The Enlightenment
A stance in European philosophy that can be explored through
the writings of key seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers such as
Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume and Bacon. Enlightenment thinkers valued the power of
reason – especially science – to demystify the world over and against superstition, myth and religion. Here, human creativity, rationality and scientific exploration are
understood to be the forces that mark the break with tradition and herald the
coming of modernity. The philosophers of the Enlightenment period sought after
truths that could be seen as leading to progress, that is, an improvement in the
human condition. As such, the French Revolutionary slogan ‘Equality, Liberty,
Fraternity’ best encapsulates the moral-political agenda of the Enlightenment. In
both its scientific project and its moral-political project, Enlightenment
philosophy sought universal truths, that is, knowledge and moral principles that
applied across time, space and cultural difference.
One of the legacies of the Enlightenment is what Habermas calls ‘instrumental
rationality’. This can be understood as a process by which the logic of rationality
and science is put to work in the service of the regulation, control and domination
of human beings. Thus Adorno and Horkheimer argued that the Enlightenment
impulse to control nature is a manifestation of the will to control and dominate
human beings. In this view the logic of Enlightenment thinking leads not only to
industrialization but also to the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Belsen.
However, Habermas also suggests that the Enlightenment generates a critical
rationality capable of liberating human beings from exploitation and oppression.
Thus the Enlightenment promotes the development of universal education,
political freedom and social equality as well as that rationality which is capable of
critiquing domination.
The main criticism of Enlightenment philosophy is that it seeks after universal
truth and, in declaring that it has found it, then seeks to eradicate any alternative
points of view. Consequently, post-Enlightenment philosophy – Nietzsche,
Wittgenstein, Derrida, Foucault, Rorty – argues that knowledge is not metaphysical,
transcendental or universal but specific to particular times and spaces. Thus there
can be no one totalizing knowledge that is able to grasp the ‘objective’ character of
the world. Rather, we both have and require multiple viewpoints by which to
interpret a complex heterogeneous human existence.
Nevertheless, Foucault suggests that we do not have to be ‘for’ or ‘against’ the
Enlightenment and challenges the idea that there is a clear, distinctive and final
break between Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought. It is not a question
of accepting or rejecting Enlightenment rationality but of asking about what reason
is and how it is used along with exploration of its historical effects, limits and
dangers.
(adapted from: The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies, by Chris Baker)
A stance in European philosophy that can be explored through
the writings of key seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers such as
Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume and Bacon. Enlightenment thinkers valued the power of
reason – especially science – to demystify the world over and against superstition, myth and religion. Here, human creativity, rationality and scientific exploration are
understood to be the forces that mark the break with tradition and herald the
coming of modernity. The philosophers of the Enlightenment period sought after
truths that could be seen as leading to progress, that is, an improvement in the
human condition. As such, the French Revolutionary slogan ‘Equality, Liberty,
Fraternity’ best encapsulates the moral-political agenda of the Enlightenment. In
both its scientific project and its moral-political project, Enlightenment
philosophy sought universal truths, that is, knowledge and moral principles that
applied across time, space and cultural difference.
One of the legacies of the Enlightenment is what Habermas calls ‘instrumental
rationality’. This can be understood as a process by which the logic of rationality
and science is put to work in the service of the regulation, control and domination
of human beings. Thus Adorno and Horkheimer argued that the Enlightenment
impulse to control nature is a manifestation of the will to control and dominate
human beings. In this view the logic of Enlightenment thinking leads not only to
industrialization but also to the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Belsen.
However, Habermas also suggests that the Enlightenment generates a critical
rationality capable of liberating human beings from exploitation and oppression.
Thus the Enlightenment promotes the development of universal education,
political freedom and social equality as well as that rationality which is capable of
critiquing domination.
The main criticism of Enlightenment philosophy is that it seeks after universal
truth and, in declaring that it has found it, then seeks to eradicate any alternative
points of view. Consequently, post-Enlightenment philosophy – Nietzsche,
Wittgenstein, Derrida, Foucault, Rorty – argues that knowledge is not metaphysical,
transcendental or universal but specific to particular times and spaces. Thus there
can be no one totalizing knowledge that is able to grasp the ‘objective’ character of
the world. Rather, we both have and require multiple viewpoints by which to
interpret a complex heterogeneous human existence.
Nevertheless, Foucault suggests that we do not have to be ‘for’ or ‘against’ the
Enlightenment and challenges the idea that there is a clear, distinctive and final
break between Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought. It is not a question
of accepting or rejecting Enlightenment rationality but of asking about what reason
is and how it is used along with exploration of its historical effects, limits and
dangers.
(adapted from: The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies, by Chris Baker)
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