Epicureans and Atheists in France, 1650–1729 by Alan Charles Kors, Hardcover, 9781107132641 | Buy online at The Nile
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Epicureans and Atheists in France, 1650–1729

Author: Alan Charles Kors  

This book describes how French Christian culture allowed the dissemination of Epicureanism, which denied divine design. In its wake, an assertive atheism appeared.

Atheism is a subject of utmost interest today, but the history of the possibility and emergence of atheism is far less studied. This book will be of major interest to students of free-thought, theology, classical and patristic scholarship, culture, the book-trade, France, early-modern Europe, and the dissemination of ideas.

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Summary

This book describes how French Christian culture allowed the dissemination of Epicureanism, which denied divine design. In its wake, an assertive atheism appeared.

Atheism is a subject of utmost interest today, but the history of the possibility and emergence of atheism is far less studied. This book will be of major interest to students of free-thought, theology, classical and patristic scholarship, culture, the book-trade, France, early-modern Europe, and the dissemination of ideas.

Read more

Description

Atheism was the most foundational challenge to early-modern French certainties. Theologians and philosophers labelled such atheism as absurd, confident that neither the fact nor behaviour of nature was explicable without reference to God. The alternative was a categorical naturalism, whose most extreme form was Epicureanism. The dynamics of the Christian learned world, however, which this book explains, allowed the wide dissemination of the Epicurean argument. By the end of the seventeenth century, atheism achieved real voice and life. This book examines the Epicurean inheritance and explains what constituted actual atheistic thinking in early-modern France, distinguishing such categorical unbelief from other challenges to orthodox beliefs. Without understanding the actual context and convergence of the inheritance, scholarship, protocols, and polemical modes of orthodox culture, the early-modern generation and dissemination of atheism are inexplicable. This book brings to life both early-modern French Christian learned culture and the atheists who emerged from its intellectual vitality.

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Critic Reviews

“'... indispensable ... sure to fruitfully inspire many historians for years to come.' Jeffrey D. Burson, American Historical Review”

'… indispensable … sure to fruitfully inspire many historians for years to come.' Jeffrey D. Burson, American Historical Review

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About the Author

Alan Charles Kors is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania. He taught at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and the Folger Library. He is also co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. He has published the Encyclopaedia of the Enlightenment (2003), Atheism in France, 1650–1729 (1990) and D'Holbach's Coterie: An Enlightenment in Paris (1976).

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Product Details

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Published
28th June 2016
Pages
242
ISBN
9781107132641

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