Jacopo Agnesina

Il Settecento è stato a lungo bistrattato dalla storiografia valdese. Le ragioni
di questo approccio sono molteplici, ma non di difficile comprensione se
si ragiona sull’intersezione di questi due elementi: in primo luogo, la storia
valdese è stata, per lo più, indagata e scritta da studiosi valdesi. In secondo
luogo, se prima del Settecento e – seppur con accenti diversi – dopo il Settecento, il popolo valdese si era stretto in se stesso e nelle sue valli alla ricerca di caratteri identitari, di tradizioni e di ortodossia, proprio nel secolo dei lumi le sue élite culturali, religiose e commerciali hanno al contrario vissuto una stagione di elevato cosmopolitismo. Ne consegue che gli storici valdesi hanno visto o con sospetto, o con scarso interesse questo secolo razionalista e lassista, nel quale il valdismo più intransigente è risultato dilavato dalla tempesta dell’inquieto illuminismo europeo.

The Great Protector of Wits provides a new assessment of baron d’Holbach (1723–1789) and his circle. A challenging figure of the European Enlightenment, Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach was not only a radically materialistic philosopher, a champion of anticlericalism, the author of the Système de la nature – known as ‘the Bible of atheists’ –, an idéologue, a popularizer of the natural sciences and a prolific contributor to the Encyclopédie, but he also played a crucial role as an organizer of intellectual networks and was a master of disseminating clandestine literature and a consummate strategist in authorial fictions. In this collective volume, for the first time, all these different threads of d’Holbach’s ‘philosophy in action’ are considered and analyzed in their interconnection.

Contributors to this volume: Jacopo Agnesina, Nicholas Cronk, Mélanie Éphrème, Enrico Galvagni, Jonathan Israel, Alan Charles Kors, Mladen Kozul, Brunello Lotti, Emilio Mazza, Gianluca Mori, Iryna Mykhailova, Gianni Paganini, Paolo Quintili, Alain Sandrier, Ruggero Sciuto, Maria Susana Seguin, and Gerhardt Stenger.

Widely known as the leader of the Free-thinkers sect, Anthony Collins (1676–1729) spent his life in the Essex countryside. A fierce anticlerical, he developed a heterodox philosophy in which Continental radical influences can be found. Materialism, determinism, freedom of expression, and biblical criticism are the main issues discussed in his works.

Anthony Collins, one of the most influential English heterodox intellectuals of the early eighteenth century, was born on 21 June 1676. His philosophy was much appreciated by the philosophes of the French Enlightenment, but almost completely forgotten in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. Rediscovered in the 1970s thanks to the studies of James O’Higgins (1970) and David...

Agnesina, J. (2022). Collins, Anthony. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31069-5_550

English
George Berkeley’s philosophical works did not get a noteworthy reception in England. The only remarkable discussion of Berkeley’s ideas was written by Ephraim Chambers in his Cyclopedia (1728). In Scotland, however, a small student’s club, The Rankenian Club of Edinburgh – whose members in few years will be counted in the cultural élite of the country –, received with curiosity and deepness Berkeley’s philosophy. In this article, I will investigate this reception, starting from the Club and moving through the career of its illustrious members

Italiano
Le opere filosofiche di George Berkeley non furono accolte positivamente in Inghilterra. La sola discussione degna di menzione delle sue idee fu quella di Ephraim Chambers nella Cyclopedia (1728). In Scozia, tuttavia, un piccolo club studentesco, il Rankenian Club di Edimburgo, i cui membri, negli anni a venire, faranno parte l’élite culturale di quel paese, accoglierà con curiosità e profondità le riflessioni del Vescovo. L’articolo indaga questa ricezione, partendo dal Club e ricostruendo la carriera dei suoi membri più illustri.

In this article are published, for the first time together, all the letters of David Hume preserved at the Princess Czartoryski Library in Krakow (Poland). There are six letters written by Hume and three received by himself. The collection range from Hume’s stay in France to the end of his life.  Notably, within these letters, there is one, written by the Earl of Chesterfield, which was never published before. The article include an historiographical introduction and rich bio-bibliographical notes.


