In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Christian Humanism in the Age of Critical Philology:Ralph Häfner's Gods in ExileMartin MulsowHäfner's book is a monumental study and a milestone of German-language research.1 He delineates, for the first time, a comprehensive picture of the Christian humanism of European philologists in the era of criticism. Recovering an immense wealth of forgotten sources, the book reveals the complex interaction and tension between pagan mythology and Christian culture in philological controversies. (...) Though authors might denounce the pagan histories of gods as fabulae, they were constitutive for the productive and emulative reception of ancient Greco-Roman patterns in Renaissance and Baroque culture. How could the peculiar logic of this paganizing be handled? Was it advisable to have faith in the integrative power of Christian truth, which was capable of finding precursors or even proofs of one's own truth in pagan patterns, or should the pagan be selectively separated from the Christian? And what was the role of philology in this process? Did the growing expertise in criticism advance the process of dissociation of paganism and Christianity? Did it further new possibilities of synthesis in the spirit of Apologetics? [End Page 659]The reconstruction of these processes involves much more than what the book's very specific title suggests. It is a large-scale history of scholarship written from the perspective of the most important tensions that Christian humanism had to overcome in its final stage. From an Anglo-American perspective, this book contributes to recent reconstructions of ideas of early modern men of learning, as well as the growing number of studies on antiquarianism and the history of religion.2 The final stage of Christian humanism, the period of time covered by the book, begins in the late sixteenth century and ends in the 1730s, a point in time which Häfner presents, with some justification, as the end of an era.Hymnology and PolymathyThe study consists of three basic parts. The first one is the "Persistence of Orphic-Platonic Hymnology in Christian Humanism" ("Fortleben der orphisch-platonischen Hymnologie im christlichen Humanismus"). This topic, apparently very specialized and marginal, proves to be a key arena of early modern scholarship, an arena traversed by the battle lines between pagan tradition and Christianity as well as between poetry and theology. Were hymns inspired poetry? What kind of inspiration could and should be conceded to hymns to Jupiter and the sun? Of course, those humanists who reappropriated Orphism and Neo-Platonism were interested in this genre. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and even into the mid-sixteenth century, this was not yet a problem. However, the more philological consciousness (and confessionalization) evolved, the more the genre's scope was delimited. What scope remained? Häfner relates the problem to the revival of an "eclectic Platonism" in the wake of the Second Sophistic. This "eclectic Platonism," which was particularly influential from 1500 on, combined Platonism with rhetorics, and the claim of comprehensive polymathy with the joyful presentation of the findings of reading. In this respect, Apuleius and Aulus Gellius were two model authors for early modern polyhistors. We must include Martianus Capella as a continuation of the "Renaissance of the Second Sophistic into Early Christian Encyclopedism" [End Page 660] ("Renaissance der Zweiten Sophistik bis in die frühchristliche Enzyklopädie hinein," p. 18).Häfner's approach is starkly original and, in my opinion, highly productive for the current debates about early modern encyclopedism and "cultures of knowledge" that are sometimes deadlocked.3 Too frequently, polymathy is used synonymously for encyclopedism, which is often associated with modern concepts of systematic classification. Yet, according to Häfner, this is a misunderstanding. It neglects the playful elements and skillful rhetorical options of throwing questions out into the open rather than narrowing them dogmatically. Perhaps the only addition to Häfner's sources could have been Louis de Cressolles's Theatrum veterum Rhetorum, which, according to Marc Fumaroli in L'age de l'éloquence, marked the return of the Second Sophistic.4 The analysis of the work of Gerhard Johannes Vossius, a classical philologist who resided in Leyden and Amsterdam, is the first test for Häfner... (shrink)

