Aydınlanma Rüyası: Modern Felsefenin Yükselişi

by Anthony Gottlieb, Cansen Mavituna (Translator)

Britanyalı fikir tarihçisi Anthony Gottlieb, yayınlandığında büyük ilgi gören bu kitapta, Batı düşüncesinin Rönesanstan sonraki ikinci büyük entelektüel patlaması olan Aydınlanma Çağını ele alıyor. Aydınlanma Rüyası, Galileocu bilimsel devrimin ve kanlı din savaşlarının ardından Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke ve Leibniz’in felsefi sorgulamalarıyla temelleri atılan Aydınlanmanın, sonraki yüzyılda Hume, Voltaire ve Rousseau gibi filozofların tartışmalarıyla Avrupa’nın kültürel coğrafyasında nasıl büyük bir zihin devrimine yol açtığını inceliyor. Otuz Yıl Savaşlarından Fransız Devrimine uzanan süreçte yaklaşık yüz elli yıllık bir döneme tekabül eden canlı tartışma ortamını ayrıntılarıyla ele alan Aydınlanma Rüyası: Modern Felsefenin Yükselişi, Aydınlanmacıların dinsel düşünceden seküler düşünceye, ahlâk felsefesinden toplumsal düzen arayışlarına yönelişini takip etmek adına önemli bir başvuru kaynağı.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Politics, Science, Biography

348 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2016

About the author

Anthony Gottlieb is a British writer, former Executive Editor of The Economist, historian of ideas, and the author of The Dream of Reason. He was educated at Cambridge University and has held visiting fellowships at All Souls College, Oxford, and Harvard University. He has taught at the CUNY Graduate Center and the New School in New York, and been a visiting scholar at New York University and fellow at the Cullman Centre for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. He is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the series editor of The Routledge Guides to the Great Books.

Reviews

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I knew about philosophers and philosophy before this book. Antiquity: Plato (mind is primary) and Aristotle (matter is primary), Socrates, about whom we know from Plato, Plotinus there is something mystical, Cynics and Stoics, Diogenes, who lived in a barrel and walked around with a lantern during the day, saying "I'm looking for a man." Then Boethius with The Consolation of Philosophy. Then I had a lacuna before Kant with a moral law inside and a categorical imperative, then Kierkegaard with fear and trepidation, Nietzsche with superman, Husserl and Wittgenstein, both seem to be with existentialism, Florensky with names, Mamardashvili with the topology of the path, Zinoviev with "Gaping Heights"

The English writer and popularizer of philosophy Anthony Gottlieb says that the main body of philosophical knowledge throughout European history has been concentrated in fairly small time intervals of about a century and a half. The first in Athens from the middle of the fifth to the end of the fourth century BC, the second in Northern Europe from 1830 to the end of the XVIII century.

Век попыток быть более разумными
Просвещенные времена просветят лишь немногих честных людей. Широкие массы всегда будут фанатиками.
Вольтер
Что я знала о философах и философии до этой книги. Античность: Платон (разум первичен) и Аристотель (материя первична), Сократ, о котором знаем от Платона, еще Плотин там что-то мистическое, киники и стоики, Диоген, который жил в бочке и ходил днем с фонарем, говоря "Ищу человека". Дальше Боэций с "Утешением философией". Потом у меня была лакуна до Канта с моральным законом внутри и категорическим императивом, дальше Кьеркегор со страхом и трепетом, Ницше со сверхчеловеком, Гуссерль и Витгенштейн, оба кажется с экзистенциализмом, Флоренский с именами, Мамардашвили с топологией пути, Зиновьев с "Зияющими высотами"

Навскидку вроде все. Может еще кого упустила, как Бердяева,или Шестова которых не читала, а читала о них, и нашу Вольфилу, но о ней имею смутное представление, потому что у Штейнберга, который спал с Блоком на одних нарах в подвале ЧК, читала только "Литературный архипелаг", а там мемуары, не философия. Невооруженным глазом видно, что между античностью и XIX веком провал. Неужто ничего не было?

Английский писатель Энтони Готлиб, долгое время проработавший главным редактором The Economist, но известный в большей степени как лектор Оксбриджа и Гарварда, популяризатор философии и автор двух фундаментальных трудов, первый из которых "Мечта о разуме" посвящен античным философам - так вот, Энтони Готлиб говорит, что основной массив философского знания на протяжении европейской истории сосредотачивался в достаточно небольших временных промежутках примерно по полтора столетия. Первый в Афинах с середины пятого до конца четвертого века до нашей эры, второй в Северной Европе с 1830 до конца XVIII столетия.

Этой второй вспышке философского знания и ее действующим лицам посвящена его "Мечта о Просвещении", и признаюсь, большинство фигур, о которых он рассказывает, я не знала или считала их деятелями других научных дисциплин: Декарта и Лейбница математиками, Вольтера и Руссо писателями. Локка, Бейля, Гоббса не знала, о Спинозе и Юме что-то смутно слышала, хотя насчет последнего не поручусь, может льщу себе, обманутая созвучием с Юнгом

Очень коротко о каждом. Рене Декарт Ego cogito, ergo sum - мыслю, следовательно существую. Помимо открытий в разных областях знания, много размышлял о том, что сам называл "первой философией" или метафизикой. Пытался совместить религию и науку, и в "Рассуждении о методе" говорил о том, что они должны идти рука об руку, но судьба Галилея заставила его быть осторожнее.

