Bristow, William. "The Enlightenment." STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY August 20, 2010.

The Enlightenment is the period in the history of western thought and culture, stretching roughly from the mid-decades of the seventeenth century through the eighteenth century, characterized by dramatic revolutions in science, philosophy, society and politics; these revolutions swept away the medieval world-view and ushered in our modern western world. Enlightenment thought culminates historically in the political upheaval of the French Revolution, in which the traditional hierarchical political and social orders (the French monarchy, the privileges of the French nobility, the political power and authority of the Catholic Church) were violently destroyed and replaced by a political and social order informed by the Enlightenment ideals of freedom and equality for all, founded, ostensibly, upon principles of human reason. The Enlightenment begins with the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The rise of the new science progressively undermines not only the ancient heliocentric conception of the cosmos, but, with it, the entire set of presuppositions that had served to constrain and guide philosophical inquiry. The dramatic success of the new science in explaining the natural world, in accounting for a wide variety of phenomena by appeal to a relatively small number of elegant mathematical formulae, promotes philosophy (in the broad sense of the time, which includes natural science) from a handmaiden of theology, constrained by its purposes and methods, to an independent force with the power and authority to challenge the old and construct the new, in the realms both of theory and practice, on the basis of its own principles. D'Alembert, a leading figure of the French Enlightenment, characterizes his eighteenth century, in the midst of it, as “the century of philosophy par excellence”, because of the tremendous intellectual progress of the age, the advance of the sciences, and the enthusiasm for that progress, but also because of the characteristic expectation of the age that philosophy (in this broad sense) would dramatically improve human life.

The task of characterizing philosophy in (or of) the Enlightenment confronts the obstacle of the wide diversity of Enlightenment thought. The Enlightenment is associated with the French thinkers of the mid-decades of the eighteenth century, the so-called “philosophes”, (Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alembert, Montesquieu, et cetera). The philosophes constitute an informal society of men of letters who collaborate on a loosely defined project of Enlightenment centered around the project of the Encyclopedia. But the Enlightenment has broader boundaries, both geographical and temporal, than this suggests. In addition to the French, there was a very significant Scottish Enlightenment (key figures were Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid) and a very significant German Enlightenment (die Aufklärung, key figures of which include Christian Wolff, Moses Mendelssohn, G.E. Lessing and Immanuel Kant). But all these Enlightenments were but particular nodes or centers in a far-flung and varied intellectual development. Given the variety, Enlightenment philosophy is characterized here in terms of general tendencies of thought, not in terms of specific doctrines or theories.

Only late in the development of the German Enlightenment, when the Enlightenment was near its end, does the movement become self-reflective; the question of “What is Enlightenment?” is debated in pamphlets and journals. In his famous definition of “enlightenment” in his essay “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” (1784), which is his contribution to this debate, Immanuel Kant expresses many of the tendencies shared among Enlightenment philosophies of divergent doctrines. Kant defines “enlightenment” as humankind's release from its self-incurred immaturity; “immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another.” Enlightenment is the process of undertaking to think for oneself, to employ and rely on one's own intellectual capacities in determining what to believe and how to act. Enlightenment philosophers from across the geographical and temporal spectrum tend to have a great deal of confidence in humanity's intellectual powers, both to achieve systematic knowledge of nature and to serve as an authoritative guide in practical life. This confidence is generally paired with suspicion or hostility toward other forms or carriers of authority (such as tradition, superstition, prejudice, myth and miracles), insofar as these are seen to compete with the authority of reason. Enlightenment philosophy tends to stand in tension with established religion, insofar as the release from self-incurred immaturity in this age, daring to think for oneself, awakening one's intellectual powers, generally requires opposing the role of established religion in directing thought and action. The faith of the Enlightenment – if one may call it that – is that the process of enlightenment, of becoming progressively self-directed in thought and action through the awakening of one's intellectual powers, leads ultimately to a better, more fulfilled human existence.

This entry describes the main tendencies of Enlightenment thought in the following main sections: (1) The True: Science, Epistemology, and Metaphysics in the Enlightenment; (2) The Good: Political Theory, Ethical Theory and Religion in the Enlightenment; (3) The Beautiful: Aesthetics in the Enlightenment. . . .

Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/.

Black, Tim. "Rescuing the Enlightenment from its Exploiters." SPIKED REVIEW OF BOOKS ONLINE 36 (July 2010).

Todorov, Tzvetan.  In Defence of the Enlightenment. London: Atlantic, 2009.

While the Enlightenment, ‘one of the most important shifts in the history of man’ as one recent account put it, has certainly had its detractors, who blame it for anything from the Holocaust to soulless consumerism, it now also has a veritable army of self-styled heirs. Militant secularists, New Atheists, advocates of evidence-based policy, human rights champions… each constituency in their turn will draw justification from the intellectual emanations of that period beginning roughly towards the end of the seventeenth century and culminating – some say ending – in the 1789 French Revolution and its aftermath. And each in their turn will betray it.

