Talk:Jonathan Israel

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Interesting controversy

I first found it just interesting that an IP editor was removing a certain critique of Israel contained in the lead. What awoke my interest in the removal in the first place was the fact that the critique came from the pen of Jeremy Popkin, the son of the late Richard Popkin, who was always a close friend and collaborator of Jonathan Israel. And the critique did sound to me as fairly accurate, according to my own reading of Israel's latest works, which do establish a clear difference and a certain antagonism between what he calls the "radical enlightenment," as opposed to the "moderate enlightenment." So I reverted the removal of the critique and the source by the IP, mainly because it was removing from the page, it seemed to me, an important source for the interpretation of Israel's thinking.

Lo and behold, the IP came back and reverted me, saying that my edit summary was incorrect regarding the website where both Popkin's critique and Israel's response to it where found. And, in reading now Popkin's critique and Israel's response to it, it turns out that the IP was correct in his quote of Israel's own response to Popkin's critique. So, it looks like this IP editor does know what they are talking about, and have some keen interest in defending Israel's thinking from what they seem to believe is an unfair critique.

I then decided I will leave at that, and have the IP have its way in this debate for the time being. With the caveat that that whole debate between Israel and his critics, and especially this specific debate between Jonathan Israel and Jeremy Popkin is indeed, in my own mind, a really fascinating and important debate. And, this being so, that the two papers in PDF format that were removed from the page, should somehow be reinstated as valuable sources for the interpretation of Israel's ideas, somewhere in the page. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:52, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

For whoever might be interested, here is the sentence that was removed from the lead, with the links to the two important PDF articles that, in my view, should somehow still appear in the page:

In Israel's controversial interpretation, the radical Enlightenment is the main source of the modern idea of freedom. He contends that the moderate Enlightenment, including Locke, Voltaire, and Montesquieu, made no real contribution to the campaign against superstition and ignorance.

warshy ^(¥¥) 18:46, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

References