[MGSA-L] Princeton Hellenic Studies Lecture: April 5, 2016

[Dimitri H. Gondicas]

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies



Lecture



Pamblekis and the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment:

From Spinoza to the Margins of the Radical Enlightenment


Vasiliki Grigoropoulou

University of Athens



Respondent:  Jonathan Israel, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton



The paper will focus on the excommunication of Christodoulos Pamblekis, a representative of the second period of the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment, who employed Spinoza's terminology, in his last text of 1793 that only recently became accessible. Characteristically, Pamblekis, who personifies a moment of crisis in modern Greek consciousness, was excommunicated by the Orthodox Church in 1793. He figured among those stigmatized as agents of absolute impiety and atheism, along with “the Voltaires, Franc-Maçons, and Rousseaus and Spinozas.” It is nevertheless worth noting that the number of people excommunicated by the Patriarchate was small. In the Greek context the case of Pamblekis could be seen as one that transcends the confines of moderate criticism. This was not only because he radically criticized the duplicitous morality of the clergy, their prejudices, the conservative views of the faithful, the church-controlled education, but also because he questioned even fundamental Orthodox doctrines. His criticism, moreover, was philosophically grounded, underpinned by a rational conception of God in terms articulated in Spinoza's terminology. According to the text of his excommunication decree this was one of the key points of censure.



Vasiliki Grigoropoulou teaches early modern philosophy at the University of Athens. She is the author of Knowledge, Passions and Politics in Spinoza’s Philosophy (Γνώση, πάθη και πολιτική στη φιλοσοφία του Σπινόζα), Athens: 1999, and Education and Politics in Rousseau (Αγωγή και πολιτική στον Rousseau), Athens: 2002. She is also the editor of Spinoza, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (Πραγματεία για τη διόρθωση του νου), Athens: 2001, 6th edition 2012, and the co-editor of Spinoza: Towards Freedom (Προς την ελευθερία), Athens: 2002; the editor of J.-J. Rousseau, Du contrat social (Το κοινωνικό συμβόλαιο), Athens: 2004, and also of Descartes, Principia Philosophiæ (Οι αρχές της φιλοσοφίας Ι & ΙΙ), Introduction, trans. and notes, Athens: 2012. She is the author of Geometry and Power: Introduction to Spinoza’s Ethics (Γεωμετρία και δύναμη. Εισαγωγή στην Ηθική του Spinoza), Athens: 2009, and she is also the author of about 30 articles on Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke and Rousseau. She has been a visiting scholar at the Universities of Pittsburgh, Cambridge and Princeton and she is currently Departmental Guest of the Philosophy Department at Princeton University.



Tuesday, April 5, 2016

6:00 p.m.

Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103



Supported by The Christos G. and Rhoda Papaioannou Modern Greek Studies Fund
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