J C Laursen
Biographic Data
| ID | 172075 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J C Laursen |
| GIVEN NAMES | J C |
| FAMILY NAME | Laursen |
| SIGNATURE | LAURSEN J C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Riverside |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0028-4149 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Sofía Casanova and Emma Goldman from Difference to Convergence on the Russian Revolution
This article compares the reactions of Sofía Casanova (1861–1958) and Emma Goldman (1869–1940) to the Russian Revolution. On most issues, the Gallegan Catholic, bourgeois, conservative, monarchist, and anti-communist Sofía Casanova did not agree with the Russian and North American socialist, communist, anarchist, internationalist, and advocate of free love Emma Goldman. But political labels are surprisingly unhelpful when comparing the attitudes …
Superior minds’ and proportional representation: John Stuart Mill’s political elitism, then and now
There have been at least two general reasons for promotion of proportional representation in elections around the world.John Stuart Mill supported proportional representation in part because he thought it would make possible the election of better educated people to legislative assemblies, which would in turn make for better laws.Carl Andrae promoted it because he needed a method of avoiding the exclusion of minorities from legislative influence,…
Utopia and Religion in Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
When European writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wrote about utopia or their vision of the best possible way to live, they usually included reflections on religion. Religion as it was known in their day was not perfect and had been criticized for causing numerous abuses. If a perfect or near-perfect society were to be imagined, it would have to include a perfect or near-perfect understanding of religion. This could range from ath…
Religious progress and perfectibility in Benjamin Constant’s enlightened liberalism
Benjamin Constant's On Religion was a major effort to include religion within liberal political thought, insisting on the possibility of religious progress and perfectibility. It was also a major critique of Catholicism and of clericalism in any form. And it was one of the most wide-ranging comparative studies of religion since it purported to cover all religions worldwide before Christianity. Constant worked on it for most of his adult life, mor…
Feijoo, medicine, and skepticism
Benito Feijoo (1676-1764) was one of the most important mediators to the public of the latest scientific and philosophical ideas in Spain in the eighteenth century. A self-conscious critic of all sorts of ideas and a member of the republic of letters, he also called himself a skeptic. At first, that meant allying himself with physician Martín Martínez, a famous critic of Aristotelianism in medicine who also called himself a skeptic. After support…
Brian Ribeiro, Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers
La renuncia de Thomas Mann a la ironía en la política
Thomas Mann desarolló una de las teorías más sútiles de la ironía durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, declarando que la mejor ironía era la ironía contra los dos lados de cualquier asunto. Tal ironía no era incompatible con el amor por la humanidad, y aun por ambas partes. Podría justificarse a Mann por usar la ironía contra ambos bandos de esa guerra. Pero tras el ascenso nazi, Mann abandonó la ironía contra los dos bandos e ironizó solo contra e…
Clandestine Philosophy: New Studieson Subversive Manuscrips in Early Modern Europe, 1620-1823
Ancient constitutions and modern monarchy: Historical writing and enlightened reform in Denmark-Norway 1730–1814
It is perhaps no surprise to anyone that people's understandings of their national history will go a long way toward explaining their political positions. The hard part for coming to understand oth
Northern Declarations of Freedom of the Press: The Relative Importance of Philosophical Ideas and of Local Politics
In recent works on the Enlightenment and the origin of modern Western thought, there is often a dichotomy between Moderate versus Radical Enlightenment. This essay evaluates the early experiences of freedom of print in Sweden and Denmark against the backdrop of such assertions. Sweden and Denmark were widely diverging polities but they obtained officially recognized freedom of the press at almost the same time. The conclusion is that by the secon…
Steffen Ducheyne, editor. Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment
