Abstract
What does the nominalization ‘The Enlightenment’ refer to? Sometimes it is used merely to name a period of time in European history. Sometimes it is use to refer to a movement or a process (social or intellectual). Again, it is used to refer to some body of doctrine (though often what doctrine is unclear). On other occasions, it is used to refer to people who advanced such bodies of doctrine. Contexts of use may not be sufficient to determine the referent of ‘The Enlightenment’. Such a nominalization is to be contrasted with the use of the adjective ‘enlightened’ to name some property of a person. This paper attempts to say what this property is and show how it underpins an epidemiology of being enlightened , that is, an account of the distribution of enlightened as opposed to unenlightened people in a given society at a given time. This gives the kernel of truth that the nominalization ‘The Enlightenment’ obscures. It also helps show that some recent criticisms of “The Enlightenment” fall quite short of their mark.
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Notes
- 1.
There is a quite ordinary sense of the phrase ‘The Enlightenment Project’ in which we can say that some of the ideas and ideals that were inaugurated in the 17th and 18th The Enlightenment period are yet to be fully articulated or even adequately implemented (such as sexual equality). Harbermas, of course, might well invest the phrase with a different meaning as when he talks of “Modernity – an Unfinished Project” at the beginning of the ‘Preface’ to Habermas 1990, p. xix. See also the collection by Honneth and others 1992.
- 2.
Gay 1967, volume 1; see Book One, Chapter Two, entitled ‘The First Enlightenment’ and the bibliographical essay on pages 464–81. Note that the subtitle to volume 1 is ‘The Rise of Modern Paganism’.
- 3.
In Israel 2006, chapters 1.1 and 34 ‘Postscript’ the case is made against the “many” enlightenments of Pocock and a supposed “one” enlightenment suggested by Gay . He makes a case for there being just two trends in the enlightenment period, radical and moderate. Though disputed, this will be provisionally accepted here since it is not germane to my main purpose in mentioning Israel’s work.
- 4.
For an elaboration of this distinction see Israel 2006, section 1.1, pp. 3–15 and section 34 ‘Postscript’. The later Rousseau is even said to become ‘… the moral “prophet” as it were of one form of Counter-Enlightenment ’ (ibid., p 11).
- 5.
Abner Shimony makes a good point about the diversity of views of leading members of the Enlightenment. They were: ‘rationalists, empiricists and mediators; Newtonians and dissenters from Newton: system builders and skeptics; theists, deists, agnostics and atheists; cultural universalists and cultural pluralists; advocates of a variety of bases of ethics; a wide spectrum of political theorists; physicalists and mentalists; determinists and advocates of free will; trusters and distrusters in benevolent despotism; believers and disbelievers in the inevitability of human progress. Some core commitments, shared by almost all of the Enlightenment philosophers, can be reasonably extracted and these, in my opinion, need little modification to be permanently valuable’ (Shimony 1997, p. S2). Shimony then proceeds to give a list of 10 core commitments of The Enlightenment which differ from those of Israel; but there is no deep inconsistency, or great distance, between the two lists. Shimony’s list puts greater emphasis on matters to do with science and could have just as well been used here instead of Israel’s eight cardinal points. Finally Shimony examines four criticisms of The Enlightenment and makes convincing responses to them (pp. S3-S9). His account is laid out and discussed in Matthews (2015, pp.24–26).
- 6.
In Israel 2011, section 1.1 (‘Defining the Enlightenment’, pp. 1–8) the author reviews other attempts at a definition of ‘The Enlightenment’ and proposes something like (1) to (8) in truncated form. He takes it to be a unitary movement occurring on both sides of the Atlantic from about 1680 to 1800 which is driven by philosophy (here Spinoza is said to have had an important role at the beginning) and is socially ameliorative in transforming accepted values and practices. The extent to which the Enlightenment is linked to revolution is one aspect of the division between Radical and Moderate trends within the Enlightenment. Cassirer has a different view from Shimony and Israel : ‘The true nature of Enlightenment thinking cannot be seen in its purest and clearest form where it is formulated into particular doctrines, axioms, and theorems; but rather where it is in process, where it is doubting and seeking, tearing down and building up’ (Cassirer 1951, p. ix). But there need be no inconsistency between picking out some cardinal points and also understanding the activity of thinking as some kind of process.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
A related term in German is Aufklärung and in French is éclaircissement. All three terms connote the casting of light upon some matter, or a process of bring something to light.
