Limits of Optimism: Thomas Jefferson's Dualistic Enlightenment

Limits of Optimism: Thomas Jefferson's Dualistic Enlightenment

Author
Maurizio Valsania
Publisher
University of Virginia Press
Language
English
Year
2012
Page
224
ISBN
0813931444,9780813931449
File Type
pdf
File Size
795.7 KiB

The Limits of Optimism works to dispel persistent notions about Jefferson’s allegedly paradoxical and sphinx-like quality. Maurizio Valsania shows that Jefferson’s multifaceted character and personality are to a large extent the logical outcome of an anti-metaphysical, enlightened, and humility-oriented approach to reality. That Jefferson’s mind and priorities changed over time and in response to changing circumstances indicates neither incoherence, hypocrisy, nor pathology.
Valsania’s reading of Jefferson, the Enlightenment, and negativity helps to make sense of the many paradoxes typically associated with that eighteenth-century thinker. At the same time, it provides a corrective to the common though erroneous equation of Enlightenment thinking with rationalism and shallow optimism.

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