Download or read book Enlightenment and Action from Descartes to Kant written by Michael Losonsky and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-13 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book systematically traces the development of the idea that the improvement of human understanding requires public activity.
Download or read book Enlightenment and Action from Descartes to Kant written by Michael Losonsky and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Origins and the Enlightenment written by Catherine Labio and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What epistemic assumptions framed eighteenth-century thinkers' speculations regarding origins? What, if anything, connected these speculations? The best way to understand the Enlightenment's obsession with origins is to study it in conjunction with the contemporary conceptualization of originality as a criterion of aesthetic value, Catherine Labio maintains. Her expansive survey of the era's thought places special emphasis on epistemology and is genuinely interdisciplinary, drawing on such fields as anthropology, geometry, historiography, literary criticism, and political economy. One of the most striking facets of Enlightenment thought, according to Labio, is the emergence of aesthetics as a master discourse that enabled its users to make sense of worlds ostensibly unrelated to the arts. In particular, once knowledge became defined as knowledge of things made by human beings, originality became valued not only for its novelty but also as a guarantee of epistemological certainty. Labio analyzes the views held by a variety of European thinkers—including Baumgarten, Condillac, Descartes, Kant, Locke, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Vico, and Edward Young—on the origins of ideas, languages, nations, nature, and wealth. Throughout, the author deals with a wide range of primary and secondary materials.
Download or read book The Dream of Enlightenment The Rise of Modern Philosophy written by Anthony Gottlieb and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Slate’s 10 Best Books of the Year Anthony Gottlieb’s landmark The Dream of Reason and its sequel challenge Bertrand Russell’s classic as the definitive history of Western philosophy. Western philosophy is now two and a half millennia old, but much of it came in just two staccato bursts, each lasting only about 150 years. In his landmark survey of Western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance, The Dream of Reason, Anthony Gottlieb documented the first burst, which came in the Athens of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Now, in his sequel, The Dream of Enlightenment, Gottlieb expertly navigates a second great explosion of thought, taking us to northern Europe in the wake of its wars of religion and the rise of Galilean science. In a relatively short period—from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution—Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy. As Gottlieb explains, all these men were amateurs: none had much to do with any university. They tried to fathom the implications of the new science and of religious upheaval, which led them to question traditional teachings and attitudes. What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and for our ideas of God? How should a government deal with religious diversity—and what, actually, is government for? Such questions remain our questions, which is why Descartes, Hobbes, and the others are still pondered today. Yet it is because we still want to hear them that we can easily get these philosophers wrong. It is tempting to think they speak our language and live in our world; but to understand them properly, we must step back into their shoes. Gottlieb puts readers in the minds of these frequently misinterpreted figures, elucidating the history of their times and the development of scientific ideas while engagingly explaining their arguments and assessing their legacy in lively prose. With chapters focusing on Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Pierre Bayle, Leibniz, Hume, Rousseau, and Voltaire—and many walk-on parts—The Dream of Enlightenment creates a sweeping account of what the Enlightenment amounted to, and why we are still in its debt.
Download or read book The Enlightenment written by John Robertson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This introduction explores the history of the 18th-century Enlightenment movement. Considering its intellectual commitments, Robertson then turns to their impact on society, and the ways in which Enlightenment thinkers sought to further the goal of human betterment, by promoting economic improvement and civil and political justice.
Download or read book Subjectivity written by R. J. Snell and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-03-04 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Subjectivity, sixteen leading scholars examine the turn to the subject in modern philosophy and consider its historical antecedents in ancient and medieval thought. Some critics of modernity reject the turn to the subject as a specifically modern error, arguing that it logically leads to nihilism and moral relativism by divorcing the human mind from objective reality. Yet, some important thinkers of the last half-century--including Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, John Finnis, and Bernard Lonergan--consider a subjective starting point and claim to find a similar position in ancient and medieval thought. If correct, their positions suggest that one can adopt the subjective turn and remain true to the tradition. This is a timely question. The common good of our polity encounters a situation in which many believe that there is no objective reality to which human minds and wills ought to conform, a conclusion that suggests we can define and construct reality. In light of this, the notion of a natural or objective reality to which human beings ought to conform becomes particularly vital. Should we, then, adopt the modern turn to subjectivity and argue for objective truth and moral order on its basis, or reject the subjective turn as part of the problem and return to an earlier approach that grounds these things in nature or some other external reality? Critics of modern subjectivity argue that the modern turn to subjectivity must be abandoned because it is the very source of the nominalism that threatens to undermine liberal democracy. Others argue, however, that subjectivity itself logically leads to the recognition of an objective reality beyond the mind of the individual. Edited by R. J. Snell and Steven F. McGuire, this collection will be of particular interest to intellectual historians, political philosophers, theologians, and philosophers.
