Secularisation and the Leiden Circle

Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-90-04-20955-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, 558 Seiten, Format (B × H): 168 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 1043 g

This book shows how a group of early-seventeenth-century writers excluded theologically grounded argument from a wide range of disciplines, from the natural sciences to international relations. Somos uses richly contextualised portraits of Scaliger, Heinsius, Cunaeus and Grotius to develop a new model of secularisation as a contingent, cumulative, and incomplete process, with some unintended consequences. Facing severe conflict, the Leiden Circle realised that rival claims that staked their truth-content and validity on religious belief were ultimately irreconcilable. Gradually they removed such claims from acceptable discourse, contributing to the comprehensive secularisation that defines modernity. If blindness to religious claims has become definitive of modern politics, Somos concludes, recollecting its historical complexity and contingency is essential for overcoming some of its failures.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Somos, Mark

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface

I INTRODUCTION
1 Question and Term
2 Method: Leiden as Illustration
2.1 The Leiden Circle
2.1.1 A Thickening Description: Illustration and Contextualisation
3 The Medieval Background
3.1 The Omnipresence of Theology: Generic Problems and Solutions
3.1.1 IR Theology: Just War Theories During The Crusades
3.2 A Specific Example: The Reign of Philip IV
3.2.1 The Sacrosanct State and its Gallican Church
3.2.2 Crown vs. Tiara: Boniface VIII, Clement V and the Avignon Papacy
3.2.3 Expansion and Centralisation
3.3 The Persistence of Theological Politics
4 Change And Continuity: The Early Modern Crises of Christianity
4.1 The Religious Foundations of Early Modernity: Generic Problems and Solutions
4.2 A Specific Example: Historicisation as Secularisation’s Point of Entry
5 Scaliger’s Secularising Historiography: A Valuable Start to Constructing Leiden as Illustration

II SCALIGER: HISTORY COMES OF AGE
1 Vita Brevis
2 Scaliger’s Significance
3 Premature Universal History: The French Origins of Scaliger’s Method
4 Everything a Target: History as Master Discipline
4.1 First Illustration of History as the Master Discipline: Historical vs. Astronomical Method
4.1.1 Leiden’s Scaligerian Astronomy
4. 2 Second Illustration of History as the Master Discipline: History vs. Theology
4.2.1 Ancient Christianity vs. Modern Progress
4.2.2 The Secularisation of Christ
5 Scaligerian History as Master Discipline: Consequences for the Leiden Circle

III HEINSIUS: ENTER SECULARISATION
1 Vita Brevis
2 Virtuous Poverty of Reason: The Bucolic Heinsius (1603-4)
3 Dwelling on the Pagan-Christian Borders: Heinsius and Cunaeus on Nonnus (1610)
4 Enter Secularisation: On The Constitution of Tragedy (1611)
4.1 Intellectual Context: Theatre and Sixteenth-Century Politics of Religion
4.2 A Close Textual Analysis of DTC
4.2.1 Imitation and Passion
4.2.2 Character and Action
4.2.3 Fable
4.2.4 Manners
4.2.5 Verisimilitude
4.2.6 Universal – Particular In DTC
4.2.7 Contrivance
4.3 DTC and Secularisation
4.4 Reception and Controversy
4.5 Heinsius’s Secularising Contributions in DTC and Related Works
5 On The Superiority And Dignity Of History (1613)
5.1 The Greatest Good: Eternal Life
5.2 Universal-Particular in DTC
5.3 Epistemic Humility
5.4 The Politics of Writing History
5.5 History-Writing Polities
5.6 History’s Triumphal March
5.7 Unsecularised Counterparts of Triumph and Immortality through Historiography
6 Hymns to Gods of Frenzy: Lof-Sanck Van Bacchus (1614), Lof-Sanck Van Jesus Christus (1616)
6.1 Background
6.2 Frenzy and the Brethren of the Common Life: The Epistemic Context
6.3 The Lofzangen: Satire, Satyr, Silenos And Christ
6.3.1 The Hymn to Bacchus
6.3.2 Satire
6.3.3 The Hymn to Christ

IV CUNAEUS: SOPHIA’S DREAM
1 Vita Brevis
1.1 Leiden’s Young Zeelanders
2 Sardi Venales
2.1 Brief Introduction: Text, Context, Reception
2.1.1 Text: SV’s Secularising Message
2.1.2 Context: SV’s Secularising Genre
2.1.3 Reception: The Impact of SV’s Secularisation
2.2 Textual Analysis: Text, Context, Reception
2.2.1 SV: The Text
2.2.2 Context
2.2.3 Reception

V GROTIUS: FROM BIBLE CRITICISM TO A THEORY OF WAR AND PEACE
1 Vita Brevis
2 Secularisation In IPC: From Bible Criticism to a Theory of War and Peace
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Textual Analysis
2.2.1 Method and Contexts
2.2.2 Discussion: Cases
3 Conclusion: From Fox to Hedgehog

VI CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK

Appendix
Bibliography
List of Illustrations
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Mark Somos is Lecturer on Law at Harvard University, Research Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Sussex University. He holds a BA (Hons.) in History and an MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History from Cambridge, an AM in Government and Social Policy and a PhD in Political Science from Harvard, an LLM in International Security and Law from Sussex, and a PhD in Law from Leiden. Before returning to Harvard, Mark was a Leverhulme Fellow at Sussex, and a Rechtskulturen Fellow sponsored by the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin at Humboldt University Law School.