One of The Guardians Books to Buy in 2018

"The world is getting better, even if it doesnt always feel that way. Im glad we have brilliant thinkers like Steven Pinker to help us see the big picture. Enlightenment Now is not only the best book Pinkers ever written. Its my new favorite book of all time.Bill Gates

A terrific book[Pinker] recounts the progress across a broad array of metrics, from health to wars, the environment to happiness, equal rights to quality of life. Nicholas Kristof,The New York Times

Elegantly [argues] that in various ways humanity has every reason to be optimistic over life in the twenty-first century. A defense of progress that will provoke deep thinking and thoughtful discourse among his many fans.BooklistPinker defends progressive ideals against contemporary critics, pundits, cantankerous philosophers, and populist politicians to demonstrate how far humanity has come since the EnlightenmentIn an era of increasingly dystopian rhetoric, Pinkers sober, lucid, and meticulously researched vision of human progress is heartening and important.Publishers Weekly[An] impeccably written text full of interesting tidbits from neuroscience and other disciplinesThe author examines the many ways in which Enlightenment ideals have given us lives that our forebears would envy even if gloominess and pessimism are the order of the day. Kirkus Review

Praise for The Better Angels of Our Nature:

If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be thisthe most inspiring book I've ever read."Bill Gates (May, 2017)

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The Enlightenment was crucial in determining almost every aspect of colonial America, most notably in terms of politics, government, and religion. Without the central ideas and figures of the Enlightenment, the United States would have been drastically different since these concepts shaped the country in its formative years. Both during and after the American Revolution many of the core ideas of the Enlightenment were the basis for monumental tracts such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Concepts such as freedom from oppression, natural rights, and new ways of thinking about governmental structure came straight from Enlightenment philosophers such as Locke and forged the foundations for both colonial and modern America. All aspects of life, even religion, were affected by the Enlightenment and many key figures from American history such as Thomas Jefferson were greatly influenced by the movement.

Another way that the Enlightenment helped to shape the colonies was in terms of religion. With the Great Awakening came a new understanding of Americas early relationship to God and the Church. Instead of one all-powerful church that almost required membership, Protestant ideals based on Enlightenment principles of free will and freedom from institutions allowed people to choose membership in a church rather than be forced into one. Although during the Enlightenment there was a very secular focus, in America this was not the case. The colonies were still very religious but they used the ideas of their freedom to choose that were based on the Enlightenment. Instead of being tied to one religious authority, there were many choices in the colonies and people had a right to choose how to establish and maintain their connection to God.

Key figures in the founding of the United States such as Thomas Jefferson were greatly influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment which meant that the country was as well. Jefferson was a perfect man of the Enlightenment as he was both classically educated and trained in the humanities as well as very practical and empirical. As the author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson shaped the country by solidifying the ideas of natural rights in terms of government and religion. In addition, he understood the importance of education in making these ideals work in the new nation and founded the University of Virginia. In many ways, Jefferson represents the way Enlightenment ideals could be put into practice in the new colonies. Other men, such as Benjamin Franklin for example, were similar and since they had such a hand in formulating many of the institutions and tracts the country is based on, their Enlightenment ideas live on

Without the Enlightenment as the philosophical basis of this country, one can only imagine how different would be today. Important guarantees of human and natural rights, expressions of freedom and the rights of citizens to have free choice and practice religious freedom are all vital aspects in America still. Locke, Newton, and other Enlightenment thinkers put forth ideas about liberty and personal will that went on to be key aspects in the most important documents in America such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Other articles in the History Archives that are related to this topic include: A Comparison of the French Revolution and American Revolution The Influence of the Renaissance on Modern American Society Marx and Locke: Comparison of Views on Government, Property and Labor Puritan Influences on Modern American Culture and Thought Common Themes in Romanticism, The Enlightenment, and the Renaissance

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Enlightenment was launched in the 1990s by Carsten "Rasterman" Haitzler as an easy to use Window Manager (WM) for X11. Since then it has expanded to include the one million lines of C code that form the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) and a diverse set of applications. There's a vibrant and active community of developers and users who work on and use the code every day.

