Historian Thomas S. Kidd takes aim at the handy but ultimately unhelpful catchall term for all human progress c. 1600-1800 CE, the "Enlightenment," as though John Locke dropped in from Mars one day, to save the Western World from sin and error [and Christianity] pining:
I am skeptical about “The Enlightenment.” It is an ideologically loaded term that implies that much of the western intellectual tradition before The Enlightenment was “dark.” Much of that tradition was, of course, Christian. “The Enlightenment” presupposes an arc of history toward secular democratic scientific liberalism.
 |
| Locke |
I encourage students writing research papers to see if they can talk about intellectual trends in the eighteenth century without using the term “Enlightenment.” If your work is directly engaging the status of “The Enlightenment” as a historical category, fine. But if what you’re really talking about is the rise of humanism, egalitarianism, naturalism, or skepticism, then why not just employ those terms and avoid trotting out “The Enlightenment”?
“The Enlightenment” has taken a beating from many sources in recent decades. Some, like me, point to the term’s ideological and anti-religious baggage. Others, like the eminent historian J.G.A. Pocock, have criticized the term for its unwieldiness and suggested that while there may have been many national “enlightenments” (French, Scottish, etc.) there was not a unitary “Enlightenment.”
Some critics have accepted the “Enlightenment” as a unitary category but lament that its adherents defended imperialism, slavery, anti-feminism, and traditional faith too often for the “Enlightenment” to have actually been enlightened.
One of the most provocative recent writers on the Enlightenment, Jonathan Israel, argues that the traditional study of the Enlightenment has put too much emphasis on a handful of thinkers who were admittedly hierarchy- and tradition-minded. Among these thinkers were Newton, Locke, Voltaire, and David Hume. Israel suggests that to appreciate the real value of the Enlightenment, we need to re-focus on “Radical Enlightenment” thinkers such as the Dutch philosopher Spinoza. In this lesser-known set of radical philosophers, Israel contends that we will find sources of the contemporary notion that improving human life requires emancipating men and women from “autocracy, intolerance, and prejudiced thinking, and establishing a predominantly secular morality” as well as promoting “equality (sexual and racial), democracy, [and] individual liberty.”
I’m not sold on the utility of the term. Here’s how I handled the issue in one passage of my Whitefield biography:
Because of his familiarity with polemics for and against Calvinism, Whitefield knew that it was under assault in the eighteenth century as part of intellectual changes historians often call the “Enlightenment.” (I prefer terms like “liberal” or “humanitarian” thought to describe these new developments, rather than the catch-all term “Enlightenment.” The concept of the Enlightenment, as many have noted, over-simplifies Europe’s intellectual trends of the time. Some Enlightenment figures were friendly toward traditional faith, some not.)
Henry May’s classic book The Enlightenment in America remains the best place to start on the movement’s influence among the Founders. May notes that the pragmatic, common-sense Scottish Enlightenment, with its relative friendliness to Christianity, was the most influential strand of Enlightenment thinking in American history.
For better or worse, the term “The Enlightenment” will likely remain a staple of the history of western civilization for the time being. I imagine that most professors who teach western civ or world history will keep including a day or week to discussing it. But hopefully the criticisms of the term and of its adherents have brought much-needed clarity and circumspection to its use.
21 comments:
Glad to see the new blog is up.
Voltaire has won the battle for terminology. Although "Dark Ages" is discredited, the terms "Medieval" and "Enlightenment" are nearly unrivaled. It is a propaganda victory. While it is possible to use "Medieval" without envisioning a great empty middle period, it is difficult to miss the implications of "Enlightenment."
The problem with May's book is that it was published in 1976 and misses crucial recent scholarship on the Enlightenment period.
the problem with trying to rename the period is that anything else that captures the world-shattering changes is likely to be equally offensive to those not enthralled with the enlightenment ideals, especially the more "radical" elements, including the loss of ecclesiastical influence and consolidated power placed in a hereditary aristocratic system.
