Fénelon may be the most neglected of all the major early modern philosophers. His political masterwork was the most-read book in eighteenth-century France after the Bible, yet today even specialists rarely engage his work directly. This problem is particularly acute in the Anglophone world, for while Fénelon's works have been published in several excellent modern French editions, only the smallest fraction of his vast and influential corpus has appeared in modern English translation. This volume aims to help remedy this by (...) bringing to English-language audiences the first collection of his moral and political writings in translation. By so doing it hopes to make more widely available the riches of one of the leading voices of resistance to the absolutism of Louis XIV. Fénelon's political thought will thus be of particular interest to students and scholars of French history, as well as to those today engaged in questions of political resistance and reform. But Fénelon's reach also extends to fields well beyond politics and ethics. In the Enlightenment, Fénelon came to be celebrated not only as a humanitarian political reformer but also as a pioneering theorist of education, a prescient student of economics and international relations, and a key voice in contemporary philosophical debates-not to mention his fame as one of the seventeenth-century's most preeminent theologians and spiritualists and masters of French prose. As such, his work will be of interest to students and scholars in fields ranging from philosophy and political science to economics, education, literature, French history, and religion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Adventures of Telemachus [1699] by François de Salignac de la Mothe-FénelonJean–Michel RacaultFrançois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon. The Adventures of Telemachus [1699]. Translated with an introduction and notes by A. J. B. Cremer. London, Anastasis Books, 2022, 419 pp. Hardbound £24.50. Paperback £15. ISBN: 9781739798314.Fénelon’s 1699 novel The Adventures of Telemachus—or more precisely, the epic poem in prose—was one of the major bestsellers in (...) many European countries for nearly two centuries. The book inspired paintings, operas, fashions, and even wallpaper motifs. It gave birth to a literary subgenre, the “archeological novel,” such as Terrasson’s Sethos (1731) or Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s L’Arcadie (1788), in which the action is located in an antique setting. Still part of French schools’ syllabi a century ago, this book mainly owes its survival today to highly specialized academic research, stimulated from time to time when an “Agrégation” program generates new publications, papers, and conferences, as happened in 2009–10. The situation is similar in English-speaking countries, if perhaps just a bit worse: new editions are scarce and generally based more or less on revised versions of eighteenth-century translations, such as those editions by John Hawkesworth’s (1768) or Tobias Smollett’s (1776).The publication by A. J. B. Cremer of an entirely new translation, featuring a close rendering of the French text into modern English and preserving the original’s formal dignity without resorting to a pastiche of the classical language, is therefore a landmark in the history of Fénelon’s reception, and in the valuation of Telemachus particularly. This edition, while intended for the general reader, includes most of what is expected of a scholarly edition. In a comparatively short introduction, the editor recalls the essential facts about the author’s background (as a descendent of high nobility) and about his ecclesiastic career, which was compromised by both his involvement in mystical spirituality (the quarrel over Quietism) and his critical attitude toward the absolutism of Louis XIV’s régime. [End Page 140]In fact, Fénelon’s appointment as Archbishop of Cambrai (1695) was a kind of exile. In 1689, however, he was appointed tutor to Louis XIV’s seven-year-old grandson, the young Duke of Burgundy, second in the line of succession to the throne after his father (though both died prematurely). Fénelon wrote for this boy The Adventures of Telemachus as an educative fiction in the tradition of the “mirrors of Princes.” Of course, such a book was not intended for publication, and when it appeared in 1699—strangely enough, in a fully legal manner and with a printing privilege—it was against Fénelon’s will and in a very faulty form, which was corrected in later editions. An editor today therefore faces solving some highly complex textual problems, and choosing between the manuscript traditions. Cremer’s translation is based upon Jacques Le Brun’s authoritative text, published in Fénelon’s Œuvres, tome II (Paris: Gallimard, “Pléiade,” 1997).1After surveying the critical reception of Telemachus, particularly in England, starting at the text’s first publication and reaching the present time, the introduction discreetly hints at an apparent trend, among some interpretations, toward Christian allegory. If the figure of Mentor obviously “represents Fénelon” in his tutorial role, Cremer notes, this character, also an incarnation of Minerva, embodies humanity and divinity simultaneously, and thus may be seen as a “Christ-figure,” with Telemachus as his disciple and Ulysses, with his pursuit of a never-ending quest, as the symbolic form of the Divine. These observations are not entirely new; they have been formulated before by various critics. The editor himself concurs with a well-known article by André Blanc that describes Fénelon’s neo-platonician turn of mind: for Fénelon there is no contradiction between Christian revelation and the pagan fables of classical mythology, which he considers prefigurations or allegories of Christianity.This interpretation is abundantly and convincingly confirmed in the editor’s annotations. While as expected the commentaries point frequently to Greco-Latin mythology or classical literary sources... (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, when the modern Self emerged in the shape of a self-assured Cartesian cogito, a radically opposite movement of ‘emptying’ or ‘deconstructing’ that Self took place. The religious subject, having become modern, understood its ultimate aim as becoming selfless. The battlefield on which the new subject fought the fight with its own modern condition was the issue of ‘love’. ‘What is the status of his Self when it is involved in the act of love?’ was the central (...) question in seventeenth century religiosity. This essay examines the early modern idea of pur amour and focuses only on two voices in the Querelle Du Quiétisme, François de Fénelon (1651–1715) and Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715). Fénelon vehemently defended the pur amour, a concept he adopted from a century-long tradition of spirituality in France and which he tried to explain and legitimize in a systematic and theoretical way. Malebranche was highly critical of that tradition, but refused neither to use the term nor to refer to the ideal of pur amour. His interpretation of the Self, however, forced him to draw different conclusions on the nature of pure love. (shrink)