Enlightenment is classed as a "desktop shell" as it provides everything you need to operate your desktop or laptop, but it is not a full application suite. This covers functionality including launching applications, managing their windows and performing system tasks like suspending, rebooting, managing files and so on.

The Enlightenment Project is moving towards using Wayland as the base display system, while Enlightenment itself is to become a full Wayland compositor in its own right. This takes time, and there have been some bumps along the road, but the goal is that support for X11 will be eventually be discontinued.

Enlightenment is built on top of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL), using the libraries written for the user interface as well as those for the Compositor itself. This means that any improvements made to EFL are included in the Enlightenment Compositor.

Enlightenment also serves the Window Manager and Compositor for Tizen, due in no small part to its efficiency and breadth of features.

See About Enlightenment for more details.

Enlightenment is primarily developed on the GNU/Linux platform. This means that most GNU/Linux distributions, including platforms like Tizen, should work with Enlightenment straight out of the box. There are also efforts to ensure Enlightenment can run on Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS, though these are at varying stages of completion.

For details on Enlightenment's Windows support see the Windows development page, while Win-Builds ships with EFL for Windows. For information on Enlightenment's macOS support see the OS X Start page.

The Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) drive Enlightenment, but they can also be used independently or built on top of one other to provide useful features and create powerful applications.

The core EFL libraries are much more efficient in both speed and size than their GTK+ and Qt equivalents, and have a smaller memory footprint.

EFL covers a wide range of functions including inter-process communication (IPC), graphics, audio and even location services. Other powerful features include file handling utilities, widgets and user interface controls, thumbnailing and rendering via scene graph. You can discover more of EFL's capabilities by visiting the About EFL page.

The Enlightenment Foundation Libraries already power millions of systems from mobile phones to set-top boxes, desktops, laptops, game systems and more. It is recognized for its forward-thinking approach which allows product designers and developers to offer more than the boring user experience of the past. This is where EFL excels.

Free.fr has shipped millions of set top boxes in France powered by EFL. The Openmoko Freerunner project also sold thousands of devices using EFL and Enlightenment.

EFL powers Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatches and is behind Samsung Smart Televisions such as the Class Q9F QLED 4K TV and refrigerators such as the Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator, which are based on Tizen. GPS devices such as the Coyote also run EFL.

The Enlightenment Project is also responsible for a range of applications written using EFL. Aside from being very useful programs in their own right these serve as great examples of what EFL can do for you.

Terminology is a terminal emulator bristling with advanced features including: tabs, splits, 256-color support, wallpapers (even animated ones), in-line display of media (click on a file path to a video and watch it play), link detection, compressed scrollback stored in RAM, translucency and a gorgeous look and feel inspired by classic CRT monitors.

See the Terminology page for more details.

Designed to be a clean and simple media player, like MPlayer, Rage focuses on video by not filling your window with unnecessary controls and menu bars. These are instead displayed with a simple mouse over, which also displays thumbnails of a video's timeline.

Rage also has a live playlist which will show all currently playing videos. It offers full keyboard and mouse controls as well as supporting Drag and Drop to add more files to your playlist. Use the audio-only mode to grab album cover images and cache them.

See the Rage page for more details.

Ephoto is an image viewer and editor written with a focus on simplicity and ease of use while taking full advantage of EFL's speed and tiny memory footprint. Browse images via thumbnail, single view with editing features, or display a moving slideshow. There are neat filters to try, from Gaussian blurs to intricate sketches. Ephoto is extremely versatile, in that it can act as both a simple viewer and an advanced image editor.

See the Ephoto page for more details.

EDI is a development environment designed for and built using EFL. Its aim is to offer a new, native development environment for Linux which makes getting up and running easier than ever before. With so much happening on Linux, both on the desktop and on mobile, EDI helps more developers get involved in the exciting future of open source development.

