1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910136864703321

Autore

Kors Alan Charles

Titolo

Naturalism and unbelief in France, 1650-1729 / / Alan Charles Kors [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2016

ISBN

1-316-68328-1

1-316-68490-3

1-316-68517-9

1-316-68544-6

1-316-68652-3

1-316-68571-3

1-316-68625-6

1-316-22712-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (ix, 328 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Disciplina

211/.8094409032

Soggetti

Naturalism - History - 17th century

Naturalism - History - 18th century

Atheism - France - History - 17th century

Atheism - France - History - 18th century

France Religion 17th century

France Religion 18th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 06 Jun 2016).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

From nature to God -- Reading the ancients and reading Spinoza -- Reductio Ad Naturalismum -- The passion of Malebranche -- Creation and evil.

Sommario/riassunto

Atheism was the most fundamental challenge to early-modern French certainties. Leading educators, theologians and philosophers labelled such atheism as manifestly absurd, confident that neither the fact nor behaviour of nature was explicable without reference to God. The alternative was a categorical naturalism. This book demonstrates that the Christian learned world had always contained the naturalistic 'atheist' as an interlocutor and a polemical foil, and its early-modern



engagement and use of the hypothetical atheist were major parts of its intellectual life. In the considerations and polemics of an increasingly fractious orthodox culture, the early-modern French learned world gave real voice and eventually life to that atheistic presence. Without understanding the actual context and convergence of the inheritance, scholarship, fierce disputes, and polemical modes of orthodox culture, the early-modern generation and dissemination of absolute naturalism are inexplicable. This book brings to life that Christian learned culture, its dilemmas, and its unintended consequences.