Enlightenment Controversies

With a focus on the Enlightenment in the British Isles, but with a consistently comparative perspective including France, Germany and, to a limited extent, North America, the book argues that many of the charges against the Enlightenment in recent decades were, directly or obliquely, raised in controversies within the Enlightenment itself, and often early on in the 18th century. Moreover, the book shows that much of this 'self-enlightenment of the Enlightenment took place in literary rather than in strictly philosophical texts, though it is central to this argument that the distinction is less clear than might initially seem. The book thus historicizes charges that the Enlightenment was racist, Eurocentric and supportive of European imperialism, that it was uncritically rationalist and fostered instrumental, exploitative relations with nature or that it was inherently or at least potentially totalitarian. Rather than superficially discussing a wide range of texts, the book provides sustained readings of a selection of - canonical as well as under-studied - texts.