How much of our own self- interest should we be willing to sacrifice for love of another? The Quietists answered, all of it, even the salvation of our own soul. Opposing them were the Jansenists, including Arnauld, who saw self-interest as inescapable. The debate swept across French society in the 17th century, with Bossuet and Fénelon on opposite sides, and was multi- dimensional, with political and ecclesiastical intrigue, charges of heresy, and many shenanigans. Initially theological, the debate’s basis lay in differing philosophical concepts of freewill, with both sides claiming support from Descartes’s views. The debate thus highlights interpretation of the Cartesians, especially Malebranche, a prominent participant in it. Nevertheless, this is the first book on the debate in English.
Author(s): Thomas M. Lennon
Series: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 304
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 318
City: Leiden
Prologue
Apparatus
Chapter 1. Pure Love
1. Sacrifice
2. The Theological Idiom
3. Freedom and Volition
4. A Tawdry Affair
5. Contemporary Connections
Chapter 2. The Impossible Supposition
1. Is Pure Love Possible?
2. The Abandonment of Hope
3. Novelty: Historical and Theological Contexts for the Impossible Supposition
4. Secular Versions of the Impossible Supposition
5. The Possibility of Virtue
Chapter 3. Quietism
1. François de Sales (1567–1622)
2. Bossuet on François
3. Bossuet and Mme Guyon
4. Attrition and Contrition: Sirmond vs. Camus
Chapter 4. Spontaneity and Indifference
1. Two Senses of Freedom
2. Spontaneity
3. Indifference
Chapter 5. The 'Augustinus'
1. The First Attack on Molinist Indifference
2. The Importance of the 'Augustinus'
3. The Text of the 'Augustinus'
4. Objections and Replies
5. Hope
Chapter 6. Cartesian Wills
1. Descartes’s View: Circumstantial Evidence
2. Descartes’s View: Textual Evidence
Chapter 7. The Object of Love
1. 'Amour propre' and 'amour de soi'
2. Malebranche on the Will
3. Malebranche and Lamy
4. The Quietist Critique of Malebranche
Chapter 8. Bossuet’s Jansenism
1. Du Vaucel’s Reports from Rome
2. The Text: Bossuet’s 'Treatise on Free Will'
3. Nicole’s Refutation of the Quietists
4. The Episode of an 'ecclesiastical problem'
5. Quesnel’s Contribution
Chapter 9. The Dénouement
1. Descartes
2. Jansenius
3. Fénelon
Chapter 10. The Last Temptation
Chronology
Appendix 1. 'The Famous Five' Cum occasione, 31 May 1653
Appendix 2. 'Cum alias', 12 March 1699
Bibliography of Works Cited
Index
