Lecture 9,Enlightenment,
What is Enlightenment?
Enlightenment
? A European cultural movement that reached its height in the 18th
century,but which still resonates today,Enlightenment theories
about economics and philosophy,still widely held today,have
provided the basis for numerous critiques from numerous critics,
including members of the Frankfurt school and most of the leading
French thinkers of modern and postmodern eras,
? Characteristics of the Enlightenment,
? 1) Reason should control your actions,not dogma,Don't believe
something just because it's traditional,
? 2) Doubt everything,lead to Locke's concept of political rights,
? 3) Linked to development of modern science,e.g.,Immanuel Kant,
? 4) Important figures - Descartes,John Locke,Leibnitz,John Stuart
Mill,David Hume,Adam Smith,John Milton,
? The Enlightenment defined and celebrated modern ideas about
reason and rationalism
Montesquieu and Rousseau
Ethos of 18 Century,
Reason and Intellectual
? 对比十七世纪：演绎理性（ Descartes）和本体论
个人主义（ Hobbes & Locke）；
? 启蒙运动的理性：作为能力的理性（对比先验理
性）；作为分析和建构的理性，分解一切对象至
于最简单的成分，并据以建构对象的整体；作为
批判的理性，确立理性为最高及最后的标准，将
一切事物置于理性的法庭上加以审判，以能动的
人的理性取代任何其他的权威。
? 知识分子：作为知识的生产者、传播者和世界秩
序的立法者，世俗知识分子第一次在教会外形成
为独立的知识群体和阶层（沙龙、咖啡馆等）。
Theory of Human Nature
? Here then is the only expedient,from which we can hope for
success in our philosophical researches,to leave the tedious
lingering method,which we have hitherto followed,and instead
of taking now and then a castle or village on the frontier,to
march up directly to the capital or center of these sciences,to
human nature itself; which being once masters of,we may
every where else hope for an easy victory,From this station we
may extend our conquests over all those sciences,which more
intimately concern human life,and may afterwards proceed at
leisure to discover more fully those,which are the objects of
pore curiosity,There is no question of importance,whose
decision is not compriz'd in the science of man; and there is
none,which can be decided with any certainty,before we
become acquainted with that science,In pretending,therefore,
to explain the principles of human nature,we in effect propose
a compleat system of the sciences,built on a foundation almost
entirely new,and the only one upon which they can stand with
any security,
? Hume
Theory of Human Nature
? 休谟, 人性的科学是一切科学的首都和心脏,一旦掌握了
人性以后,我们在其他各方面就有希望轻而易举地取得胜
利了,从这个岗位,我们可以扩展到征服那些和人生有较为
密切关系的一切科学,任何重要问题的解决关键,无不包括
在关于人的科学中间 ;在我们没有熟悉这门科学之前,任何
问题都不能得到确实的解决,因此,在试图说明人性的原理
的时候,我们实际上就是在提出一个建立在几乎是全新的
基础上的完整的科学体系,而这个基础正是一切科学唯一
稳固的基础,
? 卢梭,人类的各种知识中最有用的就是关于人的知识。
What is Modernity
? So what is modernity? One way of describing it is to call it a period
of history characterized by a complex set of industrial developments,
including the increasing concentration of people in towns and cities,
greater geographical mobility occasioned by steam engines and
railway networks,and enormous popular faith in industrial and
technological progress,This all took place sometime between the
16th and early 20th centuries,
? Modernity,in a nutshell,is the continuation of the Enlightenment
project,One way of classifying it in broad terms is as the most
recent of the three great eras of Western development,the other
two being the Classical era of the ancient Greeks and the medieval
era,
? The modern era,from the deep perspective of the historian of
human thought,began after the Renaissance,or possibly with the
Enlightenment,or at any rate when ever ideas such as technological
progress and the discovery of knowledge through reason and
science began to undermine the authority of religion
Kant,What is Enlightenment?
? 什么是启蒙？启蒙就是人从由他自
己造成的不成熟状态中走出来．不
成熟是指一个人若无他人指导便不
能运用他自己的理智．如果不成熟
的原因不是由于缺少理智，而是由
于若无他人指导便缺少运用理智的
决心和勇气，这种不成熟就是由他
自己所造成的．因此，启蒙运动的
格言是：有勇气运用你自己的理
智,
Kant,What is Enlightenment?
