The Enlightenment Project, Essay Example

“The term ‘Enlightenment project’ is code for a set of ideas holding that science and reason, as opposed to authority and superstition, are the proper means to understand the world and to improve human life, and that understanding and life flourish best in a culture of tolerance and individual liberty” (Le Cocq). The actual definition of the Enlightenment is quite an uncomplicated issue. Originally, it was all about a group of French philosophers, who got together in Paris in the middle decades of the eighteenth century and discussed the possible ways of humanizing the world and making the modern civilization better. Naturally, the variety of subjects was rather great, yet there was developed a shared set of general values and principles. Among those most frequent were reason, humanity, liberty and tolerance. Thus the enlightenment originally started as a certain group of men who were united by specific shared ideas, who existed in a certain time and place. However, over a thirty-year period of time the things have changed, transforming the term Enlightenment into a much wider concept. The Enlightenment has spread far beyond the territory of France, and has become related to a much more extensive range of intellectual interest than those which were shaped at the major Paris salons. Developing more or less concurrently in Germany, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Portugal the movement scattered across much of Europe, including the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia and Scandinavia as well as in America. Enormous amount of energy was devoted in order to get the meaning of the Enlightenment clear, to trace its history, to identify its social meaning and significance for women, the parts played by its founders and followers, and to expand common understanding of its institutional and cultural backgrounds.

From a more general perspective, it was the appearance and growing popularity of natural sciences that provoked a rise of feelings of hopefulness and inspiration in relation to better life for all the humankind, and belief in scientific progress. Thus Enlightenment has become a name of the religious, philosophical, political and cultural movement of “enlightened” philosophers. “This program comprises independent thought, criticism, tolerance, and progress, as well as the political translation of these ideas into a new rule of law, free of censorship, by church or sovereign, in which the individual is free to express his or her opinion” (Stoker, Boeve, Schrijvers and Vroom). Even though such trained scientists as Kepler and Newton preferred to remain rather conservative in their social and religious believes, the influence of science on the general idea, morals, and views of society was great. A genre that greatly rose in significance was that of scientific literature. Specifically Natural history became more and more popular among the upper classes.

When talking about enlightenment we usually refer to a period of time also called “the long eighteenth century” (1690-1830). However, these dates are rather approximate. It is hard to define Enlightenment as a certain period of time. It is commonly believed to begin with Glorious Revolution in Great Britain (1688), with the writings of Locke and Bayle. The end is believed to be marked by the American Declaration of Independence (1776), the French Revolution (1789), the fall of post-revolutionary France (1815), and finally the reaction of Romanticism. If referring to religious movements, we can say that if “enlightened” perception of the universe had intense implications for the definitions of human freedom, responsibility, and ethics, it brought up even more troubling questions about religious believes. New religion, unclearly labeled “Deism”, that revealed new system of belief and worship, tried to create a universal faith that would embrace and overcome all the other existing ones. It was created by an Englishman, Lord Herbert of Cherbury in 17^th century and marked the period of Enlightenment. The problem is, by the very nature of the phenomena of Enlightenment, it can hardly have any distinctive limits, neither in time, nor in space. Long after the mentioned events, the program of Enlightenment was taken up again and again, yet in new forms.

There are two views of enlightenment: a traditional and a reconstructed or a modern one. Contemporary scholars identify Enlightenment as “a series of debates, taking different forms in different national and cultural contexts, rather than as a unitary phenomenon whose ideas were generated by particular thinkers. With chapters devoted to science, the exotic and gender as well as to the social context, religion and government, the result is an excellent conspectus of the Enlighenment of today’s scholarship” (Robertson). Thus, Enlightenment is viewed as an intellectual project, rather than a certain period of time. It is a distinct intellectual movement within the European world, which is supported not only by its adherents with similar interests and purposes, but by individuals aware of distribution of these to others, and of “communicating them across frontiers and linguistic barriers” (Robertson). Anyway, what remains clear about principles of the Enlightenment is that a major obligation of its supporters and followers is to examine and consider the ways of bettering the conditions of human existence on this earth. A second aspect of the Enlightenment project is the investigation of the instruments and methods of material betterment. Corresponding with the striving for material betterment was a third strand to the Enlightenment project, – the desire to achieve cultural improvement, which was implemented mostly by extension of education.

Recent criticism of the enlightenment reminds a lot the one of Enlightenment’s contemporaries. The arguments mostly seem to be repeated. Critics of the enlightenment usually argue their point of view either by mentioning some meaningful current practices, or by examining a dubious principle, which is then illustrated with some particularly harsh example. In my opinion, claiming Enlightenment to be an era of a trivial and pompous intellectualism, irrational disrespect to authority and traditions, that has eventually provoked great number of current biases and delusions, is a very example of narrow-mindedness itself. The recognition of great power of human mind and reason cannot be a fruit of shallow thinking; it is a lucid moment of all the humanity that a history has given birth to. It marked the high point of in the development of secular value and human self-assurance.

Works Cited

Le Cocq, Jonathan. “Art and the Enlightenment Project.” The Center for Independent Studies: Policy. 2008. 9 June 2009. <http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/Summer08- 09/lecocq_summer08.html>.

Robertson, John. “The Enlightenment.” History Review 28 (1997): 40.

Stoker, Wessel, Lieven Boeve, Joeri Schrijvers and Hendrik M. Vroom. Faith in the Enlightenment? The Critique of the Enlightenment Revisited. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006.