Томас Гоббс, "Малиферийское чудовище". Радикально правые взгляды на государственное устройство, изложенные в трактате De Cive ("О правителе"). Утверждал, что правитель облечен властью данной свыше, потому любые его действия в отношении подчиненных оправданы. Впоследствии подвергался жесткой критике, но заложил своим трудом основы общественных наук.

Барух Спиноза. «Все находится в Боге», возглашал единство всего сущего, считал Творца непостижимым человеческим разумением, а попытки объяснить его в человеческих понятиях профанацией, отрицал загробную жизнь. предан анафеме и отлучен амстердамской еврейской общиной.

Джон Локк, "философия для британцев". В основе его концепции здравый смысл: правильно то, что несет благо для наибольшего числа людей,в ситуации выбора из двух зол, следует выбирать меньшее. «Разум во всем должен быть нашим последним судьей и руководителем». Основоположник утилитаризма.

Пьер Бейль. Энциклопедист, создатель «Исторического и критического словаря» из более, чем шести миллионов слов. Ввел в обиход понятие атеизма, допускал, что неверие в некоторых случаях менее страшно, чем вера: "каждый еретик убежден, что это он истинный верующий, а другие — еретики. Поэтому, если преследование ереси будет поощряться, результатом станет нескончаемое кровопролитие". Боялся кометы.

Готфрид Лейбниц. "Теодицея", великий примиритель, выдвигал идей эйкуменической религии, которая могла бы объединить не только все ветви христианства, но также привести в лоно церкви китайцев, которых находил склонными к идеям христианства. Атомарная теория монад,каждая из которых едина и неделима и величайшей является Бог. Каждая монада отрезана от других, кроме Бога, но каждая определенным образом отражает происходящее со всеми (множественность миров?)

Дэвид Юм. "Трактат о человеческой природе". Один из призеров в опросах среди философов, с кем они в большей степени себя ассоциируют, наряду с Аристотелем, Кантом, Витгенштейном. Первый в истории прогрессивной мысли поднял голос в защиту животных, утверждал, что они наделены разумом, борец с фанатизмом и суевериями, достаточно осмотрительный, чтобы не публиковать под своим именем особенно смелых вещей.

Ну, в целом вот. Да, Руссо призывал опрощаться и учил воспитывать детей, распихав собственных пятерых по приютам. Вольтер насмешничал и критиковал.
Наверное, наш мир не лучший из всех возможных миров; но эти новаторы помогли сделать его интеллектуально увлекательным и менее невежественным.

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

During an other-wise mundane interview for a made-for-TV documentary on Plato's Republic, the novelist Joyce Carol Oates makes the following bizzarro, face-palming conflation:

The idea that Plato foreshadows certain ideas that we've come to associate with fascism…I'd say that's fairly tenable. If Plato had never lived, however, we would still have had Hitler. One certainly can't blame Plato for Hitler, or Stalin, or Marx, or Lenin. It's not for their theories that they'll be remembered, but for their actions. They were brutal murderers.

Well one of the above wasn't a brutal murderer, at any rate (or, with Pyhrro, so far as we know anything in this world), but my point in quoting JCO here is two-fold: we do tend to blame Plato (if not for Marx, along with Marx), for Hitler and Stalin—on TV, at least, or Twitter. We go there. The Secundum quid and other inductive fallacies are what the rise of algorithm-driven 21st century content providers has been all about (well, that, and straight-out lying....)

Similarly, we tend to blame the Enlightenment for all manner of modern evils. But as Anthony Gottlieb shows in this fine, careful, and genial overview of the careers of the major thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries, we should look a little more closely at just what Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Bayle, Locke, Hume, Voltaire and Rousseau (the thinkers covered in this volume) actually wrote before we leap to such conclusions as, well, the OED in its definition of "Enlightenment"

Sometimes used . . . to designate the spirit and aims of the French philosophers of the 18th c., or of others whom it is intended to associate with them in the implied charge of shallow and pretentious intellectualism, unreasonable contempt for tradition and authority, etc.

Or, to put it a bit more fully:

“The inflated Enlightenment,” as one historian has put it, “can be identified with all modernity, with nearly everything subsumed under the name of Western civilization, and so it can be made responsible for nearly everything that causes discontent. . . .” Since we regard ourselves as children of the Enlightenment, it is tempting to lay the blame for various ills on our supposed intellectual parents. Are we now sometimes inhumane? Then that is the fault of the Enlightenment’s icy rationalism. The Enlightenment has at various times been found responsible for the French Revolution’s reign of terror—despite the fact that this was also somehow the fault of Rousseau, who was mainly an enemy of the philosophes —and for fascism, communism, psychiatric malpractice, economic exploitation, sexism, the extinction of species, madcap utopian schemes, environmental degradation and much else. It is generally admitted that none of the key figures of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment advocated or condoned any such evils (except sexism); nevertheless, it is alleged that they somehow prepared the ground for them, or influenced people who did.

