Showing papers on "Enlightenment published in 1996"
TL;DR: The authors argues that all schools of contemporary political thought are variations on the Enlightenment Project, the Westernizing project of a universal civilization, and that this Enlightenment Project has proved self-undermining and is now exhausted.
Abstract: Now in paperback, Enlightenment's Wake stakes out the elements of John Gray's new position. He argues that all schools of contemporary political thought are variations on the Enlightenment Project - the Westernizing project of a universal civilization - and that this Enlightenment Project has proved self-undermining and is now exhausted. Fresh thought is needed on the dilemmas of the late modern age.
383 citations
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: In this paper, the longinian tradition has been studied in the context of the Aberdonian Enlightenment, from the picturesque to the political Commentary notes, and from the political commentary notes.
Abstract: Introduction 1. The longinian tradition 2. Rhapsody to rhetoric 3. Irish perspectives 4. The Aberdonian Enlightenment 5. Glasgow and Edinburgh 6. From the picturesque to the political Commentary notes Sources and further reading.
267 citations
Book•
01 Dec 1996
TL;DR: A note to readers Prologue 1. The nations's dream-work 2. The formal imagination, II: Natural history and the national pedagogy - the case of Korais 4. The punishment of philhellenism 5. The phatasms of writing, I: Makriyiannis and the miracles of national memory 6. Nostalgia for Utopia - the idolatries of Seferis 7.
Abstract: A note to readers Prologue 1. The nations's dream-work 2. The formal imagination, I: The back roads of development from enlightenment to bureaucracy 3. The formal imagination, II: Natural history and the national pedagogy - the case of Korais 4. The punishment of philhellenism 5. The phatasms of writing, I: Makriyiannis and the miracles of national memory 6. The phatasms of writing, II: Nostalgia for Utopia - the idolatries of Seferis 7. Homologia Apologia: the writing of national history Works cited Index.
155 citations
01 Jan 1996
93 citations
18 Apr 1996
TL;DR: Conway's Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy as mentioned in this paper is the most interesting and original philosophical work written by a woman in the seventeenth century and has been translated into modern English.
Abstract: Anne Conway was an extraordinary figure in a remarkable age. Her mastery of the intricate doctrines of the Lurianic Kabbalah, her authorship of a treatise criticising the philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza, and her scandalous conversion to the despised sect of Quakers indicate a strength of character and independence of mind wholly unexpected (and unwanted) in a woman at the time. Translated for the first time into modern English, her Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy is the most interesting and original philosophical work written by a woman in the seventeenth century. Her radical and unorthodox ideas are important not only because they anticipated the more tolerant, ecumenical, and optimistic philosophy of the Enlightenment, but also because of their influence on Leibniz. This fully annotated edition includes an introduction which places Conway in her historical and philosophical contexts, together with a chronology of her life and a bibliography.
91 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: Sorkin this article argues that Mendelssohn attempted to rearticulate the medieval Jewish rationalist tradition in the terms of eighteenth-century philosophy, thereby showing his essential similarity to the Protestant and Catholic thinkers of the religious Enlightenment who attempted to use the new science and philosophy to renew faith.
Abstract: Through a close study of Mendelssohn's Hebrew and German writings, David Sorkin argues that Mendelssohn's two spheres of endeavor were entirely consistent. Mendelssohn attempted to rearticulate the medieval Jewish rationalist tradition in the terms of eighteenth-century philosophy, thereby showing his essential similarity to the Protestant and Catholic thinkers of the religious Enlightenment who attempted to use the new science and philosophy to renew faith. Sorkin restores Mendelssohn to his eighteenth-century milieu and in so doing shows that Mendelssohn, by being turned into a symbol, has been fundamentally misunderstood.
79 citations
TL;DR: Rousseau inaugurated the counter-Enlightenment, that attack on secular rationalism and quest for re-enchantment that has, in one form or another, been with us ever since (and which, if the postmodern age has really arrived, now enjoys its heyday).
Abstract: Rousseau inaugurated the counter-Enlightenment—that attack on secular rationalism and quest for “re-enchantment” that has, in one form or another, been with us ever since (and which, if the postmodern age has really arrived, now enjoys its heyday). The crowning expression of this event was Rousseau's effort to revive (while transforming) Christianity. Yet, paradoxically, it is also in Rousseau that the polemical core of the Enlightenment—the critique of Christianity—reached its fullest development. This strange co-presence of Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment suggests an unsuspected continuity between the two. Rousseau, by pursuing more radically the underlying goal of the Enlightenment critique of Christianity—the restoration of human wholeness—was led to extend that very critique to Enlightenment rationalism itself and thence to propose a return to religion, but to one that, rooted in sincerity, would not only avoid the dangers of traditional Christianity but also better fulfill the Enlightenment's own humanistic goal.
