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How much of our own self- interest should we be willing to sacrifice for love of another? The Quietists answered, all of it, even the salvation of our own soul. Opposing them were the Jansenists, including Arnauld, who saw self-interest as inescapable. The debate swept across French society in the 17th century, with Bossuet and Fénelon on opposite sides, and was multi- dimensional, with political and ecclesiastical intrigue, charges of heresy, and many shenanigans. Initially theological, the debate’s basis lay in differing philosophical concepts of freewill, with both sides claiming support from Descartes’s views. The debate thus highlights interpretation of the Cartesians, especially Malebranche, a prominent participant in it. Nevertheless, this is the first book on the debate in English.
Price: $160.00
Pages: 300
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History
Publication Date:
11 July 2019
ISBN: 9789004400962
Format: Hardcover
“This book is an excellent contribution to the growing corpus of English-language scholarship on religion in seventeenth-century France and would be of interest to specialists in the religious and intellectual history of that period.”
Elissa Cutter, Georgian Court University. In: Seventeenth-Century News, Vol. 78, No. 3–4 (2020), pp. 154–157.
“Combining close analysis of text and context, Lennon reveals the seventeenth-century concept of love differs in important ways from modern love, and deserves attention today. Scholars across the disciplines will gain from his unique contextualization of thinkers usually studied separately. […] This is an important book that deserves a wide reception.”
Michael B. Riordan, in: Journal of British Studies, Vol. 60, No. 3 (July 2021), pp. 718–719.
Elissa Cutter, Georgian Court University. In: Seventeenth-Century News, Vol. 78, No. 3–4 (2020), pp. 154–157.
“Combining close analysis of text and context, Lennon reveals the seventeenth-century concept of love differs in important ways from modern love, and deserves attention today. Scholars across the disciplines will gain from his unique contextualization of thinkers usually studied separately. […] This is an important book that deserves a wide reception.”
Michael B. Riordan, in: Journal of British Studies, Vol. 60, No. 3 (July 2021), pp. 718–719.
Thomas M. Lennon, Ph.D. Ohio State (1968) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario. He has published Battle of the Gods and Giants (Princeton UP, 1993), Plain Truth: Descartes, Huet, and Skepticism (Brill, 2008), translations of Malebranche and Huet, and many journal articles.