Intellectual History of Enlightenment

“One can define… virtue as the love of the laws and the homeland,” says Montesquieu. He later states, “Virtue, in a republic, is a very simple thing: it is love of the republic; it is a feeling and not a result of knowledge.”  Virtue, as an abstract and non-tangible characteristic of republican governments, relies on its measurements through scaling. There can be moderation in virtue; in the same way, virtuousness can come in extremes. The practice of being perfectly virtuous in governance is what Montesquieu defines as a well-functioning republic and legislator, though being overly virtuous or lacking it certainly has its consequences.

Рассматриваются современные тенденции социально-гуманитарного познания, актуализировавшие изучение религиозных аспектов Нового и Новейшего времени. Констатируется значительное повышение внимания к соответствующей тематике в рамках истории ведущих стран Запада в XVIII-XX вв. Подчеркиваются сложность и неоднозначность процессов секуляризации, связанных с усилением социальной атомизации и культурной фрагментации общества. Делается вывод о том, что изучение религиозного фактора способствует развитию дискуссии о нормах и ценностях, обеспечивающих функционирование республиканской формы правления в США и других странах Запада. Отмечается, что на современном этапе различные системы верований начинают трактоваться в качестве специфических адаптаций, стимулирующих социальность и при определенных обстоятельствах увеличивающих шансы на выживание для собственных приверженцев. При этом итоговая оценка эффективности данных адаптаций остается дискуссионной. Важное значение имеют данные о положительной взаимосвязи уровня религиозности и уровня рождаемости. Подчеркивается, что достижения нейрофизиологии позволяют глубже понять биологические грани религиозного опыта. Выявляется, что идеальные и материальные компоненты человеческой природы и культуры связаны теснее, чем принято было считать ранее. Комплексное изучение роли религии в общественно-политических процессах представляется важным и перспективным научным направлением гуманитарных наук XXI в.

The paper distinguishes between three positions concerning the relationship between natural and political rights as articulated during the French Revolution. The first, termed here the discontinuity view and associated with Abbé Sieyès, regards the two types of rights as distinct but not antagonistic. This perspective affirms the importance of political rights, viewing them as instrumental in safeguarding natural rights within society-a function best fulfilled by representative government. The second position, referred to as the reinforcement view and attributed to the Marquis de Condorcet, posits that political rights are a subset of natural rights. This conceptual continuity serves to justify a robust regime of political rights and a strong democratic order that blends elements of representative and direct democracy. The third position, dubbed the antagonism view and ascribed to the later writings of Robespierre and Saint-Just, assumes that natural and political rights are in conflict. According to this perspective, natural rights can obstruct the development of political rights, thereby justifying a non-democratic regime wherein political decision-making is entrusted to a narrow revolutionary vanguard. This paper examines the underlying concept of natural rights that informs each of these three perspectives.

This study will present the relation between belief and knowledge in the course of history of thinking. It attempts, at first, to think about these two phenomena in general, and then later, in Early modern philosophy. Therefore, tentatively, it begins with Tales’ abandonment of mythology and includes Kant’s abandonment of dogmatism. Following this line of reasoning, Kant’s abandonment of dogmatism, which has got its explanation in his capital work Kritik der reinen Vernunft, will be presented beginning with his pre-critical, then metaphysical and finally critical period. Hypothesis, as a presupposed truthful judgment in order to explain certain facts or as a supposition based on facts, manifests in thesis that the relation between belief and knowledge in Immanuel Kant’s epistemology best materializes its explication after a critique of rational theology; namely the one that has proven to have lost every possibility and credibility for materializing tendencies of proclaiming itself a science.