Summary In his novel The Adventures of Telemachus, François de la Mothe-Fénelon (1651–1715) presents a utopian society, Boetica, in which the role of luxury, war and trade is extremely limited. In unreformed Salentum, on the other hand, Fénelon shows the opposite image, one in which the three elements reinforce each other in a fatal feedback-loop. I analyse the relationship between luxury, war and trade in the Telemachus and I sketch the background to Fénelon's views, with special (...) attention to the military expansion and the mercantilism of Louis XIV, Fénelon's quietist spirituality, and the development of the concept of self-interest in seventeenth-century philosophy by mechanicist philosophers and economic thinkers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Political Philosophy of Fénelon by Ryan Patrick HanleyJohn J. Conley SJRyan Patrick Hanley. The Political Philosophy of Fénelon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xvi + 306. Hardback, $41.95.In his monograph, Ryan Patrick Hanley offers a revisionist interpretation of the political philosophy of François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, archbishop of Cambrai. A series of Enlightenment commentators (Montesquieu, Rousseau, Hume, Jefferson) and their (...) progeny have hailed Fénelon as a political subversive who boldly attacked the injustices of the reign of Louis XIV and who prepared the arrival of an egalitarian society with socialist and pacifist traits. Hanley, however, argues that Fénelon actually defended a more moderate and realistic model of political society than his Enlightenment exegetes have suggested. Like earlier commentators, Hanley attempts to prove his argument primarily through an analysis of Telemachus, the pedagogical novel Fénelon had composed for Louis, duc de Bourgogne, the "petit Dauphin" and grandson of Louis XIV, when Fénelon served as his tutor.Three strong chapters demonstrate Hanley's thesis concerning Fénelon's moderate politics and philosophy. Hanley argues that Fénelon's philosophy of education rests on a distinction between true and false glory. True glory resides in virtue and a humble recognition of divine glory, while false glory is the self-centered glorification of the human agent, which easily deteriorates into vanity. Rather than simply condemn self-interest, in his treatment of the education of the prince Fénelon argues that self-interest must be gradually transformed into a broader interest for the good of one's subjects and a deeper recognition of the glory of God. Earning the praise of his Enlightenment acolytes and later feminist commentators, Fénelon defends a solid education for women, but he clearly wants this education to prepare women for their domestic role as wives and mothers; his celebrated treatise and letters on the education of women are not an exercise in gender equality.The economic theory of Fénelon has often been interpreted as a type of utopian socialism. This is largely based on the central place taken by Bétique in the Telemachus. In this mythical land, the happy citizens practice a communist economics; private property is foreign to them. All their basic needs are provided for through communal cooperation. Luxury is also foreign to them; precious metals like gold and silver are used in practical construction as if they were pieces of iron. But Hanley argues that the prosocialist exegetes ignore the varied economies presented in the passages concerning Egypt, Crete, and Tyre. Bétique does not stand alone as an economic ideal. When Fénelon details how the economy of contemporary France should be reformed, it is far from simple socialism. The state has a strong initial role in the state's economic reform, but it works in tandem with private initiatives that will gradually become the stronger partner. "Fénelon differs from later socialists in insisting that the use of state power is not an end in itself, but necessary only to establish the conditions whereby a free economic system can emerge and flourish—at which point direct intervention of the state into economic affairs will diminish, and a free (though hardly unbridled) pursuit of self-interest will be encouraged" (81).Hanley also attacks the common argument that Fénelon is a pacifist who excoriates all recourse to war. Fénelon does indeed condemn war in the most graphic terms. As Archbishop of Cambrai in northern France, he had witnessed the brutal carnage and attendant famines that had decimated the population in repeated wars in this border area. But his nuanced critique of war rests on a distinction between false and true courage. False courage is found in the warrior who initiates war for the sake of his own false glory. True courage lies in those who defend the innocent out of a proper sense of duty; this courage contrasts with cowardice disguised as pacificism. Hanley argues that the confederation of nations that Fénelon envisions as a mechanism to mediate conflict and reduce the recourse to war is less a species of international government than... (shrink)