See the EDI page for more details.

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About Enlightenment

Spiritual enlightenment is the fundamental goal of most spiritual practices that you undertake. Enlightenment marks the culminating point of your practice you feel unity of soul with everything, all the mental and physical engagements are left aside. Spiritual enlightenment is the possession of highly evolved souls. Spiritual masters from all over over the world experience spiritual enlightenment, and help others on their own paths.

Spiritual enlightenment is often categorized into levels for practical purposes. The highest stage of spiritual enlightenment marks the attainment of unity with God or being one with everything. But can still there are certain levels through which the individual needs to evolve. In a similar way that man has evolved from more primitive animals, the human conciousiness or soul also evolves. For our practical purpose, put them in stages and analyze the state of being in each stage:

At the second stage of enlightenment, you feel apart of yourself in everything around you. You feel a connection with every object and individual in the world. The borders between yourself and the world around you dissipate. Your soul begins to merge with Supreme Soul. You feel that you are not individual anymore and not separate from anything. You feel that you are in everything and everything is just a part of the Supreme Soul from where you also have emerged. Many people describe this feelings of completeness and love.

The third stage of enlightenment, you no longer feel connected to everything but realize you are everything. You the experience the oneness of Creator Source and are not separate from anything in the universe. This stage of enlightenment is a direct experience of oneness.

Spiritual enlightenment is the fruit that sets you free, as you lose all wants and wishes to receive the fruits of your actions. You feel the bliss of completeness and true love. At first it gives you the feeling that you need Light. At the next stage, you feel that you are merging in Light. And in the final stage you and the Light are one.

source

It is important to remember that when it comes to spiritual enlightenment, you cannot enlighten anyone else for this is a sole (and soul) journey. You can always help others along their path or even light the candle that piques their curiosity, but the only one you can truly enlighten is yourself. When it comes to enlightening others, all you can do is to plant the seed and hope the garden is watered with knowledge.

Tags: enlightenment, spiritual, spiritual enlightenment

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The 3 Stages Of Spiritual Enlightenment - In5D Esoteric ...

Sweeping . . . Like being guided through a vast ballroom of rotating strangers by a confiding insider.The Washington PostFascinating.The Telegraph (London)A political tract for our time.The Wall Street Journal

For those who recognize the names Hegel, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Voltaire, and Diderot but are unfamiliar with their thought, [Anthony] Padgen provides a fantastic introduction, explaining the driving philosophies of the period and placing their proponents in context. . . . Padgens belief that the Enlightenment made it possible for us to think . . . beyond the narrow worlds into which we are born is clearly and cogently presented.Publishers Weekly (starred review)The Enlightenment really does still matter, and with a combination of gripping storytelling about colorful characters and lucid explanation of profound ideas, Anthony Pagden shows why.Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Blank SlateReading Anthony Pagdens The Enlightenment: And Why It Still Matters is an enlightenment in itself. The larger-than-life thinkers and talkers of eighteenth-century Europe have been blamed for everything from taking the magic out of life to making Auschwitz possible, but here, in sparkling style, Pagden shows us not only how their ideas made mankind modern but also what our world might have been like without them. Everyone interested in where the West came from should read this book.Ian Morris, author of Why the West RulesFor NowAnthony Pagden defends the Enlightenment as a cosmopolitan project with classical roots and contemporary relevance. Like Kant, he argues that we live in an age of enlightenment, ongoing but incomplete, but that someday we will experience a fully enlightened age. His lucid and learned book might help to realize that hope.David Armitage, author of Foundations of Modern International ThoughtPagden demonstrates the breadth and depth of his knowledge and his impeccable research of the period we refer to as the Enlightenment. . . . A book that should be on every thinking persons shelfthe perfect primer for anyone interested in the development of Western civilization.Kirkus Reviews

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The Enlightenment: And Why It Still Matters - amazon.com

The Age of Enlightenment was an 18th century cultural movement in Europe. It was most popular in France, where its leaders included philosophers like Voltaire and Denis Diderot. Diderot helped spread the Enlightenment's ideas by writing the Encyclopdie, the first big encyclopedia that was available to everyone. The Enlightenment grew partly out of the earlier scientific revolution and the ideas of Ren Descartes.