Prekäres Wissen handelt nicht von den großen Themen der Metaphysik und Epistemologie, sondern von Randzonen wie der Magie und der Numismatik, der Bibelinterpretation und der Orientalistik. Es geht nicht nur um Theorien, sondern auch um Furcht und Faszination, nicht um die großen Forschergestalten, sondern um vergessene und halbvergessene Gelehrte. Es ist ein Buch voller spannender Geschichten, eine andere Ideengeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit und zugleich der ambitionierte Versuch, den Begriff des Wissens selbst im Zeichen des" material turn", des" iconic turn"und der (...) Kommunikations- und Informationsgeschichte neu zu denken. (shrink)

Online supplement, "Mulsow: Additions to Notes drawn from the 2002 edition of Moderne aus dem Untergrund" full versions of nearly 300 notes that were truncated in the print edition. Hosted on H. C. Erik Midelfort's website. Martin Mulsow's seismic reinterpretation of the origins of the Enlightenment in Germany won awards and renown in its original German edition, and now H. C. Erik Midelfort's translation makes this sensational book available to English-speaking readers. In Enlightenment Underground, Mulsow shows that (...) even in the late seventeenth century some thinkers in Germany ventured to express extremely dangerous ideas, but did so as part of a secret underground. Scouring manuscript collections across northern Europe, Mulsow studied the writings of countless hitherto unknown radical jurists, theologians, historians, and dissident students who pushed for the secularization of legal, political, social, and religious knowledge. Often their works circulated in manuscript, anonymously, or as clandestinely published books. Working as a philosophical microhistorian, Mulsow has discovered the identities of several covert radicals and linked them to circles of young German scholars, many of whom were connected with the vibrant radical cultures of the Netherlands, England, and Denmark. The author reveals how radical ideas and contributions to intellectual doubt came from Socinians and Jews, church historians and biblical scholars, political theorists, and unemployed university students. He shows that misreadings of humorous or ironic works sometimes gave rise to unintended skeptical thoughts or corrosively political interpretations of Christianity. This landmark book overturns stereotypical views of the early Enlightenment in Germany as cautious, conservative, and moderate, and replaces them with a new portrait that reveals a movement far more radical, unintended, and puzzling than previously suspected. (shrink)

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.

Drawing on new manuscript sources, this volume offers seven contributions on Hermann Samuel Reimarus, the most significant biblical critic in eighteenth-century Germany, as well as an eminent Enlightenment philosopher, a renowned classicist ...