In questo articolo sono pubblicate per la prima volta assieme tutte le lettere di David Hume conservate presso la Biblioteca della Principessa Czartoryski a Cracovia (Polonia). Sono presentate sei lettere scritte da Hume e tre ricevute da lui stesso. La raccolta spazia dal suo soggiorno in Francia fino al termine della sua vita. In particolare è presente una lettera totalmente inedita inviata dal Conte di Chesterfield. L’articolo include un’introduzione storiografica e ricche note bio-bibliografiche.

A version of the essay “Of Miracles” was included in Hume’s Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) but the first draft probably dates back to the Treatise years. The essay begins with a quotation from a sermon of John Tillotson, probably taken from A Discourse against Transubstantiation (1684), which Hume uses “pro domo sua”: while Tillotson only criticizes the miracle of transubstantiation, Hume enlarges the target of his scepticism to include the whole question of the possibility of miracles. Like Anthony Collins before him, he initially insists on the role of testimonies in facts which belongs to the realm of faith. However, in the course of the essay, he extends his critical approach even to testimonies and then concludes that no miracle can be deemed real against reason. This is plainly confirmed by Hume’s analysis of the miracle of Saragossa, which is supported by a high number of testimonies but, nonetheless, should be considered false for its lack of any rational foundation.

The philosophical reflection of Shaftesbury, John Toland and Anthony Collins were on the way to Enlightenment. Although they were strong supporters of free thought, each one dedicated a work to the theory of dissimulation in writing. How to read the rest of their books? How to read the books of other philosophers who shared with them the same ideals and ways of writing? The article, using the textual evidence of dissimulation in these authors' books, intends to re-examine the theoretical proposal of Leo Strauss by promoting its «reading between lines». Discussing his critics, notably Quentin Skinner, we will try to show how the «art of reading» is essential for a full understanding of the thinkers of the early Enlightenment.

Abstract: Anthony Collins and logical determinism. Great attention has always been
paid to determinism in the philosophy of Anthony Collins and important thinkers have
been drawn to his Inquiry on Liberty: Priestley, Voltaire, D’Holbach, to name just a
few. Even in modern times, determinism is one of the most investigated aspects of his
thinking. However, neither today nor in the past has this attention led to a clarification
of the scope of this determinism. Was it causal, moral, mechanistic or logical in kind?
Such a clarification does not merely provide a nominal definition but also a better understanding
of Collins’ entire philosophy. The article analyzes the relationship
between Collins and those English thinkers, like Locke, Clarke and Hobbes, who have
always been identified as the main sources of his philosophy. It also looks at continental
thinkers who were never much considered by scholars, such as Leibniz, Bayle and
finally Spinoza, who came to Collins mainly through the filter of Bayle and Leibniz.
The analysis leads the Author to argue that the determinism advocated by Collins is a
kind of necessitarianism very close to that of Spinoza, namely a logical determinism
or, as Leibniz called it, a metaphysical determinism.
Keywords: Collins, determinism, Spinoza, Bayle.

The structure of the Dissertation is similar to a short philosophical monograph, in which the biography and the historical informations about the life of Anthony Collins are reduced to the minimum required to understand his thought. Strongly characterized in its interpretation, the Dissertation tries to find the philosophical foundation of Collins' thought, in the attempt to show its unity. Great attention is posed on the 18th debate and on the primary literature, both British and European. During the Dissertation are examined the cornerstones of Collins' philosophy: refusal of the above reason, materialism and disapproval of the immortality of the soul, anti-clericalism, denial of the divine attributes, freedom of thought, determinism and logical determinism, Biblical criticism, irony and ridicule in writing.
Subjects that could appear disconnected at first glance, after a complete analysis have shown their strong connection, revealing a deep coherence in Collins' philosophical outlook. Collins propose an original materialistic philosophy, with which he successfully tries to demonstrate that the though is an emerging property of matter. Under a theological point of view, Collins use the skeptical lesson of Bayle and find it useful to support the anti-finalistic position of Spinoza: the result is a subtle and witty atheism, less inflamed than the one that can be found in some clandestine text, but not for this less resolute and decisive. An essential component of Collins' atheism is its determinism that, in the Dissertation, is characterized – following the nomenclature of Leibniz – as “logical”: not only “from a cause follow by necessity an effect” but “it is logical impossible to think another world in which from that cause doesn't follow that effect”. In a universe of that kind it's impossible to imagine any Divine intervention; and, furthermore, going back to the chain of causes till the first, we have to recognise that this first cause in under a logical necessity.
The Biblical criticism or, more exactly, the “criticism of Biblical-criticism” to which Collins devote several of his latest works, could be read as a backward step that casts doubts on his real atheism. Actually, besides to an anti-Christian attitude – directed only to one of the possible religions –, the critique of the Scripture, and of one specific way of interpreting them, hide a deeper and more precise goal: the Physico-theology of Newtonians and their attempt to introduce a 'deistic' Christianity based on the exam of reason and science. In brief: the works of Collins, that put in doubt the Messianic role of Christ and other prophecies, catch the result of questioning the claimed continued-providence of the physico-theologian.
A subject that embrace all the works of Collins is the Free-thinking. Collins seems to recognize an infinite and fully Enlightened liberty to the intellectual efforts of men.  However, with his last work, that seems contradictory at first glance but in reality is fully in the track of his thought, Collins admits the dissimulation of the truth: or, in other words, the hiding of the truth while instilling it. The attention to this rhetorical praxis is very important to understand the philosophy of the Free-thinker.
The conclusion of the Dissertation wants to stress the originality of the thought of Collins and the innovative level of his philosophy which, in many ways, anticipate that of the Philosophes of the High Enlightenment.