The Enlightenment's most important idea was that all people can reason and think for themselves. Because of this, people should not automatically believe what an authority says. People do not even have to believe what churches teach or what priests say. This was a very new idea at the time.

Another important idea was that a society is best when everyone works together to create it. Even people with very little power or money should have the same rights as the rich and powerful to help create the society they live in.[1] The nobility should not have special rights or privileges any more.

These were very new ideas at the time. They were also dangerous thoughts for the people in power. Many Enlightenment philosophers were put in prison or were forced to leave their home countries.

Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States believed the Enlightenment's ideas. For example, the idea that a government's job is to benefit all of a country's people - not just the people in power - was very important to them. They made this idea about a government "for the people" one of the most important parts of the new United States Constitution and the new American government they created.

The Enlightenment's ideas were also important to the people who fought in the French Revolution of 1789.

In some countries, kings and queens took some of the Enlightenment's ideas and made changes to their governments. However, they still kept power for themselves. These kings and queens were called "enlightened despots." Examples include Catherine the Great of Russia, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and Gustav III of Sweden.

During the Age of Enlightenment, as more and more people began to use reason, some began to disagree with the idea that God created the world. This caused conflicts - and, later, war.

Many ideas that are important today were created during the Enlightenment. Examples of these ideas include:

The Enlightenment's ideas about thinking with reason, having personal freedoms, and not having to follow the Catholic Church were important in creating capitalism and socialism.

Important people in the Enlightenment came from many different countries and shared ideas in many different ways. Some of the best-known Enlightenment figures, organized by home country, are:

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Causes

On the surface, the most apparent cause of the Enlightenmentwas the Thirty Years War. This horribly destructivewar, which lasted from 1618 to 1648,compelled German writers to pen harsh criticisms regarding the ideasof nationalism and warfare. These authors, such as HugoGrotius and John Comenius, were some of thefirst Enlightenment minds to go against tradition and propose bettersolutions.

At the same time, European thinkers interest in the tangible worlddeveloped into scientific study, while greater exploration of theworld exposed Europe to other cultures and philosophies. Finally,centuries of mistreatment at the hands of monarchies and the churchbrought average citizens in Europe to a breaking point, and themost intelligent and vocal finally decided to speak out.

The Enlightenment developed through a snowball effect:small advances triggered larger ones, and before Europe and theworld knew it, almost two centuries of philosophizing and innovationhad ensued. These studies generally began in the fields of earthscience and astronomy, as notables such as Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei tookthe old, beloved truths of Aristotle and disproved them. Thinkerssuch as Ren Descartes and Francis Bacon revisedthe scientific method, setting the stage for Isaac Newton andhis landmark discoveries in physics.

From these discoveries emerged a system for observingthe world and making testable hypotheses based on thoseobservations. At the same time, however, scientists faced ever-increasingscorn and skepticism from people in the religious community, whofelt threatened by science and its attempts to explain matters offaith. Nevertheless, the progressive, rebellious spirit of thesescientists would inspire a centurys worth of thinkers.

The first major Enlightenment figure in Englandwas Thomas Hobbes, who caused great controversywith the release of his provocative treatise Leviathan (1651).Taking a sociological perspective, Hobbes felt that by nature, peoplewere self-serving and preoccupied with the gathering of a limitednumber of resources. To keep balance, Hobbes continued, it was essentialto have a single intimidating ruler. A half century later, JohnLocke came into the picture, promoting the opposite typeof governmenta representative governmentin his Two Treatisesof Government (1690).

Although Hobbes would be more influential among his contemporaries,it was clear that Lockes message was closer to the English peopleshearts and minds. Just before the turn of the century, in 1688,English Protestants helped overthrow the Catholic king JamesII and installed the Protestant monarchs William andMary. In the aftermath of this Glorious Revolution,the English government ratified a new Bill of Rights that grantedmore personal freedoms.

Many of the major French Enlightenment thinkers, or philosophes, wereborn in the years after the Glorious Revolution, so Frances Enlightenmentcame a bit later, in the mid-1700s.The philosophes, though varying in style and area of particularconcern, generally emphasized the power of reason and sought todiscover the natural laws governing human society. The Baronde Montesquieu tackled politics by elaborating upon Locke'swork, solidifying concepts such as the separation of power bymeans of divisions in government. Voltaire took a morecaustic approach, choosing to incite social and political changeby means of satire and criticism. Although Voltaires satires arguablysparked little in the way of concrete change, Voltaire neverthelesswas adept at exposing injustices and appealed to a wide range ofreaders. His short novel Candide is regarded as oneof the seminal works in history.

Denis Diderot, unlike Montesquieu and Voltaire,had no revolutionary aspirations; he was interested merely in collectingas much knowledge as possible for his mammoth Encyclopdie.The Encyclopdie, which ultimately weighed in atthirty-five volumes, would go on to spread Enlightenment knowledgeto other countries around the world.

In reaction to the rather empirical philosophiesof Voltaire and others, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote TheSocial Contract (1762),a work championing a form of government based on small, direct democracy thatdirectly reflects the will of the population. Later, at the endof his career, he would write Confessions, a deeplypersonal reflection on his life. The unprecedented intimate perspectivethat Rousseau provided contributed to a burgeoning Romantic erathat would be defined by an emphasis on emotion and instinct insteadof reason.

Another undercurrent that threatened the prevailing principlesof the Enlightenment was skepticism. Skeptics questionedwhether human society could really be perfected through the useof reason and denied the ability of rational thought to reveal universaltruths. Their philosophies revolved around the idea that the perceived worldis relative to the beholder and, as such, no one can be sure whetherany truths actually exist.

Immanuel Kant, working in Germany duringthe late eighteenth century, took skepticism to its greatest lengths,arguing that man could truly know neither observed objects nor metaphysicalconcepts; rather, the experience of such things depends upon thepsyche of the observer, thus rendering universal truths impossible. Thetheories of Kant, along with those of other skeptics such as DavidHume, were influential enough to change the nature of European thoughtand effectively end the Enlightenment.

Ultimately, the Enlightenment fell victim to competingideas from several sources. Romanticism was more appealing to less-educated commonfolk and pulled them away from the empirical, scientific ideas ofearlier Enlightenment philosophers. Similarly, the theories of skepticismcame into direct conflict with the reason-based assertions of theEnlightenment and gained a following of their own.

What ultimately and abruptly killed the Enlightenment,however, was the French Revolution. Begun with thebest intentions by French citizens inspired by Enlightenment thought,the revolution attempted to implement orderly representative assembliesbut quickly degraded into chaos and violence. Many people citedthe Enlightenment-induced breakdown of norms as the root cause of theinstability and saw the violence as proof that the masses could notbe trusted to govern themselves. Nonetheless, the discoveries andtheories of the Enlightenment philosophers continued to influenceWestern society for centuries.

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SparkNotes: The Enlightenment (16501800): Summary of Events

Definition:

The period known as the Enlightenment runs from somewhere around 1660, with the Restoration, or the crowning of the exiled Charles II, until the beginning of the 19th century and the reign of Victoria.

This chunk of time, which takes up some of the 17th century and all of the 18th century, is sometimes referred to as the Age of Reason because of its emphasis on a rational, secular worldview. Bringing light to the so-called dark corners of the mind, Enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume wrote on subjects ranging from political philosophy to the nature of humankind. Many scholars argue that, given all this revolutionary thinking, the Enlightenment is the beginning of modern society.

