Most Helpful Customer Reviews
67 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moderation sucks, January 5, 2010
This review is from: A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Hardcover)
It is commonly known that Jonathan Israel, professor of Modern History at Princeton, is a man with a mission. In Radical Enlightenment (2002) and Enlightenment Contested (2006) he presented his remarkable views on the history of the Enlightenment. His foremost motivation to do this lay in the ill-informedharsh judgment bestowed on the Enlightenment at the end of the twentieth century by anti-enlightenment thinkers and, closely connected to this, the highly unsatifactorial state historical research about this crucial epoch had fallen.
Israels central thesis in both the first two parts of his Enlightenment-project as well as in A Revolution of the Mind stresses that a fundamental distinction has to be made between Radical Enlightenment on the one hand, and Moderate Enlightenment on the other. Radical Enlightenment embodied the, if necessary through revolutionary means, pursuit of freedom of opinion, equal rights for all and the principal separation of church and state; each of which are core democratic values. Moderate Enlightenment, on the other hand, kept adhering to the idea of Providence, either Deïstic or religious and a strictly hierarchically structured society based on monarchal or aristocratic principles to which colonialism, economic exploitation and political suppression were inextricably linked. The changes these Moderates propagated would have to come about through gradual reform, leaving traditional structures as much untouched as possible; an approach with consequences not nearly as far reaching as that of their radical counterparts.
Jonathan Israel points out that there really was a revolution of the mind in the second half of the 18th century in Europe and Northern America. Numerous people became increasingly disenchanted with the Ancien Régime and the long term, reformist solutions the moderates offered. Not just in France the cry for a general revolution along radical lines was heeded. The American revolution of 1776 and the Dutch democratic Patriotten-movement (1779-1795) provide ample evidence that a new radical mentality was on the rise. The transition to this political active radical frame of mind is convincingly illustrated through a number of public controversies. Israel succeeds in showing the unbridgable gap between the Radical and Moderate Enlightenment using public debates between members of both sides. An interesting and important by-product of this methodology, is that in this way the overwhelming similarities between the radical agenda and 21st century democratic values are made clear for all to see.
Post-modern and other anti-Enlightenment theorists, that say rationality is just one among many discourses without special claims to validity or that denounce Enlightenment ideas based either on some Revealed Providence or some non-explicated feeling or emotion are unrelentlessly confronted by Israel, who politely points out the logical inconsistencies of their opinions based on their downright untenable pseudo-historical analyses.
The legitimate criticisms that are made against a number of supposedly basic Enlightenment principles, rangeing from Robespierres Terror to the technocratic rationality of the Holocaust, are ably warded off by Israel. In so far as these excesses are traceable to the Enlightenment at all, they are rooted in the heritage of the Moderate, not the Radical Enlightenment. After all, it was the Moderate Enlightenment that couldn't or wouldn't rid itself of its persistent ideas about hierarchical man and society, which cherished irrationalia such as Divine Providence or Invisible Hands in its core beliefs and which stubbornly clung to the political and social inequality of men.
The reputations of both Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire, those archetypal representatives of Enlightenment thinking, suffer heavily at the hands of Israel. Both are firmly linked to the Moderate Enlightenment (Voltaire) or identified as a philosophical loose cannon (Rousseau). Voltaire is shown to be an elitist, would-be aristocrat whose democratic opinions are questionably to say the least. Rousseau comes out even worse. After distancing himself from his one-time radical kindred spirits Diderot, d'Holbach and Helvetius, he develops his theory of the General Will and People's sovereignty, both of which could only thrive when dissenting opinions were systematically suppressed. This, of course, was totally at odds with the emancipatorian outlook of the Radical Enlightenment. To make matters worse, Israel points out that the ideological justification of the Jacobins Terror (1793-1794) can for a large part be attributed to Rousseau's (who died some fifteen years earlier) legacy. It is no coincidence that Rousseau was practically deified by Robespierre c.s. and that many Radical enlighteners had their lives drastically shortened by means of the guillotine.
In A Revolution of the Mind Jonathan Israel anticipates the final part of his pioneering study in search of the roots of the Enlightenment and through that our 21st century democratic values. His fundamental distinction between the Radical and Moderate Enlightenment functions as Ockhams razor. This enables him to link political, economic and social disasters that have plagued humanity since the late 18th century to the Moderate Enlightenment or to anti-Enlightenment forces he succeeds in rescueing those values which are now - nominally if not always practically - considered to be the very foundation of democracy; equal rights for all men, without regard to race, creed, nationality, gender or sexual preference; toleration for dissenting opinion and the principal separation between church and state.
