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Early Modern Atheism from Spinoza to d’Holbach
Examining the birth and development of early modern atheism from Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670) to d'Holbach's Système de la nature (1770), this study considers Spinoza, Hobbes, Cudworth, Bayle, Meslier, Boulainviller, Du Marsais, Fréret, Toland, Collins, Hume, Diderot, Voltaire, and d'Holbach and positions them in a general interpretive scheme, based on the idea that early modern atheism is itself an unwanted fruit of early modern metaphysics and theology.
Breaking with a long-standing tradition, Descartes claimed that it was possible to have a "clear and distinct" idea of God, indeed that the idea of God was the "clearest and most distinct" of all ideas accessible to the human mind. Humans could thus obtain a scientific knowledge of God's nature and attributes. But as soon as God became an object of science, He also became the object of a thoroughgoing scientific analysis and criticism.
The effortlessness with which early modern atheists managed to turn round their adversaries' arguments to their own favour is a sign that the new doctrines of God which emerged in the seventeenth-century, each based in its own way on principles and dogmas related to the new science of nature, were plunging headfirst towards the precipice under their own steam.
Breaking with a long-standing tradition, Descartes claimed that it was possible to have a "clear and distinct" idea of God, indeed that the idea of God was the "clearest and most distinct" of all ideas accessible to the human mind. Humans could thus obtain a scientific knowledge of God's nature and attributes. But as soon as God became an object of science, He also became the object of a thoroughgoing scientific analysis and criticism.
The effortlessness with which early modern atheists managed to turn round their adversaries' arguments to their own favour is a sign that the new doctrines of God which emerged in the seventeenth-century, each based in its own way on principles and dogmas related to the new science of nature, were plunging headfirst towards the precipice under their own steam.
368 pages, Paperback
Published July 12, 2021
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January 11, 2024
Gianluca Mori's Early Modern Atheism from Spinoza to d'Holbach is really an incredible accomplishment. Mori is best known for his work on Pierre Bayle with his book Bayle, Philosophe, which remains the focus of debates on him today. Early Modern Atheism is one of Mori's few English texts, and for this reason will serve for anyone as an invaluable introduction not only to his research on Bayle, to which a chapter is here devoted, but also to the ramifications of this research as it reverberates throughout the long century of the Enlightenment.
Covering just over 100 years of intellectual history, it is perhaps to be expected that the argument in Mori's book is at times vague, resorting to stating a philosopher's views rather than trying to articulate and defend their arguments for this view. The chapter on Spinoza's alleged atheism could easily occupy an entire book, although Mori makes the wise decision of rejecting appeals to psychological attitudes when explaining the religious character of a historical philosopher's ideas. Whether Spinoza, or Bayle for that matter was an atheist is beside the point, because it is an impossible question to answer.
In the epilogue, Mori's argument shifts from an academic register to a more directly polemical one. The grand lesson of Enlightenment atheism is that, wherever explicit definitions of God are furnished, the atheist is given material which can be cut in twain by acidic reason. And, he surmises, theists have learned from this lesson much better than have contemporary atheists, the most inventive among former today shying from such explicit definitions, and cowering behind the vagaries of phenomenology and mysticism.
Covering just over 100 years of intellectual history, it is perhaps to be expected that the argument in Mori's book is at times vague, resorting to stating a philosopher's views rather than trying to articulate and defend their arguments for this view. The chapter on Spinoza's alleged atheism could easily occupy an entire book, although Mori makes the wise decision of rejecting appeals to psychological attitudes when explaining the religious character of a historical philosopher's ideas. Whether Spinoza, or Bayle for that matter was an atheist is beside the point, because it is an impossible question to answer.
In the epilogue, Mori's argument shifts from an academic register to a more directly polemical one. The grand lesson of Enlightenment atheism is that, wherever explicit definitions of God are furnished, the atheist is given material which can be cut in twain by acidic reason. And, he surmises, theists have learned from this lesson much better than have contemporary atheists, the most inventive among former today shying from such explicit definitions, and cowering behind the vagaries of phenomenology and mysticism.
Displaying 1 of 1 review