Reading the French Enlightenment

This 1999 book is an ambitious reinterpretation of a crucial aspect of eighteenth-century thought, the rationalizing and classifying impulse.

List of contents

Acknowledgments; Author's note; Prologue: despotic Enlightenment; Introduction: the critique of systematic reason; 1. 'Système': origins and itineraries; 2. The epistolary machine; 3. Physics and figuration in Du Châtelet's Institutions de physique; 4. Condillac and the identity of the other; 5. Diderot: changing the system; Conclusion: labyrinths of Enlightenment; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Summary

This 1999 book surveys the past fifty years of philosophical reflection on the Enlightenment, and takes issue both with traditional liberal and with contemporary critical accounts. Through close analysis of philosophical, scientific and literary texts, it emphasizes the urgency of maintaining a dialogue between past and present, Enlightenment and modernity.

Product details

• Authors: Julie Candler Hayes, Julie Chandler Hayes
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 09.10.2012
• EAN: 9780521651288
• ISBN: 978-0-521-65128-8
• No. of pages: 258
• Dimensions: 157 mm x 235 mm x 20 mm
• Weight: 574 g
• Series: Cambridge Studies in French
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works