The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture
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Louis Dupré
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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.
Louis Dupré is T. L. Riggs Professor Emeritus of Philosophy of Religion at Yale University.
A selection of Readers' Subscription
“This immensely readable book will cause readers to rethink the Enlightenment and to see its positive aspects. It will also add crucial historical perspective to current discussions of modernity.”—Donald Verene, Emory University
"Dupré's book is highly recommendable to both professors and graduate students specializing in modern European intellectual history, as well as for those approaching the eighteenth century for the first time. Its breadth and depth are simply enviable, as is the author's ability to discern important ideas from accessory ones. In this sense, the book works as both a manual and a critical study. Written in an accessible style despite its erudition, this contribution should leave a long-lasting mark in the field of eighteenth-century studies."—Ricardo Miguel Alfonso, Atlantis
"A monumental work."—Choice
“Louis Dupré’s study of the Enlightenment, ranging as it does over art, morality, religion, science, philosophy, social theory, and a good deal besides, is a marvel of scholarly erudition. . . . A formidably well-researched book, which would make an excellent introduction to Enlightenment ideas for the general reader."—Terry Eagleton, Harper’s Magazine
"[Dupré] conceives [the Enlightenment] not as a static program, but as a dynamic, even dialectical one. Thanks to this comprehensiveness, his intellectual portrait of the Enlightenment, as fascinating as it is learned, gains in depth and scope."—Arnold Heumakers, NRC-Handelsblad
"In The Enlightenment, Dupré fully meets the high expectations raised by his earlier Passage to Modernity."—Stijn Van den Bossche, Tertio
Publication Date: May 11, 2004
