good 30 years in dungeons (also in the Bastille ) and in asylums.
Denis Diderot , atheist radical educator, novelist and encyclopaedist .
Painting by Louis-Michel van Loo , 1767.

“Radical Enlightenment means both a relentless criticism of religion , from a deism that rejects any effect of divine providence to versions of a militant atheism and a monistic materialism and empiricism based on a single substance, and above all a program of more or less revolutionary ones Realization of equality and freedom in republican or democratic orders, i.e. a social upheaval. "

- Herbert Jaumann: Radical education

Pioneers of the radical Enlightenment provided these foundations for atheist criticism of religion. In his essays, Montaigne relativizes religions' claim to truth with the argument of accidental ethnic affiliation to a religion due to birth and upbringing:

«[…] Tout cela c'est un signe très-evident que nous ne recevons nostre religion qu'à nostre façon et par nos mains, et non autrement que comme les autres religions se reçoyvent. Nous nous sommes rencontrez au païs, où elle estoit en usage; ou nous regardons son ancienneté ou l'authorité des hommes qui l'ont maintenuë; ou creignons les menaces qu'ell'attache aux mescreans; ou suyvons ses promesses. Ces considerations là doivent estre employées à nostre creance, mais comme subsidiaires: ce sont liaisons humaines. Une autre religion, d'autres tesmoings, pareilles promesses et menasses, nous pourroyent imprimer par mesme voye une croyance contraire.
Nous sommes Chrestiens à mesme titre que nous sommes ou Perigordins ou Alemans. »

"[...] All of this shows very clearly that we only accept our religion in our own way and through our hands and not differently from what other religions are accepted. We found ourselves again in the country where it was customary; either we look at their age or the authority of the men who represented them; or we fear the threats she makes to the unbelievers; or we follow their promises. These considerations must be used in our confidence, but only as an aid; they are human bonds. Another religion, other witnesses, promises or threats of the same kind could in the same way impress an opposite belief on us.
We are Christians in the same sense as we are residents of the Périgord or Germans. "

- Michel de Montaigne : Essais, II, 12, Apologie de Raimond Sebond

In his main work, Ethica more geometrico demonstrata , Spinoza naturalizes God: Deus seu Natura - nature itself is God. The English philosopher and free thinker John Toland called this world view Spinoza in his Pantheistikon , 1720, as pantheism .

The Dictionnaire historique et critique (DHC), 1697, by the French early enlightenment expert Pierre Bayle , which skeptically reproduces theses and counter-theses on every topic, undertakes for the first time a source-critical review of theological, philosophical and historical knowledge. The book was banned by the censors immediately after it was published. Nevertheless, the Dictionaire found its readers and, like Diderot's encyclopedia later, became a "Bible of the Enlightenment":

«Il faut nécessairement opter entre la philosophie et l'Évangile: si vous ne voulez rien croire que ce qui est évident et conforme aux notions communes, prenez la philosophie, et quittez le christianisme: si vous voulez croire les mystères incompréhensibles de la religion, prenez le christianisme et quittez la philosophy; car de posséder ensemble l'évidence et l'incompréhensibilité, c'est ce qui ne se peut […] Il faut opter nécessairement […] »

“One must necessarily choose between philosophy and the gospel . If you only want to believe what is evident and what fits the ordinary concepts, then take philosophy and leave Christianity : but if you want to believe in the incomprehensible mysteries of religion, then take Christianity and leave philosophy; because having evidence and incomprehensibility at the same time is by no means possible [...] You necessarily have to choose [...] "

- Pierre Bayle : Dictionnaire historique et critique: Éclaircissements, III e éclaircissement aux objections des pyrrhoniens

Criticism of this position may be a. practiced through (Christian) apologetics , neo-scholasticism and through neo- homism. According to this, belief in the true sense is just possible for those who think. Reason and belief do not contradict each other, but complement each other.

