Abstract:Daniel Defoe's fiction has never fit neatly into theories of the novel that rely upon Enlightenment ideals of secularization and development, largely because of his novels' dependence upon divine providence to explain the accidents of everyday life. Reading Defoe's philosophizing protagonists alongside Thomas Hobbes's notion of providence, I argue that the intense causal inquiry his characters undergo results in what I term "skeptical providentialism." I argue that causal awareness during this period required writers to challenge notions of both determinism and human agency, which in part produces the type of rational individual assumed to be fundamental to the eighteenth-century novel.

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“天意的契克作品”：丹尼尔笛福小说中的怀疑天意主义

摘要：丹尼尔·笛福的小说从来没有完全符合启蒙运动世俗化和发展理想的小说理论，主要是因为他的小说依靠天意来解释日常生活中的意外事件。阅读笛福的哲学主人公以及托马斯霍布斯的天意概念，我认为他的人物所经历的强烈的因果调查导致了我所谓的“怀疑天意主义”。我认为，这一时期的因果意识要求作家挑战决定论和人类能动性的概念，这在一定程度上产生了被认为是 18 世纪小说基础的理性个体类型。