[lit-ideas] Re: Is the Enlightenment a Myth ?
- From: Teemu Pyyluoma <teme17@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 06:02:53 -0700 (PDT)
I find the dogmatic promotion of enlightmented values
both ironic and sad, but ignoring that and also
whether or not this has anything to do with Islam, I
have a few comments:
> The problem is that "Enlightenment values" doesn't
> offer the kind of solid ground they believe it to
> be.
> For example, many Enlightenment thinkers would not
> have described themselves as rationalists. Jon
> Wilson,
> a historian at King's College, London, makes the
> case
> that the Enlightenment had far more to do with
> anti-rationalism - thinkers like David Hume or Adam
> Smith argued in favour of a much more empirical
> approach of observation to understand the messy,
> muddle of reality.
>
I think the author (of the Guardian piece, not Wilson)
confuses the common meaning of rational, as in
reasonable, objective, sober with the more specific
historical rationalism as in Cartesian... I don't
really see why Hume should be considered anti-rational
in the first sense.
> Another example, one of the most common
> misconceptions, is that the Enlightenment was about
> atheism, and drove an irreversible wedge between
> science and reason on one hand and religion on the
> other. In fact, none of the major Enlightenment
> thinkers were atheists.
David Hume wasn't a major enlightment thinker? Or
wasn't he an atheist?
Cheers,
Teemu
Helsinki, Finland
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
