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In the late eighteenth century, an array of European political thinkers attacked the very foundations of imperialism, arguing passionately that empire-building was not only unworkable, costly, and dangerous, but manifestly unjust. Enlightenment against Empire is the first book devoted to the anti-imperialist political philosophies of an age often regarded as affirming imperial ambitions. Sankar Muthu argues that thinkers such as Denis Diderot, Immanuel Kant, and Johann Gottfried Herder developed an understanding of humans as inherently cultural agents and therefore necessarily diverse. These

One of the urgent tasks of modern philosophy is to find a path between the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the relativism of postmodernism. Rationalism alone cannot suffice to solve today's problems, but neither can we dispense with reasonable critique. The task is to find ways to broaden the scope of rational thought without losing its critical power. The first part of this volume explores the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers and shows nuances often absent from the common view of the Enlightenment. The second part deals with some of the modern heirs of Enlightenment, such as Durkheim, Habermas, and Derrida. In the third part this volume looks at alternatives to Enlightenment thought in West European, Russian and Buddhist philosophy. Part four provides, over against the Enlightenment, a new starting point for the philosophy of religion in thinking about human beings, God, and the description of phenomena

This dissertation treats the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III (1703-1730) in the context of the European early enlightenment. Intellectual historians have generally placed the Ottoman Empire outside the Enlightenment movement, while Ottoman historians have viewed the early eighteenth century as a transitional period between the crisis of the seventeenth century and the reformist movements of the late eighteenth century. The research presented in this work seeks to call these interpretations into question and suggests that the defining features of Ahmed III's regime were similar to those of the early enlightenment : cosmopolitanism, sociability, religious tolerance and, the valorization of philosophy and of social mobility. It was in this enlightened atmosphere that natural philosophy became a contested space where different parties negotiated their new social status: What was the function of natural philosophy? Who could legitimately speak about nature? The Greek commercial elite argued that the Aristotelian universe was an orderly whole and claimed that the rational contemplation of natural order engendered virtue. And virtue legitimized social status. Ottoman physicians, a second group aspiring to high office, contended that their empirical philosophy was superior to Aristotelianism. They believed that their innovative approach to nature was the right one because it yielded effective results. It was experience and effectiveness that entitled them to social and political recognition. Thus, moral virtue and technical expertise became competing values that represented different upwardly mobile groups in Ahmed III's Istanbul. The Ottomans had no experimentalist tradition that could accommodate both logical methods and novel empirical knowledge. A young Ottoman bureaucrat, a Socinian convert to Islam and a Polish Pietist finally presented systematic experimentation as a possible solution to the Empire's social and epistemic problems. Their goal was to reconcile the two competing views of nature and to cultivate solidarity among the new elite. The Ottoman imperial printing press, which was established in 1729, served to disseminate the new experimental knowledge. The founding documents of the press drew an explicit connection between knowledge and political power, and showed that the Sultan intended to offer widespread access to both

"Over the course of the eighteenth century, European intellectuals shifted from admiring China as a utopian place of wonder to despising it as a backwards and despotic state. That transformation had little to do with changes in China itself, and everything to do with Enlightenment conceptions of political identity and Europe's own burgeoning global power. China in the German Enlightenment considers the place of German philosophy, particularly the work of Leibniz, Goethe, Herder, and Hegel, in this development. Beginning with the first English translation of Walter Demel's classic essay "How the Chinese Became Yellow," the collection's essays examine the connections between eighteenth-century philosophy, German Orientalism, and the origins of modern race theory."--

Enlightenment values, including an emphasis on human rights and belief in rationalism and progress, aspire to be universals, yet at the same time they are concepts grounded in the eighteenth century. Since the French Revolution we have grappled with the concepts of Enlightenment, Lumière, Aufklärung, in an attempt to understand how these eighteenth-century concepts continue to shape and influence modern notions of liberal culture. This collection of essays approaches these important questions in a resolutely European and multi-lingual perspective. Ranging from Victor Cousin to Peter Gay, different chapters consider Tocqueville and the Hegelian school (Bruno Bauer, David Friedrich Strauss, Hermann Hettner), the intellectual currents in Europe around 1900 (Wilhelm Dilthey, Gustave Lanson), the thinkers of the Weimar Republic (Ernst Cassirer) and of the Frankfurt School (Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno), and the debates after the Second World War (Franco Venturi). While the principal focus is on writing in French, German and English, the book also treats the Russian- and Italian-speaking worlds. This important contribution to the history of ideas helps us to redefine the Enlightenment. These essays do not merely describe historical assessments of an eighteenth-century movement of ideas: they contribute to the ongoing debate about the very nature of the concept of Enlightenment

Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)Jonathan Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)"A public can only attain enlightenment slowly," Kant famously observed. His use of the term "public" (Publikum), of course, is notoriously slippery, and even now, after decades of academic discussion of Öffenlichkeit and l'opinion publique, it regularly trips up the unsuspecting undergraduate intent on answering Kant's central question: What is enlightenment? And yet it is clear that whatever else he meant, Kant envisioned a central role for the scholar (Gelehrter) in constituting the public, and furthering enlightenment. And so we might say, in a Kantian gloss, that scholars attain enlightenment, and knowledge of the Enlightenment, only slowly.

This synoptic survey examines critically the origins, development, decline, and historical significance of the European Enlightenment. The underlying theme of the inquiry is the real and possible relevance of the Enlightenment tradition to contemporary Western society.

Demonstrates the uniqueness of Hume as an Enlightenment thinker, illustrating how his 'spirit of scepticism' often leads him into seemingly paradoxical positions. This book will be of interest to Hume scholars, intellectual historians of 17th- to 19th-century Europe and those interested in the Enlightenment more widely

Berkowitz reviews The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments by Gertrude Himmelfarb.

Initially proposed as a tool to unify different groups, electricity was used to silence and further marginalize the Hazara, a Shia minority in Afghanistan. This piece tracks and analyzes this ongoing problem, centering on the "Enlightenment Movement," Hazara protestation of the state in response to rerouting electricity. Discussing the governmental, ethnic, and geographic features at play in the issue of electricity, this paper argues that the Enlightenment Movement is not just fueled by a desire for electricity, but a demand for a wider discussion of Hazara civil rights.

Enlightenment can be considered a form of punishment. In particular, the form of enlightenment that facilitates freedom & that is based on common ethical considerations, though not incompatible with Kant, is outside the boundaries of Kant's common sense. In describing the process by which individuals rectify & censure the actions of others & themselves, enlightenment as a form of punishment becomes evident. This line of thinking, when properly explored, could lead to new thoughts regarding the politics of punishment. When the deplorable condition of not only our prison system, but also our public morality is examined, it becomes obvious that drastic measures, & extreme rethinking, are desperately needed. Unless radical steps are taken to reform the prison system, society as it currently is defined is in danger. 25 References. K. A. Larsen