The Enlightenment stressed not only reason, but also empathy
At the start of his deeply impressive new book, 鈥淭he Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790,鈥� University of Oxford history professor Ritchie Robertson refers to something the late Eric Hobsbawm wrote 30 years ago, describing the Enlightenment as 鈥渢he only foundation for all the aspirations to build societies fit for all human beings to live in anywhere on this earth, and for the assertion and defense of their human rights as persons.鈥�
If you鈥檙e detecting a slight note of defensiveness in Hobsbawm鈥檚 comment, you鈥檙e not mistaken. Even in his own day, Hobsbawm could sense lurking objections to the basic ideas of the Enlightenment 鈥� the great outpouring of reason, empiricism, and egalitarian values that kicked off in the late 17th century. Over the course of a century and more, the intellectual forces of the Enlightenment flooded Europe and beyond, challenging assumptions and broadening humanist perspectives. These challenges prompted resistance, and as Robertson goes about the task of telling a sweeping, bracingly eloquent narrative of what鈥檚 considered the聽鈥渓ong 18th century,鈥� he鈥檚 consistently addressing the misunderstandings that give rise to that resistance.
The Enlightenment, which Robertson calls a 鈥渟ea change in sensibility,鈥� had deep roots in the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, but even so, the world鈥檚 ideologies were comfortably fixed as the story opens. Monarchies are the rule rather than the exception, species are viewed as divinely created and immutable, education is all but unknown for the general populace, and organized religions hold a social and moral power that had been growing steadily for a thousand years.
The essential dramatic appeal of the Enlightenment is how suddenly it took hold 鈥� almost overnight, it often seems. Isaac Newton鈥檚 鈥淧hilosophi忙 Naturalis Principia Mathematica鈥� appeared in 1687 and is typically seen as an easy signpost of the Enlightenment鈥檚 beginning. (Robertson looks also to John Locke鈥檚 1689 鈥淎n Essay Concerning Human Understanding.鈥�) The key in all cases is a pronounced change in the very fundamentals of thinking.
Robertson quotes Immanuel Kant鈥檚 famous rallying call, 鈥淗ave the courage to use your own intellect!鈥� But he stresses the inaccuracy of putting all the emphasis on the 鈥渋ntellect鈥� part and none on the 鈥渃ourage鈥� part. 鈥淓nlightenment reason is not calculation but argument; it is pursued not by solitary thinkers armed with slide-rules, but by groups whose members often differ in their views and who meet in the settings of Enlightenment sociability,鈥� he writes. 鈥淩eason is only one of the Enlightenment鈥檚 core attributes, alongside the passions sentiment and empathy.鈥�
The whole spectrum of those passions is marvelously represented in these pages (which, charmingly, are illustrated throughout with the frontispieces of seminal Enlightenment works, rather than tired stereotypical paintings of Catherine the Great鈥檚 drawing room and such). Robertson has written a big, enthusiastic book about other books, from Locke鈥檚 鈥淭wo Treatises of Government,鈥� the primer of empiricism, to David Hume鈥檚 1739 鈥淎 Treatise of Human Nature,鈥� about which Robertson writes: 鈥淚f any philosophical work can convey to lay readers some of the excitement of doing philosophy, this surely can.鈥� And of course he spends time with Denis Diderot and his great 鈥淓ncyclop茅die,鈥� which caused controversy from the appearance of its first volumes in 1751, described here quite rightly as a landmark in the 鈥渄emystification of knowledge.鈥澛�
Robertson notes that thinkers of the Romantic era 鈥渄enounced the Enlightenment in retrospect as the apotheosis of hyper-rational calculation.鈥� And he argues that those denunciations have unjustly continued ever since, whether through the social criticism of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno (which Robertson characterizes as products of misunderstandings of Enlightenment philosophy) or in elaborations by later writers like Isaiah Berlin (which Robertson attributes to a skewed understanding of an unreliable source). 鈥淭he appeal of pessimism,鈥� Robertson writes by way of summation, 鈥渓ies not least in the pleasing sense of superiority it confers on its proponents.鈥�
鈥淭he Enlightenment鈥� ends as it begins: with a detailed rationalization that the Enlightenment ideals 鈥� liberty, personal fulfillment, scientific understanding of the world, empathy, the dethroning of dogma 鈥� are in constant need of defending against the revanchist forces that seek to empower the few through the ignorance of the many. At the moment of the book鈥檚 appearance, Robertson notes, liberal ideals are under threat in some of the very places where they were first championed.
Diderot and his fellow valiant thinkers might not have liked the idea that reason, sympathy, and equality are so constantly vulnerable 鈥� but they鈥檇 have applauded such a big and optimistic book as this.