As Pat Buchanan once opined, he could live with a benevolent king. And I'll bet benevolent means Catholic. Very old world.
I may not like getting up at 5:30 for work but calling it 8:30 doesn't help.
Salus populi suprema lex esto
A name focused on skepticism toward authority would probably be more accurate and less loaded than contrasts of light and darkness. Coming up with such a name would take someone more clever than I.
That said, 'light' is a common metaphor for knowledge and a key aspect (I think the key aspect) of the Enlightenment is a major shift in our approach to knowledge. People argue about whether aspects of humanism were good or bad, but I think most of us accept that the Enlightenment shed more light in the areas of science and politics (and religion as well when the more moderate wing of the Enlightenment is acknowledged).
Blogger Daniel said...
A name focused on skepticism toward authority would probably be more accurate and less loaded than contrasts of light and darkness. Coming up with such a name would take someone more clever than I.
Like the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. What's not to like?
Since the 19th century, we have failed at naming: World War I? Nothing there to stir the blood, despite the staggering exaggeration. II isn't an improvement. And the mundane placenames or country names designating wars do little for the heart. We could have delicious irony in referring to "The War to End All Wars" or perhaps some odd ambiguity in universal use of "The Great Patriotic War." I blame the historians.
That said, 'light' is a common metaphor for knowledge and a key aspect (I think the key aspect) of the Enlightenment is a major shift in our approach to knowledge
Kidd's--my--argument is that "The Enlightenment" likes to plant its flag on reason, on scientists such as Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, and Galileo, who were all devout Christians. One can easily see these figures as an evolution in Christian society as much as "secular" society [the concept of which did not even exist at the time].
https://mally.stanford.edu/leibniz.html
Leibniz is known among philosophers for his wide range of thought about fundamental philosophical ideas and principles, including truth, necessary and contingent truths, possible worlds, the principle of sufficient reason (i.e., that nothing occurs without a reason), the principle of pre-established harmony (i.e., that God constructed the universe in such a way that corresponding mental and physical events occur simultaneously), and the principle of noncontradiction (i.e., that any proposition from which a contradiction can be derived is false). Leibniz had a lifelong interest in and pursuit of the idea that the principles of reasoning could be reduced to a formal symbolic system, an algebra or calculus of thought, in which controversy would be settled by calculations.
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1627)
Bacon was a philosopher who is known for establishing the scientific method of inquiry based on experimentation and inductive reasoning. In De Interpretatione Naturae Prooemium, Bacon established his goals as being the discovery of truth, service to his country, and service to the church. Although his work was based upon experimentation and reasoning, he rejected atheism as being the result of insufficient depth of philosophy, stating, "It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate, and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." (Of Atheism)
Etc.
Professor Kidd’s critique of how “The Enlightenment” is understood or taught today lacks the “clarity and circumspection” he demands of others. For the sake of “clarity,” how about defining before criticizing? In 1784, when the so-called “Age of Enlightenment was at least 100 years old, a German magazine asked its readers this question: “What is Enlightenment?” The most famous answer came from Kant, who wrote, “Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-inflicted immaturity. Immaturity here means man’s inability to make use of his intelligence without direction from another.” Should this thumbnail description be dismissed as “ideological and anti-religious baggage”? How is it “ideologically loaded”? And, it does not “presuppose” any “arc of history” toward some predetermined outcome.
But perhaps Professor Kidd is more a product of “The Enlightenment” than he avers. At least he is “skeptical,” about it, as we all should be. From the Greeks, "skeptomai" means "to look carefully, to reflect." The hallmark of the skeptikoi was caution, and to not get trapped in assertions that could be proven false. This mindset was reintroduced into Western culture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The break-up of the post-Reformation Christian church and the bloodshed of the religious wars that followed, led many people (discussed often at AC but not referenced by Kidd - Kant, Descartes, Pascal, Bacon, Franklin, Montesquieu, Condorcet, Diderot, Paine, Jefferson, Beccaria, etc.) to seriously question religious and philosophical traditions that had too long been unquestioned.
