The Labor of the Mind. Anthony J. La Vopa

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      The Labor of the Mind

      INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF THE MODERN AGE

       Series Editors

      Angus Burgin

      Peter E. Gordon

      Joel Isaac

      Karuna Mantena

      Samuel Moyn

      Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

      Camille Robcis

      Sophia Rosenfeld

      The LABOR of the MIND

      Intellect and Gender in Enlightenment Cultures

      Anthony J. La Vopa

      UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

      PHILADELPHIA

      Copyright © 2017 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

      A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress

      ISBN 978-0-8122-4928-6

       For Gail

      Contents

       A Note on Translations

       Introduction

       Chapter 1. The Social Aesthetic of Play in Seventeenth-Century France

       Aisance and Labor

       The Intelligence of Women

       Chapter 2. Poullain de la Barre: Feminism, Radical and Polite

       Conversion

       The Mind Has No Sex

       Cartesianism for Ladies

       Chapter 3. Malebranche and the Bel Esprit

       Montaigne’s Sin of Style

       The Cartesian Augustinian

       Original Sin and the Labor of Attention

       The Bel Esprit

       The Author Despite Himself

       Chapter 4. Love, Gallantry, and Friendship

       The Loves and Friendships of Saint-Évremond

       The Dissent of Mme de Lambert

       Chapter 5. Shaftesbury’s Quest for Fraternity

       The Turn to Stoicism

       The French Menace

       Friendship

       Critics, Markets, and Labor

       The Moralists

       Chapter 6. The Labors of David Hume

       Writing the Treatise

       The Essayist

       The Vicissitudes of Taste

       The Philosopher and the Countess

       Chapter 7. Genius and the Social: Antoine-Léonard Thomas and Suzanne Curchod Necker

       Friends

       Amphibians

       The Labor of Genius

       Gallantry Corrupted

       Chapter 8. Minds Not Meeting: Denis Diderot and Louise d’Épinay

       Diderot’s Paternal Voice

       Diderot’s Clinical Voice

       Mme d’Épinay’s Feminism

       Conclusion

       Notes

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      A Note on Translations

      Depending on the context, I have either rendered in English or, more often, kept in the original the following terms used in the French aristocratic discourse of politeness:

      aisance—The rough English equivalent is “ease” or “effortlessness,” but those translations do not evoke the emphasis on performance in the French social aesthetic of play.

      complaisance—Only indirectly related to what “complacency” has come to mean in the Anglophone world. The French word connotes the art of “pleasing”—of being agréable—in rituals of politeness.

      délicat—Literally “delicate,” with the implication of weakness or fragility, but sometimes implying the strength of a kind of intellectual acuity.

      esprit—Connotes “mind,” “spirit,” “wit,” etc., depending on its usage in the text.

      honnête (honnêteté)—The best translation is probably “polite,” but