Topic
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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TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the Enlightenment and the pathogenesis of modern society in the context of the History of European Ideas: Vol 9, No 6, pp 762-762
67 citations
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01 Jan 199167 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
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01 Jan 1998
TL;DR: The authors argues that social theory can only fail when viewed as a "science of society", and rather than focusing upon the question of society or even "modernity", it should focus on human nature.
Abstract: This is an introductory account of social theory and the central role of enlightenment within it. Tom Osborne argues that: contemporary social theory can only fail when viewed as a "science of society", and rather than focusing upon the question of society or even "modernity" should focus on the question of human nature. The most immediate and central topic of such a social theory should be the question of enlightenment.; However, the book departs from traditional accounts locating the vocation of social theory in the system of values established in the original Enlightenment by the French philosophers and others.; Rather it makes a strong argument for the ethical status of enlightenment, going on to analyze particular "regimes of enlightenment" in modernity, namely those associated with the social ethics of science, expertise, intellect and art.
66 citations
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01 Sep 1981
TL;DR: The English are the only people upon earth who have been able to prescribe limits to the power of Kings by resisting them; and who, by a series of struggles, have at last established that wise Government, where the Prince is all powerful to do good, and at the same time is restrained from committing evil; where the Nobles are great without insolence, tho' there are no Vassals; and where the People share in the government without confusion as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: To approach the question of the Enlightenment in England means plunging into the quicksands of historical paradox. Throughout the eighteenth century Aufklarer of all nations revered English government, society and opinion as the pure crystal of Enlightenment. Anglophiles celebrated the British constitution, law and freedom, the open weave of English society, its religious toleration and prosperity. ‘The English are the only people upon earth’, asserted Voltaire, in his significantly titled Lettres philosophiques ou Lettres anglaises , who have been able to prescribe limits to the power of Kings by resisting them; and who, by a series of struggles, have at last established that wise Government, where the Prince is all powerful to do good, and at the same time is restrained from committing evil; where the Nobles are great without insolence, tho’ there are no Vassals; and where the People share in the government without confusion. Diderot envied his English confreres : There seem to be two countries in Europe in which philosophy is cultivated, France and England. In England, philosophers are honoured, respected; they rise to public offices, they are buried with the kings. Do we see that England is any the worse for it? In France warrants are issued against them, they are persecuted, pelted with pastoral letters, with satires, and libels. Hence Aufklarer set up a kind of society for the propagation of the English gospel.
66 citations