The Quest for a Global Age of Reason. Part II: Cultural Appropriation and Racism in the Name of Enlightenment

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-155
Author(s):  
Dag Herbjørnsrud ◽  
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Phillis Wheatley ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Global Age ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment is more global and complex than the standard Eurocentric Colonial Canon narrative presents. For example, before the advent of unscientific racism and the systematic negligence of the contributions of Others outside of “White Europe,” Raphael centered Ibn Rushd (Averroes) in his Vatican fresco “Causarum Cognitio” (1511); the astronomer Edmund Halley taught himself Arabic to be more enlightened; The Royal Society of London acknowledged the scientific method developed by Ibn Al-Haytham (Alhazen). In addition, if we study the Transatlantic texts of the late 18th century, it is not Kant, but instead enlightened thinkers like Anton Wilhelm Amo (born in present-day’s Ghana), Phillis Wheatley (Senegal region), and Toussaint L’Ouverture (Haiti), who mostly live up to the ideals of reason, humanism, universalism, and human rights. One obstacle to developing a more balanced presentation of the Age of the Enlightenment is the influence of colonialism, Eurocentrism, and methodological nationalism. Consequently, this paper, part II of two, will also deal with the European Enlightenment’s unscientific heritage of scholarly racism from the 1750s. It will be demonstrated how Linnaeus, Hume, Kant, and Hegel were among the Founding Fathers of intellectual white supremacy within the Academy. Hence, the Age of Enlightenment is not what we are taught to believe. This paper will demonstrate how the lights from different “Global Enlightenments” can illuminate paths forward to more dialogue and universalism in the 21st century.

scholarly journals The Origin of Feminism and the Feminist Movement in the Late 18th — Early 19th Centuries

2020 ◽  
pp. 78-84
Author(s):  
О.В. Захарова ◽  
Е.А. Нойкова
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Feminist Movement ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Scientific Technical ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
Colonial Oppression

Вторая половина XVIII века в истории Европы богата не только войнами, революциями, колониальной политикой и множеством важных научных, технических и культурных открытий, но также и коренным социальными преобразованиями на европейском общественном пространстве. Именно эпоха Просвещения заложила начало к переоценке женщины как независимой личности, способной на равных правах с мужчинами полноценно участвовать в экономической, политической и производственной деятельности. Период протофеминизма дает богатый исторический материал о начале зарождения первых женских движений, лозунгов и выдвигаемых требований. На данном этапе появляются первые борцы за равноправие между мужчинами и женщинами, первые праматери феминистских движений, заложившие основы и постулаты для будущих поколений, появляются первые труды и первые произведения, положившие начало движению к равноправной гендерной свободе и борьбе женщин за свои права. In the late 18th century, Europe witnessed many wars, revolutions, colonial oppression, but it also saw many important scientific, technical and cultural discoveries and dramatic social changes. The Age of Enlightenment reassessed the role of women as independent personalities who can fully participate in economics, politics and manufacturing at par with men. Protofeminism anticipated modern feminism with its mottos and aspirations. In that era, there appeared first activists fighting for gender equality, forerunners of the feminist movement who formulated the principles of feminism. There appeared first works which lay the foundation of the gender equality movement and initiated womenʼs struggle for their rights.

Paideia as Bildung in Germany in the Age of Enlightenment

1998 ◽  
pp. 53-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Giacomoni
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
German Philosophy ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Strong Emphasis ◽  
Medieval Mystics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment ◽  
The Ideal

There have been many interpretations of Bildung in the history of German philosophy, from the Medieval mystics to the secularization of the Enlightenment. Wilhelm von Humboldt's work at the end of the 18th century is a good example. He placed the idea of Bildung at the center of his work because it was rooted in a dynamic, transforming idea of the natural and human worlds while also being oriented toward a model of balance and perfection. Von Humboldt's interpretation of modernity is characterized by a strong emphasis on change as well as the need to find criteria for guiding such a transformation that has no intrinsic or predetermined end. Love of classical antiquity was not merely nostalgia for a lost world, a normative current that placed the idea of perfection and balance foremost in order to achieve the ideal of Humanitas in an attempt to overcome the unilaterally of modernity.

scholarly journals Reading about … the history of psychiatry

2012 ◽  
Vol 200 (5) ◽  
pp. 431-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Beveridge
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
History Of Psychiatry ◽  
The State ◽  
Effective Therapy ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Rational Approach ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
History Of

In recent decades ideological battles have raged over how the history of psychiatry should be interpreted. Should the emergence of psychiatry in the late 18th century be seen as the triumph of the Enlightenment, ushering in a rational approach to mental illness and overturning the primitive and often barbaric ideas of previous eras? Or should the rise of psychiatry be seen in a more sinister light? Does it represent the extension of the state into the lives of its citizens, controlling and policing the disaffected and discontented? Are psychiatrists benign humanitarians or agents of oppression? Should the historical narrative be one of progress, as psychiatry steadily extends its knowledge of mental illness and develops more and more effective therapy? Or is the reverse true: has the advent of psychiatry been a calamity for the mad?

