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Very Short Introductions #443
The Enlightenment: A Very Short Introduction
A foundational moment in the history of modern European thought, the Enlightenment continues to be a reference point for philosophers, scholars and opinion-formers. To many it remains the inspiration of our commitments to the betterment of the human condition. To others, it represents the elevation of one set of European values to the world, many of whose peoples have quite different values.
But what is the relationship between the historical Enlightenment and the idea of 'Enlightenment', and can these two understandings be reconciled?
In this Very Short Introduction, John Robertson offers a concise historical introduction to the Enlightenment as an intellectual movement of eighteenth-century Europe. Discussing its intellectual achievements, he also explores how its supporters exploited new ways of communicating their ideas to a wider public, creating a new 'public sphere' for critical discussion of the moral, economic and political issues facing their societies.
ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
But what is the relationship between the historical Enlightenment and the idea of 'Enlightenment', and can these two understandings be reconciled?
In this Very Short Introduction, John Robertson offers a concise historical introduction to the Enlightenment as an intellectual movement of eighteenth-century Europe. Discussing its intellectual achievements, he also explores how its supporters exploited new ways of communicating their ideas to a wider public, creating a new 'public sphere' for critical discussion of the moral, economic and political issues facing their societies.
ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
167 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 24, 2015
110 people are currently reading
575 people want to read
About the author
John Robertson
5 books1 followerJohn Robertson is Professor Emeritus of the History of Political Thought at Cambridge University. He is also Emeritus Fellow of Clare College.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
December 27, 2018
One major takeaway from this book is that the study of history and other cultures, religions, economies can help identify and conceptualize problems in our own. History was a tool great thinkers like Voltaire, Gibbons and others used to inform their arguments and advance society.
Overall, this was a rewarding read, and greatly improved my understanding of the Enlightenment.
Overall, this was a rewarding read, and greatly improved my understanding of the Enlightenment.
April 29, 2018
The Enlightenment : A Very Short Introduction (2015) by John Robertson is an introduction to various Enlightenment thinkers and the influence they have had and how their contribution has been seen since The Enlightenment.
Robertson is a professor of the history of Political Thought at Oxford so he's well placed to write a book as ambitious as this that is so short. Kant, Hume, Smith, Rousseau and the other major enlightenment figures all have their impact and work described.
The book also discusses how The Enlightenment has been seen since by various philosophers and historians.
The book shows the diversity of thought of the major Enlightenment figures and inadvertently that Steven Pinker's thesis that it is some central idea from the Enlightenment that has driven current prosperity is dubious. This is not to say modernity isn't prosperous, just that Pinker's description of The Enlightenment as being a secular, atheist movement toward reason is not something that many of the major Enlightenment figures would have agreed with.
The book made me want to read more of the works of major Enlightenment figures and get more of an understanding of them. It was worth reading for me to get some overview of what is meant when people talk about The Enlightenment.
Robertson is a professor of the history of Political Thought at Oxford so he's well placed to write a book as ambitious as this that is so short. Kant, Hume, Smith, Rousseau and the other major enlightenment figures all have their impact and work described.
The book also discusses how The Enlightenment has been seen since by various philosophers and historians.
The book shows the diversity of thought of the major Enlightenment figures and inadvertently that Steven Pinker's thesis that it is some central idea from the Enlightenment that has driven current prosperity is dubious. This is not to say modernity isn't prosperous, just that Pinker's description of The Enlightenment as being a secular, atheist movement toward reason is not something that many of the major Enlightenment figures would have agreed with.
The book made me want to read more of the works of major Enlightenment figures and get more of an understanding of them. It was worth reading for me to get some overview of what is meant when people talk about The Enlightenment.
January 2, 2016
Very interesting introduction to a very important subject. I didn't even have to look up many words.
And it provides signposts for further reading, which I hope to spend much of 2016 following.
And it provides signposts for further reading, which I hope to spend much of 2016 following.
May 20, 2017
A very short introduction with some important limitations
For this small book, John Robertson, Professor of the History of Political Thought at Cambridge University, takes on the large goals of outlining of the Enlightenment and explaining why it has been and continues to be contested. He also gives his opinions on contemporary academic disputes. This review does not attempt to summarize the contents of Robertson's book and focuses instead on the book's the strengths and weaknesses and on Robertson's opinions. I recommend the book as an overview for non-beginners, but I disagree with some important points and the reader should be warned that this short work may not be sufficient for gaining much understanding of the Enlightenment nor why and how it has been contested. Those just beginning to learn about the Enlightenment may want to look for alternative books.
The author defines the Enlightenment as "an intellectual movement of 18th-century Europe … characterized by certain distinctive ideas, but also by the commitment of its adherents to engaging with a wider public of readers and practitioners." The Enlightenment was associated with "philosophy", in the wider contemporary sense of the word, including science, and "it held out the prospect of a new, explicitly modern understanding of human beings' place in the world, and of radical improvement in the human condition." For some contemporaries, such as Jean d'Alembert, the Enlightenment was a phenomenon or "philosophical spirit" of enlightening with "the knowledge of the true" based on sense experience, for others, such as Immanuel Kant, it was the enlightening of human understanding and moral judgement based on reason.
What I liked most about this book is Robertson's noble attempt to meet his almost impossible goals for such a short and small book. His writing shows that he is qualified to give an outline, his text is informative and well structured, and he generally aims at being objective as a professional historian should. (He is less objective when summarizing Jonathan Israel's work and describing it as "hubris", page 126.) I also liked the book's inclusion of less celebrated Enlightenment contributors and his comparison of how philosophers and historians have evaluated the Enlightenment in the last century.
There is certainly a need for readers to get an overview of the Enlightenment and the subsequent intellectual battles waged over it. Achieving a good understanding of the Enlightenment is not easy. The many aspects, trends and events can be overwhelming and somehow a reader must gain a view of the whole. Robertson is brave to take up the titanic challenge of summarizing what is certainly one of the most profound and broad historical phenomena of human history and of explaining how it was contested. As he points out, the Enlightenment thinkers were the first to recognise the great difficulty of writing good histories – those that take in social, economic, intellectual and other historical dimensions in addition to more traditional histories of nations and their leaders. Perhaps no one has managed to do so since, let alone in a "very short introduction" format. The author correctly states that the Enlightenment "did not embrace every new idea or advance every good cause of its time" (page 13), but he should also have stated that his outline simply does not cover some of the dimensions of the Enlightenment that he mentions in the preceding pages. The main drawback of the author's outline, however, is the insufficiency of its explanations or indeed lack of explanations of the Enlightenment ideas and figures that it mentions. The book should have explained more about fewer ideas and people. Here is just one example from many: although the author emphasizes the importance of the distinction between the French "Enlightenment as a phenomenon" and the German "enlightenment process" on pages 2 and 8, nowhere does the book explain this process. Beginners may be bewildered by partially explained names and concepts.
One drawback spanning a large part of the book is Robertson's insistence on defining the historic phenomenon of the Enlightenment according to calendar years – the 18th-century, as opposed to events, trends and continuities – and then going on to give example after example showing why this definition makes little sense. It is surprising in the first place that a professor of history would insist on using the 18th-century to set his goalposts; the history of thought is not tied to the Gregorian Calendar. And yet from page 3 onwards we read about events, trends and continuities starting in the 17th century that are obviously part of the intellectual movement called the Enlightenment. Enlightenment ideas of Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke were published and matured in the 17th century. Locke's conceptions of the self and of tabula rasa were certainly distinctive ideas of the Enlightenment. The contributions of Bacon and Newton to the Enlightenment focus on scientific method and empiricism were made in the 17th century. The "public" was sensitised to Enlightenment ideas in the 17th century. Coffee houses began to spread in the 17th century. Robertson's artificial definition (i.e., the 18th century limitation) leads to twisted history like the following: "The problem of determining an Enlightenment attitude towards religion is compounded by the extent to which its characteristic concerns were current well before the 18th. Critical enquiry into the history of religion, along with the arguments for toleration and for the subordination of church and state, were all to be found in the 17th century." If you define the Enlightenment as "an intellectual movement characterised by certain distinctive ideas", and these ideas were already maturing in the second half of the 17th-century, then it makes no sense to define the beginning of the historic phenomenon as the beginning of the 18th-century. On page 118, he points out that the historic phenomenon was clearly ended by the French Revolution – that is, by a historical event.
My main criticism is of the author's conclusion concerning the contemporary discussion of the relevance of the Enlightenment and his opinion that historians should not seek the relevance of history to modern society nor, by implication, bother to communicate what matters with respect to modern society.
