BdSpinoza

Merethe Roos over Balthasar Münter (1735-1793) en... Jonathan Israel

Vorig jaar verscheen van Merethe Roos, Ph.D. (2010) in Theology, MF Norwegian School of Theology, is Associate Professor and Head of research and master studies at Østfold University College, Norway [en Redaktør i Norsk Pedagogisk Tidsskrift og førsteamanuensis ved Høgskolen i Telemark. Historikernerd. Tekstnerd. Humanioraforsker. Musiker, zoals haar twitterpagina vermeldt] van deze Merethe Roos dus verscheen bij Brill haar studie over Balthasar Münter (1735-1793), de evangelische priester, dichter van kerkliederen, (gematigd) verlichter en hofprediker in Gotha en Kopenhagen waar hij o.a. de geestelijk adviseur was van Johann Friederich Struensee [cf. blog], die hij bijstond tot aan zijn executie en over wiens bekering hij een boek schreef:

Balthasar Münter, Bekehrungsgeschichte des vormaligen Grafen und Königlichen Dänischen Geheimen Cabinetsministers Johann Friederich Struensee [Rothens Erben und Prost, Kopenhagen 1772].

Waar het mij hier om gaat is dat

Merethe Roos in haar Enlightened Preaching: Balthasar Münter’s Authorship 1772-1793 [BRILL, 2013 – books.google] in heel kort bestek op de pagina's 146-47 een veelgehoorde kritiek op Jonathans Israels project heel bondig verwoordt. Veel van wat ze zegt is voor mij herkenbaar en heb ik, verspreid over vele blogs, ook wel verwoord. Om die reden neem ik haar korte veelzeggende tekst hier over:

“The complexity and paradoxical quality which can be ascribed to the period from 1772-84 in Denmark-Norway can be used as an argument against Jonathan Israel's understanding of the importance of the Radical Enlightenment. In his nearly 3,000 pages Enlightenment trilogy, Israel argues for a Radical Enlightenment, the lineage of which can be traced back to Spinoza.*) According to Israel, it opposes the other distinct strain in this period of the history of ideas, the Moderate Enlightenment. Spreading clandestinely throughout Europe until it surfaced in the last decades of the eighteenth century, Spinozism fostered a revolution of the mind, setting the world on a modern course. Thus, Israel thinks, it was Radical Enlightenment which preceded the revolutionary events in America, France, and The Netherlands, and not its counterpart, the Moderate Enlightenment, characterised by a commitment to deism and constitutional monarchy. Israel's controversial theory has been harshly criticised. Among other things, the critics point to his reductive reading of Spinoza, his unreasonably distinct division between Radical and Moderate Enlightenment, and his ascribing the success of the Radical Enlightenment to the power of ideas alone. In his last volume, published in 2011, Israel accedes to some of the criticism by ascribing the "partial success of radical thought in 1780s and 1790s" to the "almost total failure of the moderate Enlightenment to deliver reforms that much of the enlightened society had for decades been pressing for.” [p. 14] This failure included press restrictions: "Many publicists: Israel continues, "agitated for (more) free-dom of thought and the press; yet no European country delivered full, formal freedom of the press and thought until Denmark did so, fleetingly, in 1770-2 and France during the years 1788-92." [ibid]

In Denmark-Norway, representatives of what would be labeled a Moderate Enlightenment might have been of greater importance for the coming of a modem world than Israel's narratives would admit. This is largely due to text-cultural issues. Even if strict regulations of the press were rein-stated with Hoegh-Guldberg's government, Struensee's rescript of press freedom seems to have been a "point of no return" as regards the process of stabilisation of new textual norms, and hence also the establishment of new textual cultures in the double monarchy. These textual norms could potentially challenge and change the established traditions, not least in ecclesiastical institutions and preaching.

*) Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-750 (Oxford, 2001), Enlightenment Contested. Philosophy, Modernity and the Emancipation of Man (Oxford, 2006), Democratic Enlightenment. Philosophy, Revolution and Human Rights 1750-1790 (Oxford, 2011).

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Nog wel aardig te vermelden: ik stuitte op haar boek bij het maken gisteren van een blog over Johann Rosenmüller. Maar in haar boek ging het om een ander, om Johann Georg Rosenmüller (1736 - 1815,de Duitse protestantse rationalistische theoloog, die vanaf 1785 in Leipzig werkzaam was. Enfin, zo komt van het ene blog het andere.

spinoza | 26-07-2014 | 13:32 | Link | Reacties (2)