"Illuminismo e cristianesimo nell’Europa del Settecento"
Torre Pellice, 2-3 settembre 2022
LXI Convegno della Società di Studi Valdesi

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Il Calvinismo ginevrino del '700 e la sua pericolosa frequentazione col deismo: l'emblematico caso di André-Robert Vaudenet fra teologia e senso comune [ABSTRACT]
Jacopo Agnesina

La Ginevra di inizio Settecento era coinvolta in una profonda fase di rinnovamento teologico. Propiziato da Jean-Alphonse Turrettini, figlio rinnovatore del grande conservatore François, il cambiamento di paradigma passava per nodi cruciali della religione calvinista, come la questione della Grazia. J.-A. Turrettini, allievo e poi collega del teologo Louis Tronchin e del filosofo Jean-Robert Chouet – entrambi passati per l’Accademia di Saumur che, nel Seicento, faceva scandalo per le posizioni dottrinali di Moïse Amyraut –, spingeva per un rinnovamento interno al calvinismo ginevrino e al contempo per un’apertura ecumenica verso il mondo riformato europeo. A Ginevra, messa da parte una tendenza isolazionistica e conservatrice, di riflesso, giungeranno da tutta Europa tesi liberali e, talvolta, financo radicali. Queste, da taluni rigettate, da altri additate come oggetto di scandalo, nel corso degli anni troveranno il modo di essere discusse, rielaborate e integrate nella teologia ufficiale. Così, nel volgere di pochi decenni, la svolta promossa dal J.-A. Turrettini – che si era spinta ben oltre gli obiettivi fissati dal suo maître à penser – porterà un compiaciuto d’Alembert a scrivere che i teologi ginevrini non erano divenuti altro che dei semplici deisti.
Ben prima delle parole dell’Enciclopedista, nel 1707, venne istituita una commissione d’inchiesta e, successivamente, un processo nei confronti di membro della borghesia ginevrina, André-Robert Vaudenet. Personaggio fumantino – uno studio novecentesco, ha mostrato come fosse già noto alle cronache giudiziarie – Vaudenet, in un atto notarile, aveva ammesso di credere in un Dio creatore e governatore del mondo ma si rifiutava di riconoscere gli altri attributi divini e i dogmi della fede cristiana. Posto all’attenzione del Concistoro il caso Vaudenet diverrà emblematico di una Ginevra in rinnovamento ma ancora fortemente intollerante…

