Sentimental Savants: Philosophical Families in Enlightenment France

Description

Delves into the question of celibacy vs. marriage as it relates to academics (cf. [Rait](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=5256): "the insistence upon celibacy in the northern universities is one of the characteristic differences between them and the universities of Southern Europe.", ref:0.64.); cf. the conclusion (ref:11.1).ref:9.50: Diderot's criticism of convent education, "Diderot expressed his disdain for religious life in his novel *The Nun*." " *The Nun* was too controversial to risk printing; it was only published posthumously."* * ***An illuminating study of the marriages and family lives of Diderot, Lavoisier, and other geniuses of the Age of Reason.** We may imagine the lone scientific or philosophical genius generating insights in isolation—but in reality, the families of scientists and philosophers during the Enlightenment played a substantial role, not only making space for inquiry within the home but also assisting in observing, translating, calculating, and illustrating. *Sentimental Savants* is the first book to explore the place of the family among the savants of the French Enlightenment, a group that openly embraced their families and domestic lives, even going so far as to test out their ideas, from education to inoculation, on their own children. Meghan K. Roberts delves into the lives and work of such major figures as Denis Diderot, Emilie Du Chatelet, the Marquis de Condorcet, Antoine Lavoisier, and Jerome Lalande to paint a striking portrait of how...