یک انقلاب ذهنی: روشنگری رادیکال و خاستگاه‌های فکری دموکراسی مدرن

by Jonathan I. Israel, مزدا موحد (Transalator)

دموکراسی، آزادی اندیشه و بیان، رواداری مذهبی، آزادی فردی، خودمختاری سیاسی ملت‌ها، برابری قومی و جنسیتی؛ با گذشت چندین دهه از تجلی این ارزش‌ها در اعلامیۀ جهانی حقوق بشر (۱۹۴۸) امروزه دیگر این مقولات در جریان‌های غالب اجتماعی و سیاسی جایگاهی تثبیت‌شده یافته‌اند. «یک انقلاب ذهنی» خاستگاه فلسفی این اندیشه‌ها را در جریانی بازمی‌شناسد که آن زمان نامعتبرترین شاخۀ تفکر روشنگری محسوب می‌شد: روشنگری رادیکال. جاناتان ایزرائیل، از اندیشمندان پیشگام در حوزۀ تاریخ روشنگری نشان می‌دهد که مخالفت با روشنگری رادیکال عمدتاً برآمده از تمایلات شدید جامعه به دفاع از اصولی بود که با تداوم سانسور، اقتدار کلیسا، نابرابری اجتماعی، تبعیض نژادی و مذهبی و امتیازات گستردۀ طبقۀ حاکم داشتند. «یک انقلاب ذهنی»، در بازگویی این روایت جذاب، خاستگاه‌های حیرت‌انگیز گران‌مایه‌ترین ارزش‌های ما را آشکار می‌کند و نشان می‌دهد که چرا حتی امروزه نیز این ارزش‌ها در برخی محافل به‌کرات مذموم شمرده شده و آماج حمله قرار می‌گیرند.
جاناتان ایزرائیل پژوهشگر حوزه‌های تاریخ آلمان، تاریخ اروپا و استعمار اروپایی است. او در «مؤسسۀ مطالعات پیشرفته» در پرینستون تاریخ مدرن درس می‌دهد. «روشنگری رادیکال» و «روشنگری در بوتۀ آزمایش» از دیگر آثار او هستند.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics, European History, Audiobook, World History

229 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Jonathan Irvine Israel is a British writer on Dutch history, the Age of Enlightenment and European Jews. Israel was appointed as Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, in January 2001. He was previously Professor of Dutch History and Institutions at the University of London.

In recent years, Israel has focused his attention on a multi-volume history of the Age of Enlightenment. He contrasts two camps. The "radical Enlightenment" founded on a rationalist materialism first articulated by Spinoza. Standing in opposition was a "moderate Enlightenment" which he sees as profoundly weakened by its belief in God. In Israel’s highly controversial interpretation, the radical Enlightenment is the main source of the modern idea of freedom. He contends that the moderate Enlightenment, including Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, made no real contribution to the campaign against superstition and ignorance.

Reviews

[Esteban del Mal · Rating 2 out of 5]

1/27/10: Spinoza sighting! Can't wait to get to this one.

***

Awww. Look at little, sweet, innocent Esteban, circa early 2010 up there, back before he read this. The abbreviated anticipation is almost palpable.

What a chump.

Shitty books are shitty for different shitty reasons. This one is shitty because it deals foremost with philosophy. Philosophy. Meditate upon the word for a minute. Do you break out in a cold sweat at the thought of a bunch of white, twenty-something males that look like they just rolled out of bed lounging around coffee houses, reeking of stale cigarettes and bicycle grease and trying to impress each other in some indecipherable code? Who don't realize that they've peaked? That they have nothing to offer a society that has moved past them? Waaaaay past them? That's what the word philosophy conjures for me.

Because I think philosophy, as it's currently practiced, is nothing but word games and parlor tricks. A way for nerds to have ready-made pick-up lines because they can't think spontaneously. Sure, it meant something at one time. It pierced the veil of religio-monarchist oppression to a large degree and gave form and expression to both secular democracy and science, at least in the West, back in the 1700s during what we celebrate as the Enlightenment. But that's about the last time it had anything worthwhile to say, at least as far as I'm concerned.

