Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment

We’re reading Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment this week for Rienk Vermij’s Early Modern Science class.  I was a little skeptical about the book after reading the introduction.  Israel challenges several of my preconceived historiographical expectations: first by identifying the period of 1680-1750 as being the primary period of advancement for the Enlightenment, rather than the later high-Enlightenment; he also emphasizes the conflict between the church and science/philosophy which would seem a step back from the complexity thesis of interaction between religion and science.

While the language and focus of the introduction are bold and enthusiastic, Israel offers impressive evidence in the book to prove his theses.  He appears to be extremely well read in this time period covering an impressively broad swath of European intellectuals.  His writing is succinct, cohesive, and convincing.

Still, I think that Israel is somewhat disingenuous with his choice of evidence and representation of several actors as either a philosopher or a theologian.  Israel cites many philosophers as heretics much feared by the church, although several of his examples were in fact members of the clergy.  None of the churches of the day were monolithic sources of thought but rather had internal disputes and political squabbles between their vast memberships.  His suggestion that the progress of the Enlightenment was completed by 1750 also seems to assume some sort of teleological inevitability of change and to deny the importance of popularizers like Voltaire (Israel explicitly sets out to downplay the importance of Voltaire.  I just disagree with this aim).

Anyway, I would recommend the book in that its aim is bold and the writing is good.  I need to read the whole thing more closely and further digest, but I think it’s worth at least a skim.

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