Around 1700 collective efforts arose throughout Europe and in Germany in particular to compile dictionaries of anonymous and pseudonymous works. Why this sudden urge to "unmask" the hidden identities of authors? This essay seeks to establish a relationship between these efforts to identify potential heresy and emphasizes the ambivalent aspects of the learned guardians of order as a "police force of learning." It connects the reconstruction of practices of learning with reflections about the development of a critical public sphere and (...) it strives to combine the History of Scholarship with newer research on the establishment of a clandestine underground during the Enlightenment period. At the same time, the subject matter presents itself as relevant for contemporary discussions about anonymity and authorship, as well as pseudonymity, intellectual property, and the protection of privacy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eclecticism or Skepticism? A Problem of the Early EnlightenmentMartin MulsowEclecticism has its own logic.1 According to this logic, eclecticism is an attitude which seeks to free itself from sectarian doctrines and to achieve a more objective position above all such groups. However, many revolutions end by catching their own tails, and this attitude quickly deteriorates into the definition of just another sect, taking the original argument for eclecticism with (...) it. Germany’s self-styled “eclectic” philosophy found itself in just such a self-destructive phase at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the very point at which the concept was beginning to be used much more widely, as a recent comprehensive study by Michael Albrecht has demonstrated.2 Taking Albrecht’s observations as my basis, I wish to draw upon the example provided by two thinkers and some previously neglected material to consider in greater depth a problem which characterizes a part of the eclectic movement of the early German Enlightenment: the tense relationship between eclecticism and radical skepticism.3 [End Page 465]Jakob Friedrich Reimmann, SkepticAs a young man, Jakob Friedrich Reimmann, the great scholar and historian of philosophy and scholarship, was one of the most resolutely skeptical philosophers of the early Enlightenment.4 In an anonymous contribution to the eighth volume of the Observationes selectae, which appeared in 1704, Reimmann raises the question: was Solomon a skeptic?5 The anonymity which protected this article, as it did all others which appeared in Halle’s periodical,6 made it possible for Reimmann to experiment with unorthodox ideas, including some which had to do with the then-fashionable eclecticism. He could thus include such criticism of eclecticism as:[I]t is not so, as you say, that a distinction must be made between sectarians and eclectics. For it is possible to prove from induction that eclectics also disagree among themselves about knowledge of fundamentals, and that they do not agree among themselves any better than the clocks of a large town. What could be found wiser, what more pious, what better than the hypotheses of the Pyrrhonists?7Contemporary eclecticism, he asserted, was nothing other than a reproduction of the various individual sects because its own arguments mirrored their fundamental differences. Reimmann’s risky suggestion was that this eclecticism should be replaced by a pyrrhonism which would be better able to fulfil the original intentions of the “eclectic” philosophers. [End Page 466]Reimmann’s article has a somewhat cryptic relationship to Joachim Lange’s Medicina Mentis of 1704.8 Reimmann replies to this work without referring to it explicitly. Lange had written a history of philosophy as a history of corruption (a historia philomoriae, of the love of madness), according to which philosophy could only become blinder when, after the fall of Adam and the loss of Old Testament wisdom, it moved away from its origin. This argument was combined with an eclectic psychological logic in the style of Buddeus and Poiret. Reimmann is revenging himself for the “collubus,” that is, for Lange’s twisting of the ideas which Reimmann had discussed with him in confidence to portray them falsely as godless. The tensions between Thomasius and Lange, which increased after 1702, may also have played a role in the background. It is possible here to see the close contact and discussions which preceded the publication of books in Halle. From the safety of his anonymity Reimmann responds that it is ridiculous to try to sell the patriarchs as philosophers, but that, if one must do so, then Solomon can only be seen as a skeptic, if not a pyrrhonist. French libertines had already shocked the church with this assertion at the beginning of the seventeenth century,9 and it is significant that this tendency [End Page 467] reappears in the midst of the eclecticism of the early Enlightenment. Reimmann cites La Mothe le Vayer extensively.It seems logical, then, that Reimmann should have taken a critical position against Thomasian eclecticism as early as 1697 in his Schediasma philosophicum de Logices Aristotelicae, Rameae, Cartesianae & Electivae insufficientia.10 With Johann Jakob von Ryssel, a student of Thomasius, Reimmann develops the concept of “eclectic doubt”; his growing experience... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 65.1 (2004) 1-13 [Access article in PDF] Ambiguities of the Prisca Sapientia in Late Renaissance Humanism Martin Mulsow University of Munich The wisdom of the ancients, says Marsilio Ficino, was a pious philosophy.1 Born among the Egyptians with Hermes Trismegistus—and, according to Ficino's later writings, concurrently among the Persians with Zoroaster—it was raised by the Thracians under Orpheus and Aglaophemus. It later (...) matured under Pythagoras among the Greeks and Italians and culminated in Plato. As is well known, this genealogy was not merely a historical thesis for Ficino and his followers but also a program for revival, a utopia achieved through restoration. For the assertion of a concordance between these early philosophies and their accordance with Christianity—in the sense of a Christian Platonism—implied the synthesis of fragementary philosophemes into a fully developed doctrine in the service of a uniform and timely philosophia pia.This program was formulated in a variety of ways during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with differing protagonists and with diverse aims. Thus one could supplement the genealogy in a cabalist vein, introduce biblical characters such as Solomon or Moses, or (as was done by Bruno) use it to contest Christian doctrine. The genealogy could be read as culminating in various notable modern figures such as for example, Paracelsus. Aristotle could be included or excluded from it, depending on whether one wanted to assimilate the Aristotelian tradition or to distance oneself from it; and one could leave the end [End Page 1] of this genealogical lineage open in order to exhort the necessity of a scientific and moral reform.Here, however, we shall be occupied with the question of what became of this program during the late Renaissance, when two developments took place simultaneously: on the one hand, the utopia of the prisca sapientia set about to conquer the field formerly reserved to the Aristotelians, namely, natural philosophy; on the other hand, the first doubts arose about the overall validity of the historical-philological foundation of the program, especially the dating of the works of Hermes Trismegistus. The latter began with the publication of the first part of Patrizi's Discussiones peripateticae in 1571,which aimed to rehabilitate, contrary to Aristotle's critique, old presocratic natural philosophies, and in so doing it cleared the way for interpreting the latest advancements in non-Aristotelian natural sciences as resumptions of these very philosophies.2 This initiated a period of complex interaction between late humanist philology, innovative natural science, and speculative metaphysics.This phase, however, not only entailed the grand synthesizing endeavors that one finds in Patrizi's Nova de universis philosophia;it also introduced historical critique—no doubt provoked by Patrizi—of the Hermetic prisca sapientia, understood in Frances Yates's sense, which was performed in careful detail long before Casaubon at the end of the Renaissance.3 Further, it was a phase characterized by an attempt to reevaluate Aristotelian philosophy against its opponents, which paradoxically was also motivated by Patrizi yet which managed to keep the venture open to "esoteric" depths. All of these developments were intertwined, and each effected the articulation of encyclopedic projects at the beginning of the seventeenth century. On the basis of manuscripts, letters, and some neglected texts, I want to introduce two such countercurrents, which illustrate how the migration of arguments from one cultural context to another can lead to wholly divergent and unexpected results. Moreover, these results show the diverse consequences that a prisca sapientia-utopia could have for different visions of encyclopedic scholarship.I. In the bookshop of Paolo Meietti in Padua, Teodoro Angelucci and Antonio Persio met accidentally on an autumn day in 1558. Meietti was the publisher of Angelucci's medical textbook as well as of texts by Patrizi and his [End Page 2] colleague Giannini, and it is possible that Persio was out to discuss publishing possibilities for his forthcoming manuscript De natura ignis. In any case, they were there for business-related matters, so it was quite natural for Persio to... (shrink)

