Steven B. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300198393
- eISBN:
- 9780300220988
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300198393.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
In this book, Steven Smith examines modernity as the site of a unique type of human being entirely unknown to the ancient and medieval worlds that is called the bourgeois. The characteristics and ...
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In this book, Steven Smith examines modernity as the site of a unique type of human being entirely unknown to the ancient and medieval worlds that is called the bourgeois. The characteristics and qualities attributed to this new kind of individual by writers like Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Franklin, and Kant included the desire for autonomy, to live independently of custom, habit, and tradition, and to be the ultimate locus of moral responsibility. This kind of bourgeois culture that has become most fully associated with America and the American way of life was accompanied by doubts and fears. Bourgeois society was rejected by some of its leading critics as domineering and tyrannical (Marx), as tepid and cowardly (Nietzsche), and as lacking in taste and culture (Flaubert). The concept of the bourgeois slowly became the locus of scorn and as the cause of our manifold discontents. How did modernity that was once considered the locus of the free and responsible individual become associated with low-minded materialism, moral cowardice, and philistinism? This provocative book explores some of reasons for these anxieties in the works of Rousseau, Tocqueville, Flaubert, Leo Strauss, Isaiah Berlin, and Saul Bellow. The work offers a novel perspective of what it means to be modern by showing what is most characteristic of modernity are the self-criticisms and doubts that have accompanied political progress and why some of these discontents have produced movements of radical rejection.Less
In this book, Steven Smith examines modernity as the site of a unique type of human being entirely unknown to the ancient and medieval worlds that is called the bourgeois. The characteristics and qualities attributed to this new kind of individual by writers like Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Franklin, and Kant included the desire for autonomy, to live independently of custom, habit, and tradition, and to be the ultimate locus of moral responsibility. This kind of bourgeois culture that has become most fully associated with America and the American way of life was accompanied by doubts and fears. Bourgeois society was rejected by some of its leading critics as domineering and tyrannical (Marx), as tepid and cowardly (Nietzsche), and as lacking in taste and culture (Flaubert). The concept of the bourgeois slowly became the locus of scorn and as the cause of our manifold discontents. How did modernity that was once considered the locus of the free and responsible individual become associated with low-minded materialism, moral cowardice, and philistinism? This provocative book explores some of reasons for these anxieties in the works of Rousseau, Tocqueville, Flaubert, Leo Strauss, Isaiah Berlin, and Saul Bellow. The work offers a novel perspective of what it means to be modern by showing what is most characteristic of modernity are the self-criticisms and doubts that have accompanied political progress and why some of these discontents have produced movements of radical rejection.
J. G. A. Pocock
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263242
- eISBN:
- 9780191734014
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263242.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This lecture discusses the argument that the history of the Enlightenment should be pluralised. It shows that there were a number of Enlightenments occurring, and that not all of them were similar to ...
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This lecture discusses the argument that the history of the Enlightenment should be pluralised. It shows that there were a number of Enlightenments occurring, and that not all of them were similar to the original concept. Isaiah Berlin presumed that there was an ‘Enlightenment’ that reduced everything to reason, and a ‘Counter-Enlightenment’ that returned it to the imagination and situated it in history.Less
This lecture discusses the argument that the history of the Enlightenment should be pluralised. It shows that there were a number of Enlightenments occurring, and that not all of them were similar to the original concept. Isaiah Berlin presumed that there was an ‘Enlightenment’ that reduced everything to reason, and a ‘Counter-Enlightenment’ that returned it to the imagination and situated it in history.
Robert Wokler and Christopher Brooke
Bryan Garsten (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691147888
- eISBN:
- 9781400842407
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691147888.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter focuses on the work of Isaiah Berlin. In 1973, Berlin produced the essay on “The Counter-Enlightenment,” which is commonly said to mark the invention of that term, at least in English. ...
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This chapter focuses on the work of Isaiah Berlin. In 1973, Berlin produced the essay on “The Counter-Enlightenment,” which is commonly said to mark the invention of that term, at least in English. In the years following his retirement, his work on the Counter-Enlightenment enhanced his standing over the past twenty-five years, invigorating keen interest in new circles, most notably among communitarians who had earlier found his liberalism unpalatable. Perhaps even more than his liberalism, however, it is Berlin's pluralism that now forms the mainspring of his reputation. It is largely through his elaboration and embellishment of his notion of the Counter-Enlightenment that his pluralism has come to be seen as the mainspring of his political philosophy as a whole.Less
This chapter focuses on the work of Isaiah Berlin. In 1973, Berlin produced the essay on “The Counter-Enlightenment,” which is commonly said to mark the invention of that term, at least in English. In the years following his retirement, his work on the Counter-Enlightenment enhanced his standing over the past twenty-five years, invigorating keen interest in new circles, most notably among communitarians who had earlier found his liberalism unpalatable. Perhaps even more than his liberalism, however, it is Berlin's pluralism that now forms the mainspring of his reputation. It is largely through his elaboration and embellishment of his notion of the Counter-Enlightenment that his pluralism has come to be seen as the mainspring of his political philosophy as a whole.