78 citations
Book•
26 Apr 1996
TL;DR: A classic of modern religious thought, Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers is presented in Richard Crouter's acclaimed English translation of the 1799 edition, originally published in Cambridge Texts in German Philosophy as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A classic of modern religious thought, Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers is here presented in Richard Crouter's acclaimed English translation of the 1799 edition, originally published in Cambridge Texts in German Philosophy. Written when its youthful author was deeply involved in German Romanticism and the critique of Kant's moral and religious philosophy, it is a masterly expression of Protestant Christian apologetics of the modern period, which powerfully displays the tensions between the Romantic and Enlightenment accounts of religion. Unlike the revised versions of 1806 and 1821, which modify the language of feeling and intuition and translate the argument into more traditional academic and Christian categories, the 1799 text more fully reveals its original audience's literary and social world. Richard Crouter's introduction places the work in the milieu of early German Romanticism, Kant criticism, the revival of Spinoza and Plato studies, and theories of literary criticism and of the physical sciences, and his fully annotated edition also includes a chronology and notes on further reading.
77 citations
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TL;DR: The authors argue that doubts and ambivalences about the role of God and divinity in human affairs (as well as doubts about secular matters) have a very long history and that these attitudes emerge from the cognitive contradictions which characterize beliefs and practices about the supernatural and which are embedded in the use of language itself.
Abstract: Huxley introduced the term agnosticism to describe his own sceptical attitude towards religious matters. Others have used the term more generally with regard to secular knowledge. Many European commentators have seen this attitude as having developed in the Enlightenment, or during the Renaissance; others trace it back to Greek rationalism. This article suggests that explicit forms of scepticism and agnosticism (even atheism) were much more widely distributed, not only in the Near East but in India and the Far East where counter-cultural traditions often arose in opposition to the hegemonic religious ideologies. Simpler societies, too, display a kernel of doubt. These attitudes emerge from the cognitive contradictions which characterize beliefs and practices about the supernatural and which are embedded in the use of language itself. We recall today the name of T.H. Huxley, son of an unsuccessful schoolmaster who was the progenitor of a line of intellectuals. We do this partly because of his support of Charles Darwin on the occasion of the debate with Bishop Wilberforce at Oxford in 1860 (a year after the appearance of On the origin of species). The occasion represented a major public assertion of the independence of science from theology, a breach that had been in the making since Galileo and long before. Indeed, I want to argue that doubts and ambivalences about the role of God and divinity in human affairs (as well as doubts about secular matters) have a very long history. This history relates not so much to science or even naturalism in the restricted sense, as to a transversal1 scepticism about issues such as the role of deity, a scepticism which arises from the human situation itself Huxley had himself played an important part in scientific biology when he
67 citations
Book•
01 Aug 1996
TL;DR: Breuer as discussed by the authors explores the early Jewish confrontations with modernity and burgeoning 18th-century interest in the study of Scripture, examining the complex relationship between the Jewish Enlightenment and the German "Aufklarung" and demonstrates that this revival was also informed by an acute awareness of critical European scholarship and an attempt to respond to its modern challenges.
Abstract: This text explores the early Jewish confrontations with modernity and burgeoning 18th-century interest in the study of Scripture, Edward Breuer examines the complex relationship between the Jewish Enlightenment and the German "Aufklarung". The revival of a textual and linguistic approach to Bible study among Jews, exemplified by the new translation and commentary published by Moses Mendelssohn, was largely reflective of the aesthetic and literary concerns of contemporary Europeans. "The Limits of Enlightenment" demonstrates that this revival was also informed by an acute awareness of critical European scholarship and an attempt to respond to its modern challenges. Alongside its openness to European society and culture, the German-Jewish Enlightenment was thus also shaped by a newly perceived need to defend centuries of Jewish learning and tradition.
57 citations
Book•
22 Feb 1996
TL;DR: In this article, Wieacker describes how the Glossators laid down the foundations by applying methodical criticism and exegesis to the Digest of Justinian and how legal thinking, writing and teaching started in Europe.