The seventeenth-century debates about idolatry had a powerful influence, not only in theology and in religious struggles but in other disciplines as well. Since these debates have fallen into oblivion, their influence in an array of disciplines has been eclipsed or underestimated. Though they focused on ancient Israel and ancient Egypt, it is evident how much they structured nascent ethnology, the study of the religions of the New World, and exotic cultures. Moreover, they shaped the discourse about politics, for instance, (...) in the critique of absolutism as "political idolatry." Yet there is an area in which the influence of the idolatry debates is least expected, namely, natural science, or more specifically, physics. Did physics in the age of the Scientific Revolution have anything to do with the problem of idolatry? I intend to show that it did indeed. (shrink)

Der Sammelband führt den Begriff der Spätrenaissance-Philosophie für diejenigen intellektuellen Strömungen in Deutschland bis zur Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts ein, die sich als Erben der- vor allem italienischen- Renaissance fühlten und dennoch deren Spekulationen mit lutherischer oder reformierter Schulmetaphysik amalgamierten. In dreizehn Fallstudien wird von namhaften Forschern die ganze Breite dieses Prozesses in Metaphysik und Anthropologie, Ästhetik und Ethik, Philologie und Religionsphilosophie beschrieben.

The intellectual Huguenot Refuge is one of the most important movements in Early modern Europe. This volume provides new information about one of its centres: about Berlin, and on the extremely important role Huguenot scholars played disseminating Enlightened thought.