In his monograph, Ryan Patrick Hanley offers a revisionist interpretation of the political philosophy of François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, archbishop of Cambrai. A series of Enlightenment commentators and their progeny have hailed Fénelon as a political subversive who boldly attacked the injustices of the reign of Louis XIV and who prepared the arrival of an egalitarian society with socialist and pacifist traits. Hanley, however, argues that Fénelon actually defended a more moderate and realistic model (...) of political society than his Enlightenment exegetes have suggested. Like earlier commentators, Hanley attempts to prove his argument primarily through an analysis of... (shrink)

Numismatique François de Callatay et Caroline Mattheeuws, À propos d'une série exceptionnelle de grands bronzes thasiens (fin ive- début me siècle) p. 481-490 L'acquisition par le Cabinet des Médailles de Bruxelles d'un lot de trente-cinq grands bronzes thasiens aux types «Tête de Déméter/Bustes des Dioscures» permet d'affiner la connaissance de cette émission exceptionnelle. Tous les exemplaires sont contremarques et beaucoup présentent des traces de surfrappe. L'étude du style combinée à celle des poids permet de déceler une manipulation monétaire qui (...) avait échappé jusqu'à présent. Avant de réaliser cette émission en surfrappant une émission existante au type de l'Héraclès imberbe, on s'était d'abord servi de nouveaux flans d'un poids lourd (ca 13 g). L'étude du contexte archéologique confirme d'autre part pour ces bronzes, sans toutefois qu'il soit permis de les situer à l'année près, une datation à l'extrême fin du ive s. av. J.-C. (shrink)

François Lamy, a Benedictine monk and Cartesian philosopher whose extensive relations with Arnauld, Bossuet, Fénélon, and Malebranche put him into contact with the intellectual elite of late-seventeenth-century France, authored the very first detailed and explicit refutation of Spinoza’s Ethics in French, Le nouvel athéisme renversé. Regrettably overlooked in the secondary literature on Spinoza, Lamy is an interesting figure in his own right, and his anti-Spinozist work sheds important light on Cartesian assumptions that inform the earliest phase of Spinoza’s critical (...) reception in the seventeenth-century. I begin by presenting Lamy’s life and the contentious state of Spinoza’s French reception in the 1680 and 1690s. I then discuss a central argument in Lamy’s refutation, namely the Cartesian objection that Spinoza’s account of the conceptual independence of attributes is incompatible with the theory of substance monism. Contrasting Lamy’s objection with questions put to Spinoza by de Vries and Tschirnhaus, I maintain that by exhibiting the direction Spinoza’s views on substance and attribute took in maturing we may accurately assess the strength of Spinoza’s position vis-à-vis his Cartesian objector, and I argue that, in fact, Spinoza’s mature account of God as an expressive ens realissimum is not vulnerable to Lamy’s criticism. In conclusion, I turn to Lamy’s objection that Spinoza’s philosophy is question-begging in view of Spinoza’s account of God, and I exhibit what this point of criticism tells us about the intentions of the first French Cartesian rebuttal of the Ethics. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:East-West ExchangeFr. Pierre-François de BéthuneThe European Commissions together organized the tenth spiritual East-West Exchange held June 3–28, 2005. Invited by the Institute for Zen Studies of Hanazono University, nine nuns and monks (from England, Scotland, France, the Low Countries, Norway, Portugal, and the United States) spent some time in Zen monasteries in Japan.As a conclusion to these visits there were two days of evaluation and reflection at the (...) university itself. The bishop of Kyöto, Paul Otsuka, was present, together with a large number of masters and professors. Two monks who are living in Japan came to participate at this symposium: Fr. Kieran Nolan, from the Benedictine monastery of Fushimi, and Fr. David Lavich, chaplain of the Trappist monastery of Nasu. The Reverend Töga Masataka, general secretary of the Institute for Zen Studies, gave the first presentation of these initiatives of dialogue. This was followed by a celebration in memory of Pope John Paul II, presided successively by the rector of the university, for the Buddhist part, and by the Right Rev. Otsuka, who celebrated the Eucharist.Finally, two lectures recalled the history of the ten spiritual exchanges, which started in 1979. The Reverend Yasunaga Södö described the Japanese approach and Fr. Pierre-François de Béthune presented the history of this dialogue from the European point of view.Fr. Pierre-François de BéthuneMonastère de Clerlande (Belgium)Copyright © 2006 The University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Les différents articles de ce volume ont tous pour idée directrice la question du sujet. Chacun d'eux explore une façon singulière et unique dont la première personne se découvre, s'exprime et se construit dans la civilisation chinoise, classique et moderne. Cet inventaire des multiples façons d'être soi ou d'être à soi se fait à partir de méthodes et d'approches très variées, linguistique, littéraire, historique, philosophique... Elles se font l'écho de la formule de Mencius "Tout ce qui existe est virtuellement là (...) en moi". (shrink)