But here is what the professor overlooks. No statistically significant cohort of historians (and not just “Christian historians like the one he mentioned) portrays the 18th century as some monolithic “Age of Reason” casting aside religious faith, or putting it on the defensive. Gary Wills has made it easier for us to grasp the tensions between “the head and the heart: between reason and emotion, Enlightenment and Evangelism,” and this dynamic has existed throughout our nation’s history ever since. So, the parallel with the Enlightenment is the Great Awakening, stressing religious piety and “enthusiasm,” the “New Lights vs. the “Old Lights,” the beginnings of the Methodists, and the immigration surge of many small German Pietist sects to British North America (especially Quaker PA).
One concrete issue (which Professor Kidd mentions) where “the head and the heart” came together, was the principled opposition to slavery that came from BOTH: 1) some (not all) Quakers, evangelicals, Methodists and Anglicans who condemned slavery as sinful (Robert Cater III’s manumission of his slaves is a great illustrative example of this); and 2) Enlightenment “types” like Montesquieu, Condorcet, Franklin, Hutcheson, Smith (but NOT Kant or Locke), who began critiquing slavery as a practice unworthy of a civilized society based on a belief (albeit idealized) in our shared humanity.
Like Professor Kidd, I tried to bring some “much-needed clarity and circumspection” to the use of the label, “The Enlightenment.” Remember, the Royal Society's motto is “On the Word of No One.”
It appears that the "American Enlightenment" is picking up some steam. There was some recent discussion at The Junto; a Group Blog on Early American History that is pertinent (see below).
Yes, Virginia, there was an American Enlightenment (Apr 17) by Michael D. Hattem @
http://earlyamericanists.com/2014/04/17/yes-virginia-there-was-an-american-enlightenment/
and
American Enlightenment! Which American Enlightenment? (Dec 19) by eherschal @
http://earlyamericanists.com/2013/12/19/american-enlightenment-which-american-enlightenment/
The answer to the question of whose Enlightenment it was is that it was everyone's who participated in educated discussion within the universities, fashionable salons, the courts of princes and kings, the estates of Bishops, Vatican City, fashionable dinner parties where intellectuals gathered, coffee houses, beer hall's, & etc.
The devout orthodox Catholic and Protestants as well as the dissenters participated. Those of less certain religious affiliations participated (I'm specifically thinking about Spinoza and some of his Dutch cohorts). And everyone - everyone - was at some time or some place an infidel and a heretic in someone's eyes.
Overall, it was a high-water mark of a humanistic approached that started in the Renaissance that shifted the focus from God's agency to human agency with an emphasis on classical learning and culture(1).
It was the low point of the conservative Scholastic stronghold, that strongly focused on Aristotelian and Platonic adaptations(2). The conservative Scholastics, Theologians and Intellectual friends of Christianity, such as some of the luminaries mentioned by Tom, fought tooth and nail against the radical "New Philosophy" represented by Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza. These new philosophies radically challenged orthodox ideas about the soul, materialism, mechanism and substance (to name a few). These new ideas radically challenged the very foundations of orthodox ways of understanding the cosmos and man's relationship with the universe and God or even with no God or gods.
1) Three books that I've found helpful is setting a foundation for exploring the 16th to 17th century (and especially the rise of humanism) are:
Nauert, Charles G. (2006). Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe (2nd ed.). Cambridge. pp. 252
Cantor, Norman F. (1993). Civilization of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History. Harper. pp. 604
and
Stephen Greenblatt, 2011. The Swerve; How the Modern World Became Modern. Norton, New York. pp 356.
