vbid/9781644530658

Description

This book traces the development of the idea that the sciences were morally enlightening through an intellectual history of the�secr�taires perp�tuels�of the French Royal Academy of Sciences and their associates from the mid-seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century. Academy secretaries such as Fontenelle and Condorcet were critical to the emergence of a central feature of the narrative of Enlightenment in that they encouraged the notion that the �philosophical spirit� of the Scientific Revolution, already present among the educated classes, should guide the necessary reformation of society and government according to the ideals of scientific reasoning.�The Idea of the Sciences�also tells an intellectual history of political radicalization, explaining especially how the marquis de Condorcet came to believe that the sciences could play central a role in guiding the outcome of the Revolution of 1789. Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by�Rutgers University Press. �Typham this is the title: The Idea of the Sciences in the French Enlightenment A Reinterpretation