? 这一启蒙运动除了自由而外并不
需要任何别的东西,而且还确乎是
一切可以称之为自由的东西之中
最无害的东西,那就是在一切事情
上都有公开运用自己理性的自由,
? 理性的公开运用,指任何人作为学
者在全部听众面前所能做的那种
运用,一个人在其所受任的一定公
职岗位或者职务上所能运用的自
己的理性,为私下的运用,
Foucault,What is Enlightenment?
? Kant indicates right away that the 'way
out' that characterizes Enlightenment is
a process that releases us from the
status of 'immaturity.' And by
'immaturity,' he means a certain state of
our will that makes us accept someone
else's authority to lead us in areas
where the use of reason is called for,
Kant gives three examples,we are in a
state of 'immaturity' when a book takes
the place of our understanding,when a
spiritual director takes the place of our
conscience,when a doctor decides for
us what our diet is to be,
Private Use and Public Use of Reason
? What constitutes,for Kant,this private use of reason? In what area
is it exercised? Man,Kant says,makes a private use of reason when
he is 'a cog in a machine'; that is,when he has a role to play in
society and jobs to do,to be a soldier,to have taxes to pay,to be in
charge of a parish,to be a civil servant,all this makes the human
being a particular segment of society; he finds himself thereby
placed in a circumscribed position,where he has to apply particular
rules and pursue particular ends,Kant does not ask that people
practice a blind and foolish obedience,but that they adapt the use
they make of their reason to these determined circumstances; and
reason must then be subjected to the particular ends in view,Thus
there cannot be,here,any free use of reason,
? On the other hand,when one is reasoning only in order to use one's
reason,when one is reasoning as a reasonable being (and not as a
cog in a machine),when one is reasoning as a member of
reasonable humanity,then the use of reason must be free and
public,Enlightenment is thus not merely the process by which
individuals would see their own personal freedom of thought
guaranteed,There is Enlightenment when the universal,the free,
and the public uses of reason are superimposed on one another,
Enlightenment and Critiques
? I believe that it is necessary to stress the connection
that exists between this brief article and the three
Critiques,Kant in fact describes Enlightenment as the
moment when humanity is going to put its own reason
to use,without subjecting itself to any authority; now
it is precisely at this moment that the critique is
necessary,since its role is that of defining the
conditions under which the use of reason is legitimate
in order to determine what can be known,what must
be done,and what may be hoped,Illegitimate uses of
reason are what give rise to dogmatism and
heteronomy,along with illusion; on the other hand,it
is when the legitimate use of reason has been clearly
defined in its principles that its autonomy can be
assured,The critique is,in a sense,the handbook of
reason that has grown up in Enlightenment; and,
conversely,the Enlightenment is the age of the
critique,
Modernity,an Attitude not a Period
? Thinking back on Kant's text,I wonder whether we
may not envisage modernity rather as an attitude
than as a period of history,And by 'attitude,' I
mean a mode of relating to contemporary reality; a
voluntary choice made by certain people; in the
end,a way of thinking and feeling; a way,too,of
acting and behaving that at one and the same time
marks a relation of belonging and presents itself as
a task,A bit,no doubt,like what the Greeks called
an ethos,And consequently,rather than seeking to
distinguish the 'modern era' from the 'premodern'
or 'postmodern,' I think it would be more useful to
try to find out how the attitude of modernity,ever
since its formation,has found itself struggling with
attitudes of 'countermodernity.'
philosophical interrogation
? I have been seeking,on the one hand,to
emphasize the extent to which a type of
philosophical interrogation -- one that
simultaneously problematizes man's relation to
the present,man's historical mode of being,
and the constitution of the self as an
autonomous subject -- is rooted in the
Enlightenment,On the other hand,I have
been seeking to stress that the thread that
may connect us with the Enlightenment is not
faithfulness to doctrinal elements,but rather
the permanent reactivation of an attitude --
that is,of a philosophical ethos that could be
described as a permanent critique of our
historical era,
Enlightenment,
as an Historical Event and Process
? This permanent critique of ourselves has to avoid the
always too facile confusions between humanism and
Enlightenment,
? We must never forget that the Enlightenment is an
event,or a set of events and complex historical
processes,that is located at a certain point in the
development of European societies,As such,it
includes elements of social transformation,types of
political institution,forms of knowledge,projects of
rationalization of knowledge and practices,
technological mutations that are very difficult to sum
up in a word,even if many of these phenomena
remain important today,The one I have pointed out
and that seems to me to have been at the basis of an
entire form of philosophical reflection concerns only
the mode of reflective relation to the present,
What is Humanism?
