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Madame De Staël, The Protestant Reformation And The History Of ‘Private Judgement’, Helena Rosenblatt
Madame De Staël, The Protestant Reformation And The History Of ‘Private Judgement’, Helena Rosenblatt
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It is a well-known fact that Madame de Staël held the Protestant Reformation in high regard and preferred Protestantism to all other religions. To her, Protestantism was the most moral and the most enlightened religion available; it was the the religion most compatible with, and even conductive to, progress.
But why was this so, and what exactly did Madame de Staël mean by Protestantism? It is an important question, because answering it will shed light on the nature of her liberalism and, more particularly, on the interconnectedness of her religious and her political views.
On The Intellectual Sources Of Laïcité: Rousseau, Constant, And The Debates About A National Religion, Helena Rosenblatt
On The Intellectual Sources Of Laïcité: Rousseau, Constant, And The Debates About A National Religion, Helena Rosenblatt
Publications and Research
That French Protestants gave strong support to laïcité is by now well established. In recent work, Patrick Cabanel has even made a compelling case for the Protestant sources of laïcité, placing particular emphasis on the Protestant entourage of Jules Ferry (1832-1893) and stressing the inspiration provided by the pro-Protestant intellectual, Edgar Quinet (1803-1875.)
This article suggests that we look even earlier in time for the intellectual sources of laïcité. Seminal ideas can be found in the writings of two liberal Protestants, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Benjamin Constant (1767-1830.) Rousseau is usually counted among the opponents, and not the …