While Spinoza’s impact on the early Enlightenment has always found due attention of historians of philosophy, several 17th-century Dutch thinkers who were active before Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus was published have been largely neglected: in particular Spinoza’s teacher, Franciscus van den Enden (Vrye Politijke Stellingen, 1665), Johan and Pieter de la Court (Consideratien van Staet, 1660, Politike discoursen, 1662), Lodewijk Meyer (Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, 1666), the anonymous De Jure Ecclesiasticorum (1665), and Adriaan Koerbagh (Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd, 1668, Een Ligt schynende in duystere plaatsen, 1668). The articles of this volume focus on their political philosophy as well as their philosophy of religion in order to assess their contributions to the development of radical movements (republicanism / anti-monarchism, critique of religion, atheism) in the Enlightenment.
Sonja Lavaert is Professor of Philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She has published on political philosophy, early modern and enlightenment philosophy, i.a. Spinoza and Machiavelli, including Het perspektief van de multitude (Brussels, 2011).
Winfried Schröder is Professor of Philosophy at Marburg University. He has published on early modern and enlightenment philosophy, Spinoza in der deutschen Frühaufklärung, (Würzburg, 1987); Ursprünge des Atheismus, (2nd ed. Stuttgart, 2012), philosophy of religion, Gestalten des Deismus, (Wiesbaden, 2010); Athen und Jerusalem, (Stuttgart, 2013), the history of moral philosophy, Moralischer Nihilismus, (2nd ed. Stuttgart, 2005), and the historiography of philosophy, Reading between the Lines. Leo Strauss and the History of Early Modern Philosophy, (Boston and Berlin, 2015). He is editor of the Traité des trois imposteurs (3rd ed. Hamburg, 2010) and the series Philosophische Clandestina der deutschen Aufklärung, (Stuttgart, 1994).
“Scholars of the seventeenth century, the Enlightenment, and Benedict de Spinoza will profit from the essays collected in The Dutch Legacy. [… It is a text that] specialists will not want to miss.” --Hasana Sharp, McGill University Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 55, Number 4, October 2017, pp. 737-738.
Introduction, Sonja Lavaert & Winfried Schröder
‘Concordia Res Parvae Crescunt’: The Context of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Radicalism, Wiep van Bunge
Dutch Golden Age Politics and the Rise of the Radical En¬lightenment. An Overview, Jonathan Israel
Van den Enden and Religion, Frank Mertens
The Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres between Humanist Scholarship and Cartesian Science. Lodewijk Meyer and the Emancipatory Power of Philology, Henri Krop
The Monopoly of Social Affluence. The Jus circa sacra around Spinoza, Roberto Bordoli
‘Lieutenants’ of the Commonwealth. A Political Reading of De jure ecclesiasticorum, Sonja Lavaert
Socinian Headaches. Adriaan Koerbagh and the Antitrinitarians, Sascha Salatowsky
Abraham van Berkel’s Translations as Contributions to the Dutch Radical Enlightenment, Michiel Wielema
Between Machiavelli and Hobbes. The Republican Ideology of Johan and Pieter de la Court, Stefano Visentin
Index
All interested in Early Modern and Enlightenment philosophy and political thought, as well as Dutch philosophy and intellectual history and anyone concerned with Spinoza and his circle.