The Radical Enlightenment has been the topic of a great deal of analysis over the past forty years, but there is still no scholarly consensus about what it means. Steffen Ducheyne’s edited volume Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment brings together sixteen scholars to try to work toward a better understanding of it. Two of the most influential figures, Jonathan Israel and Margaret C. Jacob, reaffirm their views in polemic with others, including …
Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754): Learning and literature in the Nordic enlightenment, edited by Knud Haakonssen and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen
Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754): learning and literature in the Nordic enlightenment, edited by Knud Haakonssen and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen." Intellectual History Review, 28(2), pp. 339–340
Responses to Religious Division, c. 1580–1620: Public and Private, Divine and Temporal
Responses to Religious Division, c. 1580–1620: Public and Private, Divine and Temporal. Natasha Constantinidou. St Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Leiden: Brill, 2017. xiv + 288 pp. $137. - Volume 71 Issue 4
Christian Thomasius, el Estado de derecho y la separación entre Iglesia y Estado
Christian Thomasius fue, ante todo, un profesor de Derecho que utilizó su formación jurídica para resolver todo tipo de problemas legales, políticos y morales. En este artículo veremos que dos de sus escritos plasmaron parte de su contribución a la articulación de las relaciones apropiadas entre religión y política en la modernidad. Asimismo, utilizó el incipiente concepto de Estado de derecho (rule of law) para defender a Denis Veiras, autor de …
Property and Freedom: A Beauvoirian Critique of Hume's Theory of Justice and a Humean Answer
David Hume and Simone de Beauvoir agree that human beings have a great deal of control over their moral and political lives, which is well captured in Hume's assertion that "mankind is an inventive species". But Hume argues that the most important thing needed to settle our social lives and determine justice is the agreement on rules of property, while Beauvoir thinks that the rules of property will never be enough to establish the best life, but…
Part I: Pierre Bayle’s Reply of a New Convert (1689)
This is the first English translation of Pierre Bayle’s political pamphlet, Réponse d’un nouveau converti à la Lettre d’un refugié of 1689. It may be one of the most critical attacks on a writer’s own side in the history of political ideas. It is a stinging rebuke of Bayle’s own party, the Protestants, for their incoherence, hypocrisy, and violence. It came three years after his similarly savage refutation of the Catholics in The Condition of Who…
Empires for Peace: Denis Veiras's Borrowings from Garcilaso de la Vega
Writing The History of the Sevarambians in the 1670s, the Huguenot Denis Veiras borrowed many ideas from Garcilaso de la Vega, also known as El Inca, whose Royal Commentaries of the Incas was published in 1609. Both works describe the history of an empire and justify it on the ground that it brought peace and unity. While Garcilaso’s book purported to be a history, his selection of facts reflected his goal of improving the treatment of the Incas …
Pierre Bayle's The Condition of Wholly Catholic France Under the Reign of Louis the Great (1686)
This is the first English translation of Pierre Bayle's political pamphlet, Ce que c'est que la France toute catholique of 1686. Now that Bayle has received renewed attention from scholars such as Jonathan Israel and Gianluca Mori, it is time to introduce his political ideas to English-speaking readers who cannot read the original. And although a selection of the political writings from the Historical and Critical Dictionary has been published, m…
Blind spots in the toleration literature
Classic theories of religious toleration from the 17th century regularly made exceptions for various categories of people such as Catholics and atheists who need not be tolerated. From a contemporary perspective these may be understood as blind spots because at least some of us would argue that these exceptions were not necessary. This essay explores the toleration theories of John Milton, Benedict de Spinoza, Denis Veiras, John Locke and Pierre …
Skepticism in the Modern Age: Building on the Work of Richard Popkin
Since the publication of the first edition of Richard Popkin’s classic The History of Scepticism in 1960, skepticism has been increasingly recognized as a major force in the development of early modern philosophy. This book provides a review of current scholarship and significant updated research on some of the main thinkers and issues related to the reappraisal of ancient skepticism in the modern age. Special attention is given to the nature, im…
