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Enlightenment
About: Enlightenment is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6845 publications have been published within this topic receiving 116832 citations.
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01 Dec 2015
TL;DR: The legacy of the Enlightenment can be traced back to the pre-Enlightenment and the politics of the early modern world as discussed by the authors, which is also referred to as pre-enlightenment.
Abstract: 1. Definitions of Enlightenment 2. Pre-Enlightenment 3. Enlightenment ideas 4. Enlightening society 5. The politics of Enlightenment 6. The legacy of Enlightenment Further Reading Index
23 citations
23 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe a cyclical collapse of verbal assurance in a culture that veers into widespread worries about the reliability of words and even into wholesale refusal of rational discourse.
Abstract: Periodically in intellectual history, confidence in the Logos, in the ability of the word to grasp reality and disclose truth, flags dramatically. Discourses in all disciplines and fields suddenly become dubious and problematic as language enters into generalized crisis and the currency of the word goes bust. Such cyclical collapse of verbal assurance fosters cultures that can be characterized as "apophatic," that is, as veering into widespread worries about the reliability of words and even into wholesale refusal of rational discourse. This type of culture in retreat from language becomes pervasive notably in the Hellenistic Age in a spate of Hermetic philosophies and Gnosticisms, all in various ways repudiations of the Greek rational enlightenment. It rises to prominence again towards the end of the medieval period with the surpassing of Scholasticism as an all-encompassing rational system. The thinking of Meister Eckhart is exemplary at this juncture. Eckhart engenders hosts of scions and satellites who carry his inspiration forward into Baroque mysticism, which likewise bursts the measures of reason and word that had been dictated by Renaissance rhetorical norms. Something similar happens yet again with Romanticism in its revolt against the Enlightenment Aufkldrung on the threshold of the period with which the present essay is concerned. Such eruptions arguably have continued with intensifying rhythm ever since. A particularly dense and destiny-laden nodal point in the midst of this history is Viennese culture at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century, pivoting on figures such as Hofmannsthal, Wittgenstein, Musil, Rilke, Klimt, Kraus, and Schoenberg. The catastrophe of an entire historical epoch was here felt in all its extremity and was expressed with the utmost acuteness and oftentimes pathos too. Hofmannsthal's "Letter
23 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the fortunes of Aristotelian metaphysics in science and the philosophy of science and considers the Enlightenment claim that such a metaphysics is fundamentally unscientific, and that its abandonment was essential to the scientific revolution.
Abstract: The paper examines the fortunes of Aristotelian metaphysics in science and the philosophy of science. It considers the Enlightenment claim that such a metaphysics is fundamentally unscientific, and that its abandonment was essential to the scientific revolution. The history of the scientific revolution and the metaphysical debates involved in it is examined, and it is argued that the eclipse of Aristotelian views was neither complete, nor merited. The evolution of Humeian and positivist accounts of science is described, and it is shown how the severe problems with these accounts, together with a revival of Aristotelian concepts in philosophy, have led to the rebirth of broadly Aristotelian accounts of the metaphysics underlying science.
23 citations
TL;DR: Humboldt's approach to natural history thus exemplifies the essential continuity between Enlightenment doctrines of sensation and sensibility and Romantic assertions of the unity of nature and the unique role of the naturalist in revealing that unity as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Since the late 19th century, the image of Alexander von Humboldt has been fractured into that of the patient and assiduous fact-gatherer, devoted to measurement and quantification, and that of the sensitive soul, awake to the unity and beauty of the landscape. Concern with emotional and aesthetic responses to the natural world was, however, central to Humboldt's precise and quantitative approach to natural history. The unity of his project may be better understood by exploring his youthful immersion in Enlightenment debates over the nature of the human mind and the possibility of rational knowledge of nature — debates which took on a special urgency during the epoch of the French Revolution. Specifically, the reforms of natural history which Humboldt proposed in the 1790s and practiced during his expedition to the Americas (1799–1804) drew on the concepts and techniques of “analysis” developed by the French Encyclopedists and refracted through German politics and philosophy. Humboldt's approach to natural history thus exemplifies the essential continuity between Enlightenment doctrines of sensation and sensibility and Romantic assertions of the unity of nature and the unique role of the naturalist in revealing that unity.
23 citations