But that's enough for me because I'm interested in history and curious about how we got where we are. Philosophy ushered in modernity. That's a pretty big deal. But, to be frank, the author is an awful writer. Aside from his penchant for quoting bygone philosophers in the original French and German without providing translations (fuck you, Jonathan I. Israel! The conclusion of modernity is 'Merica and we speak English in 'Merica! Why should I have to bother with Google translate, you conceited bastard? See what I mean about philosophers contentedly lounging about and talking only to themselves? Faugh!), he just tries to do too much in too few pages. This thing reads like bullet points interlaced with adjectives.

We, the inheritors and benefactors of the Enlightenment, deserve better from our philosophy.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd love to read Israel's enormous books on the subject, but I'll try his short version first. The type is really big, so this book is even shorter than its page length implies.

Israel makes three big arguments:

1) The Enlightenment ought to be understood/studied as two competing Enlightenments - the Radical (Diderot, D'Holbach, et al) vs. the Moderate (Voltaire, Hume, et al) - rather than a set of distinct national phenomena.
2) The Radical Enlightenment is rooted in Spinoza and Bayle... essentially, the philosophers of the Radical Enlightenment are (atheistic or Unitarian, materialist) "Spinozists".
3) Contra Marx or the Annales school or whomever, the intellectual fervor provoked by Radical Enlightenment is the chief cause of the French Revolution. (And that Robespierre & the Jacobins were Rousseauists and thus enemies of the Radical Enlightenment.)

The first two arguments are stronger than the third. After reading this, I accept his first argument, at least in a general way. I don't know enough about either the 18th century philosophers he cites or Spinoza to accept or reject the second. The third seems overstated.

But this is a fun book that everyone should read. It mentions a lot of names I'd never heard of - but could now research if I wanted to. The best part is watching Israel attack Rousseau and Voltaire, who are so often held up as heroes of reason. Mostly, this book makes me want to read Spinoza.

[Matt McCormick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second time I've read Jonathan Israel's history of Radical Enlightenment thought focusing on the late 1700's. My enjoyment has only increased by subsequently reading biographies of Payne, Bayle and d' Holbach.

This book is relatively small, especially by Israel's normal output of 500+ page histories and, yet, I think it is his most compelling product. It's clear, well organized, well researched and makes a compelling argument that there would have been no French Revolution without the revolution in thought driven by a powerful group of thinkers/writers. It is inspiring to think that "arguments" and writing could initiate action. Anyone who currently finds our own civilization wanting will locate in the radical wing of the Enlightenment the foundational arguments for change. The concerns and passions of the this wing are (I believe) our concerns today; what does "equality" really mean?, what obligations do we have toward one another?, where does power reside, in the institutionalized few or through a representative voice of the many?, how much power should be centralized in the king (tyrant, dictator, executive)? is there a line organized religion shall not cross? Jonathan Israel describes how the tripartite group of eighteenth century activists (those supporting the status quo of monarchy, nobility and theocracy, the incremental deists like Voltaire and the radicals represented by the Spinoza/Bayle inspired Diderot and d'Holbach) grappled with these questions.

This remains a book so very much worth reading.

[Heather Stein · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is so polemical i am had trouble even managing to get through it. The basic premise of a radical and moderate Enlightenment seems forced. The end of Diderot's life is much less radical than Israel would have us believe AND i am having problems with any definition of "moderate" Enlightenment figure that lumps Voltaire in with Sir Edmund Burke... Sir Edmund Burke the famed conservative whose Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Avoid reading. It will just get under your skin. Antoine Lilte has published a stunning review in one of the French journals that is worth reading instead.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book in many ways amounts to an abstract or summary of his brilliant (and quite lengthy) trilogy on the Enlightenment (Radical Enlightenment, Enlightenment Contested, and Democratic Enlightenment), all of which I've read and enjoyed over the past few years as I've studied the Enlightenment.

