TEMP000200 Radical Enlightenment - åben forelæsning

Four Lectures introduce the emergence of "Radical Enlightenment" in intellectual history studies since 1980, marked by the two books titled "Radical Enlightenment" - Margaret Jacob (1981) and Jonathan Israel (2001).

 Jacob focuses her depiction of Radical Enlightenment on the networks of thinkers, printers, publishers, freemasons, etc. in early 18 C Hague, while Israel, in his three-vol. work, paints a broader picture. To him, Radical Enlightenment takes its beginnings in mid-17 C Amsterdam with the circle around Spinoza - Andriaan Koerbagh, Lodewijk Meijer, Franciskus van den Enden, etc. To Israel, prototypical Radical Enlightenment combines a monist metaphysics with a republican rejection of princely and clerical powers - while Moderate Enlightenment claims some sort of dualism combined with reform compromises with existing power structures. The lectures will sketch the appearance of recent scholarship addressing Radical Enlightenment and pick central examples such as Spinoza's Tractatus, the clandestine pamphlet "Traité des trois imposteurs" (Treatise on the three Impostors), the Enlightenment notion of toleration, and the strategies employed by writers to publish their views in an environment of persecution.