The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment (review)

Nailing down the precise origins (or what the author prefers to call "the beginning") of the French Enlightenment has never been an easy task, and this book on the reception of Newtonianism in early eighteenth-century France helps to explain why. Shank argues that some of the difficulties derive from the mythology spun by the philosophes regarding their role in promoting Isaac Newton's theories, one of the foundations of Enlightenment thought. The philosophes, notably Voltaire, took far too much credit for having established Newtonianism as a new scientific orthodoxy, and even today some historians are all too ready to accept the philosophes' self-congratulations at face value. Shank contends, in line with much recent scholarship, that Newton's ideas had acquired a strong following within the French academy well before Voltaire and the "party of humanity" undertook to explain and champion them during the 1730s. He insists that, at this stage of the debate on the "beginning" of the French Enlightenement, still another version of how Newton inspired the philosophes is patently unnecessary. Rather, we need a fresh look at how the philosophes, among others, embraced and repackaged Newton's theories for their own purposes, which is precisely what the author undertakes in this book.

In his introduction, Shank explicitly acknowledges his methodological debts. To Foucault, he owes the notion of "genealogy," a form of analysis designed to avoid the teleological fallacy of much historical writing.¹ This Foucauldian influence explains Shank's choice of "beginning" over "origins," which he considers altogether too unidirectional and deterministic. The author also acknowledges the impact of Habermas on his methodology, particularly his notion of the "public sphere," which increasingly began to eclipse the authority of the monarchy and the Church in art, literature, politics, and science during the eighteenth century.² Yet despite his bows to Foucault and Habermas and an occasional nod in the direction of the linguistic turn, Shank relies most heavily upon the traditional methodology of the history of ideas in a manner that would not have bewildered or displeased its founder, Arthur Lovejoy.

With great skill and knowledge, Shank teases apart the multiple strands of Newtonian thought to demonstrate how various factions within the French academy came to weave one or more of them into their pre-existing philosophical, scientific, religious, and methodological outlooks. He finds no single Newtonian party in France, but many, each with its own stake in Newton's victory. Similarly, he shows that far from representing a clear and present danger to established religion, Newtonianism, at least in some of its versions, was perceived as a bulwark against the dangerous, allegedly Spinozist tendencies of the competing philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. In that light, Newton's eventual victory now appears, if anything, overdetermined. The philosophes may have claimed Newton as one of their own, but in that respect, they were hardly exceptional. Although many pieces of the complex story of how Newton conquered France have already been told, Shank's book performs a valuable service in bringing them all together.