Man and Mind in Diderot and Helvétius

PMLA ◽  
1956 ◽  
Vol 71 (4-Part-1) ◽  
pp. 705-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas George Creighton
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Personal Interest ◽  
First Line ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
The Individual

On 2 May 1760 a new play by Charles Palissot, entitled Les Philosophes, had its first performance in Paris. The immortality achieved by this comedy has nothing to do with inherent literary value; it has survived because those whom it attacks were among the most important thinkers in eighteenth-century France, and because Diderot, one of its victims, retaliated in that brilliant satire known as Le Neveu de Rameau. In Palissot's comedy, the philosophes are referred to as “un tas de charlatans, / Qu'on voit sur des tréteaux ameuter les passants.” The notions of ethics and human nature supposedly espoused by these rabble rousers are essentially a popularization of the ideas of Helvétius, whose De l'esprit was publicly condemned less than two years before. “Les hommes sont égaux par le droit de nature,” Valère declares, much to the satisfaction of his servant; men are guided by “l'attrait du bonheur,” whose source is in the passions; personal interest is the only motivation (ii.i). And we catch glimpses of conduct consistent with a conscious, literal following of these and other maxims. But, significantly, Diderot's works are the ones that are mentioned, not Helvétius'. Diderot's play, Le Fils naturel, is made an important source of inspiration for Cydalise, an eighteenth-century Philaminte, in the writing of her book; she experiences great difficulty thinking up a first line for her preface, but, having abandoned “J'ai vécu” (used by Duclos), decides upon some thing “plus pompeux et plus philosophique”: the words with which Diderot opens his Pensées sur l'interprétation de la nature, “Jeune homme, prends et lis” (II.iii). The whole “boutique philosophique” is thus ridiculed, with little attempt being made to discriminate among the ideas of the individual thinkers; Diderot and Helvétius are made to share the same philosophy.

Features of Christian-Theological Interpretation of the Concept of Personality

2007 ◽  
pp. 76-85
Author(s):  
Yuliya Kostantynivna Nedzelska
Keyword(s):  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Individual

The concept of "personality" is multifaceted and multifaceted in its basis, and therefore, in science has always been a great difficulty in determining its essence and content. For example, in Antiquity, "personality" as such, dissolves in the concept of "society". There is no "human" yet, but there is a genus, a community, a people that are only quantitatively formed from the mass of different individuals, governed and subordinated to any one idea (custom, tribal or ethno-religious) espoused by this society. In other words, in such societies, the individual was not unique and unique; his personality (we understand - personality) was limited to the general, the collective. This is confirmed by the Jewish and early Christian texts.

Individuality and Beyond

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedetta Zavatta
Keyword(s):  
Moral Autonomy ◽  
First Line ◽  
Philosophical Interpretation ◽  
Individual Personality ◽  
The World ◽  
Regulative Ideal ◽  
Personal Library ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

Based on an analysis of the marginal markings and annotations Nietzsche made to the works of Emerson in his personal library, the book offers a philosophical interpretation of the impact on Nietzsche’s thought of his reading of these works, a reading that began when he was a schoolboy and extended to the final years of his conscious life. The many ideas and sources of inspiration that Nietzsche drew from Emerson can be organized in terms of two main lines of thought. The first line leads in the direction of the development of the individual personality, that is, the achievement of critical thinking, moral autonomy, and original self-expression. The second line of thought is the overcoming of individuality: that is to say, the need to transcend one’s own individual—and thus by definition limited—view of the world by continually confronting and engaging with visions different from one’s own and by putting into question and debating one’s own values and certainties. The image of the strong personality that Nietzsche forms thanks to his reading of Emerson ultimately takes on the appearance of a nomadic subject who is continually passing out of themselves—that is to say, abandoning their own positions and convictions—so as to undergo a constant process of evolution. In other words, the formation of the individual personality takes on the form of a regulative ideal: a goal that can never be said to have been definitively and once and for all attained.