Robertson states that an intellectual-historical approach to the Enlightenment – the approach taken in this book – can offer historical perspective (page 128). The terminology (e.g., "philosophy") and discourses of the 18th century were different from today. Key Enlightenment figures, including Locke, Rousseau and Adam Smith, recognised that Europeans were just as cruel as those societies they despised, that "progress" and "modernity" always came with of vanity, inequality and other moral compromises. Some central Enlightenment notions such as "political economy" were followed by 20th century ideologically driven disasters and are simply insufficient for 21st century challenges. The Enlightenment was no panacea and clearly did not open the doors of perfection to humanity. Page 129: "At this distance, therefore, we should not be trying to reassure ourselves that the Enlightenment still matters. But we can enrich our own thinking, our awareness of the variety of ways of understanding human affairs, by imaginatively reconstructing the conceptual languages of Enlightenment thinkers, recognizing the problems they encountered, and appreciating the originality of their responses to them. It is not the relevance of the past which the intellectual historian seeks, but the challenge of understanding how problems were formulated, addressed, and conceptualized in terms different from those we use now."
In summary, the author is saying that the Enlightenment was another world with a language foreign to our times, and that studying it can enrich our thinking and awareness, but intellectual historians should not be interested in its relevance today nor, by implication, bother to communicate that relevance to society. I disagree with this extremely limited view. University professors have an ethical duty to contribute to their field, to teach their students and to communicate with society. And society - the greater public - understands best and cares most about things that matter and are relevant. As the great historian John Morris Roberts wrote, everyday people “strive to make sense of events by getting them 'in perspective' and in fact make judgements about world history all the time." If historians do not help, the public will struggle to understand and will have dangerous misconceptions about the relevance of good things, such as the American Consitution, and about terrible things, such as the Holocaust.
Some central ideas of the Enlightenment – of liberty of religion, thought and expression; of tolerance, pluralism and secularism; of separation of state and church; of democracies; of human rights and betterment; of reasoning and constantly seeking knowledge of nature – are not utterly foreign words only particular to the Enlightenment context. The same can be said for dinstinctive Enlightenment ideas that were naieve and dangerous, such as confidence in rationalism and continuous progress. Enlightenment ideas are relevant and matter because they teach us how to protect humanity from tyranny, folly, hatred and ignorance.
For this small book, John Robertson, Professor of the History of Political Thought at Cambridge University, takes on the large goals of outlining of the Enlightenment and explaining why it has been and continues to be contested. He also gives his opinions on contemporary academic disputes. This review does not attempt to summarize the contents of Robertson's book and focuses instead on the book's the strengths and weaknesses and on Robertson's opinions. I recommend the book as an overview for non-beginners, but I disagree with some important points and the reader should be warned that this short work may not be sufficient for gaining much understanding of the Enlightenment nor why and how it has been contested. Those just beginning to learn about the Enlightenment may want to look for alternative books.
The author defines the Enlightenment as "an intellectual movement of 18th-century Europe … characterized by certain distinctive ideas, but also by the commitment of its adherents to engaging with a wider public of readers and practitioners." The Enlightenment was associated with "philosophy", in the wider contemporary sense of the word, including science, and "it held out the prospect of a new, explicitly modern understanding of human beings' place in the world, and of radical improvement in the human condition." For some contemporaries, such as Jean d'Alembert, the Enlightenment was a phenomenon or "philosophical spirit" of enlightening with "the knowledge of the true" based on sense experience, for others, such as Immanuel Kant, it was the enlightening of human understanding and moral judgement based on reason.
What I liked most about this book is Robertson's noble attempt to meet his almost impossible goals for such a short and small book. His writing shows that he is qualified to give an outline, his text is informative and well structured, and he generally aims at being objective as a professional historian should. (He is less objective when summarizing Jonathan Israel's work and describing it as "hubris", page 126.) I also liked the book's inclusion of less celebrated Enlightenment contributors and his comparison of how philosophers and historians have evaluated the Enlightenment in the last century.
There is certainly a need for readers to get an overview of the Enlightenment and the subsequent intellectual battles waged over it. Achieving a good understanding of the Enlightenment is not easy. The many aspects, trends and events can be overwhelming and somehow a reader must gain a view of the whole. Robertson is brave to take up the titanic challenge of summarizing what is certainly one of the most profound and broad historical phenomena of human history and of explaining how it was contested. As he points out, the Enlightenment thinkers were the first to recognise the great difficulty of writing good histories – those that take in social, economic, intellectual and other historical dimensions in addition to more traditional histories of nations and their leaders. Perhaps no one has managed to do so since, let alone in a "very short introduction" format. The author correctly states that the Enlightenment "did not embrace every new idea or advance every good cause of its time" (page 13), but he should also have stated that his outline simply does not cover some of the dimensions of the Enlightenment that he mentions in the preceding pages. The main drawback of the author's outline, however, is the insufficiency of its explanations or indeed lack of explanations of the Enlightenment ideas and figures that it mentions. The book should have explained more about fewer ideas and people. Here is just one example from many: although the author emphasizes the importance of the distinction between the French "Enlightenment as a phenomenon" and the German "enlightenment process" on pages 2 and 8, nowhere does the book explain this process. Beginners may be bewildered by partially explained names and concepts.
One drawback spanning a large part of the book is Robertson's insistence on defining the historic phenomenon of the Enlightenment according to calendar years – the 18th-century, as opposed to events, trends and continuities – and then going on to give example after example showing why this definition makes little sense. It is surprising in the first place that a professor of history would insist on using the 18th-century to set his goalposts; the history of thought is not tied to the Gregorian Calendar. And yet from page 3 onwards we read about events, trends and continuities starting in the 17th century that are obviously part of the intellectual movement called the Enlightenment. Enlightenment ideas of Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke were published and matured in the 17th century. Locke's conceptions of the self and of tabula rasa were certainly distinctive ideas of the Enlightenment. The contributions of Bacon and Newton to the Enlightenment focus on scientific method and empiricism were made in the 17th century. The "public" was sensitised to Enlightenment ideas in the 17th century. Coffee houses began to spread in the 17th century. Robertson's artificial definition (i.e., the 18th century limitation) leads to twisted history like the following: "The problem of determining an Enlightenment attitude towards religion is compounded by the extent to which its characteristic concerns were current well before the 18th. Critical enquiry into the history of religion, along with the arguments for toleration and for the subordination of church and state, were all to be found in the 17th century." If you define the Enlightenment as "an intellectual movement characterised by certain distinctive ideas", and these ideas were already maturing in the second half of the 17th-century, then it makes no sense to define the beginning of the historic phenomenon as the beginning of the 18th-century. On page 118, he points out that the historic phenomenon was clearly ended by the French Revolution – that is, by a historical event.
My main criticism is of the author's conclusion concerning the contemporary discussion of the relevance of the Enlightenment and his opinion that historians should not seek the relevance of history to modern society nor, by implication, bother to communicate what matters with respect to modern society.
Robertson states that an intellectual-historical approach to the Enlightenment – the approach taken in this book – can offer historical perspective (page 128). The terminology (e.g., "philosophy") and discourses of the 18th century were different from today. Key Enlightenment figures, including Locke, Rousseau and Adam Smith, recognised that Europeans were just as cruel as those societies they despised, that "progress" and "modernity" always came with of vanity, inequality and other moral compromises. Some central Enlightenment notions such as "political economy" were followed by 20th century ideologically driven disasters and are simply insufficient for 21st century challenges. The Enlightenment was no panacea and clearly did not open the doors of perfection to humanity. Page 129: "At this distance, therefore, we should not be trying to reassure ourselves that the Enlightenment still matters. But we can enrich our own thinking, our awareness of the variety of ways of understanding human affairs, by imaginatively reconstructing the conceptual languages of Enlightenment thinkers, recognizing the problems they encountered, and appreciating the originality of their responses to them. It is not the relevance of the past which the intellectual historian seeks, but the challenge of understanding how problems were formulated, addressed, and conceptualized in terms different from those we use now."
In summary, the author is saying that the Enlightenment was another world with a language foreign to our times, and that studying it can enrich our thinking and awareness, but intellectual historians should not be interested in its relevance today nor, by implication, bother to communicate that relevance to society. I disagree with this extremely limited view. University professors have an ethical duty to contribute to their field, to teach their students and to communicate with society. And society - the greater public - understands best and cares most about things that matter and are relevant. As the great historian John Morris Roberts wrote, everyday people “strive to make sense of events by getting them 'in perspective' and in fact make judgements about world history all the time." If historians do not help, the public will struggle to understand and will have dangerous misconceptions about the relevance of good things, such as the American Consitution, and about terrible things, such as the Holocaust.
