[HN Gopher] The End of Enlightenment: Empire, Commerce, Crisis ___________________________________________________________________ The End of Enlightenment: Empire, Commerce, Crisis Author : benbreen Score : 18 points Date : 2023-12-20 19:50 UTC (3 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.historytoday.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.historytoday.com) | rch wrote: | This seems like an indictment the Enlightenment itself, instead | of the critique of current social philosophy that I'd be | interested in. | hackernewds wrote: | what is the current social philosophy for you? | sctb wrote: | Fair enough, but one of the advantages of looking at | Enlightenment philosophy on its own terms is that it's easier | to perceive--and thus learn from--its failures. "Current social | philosophy" has the disadvantage of being both current (so are | we) and social (so are we), and so we suffer from a lack of | perspective. It would not be surprising to me if one could | identify weaknesses of 18th century thought that persist today. | eikenberry wrote: | > What was the Enlightenment? Damned if I know. | | It was the rediscovery of Aristotle along with the newly formed | universities giving him an audience. Everything else fell out of | that. | nostromo wrote: | "Oh actually the Enlightenment was bad" is very on-trend for | academic historians in 2023. | | The book isn't out yet, but the synopsis here seems like the | author is projecting his bias onto history (claiming "the pursuit | of happiness" is just about consuming luxury goods is moronic). | | Arguing that the decline of religion lead to a rise in | nationalism might be true, but that doesn't mean the previous | religious structures didn't deserve to be corrected. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-12-23 23:00 UTC)