As with all of his books they are informative and quite readable if you're into 2-inch-thick non-fiction titles covering a fairly obscure but incredibly important process in Western civilization. :

[Robiok · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for an exam.
This fucked me up, changed my entire brain (I literally felt it move and re-adjust in my skull ask my friend she was there) and I guess my reply to the question: who’s your role model? Is now: DIDEROT MAN!!

How did I end up like this, and also WHY ARE THE SEQUELS TO THIS BOOK SO EXPENSIVE.
Because yea, Prof.Israel wrote 2 more books, this is a trilogy and I want it even if it’s not required for any exams that I break my brain on this intense philosophical rides which makes me MAD but that is something I could live for IF I HAD THE BOOKS. You know what I’m saying.

Look, I’m not gonna write a smart review of this, this book is smart enough, read it to be a decent human.

[Billy McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book.

[Dominic Muresan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jonathan Israel argues, in this pretty short yet very consistent study, that the form of Enlightenment that precisely modified the known world was not that of the moderates. He does this observing the schism between the two (real or imaginary) groups and defining it as complete. The moderates, with their closeness towards the establishment, as seen through the works of Rousseau, Montesquieu, Locke, Hume etc; while the Radicals, with their demanding for the complete restructuring of society and morality, with such characters as Diderot, Baron d'Holbach, Helvetius, Thomas Paine etc.

The study itself is well documented and adds some important caveats to the discussion of Enlightenment philosophy, yet it is a little bit too dogmatic. As big as the shift between the two groups was, it couldn't have been total. They had common projects, on which both moderates and radicals worked on (The Encyclopedie for example); moderates were frequenting very radical salons without necessary being converted, places where atheists and christians intermingled and thought together. It seems somehow that Israel doesn't show the complete image. Yet, his analysis is not completely false, there are distinct groups of thinkers that have an inner rationality at work and many times the two (or more) would disagree with each other on various things.

Anyway, maybe my view is wrong so those who know better should judge my review as true or false.
7/10

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Revolution of the Mind" by Jonathan Israel offers a comprehensive intellectual history of the European Enlightenment, tracing the development of radical ideas and their transformative impact on society. Israel, a distinguished historian, explores the diverse range of thinkers and their contributions to the intellectual and cultural upheavals of the Enlightenment era. In this academic review, we critically examine the key themes, strengths, limitations, and scholarly significance of Israel's work, considering its historical context and its contributions to our understanding of this pivotal period in Western thought.


"A Revolution of the Mind" presents a rich and nuanced analysis of the Enlightenment, highlighting the multifaceted nature of the intellectual currents that shaped this transformative period. Israel rejects the traditional narrative that portrays the Enlightenment as a singular, unified movement, instead arguing for the existence of multiple Enlightenment traditions, each characterized by distinct intellectual agendas and perspectives. He delves into lesser-known figures, such as the Radical Enlightenment thinkers, who challenged established institutions and advocated for radical social and political change.

One of the strengths of Israel's work lies in his meticulous scholarship and engagement with primary sources. He offers a detailed examination of the ideas, debates, and interactions that shaped the Enlightenment, drawing on a wide array of original texts and correspondence. This comprehensive approach provides readers with a deeper understanding of the intellectual currents that unfolded during this transformative period, showcasing the richness and diversity of Enlightenment thought.

Moreover, Israel's analysis challenges conventional interpretations of the Enlightenment's impact. He argues that the Radical Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, secularism, and egalitarianism, played a more significant role in shaping modern democratic values than previously acknowledged. By highlighting the contributions of lesser-known thinkers and exploring their ideas in depth, Israel broadens our understanding of the intellectual landscape of the time, inviting critical reassessment of the legacy of the Enlightenment.

However, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of Israel's work. The sheer breadth and depth of the material covered may at times overwhelm readers unfamiliar with the intricacies of Enlightenment thought. The book's focus on intellectual history may also overlook other important factors, such as social, economic, and cultural contexts, which influenced the reception and impact of Enlightenment ideas.


"A Revolution of the Mind" by Jonathan Israel is a seminal work that challenges traditional interpretations of the Enlightenment and offers a comprehensive intellectual history of the period. Through meticulous scholarship and engagement with primary sources, Israel expands our understanding of the diverse intellectual currents and their implications for social and political change. While recognizing its strengths, this academic review acknowledges the potential limitations of Israel's focus on intellectual history and the complexity of the subject matter.


"A Revolution of the Mind" by Jonathan Israel stands as a significant contribution to the field of intellectual history, offering an in-depth exploration of the multifaceted Enlightenment era. By highlighting lesser-known figures and ideas, Israel reshapes our understanding of the intellectual landscape of the time and challenges conventional narratives. Scholars and readers engaging with this work will find it both enlightening and thought-provoking, prompting further reflection on the diverse and transformative ideas that shaped the Enlightenment and its enduring impact on Western thought.

GPT

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book summarises some of Jonathan Israel's recent work on the enlightenment - there are two 1000 page volumes (both under £25 - what a bargain OUP!) and I think another one is on the way. This short volume necessarily skips a lot of detail and mainly focuses on the differences between the moderate and radical enlightenments in the later, immediately pre-French revolution period of about 1750-1790. Israel argues that new 'radical enlightenment' ideas combined with longstanding social and political inequalities to produce revolutionary ferment - a controversial position in that philosophy is often thought not to cause very much. The other major argument outlined here is that there were two fundamentally opposed enlightenment threads (radical and moderate) and that our current ideals of equality, democracy and justice stem very clearly from the radical side (Spinoza, Diderot, d'Holbach, Paine etc) not the moderate (represented by Voltaire, Locke, Hume, sometimes Rousseau) as we often tend to think.

I would have liked more discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the radical enlightenment position but this is primarily a history book and I suppose I can now go away and think about that stuff myself. It was very interesting though and relevant to the contemporary world in that there are still conflicts between the ideal of equality and commitment to authority and the status quo.    

[Marcio Atz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Understanding the roots of the western world enlightenment is fundamental to the understanding of the roots to modern thought. I found that this book does contribute immensely to this purpose.

[Drkshadow03 · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Jonathan Israel summarizes the major points and argument of his massive three thousand page trilogy on the Enlightenment, which I haven’t read due to its intimidating size. So I appreciate that he took the time to write a more compact version of his ideas. He argues that Enlightenment thinkers fell into two opposing camps: the moderate Enlightenment and the Radical Enlightenment.
In the Moderate camp was John Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Adam Smith, Montesquieu, Adam Ferguson, and Turgot, while the radical camp included Spinoza, Pierre Bayle, Diderot, d’Holbach, Helvétius, Marquis Condorcet, Thomas Paine, John Jebb, Joel Barlow, and Robert Coram. Indeed, Diderot, d’Holbach, and Thomas Paine play starring roles, mentioned more than I have ever seen in any other book on the Enlightenment.

So what ideas separated moderate thinkers from the radical thinkers? In general, both moderates and radicals viewed the idea of progress and the improvement of society as central to the Enlightenment. If we improve our incorrect ideas and get better methods of ascertaining truths then human flourishing would follow. However they sometimes had very different ideas on how to accomplish that or even different conceptions of progress.

Moderates supported reform, but tended to castigate revolution, wanting to improve lives and existing institutions through gradual changes that balanced reason and tradition. For example, Adam Smith advocated reform of economics by defending free markets and criticizing misguided attempts by the government to control the economy, but he didn’t necessarily have any issue with wealth, social hierarchies, or the aristocracy, whereas radicals thought the economic problems such as massive inequality of wealth and poverty stemmed directly from the whole corrupt system of monarchy, aristocracy, religious authority and privileges, and class social hierarchies. Moderates like Voltaire held elitist attitudes that only some minds were capable of the Enlightenment and enjoyed corresponding and hobnobbing with Enlightened kings such as Frederick the Great of Prussia. Moderates celebrated the British constitution and mixed monarchy as an ideal form of government, arguing the British people were some of the freest and had the most liberty in the world, which the radicals criticized for dividing political power and being prone to all sorts of political corruption. The moderates rejected authority’s role in knowledge, celebrating reason as our best tool for understanding, the use of empirical evidence, and believed in a Providential concept of societal progress, while also advocating religious toleration and Newtonian science.

“The struggle was between sweeping reformism versus a gradualist, conservative approach. It was also a battle between amelioration purely natural, on the one side, and supernaturally ordered and divinely guided progress, on the other, a fight between progress that drives toward equality and democracy and seeks to enlighten everyone, and marginal reform of the existing order of monarchy and privilege, backed by theological criteria, content (or even preferring), especially in Voltaire’s and Frederick the Great’s case, to enlighten only the few. The “revolution of the mind” the Radical Enlightenment had engineered among sections of society by the 1770s and 1780s through the clandestine spread of new ideas aspired one day to carry through a successful revolution of fact, leading to an entirely new kind of society. Such a perspective was roundly rejected by those who understood progress as divine Providence at work. Even the two opposed enlightenments’ respective conceptions of “reason” were distinct and, before long, fiercely competing ideas. For the moderate mainstream, reason is immaterial and inherent in God, a divinely given gift to man, and one that raises him above the rest. In radical thought, by contrast, man is merely an animal among others with no specially privileged status in the universe while “la raison,” as one radical text expressed it in 1774, far from being something beyond and above matter, is nothing but “la nature modifiée par l’expérience.” (20).”

The Radicals wanted to tear down everything associated with the old system. In Israel’s view the father of the Radical Enlightenment and ultimately our ideas of democracy and equality was Spinoza. Radical ideas were grounded in Monism (God, nature, body, and mind were all one), materialism, rejecting tradition and authority completely for reason as the only guide in life and the source of morality. They linked progress to equality and democracy and defended complete liberty of thought and expression. Morality amounted to good secular laws ascertained by reason and a sense of universal moral laws based on the the needs and common interests of all humans regardless of culture or rank. True morality stems from recognizing my interests are bound in the interests of others and the rest of society. The goal of government was for everyone to be equal before the law and to promote the happiness of all its citizens. Every nation had moral obligations to all other nations and the rest of humanity, which they hoped would decrease war and violence. Radical thinkers wanted to remove church influence on education as they thought morality had nothing to do with religion. They wanted to replace corrupt monarch whose own personal interests in acquiring more power, land, and wealth led to warfare and unnecessary violence at the expense of the people. They advocated reforming education, law, and institutions of government, especially along democratic lines, as the strongest method to better the lives of everyday people and teach them true morality. They argued it was ignorance that was the basis of priest’s, aristocrat’s, and monarch’s authority over the common people and these authorities had a vested interest to keep the general population uneducated. Diderot and d’Holbach defended violent revolution as a necessary method to overthrow tyrants.


For this reason Israel argues that it was the radical Enlightenment that “played the primary role in grounding egalitarian and democratic values and ideals of the modern world (7).”
In his estimation, the American Revolution and French Revolution were not driven by changing social conditions and structures as other historians have suggested, but flowed from an intellectual revolution of the mind that gave expression to social frustrations and longstanding grievances that caused major cultural shifts. The revolution of the mind and the transformation of the educated classes proceeded the actual revolutions themselves. The radical ideas made the revolutions possible. Israel Identifies a shift between 1770 - 1789 where the radical Enlightenment ideas of democracy and equality became central ideas in Western culture.

