European Thought in the Eighteenth Century

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Paul Hazaad Enropean Thought in the Eighteenth Century From Montesquieu to Lessing In the intellectual history of Europe the eighteenth century was decisive, not merely because it culminated in the French Revolution, but because its movements and ideas lay at the roots of the ideologies that have transfigured our own century. With characteristic lucidity and accuracy, Paul Hazard describes the effervescence and diffusion of ideas which, after 1715, centered on the collapse of traditional values-the imitation of Christ giving way to the pursuit of Reason. In the early chapters of this work, Hazard deals with the emergence of the basic criticism of the idea of Christian revelation and its corollaries: Deism and Rationalism. He then describes the impact of these ideas and how they opened the way for the many attempts to envisage and bring about a New World without the support of the old religious sanctions. Among the ideas and men that Hazard writes about are the atheism of Báron... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Paul Hazaad Enropean Thought in the Eighteenth Century From Montesquieu to Lessing In the intellectual history of Europe the eighteenth century was decisive, not merely because it culminated in the French Revolution, but because its movements and ideas lay at the roots of the ideologies that have transfigured our own century. With characteristic lucidity and accuracy, Paul Hazard describes the effervescence and diffusion of ideas which, after 1715, centered on the collapse of traditional values-the imitation of Christ giving way to the pursuit of Reason. In the early chapters of this work, Hazard deals with the emergence of the basic criticism of the idea of Christian revelation and its corollaries: Deism and Rationalism. He then describes the impact of these ideas and how they opened the way for the many attempts to envisage and bring about a New World without the support of the old religious sanctions. Among the ideas and men that Hazard writes about are the atheism of Báron d'Holbach, the natural science of Descartes, Lavoisier, and Linnaeus, the Encyclopaedists, the philosophies of Locke, Popé, Kant, Rousseau, and Berkeley. The role of the State and its leaders is analyzed in a discussion of the "Natural Politics and Enlightened Despotism" of Frederick II, Maria Theresa, Louis XIV, Catherine II, and the rest. Hazard concludes with a discussion of the Deisms of Voltaire and Lessing and an analysis of the intellectual legacy of the period. European Thought in the Eighteenth Century is a companion and sequel to The European Mind (Meridián Books, Ml52). Together they provide a brilliant modern account of the intellectual revolution which bridged the period from the decline of the classical tradition, through the Romantic Enlightenment of the eighteenth century to the origins, in the French Revolution, of the mass ideologies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Meridián Books are published by The World Publishing Company - Cleveland and New York Vissza