The volume presents the illuminating research carried out by international scholars of Locke’s thought and the early modern period in general. The essays address the theoretical and historical contexts of Locke’s analytical methodology and come together in a multidisciplinary approach that sets biblical hermeneutics in relation to his philosophical, historical, and political thought, and to the philological and doctrinal culture of his time. Centring on the last decade of Locke’s life and the publication of his posthumous works, these studies illustrate (...) the influence that his interpretation of the Bible and the Christian tradition had on eighteenth-century thinkers and controversialists. The contextualization of Locke’s biblical hermeneutics within the contemporary reading of the Bible contributes to the analysis of the figure of Christ and the role of Paul, St.’s theology in political and religious thought from the seventeenth century to the Enlightenment. The volume sheds light on how Locke was appreciated by his contemporaries as a biblical interpreter and exegete. It also offers a reconsideration that overarches interpretations confined within specific disciplinary ambits and his own intellectual biography to address Locke’s thought in a global historic context. (shrink)

Not unlike the Catholics, the English Reformed circles—the Church of England—upheld the legitimacy of the Revelation and miracles, recognised the Mosaic account of creation, original sin and the Trinity, the non-corporeal nature of spiritual substance, the eternity of punishment or reward and the primacy of Church over State. And so where did Locke’s hermeneutics fit into this complex panorama in terms of the interpretations of Christian anthropology and the resurrection? As underscored in the early chapters of The Reasonableness of Christianity, (...) Locke does not appear to consider that the sin of Adam has to fall on the whole of posterity, and again there is no positive affirmation of the Trinity in this work which, although it is not named, in effect proves to be incompatible with the definitions of person and individual identity which he provides in the Essay concerning human understanding. (shrink)

Damaris Cudworth Masham was convinced that the “useful knowledge” has a theoretical, practical and pedagogic content. Man has a social destiny and we cannot offend the divine wisdom assuming that religion precludes this approach and expects the breakdown of society. Reason therefore has a prominent character on the will and free will is the pillar of moral practice. This thought reveals an affinity with the Lockean concept of “person” and “identity” and the central role of individual liberty for love of (...) God and for an ordered and social life. Thanks also to her intellectual relationship with Locke, her “philosophical salon” at Oates become the meeting point for overseas and English scholars, such as Jean Le Clerc, Pierre Des Maizeaux, Pierre Coste, the III Earl of Shaftesbury. Through original sources the paper focus the intellectual legacy of Damaris Masham. (shrink)

[Esotericism. One-day Workshop about the Annale n. 25 of the Storia d'Italia Einaudi]. This section contains the proceedings of the one-day workshop on the book Esoterismo, published as the Annale n. 25 in the collection "History of Italy" by Einaudi. The workshop was organized by ISPF on the October 26, 2011 to promote the discussion on the significance of Western esotericist traditions in Italian history. S. Caianiello’s introduction highlights some major concepts and goals of the recent field of studies about (...) Western Esotericism, and some open problems about its definition. M. Cambi comments on the substantial transformation of esotericist themes in Giordano Bruno’s natural philosophy, whereby the sources of the magician’s power are completely enclosed in the realm of nature, thus rejecting any transcendent foundation. M. Conforti focuses on "the function and opportunities" offered by the Western Esotericism approach "to the genesis and development of early modern science" and comments from this perspective on different contributions in the volume, emphasizing however the importance of largely pre-existing traditions in the history of science and medicine which have long challenged the wiggish separation between science and magic, rational and irrational thought. L. Simonutti provides new material to the general theme, with a historical-philosophical analysis of the esotericist elements in Picart’s iconography of the 18th Century edition of "Cymbalum mundi". F. Sofia discusses the effective role of esotericist traditions in the attempts to establish a "civil religion" in Italy from Risorgimento to Fascism, a history in which, she argues, it is difficult to establish "how much esotericism was an intentional choice or the product of an unavoidable nicodemism". C. Castellano reviews the contributions dedicated to the "political teology" of Italian Risorgimento, dealing in depth with the complex relationship between Freemasonry and Carbonari in Italy – in her view, more of a cultural than of a strictly political connection – and highlights the relevance of the anticurial component in their esotericist inspiration. G.M. Cazzaniga, author and editor of the Annale, beyond reacting to the different stimuli offered by the discussion, provides a brief history of Western Esotericism studies in Europe and of the reasons of their difficult reception in Italy. (shrink)

