Enlightenment

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

Discovering China: European Interpretations in the Enlightenment

Abstract: China, the Confucian ideal, and the European Age of Enlightenment, Walter W. davis the image of neo-Confucianism in "Confucius Sinarum Philosophus", Knud Lundbaek the Jesuit figurists and 18th century religious thought, Arnold Rowbotham Malebranche and Chinese philosophy - some recent studies on the confluence of Chinese and Western intellectual history the pre-established harmony between Leibnitz and Chinese thought, Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemont, Jr Leibniz and Chinas - the sinop=hilism of Christian Wolff (1679-1754) the sinophilism of J.H.G. Justi, Johanna M.. Menzel Sir William Chambers and he Chinese garden, R.C. Bald the study of Chinese Civilization, Arthur F. Wright

Educational Philosophy in the French Enlightenment: From Nature to Second Nature

Abstract: Introduction / Part 1 The Educational Philosophy of John Locke: Prologue: Locke's educational theory in relation to his philosophical and political thought / The natural external: Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Edication / Locke: father of social engineering or champion of liberty in education? / Part 2 Early Enlightenment Educational Theory: Claude Fleury, Charles Rollin and Jean-Pierre de Crousaz: Prologue: some sources of French educational thought and the legacy of the Jesuits / Childhood and education in the works of Claude Fleury, Charles Rollin and Jean-Pierre de Crousaz / 'The limits of reform' and the concept of utility in Fleury, Rollin, Crousaz and Mme de Lambert / Part 3 The Educational Philosophy of Etienne-Gabriel Morelly: Prologue: educational theory at mid-century / Morelly and individual education Essai sur l'esprit humain / Morelly and social education Essai sur le coeur humain / Morelly and the politicization of education / Part 4 The Helvetius-Rousseau Controversy: Prologue: the scandal over Helvetius's De l'Esprit and the origins of the Helvetius-Rousseau controversy / Helvetius's De l'Esprit: the argument for full equality / Rousseau's Emile, Books I-III: individual education / Emile, Books IV-V, and Emile et Sophie, ou les solitaires: social and moral education / Part 5 The Crisis of 1762: 'Children Belong to the State': Prologue: the expulsion of the Jesuits and the educational reformers of the 1760s / The influence of educational-philosophical concepts on the reform plans of the 1760s / Conclusion: disciples and critics: the impact of French Enlightenment educational thought / Appendices / Works cited / Index

Against Autonomy: Global Dialectics of Cultural Exchange

Abstract: This book investigates "cultural instruments," meaning normative forms of analysis and practice that are central to Western culture and in the course of their history came to be ways of understanding and controlling different cultures. Examples are: notions of autonomy and the division of intellectual, social, cultural, and aesthetic practices; ideas of otherness (taking forms like Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft, negritude, and afrocentrism); cultural and aesthetic forms such as tragedy, mimesis, self, mind/body; certain modes of history and memory; and particular forms of discourse such as science, philosophy, and literature. The book explores the interlocking histories of cultural instruments from antiquity to the early Enlightenment and their instrumental use and reworking by different cultures, moving from Europe to Africa and the Americas, especially the Caribbean. In the process, the author gives close readings of works by a wide range of authors: Balboa, Balbuena, Brathwaite, Calvino, Carpentier, Cervantes, Cesaire, Depestre, Descartes, Eltit, Fanon, Freud, Gombrowicz, Harris, Kane, Kipling, Marshall, Walcott. Many other authors' works become part of the book's general argument about how cultures are made, how they figure both themselves and other cultures, and how they mutually interact (when they do) through productions of what the author calls the "fictive imagination"-what in the West is called "art" but in different cultures may take different names and serve different purposes.

The Politics of Enlightenment: From Peter Gay to Jonathan Israel

Abstract: According to the textbook version of history, the Enlightenment played a crucial role in the creation of the modern, liberal democracies of the West. Ever since this view – which we might describe as the modernization thesis – was first formulated by Peter Gay, it has been repeatedly criticized as misguided: a myth. Yet, as this paper shows, it continues to survive in postwar historiography, in particular in the Anglophone world. Indeed, Gay's most important and influential successors – historians such as Robert Darnton and Roy Porter – all ended up defending the idea that the Enlightenment was a major force in the creation of modern democratic values and institutions. More recently, Jonathan Israel's trilogy on the Enlightenment has revived the modernization thesis, albeit in a dramatic new form. Yet, even Israel's work, as its critical reception highlights, does not convincingly demonstrate that the Enlightenment, as an intellectual movement, contributed in any meaningful way to the creation of modern political culture. This conclusion raises a new question: if the Enlightenment did not create our modern democracies, then what did it do? In answer to that question, this paper suggests that we should take more seriously the writings of enlightened monarchists like Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger. Studying the Enlightenment might not allow us to understand why democratic political culture came into being. But, as Boulanger's work underscores, it might throw light on an equally important problem: why democracy came so late in the day.