Be sober and reasonable : : the critique of enthusiasm in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries / / by Michael Heyd.

• Superior document: Brill's studies in intellectual history, volume 63
• VerfasserIn: Heyd, Michael,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, New York : : E.J. Brill,, 1995.
• Year of Publication: 1995
• Language: English
• Series: Brill's studies in intellectual history ; v. 63.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (325 pages)

Be Sober and Reasonable deals with the theological and medical critique of “enthusiasm” in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and with the relationship between enthusiasm and the new natural philosophy in that period. “Enthusiasm” at that time was a label ascribed to various individuals and groups who claimed to have direct divine inspiration — prophets, millenarists, alchemists, but also experimental philosophers, and even philosophers like Descartes. The book attempts to combine the perspectives of Intellectual history, Church history, history of medicine, and history of science, in analysing the various reactions to enthusiasm. The central thesis of the book is that the reaction to enthusiasm, especially in the Protestant world, may provide one important key to the origins of the Enlightenment, and to the processes of secularization of European consciousness.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER ONE: THE THEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF ENTHUSIASM -- CHAPTER TWO: MELANCHOLY AND ENTHUSIASM: THE SOURCES OF THE MEDICAL CRITIQUE OF ENTHUSIASM -- CHAPTER THREE: \'STRANGE, BUT NATURAL EFFECTS\': THE MEDICAL CRITIQUE OF ENTHUSIASM IN THE WORKS OF MERIC CASAUBON AND HENRY MORE -- CHAPTER FOUR: DESCARTES AND THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY: A MANIFESTATION OF ENTHUSIASM? -- CHAPTER FIVE: THE NEW EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY: A MANIFESTATION OF \'ENTHUSIASM\' OR AN ANTIDOTE TO IT? -- CHAPTER SIX: SCRIPTURE AND REASON: THE NEW THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ON THE EVE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT -- CHAPTER SEVEN: THE NEW MEDICAL DISCOURSE AND THE THEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF ENTHUSIASM -- CHAPTER EIGHT: SHAFTESBURY AND THE LIMITS OF TOLERATION CONCERNING ENTHUSIASM -- CHAPTER NINE: MECHANISM AND ENTHUSIASM: FROM EXPLICIT ANTAGONISM TO IMPLICIT ALLIANCE -- CONCLUSION: THE CRITIQUE OF ENTHUSIASM AND THE PROBLEM OF SECULARIZATION -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX.