The Enlightenment: A Very Short Introduction (2024)

Online ISBN:

9780191782411

Print ISBN:

9780199591787

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

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John Robertson

John Robertson

Professor of the History of Political Thought, University of Cambridge

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Oxford Academic

Published:

24 September 2015

Online ISBN:

9780191782411

Print ISBN:

9780199591787

Cite

Robertson, John, The Enlightenment: A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions (Oxford, 2015; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Sept. 2015), https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199591787.001.0001, accessed 20 June 2024.

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Abstract

A foundational moment in the history of modern European thought, the Enlightenment continues to be a reference point for philosophers, scholars, and opinion-formers. Enlightenment: A Very Short Introduction offers a concise historical introduction to the Enlightenment as an intellectual movement of eighteenth-century Europe. Discussing its intellectual achievements, it also explores how its supporters exploited new ways of communicating their ideas to a wider public, creating a new ‘public sphere’ for critical discussion of the moral, economic, and political issues facing their societies. But what is the relationship between the historical Enlightenment and the idea of ‘Enlightenment’, and can these two understandings be reconciled?

Keywords: Cesare Beccaria, Ernst Cassirer, The Enlightenment, David Hume, Moses Mendelssohn, philosophy, Richard Rorty, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Christian Wolff

Subject

European History Modern History (1700 to 1945) 17th - 18th Century Philosophy Intellectual History

Series

Very Short Introductions

Collection: Very Short Introductions

Contents

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