Religion, science and moral philosophy in the Huguenot Enlightenment - Annelie Große

Religion, science and moral philosophy in the Huguenot Enlightenment

Jean Henri Samuel Formey and the Berlin Academy

(Autor)

Buch | Softcover
352 Seiten
2024
Voltaire Foundation (Verlag)
978-1-83764-403-2 (ISBN)
93,50 inkl. MwSt
Religion, Science and Moral Philosophy in the Huguenot Enlightenment makes two significant contributions to existing scholarship on the Enlightenment. Firstly, as an author, journalist, translator, and inexhaustible letter writer, the Huguenot pastor and secretary of the Berlin Academy of Science, Samuel Formey, was involved in most of the philosophical debates in the European Republic of Letters during the second half of the eighteenth century. This is the first monograph dedicated solely to Formey’s multifaceted work. Secondly, the book recasts the concept of Religious Enlightenment by considering Formey as a pastor-philosopher whose concept of philosophy included revealed religion instead of perpetuating the image of him as an ‘enemy of Enlightenment’ who opposed the philosophy of his time by referring to religion.

More precisely, the book explores the notion of the compatibility between reason and faith in Formey’s thought on the existence of God, the freedom of will, divine providence and other questions relating to religion and metaphysics. It shows how Formey altered his portrayal of the relation between reason and faith depending on the genre and immediate context of his writings. The broader contextualisation of Formey’s arguments in German rationalist philosophy and Calvinist theology unveils not only the overlaps between Wolffianism and eighteenth-century Calvinism but also gives an impression of the diversity of the thought of Huguenot pastors and philosophers during the Enlightenment.

Annelie Große is a researcher at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities where she is currently working in a project on Prussian history. She published several articles on the philosophy at the Berlin Academy in the eighteenth century and of Samuel Formey in particular.

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction

Reason and faith in the Enlightenment

The Huguenots and the Enlightenment

Religious Enlightenment

Method and structure of the book



Formey’s concept of philosophy and its relationship to religion

Philosophy as a universal science of reason

The epistemological foundations of Christian philosophy

The Christian philosopher in the French debate about the ‘true’ philosopher



Formey in the Berlin Huguenot Enlightenment, or how to reconcile the pastor and the philosopher

Early Huguenot socialisation

Acquaintance with Wolffianism

Formey’s transition from pastor to professor of philosophy



Preaching like a philosopher and philosophising like a preacher

Philosophical preaching between Calvinist homiletic reform and Wolffianism

Formey’s transformation of philosophical sermons into moral philosophical essays

Secularisation of morality



The existence of God and the superiority of metaphysics

Rationalism against scepticism: Formey’s dictionary entry for ‘God’

Metaphysics against physico-theology: Formey’s revision of the teleological proof of God

Formey and Maupertuis on metaphysics

Newtonians against Wolffians: Perception of the debate by two groups of contemporaries



Pre-established harmony and fatalism

Popularising Wolff’s philosophy: Formey’s Belle wolfienne

Formey’s multi-vocal criticism of pre-established harmony and the nexus rerum

The origins of Formey’s criticism



The debate on free will

An empirical science of the soul

Free will between absolute necessity and liberty of indifference

The free will debate at the Berlin Academy



Providence, moral duties and optimism

The Berlin Academy’s 1751 prize essay competition on the theme of providence

The ‘real’ theory of fortune: Formey and the winning essay

The debate between Formey and Boullier about Leibnizian optimism



Natural law, morality and science

Formey on Rousseau’s Discours sur les sciences et les arts

Formey’s scientific moral philosophy

Divine and natural law in Formey’s moral philosophy

Conclusion – Religious Enlightenment between Calvinism and Wolffianism

Bibliography

Archival material

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Erscheinungsdatum
Reihe/Serie Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment ; 2024:02
Zusatzinfo N/A
Verlagsort Liverpool
Sprache englisch
Maße 156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Philosophie der Neuzeit
Geisteswissenschaften Religion / Theologie
ISBN-10 1-83764-403-9 / 1837644039
ISBN-13 978-1-83764-403-2 / 9781837644032
Zustand Neuware
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