Items related to The Enlightenment and Original Sin (The Life of Ideas)

The Enlightenment and Original Sin (The Life of Ideas) - Softcover

Kadane, Matthew

 
9780226832890: The Enlightenment and Original Sin (The Life of Ideas)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0226832899 ISBN 13: 9780226832890
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2024

Synopsis

An eloquent microhistory that argues for the centrality of the doctrine of original sin to the Enlightenment.

What was the Enlightenment? This question has been endlessly debated. In The Enlightenment and Original Sin, historian Matthew Kadane advances the bold claim that the Enlightenment is best defined through what it set out to accomplish, which was nothing short of rethinking the meaning of human nature.

Kadane argues that this project centered around the doctrine of original sin and, ultimately, its rejection, signaling the radical notion that an inherently flawed nature can be overcome by human means. Kadane explores this and other wide-ranging themes through the story of a previously unknown figure, Pentecost Barker, an eighteenth-century purser and wine merchant. By examining Barker’s personal diary and extensive correspondence with a Unitarian minister, Kadane tracks the transformation of Barker’s consciousness from a Puritan to an Enlightenment outlook, revealing through one man’s journey the large-scale shifts in self-understanding whose philosophical reverberations have shaped debates on human nature for centuries.

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About the Author

Matthew Kadane is professor of history at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. He is the author of The Watchful Clothier: The Life of an Eighteenth-Century Protestant Capitalist.

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Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Publication date
2024
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0226832899
ISBN 13 
9780226832890
Binding
Paperback
Number of pages
250