“Radical Enlightenment, then, was the primary intellectual source of the dynamic rhetoric of democratic egalitarianism propagated during the twenty years before 1789 by the numerous disciples of Diderot, Helvétius, and d’Holbach, most obviously Mirabeau, Brissot, Condorcet, Cerisier, Raynal, Maréchal, Cloots, and Volney, besides Jefferson, Paine, Priestley, and Price, but also including numerous other British, American, Dutch, and German as well as French writers. Their writing and speeches represented a vast flow of democratic ideology, filling hundreds of tracts and pamphlets, and engendered an entire new language of freedom, combating tyranny, and human rights. It was this outpouring of thought and writing, the evidence shows, that was the most active and chief factor in shaping the democratic tendency contained within the American Revolution and the Dutch Patriottenbeweging (1780–1787) and culminating in the French Revolution (27).”


As these ideas spread and fomented in this crucial period, there was a “change in perceptions and attitudes” among people in the educated classes. Many European countries began to reject life under tyrannical monarchy and clamor for better systems of government that would be more representative. People began to believe that the purpose of government was to serve the people and support the good of all.

I suspect there are many possible criticisms of this book and its thesis. I imagine some historians will think Israel is overstating his case for the role radical Enlightenment played in establishing democracy as opposed to particular members of the moderate wing or overstating his case of the role of ideas more generally over other potential factors or even criticize the claim of the wide gap between the two camps, arguing there was more overlap than he is giving credit or even go the opposite direction and claim there was more discord between thinkers within each camp than he is acknowledging. If Rousseau didn’t get along with radicals like Diderot, it’s not exactly like he got along with fellow “moderates” like Hume or Voltaire. Others may criticize where he chooses to place this particular thinker or that particular thinker. Still, others may complain about a lack of objectivity or at least neutrality as sometimes it seems he taking sides by being overly celebratory of the radical thinkers and denigrating the moderate thinkers as opposed to just reporting and analyzing the facts. Still the thesis of two opposing moderate and radical camps driving the Enlightenment is interesting and worth considering.

[Behrang · Rating 4 out of 5]

هرچه عقل در جامعه کمتر رشد کند، مقاومت و آشوب بیشتر خواهد بود. زیرا مردم هرچه کمتر بدانند، از چیزی که فکر می‌کنند می‌دانند سرسختانه‌تر دفاع می‌کنند. دولباخ هشدار می‌دهد که آدم نادان زودباور است،درباره هیچ چیز تردید نمی‌کند و وقتی از او ایراد گرفته شود، خشن و تندخو می‌شود. این تنها یک قطعه از کتاب جذاب انقلاب ذهنی است.
در قرن هجدهم، جهان تقریباً در کسوف کامل اندیشه و خرد بود، مردان و زنانی که در تاریکی جهل و ترس زندگی کرده و به همه خرافات، بی‌عدالتی‌ها، اشرافیت، حق الهی پادشاهان، امپراتوری، برده‌داری و ظلم به زنان، رنگین‌پوستان و فقرا اعتبار داده و آن را جزیی از سرنوشت خود می‌دانستند. اما در این میان، چند فیلسوف جسور، پیشگام شروع تغییراتی شدند. آنها با گسترش عقل، عشق به آزادی و انسانیت، انقلابی در ذهن ایجاد کردند. و معتقد بودند که نظر بیشتر مردم درباره بنیادی‌ترین مسائل کاملا اشتباه است و همین که بتوانیم نگرش مردم به جهان و ساختار واقعیت را اصلاح کنیم بهبود چشمگیری در زندگی بشر ایجاد می‌شود. در نتیجه ما قبل از انقلاب در جامعه نیازمند انقلاب ذهنی می‌باشیم.
جاناتان ایزرائیل یکی از مورخان برجسته روشنگری جهان، در کتاب درخشان خود یک انقلاب ذهنی، ریشه‌های فلسفی ایده‌هایی همچون دموکراسی، اندیشه و بیان آزاد، تساهل مذهبی، آزادی فردی، تعیین سرنوشت سیاسی مردم، برابری جنسیتی و نژادی را بررسی می‌کند.
روشنگری رادیکال به عنوان یک جنبش مخفی در تقابل با جریان اصلی روشنگری محافظه‌کار یا میانه‌رو در اروپا و آمریکا در قرن هجدهم و در دهه‌های انقلابی، در برابر ایده‌های قدرتمند در جامعه که از سلطنت، اشرافیت، امپراتوری، کلیسا و سلسله مراتب نژادی دفاع می‌کرد، ظهور کرد.
روشنگری رادیکال از نظر فلسفی با ماتریالیسم از نظر مذهبی با سکولاریسم و جهان‌گرایی و از نظر سیاسی با تعهد آن به دموکراسی و اصلاحات انقلابی در نهادها ایجاد خواهد شد. در نتیجه چهره‌های محبوب روشنگری مانند کانت، روسو ، لاک و... مورد انتقاد قرار گرفته و با قهرمانان جدید مانند دیدرو، دولباخ، پین و... جایگزین می‌شوند. این قهرمانان جهل و زودباوری انسان‌ها را عامل انحطاط بشر و استبداد می‌دانستند و اصلاح شیوه اندیشیدن و نگریستن به جهان را از طریق تقویت آگاهی و آموزش همگانی و رایگان مطرح کردند.