Clandestines and anonymous literature

L'abbé Jean Meslier (1664–1729),
the atheist in the priestly skirt. . French radical educator.
Marquis de Sade : “One hundred and twenty days from Sodom” , the original manuscript roll.
During his imprisonment in the Bastille (1784–1789), the “Divin Marquis” made a copy of this scandalous episode novel on 33 sheets of paper in microscopic script and wound it onto a roll. For fear of censorship and confiscation, he hid her in his prison cell . After his hasty relocation, just a few days before the storming of the Bastille , he believed the role had been lost. The manuscript roll was found again and often changed hands on an adventurous 200-year journey. In March 2014, the French state declared it a national treasure.

The religious and political systems of the 17th and 18th centuries did not allow freedom of expression. Critical works were censored and burned. Therefore, they could only circulate anonymously as underground literature.

Manuscripts were circulating clandestinely that propagated the thesis of religious fraud. The Latin treatise on the three deceivers, De tribus impostoribus , 17th century, thus depicts the three religious founders Moses , Jesus and Mohammed as deceivers. The revelations they claim are only given and the miracles they report were illusions produced by sleight of hand . In the anonymous French-language tract Traité des trois imposteurs - in the sense of a Spinozist pantheism - many parts of the traditional worldview are rejected: the assertion of a personal, i.e. H. free and intelligent world creator ; that of the immortality of the soul; that people are free and responsible and in the hereafter receive punishments and rewards for their actions; the acceptance of a providence that prevailed in world events; the view that the world was made for human purposes.

The Theophrastus redivivus , written in Latin by an unknown French author around 1659, was also only circulated clandestinely. The Theophrastus redivivus is considered the earliest decidedly atheistic document of modern times. The author, who sees himself as the redivivus of Theophrastus of Eresos , criticizes the common proofs of God , making use of the theodicy argument, among other things . He concludes that God does not exist. Nevertheless, religion is useful.

Natural theology has taken the opposite position since antiquity and up to the present day . Their representatives argue with natural means (reasons, not miracles and revelations) for the existence and knowledge of God.

The Romanist Antony McKenna emphasizes the importance of the clandestine manuscript Mémoire des pensées et sentiments de Jean Meslier , which the atheist village pastor, the Curé Jean Meslier , wrote in secret and left behind posthumously:

"The most emphatic lesson of clandestine philosophy comes from a village priest, the Curé Meslier, who combines the exposure of religious superstition and fraud with the exposure of political authority and social hierarchies."

- Antony McKenna: Clandestine Philosophy

Divergent opinions in educational research

Margaret C. Jacob sees the revolutionary unrest in England in the middle of the 17th century as the real origin of the radical enlightenment. For MC Jacob, the deist and republican currents, as reflected in the writings of John Toland , were the central motor for the emergence of the radical enlightenment . In particular, she attaches much more weight than other researchers to the influence of Masonic lodges .

According to Jonathan Irvine Israel, however, the origin of the radical enlightenment lies in monistic systems of philosophy, in particular in Spinozism and in a “crypto-Spinozism” as developed by Pierre Bayle and Diderot.

“Jonathan Israel's insistence on making philosophy a part of Enlightenment research again, as well as his attempt to formulate a coherent program underlying the European Enlightenment, were long overdue. His portrayal of the radical Enlightenment influenced by Spinoza as a unified, continuous movement, however, raises doubts. "

- Wiep van Bunge: Radical education redefined: a Dutch perspective

Web links

  • Jonathan I. Israel: Radical Enlightenment and the Making of the French Revolution (1750-1800). Lecture
  • Jonathan I. Israel, Philipp Blom: Discuss Radical Enlightenment. youtube.com
  • Martin Mulsow: More light! In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. October 27, 2007.
  • A Session in Honor of Margaret Jacob. Chicago 2012 Radical Enlightenment