Popkin' Skepticism And The Cynical Tradition
Censorship in the Nordic Countries, ca.1750–1890: Transformations in Law, Theory, and Practice
GermanFrenchZensur in den Ländern Nordeuropas von ca. 1750–1890: Wandlungsprozesse in Recht, Theorie und PraxisDas Zensurwesen in Nordeuropa unterlag im Zeitraum von 1750–1890 einem starken Wandel. Die institutionelle Vorzensur wurde durch eine teilweise Aufhebung der Zensur 1766 in Schweden und durch die generelle Abschaffung in Dänemark 1770 ins Wanken gebracht. Die explosionsartig nun in großer Zahl erscheinenden Pamphlete und Periodika behand…
Oakeshott’s Skepticism and the Skeptical Traditions
English philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) called himself a skeptic at various times, and yet his writings reveal little or no engagement with either of the major Hellenistic skeptical traditions, Pyrrhonism and Academic skepticism. Although he argued that the best way to understand ourselves is to look at the mirror of our intellectual inheritance, he did not look at this one. Furthermore, commentators on Oakeshott’s skepticism have also ig…
Irony and toleration: Lessons from the travels of Mendes Pinto
Rebecca Catz argues that Fernao Mendes Pinto's «Peregrination», a sprawling account of travels in the East first published in 1614, is a «plea for toleration». Richard Rorty says that irony is a good mode for postmodern intellectual life. But attention to the text suggests «that Mendes Pinto provided» a much more subtle and nihilistic irony than Rorty imagines, and that his text is a plea for toleration in only the most attenuated sense
Kant: A Biography
III. The Subversive Kant: The Vocabulary of “Public” and “Publicity
Northern Declarations of Freedom of the Press: The Relative Importance of Philosophical Ideas and of Local Politics
In recent works on the Enlightenment and the origin of modern Western thought, there is often a dichotomy between Moderate versus Radical Enlightenment. This essay evaluates the early experiences of freedom of print in Sweden and Denmark against the backdrop of such assertions. Sweden and Denmark were widely diverging polities but they obtained officially recognized freedom of the press at almost the same time. The conclusion is that by the secon…
Sources of knowledge of Sextus Empiricus in Kant's time: A French translation of Sextus Empiricus from the Prussian academy, 1779
Etude de la premiere traduction francaise du traite de Sextus Empiricus «Contre les logiciens» publiee en 1779 par Jean de Castillon, membre de l'Academie des sciences de Prusse, a la demande de Frederic Le Grand. Apportant de precieux renseignements sur la politique philosophique du XVIII e siecle, cette traduction francaise pourrait etre la source de la connaissance de Sextus Empiricus pour Kant, dont on sait que la connaissance du scepticisme …
Part I: Pierre Bayle’s Reply of a New Convert (1689)
This is the first English translation of Pierre Bayle’s political pamphlet, Réponse d’un nouveau converti à la Lettre d’un refugié of 1689. It may be one of the most critical attacks on a writer’s own side in the history of political ideas. It is a stinging rebuke of Bayle’s own party, the Protestants, for their incoherence, hypocrisy, and violence. It came three years after his similarly savage refutation of the Catholics in The Condition of Who…
Empires for Peace: Denis Veiras's Borrowings from Garcilaso de la Vega
Writing The History of the Sevarambians in the 1670s, the Huguenot Denis Veiras borrowed many ideas from Garcilaso de la Vega, also known as El Inca, whose Royal Commentaries of the Incas was published in 1609. Both works describe the history of an empire and justify it on the ground that it brought peace and unity. While Garcilaso’s book purported to be a history, his selection of facts reflected his goal of improving the treatment of the Incas …
Pierre Bayle's The Condition of Wholly Catholic France Under the Reign of Louis the Great (1686)
This is the first English translation of Pierre Bayle's political pamphlet, Ce que c'est que la France toute catholique of 1686. Now that Bayle has received renewed attention from scholars such as Jonathan Israel and Gianluca Mori, it is time to introduce his political ideas to English-speaking readers who cannot read the original. And although a selection of the political writings from the Historical and Critical Dictionary has been published, m…
Blind spots in the toleration literature
