Wayne I. Boucher (ed.), Spinoza: eighteenth- and nineteenth-century discussions: a review-essay

Abstract

Extract

It is since the publication of Paul Verniere's seminal Spinoza et la pensée française avant la Révolution (1954) that the reception of Spinoza's thought has become a topic of serious scholarship. Verniere's efforts were followed up by important collections of papers on the fate of Spinoza's philosophy during the French eighteenth century. The German and Dutch reactions to his views also received ample attention, so that over the last two decades the history of the reception of Spinozism on the European continent has become one of the more absorbing facets of Spinoza scholarship. Apart from such well-known examples as Henry More, ⌞ho detested Spinoza, and John Toland, who was often accused of being a Spinozist in disguise, it is remarkable, to say the least, how little has been written on the British reaction to the Dutch philosopher. In view of the present State of scholarship, anything coming close to a history of British (anti-)Spinozism seems a distant prospect.