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"Be Sober and Reasonable"
The Critique of Enthusiasm in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries
Series: - Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, Volume: 63
Author:
Be Sober and Reasonable deals with the theological and medical critique of “enthusiasm” in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and with the relationship between enthusiasm and the new natural philosophy in that period. “Enthusiasm” at that time was a label ascribed to various individuals and groups who claimed to have direct divine inspiration — prophets, millenarists, alchemists, but also experimental philosophers, and even philosophers like Descartes.
The book attempts to combine the perspectives of Intellectual history, Church history, history of medicine, and history of science, in analysing the various reactions to enthusiasm.
The central thesis of the book is that the reaction to enthusiasm, especially in the Protestant world, may provide one important key to the origins of the Enlightenment, and to the processes of secularization of European consciousness.
The book attempts to combine the perspectives of Intellectual history, Church history, history of medicine, and history of science, in analysing the various reactions to enthusiasm.
The central thesis of the book is that the reaction to enthusiasm, especially in the Protestant world, may provide one important key to the origins of the Enlightenment, and to the processes of secularization of European consciousness.
Michael Heyd, Ph.D. (1974) in History, Princeton University, is Associate Professor of History at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
"The value of Michael Heyd's Be Sober and Reasonable is that its identification of the origins and background of the criticism of enthusiasm paves the way for future studies to concentrate on particular chronological areas and the particular themes which his groundwork has turned up." – Warren Johnston, in: Canadian Journal of History, 1997.
"...a book of great learning, insight, and usefulness..." – Lawrence Klein, in: Journal of Modern History, 1999.
"As a reference source alone, this scholarly study is of great value. With the thoughtful analyses of the many writers discussed, this becomes an important contribution." – John W. Yolton, EHR, 1998.
"...a book of great learning, insight, and usefulness..." – Lawrence Klein, in: Journal of Modern History, 1999.
"As a reference source alone, this scholarly study is of great value. With the thoughtful analyses of the many writers discussed, this becomes an important contribution." – John W. Yolton, EHR, 1998.
All those interested in intellectual history, Church history, history of science and history of medicine in the early modern period, in the origins of the Enlightenment and the problem of secularization.