Enlightenment

About: Enlightenment is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6845 publications have been published within this topic receiving 116832 citations.

The European and American university since 1800: In search of Isis: general education in Germany and Sweden

Abstract: In her aspect as the wife of Osiris she is the chief actor, but only after his death: she finds his corpse at Byblos, she finds the fragments of the dismembered body scattered throughout Egypt, she is the chief mourner at the funeral, she unites the fragments of the body and, by her divine power, brings Osiris to life again. Encyclopaedia Brittanica In this chapter, I intend to call attention to the German concept of Bildung as well as to its generally less well-known Swedish counterpart of Bildning . These words have much to tell us about both German and Swedish intellectual traditions. Bildung and Bildning start their careers at the end of the eighteenth century, and even today they are quite central to actual discussions about school and society. Of course, their meanings have shifted over the centuries, and these changes were closely linked to the social, political, and institutional circumstances in both countries. The German Ideology of Bildung Culture and enlightenment In 1784 in the Berliner Monatsschrift there appeared some articles concerning the meaning of the word ‘enlightenment’, its supposed ‘real’ meaning. Immanuel Kant's little masterpiece, An Answer to the Question of Enlightenment ( Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklarung? ) is still widely read and commented upon. The great German-Jewish philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn, contributed to the discussion with a succinct and lucid article called, On the Subject of the Meaning of Enlightenment ( Uber die Frage: was heisst Aufklaren? ). Mendelssohn started his essay with the remark that the words Aufkladrung, Kultur , and Bildung were newcomers to the German language. Ordinary people hardly understood them.

Lucretius in the European Enlightenment

Abstract: To characterise Lucretius’ impact on the age of the Enlightenment is a daunting task. Virtually every major figure of the period was in some way influenced by Lucretius, and many of these engagements represent a complex, often polemically charged dialogue with previous interpretations. However, it is possible to make out three relatively cohesive strands, which might be termed the ameliorist, the radical and the aesthetic. In the first phase, the Newtonians and deists both English and French (such as Locke, Shaftesbury and Voltaire) seek to reconcile the secular authority of science with the concept of providence. Second comes the inevitable consequence of the tension between these two mutually antagonistic worldviews, for, once science had succeeded in accounting for the order of creation, God, as Laplace remarked to Napoleon, increasingly became an unnecessary hypothesis. Among those who helped to render that hypothesis superfluous, Bayle, Diderot and Hume represent the Lucretian critique of deist arguments from design, while Mandeville and Rousseau illustrate the use of the DRN for purposes of a more general social critique. The third strand can be seen as an attempt to negotiate the antagonism between Enlightenment progress and religious value. The focus here will fall chiefly on Kant, but the wider picture includes the work of Burke, Schiller, Rousseau and Goethe.

Secular spirituality – what it is. Why we need it. How to proceed

Abstract: Spirituality is the taboo topic of science. Science, in conjunction with political and secular enlightenment movements, was one of the major drivers of modern enlightenment, secularization and progress. Science has itself become a powerful meta-narrative. And part of this meta-narrative is a materialist view of the world. In such a model consciousness can only be secondary to material events in the brain. Yet, spiritual experiences are, as data show, quite common. Because the enlightenment movement was so successful, it has done away with all that is considered unnecessary baggage, including spirituality. Therefore, a new discourse needs to start that addresses this problem. This can only be done via the notion of experience. Spiritual experiences are experiences of a reality that is experienced to be beyond the ego and its immediate needs. They are the basis of religion that later starts out to interpret and ritualize these experiences. In them human consciousness seems to have direct access to t...

Fortunes of History: Historical Inquiry from Herder to Huizinga

Abstract: An examination of historical writing during the "long 19th century" - the years from the French Revolution to those just after World War I. Donald R. Kelley provides a comprehensive analysis of the theories and practices of British, French, German, Italian and American schools of historical thought, their principal figures, and their distinctive methods and self-understandings. Kelley treats the modern traditions of European world and national historiography from the Enlightenment to the "new histories" of the 20th century, attending not only to major authors and schools but also to methods, scholarship, criticisms, controversies, ideological questions and relations to other disciplines.