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Condorcet's understanding of the application of the philosophy of natural sceince to social science.

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How did the French Revolution become thinkable? Keith Michael Baker, a leading authority on the ideological origins of the French Revolution, explores this question in his wide-ranging collection of essays. Analyzing the new politics of contestation that transformed the traditional political culture of the Old Regime during its last decades, Baker revises our historical map of the political space in which the French Revolution took form. Some essays study the ways in which the revolutionaries' break with the past was prepared (...) by competition between agents and critics of absolute monarchy to control the cultural resources and political meanings of French sought before 1789 to reconstitute their body politic; and by the invention of 'public opinion' as a new form of political authority displacing notions of 'representation', 'constitution', 'sovereignty' - and of 'the French Revolution' itself - the ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions that were to drive the revolutionary dynamic in subsequent years. The result is a substantial and unified set of studies, stimulating renewed reflection on one of the central themes in modern European history. (shrink)

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For all their differences, the many varieties of thinking commonly known as postmodernism share at least one salient characteristic: they all depend upon a stereotyped account of the Enlightenment. Postmodernity requires a 'modernity' to be repudiated, and the tenets of this modernity have invariably been identified with the Enlightenment Project. This volume aims to explore critically the opposition between Enlightenment and Postmodernity and question some of the conclusions drawn from it. The authors focus on three general areas. Part I, Enlightenment (...) or Postmodernity?, reflects on the way in which contemporary discussion characterizes the two movements as radical alternatives. Part II, Critical Confrontations, charts a series of critical engagements by those who have affirmed or demeaned Enlightenment values in the twentieth century. Part III, A Postmodern Enlightenment?, complicates the perceived dichotomy between Enlightenment and Postmodernity by pointing to the existence within the Enlightenment of elements frequently seen as characteristic of Postmodernity. (shrink)

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For many years, scholars have been moving away from the idea of a singular, secular, rationalistic, and mechanistic "Enlightenment project." Historian Peter Reill has been one of those at the forefront of this development, demonstrating the need for a broader and more varied understanding of eighteenth-century conceptions of nature. Life Forms in the Thinking of the Long Eighteenth Century is a unique reappraisal of Enlightenment thought on nature, biology, and the organic world that responds to Reill's work. The ten essays (...) included in the collection analyse the place of historicism, vitalism, and esotericism in the eighteenth century--three strands of thought rarely connected, but all of which are central to Reill's innovative work. Working across national and regional boundaries, they engage not only French and English but also Italian, Swiss, and German writers. (shrink)

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What is it that statesmen have generally wanted from science? They have not wanted admonitions or collaboration, much less interference, in the business of government, which is the exercise of power over persons, nor in the political maneuverings to secure and retain control over governments. From science, all the statesmen and politicians want are instrumentalities, powers but not power: weapons, techniques, information communications, and so on. As for scientists, what have they wanted of governments? They have expressly not wished to (...) be politicized. They have wanted support, in the obvious form of funds, but also in the shape of institutionalization and in provision of authority for the legitimation of their community in its existence and in its activities, or in other words for its professional status. (shrink)

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