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
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Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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ISBN 978-0-8122-4928-6
For Gail
Contents
Chapter 1. The Social Aesthetic of Play in Seventeenth-Century France
Chapter 2. Poullain de la Barre: Feminism, Radical and Polite
Chapter 3. Malebranche and the Bel Esprit
Original Sin and the Labor of Attention
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
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