- 10.
These two papers and three other contemporary papers are collected in Part I of Schmidt (ed.) 1996.
- 11.
There is a good account of aspects this in Shimony 1997. Shimony is a philosopher of science who is well known for defending Bayesianism as the method of science to adopt; he is not an historian like most of the writers considered so far. There are also a few hints about the role of science and it methods in Cassirer 1951, chapter II, though his comments are largely with respect to Newton and some of Newton’s contemporaries.
- 12.
Of course one might not be fully enlightened about Newton’s theory of gravitational attraction but only partially so. However partial enlightenment is a step along the path to greater enlightenment as one’s knowledge and understanding develops. Think of the more limited understanding of Newton himself and his application of his theory when compared with later developments of the theory of gravitation suggested by Laplace, Lagrange and Hamilton.
- 13.
As already suggested, the nature and scope of scientific method and rationality, though an important part of the seventeenth and eighteenth century enlightenment period, is still part of the unfinished project of the enlightenment. See for example the growth of statistical methods or random clinical trials during twentieth century science. There are still issues to be addressed in a full account of the nature of scientific method and the scope of rationality in various spheres. This is suggested in the revisionary comments on Jonathan Israel’s cardinal points (1) and (2) of the previous section 2. See also Shimony 1997.
- 14.
On the application of epidemiology to cultural contexts see Sperber 1996, ‘Introduction’ pp. 1–6 and Chapter 4 ‘The Epidemiology of Beliefs’.
- 15.
Approaching matters in this way gives an account of the seemingly holist notion of Enlightenment in terms of the mental properties of people; in this way the proposed analysis is of a piece with the doctrine of methodological individualism.
- 16.
Here one could adopt an account, found in theories of probabilistic degrees of belief, as to how D is to be understood. D can vary on a scale from 0 to 1.
- 17.
Perhaps this could be expressed more strongly; it is not just that a person’s beliefs are sanctioned by some principles of rationality but a person’s actually holds the belief on the basis of the sanctioning principles. Being so enlightened is more strenuous in requiring the actual use of principles of reason in belief formation. Being unenlightened would then be accompanied by forming beliefs dogmatically without any appeal to principles like R.
- 18.
Some argue that part of the problem in understanding Kan t here is with the use of the English term ‘immaturity’ which commonly translates a German term which has legal overtones not present in the English. Thus the German term can apply to the legal status of minors who do not have certain kinds of responsibilities; but this is not the necessarily the case with the English ‘immaturity’.
- 19.
See Kant 1996, p. 59. Kant talks of our freedom to use public reason in not following these injunctions.
- 20.
On expert testimony see Gelfert 2014, especially Chapter 9.
- 21.
See chapter 2, ‘Enlightenment and Terro r in the Twentieth Century’ in Gray 2008, p. 78. Again on p. 78 Gray tells us that ‘Nazi ideologues picked up from … Counter-Enlightenment thinkers whatever they found useful – as they did with the thinkers of the Enlightenment’. But Gray also speaks of ‘… a Nazi state which spurned the Enlightenment and all its works …’ (Gray 2002, p. 101). Doing both of these seems impossible, even for the Nazis.
- 22.
The seven theses to be found in ‘Elements of Anti-Semitism’ is usefully discussed in Schmidt 2000 in a section entitled ‘Projection and Anti-Semitism’, pp. 91–97.
- 23.
A letter by Marx to Engels , 15 August, 1857; see Marx-Engels Collected Works Vol 40 (1983) p. 152.
- 24.
This is a slogan, often advocated by Foucault , which should be resisted. Most books on epistemology do not claim that the definition of knowledge involves power. In fact they do not even mention it, since they think that the view is so mistaken it is not worth noting. But of course if you know something then your powers of action can be enhanced. But this has nothing to do with the nature of knowledge itself; at best it is a possible consequence.
- 25.
It is important to note that in instrumentalities of the form mentioned, V can be a value itself, and not merely some goal or end that one might wish whatever its value. Horkheime r and Adorno seem not to recognise this point and reduce all instrumentalities to means-ends claims whatever the end.
- 26.
On this supposed sequel see Schmidt 2000, p. 101. It seems as if little of it was actually written down.
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Nola, R. (2018). The Enlightenment: Truths Behind a Misleading Abstraction. In: Matthews, M. (eds) History, Philosophy and Science Teaching. Science: Philosophy, History and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62616-1_2
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