Classic theories of religious toleration from the 17th century regularly made exceptions for various categories of people such as Catholics and atheists who need not be tolerated. From a contemporary perspective these may be understood as blind spots because at least some of us would argue that these exceptions were not necessary. This essay explores the toleration theories of John Milton, Benedict de Spinoza, Denis Veiras, John Locke and Pierre …
Censorship in the Nordic Countries, ca.1750–1890: Transformations in Law, Theory, and Practice
GermanFrenchZensur in den Ländern Nordeuropas von ca. 1750–1890: Wandlungsprozesse in Recht, Theorie und PraxisDas Zensurwesen in Nordeuropa unterlag im Zeitraum von 1750–1890 einem starken Wandel. Die institutionelle Vorzensur wurde durch eine teilweise Aufhebung der Zensur 1766 in Schweden und durch die generelle Abschaffung in Dänemark 1770 ins Wanken gebracht. Die explosionsartig nun in großer Zahl erscheinenden Pamphlete und Periodika behand…
Oakeshott’s Skepticism and the Skeptical Traditions
English philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) called himself a skeptic at various times, and yet his writings reveal little or no engagement with either of the major Hellenistic skeptical traditions, Pyrrhonism and Academic skepticism. Although he argued that the best way to understand ourselves is to look at the mirror of our intellectual inheritance, he did not look at this one. Furthermore, commentators on Oakeshott’s skepticism have also ig…
Irony and toleration: Lessons from the travels of Mendes Pinto
Rebecca Catz argues that Fernao Mendes Pinto's «Peregrination», a sprawling account of travels in the East first published in 1614, is a «plea for toleration». Richard Rorty says that irony is a good mode for postmodern intellectual life. But attention to the text suggests «that Mendes Pinto provided» a much more subtle and nihilistic irony than Rorty imagines, and that his text is a plea for toleration in only the most attenuated sense
Spinoza in Denmark and the Fall of Struensee, 1770-1772
Journal of the History of Ideas - Volume 61, Number 2, April 2000
Books in Review
III. The Subversive Kant: The Vocabulary of “Public” and “Publicity
Adam Smith as Legal and Constitutional Theorist
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Adam Smith as Legal and Constitutional Theorist
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Beyond reasonable doubt’ and ‘probable cause’: Historical perspectives on the Anglo-American law of evidence
Publicity and cosmopolitanism in late elghteenth-century Germany
Swiss Anti-skeptics in Berlin
Cicero in the Prussian Academy: Castillon's translation of the Academica
Idealism and Freedom: Essays on Kant's Theoretical and Practical Philosophy
Sources of knowledge of Sextus Empiricus in Kant's time: A French translation of Sextus Empiricus from the Prussian academy, 1779
Etude de la premiere traduction francaise du traite de Sextus Empiricus «Contre les logiciens» publiee en 1779 par Jean de Castillon, membre de l'Academie des sciences de Prusse, a la demande de Frederic Le Grand. Apportant de precieux renseignements sur la politique philosophique du XVIII e siecle, cette traduction francaise pourrait etre la source de la connaissance de Sextus Empiricus pour Kant, dont on sait que la connaissance du scepticisme …
Spinoza in Denmark and the Fall of Struensee, 1770-1772
Journal of the History of Ideas - Volume 61, Number 2, April 2000
Sozietatslandschaft und Mitgliederstrukturen: Die mitteldeutschen Aufklarungsgesellschaften im 18. Jahrhundert
Kant: A Biography
Irony and toleration: Lessons from the travels of Mendes Pinto
Rebecca Catz argues that Fernao Mendes Pinto's «Peregrination», a sprawling account of travels in the East first published in 1614, is a «plea for toleration». Richard Rorty says that irony is a good mode for postmodern intellectual life. But attention to the text suggests «that Mendes Pinto provided» a much more subtle and nihilistic irony than Rorty imagines, and that his text is a plea for toleration in only the most attenuated sense
Censorship in the Nordic Countries, ca.1750–1890: Transformations in Law, Theory, and Practice
GermanFrenchZensur in den Ländern Nordeuropas von ca. 1750–1890: Wandlungsprozesse in Recht, Theorie und PraxisDas Zensurwesen in Nordeuropa unterlag im Zeitraum von 1750–1890 einem starken Wandel. Die institutionelle Vorzensur wurde durch eine teilweise Aufhebung der Zensur 1766 in Schweden und durch die generelle Abschaffung in Dänemark 1770 ins Wanken gebracht. Die explosionsartig nun in großer Zahl erscheinenden Pamphlete und Periodika behand…
