Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture.

Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langj�igem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - sehr guter Zustand / very good condition - A Definition and a Provisional Justification -- In 1783 the writer of the article �Was ist Aufkl�ng?� (What Is Enlightenment?), published in the Berlinische Monatschrift, confessed himself unable to answer the question he had raised.1 Today it remains as difficult to define the Enlightenment. The uncertainty appears in the conflicting assessments of the movement. The second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary describes :t as inspired by a �shallow and pretentious intellectualism, unreasonable contempt for tradition and authority.� Obviously a definition of this nature is not ery helpful for understanding a phenomenon distinct by its complexity. But neither is Kant�s famous description of it as �man�s release from his self-incurred tutelage� � today mainly used as a butt for attacks on the Enlightenment. Rather than beginning with a definition, I prefer to start my discussion by briefly tracing the movement to its sources. The Enlightenment concluded a search for a new cultural synthesis begun at the end of the Middle Ages when the traditional cosmological, anthropological, and theological one had disintegrated. -- European culture rests on a relatively small number of ideas. One of them is the assumption that reality as we observe or experience it does not coincide with the principles that justify it. Plato made this distinction a central thesis of his philosophy: appearances are separate from the ideas that ground and legitimate them. He knew well that the theory would be challenged. ISBN 9780300113464