Jonathan I. Israel
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199279227
- eISBN:
- 9780191700040
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279227.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, European Modern History
This chapter discusses how the same social inequalities, hierarchy, economic hardship, and political forms which fed social discontent and frustration in the 18th century already existed, at least in ...
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This chapter discusses how the same social inequalities, hierarchy, economic hardship, and political forms which fed social discontent and frustration in the 18th century already existed, at least in broad outline and essentials, in the 16th and 17th centuries. Socially and institutionally, ancien régime society did not change very dramatically between 1650 and 1789.What did change spectacularly and fundamentally was precisely the intellectual context, and this is what chiefly needs explaining. An attempt is made to redefine the field ‘history of philosophy’ in a way that enables us satisfactorily to accommodate the Enlightenment meaning of the term ‘philosophy’. The chapter also discusses the dominance of three great intellectual-cultural impulses in the 18th century: Radical Enlightenment, moderate Enlightenment, combining reason and faith, and Bossuet’s anti-philosophical Counter-Enlightenment.Less
This chapter discusses how the same social inequalities, hierarchy, economic hardship, and political forms which fed social discontent and frustration in the 18th century already existed, at least in broad outline and essentials, in the 16th and 17th centuries. Socially and institutionally, ancien régime society did not change very dramatically between 1650 and 1789.What did change spectacularly and fundamentally was precisely the intellectual context, and this is what chiefly needs explaining. An attempt is made to redefine the field ‘history of philosophy’ in a way that enables us satisfactorily to accommodate the Enlightenment meaning of the term ‘philosophy’. The chapter also discusses the dominance of three great intellectual-cultural impulses in the 18th century: Radical Enlightenment, moderate Enlightenment, combining reason and faith, and Bossuet’s anti-philosophical Counter-Enlightenment.
Fania Oz-salzberger
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198205197
- eISBN:
- 9780191676543
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205197.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter examines the influence of Adam Ferguson's works on German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. It states that Jacobi was a lifelong admirer of Ferguson and he was Ferguson's most ...
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This chapter examines the influence of Adam Ferguson's works on German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. It states that Jacobi was a lifelong admirer of Ferguson and he was Ferguson's most sympathetic and politically minded 18th century German. However, this does not fit his prevalent image of being a mystical metaphysician, a fervent anti-rationalist theist, and a leader of a German Counter-Enlightenment movement whose archenemy was Voltaire.Less
This chapter examines the influence of Adam Ferguson's works on German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. It states that Jacobi was a lifelong admirer of Ferguson and he was Ferguson's most sympathetic and politically minded 18th century German. However, this does not fit his prevalent image of being a mystical metaphysician, a fervent anti-rationalist theist, and a leader of a German Counter-Enlightenment movement whose archenemy was Voltaire.
Avi Lifschitz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199661664
- eISBN:
- 9780191751653
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661664.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, History of Ideas
The Introduction situates the book against the background of current trends in Enlightenment studies. It highlights the naturalistic perspective on the evolution of human society, which was common to ...
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The Introduction situates the book against the background of current trends in Enlightenment studies. It highlights the naturalistic perspective on the evolution of human society, which was common to authors who have been identified as radical and conservative alike. A discussion of the Enlightenment view of language as an essential tool of human cognition leads to the rejection of Isaiah Berlin's thesis of a German ‘Counter-Enlightenment’ allegedly reacting to a French Enlightenment that believed in the sovereign powers of reason and logic. This study demonstrates the common features shared by French and German authors.Less
The Introduction situates the book against the background of current trends in Enlightenment studies. It highlights the naturalistic perspective on the evolution of human society, which was common to authors who have been identified as radical and conservative alike. A discussion of the Enlightenment view of language as an essential tool of human cognition leads to the rejection of Isaiah Berlin's thesis of a German ‘Counter-Enlightenment’ allegedly reacting to a French Enlightenment that believed in the sovereign powers of reason and logic. This study demonstrates the common features shared by French and German authors.
Laurence Brockliss and Ritchie Robertson (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198783930
- eISBN:
- 9780191826580
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198783930.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This book assesses critically an important part of the work of a major historian of ideas. Isaiah Berlin (1909–97) published many influential essays on thinkers of the ‘long Enlightenment’ of the ...
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This book assesses critically an important part of the work of a major historian of ideas. Isaiah Berlin (1909–97) published many influential essays on thinkers of the ‘long Enlightenment’ of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet some of his best-known work is devoted to exploring thinkers who were critical of the Enlightenment, and whom he assigned to the ‘Counter-Enlightenment’. He shows a curious ambivalence about the Enlightenment, and interprets it in ways that more recent scholarship would question. The book explores this ambivalence through a series of chapters on how Berlin developed his conception of the Enlightenment and on his dealings with many ‘long Enlightenment’ thinkers, from Machiavelli to Marx.Less
This book assesses critically an important part of the work of a major historian of ideas. Isaiah Berlin (1909–97) published many influential essays on thinkers of the ‘long Enlightenment’ of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet some of his best-known work is devoted to exploring thinkers who were critical of the Enlightenment, and whom he assigned to the ‘Counter-Enlightenment’. He shows a curious ambivalence about the Enlightenment, and interprets it in ways that more recent scholarship would question. The book explores this ambivalence through a series of chapters on how Berlin developed his conception of the Enlightenment and on his dealings with many ‘long Enlightenment’ thinkers, from Machiavelli to Marx.
Steven B. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300198393
- eISBN:
- 9780300220988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300198393.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
In this introductory chapter, the author explores the definition and history of modernity as not merely a question of temporal horizons, but as a mentality that celebrates scientific progress, ...
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In this introductory chapter, the author explores the definition and history of modernity as not merely a question of temporal horizons, but as a mentality that celebrates scientific progress, constant change, and universal ideals of national sovereignty and human rights. For each movement of modernity, however, there has developed a comprehensive counternarrative, for modernity has become inseparable from the doubts we feel about it. The author explores some of the key ideas of the Counter-Enlightenment, particularly Marx’s and Nietzsche’s critiques of the bourgeois as selfish, tepid, and exploitative. The author then positions this book as a continuation of the conversation between Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment, modernism and postmodernism, asking the fundamental question: How is it possible to retain a critical stance toward modernity and yet resist the temptation of radical negation?Less
In this introductory chapter, the author explores the definition and history of modernity as not merely a question of temporal horizons, but as a mentality that celebrates scientific progress, constant change, and universal ideals of national sovereignty and human rights. For each movement of modernity, however, there has developed a comprehensive counternarrative, for modernity has become inseparable from the doubts we feel about it. The author explores some of the key ideas of the Counter-Enlightenment, particularly Marx’s and Nietzsche’s critiques of the bourgeois as selfish, tepid, and exploitative. The author then positions this book as a continuation of the conversation between Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment, modernism and postmodernism, asking the fundamental question: How is it possible to retain a critical stance toward modernity and yet resist the temptation of radical negation?
Steven B. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300198393
- eISBN:
- 9780300220988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300198393.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Rousseau is the first writer to signal a radical discontent with the Enlightenment and its creation, the bourgeois. He conveys this critique most powerfully in his denunciation of modernity’s great ...
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Rousseau is the first writer to signal a radical discontent with the Enlightenment and its creation, the bourgeois. He conveys this critique most powerfully in his denunciation of modernity’s great model of a kind of global civil society described as the “Republic of Letters.” In his First Discourse Rousseau excoriated the Enlightenment for corrupting manners and morals, but in his public Letter to d’Alembert he made clear his case against the Enlightenment’s program for social reform by attacking what he saw as d’Alembert’s reckless proposal for instituting a theater in Geneva. Here he uncovered all the dangers that later writers would call “unintended consequences.” Rousseau’s attack on the Enlightenment’s progressivism was carried out in the name of a new political form that he did much to create: the nation-state. He argued that the national ideal was superior to the universalism and cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment.Less
Rousseau is the first writer to signal a radical discontent with the Enlightenment and its creation, the bourgeois. He conveys this critique most powerfully in his denunciation of modernity’s great model of a kind of global civil society described as the “Republic of Letters.” In his First Discourse Rousseau excoriated the Enlightenment for corrupting manners and morals, but in his public Letter to d’Alembert he made clear his case against the Enlightenment’s program for social reform by attacking what he saw as d’Alembert’s reckless proposal for instituting a theater in Geneva. Here he uncovered all the dangers that later writers would call “unintended consequences.” Rousseau’s attack on the Enlightenment’s progressivism was carried out in the name of a new political form that he did much to create: the nation-state. He argued that the national ideal was superior to the universalism and cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment.
Steven B. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300198393
- eISBN:
- 9780300220988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300198393.003.0017
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
In this final chapter of the book, the author reflects on how today’s scepticism about progress has less to do with the Enlightenment’s failures than with its successes. It is the success of the ...
