The Return of the Enlightenment

doi:10.1086/AHR.115.5.1426

Journal Article•DOI•

The Return of the Enlightenment

01 Dec 2010-The American Historical Review (Oxford University Press)-Vol. 115, Iss: 5, pp 1426-1435

TL;DR: The second decade of the twenty-first century finds the Enlightenment in robust health as a designation of period, as an intellectual clustering, as a method of experimentalinquiry, and as an ideal, even of rationality and toleration to be pitted against the world's zones of intolerance as discussed by the authors.

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Abstract: THE SECOND DECADE of the twenty-first century finds the Enlightenment in robust health As a designation of period, as an intellectual clustering, as a method of experimental inquiry, and as an ideal, even, of rationality and toleration to be pitted against the world's zones of intolerance, it is back in circulation and generating new historical work

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Journal Article•DOI•

Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and the Modern Debate on the Enlightenment

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Nathaniel Wolloch¹•Institutions (1)

Tel Aviv University¹

16 Feb 2018-The European Legacy

TL;DR: The authors discusses Tocqueville's and Mill's views of the cultural progress of indigenous colonial societies in the context of the current debate about the Enlightenment and the analysis of their p...

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Abstract: This article discusses Tocqueville’s and Mill’s views of the cultural progress of indigenous colonial societies in the context of the current debate about the Enlightenment. The analysis of their p...

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14 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Pierre Clastres as comparative political theorist: The democratic potential of the new political anthropology:

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Christopher Holman¹•Institutions (1)

Nanyang Technological University¹

01 Jan 2021-European Journal of Political Theory

TL;DR: The authors examines the political anthropological work of Pierre Clastres in light of the emergence of the subfield of comparative political theory, and argues that Clastre's reconsignation of political anthropology can be seen as a form of cultural relativism.

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Abstract: This article examines the political anthropological work of Pierre Clastres in light of the emergence of the subfield of comparative political theory. In particular, it argues that Clastres’ recons...

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13 citations

Cites background from "The Return of the Enlightenment"

...(Clastres, 2010d: 275) The internal non-division of the political community is thus guaranteed through external atomization and segmentation, the fragmentation of relations between societies in an unstable network of war and alliance that is capable of affirming the self-identity of multiple social…...
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...…of the undivided unity of the social body: ‘‘This power, unseparated from society, is exercised in a single way; it encourages a single project: to maintain the being of society in non-division, to prevent inequality between men from instilling division in society’’ (Clastres, 2010b: 169)....
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...…is one who simply, through their pronouncements, affirms the identity of the desire of the community, which their speech must map onto precisely: ‘‘the leader’s point of view will only be listened to as long as it expresses society’s point of view as a single totality’’ (Clastres, 2010b: 167)....
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...The chief’s external indebtedness guarantees society that he will remain exterior to power, that he will not become a separate organ’’ (Clastres, 2010g: 204)....
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...…radical difference with these others: ‘‘Here then is how primitive society concretely appears: a multiplicity of separate communities, each watching over the integrity of its territory, a series of neo-monads each of which, in the face of others, asserts its difference’’ (Clastres, 2010d: 261–262)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

1774: The Scottish Enlightenment Meets the Tibetan Enlightenment

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Gordon T. Stewart

01 Jan 2011-Journal of World History

TL;DR: The meeting in 1774 between Lobsang Palden Yeshes (1738-1780), the Third Panchen Lama, and George Bogle (1746-1781), an agent of the East India Company, was the first encounter between Britain and Tibet.

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Abstract: The meeting in 1774 between Lobsang Palden Yeshes (1738-1780), the Third Panchen Lama, and George Bogle (1746-1781), an agent of the East India Company, was the first encounter between Britain and Tibet. This remarkable moment in world history brought the Scottish Enlightenment into contact with Tibetan Lamaist Buddhism. The commentaries written during this episode are used to test the widely held view that Enlightenment thinking led to European imperialism. The evidence from this encounter shows that Enlightenment-era mentalities could be both supportive of and antipathetic to imperialism. The article ends by glancing briefly at Tibetan imperialism in an earlier period to suggest that both Buddhism and the Enlightenment were sometimes implicated in the creation of empires but that neither can be viewed as the root cause of imperialism.

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8 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

The Religious and the Secular in the Early American Republic

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Christopher Grasso

01 Jan 2016-Journal of the Early Republic

TL;DR: This article reviewed recent studies of the Enlightenment, the Revolution, and disestablishment and showed how they employ the categories of the religious and the secular in strikingly different ways, and how these authors construct (or assume) these categories brings their works into a more productive conversation.

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Abstract: Scholarship on religion in the early American republic is often shaped by two historical narratives. One is the story of the efflorescence of religion—its power, pervasiveness, and plurality. The second is the account of secularization. Once seen as the waning of religion’s power with the advent of modernity, secularization has recently been reimagined and recast by scholars in several disciplines. But to explore some themes at the intersection of recent religious histories of the early republic and neo-secularization theory is no easy task because of the instability and ambiguity of the very terms at the center of discussion: the religious and the secular. This essay reviews recent studies of the Enlightenment, the Revolution, and disestablishment and shows how they employ the categories of the religious and the secular in strikingly different ways. Seeing how these authors construct (or assume) these categories brings their works into a more productive conversation.

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6 citations

Space, Geography, and the Global French Enlightenment

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Charles Withers

31 Oct 2014

1 citations

The Return of the Enlightenment

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Cites background from "The Return of the Enlightenment"

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