William Bristow writes:
"The Enlightenment is most identified with its political accomplishments. The era is marked by three political revolutions, which together lay the basis for modern, republican, constitutional democracies: The English Revolution (1688), the American Revolution (1775–83), and the French Revolution (1789–99). The success at explaining and understanding the natural world encourages the Enlightenment project of re-making the social/political world, in accord with the true models we allegedly find in our reason..."
"Enlightenment philosophers find that the existing social and political orders do not withstand critical scrutiny; they find that existing political and social authority is shrouded in religious myth and mystery and founded on obscure traditions. The negative work of criticizing existing institutions is supplemented with the positive work of constructing in theory the model of institutions as they ought to be..."
"We owe to this period the basic model of government founded upon the consent of the governed; the articulation of the political ideals of freedom and equality and the theory of their institutional realization; the articulation of a list of basic individual human rights to be respected and realized by any legitimate political system; the articulation and promotion of toleration of religious diversity as a virtue to be respected in a well ordered society; the conception of the basic political powers as organized in a system of checks and balances; and other now-familiar features of western democracies.."
"The Enlightenment is most identified with its political accomplishments. The era is marked by three political revolutions, which together lay the basis for modern, republican, constitutional democracies: The English Revolution (1688), the American Revolution (1775–83), and the French Revolution (1789–99). The success at explaining and understanding the natural world encourages the Enlightenment project of re-making the social/political world, in accord with the true models we allegedly find in our reason..."
"Enlightenment philosophers find that the existing social and political orders do not withstand critical scrutiny; they find that existing political and social authority is shrouded in religious myth and mystery and founded on obscure traditions. The negative work of criticizing existing institutions is supplemented with the positive work of constructing in theory the model of institutions as they ought to be..."
"We owe to this period the basic model of government founded upon the consent of the governed; the articulation of the political ideals of freedom and equality and the theory of their institutional realization; the articulation of a list of basic individual human rights to be respected and realized by any legitimate political system; the articulation and promotion of toleration of religious diversity as a virtue to be respected in a well ordered society; the conception of the basic political powers as organized in a system of checks and balances; and other now-familiar features of western democracies.."
"However, for all the enduring accomplishments of
Enlightenment political philosophy, it is not clear that human reason proves
powerful enough to put a concrete, positive authoritative ideal in place of the
ideals negated by rational criticism. As in the epistemological domain, reason
shows its power more convincingly in criticizing authorities than in
establishing them."
"Though the Enlightenment is sometimes represented as the
enemy of religion, it is more accurate to see it as critically directed against
various (arguably contingent) features of religion, such as superstition,
enthusiasm, fanaticism and supernaturalism. Indeed the effort to discern and
advocate for a religion purified of such features – a “rational” or “natural”
religion – is more typical of the Enlightenment than opposition to religion as
such. Even Voltaire, who is perhaps the most persistent, powerful, vocal
Enlightenment critic of religion, directs his polemic mostly against the
Catholic Church in France..."
"In this era dedicated to human progress, the advancement of
the natural sciences is regarded as the main exemplification of, and fuel for,
such progress..."
NATURE & DUALISM
Bristow continues:
"Isaac Newton's epochal accomplishment in his Principia Mathematica (1687), which, very briefly described, consists in the comprehension of a diversity of physical phenomena – in particular the motions of heavenly bodies, together with the motions of sublunary bodies – in few relatively simple, universally applicable, mathematical laws, was a great stimulus to the intellectual activity of the eighteenth century and served as a model and inspiration for the researches of a number of Enlightenment thinkers."
"Isaac Newton's epochal accomplishment in his Principia Mathematica (1687), which, very briefly described, consists in the comprehension of a diversity of physical phenomena – in particular the motions of heavenly bodies, together with the motions of sublunary bodies – in few relatively simple, universally applicable, mathematical laws, was a great stimulus to the intellectual activity of the eighteenth century and served as a model and inspiration for the researches of a number of Enlightenment thinkers."
"Newton's
system strongly encourages the Enlightenment conception of nature as an orderly
domain governed by strict mathematical-dynamical laws and the conception of
ourselves as capable of knowing those laws and thus plumbing the secrets
of nature through the exercise of our unaided faculties..."
"The famous method of doubt Descartes employs for this
purpose exemplifies (in part through exaggerating) an attitude characteristic
of the Enlightenment. According to Descartes, the investigator in foundational
philosophical research ought to doubt all propositions that can be doubted... He
finds that God and the immaterial soul are both better known, on the basis of
innate ideas, than objects of the senses. Through his famous doctrine of the
dualism of mind and body, that mind and body are two distinct substances, each
with its own essence..."
"He attacks the long-standing assumptions of the
scholastic-aristotelians whose intellectual dominance stood in the way of the
development of the new science; he developed a conception of matter that
enabled mechanical explanation of physical phenomena; and he developed some of
the fundamental mathematical resources – in particular, a way to employ
algebraic equations to solve geometrical problems – that enabled the physical
domain to be explained with precise, simple mathematical formulae. Furthermore,
his grounding of physics, and all knowledge, in a relatively simple and elegant
rationalist metaphysics provides a model of a rigorous and complete secular
system of knowledge."
"Cartesian philosophy is also foundational for the Enlightenment through igniting various controversies in the latter decades of the seventeenth century that provide the context of intellectual tumult out of which the Enlightenment springs. Among these controversies are the following: Are mind and body two distinct sorts of substances, as Descartes argues, and if so, what is the nature of each, and how are they related to each other..."
"Cartesian philosophy is also foundational for the Enlightenment through igniting various controversies in the latter decades of the seventeenth century that provide the context of intellectual tumult out of which the Enlightenment springs. Among these controversies are the following: Are mind and body two distinct sorts of substances, as Descartes argues, and if so, what is the nature of each, and how are they related to each other..."
"Baruch Spinoza's systematic rationalist metaphysics, which he develops in
his Ethics (1677) in part in response to problems in the Cartesian
system, is also an important basis for Enlightenment thought. Spinoza develops,
in contrast to Cartesian dualism, an ontological monism according to which
there is not only one kind of substance, but one substance, God or
nature, with two attributes, corresponding to mind and body. Spinoza's denial,
on the basis of strict philosophical reasoning, of the existence of a
transcendent supreme being, his identification of God with nature, gives strong
impetus to the strands of atheism and naturalism that thread through
Enlightenment philosophy. Spinoza's rationalist principles also lead him to
assert a strict determinism and to deny any role to final causes or teleology
in explanation."
"The rationalist metaphysics of Leibniz (1646–1716) is also foundational for the
Enlightenment, particularly the German Enlightenment (die Aufklärung),
which is founded to a great extent on the Leibnizean rationalist system of
Christian Wolff (1679–1754). Leibniz articulates, and places at the head of
metaphysics, the great rationalist principle, the principle of sufficient
reason, which states that everything that exists has a sufficient reason
for its existence. This principle exemplifies the faith, so important for the
Enlightenment, that the universe is fully intelligible to us through the
exercise of our natural powers of reason..."
"Despite the confidence in and enthusiasm for human reason in the Enlightenment – it is sometimes called “the Age of Reason” – the rise of empiricism, both in the practice of science and in the theory of knowledge, is characteristic of the period. The enthusiasm for reason in the Enlightenment is not for the faculty of reason as an independent source of knowledge (at least not primarily), which is actually put on the defensive in the period, but rather for the human cognitive faculties generally; the Age of Reason contrasts with an age of religious faith..."
"Despite the confidence in and enthusiasm for human reason in the Enlightenment – it is sometimes called “the Age of Reason” – the rise of empiricism, both in the practice of science and in the theory of knowledge, is characteristic of the period. The enthusiasm for reason in the Enlightenment is not for the faculty of reason as an independent source of knowledge (at least not primarily), which is actually put on the defensive in the period, but rather for the human cognitive faculties generally; the Age of Reason contrasts with an age of religious faith..."
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William
Bristow, First Published:
August 20, 2010.
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