The Quest for a Global Age of Reason. Part II: Cultural Appropriation and Racism in the Name of Enlightenment (original) (raw)
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A Mission to Civilize, the Enlightenment and Racism
Although the idea of colonialism existed since time immemorial, it is generally associated with the subjugation of and domination over countries in Americas, Africa and Asia by European states. The occurrence started in earnest roughly in the 15 th century and grew exponentially ever since, to such an extent that Europe, which constitutes only 8 percent of the world's land surface, managed to control in 1800 about 35 percent of the world. At the peak of the colonialism crusade, which was the turn of the 20 th century, that figure climbed as high as 84 percent (Philip Hoffman, Why did Europe Conquer the World?). The main reasons for colonialism were economic and political dominance, Christianization, and civilization (a mission to civilize). Europeans perceived themselves as superior to the rest of the world in terms of each and every aspect of existence. The world therefore had to be in service to them, their needs and their programs. A new Euro-centric world order was on the horizon. It was anchored in a biased worldview that favoured everything European or Western to the disadvantage of everything non-European or non-Western. Europe was the world and the world belonged to Europe, revolving around it.
The Quest for a Global Age of Reason, Part I & II
Dialogue and Universalism, 2021
This paper will contend that we, in the first quarter of the 21st century, need an enhanced Age of Reason based on global epistemology. One reason to legitimize such a call for more intellectual enlightenment is the lack of required information on non-European philosophy in today’s reading lists at European and North American universities. Hence, the present-day Academy contributes to the scarcity of knowledge about the world’s global history of ideas outside one’s ethnocentric sphere. The question is whether we genuinely want to rethink parts of the “Colonial Canon” and its main narratives of the past. This article argues that we, if we truly desire, might create “a better Enlightenment.” Firstly, by raising the general knowledge level concerning the philosophies of the Global South. Thus, this text includes examples from the global enlightenments in China, Mughal India, Arabic-writing countries, and Indigenous North America—all preceding and influencing the European Enlightenment....
Enlightenment Contested. Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752
Intellectual History Review, 2010
With his latest book Enlightenment Contested, Jonathan Israel has made an impressive argument in favour of the view that philosophical ideas shape, or at least help to shape, human history. What ideas, however, does he have in mind? Israel brings forward a specific set of notions: 'toleration, personal freedom, democracy, equality racial and sexual, freedom of expression, sexual emancipation, and the universal right to knowledge and "enlightenment"' (p. 11) and argues that these are at the heart of what defines our system of modern Western values. At the same time, he maintains that we owe these ideas exclusively to a group of early modern 'Radical' thinkers, who first defended them on the basis of a combination of atheist and anti-authoritarian viewpoints closely linked to the philosophy of Spinoza. Despite its nearly 1000 pages, Israel's book fails to prove either of these latter theses, although it does deserve to attract the public and scholarly attention it is bound to receive. [2] Enlightenment Contested is remarkable for its scope and detailed presentation, as well as for the author's immense knowledge of primary and secondary sources. This may too easily go unnoticed, since readers of books such as The Dutch Republic (1995) and Radical Enlightenment (2001) have already become familiar with Israel's seemingly boundless erudition. As for its contents, Enlightenment Contested again has some marvellous new insights to offer. Even if these have not gone completely unnoticed before, Israel's presentation puts them into a new perspective. The idea of a radicalisation of positions in early eighteenth-century France, due to the absence of a broad movement of Enlightenment moderates, is an interesting view not found in Israel's earlier works. Other views invoke Israel's earlier position in Radical Enlightenment. The way, for instance, in which, on the authority of Pierre Bayle, Spinoza's philosophy was presented as a follow-up to ancient systems such as that of the philosopher Strato (c. 335-270 BC), and the debates surrounding the supposedly theistic core of Confucianism, reveal what issues were at stake in early eighteenth-century thought. [3] It is no exaggeration to say that Radical Enlightenment single-handedly reshaped, and Enlightenment Contested now confirms, some of our most basic
Towards a New Topography of Enlightenment
European Review of History: Revue europeenne d'histoire, 2006
The essays gathered in this issue explore possibilities for re-conceptualising the historical topography of the European Enlightenment through an examination of its communicative practices. By what means did the Enlightenment emerge, how did it take root in particular places, and how did it unfold in time and space-as local experience, as a Europe-wide movement and as a global phenomenon? It is an adventure in a new form of cultural geography; it rejects a simple mapping of cultural forms and movements on to purportedly deeper economic, social and political structures and instead proposes that culture be understood as a historical force in its own right, which, through the elaboration of a series of institutions, practices and systems of signification played a constitutive role in the reshaping of economic, social and political structures along new lines. Arguably, no cultural movement, at least since the advent of Christianity, presents a more compelling case for the constitutive claims of culture than the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. For much of the twentieth century the Enlightenment was studied almost exclusively as a chapter in the history of ideas, a story of great thinkers, of philosophical systems and debates that unfolded among a cosmopolitan elite of European men of letters. The historical question was posed (paraphrasing Kant) as follows: 'What was the Enlightenment?' 1 In this historiography the questions of where or how the Enlightenment made itself manifest mattered little or their answers seemed self-evident-it occurred in the minds of a few men who were well positioned to be in dialogue with one another. But a generation ago, a group of scholars of the European eighteenth century, notably Robert Darnton, Daniel Roche, Roger Chartier, Roy Porter and Jürgen Habermas, began posing a different series of questions: How did the