In the last years of his life, the old John Locke retired at the Lady Masham’s Estate, at Oates, in the Essex. Here he became one of the tutors of her son Francis Cudworth Masham, and he could enjoy the company of the well-cultured Lady and her circle of friends. Nonetheless, the great philosopher felt the weight of his age, progressively losing the pleasure for the studies and for research.
In March 1703 a 26 years old young gentlemen, Anthony Collins, was invited at the Estate. Here he got acquainted of Locke. It was the beginning of a short but intense friendship that was significant for both, and signify a turning point for their lives.
A month after their first meeting, unfortunately, Collins lost his wife. This tragic event, however, reinforced the friendship. Remarkably, Locke wrote a letter full of compassion to the young widower. In the following months the two friends met several times at Masham’s Estate, and exchanges a lot of letters full of a regained enthusiasm for life and studies.
Locke, at the beginning, acts like a father for Collins; he was full of advices and life lessons for the young friend. He was really fascinated by the mind of Collins, by his freedom, curiosity and liberty. Locke probably saw a picture of himself in the young friend. But short after, in spite of the difference of age, they were courting one each other, having been seduced by their ideas and way of thinking and acting.
In fact, Locke find a new youth, even in his last days, thanks to the friendship with Collins. He feels invigorated by their mutual exchange of ideas, and he had the will and the pleasure to dedicate himself, again, to study and research. Locke wasn’t acting like a tutor on behalf of Collins. Nothing is more wrong. They treat one another at the same level: Locke, keeping the benefit of the passion and freedom of thought of the young men, of his wit, of his remarkable insight. Collins, on the other side, questioning the old philosopher, trying to acquire as much as possible from his huge knowledge.
There was no deference in Collins. He put in question the statements of the old philosopher, he freely analyses his works, trying to grasp the real and deepest meaning from the text. This attitude was the thing most appreciated by Locke. Talking about the “the love of truth”, Locke wrote to Collins: «if I mistake not you have as much of it as ever I met with in any body» (J. Locke to A. Collins, 29th Oct. 1703). There was true attraction between the two, and they feel true friendly-love of one another. Locke talk and write without censure to Collins, communicating to him his most profound thoughts, without fear of being judged. They both share wit, irreverence and a strong anticlerical attitude. They also share readings: Locke invited Collins, by letter, to read the Epistle to the Corinthians of St. Paul, in view of the next visit of the latter at Masham’s Estate. Some results from this exchange of views had probably been included in the posthumous work on the Epistle edited by Locke.
When Locke felt the days of his life came to an end he wrote an emotional letter to Collins (“to be delivered to him after my decease”). In this letter Locke thanks Collins for their friendship and wish to him a long life, health, freedom, «& all the blesseing which: providence has bestowed on you & your virtue intitles you to» (J. Locke to A. Collins, 23th Aug. 1704).

In this paper, thanks to the surviving correspondence recently published by James Dybikowski, I will try to give a picture of the relationship between Locke and Collins. Focusing on one side, on the philosophical exchanges between the two: that shaped Collins ways of thinking and, in some respect, that had given new life to Locke last works. And on the other side, on the matter of heart, on the friendly-love that in the correspondence emerges between the young Free-thinker and the old Philosopher. A love affair that matters, and that equally to the philosophical exchanges, has changed their life.

International workshop
“The Free Will Question at the Turn of 18th Century”
26 and 27 September 2019
Université de Neuchâtel
Paper: «From Collins to Hume and Priestley: determinism faces the challenges of skepticism and theism»

Anthony Collins’ determinism was an essential part of his philosophy. A strong determinism that could be better defined as a “logical necessitarianism”; in the Inquiry on Human Liberty Collins states that the necessity of events is equal to the necessity of arithmetics: 2 + 2 gives as result 4 with the same necessity that Senate was the place where Caesar died. The “chain of causes” started from the first, first cause that Collins deprives of moral attributes. His necessitarian and materialistic systems seem devoted to unlock the door of a philosophical “dogmatical” atheism. Priestley was, by his own confession, converted to determinism by Collins. The two also share a materialistic background. But how, and in what extent, can Priestley – a honest believer in the faith of Christ –, accept at the same time Collins’ necessitarianism and challenge Bayle’s argument on “evil”? Finally, what shares Hume the skeptic with Collins the dogmatic? How can Hume’s skeptic critique on the relation of cause and effect be reconciled with his reflexions on Liberty of Necessity? Does he restate a new, a contemporary flavoured, concept of determinism? Or he’s simply incoherent with himself? And what about Hume and the problem of Evil stated in section of Liberty and Necessity of his Enquiry?

