Topic
Enlightenment
About: Enlightenment is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6845 publications have been published within this topic receiving 116832 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
More filters
Book•
01 Jan 1947
TL;DR: The Dialectic of Enlightenment as mentioned in this paper is one of the most celebrated and often cited works of modern social philosophy, and it has been identified as the keystone of the 'Frankfurt School', of which Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer were the leading members.
Abstract: Dialectic of Enlightenment is, quite justifiably, one of the most celebrated and often cited works of modern social philosophy. It has been identified as the keystone of the 'Frankfurt School', of which Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer were the leading members, and does not cease to impress in its wide-ranging ambition and panache. Adorno and Horkheimer addressees themselves to a question which went to the very heart of the modern age, namely 'why mankind, instead of entering into a truly human condition, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism'. Modernity, far from redeeming the promises and hopes of the Enlightenment, had resulted in a stultification of mankind and an administered society, characterised by simulation and candy-floss entertainment. To seek an answer to the question of how such a condition could arise, Adorno and Horkheier subjected the whole history of Western catagories of reason and nature, from Homer to Nietzsche, to a searching philosophical and psychological critique. Drawing on psychoanalytical insights, their own work on the 'culture industry', deep knowledge of the key Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment thinkers, as well as fascinating considerations on the relationship between reason and myth - the rational and the irrational - the authors exposed the domination and violence towards both nature and humanity that underpin the Enlightenment project.
4,868 citations
TL;DR: For instance, the study of mind has focused principally on how man achieves a "true" knowledge of the world as discussed by the authors, that is, how we get a reliable fix on the world, a world that is assumed to be immutable and, as it were, there to be observed.
Abstract: Surely since the Enlightenment, if not before, the study of mind has centered principally on how man achieves a "true" knowledge of the world. Emphasis in this pursuit has varied, of course: empiricists have concentrated on the mind's interplay with an external world of nature, hoping to find the key in the association of sensations and ideas, while rationalists have looked inward to the powers of mind itself for the principles of right reason. The objective, in either case, has been to discover how we achieve "reality," that is to say, how we get a reliable fix on the world, a world that is, as it were, assumed to be immutable and, as it were, "there to be observed." This quest has, of course, had a profound effect on the development of psychology, and the empiricist and rationalist traditions have dominated our conceptions of how the mind grows and how it gets its grasp on the "real world." Indeed, at midcentury Gestalt theory represented the rationalist wing of this enterprise and American learning theory the empiricist. Both gave accounts of mental development as proceeding in some more or less linear and uniform fashion from an initial incompetence in grasping reality to a final competence, in one case attributing it to the working out of internal processes or mental organization, and in the other to some unspecified principle of reflection by which—whether through reinforcement, association, or conditioning—we came to respond to the world "as it is." There have always been dissidents who
4,105 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1998
TL;DR: One of the world's greatest living scientists argues for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for consilience, the composition of the principles governing every branch of learning.
Abstract: In this groundbreaking new book, one of the world's greatest living scientists argues for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for what he calls consilience, the composition of the principles governing every branch of learning Edward O Wilson, the pioneer of sociobiology and biodiversity, once again breaks out of the conventions of current thinking He shows how our explosive rise in intellectual mastery of the truths of our universe has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos It is a vision that found its apogee in the Age of Enlightenment, then gradually was lost in the increasing fragmentation and specialisation of knowledge in the last two centuries Professor Wilson shows why the goals of the original Enlightenment are surging back to life, why they are reappearing on the very frontiers of science and human scholarship, and how they are beginning to sketch themselves as the blueprint of our world
2,855 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the science question in global feminism is addressed and a discussion of science in the women's movement is presented, including two views why "physics" is a bad model for physics.
Abstract: Introduction - after the science question in feminism. Part 1 Science: feminism confronts the sciences how the women's movement benefits science - two views why "physics" is a bad model for physics. Part 2 Epistemology: what is feminist epistemology "strong objectivity" and socially situated knowledge feminist epistemology in and after the enlightenment. Part 3 "Others": "...and race?" - the science question in global feminism common histories, common destinies - science in the first and third worlds "real science" thinking from the perspective of lesbian lives reinventing ourselves as other Conclusion - what is a feminist science.
2,390 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: Eagleton as discussed by the authors unravels the many different meanings of ideology, and charts the history of the concept from the Enlightenment to postmodernism, in a book designed both for newcomers to the topic and for those already familiar with the debates.
Abstract: In the modern world, ideology has never before been so much in evidence as a fact and so little understood as a concept. In a book designed both for newcomers to the topic and for those already familiar with the debates, Terry Eagleton unravels the many different meanings of ideology, and charts the history of the concept from the Enlightenment to postmodernism. As well as clarifying a confused topic, this new edition of a now classic work is fully updated in the light of current theoretical debates.
1,482 citations