How Enlightenment philosophy developed and was applied in the real world
Review of The Enlightenment: Volumes 1 and 2 by Peter Gay
Gay’s ambition with these two books is to describe the Enlightenment mindset and assess how the philosophes’ ideas worked out in the real world. What was new and different about them? How did they change our approach to science, psychology, society, then political science and government? What was their practical impact? If you want answers to these questions, volume 2 is the best place to start that I have yet found.
In volume 2, subtitled The Science of Freedom, Gay summarizes the mindset as a “recovery of nerve”. In the centuries preceding the Enlightenment, debates had stuck in a number of modes. Most prominently, there was Christian dogma, according to which the Bible and God were the ultimate source of truth, as interpreted by your priest or other learned religious authority. This belief system was not easily called into question, often on pain of imprisonment or death.
More recently, with the systematic rediscovery of texts from the classical era, pagan sources became available that offered a radically different perspective. For example, in Lucretius’ philosophical poem, De Rerum Natura, the universe is portrayed as as a self-regulating system that operated without need of an intervening God. Many of these documents were incorporated into Jesuit and Protestant educations in adulterated form, distorting them in order to avoid the questions they would naturally raise. (Of course, they served to whet the appetite for deeper, solo enquiries, which were gradually taking shape.) Finally, if arguments did ensue, their conclusions stalled in endless metaphysical debates that defied decisive resolution, hinging on the nature and existence of God. Many wondered whether there was any point to try to reconcile their ideas with those in other camps.
What the philosophes added, Gay convincingly argues, was the requirement of empirical verification, that is, direct observation of phenomena in the real world in accordance with the scientific method. They watched, experimented, and recorded the results in an agreed upon format that others could replicate. This indicated a way out of the longstanding and stale metaphysical morass, enabling the Enlightenment philosophes to initiate an explosive project that would question standard conventions, altering and even rejecting them when necessary. Rather than a priori truths, skepticism and common sense became the rule. Nothing, it seemed, would remain sacred: not religion, not the structure of governmental institutions, not even the mind of man. Everything was looked at anew.
It was one of the most exciting times in the history of humanity and it decisively changed our societies, living standards, and ways of being. If heavily French, the philosophes constituted a trans-national elite of intellectuals at the cutting edge. Even the limits of knowledge and rational inquiry were coming into question, as first expressed in the philosophies of Hume and Kant.
Gay brilliantly captures this moment in a number of disciplines. First, relying on the triumphant example of the Newtonian cosmological system, all other natural sciences took on the methodology of checking theoretical constructs against controlled experiments. Chemistry, biology, and other disciplines established themselves with unprecedented rigor. At the same time, the prestige of the Christian worldview began its long decline.
Second, art criticism was born, resulting in a dazzling array of refinements that opened “taste” to a far wider audience than the aristocratic court. If this was a mere glimmer of the revolutionary boundary pushing that grew into modernism in the late 19th century, Gay argues it was the decisive step to breaking the mold.
Third, the social sciences emerged as disciplines in their own right, separated from philosophy, eventually becoming quasi-scientific. Montesquieu, Gay informs us, was the first real sociologist and political scientist. His De l'Esprit des Lois (1748) was an enormously influential project in comparative governmental systems; it refrained from facile judgments of innate superiority or divine mandate, presenting instead a variety of options, each under a spectrum of regimes. Furthermore, Adam Smith, Turgot and others established the discipline of political economy, the first attempt to understand the economy as a system that can be managed and improved upon for the good of the population as a whole. Finally, a methodology for the study of history began to be applied.
When Gay turns to the impact of their ideas and mindset, volume 2 gets really interesting. Not only did the philosophes foster a new kind of toleration and openness, but they initiated calls for justice, the abolition of slavery and any number of causes that were radical in their day.
Nonetheless, their stance vis-à-vis the powerful was ambiguous. Few of the philosophes were democrats, preferring instead to advocate for enlightened despotism, perhaps because most of them remained dependent on royal patronage at certain stages of their careers. They were an integral part of the elite, variously scorning the ability of the masses to think for themselves or the possibility that they could be educated and change society over the longer term. At any rate, their attitudes towards the lower classes were ambivalent at best.
There are a few aspects of the Enlightenment that I think Gay should have addressed in greater depth. Notably, I believe that their approach – of the rational planning of entire societies – led to technocracy (that there is a “correct technical answer” to inherently political questions) and even totalitarianism. If you read Rousseau’s prescription for the “will of the people”, it sounds a great deal like Hitler’s rhetoric about das Volk. In addition, Gay does not go into the figures whose work represents a foreshadowing of Romantic philosophy, such as Kant or Rousseau, whom he counts as philosophes. Gay is aware of how much Enlightenment values remain under threat by religious extremists and demagogues. Indeed, he sounds prescient at times. Finally, I thought his analysis of the US Constitution and the conservatism of the founding fathers was superficial at times. It’s basically an argument for American exceptionalism and I for one am pretty tired of that.
Volume 1, The Rise of Modern Paganism, is about the education of the intellectuals of the Enlightenment. While it is very interesting to trace how their minds developed in historical context – how they mastered the great philosophical, historical, and poetic works of antiquity and began to question them in a manner far more daring than the scholars of the Renaissance – it is so encyclopedic that the narrative is impeded and often dull. This historian has read everything in the original and wants the reader to know it. Rather heavy handedly, Gay argues that the philosophes concluded that Christianity was a fiction and could not be true. Readers should know this. This volume stands alone and, in my opinion, can be skipped; it is of interest exclusively for academics.
As a reading and learning experience, Volume 2 is vastly superior and far more accessible to the lay reader. The level is high undergraduate. Many foreign language quotes are not translated, though they can be understood in the context of the book; this could throw some readers off. Gay offers a pretty heavy academic treatment, but Volume 2 moves in a brisk and dense narrative that is utterly captivating, indeed at times riveting. There was not a single moment during my reading experience where I felt bored or glumly looked at how many pages were left. Gay’s prose is also beautiful. I recommend it as a must read.
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