Where Enlightenment historians had lost themselves in a comminution of the universal appeal of its original radical ideas in favor of petty nationalistic interpretations, Israels controversionalistic approach shows which public 17th and 18th century debates contributed to the formation of a universally appealing, new and revolutionary mentality, which remarkably enough forms the foundation of our current democratic values. It's impossible to overstate the importance of this stupendous enterprise.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of the most decisive shifts in history?, February 28, 2010
This review is from: A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Hardcover)
The publication of A Revolution of the Mind is most welcome, if only because it should make Jonathan Israel's ideas about Enlightenment thought more accessible to a broad reading public. His previous two volumes (Radical Enlightenment and Enlightenment Contested) total over 1700 pages of dense scholarship, more than enough to intimidate even stalwart generalist readers. Now in only about 250 pages he reviews his principal themes and gives us a précis of what apparently will be the substance of his planned longer third volume, focusing on the latter half of the eighteenth century.
This new work is based on lectures the author delivered at Oxford in 2008 commemorating Isaiah Berlin. Possibly aided by the fact that it was originally prepared to be spoken, it is clear, concise, and digestible.
For those not already familiar with one or both of the previous volumes, Israel has proposed that there was an opposition between "Radical" and "Moderate" Enlightenments. The foundation for the radicals was laid by Spinoza. Numerous others, perhaps most notably Bayle, carried the radical tradition forward, in large part through a clandestine literature, emerging later in the thought of men such as Diderot, d'Holbach, Helvétius, Condorcet, Paine, Priestly, Lessing, and Herder. The moderates in this later period included Voltaire, Montesquieu, Turgot, several Scots (such as Ferguson, Hume, Smith, Kames, and Reid), and Kant, to name just some of those more prominent. The radicals' conception of progress was democratic and materialist-determinist (or, alternatively, Christian-Unitarian), Israel holds, versus the moderates' providential religious or Deist views (Hume excepted) and preferences for monarchical-aristocratic order.
The current book distills the relevant ideas of the key figures and illuminates the nature of the opposition between the two camps. Israel insightfully describes how radicals and moderates thought differently about the essence of tyranny, militarism, equality, and morality, for example. He boldly asserts that there was a "revolution of the mind" in the 1760s and 1770s based on the ideas of the radicals, and that "it was plainly one of the greatest and most decisive shifts in the entire history of humanity."
The Radical Enlightenment is the most important factor in properly understanding why the French Revolution developed as it did, Israel contends. He credits the more positive phases to ideas of the radicals, but the darker Terror in large measure to the views of Rousseau, whom he treats primarily as an anti-philosophe. His analysis here is relatively brief and sure to be controversial with many readers.
So too, he presents several other intriguing observations that he leaves dangling without a great deal of support or elaboration. I will mention just a few. He stresses the international character of the radical ideas -- notably encompassing not only France, but Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and North America -- but he acknowledges that Scottish Common Sense philosophy (in opposition to the radical ideas) continued to reign well into the nineteenth century in Britain and North America. Doesn't this dampen his assertion of the triumph of the Radical Enlightenment, at least in these nations?
He points out that the radicals were skeptical of direct democracy and tended to favor representative systems. Diderot and d'Holbach, for example, thought there were certain citizens best prepared to rule, persons of superior education and wisdom. Israel calls this the "Achilles heel of the radical program," but he stops there without saying much more about it.
Israel offers many other challenges to certain popular interpretations of the Enlightenment and to the historiography of the French Revolution. It would be unreasonable to expect full development of all his views to be encapsulated in the few lectures reflected here. Readers with further interest in such matters can look forward to his forthcoming longer volume, which undoubtedly will fill in many supporting details and, one hopes, tie up many of the loose ends.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent Synopsis, April 16, 2010
This review is from: A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Hardcover)
This is a short hand introduction to the state of mind of the European radical reformers of the late 18th century. Besides well known authors, ignored writings such as those of the Dutch politician Pieter Paulus are presented here. In this problem oriented form, in search of the essence of the radical mind, this type of introduction to 18th century radical political thinking was not available up to now. Ealier research reflects too often the general cultural mistrust surrounding thinkers who in their mind dared too turn their factual, hierachical structured 18th century world upside down. This in contrast to the thinkers of the so called Moderate Enlighenment, who while reformers, remained obliged to King, Gentry and the existing religious establishment. This book displays a fresh appreciation of the revolutionary mentality, with due respect to more conservative strands of thinking.
This collection of essays is lively written and accessible not just to experts, but to any intellectual interested in the roots of our modernity. I can advise it to students and to a more general public. There are also some surprises in these texts, that should appeal to the specialists in the field.
L.M. Plas.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Politics as Substitute Religion
"They were against: intolerance, racism, nationalism, war, imperialism, inequality, hierarchy, rank, aristocracy, monarchy, slavery, ignorance, superstition.
Read more
Published 11 months ago by Emptor Preempted
|