The volume goes some distance towards complicating, if not dismantling, such hasty generalizations, and could be thought of as an ideal starting point for further study of the period. I think of it as eight demi-VSIs (Very-Short-Introductions, by Oxford) all in one volume—a trustworthy initiatory guide, in other words, but in this case written by a superior stylist, as I found that neither the VSIs on Locke, Spinoza or Leibniz were nearly as enjoyable to read.

Quibbling: I would rather say that it seems to be a largely careful guide—that is, one free of tendentiousness and axe-grinding, but other than with Locke and Descartes I can't really say for sure, as my first-hand knowledge of the works of the other philosophers lies along a spectrum of from, say, partially to completely ignorant (hence why I am reading it to begin with). I will make one contradictory remark, however: I have read (though not recently) all of Descartes' major works, and thought Gottlieb a bit unfair to the Master. And I have just read (in 2020), the two major works of Locke, and thought Gottlieb assayed their worth most judiciously. But it felt like he was being even-handed with the others, which is all that one can say when the work of eight diverse thinkers from several centuries ago is filtered through a single, unitary, 21st century consciousness.

In short, it is well worth your time, and I would heartily recommend reading it alongside another, somewhat more majesterial and synoptic enterprise, Ritchie Robertson's masterful The Enlightenment

And I just cannot help but close with a spoiler from the very end of the book. If some churl asks you what the Enlightenment ever did for us, you could do worse than to trot out some Monty Python with which to bludgeon'em, by way of redress if not quite rebuttal:

Such malcontents are comparable to the fictitious leader of the People’s Liberation Front of Judea, played by John Cleese in Monty Python’s Life of Brian , who was slow to notice any benefits from the Roman occupation of his country:
—They bled us white, the bastards. They’ve taken everything we had. . . . And what have they ever given us in return?!
—The aqueduct? . . .
—Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that . . .
—And the sanitation . . .
—Yeah. All right. I’ll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
—And the roads . . . Irrigation . . . Medicine . . . Education . . . And the wine . . .
—All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Instead of attempting some comprehensive overview of Enlightenment-age thought, Gottlieb gives an almost chatty discussion of several philosophers’ lives, foibles, insights, and errors. Rather than focusing on the well-known contributions of these men, he examines their inconsistences, personal failings, interactions with others, the ways they were or were not original, or the ways they were misunderstood. To some extent Gottlieb fills in the pictures of their lives with trivia, which tends to shrink these “great minds” to a very human, sometimes comical stature. It almost seems the goal is more to entertain than inform, but all the detail shows a very impressive capacity to compare particularities among thinkers across many centuries.

[Anisha Inkspill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this one slightly easier to listen to than it’s prequel, The Dream of Reason. I think it’s because I’m a touch more familiar with the historical events, the philosophers mentioned and the reading I’ve done in the last few years. I think if I read this without all this than it would have been a harder read. To me this is not a bad thing because one of the wonderful things about books is that they can be read more than once, and both books by Anthony Gottlieb invite a second plus read.

Hearing about Voltaire, Rosseau and Locke and many others is illuminating. I found the amount of commentary and context generous. It was interesting to discover how Western philosophy came about with society and culture looking for understanding beyond the lens of religion, where the need of objectivity would lead to science.

[Kenia Sedler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading this book for a few months now for my philosophy Meetup group. We've been meeting monthly, and each month we discussed just one chapter as each chapter covers a different philosopher from the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th-18th centuries. It was a fascinating historical voyage: Anthony Gottlieb does justice explaining what each eminent philosopher stood for, what their prevailing works argued, and what their lives were like. Gottlieb helps you put on your history goggles to see these historical men from an appropriate and engaging perspective.

[D.L. Morrese · Rating 5 out of 5]

What has the Enlightenment ever done for us? This is an important question and the title of the last chapter of this book. My biased answer would include human rights, democratic government, personal freedom, and separation of church and state. I think it is no great exaggeration to say that the Enlightenment marks the beginning of a sea change in thought that rejected tyranny, acknowledged the rights of common people, and helped create the intellectual environment that made our modern world possible.

In this relatively short book (244 pages not counting notes), Gottlieb summarizes key points of the Enlightenment's greatest thinkers: Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Pierre Bayle, Gottfried Leibniz, and David Hume, with due mention to others who supported or opposed them. It shows how these philosophical pioneers began to question convention, challenge authority, and propose alternatives. Some of their ideas may seem strange, backward, or even outrageous to us now, but they were constrained by the knowledge and beliefs of their time, as we all are. Unlike today, or at least not to the same extent, they also had to be cautious of the authority they were calling into question. The fact that we today can more freely express our thoughts without undue fear of reprisal is also, I think, a lasting gift of the Enlightenment.

Gottleib's writing is clean, precise, and easily comprehensible. The philosophers he has chosen, and the points he selects from each of them, are appropriate to subject. I recommend this to anyone interested in cultural evolution and the progress of human thought.