The latter is an interesting account of the recovery of Lucretius' On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) a very important work underlying the scientic...metaphysical discussions arising in 15th - 17th century Europe. In Thomas Jefferson famous letter in which he declares, "I too am an Epicurean," he references Pierre Gassendi - a prominent 17th century French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer, and mathematician and contemporary of Descartes, who was so impressed with Epicureanism, as expressed in the De Rerum Natura that he attempted to synchronize Epicurean atomism with Christianity.
2) Approved and maintained by the orthodox Latin and Reformed Churches as these philosophies had been rather thoroughly "subsumed" into Christian thinking and often enforced via civil authorities (decrees to the universities on what to teach). See Nauert above and any of Jonathan Israel's work.
Because slavery. Uh huh.
There certainly was a Continental Enlightenment that the German Immanuel Kant was referring to. It also gets credit/blame for the French Revolution.
But in the American context, Kidd's argument remains unmolested.
Henry May’s classic book The Enlightenment in America remains the best place to start on the movement’s influence among the Founders. May notes that the pragmatic, common-sense Scottish Enlightenment, with its relative friendliness to Christianity, was the most influential strand of Enlightenment thinking in American history.
Here's an interesting interview with Johnathan Israel in which he discusses five pivotal books regarding the Enlightenment and May's is among them:
http://fivebooks.com/interviews/jonathan-israel-on-enlightenment
He also comments on one of his own book:
Jonathan Israel, 2012, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790. pp 1066.
Democratic Enlightenment is one of a trilogy of books that Israel has produced about the Enlightenment that also include:
Jonathan Israel, 2001, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750. Oxford University Press. pp 810.
and
Jonathan Israel, 2009, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. pp 1024.
Of course, to read any or all of the trilogy is a Herculean task, but profitable at the very least in the shear range of scholarship. Israel has a more manageable work that is a good start:
Jonathan Israel, 2011, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy. pp 296.
One thing that more recent scholarship is starting to focus on is the role that the Dutch republic played during mid- to late-17th century in developing the more radical trends in the Enlightenment. Specifically in the work of Baruch Spinoza and like minded thinkers (including Christian dissident thinkers).
In getting a sense of Spinoza's contribution and the contribution of the more radical elements within the Dutch republic of the mid- to late-17th century, I highly recommend Steven Nadler's:
Steven Nadler, 2011. A Book Forged in Hell; Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age. Princeton University Press. pp 304.
I largely read this next to a river in Wyoming one recent summer.
I was at a summer meeting of SHEAR (Society for Historians of the Early American Republic) summer meeting a couple years ago in St Louis and during the Q&A following one of the talks Jack Rakove brought up Spinoza, which somewhat caught me by surprise. But, having read Nadler's book and having started the trek though Israel's work, it made sense.
TVD said: "Kidd's--my--argument is that "The Enlightenment" likes to plant its flag on reason, on scientists such as Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, and Galileo, who were all devout Christians. One can easily see these figures as an evolution in Christian society as much as "secular" society [the concept of which did not even exist at the time]."
I certainly agree that these figures were Christian, both in the sense that they were Christians (although arguably heterodox) and more importantly, their writings reached Christian conclusions (not sure about Galileo).
And I agree that it is silly to speak of any thinker as if they were not products of their history and context. But when Descartes derived a system of knowledge using only reason, without presuppositions or reference to authority, that was a radical shift in epistemology.
JRB said: "It was the low point of the conservative Scholastic stronghold, that strongly focused on Aristotelian and Platonic adaptations(2). The conservative Scholastics, Theologians and Intellectual friends of Christianity, such as some of the luminaries mentioned by Tom, fought tooth and nail against the radical "New Philosophy" represented by Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza."
I'm wondering how broadly you are painting with your description of the conservative Scholastics. Jonathan Edwards certainly fits your description, although he enfused his Calvinism with elements of Enlightenment approaches. But what of the Scots such as Thomas Reid, John Witherspoon, or James Wilson -- all friends of Christianity yet claiming to follow the approach of Descartes and Newton? They were definitely influenced by scholasticism and were fiercely opposed to David Hume, but their Thomism was not Thomas' Thomism -- it was far more libertarian, humanistic, empirical, and skeptical. Would you consider them rear guard figures, seeking to undermine the New Philosophy, or progressive (but moderate) figures?