What Indeed Was Neo-Classicism?: A Reply to James William Johnson's “What Was Neo-Classicism?”

1970 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-79
Author(s):  
Donald Greene
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
External Aid ◽  
Augustan Age ◽  
Classical Age ◽  
Scientific American

Bernal calls the Dark Ages the Age of Faith; the period from the end of the 17th to the beginning of the 18th century is often called the Age of Reason. — Scientific American“Shortest damn age in history” was The New Yorker's comment on this little gem; and the phrase, which for some decades did manful duty among writers of school textbooks and “popular historians” like the Durants and Sir Harold Nicolson as a substitute for study and thought, deserves no better epitaph. To the serious historian, these questions of labeling — “Shall we call the Dark Ages the Age of Faith, or shall we call the Age of Faith the Dark Ages? Shall we call 1660-1800 in Britain the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment or the Neo-Classical Age or the Augustan Age?” — seem only tedious pseudo-problems, better left for journalists — and professors of literature — to play with if it amuses them and their readers; for his purposes, it suffices to call 1660-1800 “1660-1800.” He knows too well that such labels represent not only naive oversimplifications and distortions of history, but sometimes even reversals of the historical actuality. “The Age of Reason” is certainly one of these latter. Nothing is easier than to demonstrate that “reason,” as signifying the power of the human mind, without external aid, to arrive at valuable truth, was, together with its handmaid “logic,” seldom in worse repute than in Britain from 1660 onward. The whole tendency of the ruling empiricist philosophy of the time, that of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume — “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions” — is to minimize it and exalt experience in its place.

scholarly journals The relationship between the Enlightenment and the survival of the Livonian language in Salaca Parish

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-59
Author(s):  
Aldur Vunk
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Academic Interest ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment ◽  
The Relationship