Part I: Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tilman Rodenhäuser
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Basic Principle ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Connected Group ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Contemporary Practice

Analysing the development of the concept of non-state parties to an armed conflict from the writings of philosophers in the eighteenth century through international humanitarian law (IHL) treaty law to contemporary practice, three threads can be identified. First, as pointed out by Rousseau almost two and a half centuries ago, one basic principle underlying the laws of war is that war is not a relation between men but between entities. Accordingly, the lawful objective of parties cannot be to harm opponents as individuals but only to overcome the entity for which the individual fights. This necessitates that any party to an armed conflict is a collective, organized entity and not a loosely connected group of individuals. Second, de Vattel already stressed that civil war is fought between two parties who ‘acknowledge no common judge’ and have no ‘common superior’ on earth....

Classical Learning in Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic, 1690-1750

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Floris Verhaart
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
General Point ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
The Enlightenment

The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was a moment when scholars and thinkers across Europe reflected on how they saw their relationship with the past, especially classical antiquity. Many readers in the Renaissance had appreciated the writings of ancient Latin and Greek authors not just for their literary value, but also as important sources of information that could be usefully applied in their own age. By the late seventeenth century, however, it was felt that the authority of the ancients was no longer needed and that their knowledge had become outdated thanks to scientific discoveries as well as the new paradigms of rationalism and empiricism. Those working on the ancient past and its literature debated new ways of defending their relevance for society. The different approaches to classical literature defended in these debates explain how the writings of ancient Greece and Rome could become a vital part of eighteenth-century culture and political thinking. Through its analysis of the debates on the value of the classics for the eighteenth century, this book also makes a more general point on the Enlightenment. Although often seen as an age of reason and modernity, the Enlightenment in Europe continuously looked back for inspiration from preceding traditions and ages such as Renaissance humanism and classical antiquity. Finally, the pressure on scholars in the eighteenth century to popularize their work and be seen as contributing to society is a parallel for our own time in which the value of the humanities is a continuous topic of debate.

Pharmacogenetics of Metformin

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 123-129
Author(s):  
Alrahman Joneri
Keyword(s):  
American Diabetes Association ◽  
Glucose Utilization ◽  
Medical Condition ◽  
World Health ◽  
First Line ◽  
Glucose Levels ◽  
Normal Limits ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
The Individual

Hyperglycemia is a medical condition in which an increase in glucose levels in the blood exceeds normal limits. Hyperglycemia is one of the typical signs of diabetes mellitus (DM). The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts an increase in the number of people with DM which is a global health threat. Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, and the leading cause of heart disease and stroke, in adults. Metformin, which is a biguanide group, is recommended by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes as the first-line oral therapy for DM and is the most widely used oral medication worldwide. Metformin can also increase peripheral glucose utilization and ultimately decrease the production of fatty acids and triglycerides. Some of the individual differences that underlie the variation in response to metformin.

Fielding and Richardson

PMLA ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 81 (5) ◽  
pp. 381-388
Author(s):  
William Park
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
General Type ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Tom Jones ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

But the Discovery [of when to laugh and when to cry] was reserved for this Age, and there are two Authors now living in this Metropolis, who have found out the Art, and both brother Biographers, the one of Tom Jones, and the other of Clarissa.author of Charlotte SummersRather than discuss the differences which separate Fielding and Richardson, I propose to survey the common ground which they share with each other and with other novelists of the 1740's and 50's. In other words I am suggesting that these two masters, their contemporaries, and followers have made use of the same materials and that as a result the English novels of the mid-eighteenth century may be regarded as a distinct historic version of a general type of literature. Most readers, it seems to me, do not make this distinction. They either think that the novel is always the same, or they believe that one particular group of novels, such as those written in the early twentieth century, is the form itself. In my opinion, however, we should think of the novel as we do of the drama. No one kind of drama, such as Elizabethan comedy or Restoration comedy, is the drama itself; instead, each is a particular manifestation of the general type. Each kind bears some relationship to the others, but at the same time each has its own identity, which we usually call its conventions. By conventions I mean not only stock characters, situations, and themes, but also notions and assumptions about the novel, human nature, society, and the cosmos itself. If we compare one kind of novel to another without first considering the conventions of each, we are likely to make the same mistake that Thomas Rymer did when he blamed Shakespeare for not conforming to the canons of classical French drama.

