Epicurus in the Enlightenment
Sous la direction de Neven Leddy et Avi S. Lifschitz
Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, coll. "SVEC", 2009
- ISBN: 9780729409872
- £60 / €72 / $103
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Présentation de l'éditeur:
Eighteenth-centuryEpicureanism is often viewed as radical, anti-religious, and politicallydangerous. But to what extent does this simplify the ancient philosophy andunderestimate its significance to the Enlightenment?
Througha pan-European analysis of Enlightenment centres from Scotland to Russia viathe Netherlands, France and Germany, contributors argue that elements ofclassical Epicureanism were appropriated by radical and conservative writersalike. They move beyond literature and political theory to examine theapplication of Epicurean ideas in domains as diverse as physics, natural law,and the philosophy of language, drawing on the work of both major figures(Diderot, Helvétius, Smith and Hume) and of lesser-known but important thinkers(Johann Jacob Schmauss and Dmitrii Anichkov).
Sommaire:
Neven Leddy and Avi S. Lifschitz, Epicurus in the Enlightenment: an introduction
Elodie Argaud, Bayle's defence of Epicurus: the use and abuse of Malebranche's Méditations chrétiennes
Hans W. Blom, The epicurean motif in Dutch notions of sociability in the seventeenth century
Thomas Ahnert, Epicureanism and the transformation of natural law in the early German Enlightenment
Charles T. Wolfe, A happiness fit for organic bodies: La Mettrie's medical Epicureanism
Natania Meeker, Sexing Epicurean materialism in Diderot
Pierre Force, Helvétius as an Epicurean political theorist
Andrew Kahn, Epicureanism in the Russian Enlightenment: Dmitrii Anichkov and atomic theory
Matthew Niblett, Man, morals and matter: Epicurus and materialist thought in England from John Toland to Joseph Priestley
James A. Harris, The Epicurean in Hume
Neven Leddy, Adam Smith's critique of Enlightenment Epicureanism
Avi S. Lifschitz, Between natural meanings and human convention: theEnlightenment revival of the Epicurean history of language andcivilisation
Bibliography
Index