Some central ideas of the Enlightenment – of liberty of religion, thought and expression; of tolerance, pluralism and secularism; of separation of state and church; of democracies; of human rights and betterment; of reasoning and constantly seeking knowledge of nature – are not utterly foreign words only particular to the Enlightenment context. The same can be said for dinstinctive Enlightenment ideas that were naieve and dangerous, such as confidence in rationalism and continuous progress. Enlightenment ideas are relevant and matter because they teach us how to protect humanity from tyranny, folly, hatred and ignorance.
September 8, 2020
A very dense short book about the Enlightenment before the French Revolution.It contains a lot of names and complexities of thought,which means it wasn’t very easily read and I had to reread paragraphs over and over again to get what the author meant.
I picked it up from the library thinking it was going to be an easy read but I was wrong.Considering I don’t have any formal education on the subject it analyses I’m not surprised by my difficulty to understand it.Still,I captured a great deal of the history and the ideas the philosophers were broadcasting and defending.
The idea of short introductions into topics I have little to no knowledge of,is very interesting though,and I will attempt to read more of the series.After all,a subject is hard to understand at the first try and usually and gradually becomes easier the more you’re exposed to it and study it.
My favourite quote:
“It is not the relevance of the past which the intellectual historian seeks, but the challenge of understanding how problems were formulated, addressed, and conceptualised in terms different from those we use now.What is particularly interesting about Enlightenment thought was its willingness to engage with change in this world independent of the next,to think about what might constitute ‘progress’.”
I picked it up from the library thinking it was going to be an easy read but I was wrong.Considering I don’t have any formal education on the subject it analyses I’m not surprised by my difficulty to understand it.Still,I captured a great deal of the history and the ideas the philosophers were broadcasting and defending.
The idea of short introductions into topics I have little to no knowledge of,is very interesting though,and I will attempt to read more of the series.After all,a subject is hard to understand at the first try and usually and gradually becomes easier the more you’re exposed to it and study it.
My favourite quote:
“It is not the relevance of the past which the intellectual historian seeks, but the challenge of understanding how problems were formulated, addressed, and conceptualised in terms different from those we use now.What is particularly interesting about Enlightenment thought was its willingness to engage with change in this world independent of the next,to think about what might constitute ‘progress’.”
July 14, 2017
A brilliant exploration of the key themes, ideas, and preoccupations of the Enlightenment. Unlike some other historians, Robertson maintains that the Enlightenment did exist as a discernible intellectual movement with a distinct set of concerns and methodologies. At the same time, he attempts to distinguish between the historian's Enlightenment and the philosopher's Enlightenment, while acknowledging the truth in both characterizations.
One thing I especially appreciate, both about the book and this series in general, is that "very short introduction" does not mean "for dummies." In each chapter, Robertson dives right in to some pretty heady specifics on, say, Biblical scholarship, natural philosophy, and ethics. However, these specifics are rarely overwhelming, instead providing a refreshingly immediate window into the discourses the better known works / authors of the period were responding to.
I also enjoyed the casual de-centering of the French philosophes. Instead of reading about a French Enlightenment and its shadows, Robertson narrates a truly pan-European phenomenon, in which Neapolitan, Dutch, German, Scottish and (less so) English texts interact with one another.
I found the chapter on public opinion particularly strong.
One thing I especially appreciate, both about the book and this series in general, is that "very short introduction" does not mean "for dummies." In each chapter, Robertson dives right in to some pretty heady specifics on, say, Biblical scholarship, natural philosophy, and ethics. However, these specifics are rarely overwhelming, instead providing a refreshingly immediate window into the discourses the better known works / authors of the period were responding to.
I also enjoyed the casual de-centering of the French philosophes. Instead of reading about a French Enlightenment and its shadows, Robertson narrates a truly pan-European phenomenon, in which Neapolitan, Dutch, German, Scottish and (less so) English texts interact with one another.
I found the chapter on public opinion particularly strong.
May 22, 2017
DNF at 50%.
Literally no point in finishing this. It's going in one ear and straight out the other. You'd think as a mainstream introduction that this would be easy to read and follow. It's not. It's boring as hell.
Literally no point in finishing this. It's going in one ear and straight out the other. You'd think as a mainstream introduction that this would be easy to read and follow. It's not. It's boring as hell.
December 29, 2022
The exact meaning, nature, and scope of the Enlightenment remains a topic of disagreement among historians and philosophers studying the period. Although acknowledging the ongoing debates about defining the Enlightenment, John Robertson believes the Enlightenment can best be described as an 18th century philosophical movement committed to improving our methods of understanding and the human condition that came to characterize “modernity itself (2).”
The origin of the English word Enlightenment stems from the French terms lumiéres and the German Aufklärung, which explicitly associated the term with philosophy. Jean D’Alembert in his “Preliminary Discourse” to his Encyclopédie championed the epistemology of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Isaac Newton that placed the senses as the primary source of knowledge and understanding about the world. While the German term is most famously associated with the philosopher Immanuel Kant who offered his own definition of the Enlightenment as “the freedom to make public use of one’s reason with the goal of liberating mankind from its self-imposed immaturity (7).” As this example reveals it is problematic to speak of the Enlightenment as containing one single mode of thought or set of ideas. Kant’s philosophy is contesting the idea supported by D’Alembert that the senses are the sole source of our understanding, restoring an important role for reason in the picture.
The study of the Enlightenment has changed much from its initial limited association with philosophy and the 18th century critics who accused it of irreligion, subverting society, and unrealistic expectations about liberty that led to the extravagances of the French Revolution. As the study of history became professionalized in the university, historians of the Enlightenment increasing expanded the geographic investigation beyond France and certain cities of Germany to Enlightenment activity in other parts of Europe such as Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, Scotland, England, etc. Further academic research has expanded the topic beyond philosophy to other intellectual spheres such as literature, religion, and science. There has also been an interest on the social history of the lower classes during the period, the salons and coffeehouses where the ideas circulated and were discussed, and the role of women during the Enlightenment.
With his philosophical focus, Robertson sets out to explore the distinctive characteristics of Enlightenment thought. While popular imagination paints the Enlightenment as anti-religion and against superstition, later scholarship has drawn a more nuanced picture. The Enlightenment transformed the role of religion to “an optional rather than a necessary dimension of social life (15).” At best, only the radical Enlightenment might be described this way.
In this period, Christians distinguished between revealed religion and natural religion. Over time, Christianity had developed a concept of natural law, believing that while some people might not acknowledge the specific revealed teachings of the Bible, all people had an obligation to follow certain laws of nature established by God. As they encountered new cultures across the globe, Christians also began to view religion itself as universal. This new understanding that religion was natural among humans allowed Catholic Jesuits and Protestants to form new strategies for converting non-Christian natives across the globe. Among scholars, these encounters with different peoples and the belief in natural religion motivated the field of comparative religions as a growing area of academic study. Even the scientific discoveries of the 17th century didn’t so much as undermine faith, but supported the Christian belief in God and his role as the designer of nature.
At the same time, the Bible became increasingly interpreted through an historical understanding rather than primarily a theological one. There was a growing sense that the texts had been corrupted over time and were products of historical contingency rather than reflecting pure divine revelation. Scholars of the late 17th century increasingly developed a skepticism toward the text of the Bible itself driven by scholars such as Richard Simon and Jean Le Clerc. Simon questioned the reliability of the biblical text by pointing out the problem of textual corruption over time with no way to verify any book’s or verse’s authenticity without possessing a biblical original. Although his book eventually ended up on the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books, Simon had hoped to create a new critical edition of the Bible to replace Jerome’s Vulgate. Meanwhile Le Clerc focused on the changing meaning of Hebrew over time, which suggested different portions and books were written at different periods, which drew the ire of stricter Calvinists. Other Enlightenment thinkers such as the Jewish Moses Mendelssohn challenged Le Clerc’s idea that the meaning of the Hebrew changed over time, suggesting there wasn’t one single position held among Enlightenment thinkers.
Another line of thought represented by John Toland in his famous book, Christianity not Mysterious, claimed that priests had mystified the meaning of the Bible and Christian worship with theology to buttress their own interests, insisting that scripture could be interpreted by anyone. This wasn’t so much anti-religious but rather anti-clerical, and wanted to return the Bible back to the laypeople and place religion on more rational grounds. Pierre Bayle in his “Diverse Thoughts on the Comet” criticized those who viewed comets as omens of future devastation, claiming this was a form of superstitious idolatry inconsistent with the worship of God. Both of these may seem skeptical; nevertheless, they also fit into a larger Protestant tradition of removing extraneous superstition from legitimate expressions of personal faith.