1. מדוע אנו כאן

ב־19 ביולי 2025 פתח העיתון Il Foglio סדרת מאמרים על האמת. כל מאמר נגע בתחום אחר: תאולוגיה, מידע, משפט. מטרת טקסט זה היא להמשיך את הדיון, מעבר לגבולות העיתון. בפרט נעסוק באמת המשפטית הנבחנת באמצעות הראיה המדעית. קרנלוטי הזהיר כבר מזמן: כל ניסיון לזהות את האמת המשפטית עם האמת המדעית הוא טעות מתודולוגית. ההליך השיפוטי אינו מעבדה אלא במה: הריאגנטים הם בני אדם והעדויות שלהם.

was an Italian philosopher, historian, and jurist, one of the most significant exponents of eighteenth-century radical Enlightenment. Best known for his monumental Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli (1723), a work that openly challenged papal claims and the political influence of the Roman Church, Giannone combined erudition and legal expertise with a militant commitment to the principle of state autonomy from ecclesiastical power. His writings circulated widely across Europe, attracting both admiration and condemnation, and his life was marked by exile, repeated attempts at intellectual rehabilitation, and a long imprisonment that ended with his death in Turin. Through his works, he left a lasting mark on European debates about the relationship between religion, politics, and law in the early modern age.

presentar este volumen, el número 25 de su serie de publicaciones, que dedica a sor Juana de la Cruz y el mundo de lo sagrado, como colofón de las actividades llevadas a cabo en torno al proyecto ministerial de edición crítica de la trilogía de La santa Juana de Tirso de Molina. Las contribuciones se presentan en tres bloques temáticos. Uno inicial de seis trabajos dedicados a la biobibliografía de sor Juana, tanto de los documentos y circunstancias relativos a su vida como de sus recreaciones literarias, con especial atención a la del Mercedario, ordenados de lo general a lo particular (Blanca Oteiza, María Luengo, Isabel Ibáñez, Jesús Mª Usunáriz, Alan Paterson, Concepción Martínez Pasamar y Cristina Tabernero). El segundo, algo más amplio, en que se reflexiona desde diversas perspectivas sobre el mundo de lo sagrado o la sacralización en la obra de Tirso, especialmente a partir de sus protagonistas, mayoritariamente femeninas, pero no solo (

The dissertation interprets the vampire as a case of extraordinary knowledge production on the margins of the known world. I directed the focus at experts entrusted to apply their specialized knowledge on diagnosing the vampiric attack and on regulating the unruly dead. Throughout the first half of the eighteenth century, these experts served various social groups: local communities, administrative-judicial structures, aristocratic circles, the republic of letters and aulic political spheres. Thus, historical sources produced on vampires unveil actors, interests and intense negotiations about what is 'normal' death and decay, about who is an expert, and what is proof. I argue that knowledge production is social, political, and bears the mark of the environment where it was produced.

The present article traces the creation of the peculiar concept of the vampiric contagion or "vampirization" through the work of two official commissions which investigated vampires in Habsburg Serbia in 1732. Even though the importance of the documents prepared by the commissions has been duly recognized in intellectual and cultural histories, a closer look at the narrower historical context yields additional insights into how the figure of the vampire was construed. This approach also helps us do justice to the work of the first commission, led by contagion physician Glaser, which usually receives undeservedly little attention in the secondary literature. While acknowledging the Habsburg cameralistic state administration's efforts at controlling and disciplining the borderland's population, the article seeks to interpret the vampire as a product of a contact zone, co-created by the local Orthodox population and the borderland's medical administration.

Eighteenth-century scholarship is full of hybrid works: works that integrate elements from different fields and genres, sometimes from different authors and different periods, each with their own forms of organization and argumentative/rhetorical structures. This article analyses such hybrid works as documents of changes in the architecture of knowledge. Applying Ian Hacking's notion of "styles of reasoning" to the history of the humanities, it shows how this bricolage reflects the uses of different models for transforming information into knowledge. The article focuses on three eighteenth-century genres that are particularly representative of a style of reasoning: histoire philosophique, grammaire générale, and historia literaria, and how they come together in hybrid works such as Gébelin's Monde Primitif (1773-82), Monboddo's Origin and Progress of Language (1773-93), Astle's The Origin and Progress of Writing (1784), and Heeren's Ideen (1793-96; 1824-26). Tracing the genealogies of these genres and their intersections, we can discern broader developments in eighteenth-century ideas of history, language, literature, and knowledge, from their early modern origins to the making of the modern humanities.