The period saw lots of revolutionary activity, such as the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Interested in how Enlightenment thinking played a role in the American Revolution? Check out our learning guide on just that.

So what was happening in literature in during this era? Well, neoclassicism was all the rage in the early part of the period. Neoclassicism is a style of art that appropriates classical models from the ancients. Alexander Pope was the grandmaster of all that. This period also marked the rise of the novel, with novelists like Daniel Defoe churning out the fiction like nobody's business. His famous work Robinson Crusoeis an early example of the genre. There was also a fair amount of Enlightenment thinking going on in American letters, too, with folks like Benjamin Franklin espousing Enlightenment ideas in his The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

Later literary periods were definitely influenced by the Enlightenment. Nathaniel Hawthorne's Romanticism, for example, was a reaction to the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. And the Romantic poets like William Wordsworth, of course, wrote to pooh-pooh the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason.

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Literature Glossary - Enlightenment

The Enlightenment developed those features of the modern world that most libertarians prizeliberal politics and free markets, scientific progress, and technological innovation.

The Enlightenment took the intellectual revolutions of the early modern 17th century and transformed European and American society in the 18th century. At the beginning of the 17th century, Europe was largely feudal and prescientific. By the end of the 18th century, however, liberal democratic revolutions had swept away feudalism; the foundations of physics, chemistry, and biology had been laid; and the Industrial Revolution was at full steam.

The Enlightenment was the product of thousands of brilliant and hardworking individuals, yet two Englishmen are most often identified as inaugurating it: John Locke (16321704), for his work on reason, empiricism, and liberal politics; and Isaac Newton (16431727), for his work on physics and mathematics. The transition to the post-Enlightenment era is often dated from the successful resolution of the American Revolution in the 1780sor, alternatively, from the collapse of the French Revolution and the rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte in the 1790s. Between Locke and Newton at the end of the 17th century and the American and French Revolutions at the end of the 18th century, there occurred 100 years of unprecedented intellectual activity, social ferment, and political and economic transformation.

Fundamental to the achievements of Locke and Newton was confident application of reason to the physical world, religion, human nature, and society. By the 1600s, modern thinkers began to insist that perception and reason are the sole means by which men could know the worldin contrast to the premodern, medieval reliance on tradition, faith, and revelation. These thinkers started their investigations systematically from an analysis of nature, rather than the supernatural, the characteristic starting point of premodern thought. Enlightenment intellectuals stressed mans autonomy and his capacity for forming his own characterin contrast to the premodern emphasis on dependence and original sin. Most important, modern thinkers began to emphasize the individual, arguing that the individuals mind is sovereign and that the individual is an end in himselfin contrast to the premodernist, feudal subordination of the individual to higher political, social, or religious authorities. The achievements of Locke and Newton represent the maturation of this new intellectual world.

Political and economic liberalism depend on confidence that individuals can run their own lives. Political power and economic freedom are thought to reside in individuals only to the extent that they are thought to be capable of using them wisely. This confidence in individuals rests on a confidence in human reasonthe means by which individuals can come to know their world, plan their lives, and socially interact.

If reason is a faculty of the individual, then individualism becomes crucial to our understanding of ethics. Lockes A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) and Two Treatises of Government (1690) are landmark texts in the modern history of individualism. Both link the human capacity for reason to ethical individualism and its social consequences: the prohibition of force against anothers independent judgment or action, individual rights, political equality, limiting the power of government, and religious toleration.

