Patrons of Enlightenment
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: April 22, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780802090645
Subjects: Western philosophy, c 1600 to c 1800; General; Philosophy / General; Philosophy; 18th century; Authors and patrons; Enlightenment; Europe; History; Philosophers
First sentence: Philosophers of the eighteenth century often looked to Socrates as a model of how the philosophic life was to be lived.
Description: "In Patrons of Enlightenment, Edward G. Andrew examines the relationships between philosophers and their patrons, with particular focus on eighteenth-century thinkers in England, France, and Scotland. He argues that the ideal of intellectual autonomy or independence of thought, fostered by the growing readership of the time, was largely fabricated by thinkers who depended upon royal or aristocratic patronage. Although no scholar or philosopher subsisted by the labours of his or her pen, many claimed that the age of patronage had passed or had been taken over by the booksellers. An intellectual marketplace had supposedly replaced hierarchy in the republic of patron-client relationships in this area casts doubt on the common view that republicanism was the dominant ideology of the Enlightenment."--BOOK JACKET.