The core of the Enlightenment was the focus on reason and
its tremendous powers and the total abhorrence of institutional revealed
religion. Faith conflicted with reason. The Enlightenment totally rejected the
Scholastics and their use of reason and logic. In a strange way reason
dominated even the experimental efforts that surrounded the Enlightenment
figures. The author states in his Preface that reason was not overthrowing the
passions, but that the claims of reason were to be rejected as well as
accepted. The author does also address the concern of Eurocentrism and the
placing of the Enlightenment on a secondary state, a place where he believes it
is not to be.
The author begins with an attempt to define the
Enlightenment, or “Enlightenment” as process. To be enlightened meant being
critical and for this capability it meant the use of reason (p 21). He provides
a remark from Kant that it is but a few men, since most men and all women are
but sheep, which use reason. For others if they can pay others for such things
as what to eat, what is moral, then there is no need to think, reason. Yet
amidst the mass of historical references the definition of either Enlightenment
or the Enlightenment still is elusive. It is built upon reason, but it also
appears to be a period based upon a revolt, a revolt from the way things were
done, and especially the way one held religious belief.
Chapter 1 presents a somewhat historical context for the
beginning of the Enlightenment. On p 33 there is a discussion of the end of the
Thirty Years War, with the Peace of Westphalia. This event, the War, still
hangs over much of central Europe. Many of the political divisions were
religious divisions, and these divisions set the stage for conflicts for
centuries to come.
Chapter 2 describes the change which the Enlightenment
brought. It also presents one of the most convolved sentences I have ever read.
On p 66 the author states:
“The Enlightenment, and in particular that portion which
I am concerned, was in part, as we shall now see, and attempt to recover
something of this vision of a unified and essentially benign humanity, of a
potentially cosmopolitan world, without also being obliged to accept the
theologians’ claim that this could only make sense as part of the larger plan
of a well-meaning, if deeply inscrutable, deity.”
There are eight commas. But the sentence does accurately describe
exactly what the author intends it to be. Yet it is also exemplary of style,
which at time may be a bit daunting for the reader.
On p 69 the author provides insight to the debate that lurks
below the surface between Hobbes and Rousseau. For Hobbes mankind was fundamentally
and aggressive animal and needed the Leviathan to control them. For Rousseau
mankind was originally pristine pure and was thereafter corrupted. Both men
reached their conclusions by reason devoid of any scientific evidence or facts.
That in a sense was the fatal flaw of the Enlightenment. It assumed the overwhelming
power of reason as a sine qua non.
On p 77 there is a discussion of natural law and its
deficiencies. The author states:
“The entire scholastic theory of moral and political life
rested, as we have seen, on the idea that our basic understanding of the law of
nature was made up of certain “innate ideas” or “innate senses”.
Then on p 79 he addresses the assault by Locke on this
principle by stating:
“Few historians of philosophy have paid much attention to
this length onslaught on the notion that there might exist no “innate
Principles” or Innate Characters of the Mind which are to be Principles of
Knowledge” beyond “a desire of Happiness and aversion of Pain”.
There was thus on the one hand a rejection of innate laws of
nature, one that could be reasoned, and the application of reason to all
existence.
Chapter 3 is a Chapter regarding a world without God. To
some sense it is the Enlightenments fracturing of the past centuries and an
attempt to break loose. He contends that man and the result of the
Enlightenment can adapt to a civil society san religion. As he says on p 109:
“If it appears to do so now, that is only because of the
fear that the Church has, over the centuries, inculcated in it.”
The author seems to align himself very much with those iconoclasts
of the Enlightenment as one progress through this chapter.
He continues in Chapter 7 with a discussion of laws. On the
one hand we have Montesquieu, and on the other hand we have Robespierre. As he
states on p 309:
“Furthermore, political virtue was conceived of as a
sentiment and not, as Montesquieu put it, “the consequence of knowledge”. True,
the virtuous citizens had to be able to distinguish good laws from bad, but
they did not require any special knowledge to do that; they did not need to
understand precisely what a republic actually was, or how its institutions
operated, or did they – as the ancients would, in fact, have assumed that they
did – have to be actively involved in it, in order to love it; for the “last
man in the state can have this sentiment as can the first”.”
There are times when
I had difficulty discerning the author from his subjects. This sentence gave me
pause. If citizens were to distinguish good laws from bad, how much did they
truly have to know? Does this not apply especially to any republic, where
representation in a legislative body reflects to some degree the public? I
believe the author has some point to be made here but they are somewhat poorly
extracted from the sources.
On p 321-322 the authors delves into the Great Society of
Mankind by an interesting allusion to foreign aid. To him it would have been an
unacceptable concept in the Enlightenment but as an act consistent with
Enlightenment thinking it would be congruent.
In his Conclusions he discusses the enemies of the
Enlightenment. The discussion is generally in line with modern thinking but
there appear to be several divergences. On p 395 there is a discussion of
Communitarianism. The author states that Communitarians have much in common
with 19th Century nationalists. He discusses the source as Hegelian
in part. But he sees the Communitarians as enemies of Enlightenment thinking.
This discussion is very interesting and worth a read several times.
He again returns to the Thirty Years War as that seminal
event which in a manner kicked off the Enlightenment. For most Americans this
is an event at best hidden in the dark past of the World History book. However
for a European, this is a dividing line between the past and the present. It
was a war of the people, a war of faith, not a war of territory. Even today one
feels it when dealing with Poland, Sweden, Austria, Germany, France and so
forth.
But the Enlightenment is also a collection of characters.
The author brings them to life in his style of topical discussion. Voltaire
becomes almost a current day Cable TV commentator, irascible, while at the same
time amassing a personal fortune. He went after the Catholic Church, in the
guise of attacking religion, but praised the British for their religious
tolerance while at the same time the British were massacring the Irish for
their faith. At the other extreme he discusses de Tocqueville and his view of
the Americas while not discussing the de Tocqueville writing on Ireland the
French Revolution.
There is a wealth of books on the Enlightenment and those of
Gay, Cassirer and Israel are but three that come to mind. This book is not in
that class. The former are historical works that flow in some linear manner;
either temporally of thematically. This book is kaleidoscopic in style, with
flashes of insight coming and going and then within those flashes incorporating
vignettes of the main characters who are players on the stage of the
Enlightenment. This is not a text of the type of Skinner who may include all
players so that the ones that we see so often are placed within an historical
context.
This book, in summary, is a delight to read, albeit not in a
linear fashion. It has brilliant flashes of insight and explanation, yet there
are times when one yells back at the words in total disagreement. This book
draws out thinking in some depth about the Enlightenment more than a linear
historical work. It was a delight to read.
However it does pose the question: who is the Voltaire of today? Is it some "Talk Radio personality, some Cable "New" commentator? They are irreverent, attacking the "system". Then again one may ask who is Robespierre?
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