dinsdag 21 augustus 2018

Een Ph.D-thesis waarin #Spinoza slechts zijdelings en toch flink wat aan de orde komt


In het verlengde van het vorige blog over Graeme Hunter’s idiosyncratische Spinoza-lezing, vind ik het wel aardig – hoewel zij niet naar hem verwijst – de dissertatie te brengen van
Lara Marie Apps, Atheist Identity and Ideology in Eighteenth-Century France. Ph.D-thesis University of Alberta, 2016 [PDF]
ABSTRACT:
This dissertation examines atheist identity and ideology in eighteenth-century France up to 1776 through an analysis of numerous atheist texts, including several littleknown clandestine works and the more familiar books of Jean Meslier, Julien Offray de La Mettrie and the Baron d’Holbach. It departs from most previous historiography on pre-modern atheism by fusing intellectual- and cultural-historical approaches; most importantly, it incorporates gender analysis in the interpretation of atheist texts. This research demonstrates the importance of the eighteenth century to our understanding of the continuities and ruptures in the development of atheism.
For eighteenth-century atheists, writing and sharing their views was a way of resisting repression, practicing atheism within a hostile environment, and changing the social imaginary by intervening in a discourse that dehumanized them. Further, the atheist texts express a sense of identity by defining atheists as different from other members of society in several specific ways, including intellectual and moral superiority.
This identity re-humanized atheists but also excluded women and the common people, on the grounds that they were not capable of understanding virtuous atheism. Atheists thus claimed for themselves the positions of wise fathers and leaders. Finally, some atheist writers presented ideological visions of ideal societies, based on the core concepts of the materiality of the world, the necessity of organizing societies rationally in accordance with nature’s laws, and the subordination of individuality to the common good and social or moral order. The atheist ideology was essentially optimistic concerning human progress, but its elitist and patriarchal aspects challenge the view of atheism as necessarily democratic and progressive.
Spinoza komt veel aan de orde. Net als Graeme Hunter tekent zij bezwaar aan tegen de atheïstische en secularistische lezingen van Steven Nadler en Jonathan Israel e.a..
Nog meer is dit te zien als een mooie aanvulling op de in het blog van zaterdag 14 juli 2018 vermeldde masterthese van Kees-Jan van Klaveren, Het maakbare verleden. Verlichtingshistoriografie van Cassirer tot Israel in moreel perspectief.
[Bij gebrek aan een afbeelding neem ik de cover van The Oxford Handbook of Atheism , waar de schrijfster veel gebruik van maakte]

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