[Saeed abedi]

قابل توجه کتابداران گودریدز
اصل این کتاب با لینک زیر در ذیل نام آنتونی گالیب آمده و نیازی به مدخل مجزا نداشته است


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ours may not be the best of all possible worlds; but these pioneers helped to make it an intellectually adventurous and, as d'Alembert suggested, a less ignorant one.

Dream was a most welcome birthday present for me personally its publication is also timely given a world which sorely needs to examine its present trajectory. It is a survey by a retired journalist, a layman more than apt to do the heavy lifting about the advocates of a mechanized world, the stirring time in our early Modern period when the ghosts under our bed and the threat of Old Scratch could be outdistanced. The noble products of this were the technology and the trappings of tolerance; unfortunately, it is an ongoing project. Voltaire is included as foil to many: Leibniz, Hume and Rousseau, but Voltaire captures something human and timeless, much as his Candide, when pondering the fortunes of the New World, quips it may not be better but at least it will be different. If only.

I am blessed with an adequate familiarity of all the thinkers cited. My chief course of improvement will be to read more Hume. Please forgive the possible vanity, but I often feel like a Hobbes or Spinoza, though I lack the talent and ambition of either. Leibniz had by far the coolest life and Rousseau was quite an asshole.

[John Martindale · Rating 4 out of 5]

One thing I appreciate about this book is Gottlieb attempted to correct what he saw as common misunderstandings concerning certain philosophers ideas, thus the section on Descartes, Hobbs and Spinoza were really interesting and contained new material that I had not heard in other histories of philosophy.
The author's disdain for John Locke seemed very evident, yet, it was still worthwhile to hear criticism of a philosopher of which I've read and of whom I am fond. To me the most disappointing part of the book was the section on Hume, this is where Gottlieb's confirmation bias is on full display. After the continual criticism for Locke, one is struck how there is not even a hint of criticism of anything Hume had to say, though plenty of his ideas, such as Hume's basing morality in our feelings, cry out for critique. It's not hard to gather that Gottlieb is an atheist and Hume is one of his heroes. Every argument of Hume against religion is set forth as an absolute knock out and irrefutable argument that once and for all showed the irrationality of all religious writing (that should all be thrown into the flames), the absurdity of believing in miracles (for they violate the laws of nature), and the nonsense of the theistic argument for a Designer. Not once does Gottlieb even slightly elude to the substantial problems other philosophers have found and the numerous responses to Hume's arguments. How according to the criteria Hume set out; his own works should be thrown into the flames. How miracles are not "violations of the laws of nature" and how one can rationally deduce that the contingent universe suggest the need of something that is eternally necessary.
Atheist seem to be just as unsketpical when in comes to how credulously they accept anything that confirms what they wish to be true, as the Christian fundamentalist is when embracing what confirms what they believe is true. It appears to me that Hume is a secular saint, and his adoration is like a Catholics regard for st. Frances, no atheist will ever entertain a doubt about his sacred words which set the world free from God.

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this is a nice overview of early modern European philosophy, with a relatively digestible mix of biography, history, and philosophy -- although certainly not enough philosophy to substitute for actually reading the philosophers discussed! I have some criticisms (more on those in a bit), but this is a helpful thing to read if you've already read some of the figures featured. I'd stress that this is not a book to read in lieu of reading the primary sources; you have to have some basic familiarity with them to get much out of this book. Neither is this a book for specialists, but I doubt specialists need my Goodreads review to tell them that.

I read this to add to my background and framing for teaching a class in early modern European philosophy (for instance, Gottlieb's framing of Leibniz as a traditionalist reacting to Spinoza's heterodoxy helped my students wrap their minds around these difficult figures).

I have two main criticisms. First, Gottlieb's presentation of philosophy is quite Eurocentric. Focusing on Europe in the book isn't a problem, since he is after all focusing explicitly on European philosophers. That's not my complaint. My complaint is pretending that European philosophy is all there is. I found one claim in particular to be breathtakingly ignorant: Gottlieb claims that Locke gave "the first sustained philosophical treatment" of the issue of personal identity (p. 152). This claim is presented as if Buddhist and Brahmanical philosophers in India had not been debating the intricacies of personal identity for nearly 2,000 before Locke wrote the Essay. That such culturally myopic claims are frequently made by experts in the field of philosophy does nothing to mitigate their wrongness.

Second, there's no chapter on Berkeley and very little discussion of him. As a Berkeley fan, I find this inexcusable. I grant that Berkeley isn't everyone's cup of tea. Still, Bayle and the French Philosophes merit their own chapters and Berkeley is at least as fun to read and as influential as they are, especially for Hume and Kant. Speaking of Kant, there's no chapter on Kant, either, which bothers me slightly less because I can see a case to be made that Kant is the culmination of the early modern period and watershed of a new era of European thought. Apparently Gottlieb is working on another book that will start with Kant. Still, some sort of conclusion pointing the way to Kant may have helped wrap this one up.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gottlieb individually considers the characters while bringing his own sensibilities to each of their contributions while never seeing the meaning behind the Enlightenment as a whole. A very unsatisfactory way of looking at the time period.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reasonably interesting read, but tends to fall between two stools in trying to combine rather than separate the life and works. You get a taste, but are never allowed to take a good mouthful. Good if your aim is to get a very simple outline of roughly what a particular philosopher is saying.

