#johntoland — Public Fediverse posts

John Toland (1670-1722); scholar, unofficial diplomat, pamphleteer and controversialist; died in Putney, London on this day in 1722.

#DIB - https://www.dib.ie/biography/toland-john-a8584

Incendiary: John Toland and the birth of the Irish Enlightenment - https://www.irishphilosophy.com/2013/09/18/incendiary-toland/

He is buried at Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Putney (the scene of the Putney Debates, 1647). https://www.johntoland.com/2019/03/john-toland-his-life-and-times.html?m=1
The tower of the church survives from that time (my photo)

#IrishPhilosophyOTD
#JohnToland

Composer George Frideric Händel was born #OnThisDay 1685 in Halle.

Famously his "Messiah" was first performed in Dublin.

A post on its performance (where Swift almost scuppered the whole thing)
https://www.irishphilosophy.com/2013/04/13/swift-handels-messiah/

and on its anti-deist roots & the appeal of that in Ireland (anti-Toland) https://www.irishphilosophy.com/2018/04/13/words-messiah/

#Swift #JonathanSwift #JohnToland #Deism #GeorgeFridericHandel #IrishPhilosophyOTD

John Toland, born in Inishowen, Donegal #otd 1670.

DIB: https://www.dib.ie/biography/toland-john-a8584

Derry Journal on Toland & Pantheism - https://www.derryjournal.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/john-toland-sean-eoghain-of-the-books-the-inishowen-founder-of-western-pantheism-3938903

Incendiary: John Toland and the birth of the Irish Enlightenment - https://www.irishphilosophy.com/2013/09/18/incendiary-toland/

#JohnToland #pantheism #IrishPhilosophyOTD

James Ussher died #OTD 1656.

How Ussher claimed Patrick and the early Irish Church for the Church of Ireland (as did everyone else for their beliefs, including the Deist John Toland).

Appropriating Patrick: Keating, Ussher, Toland and the Early Irish Church – https://www.irishphilosophy.com/2015/03/17/appropriating-patrick/

#Patrick #IrishPhilosophyOTD #JamesUssher #JohnToland

This @HistParl post unfairly maligning #Swords :) https://mas.to/@HistParl/109664408722516474 mentions the Molesworth family who controlled at least one seat in the borough for much of the 18th century.

The featured image is of #RobertMolesworth who created the essential definition of an Old Whig, translated #Francogallia and wrote "An Account of Denmark", both historically useful account and extended attack on #PassiveObedience and clerical control in politics. Also patron of #FrancisHutcheson & #JohnToland

Incendiary: #JohnToland and the birth of the #IrishEnlightenment – https://www.irishphilosophy.com/2013/09/18/incendiary-toland/

#IrishPhilosophy #Deism #Freethinking #JohnLocke

#IrishPhilosophy and the #SouthSeaBubble

#JohnToland lost all his money. He'd been so broke he'd had to use his patron #RobertMolesworth's name as a guarantor to invest.
https://www.dib.ie/biography/toland-john-a8584

Perhaps this & his own losses (plus his Old Whig principles) led #RobertMolesworth to call for the "contrivers...of the villanous South-Sea scheme" to be treated as those who killed their fathers in Ancient Rome: "tied in like manner in sacks, and thrown into the Thames.”
https://www.econlib.org/book-chapters/chapter-ch-2-the-south-sea-bubble/

#JohnToland became the Republican Mythmaker via contacts he made in Dublin before he left in a hurry.

His arrival had triggered much writing refuting his #ChristianityNotMysterious (and a series of letters between #Locke and #WilliamMolyneux, which form the basis for the post below).

This controversary was the trigger for the #IrishEnlightenment.

Incendiary: John Toland and the birth of the Irish Enlightenment http://irishphilosophy.com/2013/09/18/incendiary-toland/
#IrishPhilosophy

The previous picture (from wiki) is clearly supposed to be #JohnToland but there's some doubt as to whether it is really him. He was also depicted in this satire of the divisions within the Established Church associated with "Milton's works". He edited these as part of a Whig programme to rehabilitate republican political philosophy for a constitutional monarchy. https://www.irishphilosophy.com/2016/05/24/toland-myth-maker/

Image with Toland circled: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-3419

#IrishPhilosophy

#JohnToland, pamphleteer, controversialist, bogeyman of the Irish establishment was born in #Inishowen, #Donegal 30 Nov 1670 #OTD.

Wrote #ChristianityNotMysterious, had to flee Dublin when the book was ordered to be burned and the author sought. Wrote political tracts, inveigled himself into the Hanoverian Court (Sophia was wary, Toland wrote #LettersToSerena for her daughter). Lost his money in #SouthSeaBubble, died in Putney.

Why no biopic? https://dib.ie/biography/toland-john-a8584

#IrishPhilosophyOTD

@Irishphilosophy I have just discovered that Thomas Aikenhead, the last person in the U.K. to be executed for blasphemy, was an ‘avid reader’ who had allegedly read Toland’s Christianity Not Mysterious. His indictment is quite the read. #philosophy #JohnToland #ScottishHistory

Toland believed matter was "the source of life itself" but argued against Bayle's panpsychism (that the property of thinking is inherent in matter), though not successfully.

Materialism and panpsychism (Bayle and Toland edition)
https://wp.me/p25oy3-N

#TheModSquad #JohnToland #IrishPhilosophy