PERSONALIZED CENSORSHIP IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT: FEIJOO AND KANT

Abstract

This article draws attention to the phenomena of personal censorship in the eighteenth century, defined as censorship directed at an individual by name. It concentrates on two cases. One was the case in which Francisco Soto y Marne was prohibited from publishing a critique of Benito Feijoo by the king of Spain in 1750. What made this case possibly unique was that the king added to his decree a general prohibition against anybody who tried to publish criticism of Feijoo. Even Feijoo may not have wished for such a situation. The second case was the king of Prussia’s order of 1794 to Immanuel Kant to cease publishing about religion. This has been seen as a limitation on religious freedom, but it can also be seen as a defense of religious peace in a context of religious strife that Kant could be understood as provoking. Both cases make us look with fresh eyes upon the purposes and meanings of censorship in the eighteenth century.