[Caroline]

Nice overview. If you are already somewhat familiar with these philosophers it is still a useful refresher. Gottlieb offers the most payoff by trying to straighten out many misconceptions about what they wrote and said. A prep for tackling the new intellectual biography of Hume.

[K.M. Weiland · Rating 5 out of 5]

As interesting as the first book. He does a fast, entertaining overview of pertinent philosophers. Looking forward to the next installment.

[Zardoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gottlieb continues to hash out the different schools of thought and philosophy of the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. Alas, the Middle Ages were dominated by Christian thought which expected any thinker to not go against church doctrine.
The author does show some bias here since it’s quite obvious he isn’t a theist. Fortunately Science/Natural Philosophy advanced with the discoveries of Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton helped develop a mechanical view of nature which lead to a blossoming of different ideas and concepts of the Enlightenment.
It was interesting learning where many of the concepts of our modern culture were discussed and debated by men likes Hobbes, Spenoza, Locke, Hume and others.

[BJ Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was able to listen to this for free as part of my subscription to Audible. Normally self-narrated books are not as good as when a professional narrator is brought in, but Gottlieb did a superb job and brought just the right gestalt to this immanently readable (erm... listenable?) book. It was perfect to listen to one segment/chapter each day as I was out walking.

In the blurb, this book promises to be a "sweeping narrative." That it is not. But it is an excellent intro to Enlightenment philosophy. The meat of the book is laid out in ten chapters that work their way from Descartes up to Voltaire. Each chapter is part biography and part primer to a different philosopher's way of thinking. These are all written with solid prose that is engaging and balances the simple with the profound. Even someone who is not that knowledgeable about Englightment history or philosophy (or even not that interested), will still be able to both understand and hold interest in what is being written. The flip side of this is that it is not nearly in-depth enough to be useful as a textbook and I would guess that 90% of the people who would be interested enough to pick this book up have already moved beyond the need for it.

So I would say this book is good as supplemental reading for an undergrad class like an intro to philosophy or the history of European civilization. It would also be good for someone who wants to dive in on their own. But if you are a philosophy buff or a grad student... find something a bit deeper.

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 2 out of 5]

An OK primer to the "Age of Enlightenment" from Descartes to Hume, though a bit shallow for those with more background. Gottlieb likes sweeping summaries, and contrasting wrong interpretations of a given thinker with a quote or anecdote that disproves them, giving a consistent picture which perhaps belies the changing and contradictory nature of their work.

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

A well written but unremarkable introduction to the early modern canon.

[Noah Goats · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great followup to Gottlieb’s book about (mostly) Greek Philosophy. It’s maybe a bit on the short side, and Gottlieb cherry-picks a few enlightenment philosophers to focus on rather than attempting to be at all comprehensive. He leaves Kant out, for example, which feels like a mistake. Maybe he’ll talk about him in the next volume? Each chapter is essentially an essay on a different thinker and they are all very well done. I particularly enjoyed the essay on Leibniz. In the past, my brain would glaze over as soon as I read any mention of monads or optimism, but Gottlieb made his philosophy both interesting and comprehensible. I look forward to the next volume in this series.

[Daksh Jindal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intellectually dense book filled with big ideas about how our mind and the world operates. Will require multiple re reads to absorb everything.

[Alva · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful series of portraits, and introductions to the work and thought of, the great Enlightenment philosophers: Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, and the French philosophes taken as a kind of "crew" (though of course, Rousseau doesn't fit in with the rest of the gang, nor does he want to). The author's biases must be similar to my own, because I was as much taken with the chapters on Spinoza and Hume as I have been previously with those saints of irreligiosity; and my dislikes of Locke and Rousseau were reinforced. This is a beautifully written book; the immediate consequence of listening to it (I did the audio...) for me was to grab Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy and start listening to that.

[Matt McCormick · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Dream of Enlightenment is a wonderful read for anyone interested in philosophy, the history of ideas or the emergence of a civilization governed by reason and critical thinking. In these days when we appear to be regressing into a new endarkenment, it’s refreshing to hear about the thinkers who challenged a superstition based culture that controlled the masses through fear, dogma and brute force.
Gottlieb presents numerous philosophers (Descarte to Rousseau) in miniature biographies that well explains their contribution to the history of ideas in clear, understandable, and orderly language. With the exception of Leibniz and his monads (and this may be the fault of my average intellect rather than the author’s work or Leibniz himself) the reader understands not only how each philosopher attempted to resolve the big questions of governance, freedom, the nature of humanity and the role of a deity in the workings of the world but how those efforts fit into the culture of their times. Gottlieb is a confident thinker who isn’t afraid to challenge the individual he presents nor the intellectuals who would later comment on the subjects work. He writes with a touch of humor and an abundance of good grace. Without arrogance his own astute thinking shines through each page of the book.
As I finished each chapter I found myself wishing it were a dozen pages longer but understanding that Gottlieb’s intent is to offer a very basic core understanding of each person that might encourage a reader to dig deeper through more comprehensive presentations by other authors. I have used his “Suggestions for Further Reading” to that end.
I encourage all to read and enjoy this wonderful work.