Despite these examples more critical strands did exist among groups of irreligious freethinkers. They established underground networks of literature where they circulated forbidden publications such as the Treatise of the Three Impostors among themselves. If there were some circles advocating a more radical irreligion during the Enlightenment, it is equally true that there was a growing fascination in learning about other religions among the general public as attested by the seven volume Religious Ceremonies of the World (1723-37) published by Jean Frederic Bernard, which became bestseller.
Another problem that occupied scholars that led to the historical turn was matching up biblical chronology internally and with the historical chronology of other ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia that had recently become areas of academic study. Comte de Buffon studies on natural history postulated a time span between 75,000 to 3,000,000 years, leaving him to reconcile the implications of this long history to Biblical chronology by separating natural history from sacred history, arguing that sacred history recorded human civilization rather than all time, but the consequence of this was that “the unity of sacred history as an account of the beginning of the world and its first people had been sundered (32).” These difficulties with chronology, however, didn’t weaken faith for many, but often supported new interpretations of various parts of the Bible by giving it a new historical context.
The Enlightenment also witnessed new arguments for religious toleration. The context of debates about religious toleration was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 by the French King Louis XVI and was at first driven largely by Huguenot refugees. As part of his philosophy, John Locke argued people had an obligation originating in the law of nature to protect themselves and interests by establishing civil power by their consent and the law of nature also required men to worship God as they saw fit and associate in religious worship by their consent. The civil authority had no place to dictate religious beliefs, which should remain a personal matter of conscience and the responsibility of each individual to attend to their own salvation as they saw fit. At its heart this appeal was fundamentally Protestant. Locke’s toleration applied to Protestants, but not Catholics who served two masters in the form of the Pope and atheists who would feel no obligation to follow the basic rules of natural law created by God. Whereas Pierre Bayle argued the provocative thesis that atheists could be as moral and productive members of society as the religious since most people were driven by their passions anyway, and questioned “the necessity of religion to human society.” Society had no place in religion and religion had no place dictating the larger society, therefore toleration should be the norm. Many other thinkers of the period made their own case for religious toleration.
Another major area of Enlightenment thought was exploring how to better the human condition. They raised new questions about the origins of society, the basis of how people managed to cooperate and live together, and the nature of our morals, with the hope to guide people to lead better lives and live in a more just society. As with religion, one single moral theory or position didn’t characterize Enlightenment thought. Some believed morals stemmed from reason and others our sentiments. Lord Shaftesbury argued for morals as being a code of manners attainable only by a gentleman with sufficient leisure time to cultivate these habits of behavior. Kant famously expressed his views on morals as the Categorical Imperative (acting in accordance with a maxim that can at the same time make itself a universal law). For him we formulate our moral principles by reason. Whereas Hume argued that we act morally because we want to appear good and admirable in the eyes of other people, while justice in society is an artificial convention of humanity that has been accepted by common agreement over time and not something that exists as part of nature. Meanwhile Adam Smith, taking Hume’s lead, considered something moral if an impartial person could sympathize with another person’s feelings while enacting or experiencing an action.
The Enlightenment not only began to apply history to the Bible, but the period expressed a renewed interest in history more generally, fashioning a new way of writing about history that focused on understanding political events in relation to the social structure of society and its manners. Historians developed a new understanding of history as linked to progress. At the same time, Natural historians began to recognize similarities between humans and chimpanzees and invent pseudoscientific theories about different types of men that undergirded concepts of racism and slavery. Of particular interesest to Enlightenment historians was exploring why some societies seemed to be more advanced than others. They developed a stadial theory of social development in which societies progress through stages. This allowed them to identify a sense of prog. Philosophers and historians became fascinated with the infinite variety of cultures and plethora of ways humans lived in other societies. Nevertheless, historians of this period struggled to create historical narratives that balanced and fit in all these new interests in manners, geography, and the role of women into the traditional historical framework of narratives about government and chronology of kings.
Alongside this was a renewed interest in the origin of languages, the origins of civilization and society itself, and the condition of women. In contrast to these tendencies of linking civilization with progress, one of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau envisaged modern human society as a degrading force on humanity that restricted our liberty and freedom that we had when we were free individuals living alone in nature. Civilization wasn’t an advantage, but produced inequality, inevitable suffering, and moral hypocrisy. Building off Rousseau, many thinkers such as Diderot and Abbé Raynal adopted anti-imperialism and wrote narratives criticizing the hypocrisy, exploitation, and immorality of Europeans towards native peoples.
Another new area of study was Political economy. Economics took on a new role as a science of commerce in society. In particular, Adam Smith’s Wealth of the Nations thrust economics as a central concern of Enlightenment Thought.
“Here, I suggest, was the core of the Enlightenment’s contribution to Western thought: political economy as the prospect of human betterment, in this world rather than the next, in the present over the past. . . . Enlightenment philosophers, historians, and economists were all too aware of the enduring obstacles of commerce, not least from ill-informed, short-sighted governments. Still, they were optimistic, observing that the activities of modern commercial economy were so diverse, and required the decisions of so many individuals across the world, that they were now beyond the ability of any government to control (80).”
In other words, this new economic perspective saw individuals and their interests as the main drive of the economy rather than government policy and attempts to control it. In the world of politics, this was related to the idea that governments serve their people and should listen to their opinions.
“The conviction that political influence must now be exerted through public opinion distinguished the Enlightenment approach to politics, constituting its novel strength and, in the end, fatal weakness (81).”
As Robertson points out many Enlightenment thinkers weren’t just interest in writing abstract arguments about society and religion, but wanted to enact their ideas directly, joining the courts or corresponding with the “Enlightened Despots” such as Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine II of Russia, and Joseph II of Austria, even if some of them treated the philosophes as amusements rather than trusted advisors. Robertson notes “that what distinguished the Enlightenment was the agency of philosophers and men of letters in relation to their ‘public’. What they sought was a new role for themselves as formers of ‘public opinion’, understood as an instrument by which they could guide but also effectively limit what governments could hope to achieve (83).” A new politics of public opinion emerged in which philosophers viewed it as their role to shape and guide.
More recent historical studies has shifted from political history to explore social and cultural history. The Enlightenment was just a matter of new ideas, but was also the product of new social institutions where those ideas could be shared and discussed. were shared and growing publishing industry and book culture. One of the new places where new ideas and political discussions circulated was the coffee house, which began to appear and spread across Europe in the mid-17th century. Another area for intellectual discussion was the more elite salons, often sponsored by upper-class women, who invited famous men of letters to discuss and debate various topics. At the same time, the authorities of many European nations founded academies and societies such as the Berlin Academy and the Select Society of Edinburgh which sponsored essays that stimulated philosophical discourse and gave prestige to men of letters or revamped their universities from the older medieval models.
Perhaps the leading source of spreading Enlightenment ideas was the expansion of the amount of books being published. In particular periodicals, novels, histories, and scandal literature increased in proportion to religious and biblical literature. There was a greater variety of works published, and although copyright laws first started appearing to protect authors and publishers, unauthorized reprinting by publishers in other countries outside of the jurisdiction was rampant, which allowed for wider circulation. Many of these controversial books benefited from the censors of various states being too overwhelmed and understaffed to keep up with all the books published and waiting to be approved. The growing demand and success of book publishing as an industry then allowed for works with potentially controversial content to be published with reduced censorship.
A new type of publication appeared in the late 17th century that further enhanced the status of the author and helped spread Enlightenment ideas: literary journals. The most famous examples were Pierre Bayle’s Nouvelles de la république des letters and Jean Le Clerc’s Bibliothèque universelle. Soon literary review journals appeared in many different European countries. Journals such as the Spectator provided reading material and content for discussion in the coffeehouses. All of this also suggests a large increase in literacy. More readers, books, and the rise of journals dedicated to ideas and literary culture enhanced the role and prestige of authorship in general. Being an author now could potentially provide monetary independence and other career opportunities much rarer in previous eras.
The last chapter dedicates itself to dealing with critics of Enlightenment. Most of the criticism has come from Marxist and postmodern philosophers such as Theodor Adorno, Richard Rorty, and Michel Foucault. More recent scholarship in history has reaffirmed the modernity of the Enlightenment and that the issues they raised still matter to us today. The book attempts to split the difference.
“There is therefore more to the philosophers’ debate over Enlightenment that the historians’ one-sided affirmation of its ‘modernity’ has allowed. . . . But there is certainly scope for a greater degree of mutual respect. More philosophers might recognize that there was more to the Enlightenment than Kant; historians that the concept of ‘modernity’ cannot be exclusively identified with liberal values and human well-being, but has long been treated by philosophers as ambiguous and contested (128).”