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In this final chapter of the book, the author reflects on how today’s scepticism about progress has less to do with the Enlightenment’s failures than with its successes. It is the success of the regimes shaped by science,the market, and democracy that have made them an object of envy, fear,loathing, and resentment. This should scarcely come as a surprise. Modernityhas become inseparable from the doubts we feel about it.Less
In this final chapter of the book, the author reflects on how today’s scepticism about progress has less to do with the Enlightenment’s failures than with its successes. It is the success of the regimes shaped by science,the market, and democracy that have made them an object of envy, fear,loathing, and resentment. This should scarcely come as a surprise. Modernityhas become inseparable from the doubts we feel about it.
Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520292758
- eISBN:
- 9780520966130
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520292758.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
The music-dramatic core of the book is framed by sections designed to place Wagner’s late works within the context of the political and ethical ideas of his time. The Prologue offers a genealogy of ...
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The music-dramatic core of the book is framed by sections designed to place Wagner’s late works within the context of the political and ethical ideas of his time. The Prologue offers a genealogy of the principal worldviews available to Wagner and his contemporaries and shows how they related to one another. The options I describe are of diverse age, some with roots going as far back as the antiquity (the Judeo-Christian religious outlook), some characteristic of the modern age (the Enlightenment), some arising even more recently in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (the main currents of the Counter-Enlightenment that proceed under the banners of History, Nation, and Will). Deposited at different times, they all actively shaped the landscape in which Wagner found himself and left traces on his music dramas.Less
The music-dramatic core of the book is framed by sections designed to place Wagner’s late works within the context of the political and ethical ideas of his time. The Prologue offers a genealogy of the principal worldviews available to Wagner and his contemporaries and shows how they related to one another. The options I describe are of diverse age, some with roots going as far back as the antiquity (the Judeo-Christian religious outlook), some characteristic of the modern age (the Enlightenment), some arising even more recently in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (the main currents of the Counter-Enlightenment that proceed under the banners of History, Nation, and Will). Deposited at different times, they all actively shaped the landscape in which Wagner found himself and left traces on his music dramas.
Ryu Susato
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748699803
- eISBN:
- 9781474416207
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748699803.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Hume’s avowed endorsement of a cyclical view of civilisation has been considered one of his most significant differences from the French philosophes’ upholding of ‘Progress’ and ‘Reason’. Some have ...
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Hume’s avowed endorsement of a cyclical view of civilisation has been considered one of his most significant differences from the French philosophes’ upholding of ‘Progress’ and ‘Reason’. Some have used his divergent position to paint the image of Hume as the alleged forefather of ‘Counter-Enlightenment’ thinkers. As a result, Hume’s endorsement of a cyclical view has not been considered compatible with his vindication of civilisation, causing a dilemma for commentators. Through close examinations of Hume’s texts and comparisons with those of his predecessors and contemporaries (such as William Temple, Fontenelle, and Turgot), this chapter makes it clear that Hume’s cyclical view of civilisation is not limited to the issue of fine arts, but extends to commerce and manufactures. Hume’s vindication of a cyclical view of human history is also closely related to his criticism of the notion of providence, which Josiah Tucker evokes for his defence of perpetual progress in the so-called ‘rich country-poor country debate’. Nevertheless, Hume’s support of a cyclical view of civilisation does not contradict, but rather buttresses, his robust commitment to the values of refinement, liberty, and humanity. Hume is peculiar in keeping a cool head with regards to the possibility of continued progress, while believing in and supporting modern values.Less
Hume’s avowed endorsement of a cyclical view of civilisation has been considered one of his most significant differences from the French philosophes’ upholding of ‘Progress’ and ‘Reason’. Some have used his divergent position to paint the image of Hume as the alleged forefather of ‘Counter-Enlightenment’ thinkers. As a result, Hume’s endorsement of a cyclical view has not been considered compatible with his vindication of civilisation, causing a dilemma for commentators. Through close examinations of Hume’s texts and comparisons with those of his predecessors and contemporaries (such as William Temple, Fontenelle, and Turgot), this chapter makes it clear that Hume’s cyclical view of civilisation is not limited to the issue of fine arts, but extends to commerce and manufactures. Hume’s vindication of a cyclical view of human history is also closely related to his criticism of the notion of providence, which Josiah Tucker evokes for his defence of perpetual progress in the so-called ‘rich country-poor country debate’. Nevertheless, Hume’s support of a cyclical view of civilisation does not contradict, but rather buttresses, his robust commitment to the values of refinement, liberty, and humanity. Hume is peculiar in keeping a cool head with regards to the possibility of continued progress, while believing in and supporting modern values.