[Joey Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tl;dr—if you like the history of philosophy, this light reading rocks. If you like intellectual history, please ignore the previous sentence, and this book is very insightful despite its discussion of philosophy. If you aren’t included in the earlier two sentences, how did you get to this review?



If I were to teach a class on the history of modern philosophy, this would be the main text. It provides a clear exposition of the social, political, and intellectual climate that they wrote in. It also does a very good job of giving rather charitable interpretations of their commitments as well as motivations.

The common thread and elephant in the room is the religious attitudes of the societies they inhabited. These include France, minor states of the Holy Roman Empire, England, etc, but these countries all had their own political circumstances that might otherwise be lost on the reader who is mostly unaware of as to why they wrote the way they did, and how these differed amongst themselves. Despite many of the authors being men of letters, which facilitated a relatively free and open discussion that sat alongside the political concerns particular to each country, the overall climate of the continent loomed at large. Many of these authors, had to couch their arguments, and crafted their arguments so as to not immediately draw political persecution for their critical examination of the role that tradition and dogma played. Many works were released anonymously or published posthumously, because the content of their work was often rather shocking or offensive to common and/or aristocratic sensibilities.

While it is easy for many readers today to impose their current intellectual standards and take these authors arguments as piecemeal for whatever position they want to espouse, defend, or attack, whether it is scientism, new age atheism, or even the more wild varieties of reactionary conservatism that espouse “free thinking,” it is important to keep in mind that our current situation is not the same as the authors discussed in these books for the reasons discussed above. But you probably already knew that. It’s just a good reminder.

Gottlieb is careful to point out that these writers (Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Hume, et al.) lived across a pretty wide span of time despite their geographic and cultural background, and our inherited ways of lumping certain philosophers together on shared commitments can and often does obfuscate our appreciation of their thoughts.

For example, the rationalist and empiricist dispute commonly taught over whether we are blank slates or endowed with innate ideas glosses over some of the finer details of their works. This is to say that this empiricist-rationalist distinction, while helpful in some contexts (like understanding what Kant himself had to say about them that solidified these distinctions we have been accustomed to adopt even today), the more we scrutinize these distinctions, we then open ourselves to an impression of the wondrous and shocking world/times in which they understand themselves to be in.

Doing so allows our reading of Leibniz to get much more interesting, as he appreciated both Hobbes and Berkeley, and helps to better contextualize the kinds of commitments that Leibniz himself held or at least what he commitments he thought he held.

The biggest loser in the book is Locke. And this is not without undue understanding. Locke’s position was secured in the realm of myth and intellectual testimony especially within traditional institutions that conveyed it to me. Not only does Locke not particularly hold up to intellectual scrutiny about the limits of the mind, but his values and other commitments indicate that he was all around a reactionary opportunist who stood to literally profit wherever and whenever he could. Truly he might be the founder of liberalism as we’ve come to know and understand it, and the blind spots he had on his own principles seem to replicate themselves on those who espouse the greatness of his philosophy. Locke sucks, full stop. If you are an analytic philosopher, maybe you can salvage his work on personal identity, but reading about the broader context his argument is situated in as explained in this book, this might make you think twice unless you are really creative and good at distancing yourself from just about every other commitment he held.

The biggest winner in the book is Hobbes, who is traditionally understood in the crude terms he himself used, and is often never read due to his proclivity towards geometric/legalistic deductions and the intimidating length of his work, or otherwise the testimony espousing his supposed unwavering endorsement of tyranny at any cost (not true obviously). Unsurprisingly, there is always more to the story than what we are often told, and this book does a great job of demonstrating a more charitable path to readers who might be interested in actually reading him, if they weren’t scared off by reasons discussed above. This is not to say he wasn’t right about more things than is often attributed to him, but the ways in which he is wrong is much more interesting in that respect.

The honorable mention is Descartes, whose pettiness towards other intellectuals with competing intellectual projects is often left undiscussed. That was fun to read about. Although I have read much of his work several times over, and discussed it thoroughly in appropriate contexts, even then I still have managed to come to a more charitable interpretation of some of his arguments.

But whatever your disposition is or set of commitments you hold, Gottlieb is an excellent writer and wove a fascinating narrative tying together these wildly original and different thinkers. If you’re an insatiable reader of philosophy, this is some excellent light reading material. If you are just interested in the intellectual history and find philosophy rather difficult (which it is!) you’ll be delighted by the clear and sufficient explication of their views. For the insatiable readers of philosophy still reading this review after that last sentence, these reconstructions are as always, quite disputable and not free from scrutiny, but surely you’re interested in the context in which their arguments are made and surely have something to gain by Gottlieb’s masterful exposition of that context.

I also really liked the end bit about John Cleese’s speech of the People’s Liberation Front of Judea from the Life of Brian. That was a nice surprise and I love Monty Python. The only problem is that you have to read a whole book to be reminded of that. Oh well. Maybe if you read the whole darn thing, you can be delighted too.

