Religion, science and moral philosophy in the Huguenot Enlightenment
Jean Henri Samuel Formey and the Berlin Academy
Religion, Science and Moral Philosophy in the Huguenot Enlightenment makes two significant contributions to existing scholarship on the Enlightenment. Firstly, as an author, journalist, translator, and inexhaustible letter writer, the Huguenot pastor and secretary of the Berlin Academy of Science, Samuel Formey, was involved in most of the philosophical debates in the European Republic of Letters during the second half of the eighteenth century. This is the first monograph dedicated solely to Formey’s multifaceted work. Secondly, the book recasts the concept of Religious Enlightenment by considering Formey as a pastor-philosopher whose concept of philosophy included revealed religion instead of perpetuating the image of him as an ‘enemy of Enlightenment’ who opposed the philosophy of his time by referring to religion.
More precisely, the book explores the notion of the compatibility between reason and faith in Formey’s thought on the existence of God, the freedom of will, divine providence and other questions relating to religion and metaphysics. It shows how Formey altered his portrayal of the relation between reason and faith depending on the genre and immediate context of his writings. The broader contextualisation of Formey’s arguments in German rationalist philosophy and Calvinist theology unveils not only the overlaps between Wolffianism and eighteenth-century Calvinism but also gives an impression of the diversity of the thought of Huguenot pastors and philosophers during the Enlightenment.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgements |
| Abbreviations |
| Introduction |
| Reason and faith in the Enlightenment |
| The Huguenots and the Enlightenment |
| Religious Enlightenment |
| Method and structure of the book |
| Philosophy as a universal science of reason |
| The epistemological foundations of Christian philosophy |
| The Christian philosopher in the French debate about the ‘true’ philosopher |
| Early Huguenot socialisation |
| Acquaintance with Wolffianism |
| Formey’s transition from pastor to professor of philosophy |
| Philosophical preaching between Calvinist homiletic reform and Wolffianism |
| Formey’s transformation of philosophical sermons into moral philosophical essays |
| Secularisation of morality |
| Rationalism against scepticism: Formey’s dictionary entry for ‘God’ |
| Metaphysics against physico-theology: Formey’s revision of the teleological proof of God |
| Formey and Maupertuis on metaphysics |
| Newtonians against Wolffians: Perception of the debate by two groups of contemporaries |
| Popularising Wolff’s philosophy: Formey’s Belle wolfienne |
| Formey’s multi-vocal criticism of pre-established harmony and the nexus rerum |
| The origins of Formey’s criticism |
| An empirical science of the soul |
| Free will between absolute necessity and liberty of indifference |
| The free will debate at the Berlin Academy |
| The Berlin Academy’s 1751 prize essay competition on the theme of providence |
| The ‘real’ theory of fortune: Formey and the winning essay |
| The debate between Formey and Boullier about Leibnizian optimism |
| Formey on Rousseau’s Discours sur les sciences et les arts |
| Formey’s scientific moral philosophy |
| Divine and natural law in Formey’s moral philosophy |
| Conclusion – Religious Enlightenment between Calvinism and Wolffianism |
| Bibliography |
| Archival material |
| Primary sources |
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