Stefa no Vinci CLORIDORO NICOLINI (1780-1859). UN MAGISTRATO ALLA RICERCA DELLE REGOLE DELL'EQUIT A l. La vita e le opere di Cloridoro Nicolini. -In una memoria presentata a Ferdi nando II nel 1836, l 'avvocato Tito Berni descriveva con «raccapriccio» Io stato della magistratura, caduta in discredito presso «tutte le classi della nazione» e poco consi derata dagli stessi suoi membri1• In un panorama siffatto, ben pochi fu rono i giudici napoletani che brilłarono per ingegno e per moralita. Tra questi spicca Cloridoro Ni colini2, giurista e magistrato napoletano autore di interessanti saggi dottrinali, la cui figura e stata finora poco studiata forse perche oscurata da quella del piu famoso fra tello Niccola3 • Attraverso le sue opere e l'esperienza maturata in campo giudiziario -fu giudice e procuratore nei principali Tribunali del Regno -e possibile cogliere il travaglio del ceto forense a seguito delł'entrata in vigore del code civil4• Nacque nel Osservava l'avvocato Berni nell'accentuare il «deplorabile state di abbiezione in cui la nostra magistratura si gia ce» che «alcuni de' migliori mi han detto con candidezza che essi non alfiderebbero neppure la loro giamberga alla decisione degli attuali tribunali». I tribunali erano pieni di «giovani poco esperti nell'arte difficilissima del giu dicare, di «Uomini che interamente non sono dedicati allo studio delle leggi», di «uomini istruiti si ma che sfian cati dalie infermita e dalie disgrazie non valgono piu un uomo e molto meno un magistralo», di «vecchi che logo ri dall'eta e dal vicino pensiero del finire male impugnano e peggio adoprano la spada della giustizia». «ASNa, Archivio Borbone, Memoria sulic state della magistratura e dei clamori che si levano contro di essa dell'avv.to D.

In February 1744 in Paris, the Swedish physician Abraham Bäck (1713-95), better known as Carl Linnaeus's best friend, dissected the cadaver of an unidentified sub-Saharan man. In contrast to the widespread exploitation of the enslaved dead in North America, cadavers of dark-skinned Africans remained rare in the anatomical theatres of eighteenth-century Europe. Scarcity not only increased their market value in medical circles interested in skin colour: in Europe, empirical anatomists often used these rare remains for building their medical authority. This article explores the rise of an empiricist social culture of racial anatomy in the European Enlightenment by following the case of Bäck, whose research on 'black' skin also provides a little-known counterpart to Linnaeus's racial anthropology. Bäck's case illustrates not only how European anatomists often wrote accounts of skin colour which best showcased their medical skills but also how the production of racial pseudoscience became increasingly driven by the authoritative rise of empiricism, the expansion of the slave trade, and the Enlightenment's fascination with human differences. I took pieces of the Negro's skin from several parts, his buttocks, his arm, and foot sole &c. and let them soak in cold water for a week. 1 In February 1744, the Swedish physician Abraham Bäck (1713-95), often remembered as Carl Linnaeus's best friend, dissected the cadaver of an unidentified sub-Saharan African man who had died at the Hôpital de la Charité in Paris. 2 Cadavers of sub-Saharan Africans were sought after by European anatomists because of their relative 1 'Jag tog stycken af Negerns skinn på åskilliga stållen, såsom af armen, fotsålan, såtet &c. och lade dem i kalt vatten at blötas en vecka': Abraham Bäck, 'Rön om negrernas svarta hud' ('Opinion on the black skin of negroes'),