Baron d’Holbach, in his Système Social (1773), had opposed to the Anglomania, supported by Voltaire in his Lettres Anglaises (1734), a general aversion to England. This position was partially reinforced during the short stay in Hempton, during the 1765, when the Baron was guest of his Shakespearean and beloved friend David Garrick.
Of this journey we have a brief report from the common friend Denis Diderot, who wrote interesting informations in two letters he sent to Miss Sophie Volland. Following the ironical report of Diderot, the Baron: «est parti pour ce pays, prévenu; il y a reçu l’accueil le plus agréable, il y a joui de la plus belle santé, cependant il en est revenu mécontent». Notwithstanding the highest cares that Garrick paid to Holbach, the Baron didn’t enjoy the stay, tormented by the hypocrisy of the English society: an absolutism disguised as a democracy, a secularism plague by bigotry and a fierce aversion to the heterodox way of thinking. Diderot continues, adding details to Holbach stay in England: «Les déistes y sont sans nombre; il n’y a presque point d’athées; ceux qui le sont s’en cachent. Un athée et un scélérat sont presque des noms synonymes pour eux».
Within the circle of Holbach’s friend, apart the Englishman Garrick, we can mention Adam Smith and David Hume. For sure they were Anglo-Saxon, but they were other than English, being members of a very Scottish Enlightenment. This movement, if we can trace a link, was highly indebted with England and Englishmen, but of a previous generation: namely the so-called Free-thinkers.
It is highly probable that Holbach was well acquainted with Free-thinkers’ works well before his short trip to England; but it is curious that he started editing a French version (of what that seems more than a simple translation) of Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion (1725) and of Scheme of Literal Prophecy considered (1727), both of Anthony Collins, just on his return in France. These text will be finally merged together in the Examen des Prophéties (1768) and, to some extent, they will also influence L’Esprit du Judaïsme (1770).
The present paper aims to examine how and in which measure – specifically in the above mention works – the Baron was accurate as a translator or, on the other hand, how much of his own philosophy contributed to minor or major text changes. These changes, by the bye, could, in some sense, be not a betrayal of the original texts, but a further development of the Prophecies’ criticism started by Collins.

David Hume, in the essay entitled Of Miracles (1748), challenges the the truth of miracles. As a reason to reject them, Hume propose something that will led us to the issue of religious intolerance: «[…] let us consider, that, in matters of religion, whatever is different is contrary. [...] Every miracle, […] as its direct scope is to establish the particular system to which is attributed; […] so has it the same force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other system» [Italic is mine].
Hume argue in favour of a general autonomy of moral and politics from religion. On the contrary, Hume alleges that the societies that religions build up are naturally driven to overwhelm other societies established by different religions.
In this Talk, I’ll investigate the attitude that Hume had to read the religion as a negative factor for the well-being of society.

Anthony Collins testimonia bene il clima culturale inglese del primo Settecento, assai vivo e nel quale convivevano una grande pluralità di posizioni filosofiche e politiche. Autore di un Discorso sulla Libertà di Pensare, afferma che questa deve essere garantita senza alcun limite da parte dell’autorità. Tuttavia, quando torna “alla caverna” – ne è assolutamente conscio Collins –, il filosofo deve scontrarsi con dei limiti che vanno dall’ostracismo alla persecuzione, cosa che rende necessaria qualche prudenza nell’espressione. Proprio nel suo attacco alla religione Cristiana e alla teologia razionale Collins cercherà la giusta alchimia fra libertà della scrittura e insinuazione. La religione Cristiana è erosa nelle sue fondamenta Scritturali: caricata di aspettativa sull’unico perno della Messianicità di Cristo, con un’erudizione e un procedere che richiama Spinoza e Richard Simon, viene infine implicitamente destituita di verosimiglianza. Sull’altro fronte Collins porta la teologia razionale al suo limite: sbrogliando la matassa del pensiero di Samuel Clarke e William King, rendendola quindi un pensiero lineare, fa incontrare al lettore l’insormontabile ostacolo costituito dalla riconciliazione degli attributi divini. Così, con questo duplice attacco, la dimensione religiosa – storica e metafisica –, è privata di senso e ragione. Il paper proposto cerca di ricostruire, in breve e senza addentrarsi eccessivamente nei dettagli, questo duplice procedimento che, fondato sulla libertà di pensiero, conduce a un pensiero a-teo che Collins svilupperà in altri luoghi.