Ultimately the author reminds us that the challenges of today would have been unimaginable and are different than the issues the Enlightenment thinkers addressed. It is less important to ask if the Enlightenment still matters for our own issues and better to accept that it offers us a deeper understanding of the period in question and the way they thought about and experienced the world.
The origin of the English word Enlightenment stems from the French terms lumiéres and the German Aufklärung, which explicitly associated the term with philosophy. Jean D’Alembert in his “Preliminary Discourse” to his Encyclopédie championed the epistemology of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Isaac Newton that placed the senses as the primary source of knowledge and understanding about the world. While the German term is most famously associated with the philosopher Immanuel Kant who offered his own definition of the Enlightenment as “the freedom to make public use of one’s reason with the goal of liberating mankind from its self-imposed immaturity (7).” As this example reveals it is problematic to speak of the Enlightenment as containing one single mode of thought or set of ideas. Kant’s philosophy is contesting the idea supported by D’Alembert that the senses are the sole source of our understanding, restoring an important role for reason in the picture.
The study of the Enlightenment has changed much from its initial limited association with philosophy and the 18th century critics who accused it of irreligion, subverting society, and unrealistic expectations about liberty that led to the extravagances of the French Revolution. As the study of history became professionalized in the university, historians of the Enlightenment increasing expanded the geographic investigation beyond France and certain cities of Germany to Enlightenment activity in other parts of Europe such as Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, Scotland, England, etc. Further academic research has expanded the topic beyond philosophy to other intellectual spheres such as literature, religion, and science. There has also been an interest on the social history of the lower classes during the period, the salons and coffeehouses where the ideas circulated and were discussed, and the role of women during the Enlightenment.
With his philosophical focus, Robertson sets out to explore the distinctive characteristics of Enlightenment thought. While popular imagination paints the Enlightenment as anti-religion and against superstition, later scholarship has drawn a more nuanced picture. The Enlightenment transformed the role of religion to “an optional rather than a necessary dimension of social life (15).” At best, only the radical Enlightenment might be described this way.
In this period, Christians distinguished between revealed religion and natural religion. Over time, Christianity had developed a concept of natural law, believing that while some people might not acknowledge the specific revealed teachings of the Bible, all people had an obligation to follow certain laws of nature established by God. As they encountered new cultures across the globe, Christians also began to view religion itself as universal. This new understanding that religion was natural among humans allowed Catholic Jesuits and Protestants to form new strategies for converting non-Christian natives across the globe. Among scholars, these encounters with different peoples and the belief in natural religion motivated the field of comparative religions as a growing area of academic study. Even the scientific discoveries of the 17th century didn’t so much as undermine faith, but supported the Christian belief in God and his role as the designer of nature.
At the same time, the Bible became increasingly interpreted through an historical understanding rather than primarily a theological one. There was a growing sense that the texts had been corrupted over time and were products of historical contingency rather than reflecting pure divine revelation. Scholars of the late 17th century increasingly developed a skepticism toward the text of the Bible itself driven by scholars such as Richard Simon and Jean Le Clerc. Simon questioned the reliability of the biblical text by pointing out the problem of textual corruption over time with no way to verify any book’s or verse’s authenticity without possessing a biblical original. Although his book eventually ended up on the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books, Simon had hoped to create a new critical edition of the Bible to replace Jerome’s Vulgate. Meanwhile Le Clerc focused on the changing meaning of Hebrew over time, which suggested different portions and books were written at different periods, which drew the ire of stricter Calvinists. Other Enlightenment thinkers such as the Jewish Moses Mendelssohn challenged Le Clerc’s idea that the meaning of the Hebrew changed over time, suggesting there wasn’t one single position held among Enlightenment thinkers.
Another line of thought represented by John Toland in his famous book, Christianity not Mysterious, claimed that priests had mystified the meaning of the Bible and Christian worship with theology to buttress their own interests, insisting that scripture could be interpreted by anyone. This wasn’t so much anti-religious but rather anti-clerical, and wanted to return the Bible back to the laypeople and place religion on more rational grounds. Pierre Bayle in his “Diverse Thoughts on the Comet” criticized those who viewed comets as omens of future devastation, claiming this was a form of superstitious idolatry inconsistent with the worship of God. Both of these may seem skeptical; nevertheless, they also fit into a larger Protestant tradition of removing extraneous superstition from legitimate expressions of personal faith.
Despite these examples more critical strands did exist among groups of irreligious freethinkers. They established underground networks of literature where they circulated forbidden publications such as the Treatise of the Three Impostors among themselves. If there were some circles advocating a more radical irreligion during the Enlightenment, it is equally true that there was a growing fascination in learning about other religions among the general public as attested by the seven volume Religious Ceremonies of the World (1723-37) published by Jean Frederic Bernard, which became bestseller.
Another problem that occupied scholars that led to the historical turn was matching up biblical chronology internally and with the historical chronology of other ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia that had recently become areas of academic study. Comte de Buffon studies on natural history postulated a time span between 75,000 to 3,000,000 years, leaving him to reconcile the implications of this long history to Biblical chronology by separating natural history from sacred history, arguing that sacred history recorded human civilization rather than all time, but the consequence of this was that “the unity of sacred history as an account of the beginning of the world and its first people had been sundered (32).” These difficulties with chronology, however, didn’t weaken faith for many, but often supported new interpretations of various parts of the Bible by giving it a new historical context.
The Enlightenment also witnessed new arguments for religious toleration. The context of debates about religious toleration was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 by the French King Louis XVI and was at first driven largely by Huguenot refugees. As part of his philosophy, John Locke argued people had an obligation originating in the law of nature to protect themselves and interests by establishing civil power by their consent and the law of nature also required men to worship God as they saw fit and associate in religious worship by their consent. The civil authority had no place to dictate religious beliefs, which should remain a personal matter of conscience and the responsibility of each individual to attend to their own salvation as they saw fit. At its heart this appeal was fundamentally Protestant. Locke’s toleration applied to Protestants, but not Catholics who served two masters in the form of the Pope and atheists who would feel no obligation to follow the basic rules of natural law created by God. Whereas Pierre Bayle argued the provocative thesis that atheists could be as moral and productive members of society as the religious since most people were driven by their passions anyway, and questioned “the necessity of religion to human society.” Society had no place in religion and religion had no place dictating the larger society, therefore toleration should be the norm. Many other thinkers of the period made their own case for religious toleration.
Another major area of Enlightenment thought was exploring how to better the human condition. They raised new questions about the origins of society, the basis of how people managed to cooperate and live together, and the nature of our morals, with the hope to guide people to lead better lives and live in a more just society. As with religion, one single moral theory or position didn’t characterize Enlightenment thought. Some believed morals stemmed from reason and others our sentiments. Lord Shaftesbury argued for morals as being a code of manners attainable only by a gentleman with sufficient leisure time to cultivate these habits of behavior. Kant famously expressed his views on morals as the Categorical Imperative (acting in accordance with a maxim that can at the same time make itself a universal law). For him we formulate our moral principles by reason. Whereas Hume argued that we act morally because we want to appear good and admirable in the eyes of other people, while justice in society is an artificial convention of humanity that has been accepted by common agreement over time and not something that exists as part of nature. Meanwhile Adam Smith, taking Hume’s lead, considered something moral if an impartial person could sympathize with another person’s feelings while enacting or experiencing an action.
The Enlightenment not only began to apply history to the Bible, but the period expressed a renewed interest in history more generally, fashioning a new way of writing about history that focused on understanding political events in relation to the social structure of society and its manners. Historians developed a new understanding of history as linked to progress. At the same time, Natural historians began to recognize similarities between humans and chimpanzees and invent pseudoscientific theories about different types of men that undergirded concepts of racism and slavery. Of particular interesest to Enlightenment historians was exploring why some societies seemed to be more advanced than others. They developed a stadial theory of social development in which societies progress through stages. This allowed them to identify a sense of prog. Philosophers and historians became fascinated with the infinite variety of cultures and plethora of ways humans lived in other societies. Nevertheless, historians of this period struggled to create historical narratives that balanced and fit in all these new interests in manners, geography, and the role of women into the traditional historical framework of narratives about government and chronology of kings.
Alongside this was a renewed interest in the origin of languages, the origins of civilization and society itself, and the condition of women. In contrast to these tendencies of linking civilization with progress, one of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau envisaged modern human society as a degrading force on humanity that restricted our liberty and freedom that we had when we were free individuals living alone in nature. Civilization wasn’t an advantage, but produced inequality, inevitable suffering, and moral hypocrisy. Building off Rousseau, many thinkers such as Diderot and Abbé Raynal adopted anti-imperialism and wrote narratives criticizing the hypocrisy, exploitation, and immorality of Europeans towards native peoples.