This paper revisits the Enlightenment as conceptualized by Immanuel Kant, Michel Foucault, and key figures in the Frankfurt School. Kant construes the Enlightenment as an emergence from self-incurred immaturity, i.e., dependence on authority. Foucault reframes Kant's question as an interrogation of the present. I then trace Adorno and Horkheimer's diagnosis that the Enlightenment risks becoming an instrumentalized myth and present Habermas's corrective of communicative rationality as a procedural way to recover the emancipatory promise. Reflecting on my fieldwork with an apologetics community in Bohol, I argue that lantugi captures Habermas' vision for undistorted discourse and thus offers a local, practice-based, non-Eurocentric pathway for re-anchoring the public use of reason, conditional on light institutional supports (rotating moderation, archival practice, civility norms). Lantugi is one of the possibilities for rebuilding deliberative capacities from below.

J.L. Runebergin Vänrikki Stoolin tarinat jätti hyvässä tarkoituksessa 1808-1809 Suomen sodan kuvasta pois niitä, jotka käänsivät sen tappion menestykseen rauhassa. Yksi heistä oli Paimion Wiksbergin kartanon Robert Henrik Rehbinder kumppaneinaan piispa Jakob Tengström ja marsalkka Mannerheimin isosiän isä Louhisaaren Carl Erik Mannerheim.



Heidän johdollaan suomalaiset vetosivat koko vuosisadan kevään 1809 Porvoon valtiopäivien valistuksen sopimusteorian pohjalta tehtyyn valtiosopimukseen ja keisareiden vakuutuksiin ja samaan aikaan kehittivät kansllista sivistystään ja talouttaan kantamaan itsenäistä valtiojärjestystä, kun sen aika tuli.


Tiivistelmä Suomen ensimmäisestä valtiosihteeristä Robert Henrik Rehbinderistä ensi vuonna ilmestyvästä tutkimuksesta ”Euroopan synnystä Suomen syntyyn – kruunun ja alttarin ulkopolitiikka 753 eKr. – 1848 jKr.”. Esitys on Paimion kunnan 700-vuotisjuhliin liittyvänä sen Wiksbergissä 1777 syntyneen Rehbinderin muistoksi, pidetty Halikon Wiurilassa 14.9.2025. Liite: Finlands Allmänna Tidning: Robert Henrik Rehbinderin muistokirjoitus 30. maaliskuuta 1841.

As Kemal Beydilli has shown, the Cedīd Aṭlas Tercümesi that was the crystallizing point of the meeting at McMaster was very much a state project: The publication of the maps with an introductory treatise was ordered by the sultan; salaries for translators, engravers, printers and all kinds of other outlays were paid out of state coffers; printing took place in the imperial printing house; and, apparently, finished copies were handed to agents of the state. 1 I wish to take this instance of state patronage to raise some specific and some general questions about state, maps, and patronage. Historians of mapping, including those studying Ottoman maps, have long criticized narratives of progress toward ever greater accuracy in a spirit of scientific objectivity and veristic representation. Instead, they have embraced, openly or implicitly, a more Foucauldian approach to maps as complex tools of power, control, and propaganda. 2 A 1787 watercolor showing the office of the reʾīsü l-küttāb decorated with a wall map of the Black Sea region provides an iconic instance of this use but also, notably, the first. 3 Cartographic representations of the Ottoman Empire in its respective territorial extent abounded in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 4 while Ottoman maps that did the same, as a record of the imperial domains, were exceedingly rare, at least before the nineteenth century. 5 At first glance, the Cedīd Aṭlas Tercümesi seems to follow a centuries-old pattern of state patronage for maps and especially atlases, prefigured by Pīrī Reʾīs, Kātib Çelebi, Ebū Bekr el-Dimeşḳī, and İbrāhīm Müteferriḳa. Yet the differences are

