Review of Untangling the Complexities of Radical Enlightenment

Diametros, 2014

This brief "Introduction" to the volume discusses the general idea of the special edition of the journal, which is dedicated to the radicalism of the Enlightenment in the context of Jonathan Israel's recent work on the Enlightenment, and highlights the topics of the articles contained in the edition.

Come list ye the praise of the Radical School, So enlighten'd in all that relates to the state, That that Legislator they deem but a Fool[.] 1 During the last couple of decades we have moved away from Peter Gay's portrayal of the Enlightenment as a single, harmonious project. 2 A plethora of scholars have found it both necessary as well as useful to distinguish between two kinds of Enlightenments: on the one hand, a moderate or conservative Enlightenment that sought to find a compromise between reason and tradition by preserving the status quo of the political and religious powers that be and, on the other hand, a radical or revolutionary Enlightenment based on human reason alone that strove to establish a new society by active reform, root and branch, of the old one. Radicals and moderates were locked in battle with the anti-revolutionary Counter-Enlightenment. 3 Before discussing the contents of this companion, which is intended for both the newcomer to the field and the more advanced expert, the reader will be provided with a brief overview of the relevant literature and the state of the art.

We still ask the question 'What is Enlightenment?' Every generation seems to offer new and contradictory answers to the question. In the last thirty or so years, the most interesting characterisations of Enlightenment have been by historians. They have told us that there is one Enlightenment, that there are two Enlightenments, that there are many Enlightenments. This has thrown up a second question, 'How Many Enlightenments?' In the spirit of collaboration and criticism, I answer both questions by arguing in this article that there are in fact three Enlightenments: Radical, Sceptical and Liberal. These are abstracted from the rival theories of Enlightenment found in the writings of the historians Jonathan Israel, John Robertson and J.G.A. Pocock. Each form of Enlightenment is political; each involves an attitude to history; each takes a view of religion. They are arranged in a sequence of increasing sensitivity to history, as it is this which makes it possible to relate them to each other and indeed propose a composite definition of Enlightenment. The argument should be of 1 This article, originally written in 2018, is indebted to John Robertson-whom I met by chance at a conference about another subject-for a suggestion about the writings of J.G.A. Pocock which though slight (the suggestion, not the writings) was fundamental and led me to redraft the second half of the article in 2019 and thus to sharpen the eventual argument. interest to anyone concerned with 'the Enlightenment' as a historical phenomenon or with 'Enlightenment' as a philosophical abstraction.

Ars Disputandi, 2007

With his latest book Enlightenment Contested, Jonathan Israel has made an impressive argument in favour of the view that philosophical ideas shape, or at least help to shape, human history. What ideas, however, does he have in mind? Israel brings forward a specific set of notions: 'toleration, personal freedom, democracy, equality racial and sexual, freedom of expression, sexual emancipation, and the universal right to knowledge and "enlightenment"' (p. 11) and argues that these are at the heart of what defines our system of modern Western values. At the same time, he maintains that we owe these ideas exclusively to a group of early modern 'Radical' thinkers, who first defended them on the basis of a combination of atheist and anti-authoritarian viewpoints closely linked to the philosophy of Spinoza. Despite its nearly 1000 pages, Israel's book fails to prove either of these latter theses, although it does deserve to attract the public and scholarly attention it is bound to receive. [2] Enlightenment Contested is remarkable for its scope and detailed presentation, as well as for the author's immense knowledge of primary and secondary sources. This may too easily go unnoticed, since readers of books such as The Dutch Republic (1995) and Radical Enlightenment (2001) have already become familiar with Israel's seemingly boundless erudition. As for its contents, Enlightenment Contested again has some marvellous new insights to offer. Even if these have not gone completely unnoticed before, Israel's presentation puts them into a new perspective. The idea of a radicalisation of positions in early eighteenth-century France, due to the absence of a broad movement of Enlightenment moderates, is an interesting view not found in Israel's earlier works. Other views invoke Israel's earlier position in Radical Enlightenment. The way, for instance, in which, on the authority of Pierre Bayle, Spinoza's philosophy was presented as a follow-up to ancient systems such as that of the philosopher Strato (c. 335-270 BC), and the debates surrounding the supposedly theistic core of Confucianism, reveal what issues were at stake in early eighteenth-century thought. [3] It is no exaggeration to say that Radical Enlightenment single-handedly reshaped, and Enlightenment Contested now confirms, some of our most basic c August 22, 2007, Ars Disputandi. If you would like to cite this article, please do so as follows:

Intellectual History Review, 2010

With his latest book Enlightenment Contested, Jonathan Israel has made an impressive argument in favour of the view that philosophical ideas shape, or at least help to shape, human history. What ideas, however, does he have in mind? Israel brings forward a specific set of notions: 'toleration, personal freedom, democracy, equality racial and sexual, freedom of expression, sexual emancipation, and the universal right to knowledge and "enlightenment"' (p. 11) and argues that these are at the heart of what defines our system of modern Western values. At the same time, he maintains that we owe these ideas exclusively to a group of early modern 'Radical' thinkers, who first defended them on the basis of a combination of atheist and anti-authoritarian viewpoints closely linked to the philosophy of Spinoza. Despite its nearly 1000 pages, Israel's book fails to prove either of these latter theses, although it does deserve to attract the public and scholarly attention it is bound to receive. [2] Enlightenment Contested is remarkable for its scope and detailed presentation, as well as for the author's immense knowledge of primary and secondary sources. This may too easily go unnoticed, since readers of books such as The Dutch Republic (1995) and Radical Enlightenment (2001) have already become familiar with Israel's seemingly boundless erudition. As for its contents, Enlightenment Contested again has some marvellous new insights to offer. Even if these have not gone completely unnoticed before, Israel's presentation puts them into a new perspective. The idea of a radicalisation of positions in early eighteenth-century France, due to the absence of a broad movement of Enlightenment moderates, is an interesting view not found in Israel's earlier works. Other views invoke Israel's earlier position in Radical Enlightenment. The way, for instance, in which, on the authority of Pierre Bayle, Spinoza's philosophy was presented as a follow-up to ancient systems such as that of the philosopher Strato (c. 335-270 BC), and the debates surrounding the supposedly theistic core of Confucianism, reveal what issues were at stake in early eighteenth-century thought. [3] It is no exaggeration to say that Radical Enlightenment single-handedly reshaped, and Enlightenment Contested now confirms, some of our most basic

European History Quarterly, 2014

Common Knowledge, 2012

A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy Jonathan Israel Democracy, free thought and expression, religious tolerance, individual liberty, political self-determination of peoples, sexual and racial equality-these values have firmly entered the mainstream in the decades since they were enshrined in the 1948 U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. But if these ideals no longer seem radical today, their origin was very radical indeed-far more so than most historians have been willing to recognize. In A Revolution of the Mind, Jonathan Israel, one of the world's leading historians of the Enlightenment, traces the philosophical roots of these ideas to what were the least respectable strata of Enlightenment thought-what he calls the Radical Enlightenment.

After discussing the nature of the Radical Enlightenment for several hundred pages, Jonathan Israel ends with a question. This question revolves around the nature of Rousseau's 'General Will' -the 'volonté générale'. On the one hand, Rousseau appears to be continuing in the tradition of Spinoza and other proponents of radical metaphysics, in that his philosophy promotes an egalitarianism, a vision of a socially-constructed political order. On the other, however, Rousseau introduces an absolute morality and certain other antithetical philosophical principles that seem to put him at odds with this undercurrent. For Israel, >>what is especially remarkable

The Journal of Modern History, 2014

This is the long-awaited third volume in Jonathan Israel's history of the Enlightenment. It thus follows on from Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity [Oxford, 2001] and Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752 [Oxford, 2006. Together these volumes constitute by any standard an epic achievement. In his previous works Israel contended that there were two distinct strands to the Enlightenment. One was a liberal Enlightenment, moderate, reformist, elitist. Its leading figures included François-Marie-Arouet de Voltaire, the baron de Montesquieu and "most -but by no means all -British participants in the Enlightenment" (17). The other was the Radical Enlightenment, egalitarian, freethinking, revolutionary. It began with the pioneering work of Benedict de Spinoza. Its banner was then taken up by Denis Diderot, Claude-Adrien Hélvetius, and the baron d'Holbach. Israel continues with that distinction is the current volume and this time a principal aim is to deal with the perennial question -what was the relationship between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution? Over many hundred pages he builds up to his answer. The weight of evidence that he has brought together is simply extraordinary.