From Gerdil to Marugi: Malebranchean Revival and Lockean Readings. For the Cardinal Gerdil, the only philosophical reflection able to combine aspects of Post-Cartesian philosophy with Augustinian Platonism and to provide an explanation of the spirituality of the soul and of the philosophically plausible and pragmatic mind-body interaction in an apologetic reflection on religion was the philosophy of Malebranche. Committed to the defence of the immortality of the soul and the vision of all things in God which found favour in English (...) neo-Platonic thinking, Gerdil becomes one of the protagonists of Italian culture engaged in the European philosophical debate developed against Lockean reason and in defence of Neoplatonism and Cartesianism. To form an emblem of rationalistic rationalism and materialism in metaphysics and religion was a task of certain Italian thinkers, including Muratori, Francesco Zanotti, Marugi and Francesco Soave, and in particular Cardinal Gerdil. (shrink)

Uneasiness is an issue of our time that has strongly resurfaced under the pressure of the pandemic. It is a kind of anxiety which is not caused only by the lack of something: it rather contains a push for change, releasing the power to choose and to act.

The volume presents illuminating research carried out by international scholars of Locke and the early modern period. The essays address the theoretical and historical contexts of Locke’s analytical methodology and come together in a multidisciplinary approach that sets biblical hermeneutics in relation to his philosophical, historical, and political thought, and to the philological and doctrinal culture of his time. The contextualization of Locke’s biblical hermeneutics within the contemporary reading of the Bible contributes to the analysis of the figure of Christ (...) and the role of Paul’s theology in political and religious thought from the seventeenth century to the Enlightenment. The volume sheds light on how Locke was appreciated by his contemporaries as a biblical interpreter and exegete. It also offers a reconsideration that overarches interpretations confined within specific disciplinary ambits to address Locke’s thought in a global historic context. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Dutch history of the golden century, a formula which had effectively imposed this interpretative paradigm well beyond the seventeenth century, has been analysed in a more conscientious manner by more recent historiography. This has tempered the hagiographic reading and confirmed the fact that, in the second half of the century, the question of tolerance had become primarily a political conquest and a value shared by other nations. A supernational, European value, but which had also begun to cross the Atlantic (...) several decades earlier. It is interesting to explore how writers facing each other across the two shores of the Channel, on one side observed and interpreted and on the other side presented themselves, offering to foreign eyes the concept of tolerance that had been consolidated in the Netherlands. In the appendix to the essay, besides sinignifcative images, is transcribed the rare and meaningful pamphlet titled ‘A LETTER from HOLLAND, touching Liberty of Conscience, &c.’. (shrink)

L’article de Luisa Simonutti traite de la critique et de la reprise de certains concepts clés de la pensée de Socin (liberté, volonté, responsabilité) par des arminiens de Hollande. Cet héritage complexe est plus qu’un épisode de la réaction vaste et articulée qui se manifesta à la fin du XVIe siècle – et qui s’étendit sur tout le XVIIe siècle – contre les œuvres et les idées du Siennois. Cet événement doit aussi être interprété comme le moment d’une confrontation plus (...) large en défense de la libertas prophetandi et du libre arbitre de l’homme face aux lois et à la volonté divines. (shrink)

This article deals with the fear aroused by a pervasive and intangible disease caused by an imperceptible and indeterminate element: a virus. The author does not investigate the multiple historical-political-psychological aspects of the disease nor the social medicine issues which it arises. She rather wonders if and how this disease is intervening in our lives modifying our relationship with other people.

Shaftesbury’s “Irregular” Readers in Holland.Shaftesbury numbered among his friends and correspondents many dissidents and réfugiés whom he had met in Furly’s house in Rotterdam. These included Pierre Bayle, Jacques Basnage, van Limborch, Pierre Des Maizeaux, Pierre Coste and Jean Le Clerc. Dealing essentially with literary matters and comments on contemporary publishing ventures, the letters between the Englishman and the dissidents not only accompany the publication in French of some of Shaftesbury’s works and their reviews in the leading intellectual journals, but (...) also contain important reflections on the relations between morals and politics. Readers, reviewers and translators of Shaftesbury’s works, dissidents and Huguenot réfugiés, not only fostered the circulation of his thought abroad but were interpreters of it and continued to be essential benchmarks in the eyes of the eighteenth-century philosophers, like Leibniz and Diderot. (shrink)