Description Interprets an “increasingly visible weariness and distrust towards democracy” and proposes the construction of contemporary “Academies of Art” to aid in the education of “mature” citizens. Lachenmann interpolates his remarks into two discourses. First, […]
Tag Archives: philosophy
Man a Machine
Description Julien Offray de La Mettrie was one of the earliest French Enlightenment materialists. Exiled from France after publishing a book (A Natural History of the Soul) arguing that psychical phenomena could be explained by […]
The Paradox of the Automaton: From Diderot to Cybernetics
Description A concise and provocative history of the idea of automata from Diderot to the present. She argues that the automaton is the cornerstone of modern knowledge and its powers. Creator Martineau, Julie Publisher Montréal: […]
Machine and Organism
Description Canguilhem inverts the normal scientific question–what is the mechanism underlying this organic process?–and asks how machines are organic. He traces the history of the relationships between organism and machine from the ancient Greek political […]
The Great Cat Massacre
Description Translated into 18 languages to date, this work is delightful read and also gets one thinking about the many ways in which we impose our own cultural assumptions, inaccurately, on previous eras; very useful […]
Enlightenment and Pathology: Sensibility in the Literature and Medicine of Eighteenth-Century France
Description Vila’s study is now a classic, not only for its revealing interdisciplinary treatment of sensibility but also for its precise methodology and the clarity of its prose. Creator Vila, Anne Publisher Johns Hopkins, 1997 […]
La Mettrie’s L’Homme Machine
Description Vartanian establishes the authoritative French text of La Mettrie’s L’Homme Machine, and several essays on its background, claims, its materialism, and its place in 18th Century science. Creator Vartanian, Aram Publisher Princeton: Princeton University […]
Nature: Course Notes from the College de France
Description Merleau-Ponty, one of the greatest 20th Century thinkers of perception, the body, and its operation in the natural world, gives a course on the history of nature and its relationship with human freedom and […]
Medicine in the Boudoir: Sade and Moral Hygiene in Post-Thermidorean France
Description Situates Sade’s work into the cultural and intellectual context during the Age of Enlightenment by focusing on Sade’s engaged approach to scientific culture, epistemology and social reforms and analyzes his medical appropriation of these […]
The Theology of Climate Change: Sin as Agency in the Enlightenment’s AnthropoceneThe Theology of Climate Change: Sin as Agency in the Enlightenment’s Anthropocene
Creator Barnett, Lydia Publisher Environmental History 20 (2015): 217–37. Contributor White, Sam Language English Type Article