Staël the Deist, or How to Accommodate Religion and Philosophy at the Turn of the Enlightenment

This article examines the relationship between philosophy and religion in the 18th century. It focuses on Germaine de Staël who, until the early 1800s, professed a deism that denied supernatural revelation and was content with natural religion alone. This deist attitude is examined in relation to the influences it underwent, particularly that of Rousseau, and the philosophical-religious ideas it conveyed.