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The Enlightenment: A Situation

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Hume, Hegel and Human Nature

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Abstract

The validity of historical generalisations is a vexed issue. In many ways, they are unavoidable yet there is the ever-present danger that what starts out as a heuristic device ends up as a substantive entity so that, instead of it being used to explain phenomena, the reverse takes place with phenomena being understood and utilised only in so far as they fit the generalisation. The terms ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘Romanticism’ have been subject to such vicissitudes.1 With these thoughts in mind the generalisations ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘Romanticism’ will be used but only (it is hoped) as aids.

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References

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  1. Christopher J. Berry
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© 1982 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague

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Berry, C.J. (1982). The Enlightenment: A Situation. In: Hume, Hegel and Human Nature. Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idees / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 103. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7588-0_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7588-0_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-009-7590-3

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