Abstract: In this book Franz Wieacker tells how legal thinking, writing and teaching started in Europe and how it developed. He begins in the High Middle Ages and describes how the Glossators laid down the foundations by applying methodical criticism and exegesis to the Digest of Justinian. As Reinhard Zimmermann's foreword shows, Wieacker's way of telling the history of European legal thought from its origins in medieval Bologna down to the present day and of elucidating the intellectual conditions for its development is a stunning achievement. One of the great strengths of the book lies in its demonstration of the constant interaction between the thinking of lawyers and the general philosophical ideas of their time: between Scholasticism and medieval legal science, between the enlightenment and the Law of Reason, between Classicism (and Romanticism) and Savigny's Historical School of Law. It is hardly surprising that so ambitious and erudite a work should have become a classic since 1952, when it was first published in German. Now Tony Weir's brilliant translation makes the seond and final edition accessible to English-speaking scholars the world over.
TL;DR: In the debate on an Islamic tradition of enlightenment, the Arabic philosopher Ibn Rushd (died 1198) should claim a special place as discussed by the authors, and since that time the debate has been going on, mainly among Arab intellectuals.
Abstract: In the debate on an Islamic tradition of enlightenment, the Arabic philosopher Ibn Rushd (died 1198) should claim a special place. The Christian secularist Farah Antfin (1874-1922) and the Muslim reformist Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905) discussed between 1901 and 1920 in the volumes of al-Jami'ah the importance and role of Ibn Rushd; since that time the debate has been going on, mainly among Arab intellectuals. It seems that among Iranian or Indian intellectuals much less attention is given to Ibn Rushd. The search for a connection between the historical Ibn Rushd and
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: In this article, Perez-Ramos et al. discuss the relationship between science and British philosophy: Boyle and Newton John Rogers, University of Keele 2. Innate idea philosophy: Lord Herbert and the Cambridge Platonists Sarah Hutton and the University of Hertfordshire 3. Locke:knowledge and its limits Ian Tipton, University College of Swansea 4. Hume: political theory Ian Harris, Jesus College, Cambridge 5. Jacobson, Rutgers University 7.
Abstract: 1. Science and British philosophy: Boyle and Newton John Rogers, University of Keele 2. Innate idea philosophy: Lord Herbert and the Cambridge Platonists Sarah Hutton, University of Hertfordshire 3. Locke:knowledge and its limits Ian Tipton, University College of Swansea 4. Locke: political theory Ian Harris, Jesus College, Cambridge 5. Berkeley David Berman, University of Dublin 6. Hume: knowledge and belief Anne Jacobson, Rutgers University 7. Hume: moral and political philosophy Rosalind Hursthouse, The Open University 8. British moralists of the 18th century: Shaftesbury, Butler and Price David McNaughton, University of Keele 9. The French enlightenment: nature and science, deism and materialism Peter Jimack, University of Stirling 10. The French enlightenment: moral and political thought Peter Jimack, 11. The Scottish enlightenment M.A. Stewart, Lancaster University 12. The Aufklarung (to include Moses Mendelssohn) Manfred Kuehn, Purdue University 13. Vico A. Perez-Ramos, University of Murcia 14. The beginnings of the romantic reaction: Rousseau and Burke Ian Harris, Jesus College, Cambridge
TL;DR: The postmodern response to the truth claims traditionally made on behalf of visionary moments has been examined in this article, where it is argued that postmodern writers might draw on the resources of metafiction to parodically "lay bare" the essentially literary nature of such moments.
