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Join the Centre for Early Modern Studies and the Centre for Modern Languages Research for an engaging lunchtime Seminar!
The Scottish Enlightenment strongly criticizes what Hume calls the ‘selfish hypothesis’, which is a central issue in moral philosophy since the end of the 17th century and throughout the 18th century. The paper 1) outlines the main points of this European debate and the issues at stake; and 2) revisits the critical doxa which sees French moralists and Mandeville as the starting point of modern liberal thought.
Béatrice Guion, former student of the École Normale Supérieure and agrégée in Classics, is full professor of 17th-century French literature at the University of Strasbourg. Her research focuses on moral and religious literature, on rhetorical and aesthetic thought in the 17th- and early 18th century, and on the writing of history in early modern Europe. She is the author of Pierre Nicole moraliste (Paris, Champion, 2002) and Du bon usage de l’histoire: histoire, morale et politique à l'âge classique (Paris, Champion, 2008). She is currently working on Franco-British exchanges in moral philosophy (‘“Self Still Is at the Bottom”: Mandeville and French Moralists’, 1650-1850. Ideas, Aesthetics and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, Bucknell UP, vol. 28, 2023, p. 230-245).
- Speaker
- Béatrice Guion
- Venue
- Taylor A36
- Contact
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For more information, please contact Dr Maria Sanchez-Ortiz.