The Hidden Origins of the German Enlightenment (Ideas in Context, Series Number 148)

The early German Enlightenment is seen as a reform movement that broke free from traditional ties without falling into anti-Christian and extremist positions, on the basis of secular natural law, an anti-metaphysical epistemology, and new social ethics. But how did the works which were radical and critical of religion during this period come about? And how do they relate to the dominant 'moderate' Enlightenment? Martin Mulsow offers fresh and surprising answers to these questions by reconstructing the emergence and dissemination of some of the radical writings created between 1680 and 1720. The Hidden Origins of the German Enlightenment explores the little-known freethinkers, persecuted authors, and secretly circulating manuscripts of the era, applying an interdisciplinary perspective to the German Enlightenment. By engaging with these cross-regional, clandestine texts, a dense and highly original picture emerges of the German early Enlightenment, with its strong links with the experience of the rest of Europe. This edition is a revised, expanded and updated translation of Radikale Frhaufklrung in Deutschland 16801720, volume 2, published by Wallstein Verlag, Gttingen in 2018. Cover Half-title Series information Title page Copyright information Contents List of Illustrations Note on Translation List of Abbreviations Introduction: A New History of the Beginnings of the German Enlightenment 1 The Familiar Story 2 The Early Enlightenment in Halle 3 Other Centers, Other Origins 4 Jonathan Israel's Radical Enlightenment Chapter 1 The Mortal Soul: Biblicism, Materialism, and the New Science 1 Mortalist Traditions and the English Debate 2 An Academic Accident 3 Conditions and Contingencies 4 Unorthodox Medical Students in Wittenberg: Bucher, Burghart, Hölmann 5 Innovations Surrounding Tschirnhaus and at the Electoral Saxon Court 6 Discussion with Roeschel and Publication 7 False Trails 8 Bucher's Physiology of the Soul 9 The Wittenberg Style 10 Melanchthon and the Soul 11 The Problem of Body and Soul: A Collision with Halle's Teachings on the Moral Temperaments 12 Publicity and Marketing 13 Reactions to the Correspondence 14 The Late Bucher: Definitions of God with Vanini and Simoni 15 The Treatise, De natura mentis et spiritus 16 Secularization? Chapter 2 Nature and Idolatry: The Ambivalence of the Natural from Henry Stubbe to Christian Gabriel Fischer 1 The Activity of Nature 2 Henry Stubbe and the Odor of Sanctity 3 Stubbe and Boyle 4 The Battle over Nature 5 Andreas Rüdiger and the Egyptians 6 Christian Gabriel Fischer and Wolffianism 7 The Four Fundamental Motifs 8 Distancing Spinoza 9 Conclusion: Between the Radical and Conservative Enlightenments Chapter 3 The Doctrine of Temperaments, Medicine, and the Problem of Atheism 1 The ''German Bayle'' as a Reader of La Mothe le Vayer 2 Friendship and Conflict 3 The Critique of Bayle and the Recognition of National Character 4 Gundling and the Doctrine of Temperaments 5 Hippocrates an Atheist? 6 The Argument 7 Innate Heat in Hippocrates 8 The Connection with Natural Law 9 Opposition to Gundling 10 Subsequent Incomprehension Chapter 4 Natural Law, Religion, and Moral Skepticism 1 ''Modern'' Natural Law 2 Grotius and Skepticism 3 Dissatisfaction with Grotius 4 The Law of Noah and the Early History of Mankind 5 De diis Syris and Oriental Studies in Leipzig 6 Johann Christoph Becmann between Natural Law and the Talmud 7 The Young Johann Franz Budde 8 Juridical Skepticism: Georg Michael Heber 9 The Critique of Grotius by Gassendi and Hobbes 10 The Critique of Grotius in the Symbolum sapientiae 11 Budde Strikes Back: Dissertatio de scepticismo morali 12 Heinrich von Cocceji, Budde, and the Will of God 13 The End of lex divina positiva universalis 14 The End of the Pythagoras Narrative Chapter 5 From Becmann to Stosch: The Socinian Contexts of the Concordia rationis et fidei (1692) 1 The Concordia rationis et fidei 2 A New Document 3 A Fluid Situation 4 Jean Le Clerc's Pseudonymous Epistolae theologicae 5 The Socinians, Stosch, and Spener's Sermons of 1691-1693 6 Samuel Crell and the Court Preachers of Brandenburg 7 Bartholomäus Stosch and Socinianism 8 The Search for Bergius's Autograph Manuscript 9 Friedrich Wilhelm Stosch and His Contacts 10 Professor Becmann's Lecture 11 Becmann's Literary Round Table 12 Michael Servetus's De Christianismi restitutio in Frankfurt on the Oder 13 Stosch's Concordia rationis et fidei 14 A Short Summary of a Complex Situation Chapter 6 The Founders of Religion as Human Beings: Moses and Jesus between Inflation and Deflation 1 Inflating and Deflating Moses 2 Omniscient Moses: An All-Knowing Hero? 3 The Influence of the Libertine Tradition and the Abyss of Accommodation Theory 4 Power Politics and Deceptive Knowledge: The Uses of Hellenistic Literature Opposed to Moses 5 Destruction or Reorganization? Moses in the ''Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns'' 6 Mohammed 7 A ''Natural'' Jesus 8 A Clandestine Manuscript 9 The Professor and His Collector 10 The Circle Around Hardt 11 Löscher's Review of De Josepho 12 Early Circulation 13 The Road to the Enlightenment Conclusion Bibliography Manuscript Sources Amsterdam, Universiteitsbibliotheek Berlin, Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz Danzig, Technische Universität Dessau, Landesarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek Dresden, Sächsisches Landeshauptarchiv Dresden, Stadtarchiv Erfurt, Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hildesheim, Stadtarchiv Karlsruhe, Landesbibliothek Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine Rome, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Wolfenbüttel Wroclaw, Universitätsbibliothek Zurich, Zentralbibliothek Printed Primary Sources Secondary Sources Index "The book offers an original reconstruction of long-forgotten but vital controversies among German figures in the "early" Enlightenment, c. 1680-1720, and also explores how the mainstream of the early Enlightenment in Halle and the underground of the fragmented "radical Enlightenment" were mutually dependent on each other"-- Provided by publisher