Another new area of study was Political economy. Economics took on a new role as a science of commerce in society. In particular, Adam Smith’s Wealth of the Nations thrust economics as a central concern of Enlightenment Thought.
“Here, I suggest, was the core of the Enlightenment’s contribution to Western thought: political economy as the prospect of human betterment, in this world rather than the next, in the present over the past. . . . Enlightenment philosophers, historians, and economists were all too aware of the enduring obstacles of commerce, not least from ill-informed, short-sighted governments. Still, they were optimistic, observing that the activities of modern commercial economy were so diverse, and required the decisions of so many individuals across the world, that they were now beyond the ability of any government to control (80).”
In other words, this new economic perspective saw individuals and their interests as the main drive of the economy rather than government policy and attempts to control it. In the world of politics, this was related to the idea that governments serve their people and should listen to their opinions.
“The conviction that political influence must now be exerted through public opinion distinguished the Enlightenment approach to politics, constituting its novel strength and, in the end, fatal weakness (81).”
As Robertson points out many Enlightenment thinkers weren’t just interest in writing abstract arguments about society and religion, but wanted to enact their ideas directly, joining the courts or corresponding with the “Enlightened Despots” such as Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine II of Russia, and Joseph II of Austria, even if some of them treated the philosophes as amusements rather than trusted advisors. Robertson notes “that what distinguished the Enlightenment was the agency of philosophers and men of letters in relation to their ‘public’. What they sought was a new role for themselves as formers of ‘public opinion’, understood as an instrument by which they could guide but also effectively limit what governments could hope to achieve (83).” A new politics of public opinion emerged in which philosophers viewed it as their role to shape and guide.
More recent historical studies has shifted from political history to explore social and cultural history. The Enlightenment was just a matter of new ideas, but was also the product of new social institutions where those ideas could be shared and discussed. were shared and growing publishing industry and book culture. One of the new places where new ideas and political discussions circulated was the coffee house, which began to appear and spread across Europe in the mid-17th century. Another area for intellectual discussion was the more elite salons, often sponsored by upper-class women, who invited famous men of letters to discuss and debate various topics. At the same time, the authorities of many European nations founded academies and societies such as the Berlin Academy and the Select Society of Edinburgh which sponsored essays that stimulated philosophical discourse and gave prestige to men of letters or revamped their universities from the older medieval models.
Perhaps the leading source of spreading Enlightenment ideas was the expansion of the amount of books being published. In particular periodicals, novels, histories, and scandal literature increased in proportion to religious and biblical literature. There was a greater variety of works published, and although copyright laws first started appearing to protect authors and publishers, unauthorized reprinting by publishers in other countries outside of the jurisdiction was rampant, which allowed for wider circulation. Many of these controversial books benefited from the censors of various states being too overwhelmed and understaffed to keep up with all the books published and waiting to be approved. The growing demand and success of book publishing as an industry then allowed for works with potentially controversial content to be published with reduced censorship.
A new type of publication appeared in the late 17th century that further enhanced the status of the author and helped spread Enlightenment ideas: literary journals. The most famous examples were Pierre Bayle’s Nouvelles de la république des letters and Jean Le Clerc’s Bibliothèque universelle. Soon literary review journals appeared in many different European countries. Journals such as the Spectator provided reading material and content for discussion in the coffeehouses. All of this also suggests a large increase in literacy. More readers, books, and the rise of journals dedicated to ideas and literary culture enhanced the role and prestige of authorship in general. Being an author now could potentially provide monetary independence and other career opportunities much rarer in previous eras.
The last chapter dedicates itself to dealing with critics of Enlightenment. Most of the criticism has come from Marxist and postmodern philosophers such as Theodor Adorno, Richard Rorty, and Michel Foucault. More recent scholarship in history has reaffirmed the modernity of the Enlightenment and that the issues they raised still matter to us today. The book attempts to split the difference.
“There is therefore more to the philosophers’ debate over Enlightenment that the historians’ one-sided affirmation of its ‘modernity’ has allowed. . . . But there is certainly scope for a greater degree of mutual respect. More philosophers might recognize that there was more to the Enlightenment than Kant; historians that the concept of ‘modernity’ cannot be exclusively identified with liberal values and human well-being, but has long been treated by philosophers as ambiguous and contested (128).”
Ultimately the author reminds us that the challenges of today would have been unimaginable and are different than the issues the Enlightenment thinkers addressed. It is less important to ask if the Enlightenment still matters for our own issues and better to accept that it offers us a deeper understanding of the period in question and the way they thought about and experienced the world.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 3, 2017
I’ve always struggled to get my head around what precisely was meant by the Enlightenment. To me, it means a period in the eighteenth century, in which intellectuals tried to be a bit more, well, enlightened. It speaks to me of science, and networking, and the idea of progress—including a gradual abandonment of religion, and the adoption of more secular thought. But it was never clear to me whether how I thought of the Enlightenment was consistent with how everyone else thinks of it. So, when I saw Oxford University Press’s short introduction to this very subject, I thought it was time to find out once and for all what the Enlightenment was all about.
It turns out my general confusion was far more reasonable than I’d imagined. As Michael J Benson explains in this rather high-brow, and often difficult-to-understand ‘introduction’, the concept of the Enlightenment meant different things to different people at the time, and has evolved to mean different things to different people today. Benson goes to great lengths to explain the different takes on the concept, making a particular distinction between what it meant (and means) to philosophers, and what it means to historians. As a person who is neither, however, I found his early description of the Enlightenment as “a distinct intellectual movement of the 18th century, dedicated to the better understanding, and thence practical advancement, of the human condition on this earth” a useful one-line summary.
Benson clearly knows his subject inside-out, and his writing is necessarily succinct. At times, however, it becomes so succinct as to be incomprehensible to the lay-person. Well, to this lay-person, at least. Here’s an example (from p.54):
(No, me neither.)
Such personal cluelessness aside, I did, however, particularly enjoy Benson’s chapter on ‘Enlightening the public’. This was more in line with what I looking for from this book: a description of how Enlightenment ideas were communicated to the public by way of coffee houses, the printed word, literary salons, and so on.
A useful but difficult book.
It turns out my general confusion was far more reasonable than I’d imagined. As Michael J Benson explains in this rather high-brow, and often difficult-to-understand ‘introduction’, the concept of the Enlightenment meant different things to different people at the time, and has evolved to mean different things to different people today. Benson goes to great lengths to explain the different takes on the concept, making a particular distinction between what it meant (and means) to philosophers, and what it means to historians. As a person who is neither, however, I found his early description of the Enlightenment as “a distinct intellectual movement of the 18th century, dedicated to the better understanding, and thence practical advancement, of the human condition on this earth” a useful one-line summary.
Benson clearly knows his subject inside-out, and his writing is necessarily succinct. At times, however, it becomes so succinct as to be incomprehensible to the lay-person. Well, to this lay-person, at least. Here’s an example (from p.54):
In the Catholic intellectual world, meanwhile, the problem of sociability came to the fore by another route. The catalyst was the Lettres Provinciales (1657) by Blaise Pascal (1623–62). Inspired by rigourist Augustinian theology, the Provinciales were a scathingly ironic attack on the moral casuistry and missionary compromises of the Jesuits. Insisting on the passion-driven concupiscence of the fallen man, Pascal effectively denied the capacity of natural law, or of its ancient philosophical progenitor, Stoicism, to render and keep men sociable. But if the Fall had made natural sociability impossible, how then did men manage to live in societies? [ …]
(No, me neither.)
Such personal cluelessness aside, I did, however, particularly enjoy Benson’s chapter on ‘Enlightening the public’. This was more in line with what I looking for from this book: a description of how Enlightenment ideas were communicated to the public by way of coffee houses, the printed word, literary salons, and so on.
A useful but difficult book.
June 7, 2023
This brief guide offers an overview of the philosophy and history of the period known as "the Enlightenment." It focuses heavily on the differing views of prominent thinkers within the era rather than comparing the Enlightenment to periods before and after. The book discusses the various ways Enlightenment thinkers related to religion in this period before Nietzsche's "God is dead," but with it being a time during which the idea of God (particularly among the scholarly) was badly injured. The book also examines competing views of governance as the Enlightenment brought new ideas about individual liberty and cast doubt on "divine rights" to rule. The book also explores to what degree there was a distinct Enlightenment period, and whether it still matters -- focusing on differing views between historians and philosophers.
