Thinking about the Enlightenment: Modernity and its Ramifications

✍ Scribed by Davies Martin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 350
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Thinking about the Enlightenment looks beyond the current parameters of studying the Enlightenment, to the issues that can be understood by reflecting on the period in a broader context. Each of the thirteen original chapters, by an international and interdisciplinary team of contributors, illustrates the problematic legacy of the Enlightenment and the continued ramifications of its thinking since the eighteenth century. Together, they consider whether modernity can see its roots in the intellectual revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The collection is divided into six sections, preceded by a comprehensive introduction to the field and the most recent scholarship on the period. Across the sections, the contributors consider modern day encounters with Enlightenment thinking, including Kant’s moral philosophy, the conflict between reason and faith, the significance of the Enlightenment of law and the gender inequality that persisted throughout the eighteenth century. By examining specific encounters with the problematic results of Enlightenment concerns, the contributors are able to illuminate and offer new perspectives on topics such as human nature, race, politics, gender and rationality. Drawing from history, philosophy, literature and anthropology, this book enables students and academics alike to take a fresh look at the Enlightenment and its legacy in the modern world

✦ Table of Contents

Introduction: The Enlightenment: something to think about. Martin L. Davies
Thinking about Kant and the Enlightenment
Kant’s concept of Enlightenment: Individual and universal dimensions. Olga Poznjakova
Rethinking Kant’s ‘immaturity’ in Arendt’s post-totalitarian reflection. Tatiana Weiser
Thinking about Enlightenment and politics
The Enlightenment, encyclopedism and the natural rights of man: The case of the Code of Humanity (1778). Luigi Delia
Deliberative democrats as the heirs of Enlightenment: Between Habermas and Dewey. John Min
Thinking about Enlightenment and religion
Christianity and Enlightenment: Two hermeneutical approaches to their relationship. Salvatore Muscolino
The Enlightenment legacy and European identity: Reflections on the cartoon controversy. Carsten Meiner
Thinking about Enlightenment and gender
Between shadow and light: Women’s education. Christophe Regina
“Race”, “sex”, and “gender”: Intersections, naturalistic fallacies, and the Age of Reason. Carina Pape
Thinking about Enlightenment and its limits
Adoption as a limit-case for Enlightenment: Lessing’s Nathan der Weise and Kleist’s Der Findling. David D. Kim
From unsocial sociability to antagonistic society (and back again): The historical role and social-scientific presence of an anthropological trope. Tilman Reitz
Postscripts: Thinking about Enlightenment thinking
Multiple Counter-Enlightenments: The genealogy of a polemics from the eighteenth century to the present. Theo Jung
‘The proper study of mankind’: Enlightenment and tautology. Martin L. Davies