[Andrew Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back when I studied early modern philosophy, I always remembered Israel as being the philosopher/historian/translator-of-record for all things Spinoza. So when I saw this book, I was eager to pick it up. Israel doesn’t really hide his enthusiasm for the radical enlightenment - or Spinoza - over what he terms the “moderate enlightenment” of Locke, Hume, Burke, and Adam Smith (among others). It’s obvious that Israel is deeply immersed in the source material and doing incredibly valuable intellectual historical work in this area. Still, I can’t help but feel he is captured by his own methodology here; the moderate-radical dichotomy can feel a little binary at times, especially when certain thinkers (namely Voltaire) seem to transcend or complicate Israel’s narrative. It also isn’t obvious to me that the radical enlightenment “won” in the modern day - in American thought in particular, thinkers like Burke and Hume have maintained a strong foothold, even if they operate on the level of background principles without being named explicitly (see, e.g., Yuval Levin’s “Great Debate”). Still, I learned a lot from this book, particularly about Diderot and d’Holbach, although I’m not sure I would recommend it to anyone who lacks a particular interest in niche debates within Enlightenment-era philosophy or intellectual history more generally.

[Bob Doyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book helped me codify some of the different ideas that were simmering during the 17th and 18th centuries. I have read several books on the enlightenment and to be honest some of the bigger ideas were starting to run together for me. The main division in this work is between the Radical Enlightenment Philosophers (REP's) and the Moderate Enlightenment Philosophers (MEP's) and this is where the first surprise surfaces. Spinoza initiates the framework for the REP's ideas whose concept of one substance with a duality contained in its essence allowed a significant break in ideas about duality as provided previously by Descartes which allowed tradition and religion to coexist. The impact that this primary split had on some of the issues of that period ( understanding God, how to deal with religious diversity, and what is purpose of government) played a major role on explaining the reality as it developed through the 18th century.

[Devin Creed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Israel splits the Enlightenment into two camps, Radical and Moderate. The Radicals, led by Diderot and D'Holbach, employed the monistic thought of Spinoza to lay the foundations for secular modernity. Meh.

[Arnab · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat instructive (and I am particularly grateful for the linkages to the wider world beyond the 'West'), but too verbose in some parts to my taste. Recommended as a general introduction to the field of Enlightenment philosophical historiography, but not much else.

[Jules Verlaan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gedetailleerde beschrijving van de Verlichting met veel achtergronden en bronnen. Spinoza heeft een heel belangrijke rol gespeeld in de ontwikkeling van het denken waar onze democratische rechtstaat op is gebaseerd.

