The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture [Hardcover]

Louis Dupre (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2004

The prestige of the Enlightenment has declined in recent years. Many consider its thinking abstract, its art and poetry uninspiring, and the assertion that it introduced a new age of freedom and progress after centuries of darkness and superstition presumptuous. In this book, an eminent scholar of modern culture shows that the Enlightenment was a more complex phenomenon than most of its detractors and advocates assume. It includes rationalist as well as antirationalist tendencies, a critique of traditional morality and religion as well as an attempt to establish them on new foundations, even the beginning of a moral renewal and a spiritual revival. The Enlightenment's critique of tradition was a necessary consequence of the fundamental modern principle that we humans are solely responsible for the course of history. Hence we can accept no belief, no authority, no institutions that are not in some way justified. This foundation, for better or for worse, determined the course of the following centuries. Despite contemporary reactions against it, the Enlightenment continues to shape our own time and still distinguishes Western culture from any other.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This immensely readable book will cause readers to rethink the Enlightenment and to see its positive aspects. It will also add crucial historical perspective to current discussions of modernity." Donald Verene, Emory University"

From the Back Cover

"This immensely readable book will cause readers to rethink the Enlightenment and to see its positive aspects. It will also add crucial historical perspective to current discussions of modernity."-Donald Verene, Emory University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (June 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300100329
• ISBN-13: 978-0300100327
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,568,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A sweeping review, dense but accessible, January 25, 2009

By 

W. Chen (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture (Paperback)

A panoramic survey of the philosophical landscape of the Enlightenment period (1648 - 1789), covering the sense of selfhood, art and aesthetics, morality, social theory, science of history, religion and faith during that period. The advent of modern science, particularly the mechanism of Newtonian theory, knocked down many of the medieval concepts about the cosmos, Providence, creation and human's place in the world, and ushered in rationalism as the mainstream thinking of the Enlightenment period. This does not mean key thinkers in this period were of one or similar stripe. They held different, and sometimes diametrical, views. Louis Dupre summarizes and comments on the views of key philosophical figures in this period, including Locke, Hume, Diderot, Rousseau, Leibniz, Lessing, Spinoza, Kant, and many others. The text is somewhat dense, especially for the uninitiated, but it is definitely accessible. Overall, it is a very good survey of the philosophical views of the period.