In the 18th century, the Livonian language in Salaca Parish became the subject of academic interest, and also persecution. This article examines the contradictory challenges posed by the Age of Enlightenment, primarily the exclusion of the Livonian language from public use that was carried out with the help of administrative and legal measures. The sources for the article include contemporary descriptions, as well as data related to the families that can be identified as being Livonians. The differing attitudes of the two largest manor administrators toward the Livonian peasants and their language is highlighted along with the ensuing consequences. There is also a description of the projects and undertakings that were impacted by the Enlightenment at the parish’s larger manors. To start, the article defines the borders of the Livonians’ linguistic island in the first half of the 18th century, and in conclusion, a comparison is provided of the language usage of the Livonians in this same area in the first half of the 19th century.Kokkuvõte. Aldur Vunk: Seosed valgustusaja ja liivi keele püsimise vahel Salatsi kihelkonnas. Valgustusliikumise mõju Balti kubermangudes ei väljendunud kõikjal positiivsete arengute kaudu ja 18. sajandil ei suudetud ühiskonda kaasajastada tasakaalustatult, hävitamata elutervele kultuurile omast paljusust. Valgustusaeg koos samal ajal süvenenud pärisorjusega oli Salatsi liivi talupoegadele mitmeti väljakutsuv; võrreldes varasema ajaga sõltus nende kultuurilise ja keelelise omapära püsimine kohalikest mõisnikest ja nende heakskiidul ametisse pandud pastoritest. See polnud aga kaugeltki parim võimalus, sest koos uue mentaliteedi võidulepääsemisega oli suurenenud lõhe ka haritud ja valgustatud inimeste eneste vahel. Liivlaste kultuurilist emantsipatsiooni takistasid seisuslikud tõkked ja Salaca kihelkonna kaugus nii kubermangu- kui ka kreisikeskustest ei võimaldanud siia koonduda rohkematel haritlastel kui pastor ja mõisnike koduõpetajad. Liivlaste identiteedi väga oluline nõrgenemine valgustusaja kestel Salatsi kihelkonnas on tuvastatav nende asustusalana kirjeldatud piirkonna kiires kahanemises 18. sajandi teisel poolel ja 19. sajandi alguses. Ometi polnud Salatsi kihelkond valgustusajal vaimse elu orbiidilt kadunud ja täielikku pimedusse mattunud kolgas, kus valgustusideed oleks olnud täiesti tundmatud. Pigem suurenes sellel ajastul haritud inimeste iseteadlike suundumiste osakaal ja palju sõltus ka Salatsi kihelkonna väheste haritlaste huvidest. Samal ajal kui saksakeelsesse teadusperioodikasse jõudis teadmine akadeemilist huvi pakkuvast liivlaste kultuurist, algas selle väljenduste mahasurumine. Aastatel 1742–1778 kihelkonnakogudust teeninud pastor Johann Conrad Burchard saatis Peterburi Teaduste Akadeemia liikmele August Ludwig von Schlözerile liivi keele alase kaastöö ja jätkas selle keele uurimist Salatsi kihelkonnas. Tema järeltulija, pastor Ignatius Franz Hackel, võttis aga eesmärgiks liivi talupoegade iidse ja omapärase kultuuri hävitamise, mis ühiskonna poolt tema kätte antud volituste ja pika ametiaja (1778–1836) toel ka teoks sai. Lisaks pastoritele oli suur osakaal talupoegade elu suunamisel mõisnikel. 1738. aastal poolitatud Salatsi mõisa kahes pooles olid tingimused liivi kultuuri säilimisele erinevad. Salatsi kihelkonnas elanud liivlastest kasutas oma emakeelt kauem Svētciemsi mõisa kogukond. Seda mõisa pidasid 18. sajandil valdavalt kohalikud või samast piirkonnast pärit mõisnikud ja väljapaistvaim neist oli Riia literaatide suhtlusringkonda kuulunud kihelkonna sillakohtunik Friedrich Gustav von Dunten. 1769. aastal mõisa üle võtnud parun Dunten korraldas samal aastal kohalike talupoegade keele jäädvustamise Riia Toomkiriku ülempastori ja konsistooriumi koolijuhi Immanuel Justus von Esseni juures. Samal ajal Vecsalaca mõisas suurejoonelisi ja ajastule iseloomulikke kultuurimonumente püstitanud parun Friedrich Hermann von Fersen rõhutas küll oma majapidamise kuulumist antiikse ja germaani kultuuri mõjuvälja, kuid aitas ise kaasa seal veel elujõulise liivi kultuuri väljasuretamisele.Märksõnad: liivlased, Salaca kihelkond, Vecsalaca, Svētciems, Ķirbiži, 18. sajand, liivi keelKubbõvõttõks. Aldur Vunk: Sidtõkst sieldõmāiga ja līvõ kīel pīlimiz vail Salāts mōgõrs. Sieldõmāiga likkimiz mȯj 18. āigastsadā Baltijs iz ūo set pozitīvi. Sieldõmāiga īdskubs vǟrgõdāigaks vȯļ Salāts mōaŗīntijizt pierāst lǟlam. Nänt kultūr ja kīel pīlimi tǟnkiz mȯiznikīst ja päpīst. Bet se võimi sugīd iz ūo amā paŗīmi, sīestõ põŗg kovāld rovzt eņtš vail kazīz jo sūrõks. Līvlizt identitēt 18. āigastsadā lopāndõks pūol ja 19. āigastsadā īrgandõksõs ei jo vōjlizõks, sīestõ jo piškizõks ei mō, kus ne jelīzt, ja Salāts immõrkouț vȯļ kougõn sidāmist. Salāts immõrkouț umīțigid iz ūo täužiņ pimdõ kūož, kus sieldõmāiga mõtkõd äb vȯlkst vȯnnõd tundtõbõd. Sīel īž āigal, ku saksā tieudlizt āigakērad sizzõl päzīzt tieutõd iļ līvõd kultūr, īrgiz ka līvõd kultūr mōzõ pīkstimi. Päp Johann Conrad Burchard sōtiz Pētõrburg Tieud Akadēmij nõtkõmõn August Ludwig von Schlözerõn eņtš tuņšlimiztīe iļ līvõ kīel ja jatkīz līvõ kīel tuņšlimiztīedõ Salāts immõrkouțš ka pierrõ. Bet täm tagāntuļļi, päp Ignatius Franz Hackel, īrgiz artõ līvõ kultūrõ nei ku set sȭitiz. 1738. āigasts Salāts mȯizõ sai jagdõt kōd jagūks. Sīe Pivākilā jags līvõ kēļ sai kȭlbatod amā kōgim. Mȯiznikā Friedrich Gustav von Dunten tigtiz līvõd kultūrõ. Bet nägțõbõks Vanāsalāts mȯizõ barōn Friedrich Hermann äbțiz artõ līvõd kultūrõ.

scholarly journals Library and Librarian in the Encyclopedia of D. Diderot and J. d’Alembert