Religion and the Enlightenment (s)
History Compass, 2010
This article focuses on the 'relationship' between 'science' and 'religion' in the 'Enlightenment'. It shows through a 'historiographical' survey of the last half-century how our understanding of the 'Enlightenment' has evolved, and with it the assumptions pertaining to the relationship between religion and science have undergone a series of revisions. From seeing the Enlightenment as a single-minded project aiming to rid the world of organized religion and its concomitant superstitions to appreciating the multifaceted nature of the century with its local variations has made historians question the very idea of an Enlightenment. The old consensus narrative invoked by a 'rise of modern paganism' theory along with a tendency to view the secularizing effects upon society as inevitable have by now ceased its hold over the 'historical imagination'. The situation was remarkably different in country to country: In France, 'Materialist' 'philosophes' such as Voltaire, d'Holbach, and Diderot launched a vituperative campaign to erase what they saw as the infamy of organized religion. Across the channel, however, the situation was far from that polarized. In Britain, a number of the most prominent 'natural philosophers' of the day were actually devout believers despite their scientific interests. From seeing the 'Enlightenment' as a 'teleological project' which apotheosis was 'secularizing' eighteenth century society, we now have a much more nuanced and complete picture of the 'long eighteenth century' and its relationship between science and religion. It has thus been suggested that there were several enlightenments spread both in terms of geography and time. Portraying a spectrum of Enlightenments, either compartmentalized in a national context or thematically distinguished -recent revisionist literature has come a long way from the old consensus thesis.
Enlightenment Ideas and Colonialism
Africa's Radicalisms and Conservatisms, 2022
The period of enlightenment is regarded as an important phase in the development of social science as a field and in history of mankind. With the conception of different ideas ranging from Kantian philosophy on laws of nature, to Lockean theory on property, social contract, Hegelian idea on Master-slave dialectics etc. This chapter sought to carry out a critical analysis on enlightenment ideas and colonialism to deconstruct the global front of these ideas. These ideas wanting to provide a framework within which discourse should take place, have also performed another function of being the legitimising philosophies of damning narratives that went on to determine the history of man. The argument of how enlightenment ideas justified, and legitimised colonialism is one that has been ignored often which is the rationale for the continued use and dominance of these ideas. This chapter will make use of the qualitative research methodology by employing the descriptive and content analysis method for its analytical framework to carry out a deconstructive argument of some enlightenment ideas and their double-faced narratives in the justification of colonialism. This research is within the context of subsisting efforts of African scholars towards (de)coloniality.
Enlightenment in Global History: A Historiographical Critique (American Historical Review, 2012)
THE ENLIGHTENMENT HAS LONG HELD a pivotal place in narratives of world history. It has served as a sign of the modern, and continues to play that role yet today. The standard interpretations, however, have tended to assume, and to perpetuate, a Eu-rocentric mythology. They have helped entrench a view of global interactions as having essentially been energized by Europe alone. Historians have now begun to challenge this view. A global history perspective is emerging in the literature that moves beyond the obsession with the Enlightenment's European origins. The dominant readings are based on narratives of uniqueness and diffusion. The assumption that the Enlightenment was a specifically European phenomenon remains one of the foundational premises of Western modernity, and of the modern West. The Enlightenment appears as an original and autonomous product of Eu-rope, deeply embedded in the cultural traditions of the Occident. According to this master narrative, the Renaissance, humanism, and the Reformation " gave a new impetus to intellectual and scientific development that, a little more than three and a half centuries later, flowered in the scientific revolution and then in the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. " 1 The results included the world of the individual, human rights, rationalization, and what Max Weber famously called the " disenchant-ment of the world. " 2 Over the course of the nineteenth century, or so the received wisdom has it, these ingredients of the modern were then exported to the rest of the world. As William McNeill exulted in his Rise of the West, " We, and all the world of the twentieth century, are peculiarly the creatures and heirs of a handful of geniuses of early modern Europe. " 3 This interpretation is no longer tenable. Scholars are now challenging the Eu-rocentric account of the " birth of the modern world. " Such a rereading implies three
The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats, 2024
Enlightenment Past and Present is an impressive collection of essays, most of them previously published during the author's prolific career as a (self-described) "contextual intellectual historian." Although its chapters range from academic essays to extensive book reviews to pieces blending confessional prose with bibliographical details, they come together as a surprisingly unified argument about the Enlightenment's extraordinary ideological force in its time and impact on our culture today. Its coherence is given by an eloquent introduction that delivers on the promise of the title: that is, to delve into how the Enlightenment thought shaped the very tenets of modernity while, at the same time, reflecting on the author's intellectual and professional choices, his disciplinary methods, and his formative influences as a historian of the Enlightenment. The Preface and Introduction to this volume are purposely reflective on the author's approaches to his field of study, which makes for delightfully engaging prose. As the author candidly states, "I wanted to come at eighteenth-century constructs not through the lenses of later political ideologies, but by recovering their positional meaning in relation to what preceded them." This candor is counterpoised by a remarkable erudition and an uncanny ability to bring various sources into conversation with each other and delve deeply into their arguments.