Science and technology more obviously depend on confidence in the power of reason. The scientific method is a refined application of reason to understanding nature. Trusting science cognitively is an act of confidence in reason, as is trusting ones life to its technological products. If one emphasizes that reason is the faculty of understanding nature, then the epistemology that emerges from it, when systematically applied, yields science. Enlightenment thinkers laid the foundations of all the major branches of science. In mathematics, Newton and Gottfried Leibniz independently developed the calculus, Newton developing his version in 1666 and Leibniz publishing his in 1675.The monumental publication of modern physics, Newtons Principia Mathematica, appeared in 1687. A century of investigation led to the production of Carolus Linnaeuss Systema Naturae in 1735 and Species Plantarium in 1753, jointly presenting a comprehensive biological taxonomy. The publication of Antoine Lavoisiers Trait lmentaire de Chimie (Treatise on Chemical Elements) in 1789, proved to be the foundational text in the science of chemistry. The rise of rational science also brought broader social improvements, such as the lessening of superstition and, by the 1780s, the end of persecutions of witchcraft.

Individualism and science are consequences of an epistemology predicated on reason. Both applied systematically have enormous consequences. Individualism when applied to politics yielded a species of liberal democracy, whereby the principle of individual freedom was wedded to the principle of decentralizing political power. As the importance of individualism rose in the modern world, feudalism declined. Revolutions in England in the 1640s and in 1688 began this trend, and the modern political principles there enunciated spread to America and France in the 18th century, leading to liberal revolutions in 1776 and 1789. Political reformers instituted bills of rights, constitutional checks on abuses of government power, and the elimination of torture in judicial proceedings.

As the feudal regimes weakened and were overthrown, liberal individualist ideas were extended to all human beings. Racism and sexism are obvious affronts to individualism and went on the defensive as the 18th century progressed. During the Enlightenment, antislavery societies were formed in America in 1784, in England in 1787, and a year later in France; in 1791 and 1792, Olympe de Gougess Declaration of the Rights of Women and Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of Women, landmarks in the movement for womens liberty and equality, were published.

Free markets and capitalism are a reflection of individualism in the marketplace. Capitalist economics is based on the principle that individuals should be left free to make their own decisions about production, consumption, and trade. As individualism rose in the 18th century, feudal and mercantilist institutions declined. With freer markets came a theoretical grasp of the productive impact of the division of labor and specialization and of the retarding impact of protectionism and other restrictive regulations. Capturing and extending those insights, Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, is the landmark text in modern economics. With the establishment of freer markets came the elimination of guilds and many governmental monopolies, and the development of modern corporations, banking, and financial markets.

Science, when applied systematically to material production, yields engineering and technology. By the mid-18th century, the free exchange of ideas and wealth resulted in scientists and engineers uncovering knowledge and creating technologies on an unprecedented scale. The Industrial Revolution, underway for some decades, was substantially advanced by James Watts steam engine after 1769. Items that were once luxuriessuch as pottery, cotton fabric, paper for books and newspapers, and glass for windows in housessoon became mass-produced.

When science is applied to the human body, the result is advances in medicine. New studies of human anatomy and physiology swept away supernaturalistic and other premodern accounts of human disease. By the second half of the 18th century, medicine was placed on a scientific footing. Edward Jenners discovery of a smallpox vaccine in 1796, for example, provided protection against a major killer and established the science of immunization. Over the course of the century, physicians made advances in their understanding of nutrition, hygiene, and diagnostic techniques. These discoveries, combined with newly developed medical technologies, contributed to modern medicine. At the same time, advances in public hygiene led to a substantial decline in mortality rates, and average longevity increased.

The Enlightenment also was responsible for the establishment of the idea of progress. Ignorance, poverty, war, and slavery, it was discovered, were not inevitable. Indeed, Enlightenment thinkers came to be profoundly convinced that every human problem could be solved and that the human condition could be raised to new and as-yet unimagined heights. The time will come, wrote the Marquis de Condorcet, a mathematician and social reformer who also translated Smiths Wealth of Nations into French, when the sun will shine only on free men who have no master but their own reasons. Through science the world was open to being understood, to disease being eliminated, and to the unlimited improvement of agriculture and technologies. Every individual possessed the power of reason, and, hence, education could become universal and illiteracy and superstition eliminated. Because men possess reason, we are able to structure our social arrangements and design political and economic institutions that will protect our rights, settle our disputes peaceably, and enable us to form fruitful trading partnership with others. We can, they thought, become knowledgeable, free, healthy, peaceful, and wealthy without limit. In other words, the Enlightenment bequeathed to us the optimistic belief that progress and the pursuit of happiness are the natural birthrights of humankind.

