Annelie Große, Religion, science and moral philosophy in the Huguenot Enlightenment, Jean Henri Samuel Formey and the Berlin Academy

Religion, Science and Moral Philosophy in the Huguenot Enlightenment:

Jean Henri Samuel Formey and the Berlin Academy

Annelie Große

This is the first monograph on the Huguenot pastor-philosopher, Samuel Formey, who was involved in most of the philosophical debates in the second half of the eighteenth century. It explores his thought in the context of the multifaceted intellectual life in contemporary Berlin and offers a new perspective on the concept of Religious Enlightenment.

Unveils connections between eighteenth-century Calvinism and German rationalism.
Prime example for a study in contextualist intellectual history.
Offers thorough analyses of printed and handwritten sources.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction

Formey’s concept of philosophy and its relationship to religion
Formey in the Berlin Huguenot Enlightenment, or how to reconcile the pastor and the philosopher
Preaching like a philosopher and philosophising like a preacher
The existence of God and the superiority of metaphysics
Pre-established harmony and fatalism
The debate on free will
Providence, moral duties and optimism
Natural law, morality and science

Conclusion – Religious Enlightenment between Calvinism and Wolffianism

Bibliography

Index

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Annelie Große is a researcher at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities where she is currently working in a project on Prussian history. She published several articles on the philosophy at the Berlin Academy in the eighteenth century and of Samuel Formey in particular.

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The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.