literature

  • Miguel Benitez Rodriguez: La cara oculta de las luces , Investigaciones sobre los manuscritos filosóficos clandestinos de los siglos XVII y XVIII, Biblioteca Valenciana 2003, ISBN 978-84-482-3462-1 , review : La face cachée des Lumières: Recherches sur les manuscrits philosophiques clandestins de l'âge classique (Universitas - Voltaire Foundation, Paris - Oxford 1996)
  • Philipp Blom : Evil Philosophers : A Salon in Paris and the Forgotten Legacy of the Enlightenment . Carl Hanser Verlag , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-446-23648-6 .
  • Steffen Ducheyne (editor): Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment , Routledge New York 2017, ISBN 978-1138280045 , limited preview in Google book search; Review: Sarah Hutton , in: The English Historical Review, Volume 133, Issue 564, October 2018, Pages 1322–1324, ( Preview ).
  • Ronald Hinner: La Mettrie: Opponent Sades. For information about the Enlightenment , Vienna, December 2012: online .
  • Jonathan I. Israel, Martin Mulsow (Ed.): Radical Enlightenment . Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-518-29653-0 , Google Books
  • Jonathan I. Israel: Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity. 1650-1750, Oxford University Press, 2001.
  • Jonathan I. Israel: Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man. 1670-1752, Oxford University Press, 2006.
  • Jonathan I. Israel: Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750–1790. Oxford University Press, 2011.
  • Jonathan I. Israel: A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy. Princeton University Press, 2009.
  • Jonathan I. Israel: Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre. 2014.
  • Margaret C. Jacob: The Radical Enlightenment. Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans. Michael Poll Pub, 2006, ISBN 1-887560-74-2 .
  • Margaret C. Jacob: The Radical Enlightenment and Freemasonry: where we are now. In: Philosophica. 88, 2013, pp. 13-29.
  • Martin Mulsow: Modernism from the underground. Radical early enlightenment in Germany 1680–1720. Habilitation thesis. Meiner, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-7873-1597-7
  • Martin Mulsow, Dirk Sangmeister (ed.): Subversive literature: Erfurt authors and publishers in the age of the French Revolution (1780–1806). Wallstein-Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1439-9 .
  • Winfried Schröder : Moral Nihilism. Radical moral criticism from the sophists to Nietzsche , Reclam 2005, ISBN 978-3150183823 .
  • Catherine Secretan, Tristan Dagron, Laurent Bove: Qu'est-ce que les Lumières radicales? Libertinage, athéisme et spinozisme dans le tournant philosophique de l'âge classique. Editions Amsterdam, 2007, ISBN 978-2-915547-39-9 , review
  • Leo Strauss : Philosophy and Law - Early Writings. In: Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 2, edited by Heinrich Meier with the participation of Wiebke Meier. - 2nd, through Ed., Metzler Stuttgart / Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-02419-0 : Table of contents
  • Leo Strauss : The criticism of religion by Hobbes. A Contribution to Understanding the Enlightenment (1933–1934) , pp. 263–369. In: Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 3: Hobbes' Political Science and Related Writings - Letters , ed. by Heinrich Meier and Wiebke Meier, Stuttgart / Weimar, JB Metzler Verlag, 2001, ISBN 978-3-476-02265-3 , table of contents website Metzler, download