On the positive side, this book does teach readers that the Enlightenment is a much more complicated concept than we tend to believe. On the other hand, it isn't a particularly readable account. The reader doesn't get a good feel for how the Enlightenment came about, what deficits led to it, and how passions became enflamed. There's not as much Voltaire as a reader who likes bold ideas and witty remarks would like, and there's a fair amount of discussion of debates that seem -- in the grand scheme of things -- not so crucial.
If you've read other works on the Enlightenment, this one may add depth to your understanding, but I wouldn't call it a good entry point into the topic (despite that being the mandate of the series of which it's a part.)
On the positive side, this book does teach readers that the Enlightenment is a much more complicated concept than we tend to believe. On the other hand, it isn't a particularly readable account. The reader doesn't get a good feel for how the Enlightenment came about, what deficits led to it, and how passions became enflamed. There's not as much Voltaire as a reader who likes bold ideas and witty remarks would like, and there's a fair amount of discussion of debates that seem -- in the grand scheme of things -- not so crucial.
If you've read other works on the Enlightenment, this one may add depth to your understanding, but I wouldn't call it a good entry point into the topic (despite that being the mandate of the series of which it's a part.)
January 16, 2023
A useful book that did a good job of exposing the ignorance of this particular reader and, to a certain extent, ameliorating it. Until now, I'd always assumed that the Enlightenment was a cultural movement, a bit like the Renaissance but a couple of centuries later. Thanks to this very short introduction, I have learned that it was more of an intellectual movement—in fact, unfortunately, primarily a
philosophical
one. I say "unfortunately" because philosophy is far from being my strong suit, and I struggled to keep my head above water (and my interest level up!) during the earlier and final sections of this book, which deal with the philosophical content of the movement, and its place in later philosophical thought, respectively. But that this was a struggle is not the author's fault so much as mine: Robertson's introduction is clear, even and well-paced, and well-illustrated throughout—and although I'm never going to be turning directly to Descartes, Hume, or Kant for pleasure, as a result of reading it, I know more about the Enlightenment than I did before. Job done.
October 21, 2018
This book might be more aptly titled Using The Maximum Possible Number Of Words To Communicate The Minimum Possible Actual Content To The Reader: A Succinct Demonstration. Seriously, it's at least 50% just names and dates, with minimal explanation of coherent trends and absolutely no attempt to provide any kind of over-arching, themic summary. Robertson seems far to concerned with ensuring that he name-checks all the requisite major figures to offer the lay-person an approachable entry to the subject of The Enlightenment. Conversely, I can only imagine that to a student of Enlightenment philosophy and/or history, the shallowness of the treatment would offer no novel insight. Who then, is this book for?
August 31, 2018
This 18th-century movement represented a rebellion against long-established authority. It focused on the individual, freedom and personal development. Universities flourished. Church-imposed dogma of "one true doctrine" was challenged by toleration for differing beliefs. Free-thinking philosophers like Kant, Hobbs and Spinoza were unafraid of being labeled as heretics. Literacy rates soared, and advancements in printing allowed ideas to propagate beyond country borders, creating a new 'public sphere' for critical discussion of moral, economic and political issues. Another fine addition to the Oxford University Very Short Introduction series.
January 27, 2025
Not an introduction, not very short. Poorly written.
If anything, this author has taught me how not to write. Using a convoluted, abstract style is not the way to write an introductory text or indeed any text. This was a real pain in the ass. It felt like eating vomit. And I didn't even know how that felt like before reading this book.
May 28, 2025
In the genre of Very Short Introductions, there are either compressed general histories or compressed personal narratives. Both can be very successful or rather underwhelming. This one falls into the latter category in both senses, but it's still quite valuable for someone like me who knows relatively little about the era and the surrounding debates, especially the philosophical ones.
October 16, 2018
Delivers on its promise
Pretty much a bare bones introduction to the Enlightenment with all the key players and viewpoints well represented. To understand “modern thought” one must be exposed to these intellects but look elsewhere to really get the gist of their philosophies.
Pretty much a bare bones introduction to the Enlightenment with all the key players and viewpoints well represented. To understand “modern thought” one must be exposed to these intellects but look elsewhere to really get the gist of their philosophies.
November 30, 2020
This book series has been really great. Expect to encounter a lot of philosophy and major philosophical movements and movers in this one. At least a basic grasp is needed before reading this, or you may find yourself floundering.
August 29, 2018
Ce livre est une introduction très dense et informative, à cause de cela, parfois il est difficile de se trouver, mais en même temps, cette lecture enrichit énormément.
July 9, 2020
Wish he would have been more consistent in translating the book titles, but otherwise, amazing book.
August 26, 2024
read like a textbook at times, but not hard to read. interesting subject matter. good introduction to a wide variety of enlightenment voices, more useful than digging into just rousseau or kant.
September 20, 2024
a smoothly written reference book, but at any rate failing its title. much of it is just listing of names and publications, so VERY heavy on history
December 24, 2024
Helpful, but full of random details that made the narrative a little clunky.
September 29, 2023
A clear example of a dumb academic trying to write with ‘academic rigour’ and ending up with the prose of a 14-year-old. Omitting articles does not make you sound rigorous, you moron.
January 2, 2025
The Historian of Philosophy, John Robertson, published The Enlightenment: A Very Short Introduction in 2015. The book is focused on “a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition,” according to the Oxford Languages Dictionary. Each chapter of Robertson’s book examines different aspects of the Age of Enlightenment. The book has illustrations, references, and a section entitled “further reading” (Robertson 133-140). The first chapter defines the Enlightenment and is a brief historiography of the Enlightenment. The second looks at the relationship between Enlightenment and religion. This chapter is the longest because Robertson feels that the relationship between the philosophy of the Enlightenment and religion is often misunderstood (Robertson 15-16). The third chapter examines Enlightenment philosophy and human betterment (Robertson 49-50). The fourth chapter looks at how Enlightenment philosophers interacted with wider European society. The fifth chapter examines a longer historiography of the Enlightenment and what philosophers have thought about the legacy of the Enlightenment. To be fair to the Age of Enlightenment, Robertson feels one must take Enlightenment philosophers in the context of their place and time. Robertson writes, “The purpose of this book is to outline what the Enlightenment was in its 18th Century and to explain why it has been contested since” (Robertson 1). Robertson’s book is a well-done introduction to the Age of Enlightenment.
February 9, 2017
1.5 stars. This is a very informative book, I want to make that clear. Did I enjoy it though? No; I honestly found it terribly boring, mainly because it's written in a dry, tedious manner.
April 24, 2016
Most illuminating... and dare I say, enlightening...
April 9, 2017
A Fantastic Introduction.
May 2, 2017
The Enlightenment is one of Oxford University Press’s “Very Short Introductions” series; there are over 400 volumes. Written by experts, they “are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way into a new subject”.
Professor John Robertson’s treatment of the Enlightenment is at times neither.
Robertson’s framework is a valid one -- that the Enlightenment was a philosophical construct more than a historical event.
But the way he goes about explaining and describing this is dry and laden with detail.
For example, while print culture is undoubtedly important (nay, crucial), here we also learn the licensing deals between Charles-Joseph Pancoucke and Le Breton of Encyclopédie by Jean D’Alembert and Denis Diderot (pp. 92-98). Repeated episodes like this make it a not very short introduction.
I will synthesise Robertson’s arguments on the Enlightenment and freedoms of religion and expression, along with the role of public opinion, not only because they are important to me but his fine concluding chapter underlines their relevance in our present less certain political world.
Robertson explains well the philosopher Locke’s argument of toleration, a defence of Protestant Dissenters’ freedom to worship (as separate from the established Church of England) (p. 38). Locke’s argument excluded Catholics (subjects of a foreign power) and atheists (no salvation). Philosopher Voltaire's Traité sur la tolérance (1763) resolves this, removing theology so that toleration itself will lead to ‘the physical and moral well-being of society’ (pp. 41-42).
The American colonies implemented the theory by repudiating the Church of England and codifying the separation of church and state in its constitution. In England, the church wasn’t disestablished, but Catholics were deemed to be not so much a threat to the state; the idea of toleration was deconfessionalised (p. 42). (This may help explain why some Protestants in Northern Ireland are less tolerant of Catholics, deeming them subjects of a foreign power and a threat to the state.)
Robertson provides a good (but complicated) review of the philosophical arguments of the nature of society and the state (pp. 52-54). The debate is on the sociability of man and whether this is natural or must be guided (and enforced). Enter philosophers Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, Thomasius, Locke, Carmichael, Pascal, Nicole, Mandeville, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith.
