Search Results for: Enlightenment

Voltaire’s essential *Letters on England* brought the Enlightenment to France

This series letters written while in exile — on the sometimes-shocking English way of doing religion, politics, science, morals, and philosophy — were hugely influential upon a French audience still in the grip of l’ancien regime. Related: The full Philosophers, Explained series, including classics from Kant, Nietzsche, Rand, Camus, Aristotle, Plato, and other important thinkers.

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Why did Professor Beck say Kant is Counter-Enlightenment?

Philosopher Lewis White Beck was selected to write the entry on “German Philosophy” for The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He wrote: “Immanuel Kant was to put almost every fundamental concept of the Enlightenment in jeopardy.” That is a striking claim, as it goes against a standard interpretation of Kant as a paragon of the Enlightenment. Immanuel

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Is Communism a modern doctrine? Or born of the Enlightenment?

Is Communism a modern doctrine? Or born of the Enlightenment? Heavens, no. Brief history-of-politics series of points, in response to this question from a few places on social media: 1. For millennia all communisms were religious. (* exception at end) 2. Think of the many religious monasteries and convents, populated by those who see their

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Cathy Young’s “The Return of the Anti‐​Enlightenment”

Worth reading: The full text of Young’s judicious 2022 article for Cato Policy Report. Related: Chapter One of Explaining Postmodernism for an overview of the Enlightenment against which the postmoderns are reacting. Full audiobook here. My Enlightenment Vision flowchart is pitched at a high level of abstraction, showing schematically how the philosophical revolution of the

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“The Dim Ruins of the Enlightenment”? [Open College transcript]

We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the fourth: OC: “The Dim Ruins of the Enlightenment”? Who said this? ““We live today amid the dim ruins of the Enlightenment project, which was the ruling project of the modern period.” And this: What to do—“now that both the Age

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Hazony Attacks the Enlightenment [Open College]

A new episode of my podcast series, produced by Possibly Correct out of Toronto. Conservative nationalist Yoram Hazony makes eight claims about the Enlightenment. One is mostly true, and seven are badly false or are grains of truth badly exaggerated. Audio: Youtube. Soundcloud.  Transcription: Will be available soon. Sources: Yoram Hazony, “What Was the Enlightenment?” Prager

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