Oakeshott’s Skepticism and the Skeptical Traditions
English philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) called himself a skeptic at various times, and yet his writings reveal little or no engagement with either of the major Hellenistic skeptical traditions, Pyrrhonism and Academic skepticism. Although he argued that the best way to understand ourselves is to look at the mirror of our intellectual inheritance, he did not look at this one. Furthermore, commentators on Oakeshott’s skepticism have also ig…
Skepticism in the Modern Age: Building on the Work of Richard Popkin
Since the publication of the first edition of Richard Popkin’s classic The History of Scepticism in 1960, skepticism has been increasingly recognized as a major force in the development of early modern philosophy. This book provides a review of current scholarship and significant updated research on some of the main thinkers and issues related to the reappraisal of ancient skepticism in the modern age. Special attention is given to the nature, im…
Popkin' Skepticism And The Cynical Tradition
Blind spots in the toleration literature
Classic theories of religious toleration from the 17th century regularly made exceptions for various categories of people such as Catholics and atheists who need not be tolerated. From a contemporary perspective these may be understood as blind spots because at least some of us would argue that these exceptions were not necessary. This essay explores the toleration theories of John Milton, Benedict de Spinoza, Denis Veiras, John Locke and Pierre …
Pierre Bayle's The Condition of Wholly Catholic France Under the Reign of Louis the Great (1686)
This is the first English translation of Pierre Bayle's political pamphlet, Ce que c'est que la France toute catholique of 1686. Now that Bayle has received renewed attention from scholars such as Jonathan Israel and Gianluca Mori, it is time to introduce his political ideas to English-speaking readers who cannot read the original. And although a selection of the political writings from the Historical and Critical Dictionary has been published, m…
Part I: Pierre Bayle’s Reply of a New Convert (1689)
This is the first English translation of Pierre Bayle’s political pamphlet, Réponse d’un nouveau converti à la Lettre d’un refugié of 1689. It may be one of the most critical attacks on a writer’s own side in the history of political ideas. It is a stinging rebuke of Bayle’s own party, the Protestants, for their incoherence, hypocrisy, and violence. It came three years after his similarly savage refutation of the Catholics in The Condition of Who…
Empires for Peace: Denis Veiras's Borrowings from Garcilaso de la Vega
Writing The History of the Sevarambians in the 1670s, the Huguenot Denis Veiras borrowed many ideas from Garcilaso de la Vega, also known as El Inca, whose Royal Commentaries of the Incas was published in 1609. Both works describe the history of an empire and justify it on the ground that it brought peace and unity. While Garcilaso’s book purported to be a history, his selection of facts reflected his goal of improving the treatment of the Incas …
Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754): Learning and literature in the Nordic enlightenment, edited by Knud Haakonssen and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen
Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754): learning and literature in the Nordic enlightenment, edited by Knud Haakonssen and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen." Intellectual History Review, 28(2), pp. 339–340
Responses to Religious Division, c. 1580–1620: Public and Private, Divine and Temporal
Responses to Religious Division, c. 1580–1620: Public and Private, Divine and Temporal. Natasha Constantinidou. St Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Leiden: Brill, 2017. xiv + 288 pp. $137. - Volume 71 Issue 4
Christian Thomasius, el Estado de derecho y la separación entre Iglesia y Estado
Christian Thomasius fue, ante todo, un profesor de Derecho que utilizó su formación jurídica para resolver todo tipo de problemas legales, políticos y morales. En este artículo veremos que dos de sus escritos plasmaron parte de su contribución a la articulación de las relaciones apropiadas entre religión y política en la modernidad. Asimismo, utilizó el incipiente concepto de Estado de derecho (rule of law) para defender a Denis Veiras, autor de …
Philosophy (30 works) · Philosophy (19 works) · Political science (18 works) · Law (15 works) · Art (14 works) · Epistemology (14 works) · Politics (13 works) · History (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Sociology (9 works)