Das Buch versteht sich zugleich als Begriffsgeschichte von "Selbsterhaltung" in der Renaissance und als Rekonstruktion der Philosophie Bernardino Telesios (1509-1588), der den Begriff erstmals zum Zentrum neuzeitlicher Naturphilosophie und Ethik gemacht hat. Telesios Denken wird aus internen Entwicklungen der aristotelischen Philosophie und der galenischen Medizin verständlich gemacht, und es wird gezeigt, wie seine "defensive Modernisierung" zugleich zum Katalysator für spekulative philosophische Entwicklungen am Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts wird: bei Bruno, Patrizi, Stelliola und Campanella. Denn anders als in der als "Beharrung" (...) gedachten conservatio sui nach Descartes geht es in der Begriffsentwicklung der Renaissance um Sensualität, Ähnlichkeit und Lebenswärme. (shrink)

Band 1. Moderne aus dem Untergrund -- Band 2. Clandestine Vernunft.

The contribution explores the demands that arise when, instead of speaking of »intellectual history« or »history of ideas«, one proposes using once again the term »Geistesgeschichte« – to be sure, in a methodologically revised form. In that case, it is argued here, the synthetic claims that inhere in the concept »Geist« understood as a singular term would have to be reformulated in a manner keyed to contemporary assumptions. The essay makes several recommendations how that could occur.

El socinianismo, o más ampliamente el antitrinitarismo, fue comparado muchas veces con el islam: tanto la herejía cristiana como la religión musulmana rechazan la doctrina de la Trinidad y consideran que Jesús fue tan solo un profeta y no un dios. De hecho, hay numerosos vínculos históricos entre las dos corrientes. Desde Miguel Servet, el Corán y las escrituras islámicas tuvieron un gran impacto en la crítica emergente sociniana. Los antitrinitarios intentaron establecer una genealogía histórica que iba desde el primer (...) cristianismo de los ebionitas hasta el presente, pasando por el islam (que preservó la verdadera idea monoteísta). A menudo los antitrinitarios adquirieron sus conocimientos de las obras mucho más ortodoxas de los arabistas cristianos, que incluían, por ejemplo, traducciones de pasajes sacados de la crítica a San Pablo de al-Qarafi. Además, algunos escritores atrevidos, como Aubert de Versé, propusieron incluso un enfoque histórico-crítico para el texto del Corán basándose en el modelo de la crítica histórica del Antiguo Testamento de Richard Simon. (shrink)

When authors act by either publishing or non-publishing their texts, they sometimes use a language of gestures. These gestures can assist to position the author in the intellectual field. In this way some German eighteenth-century philosophers who thought against the grain of mainstream rationalism withdrew from the public sphere, using the image of the Egyptian god Harpocrates, who puts his index finger to his lips—a symbol for maintaining silence. In a sense one can thus label this kind of quietism as (...) “harpocratism.” The essay examines the imagery and contextualizes it in three case studies from the years 1720-50. Moreover, it explores its sources in political as well as antiquarian and hermetic discourses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The essay serves as a model for defining intellectual positions not so much by their content, but rather by their practices of symbolic distancing from others, of building identities in emotional communities, and of shaping free zones of inquiry where they could flourish. (shrink)

As a member of the Illuminati Order, Karl Leonhard Reinhold wrote an – hitherto unknown – expert report about an internal manuscript on “The development of the forces of our mind” in January 1785. The manuscript had outlined a materialist theory of sensations and a conception of the interplay of the drives of pleasure and self-preservation. Reinhold, being in his early Kantian phase, criticized the materialism of this theory. In his own development, however, Reinhold returned soon to the topic of (...) the drive of pleasure (in his. (shrink)

Jakob Friedrich Reimmann steht zwischen Barock und Aufklärung. Er ist einer der großen Vertreter der Literaturgeschichte (Historia litteraria) im frühen 18. Jahrhundert, jener vergessenen Disziplin, die Bildungs-, Wissenschafts- und Buchgeschichte sein wollte und von Reimmann in systematischer Weise für viele Disziplinen und Kulturen durchgeführt worden ist. Sein Werk kann als exemplarisch für die Spannungen gelten, die sich zwischen einem traditionellen Vertrauen auf eine providentiell geordnete Geschichte und der neuen, skeptisch-hypothetischen Wissenschaftskultur ergaben.

In this timely book L.W. Sumner addresses these issues within the wider context of palliative care for patients in the dying process.