Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of ModernityA daring account of the philosophical development of the idea of a rational society and its consequences for the present In the seventeenth century, a vision arose which was to captivate the Western imagination for the next three hundred years: the vision of Cosmopolis, a society as rationally ordered as the Newtonian view of nature. While fueling extraordinary advances in all fields of human endeavor, this vision perpetuated a hidden yet persistent agenda: the delusion that human nature and society could be fitted into precise and manageable rational categories. Stephen Toulmin confronts that agenda—its illusions and its consequences for our present and future world. |
Contents
What Is the Problem About Modernity? | 5 |
The Standard Account and Its Defects | 13 |
The Modernity of the Renaissance | 22 |
Retreat from the Renaissance | 30 |
From Humanists to Rationalists | 36 |
The 17thCentury CounterRenaissance | 45 |
Young Rene and the Henriade | 56 |
John Donne Grieves for Cosmopolis | 62 |
The Far Side of Modernity | 139 |
Dismantling the Scaffolding | 145 |
19201960 Rerenaissance Deferred | 152 |
Humanism Reinvented | 160 |
The Twin Trajectories of Modernity | 167 |
The Way Ahead | 175 |
Humanizing Modernity | 180 |
The Recovery of Practical Philosophy | 186 |
The Politics of Certainty | 69 |
The First Step Back from Rationalism | 80 |
The Modern World View | 89 |
Leibniz Discovers Ecumenism | 98 |
Newton and the New Cosmopolis | 105 |
The Subtext of Modernity | 117 |
The Second Step Back from Rationalism | 129 |
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17th-century abstract accepted agenda arguments assumptions belief Cartesian Catholic causal central century changes Church claims classical skepticism cosmopolis Counter-Reformation criticism culture debate developed Discourse on Method distinct doctrines Donne dream emotions Encyclopédie England essay ethics Europe European experience formal framework France French Galileo Henri IV's Henry of Navarre Henry's historians historical human humanists ideas institutions intellectual Isaac Newton issues John Donne late Leibniz less logic look mathematical matter medieval methods Michel de Montaigne modern philosophy Montaigne Montaigne's moral nation-state nationhood natural philosophy natural science Newton Newtonian Peace of Westphalia physics political post-modern practical problems Protestant Quest for Certainty questions rational rationalist reason received view religious Renaissance Renaissance humanism René Descartes respectable Revolution rhetoric science and philosophy scientific scientists skepticism social society sovereign stability standard account theological theoretical theory things thinkers Thirty thought timeless toleration took traditional turn universal world view
Popular passages
Page vi - Tis all in peeces, all cohaerence gone; All just supply, and all Relation: Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne, are things forgot, For every man alone thinkes he hath got To be a Phoenix, and that then can bee None of that kinde, of which he is, but hee.