[Stuart]

The overall theme was interesting and a good context, but the book overall did not work for me. Too many names, with series of paragraphs about nuanced differences in their views. I needed more guidance and structure along the way,and less of what felt like an upper class textbook.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm now convinced of the book's thesis: the radical enlightenment was importantly distinct from the moderate enlightenment.

But boy this was a slog.

[CC · Rating 5 out of 5]

It became instrumental to having a deeper level of understanding of Camus; The Rebel.
Would recommend to read in conjoinment

[Bruno · Rating 4 out of 5]

First few chapters really bored me and I almost gave up but from 5-conclusion I was very engrossed, and happy to find it was exactly what I wanted from this book. Great little book Mr. Israel!

[mariapia · Rating 2 out of 5]

ridondante

[Julian Haigh]

I read Jonathan israel to make me feel high-minded and intelligent.

[ح. رحمتی · Rating 5 out of 5]

از اون دست کتابهاییه که برای جامعه ایرانی مفیده.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this book, so much that I'm now going to try to read Radical Enlightenment, his much longer work.

[Julian Sink · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative stream of consciousness and overall history of the enlightenment. The authors main point is that viewing the Enlightenment as a whole without seeing the void that separates radical with moderate enlightenment thinking misses the whole point of the movement to begin with. This was a good book although his constant quotation of French philosophy without translation was extremely distracting.

When comparing the enlightenment thinking with the revolution of politics that it left in its wake, radical enlightenment boarders on socialist extremism thinking that executing the proper path forward with no regard for present established government is the best way forward. This was the major issue faced by the French Revolution and what led to its ultimate downfall. The American revolution managed to balance moderate enlightenment (which typically demanded atheism of its followers) with religious values which, to a degree, was the reason for its overwhelming success.

The enlightenment historically has resulted from a general education of the human mind thus leaving ties between un-education and political and social destitution. However it goes wrong in thinking that human intellect is the pinnacle to look to. That being said, the author doesn’t come down strongly on whether atheism or deism merits more appropriate adoption of enlightenment thinking. He simply states the facts that radical enlightenment typically leads to atheism in its adopters while moderate enlightenment historically lends itself to deism or at least monotheism in its adopters.

This book is kinda all over the place and I don’t really understand the organization, but the content is good. The chaotic arrangement may just be the result of how large the topic is though. I think the author pokes at the major points of the topic quite thoroughly and is a good starting point for learning about the enlightenment.

[Charlie Huenemann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice, short overview of Israel's larger volumes. Israel's work is thoroughly researched and the claims he makes are both daring (at least among academic historians) and interesting. Reading this volume is a great way of getting some sense of major and minor players, the important philosophical differences among them, and the relation of ideas to the revolutions in America and France. In the end, I think his principal distinction, between the Radical and Moderate movements of Enlightenment, disintegrate into a wide array of views; I think he exaggerates Spinoza's influence; and, overall, I think he pays too much attention to ideas and not enough to other determining causes. He's also not the most elegant of writers. Still, none of this means it isn't a book well worth reading and thinking through.

[Stuart Macalpine · Rating 3 out of 5]

And interesting account of the philosophical ideas leading up to the French Revolution. Spinoza emerges as a founding father of the ideas of the radical Enlightenment. The interesting thing is the extent to which our modern values are a product of this time. Specifically the kind of values we often hear talked about including democracy, equality, and freedom of conscience and speech. To a surprising extent these are only located within the radical Enlightenment and are not a mainstream part of political thought in the Enlightenment to the extent one might have expected.

[Niyousha · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was mostly an overview of which philosopher took which side in the radical enlightenment vs moderate enlightenment debate of the 18th century rather than any concrete explanation of the basis of each side's arguments, which is what I expected it to be.

Overall I would say this book is a good resource to study as a quick review of the different narratives in the argument, having read about the theories of each philosopher previously.