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Ancient Wisdom in the Age of New Science: Histories of Philosophy in England, c. 1640–1700, written by Dmitri Levitin

Ancient Wisdom in the Age of New Science: Histories of Philosophy in England, c. 1640–1700,... (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Pp. vi+670. isbn 978-1-107-10588-1.Academic book reviewing is by and large a placid business; fights are infrequent, and criticism is usually swaddled in oleaginous, noncommittal praise, itself the expression of no deep thought, but only of the professional respect accorded to those who go through the motions without making too great a fool of themselves. It is with some surprise, then, that one reads William Bulman’s long online review (November 2016) of Dmitri Levitin’s monograph Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science, and Levitin’s vitriolic reply, published shortly thereafter, each running to over 4,000 words.1The two had been on friendly terms; each thanked the other in his acknowledgements, and Levitin had cited Bulman’s unpublished doctoral thesis in his enormous review essay of 2012, ‘From Sacred History to the History of Religion’. But now the contrast between two modes of intellectual history exploded off the screen. Bulman’s mode takes an accommodationist attitude to the big concepts that shape our views of the past, embracing terms like ‘Enlightenment’ both because they are enshrined in academic historiography and because they have become foundational, well beyond academia, to the just-so stories of today’s cultural and political ideologies. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Erudition and the Republic of Letters Brill

Ancient Wisdom in the Age of New Science: Histories of Philosophy in England, c. 1640–1700, written by Dmitri Levitin

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
2405-5050
eISSN
2405-5069
DOI
10.1163/24055069-00301004
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Pp. vi+670. isbn 978-1-107-10588-1.Academic book reviewing is by and large a placid business; fights are infrequent, and criticism is usually swaddled in oleaginous, noncommittal praise, itself the expression of no deep thought, but only of the professional respect accorded to those who go through the motions without making too great a fool of themselves. It is with some surprise, then, that one reads William Bulman’s long online review (November 2016) of Dmitri Levitin’s monograph Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science, and Levitin’s vitriolic reply, published shortly thereafter, each running to over 4,000 words.1The two had been on friendly terms; each thanked the other in his acknowledgements, and Levitin had cited Bulman’s unpublished doctoral thesis in his enormous review essay of 2012, ‘From Sacred History to the History of Religion’. But now the contrast between two modes of intellectual history exploded off the screen. Bulman’s mode takes an accommodationist attitude to the big concepts that shape our views of the past, embracing terms like ‘Enlightenment’ both because they are enshrined in academic historiography and because they have become foundational, well beyond academia, to the just-so stories of today’s cultural and political ideologies.

Journal

Erudition and the Republic of Letters – Brill

Published: Jan 9, 2018

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