Το κείμενο της επιγραφής, που βρέθηκε στο Βετρέν, δημοσιεύτηκε το 1994 στο BCH και παρουσιάστηκε πάλι στο Pistiros Ι, μπορεί να χρονολογηθεί στην αρχή της βασιλείας του Κερσοβλέπτη, γιου του Κότυος του Α', που δολοφονήθηκε το 359 π.Χ. Οι έμπορίται, στους οποίους αναφέρεται, κατάγονται από τη Μαρώνεια, την Απολλωνία του Πόντου και τη Θάσο και συνδέονται με ιωνική συγγένεια. Η επιγραφή προσδιορίζει ειδικότερα ορισμένες δεσμεύσεις που ανέλαβε ο Θράκας βασιλιάς : σχετική δικαστική αυτονομία στο πλαίσιο αυτής της συγγενείας, μη παραγραφή (...) των χρεών των Θρακών, μη απόσπαση ομήρων, μη εγκατάσταση στρατιωτικών καταυλισμών. Το πρόβλημα που τίθεται αφορά στους αμαξιτούς δρόμους και τις μεταφορές με άμαξες από τη θρακική πεδιάδα προς τη Μαρώνεια, την Απολλωνία και τη Θάσο, δηλαδή προς τον Εύξεινο Πόντο και το Αιγαίο. Για να εκτιμήσουμε καλύτερα τα νέα δεδομένα που προκύπτουν από την επιγραφή, προτείνεται η επανεξέταση της αφήγησης του βιβλίου Ζ' του Ηροδότου, που μνημονεύει το δρομολόγιο του περσικού στρατού : μετά το Δορίσκο, η δεξιά πτέρυγα του Ξέρξη βάδισε κατά μήκος του Έβρου, παρέκαμψε τη Ροδόπη από βορρά και βρήκε την Πίστιρο εκεί όπου μπορούμε να την τοποθετήσουμε σήμερα και όχι στα δυτικά του δέλτα του Νέστου, όπως το υποθέταμε πριν. Τέλος οι Κυστίριοι, που μαρ- τυρούνται μια φορά σε φορολογικό κατάλογο της Αττικής (434/3), μπορούν να ταυτιστούν με τους κατοίκους της Πιστίρου, η οποία θα απολάμβανε ειδικού καθεστώτος ήδη από τον 5ο αιώνα π.Χ. (shrink)

A re-examination from a chronological standpoint of the 3rd c. Amphictionic lists and decrees has long been awaited. An explanation is given of the method followed, based on the cycles of the représentation of the different delegations and the internal reference points at Delphi (Pythia-Soteria), rather than on prosopography or contemporary political history, and a brief descriptive record is suggested for each document. Considerable advances have been made since G. Daux's Chronologie Delphique, but this article should only be considered as (...) a provisional step, while we wait for final confirmation from other sources. It remains, moreover, subject to the still tentative state of Attic chronology. (shrink)

Throughout the 1920s Heidegger's answer to the question of how to conceive of the phenomenon as a phenomenon has been the “formal indication,” that is a non-subsuming, non-generalizing type of discourse. Through a detailed interpretation of the sporadic explanations he gives on the matter, I try to point out some of the inconsistencies in his conception, and then work them out. I try to show in particular how Heidegger's emphasis on the method of phenomenology, which expresses his unrelenting desire to (...) let the phenomenon be seen in itself, led him to overlook the essential role of language in phenomenological analysis. (shrink)

Desde el siglo XVIII, el jardín es el lugar del saber-hacer y de los conocimientos adquiridos por la botánica experimental. A partir de ahí, se propondrá una definición de lo que es un ambiente técnico: un ambiente de cultivo hecho de normas y leyes. Pero este ambiente técnico debe distinguirse del ambiente natural. Este último designa un ambiente ocupado por especies salvajes. Se trata, pues, de precisar la naturaleza de la relación entre ambiente técnico y ambiente natural. A los productos (...) del cultivo, Linneo les daba un valor positivo. Rousseau piensa al contrario. A la naturaleza, le da un valor positivo. Linneo valora el jardín, está a favor del cultivo. Rousseau desvaloriza el jardín, está a favor de la naturaleza. La controversia sobre los organismos modificados podría comenzar. (shrink)