[Mars Cheung · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Enlightenment Era was supposedly the time marking the exit out of the Middle Ages and the transition into what would become the modern epoch. I picked up this book with the intent on learning more of the ideas which made thinkers such as Baruch Spinoza, John Locke and David Hume well-known.

Some of the ideas introduced were incredibly abstract and difficult to grasp, but that had more to do with the thoughts attributed to the particular philosopher than the writing itself. I felt it could have been presented in a easier-to-digest manner as it felt a little drawn out at times and added a layer of abstraction that made the content more difficult to consume than it already was. Still, the content itself made the read worthwhile. However, I wouldn't suggest this book as a starting point for taking in the Enlightenment. I would use it more as a supplement to a more generalized work.

[Kelly Bronner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This and "The Dream of Reason" are two of the best nonfiction books I've ever read. They're probably going to end up being the best books I read in 2021. I studied philosophy in college and I definitely believed some myths about the famous philosophers, or had overly simplistic understandings of their theories, that are cleared up in these books. I also find them to be more comprehensive than the lower-level philosophy courses. They're also beautifully written, engaging, and entertaining. Mr. Gottlieb, please produce a third book! You were born to do this!

[Lone Wong · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Learned we may be with another's man learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own."- Michel de Montaigne

I think I'm able to understand what Montaigne trying to tell me here. I've read The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, and many other philosophy introduction books in order for me to get to know the context of Western thought. One thing for sure is that other's people interpretation of thought does not really help me to understand more about the ideas of the philosophers.

As Anthony interpret John Locke idea in this book: Many of them come, he said, from observing the activities of our own minds as they consider or react to the ideas they receive from outside-that is, from introspection, which he calls "reflection." The simple ideas that are generated by sensation or reflection are then compounded and manipulated by the mind to compose more complex ideas. To elaborate more on John Locke's ideas and his recipe for the Idea of God:

having...got the Ideas of Existence and Duration; of Knowledge and Power; of Pleasure and Happiness; and several other Qualities and Powers, which it is better to have than to be without; when we would fame an Idea the most suitable we can to the Supreme Being, we enlarge every one of these with our Idea of infinity; and so, putting them together, make our complex Idea of God.

The Conclusion here is: read I may be with another people's wisdom from assimilating the philosophers; I can truly be wise and grasp the Idea of the Philosophers by mine own. As David Hume put it in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; we can only truly know what actually exists, by allowing us to infer the existence of something from its cause or its effects with experimental reasoning. (Definition here is very comprehensive, for instance: how to live; how to learn, and how to practice to be an authentic person)

Nevertheless, we have to start from somewhere. This may not be the best of all possible way, but this book indeed helps me a lot to comprehend the Idea of philosophers and interpreting complex and incomprehensive sentences structure into more layman manner for me to understand. Especially the chapter about Spinoza's geometrical investigation of metaphysics in Ethic, but also Leibniz ambitious theory of Monadology.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a helpful book, but not what I normally read for fun. All of the names that Gottlieb focuses on during this history were previously familiar to me, and I had hoped that reading (listening to) this book would give me a greater overall understanding of the philosophers from this critical period in western thinking. In the end, I think it may have been more helpful for me to read a physical copy than listen to the audio book.

I really enjoyed Gottlieb’s reading voice—very British and what I imagine sitting in an Oxford philosophy lecture would feel like. However, I think it would have been helpful if he had more explicitly distinguished his words from quotations. In a physical book, this is done with punctuation or italics, but in an audio book I think he should have introduced them a bit (“according to Spinoza,” “Hobbes wrote,” etc.). I feel like trail markers of this sort are necessary when you’re trying to listen in addition to doing something else (how many people don’t multi-task while listening to an audio book?).

I feel like I took away some important information about complicated authors like Spinoza and Leibniz, although Gottlieb spends so much time discussing incorrect readings of these writers that I am not 100% on whether the correct or incorrect idea is what stuck in my head. The, more or less, unifying thread of mathematics (which almost all of these guys were obsessed with) was interesting to trace across time and minds. So many of these guys considered geometry and equations to be the most important facet or take away from their work, but it hasn’t turned out that way.

Like I said, an informative work but one perhaps best enjoyed in print.

[Jim Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Jim Cook’s review) Published in 2016, this overview of Enlightenment thinkers covers the following, and more: Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Bayle, Leibniz, Hume, Voltaire and Rousseau. Gottlieb does a wonderful job vividly describing the lives of these great philosophers and their chief ideas, as well as their times.

It’s not the potted, journalistic account that I feared when I first purchased the book. Gottlieb presents his subjects with penetrating insight and sheds new light on some of their works.

I was also impressed by the chronological chart at the beginning of the book which shows the lifelines of each philosopher in relation to all the others. As well, the hardcover book was beautifully bound and felt good to hold, always a nice feature of reading a real, well-made text rather than scanning lines of print on a screen.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in one or more of these Enlightenment thinkers; for myself, reading it whet my appetite to buy the first volume of Gottlieb’s proposed trilogy, The Dream of Reason, which focuses upon Western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance.

