Intellectual History Commons^™

Demons & Droids: Nonhuman Animals On Trial, Gerrit D. White

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Nonhuman animal trials are ridiculous to the modern sensibilities of the West. The concept of them is in opposition to the idea of nonhuman animals—entities without agency, incapable of guilt by nature of irrationality. This way of viewing nonhuman animals is relatively new to the Western mind. Putting nonhuman animals on trial has only become unacceptable in the past few centuries. Before this shift, nonhuman animal trials existed as methods of communities policing themselves. More than that, these trials were part of legal systems ensuring they provided justice for all. This shift happened because the relationship between Christian authorities and …

Searching For Answers: Examining Historical Christianity In Nineteenth Century Europe Through Kierkegaard & Nietzsche, Robert Jones

Theses

The Europe of the 1800s saw remarkable change. Previously unthinkable ideas and 'isms' made their way to the forefront of exploration in European society, forcing Christianity to a crossroads it had never before experienced. This thesis examines the fusion of politics and religion into a sort of surrogate religion for the Post-Enlightenment world. Above all, it examines historical Christianity through precedent-setting writers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Given the unique process of secularization in the nineteenth century, both writers offer something often overlooked; the inevitable progress or decline of the Lutheran tradition depends, in true existentialist fashion, on the individual.

More, Pope, Swift: The Use Of English Satire Within The Intellectual Historical Narrative (1516 - 1726), Monica Barry

History | Senior Theses

This paper traces the use of satire as a literary form in England from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. By analyzing three major English satirical writings from the 16th through 18th centuries, this paper unites literature and intellectual history, illustrating how literary analysis provides deeper insight into the progressive relationship between these two major eras in intellectual history. The paper provides a literary criticism of the genre of satire; the use of irony, humor, and exaggeration to criticize one’s vices, often relating to politics. First, the paper explores major concepts and themes of satire during the Renaissance period. Thomas More’s …

The Presbyterian Enlightenment: The Confluence Of Evangelical And Enlightenment Thought In British America, Brandon S. Durbin

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Eighteenth-Century British American Presbyterian ministers incorporated covenantal theology, ideas from the Scottish Enlightenment, and resistance theory in their sermons. The sermons of Presbyterian ministers strongly indicate the intermixing of enlightenment and evangelical ideas. Congregants heard and read these sermons, spreading these ideas to the average colonist. This combination helps explain why American Presbyterians were so apt to resist British rule during the American Revolution. Protestant covenantal theology, derived from Protestant reformers like John Calvin and John Knox, emphasized virtue and duty. This covenant affected both the people and their rulers. When rulers failed to uphold their covenant with God, the …

Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers - Accession 1049, Dorothy Moser Medlin

Manuscript Collection

(The Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers are currently in processing.)

This collection contains most of the records of Dorothy Medlin’s work and correspondence and also includes reference materials, notes, microfilm, photographic negatives related both to her professional and personal life. Additions include a FLES Handbook, co-authored by Dorothy Medlin and a decorative mirror belonging to Dorothy Medlin.

Major series in this collection include: some original 18th century writings and ephemera and primary source material of André Morellet, extensive collection of secondary material on André Morellet's writings and translations, Winthrop related files, literary manuscripts and notes by Dorothy Medlin (1966-2011), copies …

The Catholic Enlightenment. The Forgotten History Of A Global Movement, Ulrich Lehner

Ulrich L. Lehner

No abstract provided.

The Determination Of Man: Johann Joachim Spalding And The Protestant Enlightenment, Michael Printy

Michael Printy

This article uses Johan Joachim Spalding's Bestimmung des Menschen (1748) to explore the transformation of German Protestantism in the second half of the eighteenth century. The text was at once a philosophical and religious meditation about the senses, the spirit, the nature of creation, and the immortality of the soul. In unleashing a set of discussions about the purpose of "man" that went far beyond his apologetical and devotional intention, Spalding laid the groundwork for the culture of modern German Protestantism, and also introduced a rivalry between theology and philosophy that was one of its constitutive and abiding features.

Protestantism And Progress In The Year Xii: Charles Villers' Essay On The Spirit And Influence Of Luther's Reformation (1804), Michael Printy

Michael Printy

This article examines Charles Villers's Essay on the Spirit and Influence of Luther's Reformation (1804) in its intellectual and historical context. Exiled from France after 1792, Villers intervened in important French and German debates about the relationship of religion, history, and philosophy. The article shows how he took up a German Protestant discussion on the meaning of the Reformation that had been underway from the 1770s through the end of the century, including efforts by Kantians to seize the mantle of Protestantism for themselves. Villers's essay capitalized on a broad interest in the question of Protestantism and its meaning for …

The Regeneration Of Hellas: Influences On The Greek War For Independence 1821-1832, Stefanie Chan

CMC Senior Theses

The paper attempts to analyze the greater influences of the Greek War for Independence through an assessment of the greater forces of the. Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Great Power politics

The Intellectual Origins Of Popular Catholicism: Catholic Moral Theology In The Age Of Enlightenment, Michael Printy

Michael Printy

The popular Catholic revival of the nineteenth century was preceded by an intellectual revolution that enabled the Catholic Church to overcome its traditional suspicion of popular religious practices. Central to this transformation was the elaboration of the moral-theological doctrine of equiprobabilism in response to rigorist Augustinian moral pessimism, most fruitfully by Alphonsus of Liguori (1696-1787). His moral theology would set the Church in confrontation with the Catholic Enlightenment. On account of this shift in moral theology, Catholicism was best able of the major Christian churches to preserve within its institutional fold the broad religious revival of the nineteenth century.

From Barbarism To Religion: Church History And The Enlightened Narrative In Germany, Michael Printy

Michael Printy

The subject of this essay is the historical vision of the German Catholic Enlightenment as seen in the work of Michael Ignaz Schmidt, a Catholic priest and author of the eleven-volume History of the Germans (1778–1793). A proper acknowledgement of Schmidt's career helps us revise the standard account of German historicism and historical practice in the eighteenth century, and also sheds light on the place of religion in the German Enlightenment. Schmidt wrote a thoroughly modern ‘history of manners’ that was indebted both to Voltaire and to Robertson. Yet his work passed into obscurity largely because he focused on the …

Folly In The Garden: The Religious Satire Of Erasmus And Voltaire, John M. Beller

Honors Theses

In his introductory editorial comments on Erasmus' letters, literary critic Robert M. Adams commented that "Like Voltaire, with whom it's commonplace to compare him, Erasmus was a prodigious correspondent." Erasmus and Voltaire shared much more than an affinity for writing letters. A list of their similarities reads much like one of those supposedly eerie lists of coincidences between the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. The dates of their respective births remain uncertain. Both may have been illegitimate during times when ancestry mattered a great deal, and neither was born noble. Both rose above their beginnings by means …

1. An Introduction To The Enlightenment, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section X: The Eighteenth Century Enlightenment

The word "Enlightenment" is used to indicate the eighteenth century in the history of ideas of the Western World. It is a word that indicates a sum of ideas about the character of man, his beliefs and activities, and the universe. These ideas have three common assumptions which are at the root of what we mean by the Enlightenment. The thinkers and writers of this period assumed that reason and knowledge will reveal an order inherent in the universe; will disclose the truth about religion, economics, politics, morals - every aspect of life; and, that when man discovers the order …