Catharine Macaulay and the concept of “radical enlightenment”

Margaret Jacob and Jonathan Israel have offered somewhat differing accounts of what they call the “Radical Enlightenment”; the elements of enlightenment thought which resulted in the radical political upheavals of the late eighteenth century and the rise of democratic republicanism. Jonathan Israel, in particular, insists that the radical enlightenment was radical both in its secular rejection of all providentialist and teleological metaphysics, as well as radical in its democratic tendencies. This paper looks at the way in which Catharine Macaulay’s very influential defense of the equal rights of men, during the lead up to the American and French revolutions, poses problems for Israel’s account of the radical enlightenment and it argues that the religious foundation of her political radicalism was characteristic of many of her contemporaries, thus fitting in better with Jacob’s more ecumenical account of the radical enlightenment than with Israel’s more purely secular characterization

Democracy · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Teleology · Theology · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment · Religious studies · Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought

• Looking beyond women’s feminist thought in history

  Gerard Bol•History of European Ideas•2024

  Incluir item

• Utilitarianism in the Age of Enlightenment

  Niall O'Flaherty•Utilitarianism in the Age of…•2018

  Incluir item

• Enlightenment Contested

  Jonathan I Israel, Jonathan Israel•ENLIGHTENMENT CONTESTED:…•2006

  Incluir item

• A History of Women's Political Thought in Europe, 1700–1800

  Open Access•Karen Green•History of Women's Political…•2014

  Incluir item

• The English Republican tradition and eighteenth-century France

  Rachel Hammersley•The English republican tradition…•2010

  Incluir item

• A Revolution of the Mind

  Jonathan Israel•Revolution of the Mind•2009

  Incluir item

• Radical Enlightenment

  Jonathan I Israel, Jonathan Israel•Radical Enlightenment•2001

  Incluir item

• The Correspondence of Edmund Burke

  Carl B Cone, Edmund Burke et al.•The William and Mary Quarterly•1959

  Incluir item

• The Radical Enlightenment

  Nina Rattner Gelbart, Margaret C Jacob•Eighteenth-Century Studies•1983

  Incluir item

• L iberty and V irtue in C atherine M acaulay's E nlightenment P hilosophy

  K Green•Intellectual History Review•2012

  Incluir item

• The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence

  Dora Mae Clark, W S Lewis et al.•The American Historical Review•1942

  Incluir item

• Catharine Macaulay's History and Her Catalogue of Tracts

  Bridget Hill, Christopher Hill•The Seventeenth Century•1993

  Incluir item

• Catharine Macaulay’s enlightenment faith and radical politics

  K Green•History of European Ideas•2018

  Incluir item

• Ethics

  Fred Feldman, J L Mackie•The Philosophical Review•1979

  Incluir item

• The Uses and Abuses of Nietzsche in the Third Reich

  Open Access•Max Whyte•Journal of Contemporary History•2008

  Incluir item

• Catharine Macaulay and the Uses of History

  Open Access•Lynne Withey, Lynne E Withey•Journal of British Studies•1976

  Incluir item

• The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence

  Robert K Root, W S Lewis et al.•Modern Language Notes•1945

  Incluir item

• The Rights of Woman and the Equal Rights of Men

  Open Access•K Green•Political Theory•2021

  Incluir item

• Radical Enlightenment

  Siep Stuurman•History Workshop Journal•2002

  Incluir item

• The Expanding Blaze

  Patrick Griffin, Patrick R Griffin•Journal of American History•2018

  Incluir item

• Thomas Jefferson's Use of the Past

  H Trevor Colbourn•The William and Mary Quarterly•1958

  Incluir item

• The Lamp of Experience

  Staughton Lynd, H Trevor Colbourn•The William and Mary Quarterly•1966

  Incluir item