PROGRAMME Jeudi 15 juin 09h30-Accueil des participants. 09h45-Ouverture du colloque. 10h00-Dominique CASIMIRO, Université d'Artois. « Santiago punk ». Le terme de contre-culture est apparu au XX e siècle, dans les années soixante, pour désigner l'apparition de mouvements de contestation de la jeunesse contre la culture dominante. Communes, amour libre, pacifisme, hédonisme, drogues psychédéliques, féminisme, mysticisme, errance, figurent parmi ses traits distinctifs. Si la contre-culture est née aux États-Unis, elle s'est rapidement propagée en Amérique latine où, de façon inespérée, elle a trouvé une voie d'expression privilégiée dans la littérature, notamment dans le Mexique des années soixante et soixante-dix, avec la dénommée littérature de la Onda. Son plus célèbre protagoniste, l'écrivain mexicain José Agustín, considère que la contre-culture « embrasse toute une série de mouvements et d'expressions culturels, pour la plupart de jeunesse, et collectifs,...

Tractatus theologico-politicus pertains to matters of biblical interpretation as much as it does to political philosophy. In addition to laying the groundwork for a method of biblical interpretation in his seventh chapter, Spinoza engages in biblical exegesis throughout his work. Among the many portions of the Bible that he uses and discusses are the Psalms. An examination of Spihighly selective use of Psalms shows this use to be apologetical. Spinoza used the Psalms as part of his defense of his political philosophy, wherein he privatized religion, handing over public religious matters (such as ritual) into the hands of the secular state. s in the Context of His Political Project 3 Tractatus theologico-politicus is known primarily as a work of political philosophy, yet s text addresses matters of biblical exegesis. In fact, his entire seventh chapter is devoted to laying out a method for how to interpret the Bible scientifically. In this article, I examine use of the Book of Psalms...

This workshop for CONSTANT 18 looked at the history and the development of the textbook, choosing examples mainly from chemistry. It is surprisingly, an extremely interesting area, which was made more human by including some biography of textbook authors and also some of their ideals and beliefs, which were frequently explained in the prefaces of textbooks. Quite a number of early textbook authors were women and their books made a significant contribution to the later history of science. For example Jane Marcet's "Conversations in Chemistry" (1806) was the book that inspired the young Michael Faraday to take up a career in science. The aim of the workshop is not to dispute that modern technology is making inroads on the relevance of the textbook, but rather to place textbooks in their historical context as a part of that change process currently occurring in education.

Delaube and Falconet: The Missing Link - In what follows, we present new evidence that supports our previous research on the Réflexions morales et métaphysiques (ca. 1714), which culminated in our critical edition of 2023. In particular, we offer an explanation of a small mystery that has surrounded the Réflexions since their recent rediscovery: namely, why their author-whom we have identified as Camille Falconet-chose to conceal himself under the pseudonym "Delaube" when submitting the work for publication. This finding provides an unexpected, but substantially decisive, confirmation of our attribution.

Behind the myths and mysteries lies a movement that helped shape modern Europe. Long associated with the legacy of medieval builders, Freemasonry’s origins have sparked debate for centuries. Was it truly born in the guilds of the Middle Ages—or in the dazzling intellectual currents and new forms of sociability that transformed the early modern world?

This book takes you inside the remarkable rise of French Freemasonry, from its first uncertain steps to its establishment as a powerful force in the cultural, social, and political life of its age. Both rigorous and accessible, it offers a fresh perspective on one of history’s most influential—and most misunderstood—societies.

Mobilisées dans un premier temps pour préserver l’idéal et l’universel au sein de la philosophie pratique kantienne, les notions de norme et de valeur sont ensuite remodelées afin de redéfinir l’universel à partir de l’individu et plus spécifiquement de la figure romantique du génie créateur, grâce au pouvoir analogique du symbole poétique. Le travail généalogique proposé permet d’interroger la manière dont on définit l’universel qu’une autre tradition envisage sans idéal, sans norme et sans valeur, mais dans une perspective plus liée à l’usage et à la délibération.

