Modern Enlightenment and the Rule of Reason (Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy)

The essays in this volume pose the question common usage has obscured: was "the Enlightenment" truly enlightened or enlightening? Scholarly investigation has sometimes avoided the question by confining itself to historical particulars of 18th-century Europe. Yet the most visible proponents of the Enlightenment, the "philosophers", insisted that their project originated a century earlier, in the writings of the first self-proclaimed modern "philosophers". This volume seeks philosophical clarity of modernity's enlightenment by beginning with Bacon, Descartes and Hobbes. Consideration of Pascal, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Roussea, Lessing and Kant - all philosophical critics, or reformers, of the Enlightenment - furthers the study of its legacy by displaying its diversity. Finally, the book indicates the Enlightenment's vitality by outlining ways it continues to hold philosophical sway in this century. The contributors discuss several themes pertaining to the ambition of Enlightenment reason: justice, tradition and authority; the mastery of nature; metaphysics and scientific method; enlightened and unenlightened "dogmatism"; the utilitarian revision of the common good and the commonly true; Christianity and the limits of enlightened theology; "theodicy"; aesthetics and political rhetoric; myth, history and human freedom. Intro -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Alan Charles Kors / Just and Arbitrary Authority in Enlightenment Thought -- 2. Richard Kennington / Bacon's Reform of Nature -- 3. Pamela Kraus / Method and Metaphysics: The Foundation of Philosophy in the Discourse on Method -- 4. Robert P. Kraynak / Hobbes and the Dogmatism of the Enlightenment -- 5. John C. Mccarthy / Pascal on Certainty and Utility -- 6. Paul J. Bagley / Spinoza, Biblical Criticism, and the Enlightenment -- 7. Philippe Raynaud / Leibniz, Reason -- and Evil -- 8. F.J. Crosson / Hume's Unnatural Religion (Some Humean Footnotes) -- 9. Terence E. Marshall / Poetry and Praxis in Rousseau's Emile: Human Rights and the Sentiment of Humanity -- 10. Kenneth L. Schmitz / Lessing at God's Left Hand -- 11. John R. Silber / Kant and the Mythic Roots of Morality -- 12. Nicholas Capaldi / The Enlightenment Project in Twentieth-Century Philosophy -- Contributors -- Bibliography -- Index The essays in this volume pose the question common usage has obscured: was "the Enlightenment" truly enlightened or enlightening? Scholarly investigation has sometimes avoided the question by confining itself to historical particulars of eighteenth-century Europe. Yet the most visible proponents of the Enlightenment, the philosophes, insisted that their project originated a century earlier, in the writings of the first self-proclaimed modern philosophers. This volume seeks philosophical clarity of modernity's enlightenment by beginning with Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes. Consideration of Pascal, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Rousseau, Lessing, and Kant - all philosophical critics, or reformers, of the Enlightenmentfurthers the study of its legacy by displaying its diversity. Finally, the book indicates the Enlightenment's vitality by outlining ways it continues to hold philosophical sway in this century Contents Introduction 1. Alan Charles Kors / Just and Arbitrary Authority in Enlightenment Thought 2. Richard Kennington / Bacon's Reform of Nature 3. Pamela Kraus / Method and Metaphysics: The Foundation of Philosophy in the Discourse on Method 4. Robert P. Kraynak / Hobbes and the Dogmatism of the Enlightenment 5. John C. Mccarthy / Pascal on Certainty and Utility 6. Paul J. Bagley / Spinoza, Biblical Criticism, and the Enlightenment 7. Philippe Raynaud / Leibniz, Reason; and Evil 8. F. J. Crosson / Hume's Unnatural Religion (Some Humean Footnotes) 9. Terence E. Marshall / Poetry and Praxis in Rousseau's Emile: Human Rights and the Sentiment of Humanity 10. Kenneth L. Schmitz / Lessing at God's Left Hand 11. John R. Silber / Kant and the Mythic Roots of Morality 12. Nicholas Capaldi / The Enlightenment Project in Twentieth-Century Philosophy Contributors Bibliography Index