The Limits of Optimism: Thomas Jefferson's Dualistic Enlightenment

Maurizio Valsania

University of Virginia Press, Aug 3, 2011 - History - 224 pages

The Limits of Optimism works to dispel persistent notions about Jefferson’s allegedly paradoxical and sphinx-like quality. Maurizio Valsania shows that Jefferson’s multifaceted character and personality are to a large extent the logical outcome of an anti-metaphysical, enlightened, and humility-oriented approach to reality. That Jefferson’s mind and priorities changed over time and in response to changing circumstances indicates neither incoherence, hypocrisy, nor pathology.

Valsania’s reading of Jefferson, the Enlightenment, and negativity helps to make sense of the many paradoxes typically associated with that eighteenth-century thinker. At the same time, it provides a corrective to the common though erroneous equation of Enlightenment thinking with rationalism and shallow optimism.

Contents

• Optimism as Certainty: 32
• From Faith to Hope: 56
• Nature and Time as Overwhelming Powers: 78
• Impossibility and Despondency: 114
• Dream Imagination and Expediency: 139
• Notes: 165
• Bibliography: 191

About the author

Maurizio Valsania is Professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of Torino, Italy.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Limits of Optimism: Thomas Jefferson's Dualistic Enlightenment; Jeffersonian America
• Author: Maurizio Valsania
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press, 2011
• ISBN: 0813931517, 9780813931517
• Length: 224 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / Colonial Period (1600-1775)