This  article  explores  the  historical  roots  of  the  aesthetic  experience  of  biodiversity,  focusing  on  a  formative  period  of  modern aesthetics between the mid-17th and late 18th centuries. Drawing on the works of Balthasar Gracián, Joseph Addison, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the paper argues that the diversity and multitude of living species – what we now call biodiversity – were already central to proto-aesthetic and early aesthetic reflections on nature. Although lacking modern  ecological  awareness,  these  authors  attributed  profound  emotional,  philosophical,  and  symbolic  value  to  the  variety of life. Gracián’s concept of the innocent gaze, Addison’s aesthetic of novelty and fullness of being, and Goethe’s morphological insights into metamorphosis each exemplify a distinct mode of aesthetically engaging with biodiversity. The  study  concludes  with  critical  reflections  on  the  limits  of  linking  aesthetic  appreciation  to  ethical  responsibility  in  contemporary debates on conservation, warning against instrumental or scientistic appropriations of aesthetic experience.

This book adds a new episode to the story of the collaboration between George Frideric Handel and the English clockmaker Charles Clay (†1740): the building of an organ clock completed in 1730 and now kept in Naples. Its ten musical pieces were transcribed directly from the musical cylinder. The volume explores Clay’s work, the tradition he gave start to and the influence of musical machines on the listening of music.

L’orologiaio inglese Charles Clay (†1740) si specializzò nella costruzione di orologi con organo (organ clocks) capaci di riprodurre, con un realismo fino ad allora mai sperimentato, musiche di elevata qualità come arie d’opera, preludi e sonate. Dei suoi tre orologi superstiti in grado di funzionare come in origine, quello più antico (1730), ora a Napoli, è descritto in questo volume. I dieci pezzi musicali che l’orologio esegue, metà dei quali identificati per la prima volta come composizioni di Georg Friedrich Händel, sono stati trascritti direttamente dal cilindro musicale per documentare, anche con immagini del cilindro stesso, le sfumature espressive accuratamente programmate. I rapporti tra Clay e il più anziano musical clockmaker Christopher Pinchbeck, la decennale collaborazione tra Clay e Händel e la tradizione che da questa prese avvio sono attentamente ricostruiti in un quadro di riferimenti europei. Mentre, sul piano più propriamente culturale, è svolta un’inedita indagine sulle modalità d’ascolto legate, nel Settecento, alle macchine musicali d’uso domestico e sull’idea di ‘realismo’ che stava a loro fondamento.

Ignác Ghyczy (1799–1870) was a book collector from Komárom and a twice-elected Member of the Parliament. The private library of the noble family is thematically and linguistically diverse and complex.  In the first part of this two-part study, I would like to present a volume on geography teaching methodology by Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths (1759–1839), a German educator, and Johann Gottfried Lüdde (1799–?), , a German geography teacher and geographer, from the Ghyczy Collection of the National Assembly Library. Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths's "Versuch einer Methodik des geographischen Unterrichts..."  (1835) offers new methodological suggestions in the field of geography education. Johann Gottfried Lüdde's book "Die Methodik der Erdkunde..." (1842) aimed to contribute to the improvement of geography teaching methods. In my study, I present these volumes and their authors' ideas on geography teaching methodology and their intellectual horizons. I also seek to answer the question of what role these volumes may have played in Ignác Ghyczy's education.

This paper repositions Benjamin Franklin not merely as a satirist or statesman, but as a pioneering media strategist who shaped public discourse—for the common good—through calculated textual placement and carefully crafted authenticity proxies. It argues that Franklin’s gentle humor and biting political commentary were not distinct phases but part of a continuous, adaptive rhetorical strategy. As a printer and publisher, he curated news from content to layout, developing a keen sense of audience engagement. His hoaxes—strategically timed, fabricated news delivered through credible proxies—exemplify this mastery. By foregrounding Franklin’s manipulation of format, venue, and rhetorical disguise, the study reframes him as a master of ideological marketing.