Abstract: tW ~ # hat is the postmodern response to the truth claims traditionally made on behalf of visionary moments? By "visionary moment," I mean that flash of insight or sudden revelation which critically raises the level of spiritual or self-awareness of a fictional character. It is a mode of cognition typically represented as bypassing rational thought processes and attaining a "higher" or redemptive order of knowledge (gnosis). There are, conceivably, three types of postmodern response which merit attention here. First, in recognition of the special role literature itself has played in establishing the credibility of visionary moments, postmodern writers might draw on the resources of metafiction to parodically "lay bare" the essentially literary nature of such moments. Baldly stated, the visionary moment could be exposed as a literary convention, that is, a concept that owes more to the practice of organizing narratives around a sudden illumination (as in, say, the narratives of Wordsworth's Prelude or Joyce's Dubliners) than to reallife experience. Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 is premised on this assumption. Pynchon's sleuthlike protagonist, Oedipa Maas, finds herself in a situation in which clues-contrary to the resolution of the standard detective story-proliferate uncontrollably, thereby impeding the emergence of a final enlightenment or "stelliferous Meaning" (82). It is a situation that not only frustrates Oedipa, who is continually tantalized by the sense that "a revelation . . . trembled just past the threshold of her understand
TL;DR: A close look at medieval documents reveals that medieval Shinto doctrines arose in Japan as part of the exoteric-esoteric system (kenmitsu taisei), the dominant politico-religious ethos of the times, and was heavily influenced by the Buddhist teaching of original enlightenment as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This essay examines the concept of "shinkoku" (land of the kami) as it evolved in medieval Japan, and the part this concept played in the development of a state ideology. A close look at medieval documents reveals that medieval Shinto doctrines arose in Japan as part of the exoteric-esoteric system (kenmitsu taisei), the dominant politico-religious ethos of the times, and was heavily influenced by the Buddhist teaching of original enlightenment (hongaku shis6). In this sense it was a construct of Buddhism, and a reactionary phenomenon arising out of the decadence of the earlier system of government rule.
Book•
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a survey of the dialogue and Enlightenment in the early eighteenth century, including Shaftesbury's The Moralists, Berkeley's Alciphron, or the Christian Cicero.
Abstract: Introduction: dialogue and Enlightenment Part I. Strains of Enlightenment: 1. Shaftesbury's characteristic genres: concepts of criticism in the early eighteenth century 2. Shaftesbury's The Moralists: a dialogue upon dialogue 3. Berkeley and the paradoxes of empiricism: A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous 4. Berkeley's Alciphron, or the Christian Cicero 5. Hume and the end of religious dialogue: Dialogues concerning Natural Religion Part II. Dialogue, Aesthetics and the Novel: 6. The Platonic revival: 1740-70 7. Anti-Platonism and the novelistic character 8. Dead conversations: Richard Hurd's late poetics of dialogue 9. Utopia or conversation: transforming dialogue in Johnson and Austen Epilogue: some dialectics of Enlightenment.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address the prospects of an approach to contemporary theory-building which would take account of the realms of meaning, ontology and cultural practice traditionally in the province of religion.
Abstract: This essay addresses the prospects of an approach to contemporary theory‐building which would take account of the realms of meaning, ontology and cultural practice traditionally in the province of religion. Beginning with an assessment of the germinal social theory of Durkheim, Weber and Marx, the investigation develops an interpretation of contemporary social and cultural life which conceives of “the religious” as radically located within “the secular.” Such a situation necessarily implicates some received understandings, particularly in the area of secularization and the larger Enlightenment project. Implications for media theory and research are explored, along with a set of implications for public and democratic discourse.
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: In this paper, the idea of progress is examined from the perspective of science, anthropology, economics, religion, political philosophy, feminism, medicine, environmental studies, and the Third World.
Abstract: Progress, perhaps the fundamental secular belief of modern Western society, has come under heavy fire recently because, after three centuries, advances in science and technology seem increasingly to bring problems in their wake: alienation, environmental degradation, the threat of nuclear destruction. The idea of progress is brought into question by postmodern critique, attacking the notion of science as truth. Yet no other meaningful organization of humankind's sense of time looms on the horizon. This volume seeks to reassess the meaning and prospects of the idea of progress.Looking toward the millennium, the volume seeks to evaluate the idea's worth both in theory--is it intellectually viable and defensible today?--and practice--even if theoretically defensible, is the idea undermined in actual life? Approaching these questions from the perspectives of science, anthropology, economics, religion, political philosophy, feminism, medicine, environmental studies, and the Third World, the contributors, all distinguished scholars, provide a unique and critical balance.Ultimately, the contributors find that progress is both a fact and an illusion: it does occur in certain areas, but it does not sweep all before it as its Enlightenment votaries thought it would. This foundational idea permeates discourse in the natural and social sciences as well as the humanities and will engage historians, students of the history of science and technology, sociologists, political scientists, philosophers, literary scholars, and art critics, as well as those interested in civilization in general.Contributors include: Jill Ker Conway, Zhiyuan Cui, Leon Eisenberg, Robert Heilbroner, Gerald Holton, Leo Marx, Bruce Mazlish, Ali A. Mazrui, Alan Ryan, John M. Staudenmaier, George W. Stocking, Jr., and Richard White."A discerning reconsideration of the idea of 'progress' in a variety of carefully defined theoretical and empirical-historical contexts." --David Hollinger, University of California, BerkeleyLeo Marx is Professor of American Cultural History, Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bruce Mazlish is Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Book•
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: In this article, a science of morality philosophical history and political discord human geography - correlating climate, culture and civilization rights, utility and political institutions towards the plitical economy of commercial society suppression and resurrection of an academy.
