The question of the Enlightenment is not so much how do we know but what the hell do we think it is.
On Jan 17, 4:07 am, jonbenn <[email protected]> wrote: > I haven' responded to this list in years, it got to hostile. And I > haven't followed the recent posts, but thought I might just dive in > here and as the obvious epistemological question-how do you know? How > do you know anything at all? Once you answer that question then you > can as whether or not there was such a thin as the enlightenment, and > other questions. First, how do you know. > > The fact that there was once believed to be an enlightenment, and the > fact that it is questioned today, is because we have changed our > epistemology, as well as our metaphysics. But the very fact that we > now question the existence of the enlightenment, or of any age, or > absolute knowledge of any fact, is a direct result from the > epistemology that was ushered in by the enlightenment. Err, well - nope! Diderot was consciously unmasking 1200 years of darkness, to a time when he considered that restriction on thinking was much less. Whatever the E is, it did not usher in anything new. What E is usually caricatured as is part of a revolution of Science, this was Baconian, Newtonian, but also Epicurean and Stoical. But that is only true oif you have a 50 year old conception of the E. The real difficulty is that the E is now so many things that it has lost coherence. There is a Christian E now, and even an English one; its a period of time, its a process, its an event, its a set of values ad nauseum. I'm trying to put 5000 words together and I've opened up a can of worms. > > Jon > > Jan 6, 7:07 am, chazwin <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > It's all very interesting but was there any such thing as a first > > enlightenment? > > > On Dec 30 2009, 6:21 pm, Georges Metanomski <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > ========== > > > Reminder: > > > > The present thread is destined to discuss the rationality of the > >> Second Enlightenment as well as to inquire into the sources of > > > the irrational manipulation of masses and to look for remediation. > > > Its basic structure is: > > > > X1. Scientific Revolution > > > X2. Ontology > > > X3. Ideology > > > X4. Social awareness > > > X5. Establishment > > > > with X=F/S respectively for the first/second enlightenment. > > > We start by the first enlightenment as guidance to the formulation > > > of the second and warning of errors to be avoided. > > > ============ = > > > Originally the thread was meant as a chain of posts, but proved much > > > too voluminous and I upload it progressively to my site. > > > The so far uploaded sections are: > > > F1.Scientific Revolution and F2.Ontology of the first enlightenment > > > inhttp://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_F1_F... > > > F3.Ideology of the first enlightenment > > > inhttp://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_F3.html > > > F4.Social awareness and F5.Establishment of the first enlightenment > > > inhttp://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_F4_F... > > > S1.Scientific Revolution and S2.Ontology of the second enlightenment > > > inhttp://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_S1_S... > > > > Georges.- Hide quoted text - > > > - Show quoted text -
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