Daily Archives: June 29, 2010

What is the Enlightenment’s Distinctive Feature? And What Contemporary Movement is the Enlightenment’s Most Representative Heir?

Zeev Sternhell, in his recent book, The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition  (Yale 2009), offers reason  as the Anglo-French Enlightenment’s distinctive feature, and the ingredient that made for its historic break with the past (41): Criticism of the existing political order, but also criticism … Continue reading

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Zeev Sternhell on The Enlightenment and Its Enemies

One of the books that I’ve been dropping in and out of this past month is Zeev Sternhell’s The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition (Yale 2009). Sternhell’s book is about 450 pages long, and I’m only 150 pages in, but I can already say that it is … Continue reading

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Truth, Socratic Dialogue, Internet Threads, and Giambattista Vico

Giambattista Vico was, from 1699-1741, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Naples, and I love the open way that he ended his speech, “On the Study Methods of Our Time” (1709). It represents well the spirit of Italian humanism that … Continue reading

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