El presente trabajo tiene el cometido de ofrecer información básica, pero original y pertinente, de la Comedia famosa de la Sagrada Aparición de la Virgen de Guadalupe. Debido a que ha carecido de estudios suficientes, urge dar cuenta de su autor, título, probable género teatral al que perteneció, los personajes y su espacio de representación. En primera instancia, se abordarán algunos elementos generales sobre las características de la obra, particularmente su versificación. Inmediatamente después, se dilucidará sobre su posible espacio escénico, a saber, una casa de comedias de la Ciudad de México. Después de esto, se ahondará sobre el género al que perteneció la obra. Sobre este particular hemos propuesto que la Comedia famosa pertenece a lo que se denomina actualmente pastorela, que en su época fue teatro para festejar el Adviento y las Apariciones y no propiamente teatro devocional ni ritual. Luego de esto, nos detendremos en su título. En este apartado argumentamos que carecemos de elementos suficientes para proponer un nombre distinto del que tiene actualmente. En seguida, se presentarán argumentos para tratar de filiar el texto con algún ilustrado cercano al círculo de intelectuales próximos a Lorenzo Boturini. llamando la atención particularmente sobre la figura de Mariano Fernández de Echevarría y Veytia. Para * El presente trabajo es un avance de la Edición Crítica que de la obra me encuentro realizando. Agradezco profundamente al doctor Juan Carlos Torres López y a la maestra Daniela Pineda por la valiosa información prestada para la realización de este trabajo.

BOOKS IN POLISH IN LIBRARY OF CHERNIHIV COLLEGE
The goal of the research. The author plans to research the collection of books written in Polish that were in the library of the Chernihiv college (to find out the types of diversity, thematic palette, etc.). By comparing the library catalogue of the Chernihiv college, compiled in the early 1820s, with the contemporary catalogues of the Kharkiv and Pereyaslav colleges, we plan to identify common features inherent in these masses of Polish-language books. Methodology. The methodological principles of such modern directions of historical science as intellectual and cultural history, as well as comparative studies, are the basis. Focusing attention on Polish-language books in the library of one of the colleges becomes an example of “case studies”, when the broader cultural context is characterized through the prism of a specific phenomenon. Scientific novelty. The establishment of qualitative parameters of the complex of Polish-language books of the library of the Chernihiv college, which is carried out for the first time, affects further research and interpretation of the manifestations of cultural diffusion and the dialogue of Polish and Ukrainian cultures on Ukrainian lands in the 18th — early 19th centuries. The study of these books allows us to draw conclusions not only about the educational functions of the collegiate library, but to consider it as an important indicator of Ukrainian-Polish interaction. Conclusions. The study of books in the Polish language, which were contained in the library of the Chernihiv college, testifies to the preservation of Polish influences on the cultural space of the Hetmanate during the 18th — early 19th centuries. The repertoire of Polish-language books demonstrates that the college was an important channel of dialogue between Ukrainian and Polish cultures. The Chernihiv college and the intellectuals associated with them were part of the European book culture, spreading it in the east of Europe. The catalogue of the college library shows a wide range of modern scientific and educational literature in the Polish language from various fields of knowledge, including theological topics. This allows us to talk about encyclopedism as a common feature of collegiate libraries.

In spite of widespread consumption of coffee in Europe at the time of the Royal Danish expedition to Arabia 1761-1767, little was known of the cultivation of coffee in Yemen and of the Arabian coffee export to Europe. Fresh leaves of qat were used as a stimulant on the Arabian Peninsula and in East Africa, but before the Royal Danish expedition to Arabia this plant was known in Europe only from secondary reports. Two members of the expedition, Carsten Niebuhr and Peter Forsskal, pioneered studies of coffee and qat in Yemen and of the Arabian coffee export. Linnaeus' instructions for travellers requested observations on the use of coffee, but otherwise Forsskal and Niebuhr's studies of coffee and qat were made entirely on their own initiative. Now, 250 years after The Royal Danish expedition to Arabia, coffee has become one of the world's most valuable trade commodities and qat has become a widely used and banned drug.