[Eugene Kernes · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are seven philosophers under this book’s purview, who are: Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, Locke, Bayle, Leibniz, and Hume. Their curiosity in challenging assumptions facilitated reduction in persecution for intellectual thought. Conquered prejudice and blind admiration in favor of cautious collection of facts. Gottlieb looks at their philosophies from the perspective of their time rather than attributing today’s values unto them. The enlightenment precipitated in tolerance of religious dissent, and increased the power that people held to shape their government. Because of the philosophers, impediments to knowledge and well-being were questioned, which fostered an ask for better alternatives.

Descartes philosophy stems from doubt. Doubted as much as possible before claiming any knowledge. Even by being cautious and doubtful, he nevertheless accepted many suspect assumptions with his philosophies and knowledge which depended on the existence and nature of God. With previous poor treatments of philosophers whose work was unacceptable to Church and educational establishment, Descartes knew that his ideas could be dangerous. As such, in order to be accepted, he tried to pacify the pious. Although Descartes wanted to appease potential threats, he was abusive to his contemporary rivals and accused former collaborators of stealing his ideas. Through his search for certainty, many found his ideas to be misconceptions, which is common in ideas which need to be claimed before potential alternative can be found.

Hobbes made many enemies by provocatively attacking academics and theologians alike. Known for his political philosophy in which the state has immense power. Under this philosophy, the people willingly accept to follow a sovereign authority to prevent dire consequences. The sovereign would need a monopoly on political authority as anything less would not be effective at staving of chaos. The benefits of having such a sovereign would be to live without threat to life by violence or other cruelties. In irony, although Hobbes saw the potential for abusing the subjects, he did not consider this to be an option because the sovereign would wrong God and risk the sovereign’s soul to eternal death. This is ironic because Hobbes was well-versed in history which contained many leaders that prove him wrong.

Spinoza did not want people to confuse human values with the point of view of the divine. Thought that it was possible to know what was good or bad for humanity but that the credibility of the viewpoints were not equal. Questioned miracles and divine interventions. Saw it as an error to see divine intervention as mutable, as that presumed that laws of nature are like human laws which were at the discretion of the lawmaker. To Spinoza, amazing events were not evidence of infinite power, while amazing power can lead people astray. Did not want to rule out alternative explanations to events before considering them. Spinoza recognized that persecuting independent though would have unintended consequences.

Locke wanted people to avoid completely relying on the opinions of others. His philosophy, as Gottlieb puts it, was an ‘assault on the lazy acceptance of received opinions’. Even in morals, morals required people to think about them, which required a lack of blind acceptance to others practices and standards. Legitimacy of the government should also be made independently. Many of his views on government were used as pretext to rebel, which Locke would not have quickly approved of. The power of the government came from people joining to form a community, creating a social contract which held political power.

Bayle noticed that a particular event, such as a comet, could not be signal from God because the signal could easily backfire. The signal could encourage alterative forms of worship. An event does not carry a particular deity’s signature, making the signal ambiguous. Although there were not many atheists during the time, Bayle, unlike his contemporaries, did not think that atheism would lead to as much wickedness as was considered. His philosophy indicates that it is not appropriate to coerce people to think or do a particular thing because God wanted those thoughts and action from convictions resulting from a search for truth. Honest mistakes should not be considered as sin, and therefor should not be punished as such.

It is Leibniz’s notations which are used in infinitesimal calculus. Leibniz speculated that there should be a building block of matter which cannot be divided further. He called them atoms, but not the atoms of what physics claims to be atoms. These were monads, of which everything else is built from.

Hume is known for what is now known as the problem of induction. Asking for intellectual modesty as knowledge is based on limited experience. Distinguished between relations of ideas and matters of fact. Reasoning about ideas produces mathematics and definitional claims. Reasoning about facts produces more information but are depended on experiences and are incapable of being demonstrated.

This book is a bit limited in the number and diversity of the philosophers showcased. They are mostly all popular. Although the philosophies are different, they do have a trend in response to religion. Although these philosophers were in the minority and were primarily persecuted for their heterodox ideas, it seems that what is missing are philosophers who disagreed with enlightenment philosophers or showcased the mentality which the enlightenment philosophers were responding too. This is unlike the book’s predecessor, Dream of Reason, which showcased very diverse philosophies and various philosophers which are not well known. A bit difficult to read and understand sometimes as the information presented was somewhat disorganized.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his second book in this biographical series on philosophy, Gottlieb focuses on the thinkers of the Enlightenment from Descartes to Voltaire. There's a special focus on undercutting misguided conventional wisdom. For example, while Descartes took cogito, ergo sum as his first axiom, he believed that soul and body were deeply connected, even if he couldn't quite articulate how, as opposed to the strict divide that has garnered the name "Cartesian dualism". Hobbes, while valuing political stability, was hardly a totalitarian. Locke's treatises were more conservative than liberal, Rosseau rather a misanthrope and critic of the whole project, etc.

As before, Gottlieb blends a solid summary of these thinkers lives with these thoughts, though he doesn't quite manage to synthesize what the Enlightenment was, or why the cumulative efforts of all these thinkers deserve to be called the Enlightenment. Still, an interesting and informative book.