scholarly journals Bulgaria in old Serbian accounts of pilgrimage

Balcanica ◽  
2004 ◽  
pp. 159-169
Author(s):  
Tomislav Jovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
The Road ◽  
The People

A rather small portion of old Slavonic literatures is thematically linked with the journey to the Holy Land. Of many Serbian pilgrims over the centuries only three left more detailed descriptions of Bulgarian places and parts: patriarch Arsenije III, Jerotej of Raca and Silvestar Popovic. They described, each in his own way, some of the places and areas along the road to Istanbul or Salonika. Their vivid depiction of encounters with people and observations about the places they saw on their way reveal only a fragment of life in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ottoman empire. In a seemingly ordinary way, they incorporate into their own epoch the legends heard from the people they met. The descriptions of Bulgarian parts in the Serbian accounts of pilgrimage have all the appeal that generally characterizes travel literature. Although their literary value is modest they belong among the works characterized by the simplicity and immediacy of experience. Rather than being the result of a strong literary ambition, they are witness to the need to speak about the great journey, quite an adventurous enterprise at the time.

scholarly journals A secondary data analysis of qualitative study of individualized treatment regimen for North Indians living with human immunodeficiency virus-1

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sushanta Kumar Barik ◽  
Avi Kumar Bansal ◽  
Ashwini Yadav ◽  
Srikanth Prasad Tripathy ◽  
Tej Pal Singh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drug Resistance ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
First Line ◽  
Cd4 Counts ◽  
Viral Loads ◽  
Indian Patients ◽  
Resistance Patterns ◽  
Endpoint Data ◽  
The Individual

Abstract The follow-up of fifty-seven patients were conducted after a confirmation genotyping test. The secondary data analysis was done on the data available to observe the correlation between the CD4 counts and viral loads (One of the markers of clinical outcome) of the individual North Indian patients infected with HIV-1 Subtype C. The drug resistance mutations in individual patient were analysed through the drug resistance database, Stanford University, USA. The data of resistance associated with drugs, CD4 counts, viral loads of the individual patient was compiled and statistically analysed for drug resistance pattern profiles using Microsoft Excel 2016 and SPSS Version 22. The normality of data was checked by Shapiro-Wilk test (p<0.05). The study starting and endpoint data on CD4 counts, viral loads and drug resistance patterns associated with multiple first-line ART was available for 24 north Indian patients. The starting and study endpoint data on CD4 counts and drug resistance patterns associated with multiple first- line ART was available for 33 North Indian patients. The study indicative that the recommendation of policy to provide a tailor-made individualized regimen to each patient under AIDS control program.

A Heritage Approach to Risk Based Design

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Fragola
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Aerospace Systems ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Mind's Eye ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Do So

Abstract Designers seldom, if ever, create designs “out of whole cloth”. They might begin with a clean piece of paper but their designs, no matter how creative or pioneering, must always embrace the technological heritage within which they are imbedded, at least to a degree. If they fail to do so they will almost certainly have great difficulty in being implemented, and even greater difficulty being successful. In this way the words “heritage” and “risk” have been linked, since time immemorial, in the design process and therefore in the designer’s mind’s eye. While this linkage is, in this sense, nothing new, the linkage has until recently been done heuristically and informally based upon the judgment and expertise of the individual designer, perhaps supplemented by the judgment and expertise of those peers of personal acquaintance. Recently, as an outgrowth of the broader application of probabilistic technology, a more formal and systematic link between design heritage and design risk has been attempted. While the number of actual applications are few, those that have been attempted seem to forecast that significant benefits might accrue from further development of the concept and its wider application especially in the case of the advanced technical designs so characteristic of aerospace systems. While the process of risk-based design is still in development, the individual steps in the process are beginning to evolve. These steps, which are listed in summary form in Figure 1 below, will be discussed in the presented paper as they apply to the design of a container to return samples from Mars.

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