French Literature Reviews - 2026

Annelie Große, Religion, science and moral philosophy in the Huguenot Enlightenment, Jean Henri Samuel Formey and the Berlin Academy
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Religion, Science and Moral Philosophy in the Huguenot Enlightenment:

Jean Henri Samuel Formey and the Berlin Academy

Annelie Große

This is the first monograph on the Huguenot pastor and philosopher Samuel Formey, who engaged in most of the philosophical debates of the second half of the eighteenth century. It examines his thought within the multifaceted intellectual landscape of contemporary Berlin, offering a fresh perspective on the concept of the Religious Enlightenment.

Exposes the links between eighteenth-century Calvinism and German rationalism.
Serves to exemplify contextualist intellectual history.
Provides in-depth analyses of both printed and manuscript sources.

Find out more about this book…

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction

Formey’s concept of philosophy and its relationship to religion
Formey in the Berlin Huguenot Enlightenment, or how to reconcile the pastor and the philosopher
Preaching like a philosopher and philosophising like a preacher
The existence of God and the superiority of metaphysics
Pre-established harmony and fatalism
The debate on free will
Providence, moral duties and optimism
Natural law, morality and science

Conclusion – Religious Enlightenment between Calvinism and Wolffianism

Bibliography

Index

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Annelie Große is a researcher at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, where she is currently contributing to a project on Prussian history. She has authored several articles on eighteenth-century philosophy at the Berlin Academy, with a particular focus on Samuel Formey.

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The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 under the auspices of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. With an international scope, the volumes in the Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series explore diverse facets of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment—ranging from gender studies and political theory to economics, visual arts, and music—and appear in either English or French.

This study situates Samuel Formey within the broader intellectual currents of eighteenth-century Europe, where thinkers frequently sought to reconcile confessional commitments with the demands of critical reason. As a prominent figure associated with the Berlin Academy, Formey operated at the intersection of French Huguenot diaspora culture and the German Enlightenment, particularly the philosophical framework established by Christian Wolff. The period was marked by rigorous debates concerning the harmonization of revealed religion with natural philosophy, touching upon questions of metaphysics, human agency, and the moral order of the universe.

Readers interested in the intersections of Calvinist theology, eighteenth-century philosophy, and the institutional history of the Berlin Academy may find this volume a helpful reference. The work examines Formey's thought within the multifaceted intellectual landscape of contemporary Berlin and exposes the links between eighteenth-century Calvinism and German rationalism. It draws upon both printed and manuscript sources to explore how Protestant intellectuals engaged with contemporary scientific and moral inquiries during the European Enlightenment.