But when Descartes derived a system of knowledge using only reason, without presuppositions or reference to authority, that was a radical shift in epistemology.
Actually, in this respect Thomism is Aristotelianism, which admittedly carries the flaw when it comes to science that it depended on a priori reasoning, not the empirical method.
But when it comes to philosophy and morality--natural law if you will--"ought" instead of "is" is not a dirty word.
When we postulate natural rights or the "dignity of the human being" [as Aquinas put it] no empirical method will get us there. Our most precious values--liberty, consent of the governed, property rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, etc., etc., etc.--these are all a priori derivations and declarations.
I think that Scott McDermott's recent post and especially his comments helped me think a bit more about the natural law thing. My question to you is, does the natural law have to entail Divine Command Theory - in the question I put to Scott I specifically focused on Mosaic law that was incorporated in the 1641 Liberties.?
If not, or even if so, how would the natural law be transformed into statute law so that human subjectivity is removed - or at least as much as possible, in the sense that the Puritans viewed statutory law as superior to the common law tradition (e.g., “government of laws and not of men”)?
I'm wondering how broadly you are painting with your description of the conservative Scholastics.
My understanding of Scholasticism, broadly speaking, is that it is a teaching methodology. My understanding is that medieval to early modern European universities hewed to the Scholastic method and the status quo, which was strongly supported by the Catholic and Protestant churches as well as secular ruling allies, adhered to neo-Aristotelian and neo-Platonic metaphysics, epistomology, etc., (largely in the Thomist tradition but definitely reconciled with church teaching) and did not like the mechanistic speculations of the “new philosophy” of Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, etc., that they felt removed God from philosophy and ultimately society – this is what I would call the conservative position. Others within the Universities, employing a more humanistic approach (i.e., more focused on human agency), embraced the ”new philosophy” and their Christian faith as well. There was tension.
The “new philosophy” (and this is a term used at the time) was seen as a direct "atheistic" threat to the prevailing religious authority(ies). All individuals, being of individual intellect, synthesized according to what knowledge was available to them and their own personal dispositions. All individuals expressed themselves under direct threat of running up against the church and the secular authorities allied with the ecclesiastical authority. The pressure was to follow the conservative tradition.
The more radical position was to advance freedom of thought (to philosophize with no ecclesiastical constraints) and freedom of expression (including freedom of the press) to teach the “new philosophy.” At the time, these positions could result in loss of professional position or imprisonment or even death. Both the Reformed churches as well as the Latin Catholic church vigorously pursued speech and book censorship (leaning heavily on the civil magistrates). And, as in the case of Spinoza, so did the orthodox synagogue. The vigor and effectiveness of applying censorship varied. Obviously, the prevalence of the printing press and the emergence of a wide variety of publishers and book sellers willing to take chances led to a lively clandestine literature - the Republic of Letters, so to speak.
Liebnitz to me is interesting in that he was a "new scientist" and an empiricist, which you'd normally suppose would be anti-Bible, but he was a fervent Christian and viewed the Biblical testimonies as sufficient empirical evidence.
This is a long way to say that it's hard to pigeonhole specific individuals into absolute categories.
In the comments a couple of posts up I excerpt a couple of passages from historian Jonathan Israel's Revolution of the Mind that may be helpful.
I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough. Marissa Mayer Bandar Bola
I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough. Marissa Mayer Bandar Bola
You can’t outwit fate by standing on the sidelines placing little sidebets about the outcome of life. Either you wade in and risk everything you have to play the game or you don’t play at all. And if you don’t play you can’t win. Judith McNaught Bandar Bola
Post a Comment