Der kurz zuvor aus österreichischem in preußischen Staatsdienst gewechselte kameralistische Philosoph Justi vertieft seine Analyse der Kriegsgründe in zwei theoretischen Essays, die sich mit der politischen Theorie des Machtgleichgewichts in den internationalen Beziehungen beschäftigen, und welche hier bezüglich der darin enthaltenen Kritik der Staatsräson näher betrachtet werden sollen. 2 2 Es handelt sich um die beiden Schriften: Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi: Die Chimäre des Gleichgewichts von Europa. Eine Abhandlung worinnen die Richtigkeit und Ungerechtigkeit dieses zeitherigen Lehrgebäudes der Staatskunst deutlich vor Augen gelegt, und dabey allenthalben neue und rührende Betrachtungen über die Ursachen der Kriege und dem wesentlichen Grunde, worauf die Macht eines Staates ankommt, beygebracht werden. Altona 1758; sowie derselbe: Die Chimäre des Gleichgewichts der Handlung und Schiffahrt, oder, Ungrund und Richtigkeit einiger neuerlich geäusserten Meynungen von denen Maaßregeln der freyen Mächte gegen die zu befürchtende Herr schaft und Obermacht zur See: wobey zugleich Neue und wichtige Betrachtungen über die Hand lung und Schiffahrt der Völker, und über den höchsten Punkt der daraus entstehenden Macht und Glückseligkeit beygebracht werden. Altona 1759. Darin wird der vermeintlich wertfrei-objektive Realismus der Gleichgewichtsdoktrin als eine gefährliche Chimäre der Staatsräson kritisiert, die von den verschiedenen Kriegspar teien zur Legitimation ihrer eskalierenden Kriegführung herangezogen wird. 3

In 1812, the trial of the insurgents involved in an antislavery rebellion in Cuba centred on a book of images found in the home of its author and alleged leader, José Antonio Aponte. As a unique and now lost Afro-Cuban codex, the archival descriptions of its plates provide an inexhaustible source for the study of Afro-Latin art and religious history. This article reconstructs the Catholic imagery mobilized by Aponte, focusing on three key aspects. First, the importance of the Catholic Enlightenment and its reform agenda for abolitionism in Cuba at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; second, the ancient Christian kingdom of Prester John in Ethiopia and its connections to European kingdoms and the Catholic Church as inspiration for Black insurgents to challenge the legitimacy of evangelization through enslavement; and third, the crucial role played by Catholic Haiti, as heir to the Ethiopian kingship, and an example of Black sovereignty in encouraging freedom movements and feelings of dignity among Africans and Afro-descendants.

As its title suggests, this paper will assess the nature of the Ethiopian written intellectual tradition, the controversy over the authenticity of the Ḥatäta Zär'aY a ‛ ǝ qob and the Ḥatäta Wäldä Ḥǝywät, and their philosophical significance both for Ethiopian and African philosophy and for the history of ideas in general. An examination of external religious and historical sources, as well as an assessment of the relevant scholarlyl iteraturec ombined with in-depth analysis of the content of the Ḥatätas(in theo riginal Gǝʿǝzv ersion as well as in their Amharic and Englisht ranslations), reveal both thee xceptionality and situatedness of the Ḥatätasi nt he Ethiopian intellectual tradition. Drawingo nt he meticulous work of Claude Sumner,Iargue for the authenticity of the Ḥatätas, showing that they can be securelya ttributed to seventeenth-centuryE thiopian authors. Although firmlya nchored in the socio-cultural context and educational backgroundo fs eventeenth-century Ethiopia, these authors are also freethinkers, offering critical and distinctive reflections on the religious, political, and socioeconomic realities of their time.Regardless of the texts' exceptionality and the possibility of some European influencet herein,o ne cannot deprive them of the Ethiopian soil in which they are rooted. Furthermore, the Ḥatätasa re by no means the sole exemplars of philosophical writing in Ethiopia; they are rather gateways to the rich tradition of philosophical wisdom to be found in Ethiopian intellectual history.A partf rom their contemporary interest in relation to ethics, epistemology,m metaphysics, and social and political philosophy,t heya re pathways to the studyo fh idden voices found in the non-Western world.