The Irish Presbyterian philosopher Frances Hutcheson (1694-1746) argued that ‘natural social affections were the precondition of entering a civil society’ (p. 56). The natural affections were God’s ordering of the world, but the sanction of the afterlife was only ‘an additional inducement to moral culture’. Some stricter Scottish Presbyterians noted this, and would have deemed Hutcheson with suspicion. (This reminds one of the internal Presbyterian debate over the Westminster Confession of Faith.)
An evolution of this argument is political economy, which Robertson suggests was the core of the Enlightenment’s contribution to Western thought: ‘the prospect of human betterment, in this world rather than the next, in the present over the past’.
Yet this is one framed in historical experience, that while a society’s economy may not grow forever, no state could control the diverse and varied activities of a modern commercial economy; governments needed to listen and respond to society.
In other words, the Enlightenment’s perspective on the role of public opinion was made more important. But would it confirm or undermine its philosophical principles?
For example, philosopher David Hume made the observation (‘Of the first principles of government’ (1741)) of how easy the many are ruled by the few: “[The] governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.”
This acknowledges a destablising power of opinion on the state, with those in authority wishing to defend affairs of state as a ‘reason of state’ and not to be rendered part of the public realm. How thus to manage opinion?
In some cases, opinion management failed -- American and French revolutions immediately come to mind. So a triumph of the Enlightenment or something altogether different? Robertson argues the latter, defining revolution as ‘the revenge of political agency upon the impersonal, gradual process of change’ as envisaged by the Enlightenment.
But Robertson goes too far is describing the French Revolution as the antithesis of Enlightenment (p. 116). Through the book you can’t describe the evolution of the freedom of expression and power of public opinion upon government, and then deny revolution as a logical outcome. Perhaps revolution may not be the ideal outcome -- lives are lost through political violence -- but revolution reveals that society’s limit of frustration with what it deems as acceptable levels of progress. (A government could alternatively try to suppress societal expectations, but that to me would be the antithesis of Enlightenment.)
In the final chapter, Robertson describes the debate among philosophers of the contemporary relevance of Enlightenment. An important question that defenders of the Enlightenment have to ask themselves was whether its universal, rational formula for true knowledge and morals actually lead to betterment. Update Hume’s observation above with a populist rise to fascism.
The answer has been provided more by historians than philosophers, as Robertson explains (pp. 124-126). The main defence is to associate Enlightenment with modernity, citing the collapse of Marxism, the revival of religion for political argument, and finally dismissing postmodernism as a relativisation of truth. The corollaries are that Enlightenment provides a better framework for political economy, secularism is a better form of civic politics, and the morality of diminishing cruelty remains valid.
Philosophically, the argument can go both ways (see critiques of Kant). Robertson concludes by suggesting that what could be best worth remembering about Enlightenment is not that it offers a fixed view of what progress is, but to learn from the process that its thinkers took in understanding the problems they faced, and how their imagination led to original proposals.
I find this especially relevant in light of debates about the West and so-called ‘clash of civilisations’ as well as resurgences of populism in Western democracies.
My humble suggestion is to highlight the value of engagement with the public, so they themselves agree how progress will be achieved without violating rights of others, and while maintaining principles of tolerance. The blind spot among Modernisers is that this need not be under capitalism, secularism, or Western notions of morality.
To paraphrase Kant, if we wish Enlightenment to forge a world citizenship, our imagination needs to go visiting, to learn from our collective catastrophes as well as how we have achieved our futures.
Professor John Robertson’s treatment of the Enlightenment is at times neither.
Robertson’s framework is a valid one -- that the Enlightenment was a philosophical construct more than a historical event.
But the way he goes about explaining and describing this is dry and laden with detail.
For example, while print culture is undoubtedly important (nay, crucial), here we also learn the licensing deals between Charles-Joseph Pancoucke and Le Breton of Encyclopédie by Jean D’Alembert and Denis Diderot (pp. 92-98). Repeated episodes like this make it a not very short introduction.
I will synthesise Robertson’s arguments on the Enlightenment and freedoms of religion and expression, along with the role of public opinion, not only because they are important to me but his fine concluding chapter underlines their relevance in our present less certain political world.
Robertson explains well the philosopher Locke’s argument of toleration, a defence of Protestant Dissenters’ freedom to worship (as separate from the established Church of England) (p. 38). Locke’s argument excluded Catholics (subjects of a foreign power) and atheists (no salvation). Philosopher Voltaire's Traité sur la tolérance (1763) resolves this, removing theology so that toleration itself will lead to ‘the physical and moral well-being of society’ (pp. 41-42).
The American colonies implemented the theory by repudiating the Church of England and codifying the separation of church and state in its constitution. In England, the church wasn’t disestablished, but Catholics were deemed to be not so much a threat to the state; the idea of toleration was deconfessionalised (p. 42). (This may help explain why some Protestants in Northern Ireland are less tolerant of Catholics, deeming them subjects of a foreign power and a threat to the state.)
Robertson provides a good (but complicated) review of the philosophical arguments of the nature of society and the state (pp. 52-54). The debate is on the sociability of man and whether this is natural or must be guided (and enforced). Enter philosophers Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, Thomasius, Locke, Carmichael, Pascal, Nicole, Mandeville, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith.
The Irish Presbyterian philosopher Frances Hutcheson (1694-1746) argued that ‘natural social affections were the precondition of entering a civil society’ (p. 56). The natural affections were God’s ordering of the world, but the sanction of the afterlife was only ‘an additional inducement to moral culture’. Some stricter Scottish Presbyterians noted this, and would have deemed Hutcheson with suspicion. (This reminds one of the internal Presbyterian debate over the Westminster Confession of Faith.)
An evolution of this argument is political economy, which Robertson suggests was the core of the Enlightenment’s contribution to Western thought: ‘the prospect of human betterment, in this world rather than the next, in the present over the past’.
Yet this is one framed in historical experience, that while a society’s economy may not grow forever, no state could control the diverse and varied activities of a modern commercial economy; governments needed to listen and respond to society.
In other words, the Enlightenment’s perspective on the role of public opinion was made more important. But would it confirm or undermine its philosophical principles?
For example, philosopher David Hume made the observation (‘Of the first principles of government’ (1741)) of how easy the many are ruled by the few: “[The] governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.”
This acknowledges a destablising power of opinion on the state, with those in authority wishing to defend affairs of state as a ‘reason of state’ and not to be rendered part of the public realm. How thus to manage opinion?
In some cases, opinion management failed -- American and French revolutions immediately come to mind. So a triumph of the Enlightenment or something altogether different? Robertson argues the latter, defining revolution as ‘the revenge of political agency upon the impersonal, gradual process of change’ as envisaged by the Enlightenment.
But Robertson goes too far is describing the French Revolution as the antithesis of Enlightenment (p. 116). Through the book you can’t describe the evolution of the freedom of expression and power of public opinion upon government, and then deny revolution as a logical outcome. Perhaps revolution may not be the ideal outcome -- lives are lost through political violence -- but revolution reveals that society’s limit of frustration with what it deems as acceptable levels of progress. (A government could alternatively try to suppress societal expectations, but that to me would be the antithesis of Enlightenment.)
In the final chapter, Robertson describes the debate among philosophers of the contemporary relevance of Enlightenment. An important question that defenders of the Enlightenment have to ask themselves was whether its universal, rational formula for true knowledge and morals actually lead to betterment. Update Hume’s observation above with a populist rise to fascism.
The answer has been provided more by historians than philosophers, as Robertson explains (pp. 124-126). The main defence is to associate Enlightenment with modernity, citing the collapse of Marxism, the revival of religion for political argument, and finally dismissing postmodernism as a relativisation of truth. The corollaries are that Enlightenment provides a better framework for political economy, secularism is a better form of civic politics, and the morality of diminishing cruelty remains valid.
Philosophically, the argument can go both ways (see critiques of Kant). Robertson concludes by suggesting that what could be best worth remembering about Enlightenment is not that it offers a fixed view of what progress is, but to learn from the process that its thinkers took in understanding the problems they faced, and how their imagination led to original proposals.
I find this especially relevant in light of debates about the West and so-called ‘clash of civilisations’ as well as resurgences of populism in Western democracies.
My humble suggestion is to highlight the value of engagement with the public, so they themselves agree how progress will be achieved without violating rights of others, and while maintaining principles of tolerance. The blind spot among Modernisers is that this need not be under capitalism, secularism, or Western notions of morality.
To paraphrase Kant, if we wish Enlightenment to forge a world citizenship, our imagination needs to go visiting, to learn from our collective catastrophes as well as how we have achieved our futures.
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