Download or read book Enlightened Evangelicalism written by Jonathan Yeager and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Erskine was the leading evangelical in the Church of Scotland in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Educated at Edinburgh University, he learned to appreciate the epistemology of John Locke and other empiricists alongside key Scottish Enlightenment figures. As a clergyman, he integrated the style and moral teachings of the Moderate Enlightenment into his discourses and posited new theories on traditional views of Calvinism in his theological treatises. While widely recognized as an able preacher and theologian, Erskine's primary contribution to evangelicalism was as a disseminator. He sent countless religious and philosophical works to correspondents like Jonathan Edwards so that he and others could learn about current ideas, update their writings, and provide an apologetic against perceived heretical authors. Erskine also was crucial in the publishing of books and pamphlets by some of the best evangelical theologians in America and Britain. Within his lifetime, Erskine's main contribution was as a propagator of an enlightened form of evangelicalism. While there is a great deal of scholarship on Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley, Yeager argues that it is time to expand the scholarship of eighteenth-century evangelicalism by turning to one of their lesser-studied colleagues. In this new biography of Erskine, Jonathan Yeager lays out the life and thought of a hitherto under-researched - yet, in his day, widely respected - preacher and gives Erskine the scholarly treatment that he so richly deserves.
Download or read book Historical and Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Hope written by Steven C. van den Heuvel and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-20 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access volume makes an important contribution to the ongoing research on hope theory by combining insights from both its long history and its increasing multi-disciplinarity. In the first part, it recognizes the importance of the centuries-old reflection on hope by offering historical perspectives and tracing it back to ancient Greek philosophy. At the same time, it provides novel perspectives on often-overlooked historical theories and developments and challenges established views. The second part of the volume documents the state of the art of current research in hope across eight disciplines, which are philosophy, theology, psychology, economy, sociology, health studies, ecology, and development studies. Taken together, this volume provides an integrated view on hope as a multi-faced phenomenon. It contributes to the further understanding of hope as an essential human capacity, with the possibility of transforming our human societies.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism written by Karl Ameriks and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-24 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprehensive and incisive, with three new chapters, this updated edition sees world-renowned scholars explore a rich and complex philosophical movement.
Download or read book Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals written by Immanuel Kant and published by . This book was released on 1949 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Decolonising Gender written by Caroline Rooney and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-11-13 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through examination of the functions of language and cross-cultural readings of literature - from African queer reading to postcolonial Shakespeare - Rooney explores current ideas of performativity in literature and language, and negotiates a path between feminist theory’s common pitfalls of essentialism and constructivism.
Download or read book The Skeptic s Walk written by Denis Diderot and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2018-04-05 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a Divine Comedy or Pilgrim's Progress for the post-religious age. Finding himself on a quest through the forest of life towards the general rendez-vous at the end, our hero journeys first on the path of religion and faith, then the path of the philosophers where debate and ideas reign, and finally the path of worldly pursuits and pleasure. Along the way he dodges inquisitors, raging fanatics, insane philosophers, faithless lovers, and scheming social climbers. Truly a neglected classic. As Diderot said, "even if you are not amused, you may still benefit from it."This third edition was revised in 2018.
Download or read book The Dialogues of the Dead of the Early German Enlightenment written by Riccarda Suitner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-12-13 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting from the little reliable information available, Riccarda Suitner conducts an exciting investigation of the authors, production, illustrations, circulation and plagiarism of a series of anonymous "dialogues of the dead" in the intellectual world of the early eighteenth century, proposing a new image of the German Enlightenment.
Download or read book Democratic Enlightenment written by Jonathan Israel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-17 with total page 1083 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: That the Enlightenment shaped modernity is uncontested. Yet remarkably few historians or philosophers have attempted to trace the process of ideas from the political and social turmoil of the late eighteenth century to the present day. This is precisely what Jonathan Israel now does. In Democratic Enlightenment, Israel demonstrates that the Enlightenment was an essentially revolutionary process, driven by philosophical debate. The American Revolution and its concerns certainly acted as a major factor in the intellectual ferment that shaped the wider upheaval that followed, but the radical philosophes were no less critical than enthusiastic about the American model. From 1789, the General Revolution's impetus came from a small group of philosophe-revolutionnaires, men such as Mirabeau, Sieyes, Condorcet, Volney, Roederer, and Brissot. Not aligned to any of the social groups represented in the French National assembly, they nonetheless forged "la philosophie moderne"-in effect Radical Enlightenment ideas-into a world-transforming ideology that had a lasting impact in Latin America, Canada and Eastern Europe as well as France, Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries. In addition, Israel argues that while all French revolutionary journals powerfully affirmed that la philosophie moderne was the main cause of the French Revolution, the main stream of historical thought has failed to grasp what this implies. Israel sets the record straight, demonstrating the true nature of the engine that drove the Revolution, and the intimate links between the radical wing of the Enlightenment and the anti-Robespierriste "Revolution of reason."
Download or read book The Philosophy of the Enlightenment Routledge Revivals written by Lucien Goldmann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-11-02 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this reissue, originally published in English in 1973, French philosopher Lucien Goldmann turns his attention to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, the great age of liberalism and individualism and analyses the ‘mental structures’ of the outlook of the philosophes, who showed that the ancien regime and the privileges of the Church were irrational anachronisms. In assessing the strengths and limitations of individualism, Goldmann considers the achievements and limitations of the Enlightenment. He discusses the views of Hegel and Marx and examines the relation between liberal scepticism and traditional Christianity to point the way to the possible reconciliation of the two seemingly incompatible ‘world visions’ of East and West today.
Download or read book Meaning and Action written by Horace Standish Thayer and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 1981-01-01 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sophie s World written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