It is not deliberate treachery. This is no reactionary dissimulation – it is more impulsive than that. Still, in the hands of the neo-Enlightened, from the zealously anti-religious to the zealously pro-science, something strange has happened. Principles that were central – albeit contested – to the Enlightenment have been reversed, turned in on themselves. Secularism, as we have seen recently in the French government’s decision to ban the burqa, has been transformed from state toleration of religious beliefs into their selective persecution; scientific knowledge, having been emancipated from theology, has now become the politician’s article of faith; even freedom itself, that integral Enlightenment impulse, has been reconceived as the enemy of the people. As the Enlightened critics of Enlightenment naivete would have it, in the symbolic shapes of our ever distending guts and CO2-belching cars, we may be a little too free.

Published in France in 2006, but only recently translated into English, philosopher Tzvetan Todorov’s In Defence of Enlightenment is, in short, a corrective. And insofar as it offers a polite but stern rebuke to those who distort the Enlightenment project, often in its own specious name, it is a welcome corrective at that. . . .

Read the rest here: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/9365.

Other reviews may be found here by:

• Nina Power, The Philosopher's Magazine May 24, 2010 (http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1264);
• John Gray, "Wishful Thinking" Literary Review (December 2009) (http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/gray_12_09.html).

Interviews with Todorov on the book by:

• Jonathan Derbyshire, New Statesman January 11, 2010 (http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/01/enlightenment-values-rights);

Videos of Todorov speaking:

• On the book: YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFHho-qnIio);
• Keynote address at the Counterpoint "Inner Lives of Cultures" conference: http://www.counterpoint-online.org/tzvetan-todorov-keynote/;

See also this earlier post here on Todorov: http://philosophysother.blogspot.com/2010/03/in-defence-of-enlightenment.html.

"In Defence of the Enlightenment," PHILOSOPHER'S ZONE March 6, 2010.

Todorov, Tzvetan. In Defence of the Enlightenment. London: Atlantic, 2009.

The Enlightenment, that great ferment of ideas in eighteenth-century Europe, has its enemies today on both left and right. This week, we hear a talk from the Franco-Bulgarian philosopher Tzvetan Todorov, author of the recently published In Defence of the Enlightenment, who argues for an Enlightenment approach to developing and understanding an open and just modern society.

Listen here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2010/2834048.htm.

Runciman, David. "Review of Gertrude Himmelfarb's THE ROADS TO MODERNITY." TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT May 2, 2008.

Himmelfarb, Gertrude. The Roads to Modernity: the British, French and American Enlightenments. New York: Vintage, 2004. Rpt. 2008. The case Himmelfarb wants to make depends on separating out three different 'Enlightenments' — the British, the French and the American. All three were founded on the principle of reason, but only one — the French — turned reason into its own religion, crushing everything else in its path. In Britain, by contrast, reason was “humanised” through the philosophy of, among others, Adam Smith, who made it clear that self-interest was compatible with moral sentiment. This “sentimental” Enlightenment produced a society of tolerant, sceptical individualists, by contrast to the dogmatic and intolerant French. Meanwhile, in America, both rationality and sympathy had to take a back seat to the pressing demands of achieving liberty from the British Crown, and building a new kind of state that could sustain that freedom. The story Himmelfarb tells is a familiar one, and it contains its own share of clichés (she portrays the French philosophes as unfeeling snobs with a weakness for enlightened despotism) but she writes with real grace and her effortless prose brings the history of ideas to life. Gordon Brown, however, is less successful in trying to explain what this story might have to teach people living in Britain today. He says in his introduction that the social virtues of sympathy and benevolence that Himmelfarb identifies at the heart of British Enlightenment thinking “have remained a dominant theme of Britishness ever since”. But this entirely glosses over the lesson Himmelfarb herself draws, which is that the only society in which these virtues are now on prominent display is America. She argues that it was the American experiment with liberty that in the end allowed room for the religious impulses needed to underpin “the passion for compassion”. The Victorians may have had this passion, but during the 20th-century the British people lost it, and though Himmelfarb does not spell it out, it is clear that much of the blame in her eyes lies with the architects of the welfare state. . . . Read the rest here: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article3449847.ece.

CFP: "The Enlightenment: Critique, Myth and Utopia," Finnish Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of Helsinki, October 17-18, 2008.

The Enlightenment (Aufklärung, les Lumières, upplysningen) has been claimed to mark the beginning of modern European era. This symposium on the traditions(s) of the Enlightenment and on its reception wishes to pose questions like the following:

• Do the inheritance and myths of the Enlightenment still have influence (even when questioned)?
• Is knowledge based on observation and Reason?
• Is reason universal?
• Is it possible to govern nature with knowledge?
• Are societies built on the will of the citizens?
• Did the philosophers of the Enlightenment actually answer yes to these questions? Or are these questions just an expression of our present-day prejudices and myths on the Enlightenment?
• How and when were the contemporary received views about the Enlightenment formed, and what purposes did they serve or do serve now?
• Who are today the supporters and the enemies of the Enlightenment?
• How has contemporary research contributed to renewing our views on what the Enlightenment actually was about?

