Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750

The book begins with the philosophy of Descartes which is widely regarded as overthrowing the philosophy of scholasticism and initiating the modern period. Descartes developed a dualism with a mechanistic philosophy of nature and a spiritual philosophy of mind. It was the first of many attempts to reconcile theology with the newly developed scientific outlook.

But the focus of Professor Israel's study is on Spinoza (1632-1677.) Spinoza rejected Cartesian dualism and developed his philosophy equating God and Nature. He rejected a transcendental God, providence, miracles, revelation, and transcendental bases for human ethics. Spinoza developed his ideas in his Ethics while in his earlier and almost equally important Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza developed the basis for modern Bible criticism.

Professor Israel argues that Spinoza's thought constitutes the basis for what he terms "radical enlightmentment", which rejected theology and revealed religion in favor of a philosophy of mechanism and determinism. Radical enlightenment proved to be a potent weapon in rejecting the divine right of kings and other forms of privilege, in promoting democracy and the rights of women, in encouraging free speech and free thought, and in allowing people to pursue happiness, in particular sexual fulfillment, in this world without fear of hells and punishments in the next world. Spinoza influenced many scholars and thinkers and also, Israel points out, had substantial influence on unlettered people of his time.

Professor Israel contrasts the Radical Enlightenment emanating from Spinoza with "moderate enlightenment". Moderate enlightenment sought, as I indicated above, to reconcile mechanism and science with traditional religious faith, to the extent possible. Professor Israel identifies three separate strains of moderate enlightenment: Cartesianism, the monadic philosophy of Leibniz and Wolff, and the deism and empiricism of Locke and Newton. Most of the book is about Radical Enlightenment and its impact and about the interplay between Radical Enlightenment on the one hand and Moderate Enlightenment and traditionalism on the other hand.

The book includes a good basic exposition of the thought of Spinoza. (The exposition of Descartes thought and of the teachings of scholasticism is less thorough.) The major theme of the book is that Spinoza's ideas were not simply those of an isolated recluse; rather, his ideas became widely known and disseminated even during his lifetime, and became the basis for much of the secular, modern thought and life we have today.

Israel discusses a plethora of sources, some well-known some highly obscure in which various thinkers from throughout Europe (another theme of Israel's book is that Enlightenment was European in character and shared essentially the same features in all European countries) adopted and promulgated Spinozistic doctrines. The books and individuals are fascinating, as are the conflicts many of them encountered with civil and religous authorities. He discusses how many writers had to try to present their teachings covertly (i.e. by appearing to criticize Spinozism while in fact advocating it.) in order to attempt to avoid conflict. There are also extended treatments of Leibniz and Locke and their interactions with Radical Enlightenment.

For the most part, Professor Israel avoids explicit comment on the philosophical merits of the many ideas and thinkers he explores. The reader is left to think through the issues on the basis of his descriptions and from the words of the thinkers themselves. It is a fascinating study.

I have long been a student of Spinoza and came away from this book awed by the wealth of learning displayed in this book and by the scope and influence of Radical Enlightenment in the years following Spinoza's death. Philosophically, I came away from this book with a new appreciation of the virtues of Western secularism and with a renewed understanding of the dear price that has been paid for the intellectual liberation of the mind and heart. It is a journey that every person must undertake for him or herself, and many people may reach results that differ from those reached during the age of Radical Enlightenment. Spinoza's goal (shared with the religious thinkers whom he rejected) was to find the path to human blessedness, enlightenment, and happiness by freeing the mind. I got a good sense of the value of this search through reading this masterful book.


fascinating study of Spinozist history   January 19, 2003
H. F. Gibbard (Dark City, USA)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

It is surprising, really, that the thought of Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677) is not more well-known. After all, Spinoza laid the groundwork for many of the assumptions that have become dominant in scientific and philosophical thought over the past three centuries. Long before Darwin, he declared that the essence of a thing was its striving to exist. He said the universe has no purpose, that God was the infinite force behind nature itself, and that people should be allowed to believe whatever they wanted about religious matters. He made these statements during the same century when one-third of the population of Germany was anihilated in a religious war, and when women were still being burned as witches. His thoughts, most of which were published only after his death or circulated in manuscript form during his lifetime, set off a explosion of philosophical thought and a firestorm of criticism. Spinoza's reputation never truly recovered from the savage attacks and he remains an undiscovered philosopher for many in our day.

