Sacrifice and Self-Interest in Seventeenth-Century France

Quietism, Jansenism, and Cartesianism
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-40096-2
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 304, 300 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 635 g

Reihe: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History

How much of our own self- interest should we be willing to sacrifice for love of another? The Quietists answered, all of it, even the salvation of our own soul. Opposing them were the Jansenists, including Arnauld, who saw self-interest as inescapable. The debate swept across French society in the 17th century, with Bossuet and Fénelon on opposite sides, and was multi- dimensional, with political and ecclesiastical intrigue, charges of heresy, and many shenanigans. Initially theological, the debate’s basis lay in differing philosophical concepts of freewill, with both sides claiming support from Descartes’s views. The debate thus highlights interpretation of the Cartesians, especially Malebranche, a prominent participant in it. Nevertheless, this is the first book on the debate in English.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lennon, Thomas M

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Prologue

Apparatus

1 Pure Love

1 Sacrifice

2 The Theological Idiom

3 Freedom and Volition

4 A Tawdry Affair

5 Contemporary Connections

2 The Impossible Supposition

1 Is Pure Love Possible?

2 The Abandonment of Hope

3 Novelty: Historical and Theological Contexts for the Impossible Supposition

4 Secular Versions of the Impossible Supposition

5 The Possibility of Virtue

3 Quietism

1 François de Sales (1567–1622)

2 Bossuet on François

3 Bossuet and Mme Guyon

4 Attrition and Contrition: Sirmond vs. Camus

4 Spontaneity and Indifference

1 Two Senses of Freedom

2 Spontaneity

3 Indifference

5 The Augustinus

1 The First Attack on Molinist Indifference

2 The Importance of the Augustinus

3 The Text of the Augustinus

4 Objections and Replies

5 Hope

6 Cartesian Wills

1 Descartes’s View: Circumstantial Evidence

2 Descartes’s View: Textual Evidence

7 The Object of Love

1 Amour propre and amour de soi

2 Malebranche on the Will

3 Malebranche and Lamy

4 The Quietist Critique of Malebranche

8 Bossuet’s Jansenism

1 Du Vaucel’s Reports from Rome

2 The Text: Bossuet’s Treatise on Free Will

3 Nicole’s Refutation of the Quietists

4 The Episode of an ecclesiastical problem

5 Quesnel’s Contribution

9 The Dénouement

1 Descartes

2 Jansenius

3 Fénelon

10 The Last Temptation

Chronology

Appendices: The Condemned Propositions

Bibliography of Works Cited

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Thomas M. Lennon, Ph.D. Ohio State (1968) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario. He has published Battle of the Gods and Giants (Princeton UP, 1993), Plain Truth: Descartes, Huet, and Skepticism (Brill, 2008), translations of Malebranche and Huet, and many journal articles.