The symposium arranged by the Finnish Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (http://www.helsinki.fi/historia/1700/) will offer an interdisciplinary forum for contemporary discussions and research. Firstly, the key texts of the Enlightenment and the changes of society implied by them have raised novel interest. The French and German Enlightenment philosophies are crucial in discussions about critique and emancipation. Secondly, these aims and metaphors have been accompanied by the concepts of moral communality which stem especially from the Scottish Enlightenment. They have become topical in debates concerning globalisation, multiculturalism and the limits of tolerance. The third theme that motivates this seminar is the relationship between the Enlightenment and religion. For a long time it was held that the rift between religion and society came about during the Enlightenment. Did this really happen? The Speakers and Sessions: The first day of the symposium consists of four plenary lectures by invited keynote speakers. One of the keynote speakers is professor Miguel Benítez from the University of Seville. He is known as one of the central authorities on the radical Enlightenment distributed in the form of clandestine philosophical manuscripts. In addition to numerous articles on clandestine philosophical literature, Benítez has published La Face cachée des Lumières: Recherches sur les manuscrits philosophiques clandestins de l'âge classique (1996) and L?Oeuvre libertine de Bonaventure de Fourcroy (2005).The second day is devoted to sessions with papers (20 min each). The speakers may freely propose the themes; yet the following themes are encouraged:

• The development of the themes and commonplaces of the Enlightenment in 18th century philosophical, literary and political discussions.
• How was the 'thesis' of the Enlightenment manifested (cf. Kant, Was ist Aufklärung?) and how did these manifestations change after the 18th century?
• What role have the 19th- and 20th-century representations of the Enlightenment played in later research and general opinion?
• How do national differences show in the contemporary legacy of the Enlightenment. What was and is the significance of the Enlightenment in Sweden and Finland?
• The Enlightenment as a utopia in the 18th century and after.

Organizing Committee: Minna Ahokas (Univ. of Helsinki), Timo Kaitaro (Univ. of Helsinki), Petter Korkman (Helsinki Collegium of Advanced Studies), Kari Saastamoinen (Univ. of Helsinki) and Charlotta Wolff (Univ. of Helsinki).

Deadline for abstracts: 31st May 2008. Please send an abstract (max. 200 words) of your proposition for a paper in the workshops to Timo Kaitaro (timo.kaitaro@helsinki.fi).

Himmelmann, Beatrix. "Review of Robert B. Louden's THE WORLD WE WANT." NDPR April 13, 2008.

Louden, Robert B. The World We Want: How and Why the Ideals of the Enlightenment Still Elude Us. Oxford: OUP, 2007. This book does not join in the chorus of still influential intellectual circles trying to convince us that the Enlightenment project not only failed, but that it was doomed to fail because it was inevitably linked up with an inherent self-destructive dialectic. As Horkheimer and Adorno pointed out in their famous attack, Enlightenment promises of freedom of thought, liberties ruling individual life, progress of knowledge and welfare, the evolution of moral attitudes and therefore the prospect of humanity's triumph changes into something negative and destructive as soon as we attempt to realize these ideals. According to Horkheimer and Adorno, the Enlightenment ends up in violence and becomes "totalitarian" when it ceases to be critical reflection and turns into practical engagement. This line of argumentation has been picked up by many present day critics, among them anti-liberals like MacIntyre, certain disciples of Nietzsche and Foucault as well as adherents of deconstruction. In contrast to this account, Robert B. Louden holds that the ideals of the Enlightenment are still relevant for us today. He does not share the view so often repeated since the emergence of the idea of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century that these ideals are hopelessly optimistic, naïve and therefore shallow, if not dangerous. Louden refers in this regard to Ernst Cassirer, who finished his classic study The Philosophy of the Enlightenment shortly before he left Germany in 1933. Like Cassirer, Louden emphasizes the practical impetus that inspired the protagonists of Enlightenment. Thought was taken to have the power and the task of shaping life itself. Philosophy was not supposed to be limited to dissecting analysis alone but considered to have practical impact as well. Louden is interested in exactly this question: what has happened to Enlightenment ideals in the course of historical developments that followed their proclamation? Has mankind actually been willing to continue striving for their realization? If so, how and to what extent has this striving been successful? And in case either certain aims of Enlightenment thinkers have been rejected or failure to achieve them has to be admitted, what are the reasons for either the one or the other? Does human nature simply resist at least some of the ambitious ends upheld by the Enlightenment? Should we therefore give them up? Have there been means chosen in order to bring Enlightenment ideals into being that can be proved wrong, so that we might stick to the aims but change the ways of pursuing them? . . . Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=12903.