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b c d Jonathan Israel, Martin Mulsow (Ed.): Radical Enlightenment. Suhrkamp Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-518-29653-0 , Google books
  2. ↑ "The German philosophy historian Winfried Schroeder recalled that already Leo Strauss of the radical Enlightenment of Spinoza or Bayle had opposed a moderate Enlightenment, which tried to mediate between orthodoxy and radical Enlightenment (Radical Enlightenment: S. 188; see also page 241 in Israel's essay ). “- Review of the anthology Radikalaufklerung, ed. by Jonathan I. Israel and Martin Mulsow , on: IFB .
    Leo Strauss' book in which he set out this position: Leo Strauss: Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 2: Philosophy and Law - Early Writings, ed. by Heinrich Meier (philosopher) . - 2nd, through Ed., Metzler Stuttgart; Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-02419-0 . Table of contents ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive )     Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tocs.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de
  3. ^ Margaret C. Jacob: The Radical Enlightenment. Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans. Michael Poll Pub, 2006, ISBN 1-887560-74-2 .
  4. ↑ 2001: Jonathan I. Israel: Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity. 1650-1750, Oxford University Press; 2006: Jonathan I. Israel: Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man. 1670-1752, Oxford University Press; 2011: Jonathan I. Israel: Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750–1790. Oxford University Press, 2011
  5. ^ Margaret C. Jacob: The Radical Enlightenment and Freemasonry: where we are now. In: Philosophica. 88, 2013, pp. 13-29.
  6. ↑ Jonathan I. Israel: Radical Enlightenment and the Making of the French Revolution (1750-1800). Lecture
  7. ↑ Review of the Suhrkamp book Radical Enlightenment already cited
  8. ↑ The Enlightenment historian Peter Gay , author of the overview book The Enlightenment. An Interpretation , 2 volumes 1966–1969, on the other hand, rejects any notion of plurality or duality in the Enlightenment
  9. ↑ Martin Mulsow, Dirk Sangmeister (ed.): Subversive literature: Erfurt authors and publishers in the age of the French Revolution (1780–1806). Wallstein, 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1439-9 .
  10. ↑ Philipp Blom: Evil Philosophers. A salon in Paris and the forgotten legacy of the Enlightenment. Hanser, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-446-23648-6 .
  11. ↑ Philipp Blom : Evil Philosophers : A Salon in Paris and the Forgotten Legacy of the Enlightenment . Carl Hanser Verlag , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-446-23648-6 .
  12. ↑ Winfried Schröder (philosopher) : Moralischer Nihilismus , Reclam 2005, p. 137ff, ISBN 978-3150183823 .
  13. ^ Henri Lemaître: Dictionnaire Bordas de littérature française , Paris 1985, p. 697, ISBN 2-04-016169-4 .
  14. ↑ Herbert Jaumann: Radical Enlightenment. In: literaturkritik.de
  15. ^ Jonathan I. Israel and Martin Mulsow (eds.): Radical Enlightenment . Suhrkamp Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-518-29653-0 , p. 157
  16. ↑ Another possible translation: with the same claim
  17. ↑ Like Montaigne himself.
  18. ↑ Michel de Montaigne, Essais , Livre II, chapitre 12, Apologie de Raimond Sebond , Garnier-Flammarion 1979, p. 111 f. With different pagination (p. 101) and some deviations in the sentence also at fr.wikisource.org .
  19. ↑ Baruch de Spinoza : Ethics presented in a geometric order. Meiner Verlag, p. 374, (22) Deus, seu Natura
  20. ↑ "[...] an absolute world without God, is therefore only a euphemism for atheism ." In: Arthur Schopenhauer : Parerga and Paralipomena. Volume 1, p. 109.
  21. ^ Jonathan I. Israel and Martin Mulsow (eds.): Radical Enlightenment . Suhrkamp Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-518-29653-0 , p. 163
  22. ^ Dictionnaire Historique et Critique de Pierre Bayle, tome 15ème, Desoer Paris 1820, p. 317 , Google Books
  23. ^ Friedrich Hagen : Jean Meslier or: An atheist in a priest's skirt. Literaturverlag Braun, Leverkusen / Cologne 1977, ISBN 3-88097-046-7
  24. ^ Atheist in priestly rock - Jean Meslier, thought leader of the Enlightenment by Rolf Cantzen SWR2 Wissen, 2015
  25. ↑ Manuscript "Le rouleau de la Bastille du Marquis de Sade"
  26. ↑ L'original des “Cent Vingt Journées de Sodome” révélé à l'Institut des lettres et manuscrits, à Paris.
  27. ↑ Marquis de Sade becomes a cultural asset: the role remains! Article by Helmut Mayer in: FAZ December 27, 2017
  28. ^ Margaret C. Jacob: The Radical Enlightenment and Freemasonry: where we are now. In: Philosophica. 88, 2013, pp. 13-29.
  29. ↑ Jonathan Israel: Enlightenment! Which enlightenment? ( Memento of the original from March 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in: Journal of the History of Ideas 67 (2006), pp. 523-545. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ucl.ac.uk
  30. ↑ Jonathan I. Israel: Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity. 1650-1750, Oxford University Press, 2001.
  31. ↑ Jonathan I. Israel, Martin Mulsow (Ed.): Radical Enlightenment . Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-518-29653-0 , Google Books , p. 146.