Two Concepts of Moderation in the Early Enlightenment

Mithen, Nicholas

Abstract

This essay proposes a bifurcation within the concept of moderation in early modern Europe. To draw this out it reconstructs an “encounter” between two citizens of the scholarly Republic of Letters in the years around 1700—Lodovico Antonio Muratori and Jean Le Clerc—and the concept of moderation each maintained. It proposes that the former maintained an ideal of moderation which was “hard” principally about self-regulation, while the latter maintained an ideal of moderation which was “soft” and principally about (religious) toleration. It then attaches this “encounter” to an analogous conflict between uses of moderation in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England. It concludes by proposing that this bifurcation, while occurring within scholarly and theological debates, has enduring significance for our interpretation of the Enlightenment, and for the passage of political moderation into the modern world.

Citation

Mithen, N. (2023). Two Concepts of Moderation in the Early Enlightenment. European legacy, 28(3-4), 274-293. https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2023.2170029

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 3, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jan 26, 2023
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Jul 19, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 21, 2023
• Journal: European Legacy
• Print ISSN: 1084-8770
• Electronic ISSN: 1470-1316
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 3-4
• Pages: 274-293
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2023.2170029
• Keywords: Moderation; Enlightenment; Jean Le Clerc; Lodovico Antonio Muratori
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4208207