The luxury of skepticism

"How is it that a controversy about politics becomes a conversation about philosophy? From Hobbes to Harrington to Shafesbury to Berkeley, Timothy Dykstal explores the public function of the philosophical dialogue at the beginning of England's long eighteenth century. From his close analysis of the works of the era's great philosophers, Dykstal argues that the dialogue as a literary form helped to develop, and subsequently transform, the public sphere in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England."--BOOK JACKET.

First sentence: IN THE EPISTLE dedicatory to Dramatic Poesie, AnEssay (1668), before he asserts that he intended his "whole discourse" to be "skeptical," John Dryden expresses to his friend Lord Buckhurst the hope that his dialogue has placed him in the company not of those "pedants" who have "prosecuted" controversy "with violence of words" but of those "gentlemen" who have "managed" it "with candour and civilit

Year

2000

Language

English

Publisher

University of Virginia Press

Editions

1

Pages

222

ISBN

9780813920030

Data source: Wikidata