Abstract: Intellectuals, revolution and the social sciences enlightenment social science models the institute intellectuals - change and continuity advice to government and prize contests the public image of the Institute and the decline of encyclopaedism indelible temperament and Condillac's uncertain legacy a science of morality philosophical history and political discord human geography - correlating climate, culture and civilization rights, utility and political institutions towards the plitical economy of commercial society suppression and resurrection of an academy.
Book•
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: In this article, Herzog demonstrates how centrally Christianity's problematic relationships to Judaism and to sexuality shaped liberal, conservative, and radical thought in the pre-revolutionary years, revealing how often conflicts over the "politics of the personal", especially over sex and marriage, determined "larger" political matters.
Abstract: During the years leading up to the revolutions of 1848, liberal and conservative Germans engaged in a contest over the terms of the Enlightenment legacy and the meaning of Christianity - a contest that grew most intense in the Grand Duchy of Baden, where liberalism first became an influential political movement. Bringing insights drawn from Jewish and women's studio into German history, Dagmar Herzog demonstrates how centrally Christianity's problematic relationships to Judaism and to sexuality shaped liberal, conservative, and radical thought in the pre-revolutionary years. In particular, she reveals how often conflicts over the "politics of the personal", especially over sex and marriage, determined "larger" political matters, among them the relationship between church and state and the terms on which Jews were granted civic rights. Herzog documents the rise of a politically sophisticated conservative Catholicism, and explores liberals' ensuing eagerness to advance a humanist version of Christianity. Yet she also examines the limitations at the heart of the liberal project, especially liberals' unwillingness to grant equality to those deemed "different" from the Christian male norm. Finally, the author analyses the difficulties en-countered by philosemitic and feminist radicals in reconcept ualising both classical liberalism and Christianity in order to make room for the claims of Jews and women.
TL;DR: Kavanagh as discussed by the authors argues that the French Enlightenment culture and its tensions, contradictions, and achievements flow from a subversive attention to the present as present, freed from the weight of past and future, and argues against the traditional view of the Age of Reason as one of coherent, recognizable ideology expressed in a structured narrative form.
Abstract: The literature and art of the French Enlightenment is everywhere marked by an intense awareness of the moment. The parallel projects of living in, representing, and learning from the moment run through the Enlightenment's endeavors as tokens of an ambition and a heritage imposing its only and ultimately impossible cohesion. In this illuminating study, Thomas M. Kavanagh argues that Enlightenment culture and its tensions, contradictions, and achievements flow from a subversive attention to the present as present, freed from the weight of past and future. Examining a wide sweep of literary and artistic culture, Kavanagh argues against the traditional view of the Age of Reason as one of coherent, recognizable ideology expressed in a structured narrative form. In literature, he analyzes the moment at work in the inebriating lightness of Marivaux's repartee; the new-found freedom of Lahontan's and Rousseau's ideals of a consciousness limited to the present; Diderot's championing of Epicurean epistemology; Graffigny's portrayal of abrupt cultural displacement; and Casanova's penchant for chance's redefining moment. The moment in art theory and practice is explored in such forms as de Piles's defense of color; Du Bos's foregrounding of perception; Watteau's indulgence in a corporeal present; Chardin's dismantling of mimesis; and Boucher's and Fragonard's thematics of desire.
Book•
01 Jan 1996
Abstract: Offering a study of the Scottish Enlightenment, this collection of essays deals with the period from 1730 to 1790 - one of the most important in Scotland's history. It was an age when many aspects of mankind's existence - philosophy, economics, art, law, architecture, medicine, engineering - were studied and questioned. It was also a time when Scotland's cities were "hotbeds of genius", and Scotsmen such as the philosopher David Hume, the economist Adam Smith, the chemist James Black and the geologist James Hutton developed their ideas and successfully challenged the beliefs of the past. The introductory essay gives an overview of the Enlightenment, and is followed by individual studies on the great men of the time. The book concludes with a section on Scotland's legacy to the world, and to America in particular.