"Radical Enlightenment" is the history of the Spinozist firestorm, and it is a brilliant history indeed. Jonathan Israel leaves no stone unturned in his search for the influence of Spinoza's thought on Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Europeans. From Spain to Russia, from Holland to Italy, he carefully catalogues the broad sweep of what he calls "The Radical Enlightenment": the philosophical movement that refused to compromise with traditional notions. This work is a magnificent study of everything one could want to know about this movement, including an interesting study of the clanestine dissemination of manuscripts a la Robert Darnton.

My only caveat for the reader (other than the length of the work, which may be daunting for the non-specialist) is that Israel assumes a familiarity with the French language, including its Seventeenth Century variants. Passages in Dutch and Latin are scrupulously translated, but the reader is on his or her own for long stretches of French quotations. Anyone with a working knowledge of modern-day French should be able to get through these passages (the language hasn't changed THAT much), but the person without any French may feel somewhat lost at times.


Decent five stars, but not six or seven   March 27, 2003
S. Matthews (Mainz, Germany)
21 out of 25 found this review helpful

A good overview of early enlightenment intellectual culture. Unfortunately, the first book it made me think of was Paul Hazard's The European Mind (an seven star book, if ever there was one), which it clearly sets it self up as a successor to, and while more than honorable effort, it is not a book on that scale. Maybe that is unfair: Hazard is on my list of 10 best of all time, and anyway an academic would not be allowed to write a like Hazard these days, but nevertheless, Israel does not bring Spinoza or his buddies alive , never mind make me wish I could invite them to dinner, in the same way that Hazard does with Pierre Bayle, and that is a flaw.
On the other hand, I have learned from Israel that things never change: the sort of rants you encounter in the New Criterion on Derrida, Rorty, et al., are uncannily like the sorts of rants that Israel records being directed against Spinoza, and that lesson is more than enough to justify five stars.

Minor - and slightly disturbing - production quibble: for a book by OUP, the text is badly proofed. I do not mean that it is littered with gramatical errors, but this is the first time I have read an OUP book where I regularly stumbled over badly constructed sentences. Or is it just Israel's style?

Finally, why isn't Paul Hazard's 'The European Mind' in print in English?


Modernity's seminal emergence   December 2, 2002
John C. Landon (New York City)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

We see the climactic moment of the Enlightenment,and the explosion at the end of the eighteenth century generating a new age and world, yet we often fail, save in the clearer case of science, to see the crucial lead-up to this passage. And behind many of the major figures there is a precursor, thus Petty before Adam Smith. The emergence of feminism, yes here the signs. And the list continues. This work systematically explores this aspect of modernity and the Enlightenment by tracing its roots back to the Radical Enlightenment of the seventeenth century, as Europe emerges from the chaos of the Thirty Years War. There Spinoza, beside a host of lesser known figures, and contrary to reputation, is a major underground influence, besides Newton and Descartes. Intimated by Hazard in his older La Crise de la conscience Europeene, this thesis is stretched backwards further from the 1680's by Israel, with a broader sweep transcending nationalism, even as he throws light on the insufficiently appreciated place of the Dutch culture in the rise of the modern. Especially striking in a fullsome banquet of historical detail is the portrait and treatment of the axial figure of Spinoza, and his relation to the birth of liberalism, Biblical criticism, and the characteristic philosophy of immanence that will echo all way through the chorus of modern philosophy. This book will remain a steady companion to the study of the Enlightenment. Tops.


Fascinating Intellectual History   May 12, 2007
Curtis Raymond (Ohio)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

An utterly fascinating study of intellectual history in Europe, especially Holland, on either side of the turn of the eighteenth century. "Radical Enlightenment" refers to what were perceived as hard-line attacks on authoritarian, particularly religious ideas, specifically the ideas of divine providence, the afterlife, rewards and punishments for behavior. Israel sees Spinoza as the chief philosophical force behind the radical ideas with his concept of a single substance composing the universe, i.e., pantheism is seen as atheism and is either persecuted by church and state or modified by less "radical" thinkers such as Leibniz and Wolff, Locke, and others considered part of the more "moderate" Enlightenment. Anyone interested in the development of modern ideas and the progress of knowledge or philosophy generally would be hard-pressed to find a better written, researched, or more comprehensive source for the period. Israel is obviously writing for intellectuals, but be advised that he quotes frequently from French sources and does not translate, so make sure your French is in order.