Now online: Conference on d’Holbach’s Système de la nature 14-15 March 2022
14/03/2022 - 15/03/2022, 9:00 am - 4:00 pm
New Approaches to d’Holbach’s Système de la nature
14-15 March 2022
Online conference organised by Dr Ruggero Sciuto (St Edmund Hall, Oxford)
with the technical support of the Maison Française d’Oxford
In the year 1770, a most dangerous book swept like a storm across Europe. Its title was Système de la nature; its author – although few people in the eighteenth century knew it – was baron Paul Thiry d’Holbach. Inspired by a profound dislike of superstition and religious belief, this book argued vehemently against both the existence of God and substantial dualism, putting forward, instead, a thoroughgoing materialistic and deterministic philosophy. Animated by a strong desire to enlighten the common people, free them from oppression, and set them on a path towards independence and happiness, it did not eschew violent criticisms of either religious or political authorities. In the space of only a few years, the Système de la nature elicited dozens of refutations, including two by the likes of Voltaire and Frederick the Great of Prussia, and evidence suggests that it was still frequently quoted and discussed in the Age of Revolution.
Organised by Dr Ruggero Sciuto (St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford) and generously funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the Voltaire Foundation, the Maison Française d’Oxford, and the British Society for the History of Philosophy, this two-day conference hopes to shed new light on one of the most important texts of the Age of Enlightenment. It will be held on Zoom on 14 and 15 March 2022 (see provisional programme below).
To register, please click on the following link:
New Approaches to d’Holbach’s Système de la nature
14-15 March 2022
Programme
(pdf version for download here)
14 March 2022
09:00-09:15 – Welcome; Introductory remarks
09:15-11:00 – Panel 1: The Origins of the Système – Chair: Ruggero Sciuto
Emmanuel Boussuge (Sorbonne Université, CELLF 16-18), ‘Nouveaux éléments pour une chronologie de la campagne holbachique’
Cameron J. Quinn (Merton College, Oxford), ‘« La somme des vérités que renferme le Code de la Nature »: Morelly, Diderot, and the Système’s controversial final chapter’
Maria Susana Seguin (Université Paul-Valéry de Montpellier/ENS de Lyon), ‘Le Système de la nature dans la tradition de la littérature philosophique clandestine’
11:00-11:15 – Break
11:15-12:45 – Panel 2: Les Entrailles de la terre – Chair: Laura Nicolì
Rebecca Ford (University of Nottingham), ‘Mineralogy and materialism in the Système de la nature and the Encyclopédie’
Jenny Mander (Newnham College, Cambridge), ‘Deep time, earthquakes, and “mother” nature: underground connections between Diderot, d’Holbach and Raynal’
12:45-13:30 – Lunch break
13:30-15:00 – Panel 3: Between Atheism and Christian Orthodoxy – Chair: Hasse Hämäläinen
Charles Devellennes (University of Kent), ‘Spiritual atheism: d’Holbach’s not so systematic disbelief’
Laura Nicolì (Fondazione 1563 per l’Arte e la Cultura, Torino/Voltaire Foundation, Oxford), ‘Religion and other Catastrophes. D’Holbach as Historian of Religion from La Contagion sacrée to the Système de la nature’
15:00-15:15 – Break
15:15-16:45 – Panel 4: Forms of Materialism – Chair: Gerhardt Stenger
Charles T. Wolfe (Université de Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurés), ‘« Le plus et moins de la machine » : mechanistic and vital materialism in La Mettrie, d’Holbach and beyond’
Mladen Kozul (University of Montana), ‘Le Système de la nature et le néo-matérialisme: de la matière au politique’
16:45-17:00 – Break
17:00-18:30 – Keynote Lecture
Alain Sandrier (Université de Caen), ‘L’annotation du Système de la nature: analyse et enjeux’ – introduces: Caroline Warman (Jesus College, Oxford)
* * * * *
15 March 2022
09:00-10:30 – Panel 5: The Self and the Body – Chair: TBC
Hasse Hämäläinen (Jagiellonian University in Krakow), ‘Self-interested self-sacrifice: D’Holbach’s contribution to the theory of moral virtue’
Caroline Warman (Jesus College, Oxford), ‘D’Holbach and physiology’
10:30-10:45 – Break
10:45-12:15 – Panel 6: Afterlife – Chair: TBC
Avi Lifschitz (Magdalen College, Oxford), ‘Frederick II’s critique of d’Holbach’s Système de la nature’
Ruggero Sciuto (St Edmund Hall, Oxford), ‘Fighting or Reflecting the Light? Jacob Vernes’s Confidence philosophique’
12:15-13:00 – Digital D’Holbach presentation
13:00-14:00 – Lunch break
14:00-15:15 – Keynote Lecture
Alan Charles Kors (University of Pennsylvania), ‘Meeting d’Holbach in the 1960s’ – respondent: Gregory Brown (University of Las Vegas/Voltaire Foundation, Oxford)
15:15-15:30 – Concluding remarks
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