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-165
Author(s):  
Taisiia M. Demicheva
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Transfer Of Knowledge ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment ◽  
The Difference

The article discusses peculiarities of perception of library and librarian in France during the age of Enlightenment using the example of Encyclopedia of D. Diderot and J. d’Alembert. The author notes that this article considers the period of the 18th century before the French revolution and only on the territory of France. The author notes that the idea of continuity in obtaining and possessing the knowledge was built by enlighteners using the examples of public libraries in ancient times. The article focuses attention on the difference between the concepts of librairie/ bibliothèque and their transformation during the early Modern period. The author analyzes the main features and peculiarities of the librarian profession that were highlighted by French enlighteners, and their difference from the modern concept. The article emphasizes the question of the prestige of this profession in the 18th century. The author concludes that the understanding of the profession of librarian in the age of Enlightenment differs from the modern one. The study of the role of librarian in the 18th century allows to explore the features of the library in the Enlightenment, whose tasks included collection and transfer of knowledge.

Schubert's Sonata Forms and the Poetics of the Lyric

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
SU YIN MAK
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Sonata Form ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Poetic Imagination

ABSTRACT Although recent scholarship has witnessed a welcome disavowal of the view that Schubert's formal and tonal designs in sonata form compositions bespeak the song composer's inability to master large-scale instrumental genres, it remains a commonplace to characterize Schubert's unorthodox practice as ““lyrical.”” Yet the historical, theoretical, and aesthetic bases of this lyricism have received little critical attention. A systematic and historically grounded approach to the notion of lyrical form in Schubert may be established by appealing to the rhetorical distinction between hypotaxis and parataxis, which pervaded late 18th-century discussions of both music and language. In particular, parataxis, a style that deliberately omits syntactical connections and relies instead on juxtaposition and parallelism, offers a suggestive technical link between Schubert's instrumental practice and the discursive techniques of contemporaneous lyric poetry. There are also aesthetic connections between idealist views of the lyric and the composer's own artistic beliefs, as confirmed by biographical documents. Schubert's approach to form was as much informed by these literary sensibilities as by the Classical compositional tradition. Like poets for whom the lyric served both as an Arcadian ideal of song and as an alternative to the prosaic realities of the present, Schubert evoked the lyric within the context of the sonata as a means of reunifying the dissociated sensibility of the Enlightenment. In so doing, he secured a place for the poetic imagination in instrumental music.

George Washington's Romance: Plotting the Federal City, 1791–1800

Prospects ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Sarah Luria
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Modern Nation State

Washington, D.C., was born from the marriage of literary, economic, and political revolutions of the late 18th century, when the expansion of the marketplace, the rise of the novel, and the increased circulation of print spawned a bourgeois public sphere and, with it, the modern nation-state. Washington, D.C., was from the start an imagined city, created through the circulation of booster literature to attract investors and so solidify a rational political order. Washington, D.C., arose precisely from this need to ground the imagined landscapes of the Enlightenment, to turn the visionary into the visible and political theory into fact.

The Quest for a Global Age of Reason

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 113-131
Author(s):  
Dag Herbjørnsrud ◽  
Keyword(s):  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Global History ◽  
American Universities ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Global Age ◽  
European Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
India And China

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. Secondly, we can rebuild by rediscovering the Enlightenment ideals within the historiography of the “hidden enlightenment” of Europe’s and North America’s past. In Part I, of two parts of this paper, a comparative methodology will be outlined. In addition, examples will be given from the history of ideas in India and China to argue that we need to study how these regions influenced the European history of ideas in the 16th and 17th centuries. Finally, towards the end of this text, a re-reading of the contributions from Egypt and Greece aspires to give a more global and complex context for Western Europe’s so-called Age of Reason.

From Enquiry to Improvement: David Ure (1749–1798)

2008 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES H. BURNS
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Local History ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

David Ure (1749–98) contributed, in his History of Rutherglen and East-Kilbride (1793) not only to local history but, especially, to the development in Scotland of natural history, in some aspects of which he played a pioneering part. His studies at Glasgow University (with John Anderson as one of his teachers) were followed by ordination to the ministry of the Church of Scotland. A ‘stickit minister’ for most of his life, he played a significant part in Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland and contributed also to the surveys prepared for Sinclair's Board of Agriculture and Internal Improvement. Had he lived, he would have been Anderson's choice as professor of natural history in what became the Andersonian Institute. His writings reflect a lifelong commitment to the pursuit of knowledge with a view to improvement: he is thus a notable example of what the Enlightenment in late 18th-century Scotland was meant to exemplify and uphold.

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