Voltaire Foundation Oxford University

Professor Richard Bourke delivers the 2023 Annual Besterman Lecture. Hegel described philosophy as its own time comprehended in thought. For him, that meant understanding the Enlightenment and its aftermath. Examining what the Enlightenment meant for Hegel involves separating its generic meaning as an historical process from its specific sense as a determinate period and its still narrower significance as a canon of thinkers. In the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel depicted the Enlightenment era as a struggle between Reason and Faith. This was a stage in a longer development, the passage from rudeness to refinement, which might itself be depicted in terms of gradual enlightenment. As Hegel saw it, the latest episode in the world-historical drama bred crisis, a collision between human values and the conditions of existence. For Hegel, among the most resourceful responses to this situation came from Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Jacobi. However, resourcefulness did not entail success. The lecture will reconstruct Hegel’s thought in terms of his analysis of how these philosophers failed to reconcile rational inquiry with the content of belief.

Dan Edelstein from Stanford University gives the Inaugural George Rousseau Lecture, the convenor is Avi Lifschitz, Magdalen College.

A highly critical account of Adam Smith's views on famine, which fail to recognize that you can have starvation in the midst of plenty. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Final talk of the Besterman Enlightenment Workshop 2017, Laurence Brockliss explains the popularity of Paris as a place to visit in the 18th century and explores the opportunities for and obstacles to making contacts in the European Republic of Letters. Laurence Brockliss is Fellow and Tutor in History at Magdalen College and Professor of Early Modern French History at the University of Oxford.

Professor Ritchie Robertson FBA, Taylor Professor of German at the University of Oxford, will speak on ‘Writing the Enlightenment: Reflections on Work in Progress’. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Professor Colin Jones CBE (Queen Mary University of London) delivers the annual Besterman Lecture for the Voltaire Foundation at Wolfson College, Oxford