The Enlightenment and the intellectual foundations of modern culture / Louis Dupri.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dupre, Louis K., 1925-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Enlightenment.

Civilization, Modern.

Philosophy and civilization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (415 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The prestige of the Enlightenment has declined in recent years. Many consider its thinking abstract, its art and poetry uninspiring, and the assertion that it introduced a new age of freedom and progress after centuries of darkness and superstition presumptuous. In this book, an eminent scholar of modern culture shows that the Enlightenment was a more complex phenomenon than most of its detractors and advocates assume. It includes rationalist as well as antirationalist tendencies, a critique of traditional morality and religion as well as an attempt to establish them on new foundations, even the beginning of a moral renewal and a spiritual revival.The Enlightenment's critique of tradition was a necessary consequence of the fundamental modern principle that we humans are solely responsible for the course of history. Hence we can accept no belief, no authority, no institutions that are not in some way justified. This foundation, for better or for worse, determined the course of the following centuries. Despite contemporary reactions against it, the Enlightenment continues to shape our own time and still distinguishes Western culture from any other.

Contents:

A definition and a provisional justification

A different cosmos

A new sense of selfhood

Toward a new conception of art

The moral crisis

The origin of modern social theories

The new science of history

The religious crisis

The faith of the philosophers

Spiritual continuity and renewal.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786611722876

9781281722874

1281722871

9780300133684

0300133685

OCLC:

923590599