The aim of this study is to show how the emotions - in particular the so-called "passions of the soul" - were understood and interpreted in the medical thinking of the late Enlightenment. We focus chiefly on three innovations in 18th century medicine: the "discovery" of the neuro-cerebral system (the ’birth’ of neurology); the search for the "seat" of illnesses in particular organs (the "birth" of pathological anatomy); and the gradual separation of the body and the soul as objects of medical enquiry (the "birth of psychiatry). We consider whether, and to what extent, these innovations contributed to the breakdown of the "old" diagnostic paradigms of the "passions of the soul", or whether in fact they helped to maintain them. We also discuss to what extent the consideration of these passions fostered a new approach to the relationship between the body and the soul in Enlightenment medicine. Some of the phenomena studied are illustrated by specific examples of (erotic) love and melancholy. and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
The study is based on an analysis of content and themes of the correspondence of the wellknown Enlightenment Era "provincial intellectual", a bank clerk from Čáslav Jan Ferdinand Opiz (1741-1812), with a country priest from the highlands on the border of Bohemia and Moravia, Karel Killar (1745-1806). Their correspondence - in most part hitherto unstudied - is deposited in the National Museum in Prague. It consists of more than 300 letters, written over a long period of 16 years (1793-1806), and it is fascinating for several reasons: it is conducted in French, which represents one of the very rare testimonies of a good knowledge of French in some members of other classes than the nobility in the 18th and 19th centuries; in this case, the use of French can be read as an implicit adherence to (French) Enlightenment, and perhaps even to the principles of the French Revolution. And it is the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars around which the entire correspondence revolves. Thanks to this we may not only form a deeper and more nuanced insight into Opitz, a wellknown sympathizer of the French Revolution, but also into the lesser known figure of Killar, a man of universal education and an Enlightenment era priest of Josephine stamp, who tried to integrate both the Enlightenment and the French Revolution within his firm Christian (Catholic) worldview., Daniela Tinková., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
This study, in the form of an essay or first draft of opening remarks delivered at an international conference on Culture in the Age of Enlightenment, presents one of many possible models for the conceptualization of the Enlightenment in the Czech Lands. Here Enlightenment is conceived as a process whereby ‘knowledge’ (information) is disseminated and gradually democratized and information networks are expanded. This conception draws primarily on theories of vernacularization and cultural transfer. In view of the directional dynamic, we have focussed mainly on ‘unidirectional’ flow in the sense of dispersal from (informational/cultural) centres to the (informational/cultural) periphery – both socioeconomically (transfer to lower social classes) and geographically (transfer to rural areas remote from major urban and educational centres). In this model, the process of vernacularization and democratization of knowledge was divided into three periods: the early formation of educated elites; the ‘acculturation’ of the middle classes; and the extension of information networks to the petty intelligentsia – and through them to the wider rural population. This last phase, carried out as part of a ‘programme’ of popular enlightenment around the turn of the 19th century, more or less coincided, in the theory Miroslav Hroch, with the first and second phases of the Czech National Revival and relied on the same media (Czech-language newspapers, ‘popular’ literature) and authors (Kramerius, Tomsa, Rulík, et al.)
This study is a response to the preceding discussion on the original essay on the concept of enlightenment. It examines the relationship between enlightenment, national revival and Romanticism, issues of popular enlightenment, and the role of the Catholic clergy in the Enlightenment, with further remarks on the phases and specific features of the Czech Enlightenment.