Life Forms in the Thinking of the Long Eighteenth Century / / Keith Baker, Jenna Gibbs.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter UTP eBook-Package 2014-2016
• HerausgeberIn: Baker, Keith,
• Author: Gibbs, Jenna ,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2017]; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Series: UCLA Clark Memorial Library Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (280 p.)

For many years, scholars have been moving away from the idea of a singular, secular, rationalistic, and mechanistic "Enlightenment project." Historian Peter Reill has been one of those at the forefront of this development, demonstrating the need for a broader and more varied understanding of eighteenth-century conceptions of nature. RediscoveringLife Forms in the Thinking of the Long Eighteenth Century is a unique reappraisal of Enlightenment thought on nature, biology, and the organic world that responds to Reill's work. The ten essays included in the collection analyse the place of historicism, vitalism, and esotericism in the eighteenth century - three strands of thought rarely connected, but all of which are central to Reill's innovative work. Working across national and regional boundaries, they engage not only French and English but also Italian, Swiss, and German writers.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part One. History as a Life Form -- 1. Johann Christoph Gatterer and History as Science / Gierl, Martin -- 2. An Epicurean Democracy in Language: The volte face in Johann David Michaeli's Early Career / Lifschitz, Avi -- 3. Reill's Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment and German Naturphilosophie / Zammito, John -- Part Two. Vitalism in Political and Cultural Translation -- 4. "That Infinite Variety of Human Forms": Modern Identity and Portraiture in Enlightenment England / Ogée, Frédéric -- 5. Was Marat a Vitalist? / Baker, Keith Michael -- 6. The Vital Organism in the Thought of Humboldt and Mill / Pangburn, Kris -- Part Three. Esotericism and the Enlightenment -- 7. Constructs of Life Forms in Lavater's Physiognomy / Graczyk, Annette -- 8. The Preaching Philosopher: Andreas Weber (1718-81) between Wolffian Philosophy and Heterodox Theology / Geffarth, Renko -- 9. Between Myth and Archive, Alchemy and Science in Eighteenth-Century Naples: The Cabinet of Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of San Severo / Donato, Clorinda -- 10. The Liberal Mysticism of Madame de Staël / Rosenblatt, Helena -- Contributors -- Index