Yet not all commentators regarded the Enlightenment as unrelievably progressive. Conservatives leveled three broad criticismsthat the Enlightenments rationalism undermined religious faith, that the Enlightenments individualism undermined communal ties, and that by overemphasizing the powers of reason and individual freedom the Enlightenment led to revolutions that instituted changes of such rapidity that they undermined social stability. Socialists also offered three criticismsthat the Enlightenments idolatry of science and technology led to an artificial world of dehumanizing machines and gadgets; that the Enlightenments competitive individualism and capitalism destroyed community and led to severe inequalities; and that the combination of science, technology, and capitalism inevitably led to technocratic oppression by the haves against the have-nots.

Contemporary debates over the significance of the Enlightenment thus have a threefold characterbetween those who see it as a threat to an essentially religious-traditionalist vision, those who see it as a threat to an essentially Left-egalitarian vision, and those who see it as the foundation of the magnificent achievements of the modern scientific and liberal-democratic world.

Further Readings

Cassirer, Ernst. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968.

Gay, Peter. The Enlightenment. New York: Knopf, 1966. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum, 1994 [1944].

Kramnick, Isaac, ed. The Portable Enlightenment Reader. New York: Penguin, 1995.

Kurtz, Paul, and Timothy J. Madigan, eds. Challenges to the Enlightenment. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994.

Rusher, William A., ed. The Ambiguous Legacy of the Enlightenment. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995.

William, David, ed. The Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Originally published August 15, 2008.

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Enlightenment | Encyclopedia of Libertarianism

At most bars, nonalcoholic options run to fruity mocktails and ginger ale. At Honeys in East Williamsburg, theres kvass, the ancient Russian beverage and purported health tonic fermented from rye bread. While this Slavic staple might seem an odd thing to stumble across in the wilds of artisanal Brooklyn, its not, when you consider that Honeys is actually the tasting room of Enlightenment Wines, the adjacent meadery that has made a mission of injecting local terroir into lost-in-time elixirs.

Kvass can be found elsewhere in New York, but not on tap like at Honeys, and nowhere near as lively and refreshing. The amber, fizzy liquid, made from chunks of toasted dark sourdough rye soaked in water, lacto-fermented, sweetened with a bit of honey and keg-conditioned, is nothing like the malty soda gathering dust on Brighton Beach supermarket shelves, or even the invigorating pickle-briny beet and kraut alt-kvasses that have ridden the probiotic marketing wave. Kvass has been a decade-long obsession of Enlightenment co-owner Raphael Lyon, but not just any kvass rather, the pre-industrial, home-brewed kind that people drank in the sixteenth century.

What makes our kvass special is that its alive, he says, referring to the lacto-fermentation that gives it its characteristic flavor pleasingly tart, with a satisfying roundness. You might compare it to that other K-drink, though Lyon wishes you wouldnt: Kombuchas filled with caffeine and sugar, he says, which is why people become addicted to it. His kvass has an ABV of under 1 percent, but if you want something stronger, you could order a Kvass Kollins, one of the drinks on an appealingly original list created by Lyons partner, Arley Marks, and bartender Torrey Bell-Edwards to showcase Enlightenments repertoire. The sweet-sour cocktail combines kvass with barrel-aged Brooklyn gin and the foamy chickpea cooking liquid called aquafaba, which Honeys sometimes sources from Dizengoff. Its served with a biodegradable straw thats actually a strand of uncooked bucatini, and it just might be the embodiment of Brooklyn mixology today.

93 Scott Ave., at Randolph St., East Williamsburg; 401-481-9205

*A version of this article appears in the September 4, 2017, issue ofNew York Magazine.

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