? Humanism is something entirely different,It is a theme
or rather a set of themes that have reappeared on
several occasions over time in European societies; these
themes always tied to value judgments have obviously
varied greatly in their content as well as in the values
they have preserved,Furthermore they have served as a
critical principle of differentiation,In the seventeenth
century there was a humanism that presented itself as a
critique of Christianity or of religion in general; there was
a Christian humanism opposed to an ascetic and much
more theocentric humanism,In the nineteenth century
there was a suspicious humanism hostile and critical
toward science and another that to the contrary placed
its hope in that same science,Marxism has been a
humanism; so have existentialism and personalism;
there was a time when people supported the humanistic
values represented by National Socialism and when the
Stalinists themselves said they were humanists,
Enlightenment and humanism in a
state of tension rather than identity
? Now in this connection I believe
that this thematic which so often
recurs and which always depends
on humanism can be opposed by
the principle of a critique and a
permanent creation of ourselves
in our autonomy,that is a
principle that is at the heart of
the historical consciousness that
the Enlightenment has of itself,
From this standpoint I am
inclined to see Enlightenment and
humanism in a state of tension
rather than identity,
critical question today has to be
turned back into a positive one
This philosophical ethos may be characterized as a limit-
attitude,We are not talking about a gesture of rejection,
We have to move beyond the outside-inside alternative;
we have to be at the frontiers,Criticism indeed consists
of analyzing and reflecting upon limits,But if the Kantian
question was that of knowing what limits knowledge has
to renounce transgressing,it seems to me that the
critical question today has to be turned back into a
positive one,in what is given to us as universal
necessary obligatory what place is occupied by whatever
is singular contingent and the product of arbitrary
constraints? The point in brief is to transform the critique
conducted in the form of necessary limitation into a
practical critique that takes the form of a possible
transgression,
Genealogy and Archaeology
? This entails an obvious consequence,that criticism is no longer going to be
practiced in the search for formal structures with universal value,but
rather as a historical investigation into the events that have led us to
constitute ourselves and to recognize ourselves as subjects of what we are
doing,thinking,saying,In that sense,this criticism is not transcendental,
and its goal is not that of making a metaphysics possible,it is genealogical
in its design and archaeological in its method,Archaeological -- and not
transcendental -- in the sense that it will not seek to identify the universal
structures of all knowledge or of all possible moral action,but will seek to
treat the instances of discourse that articulate what we think,say,and do
as so many historical events,And this critique will be genealogical in the
sense that it will not deduce from the form of what we are what it is
impossible for us to do and to know; but it will separate out,from the
contingency that has made us what we are,the possibility of no longer
being,doing,or thinking what we are,do,or think,It is not seeking to
make possible a metaphysics that has finally become a science; it is
seeking to give new impetus,as far and wide as possible,to the undefined
work of freedom,
Reference and Question
? Reference
? 休谟,,人性论,,第 6-10页，商务印书馆,1980
年；
? 康德,,历史理性批判文集,,第 22-31页，商务
印书馆,1996年；
? Foucault,What is Enlightenment?
? Question,
? 康德的批判理性与福柯谱系学的区别何在？
What is Enlightenment?
Enlightenment
? A European cultural movement that reached its height in the 18th
century,but which still resonates today,Enlightenment theories
about economics and philosophy,still widely held today,have
provided the basis for numerous critiques from numerous critics,
including members of the Frankfurt school and most of the leading
French thinkers of modern and postmodern eras,
? Characteristics of the Enlightenment,
? 1) Reason should control your actions,not dogma,Don't believe
something just because it's traditional,
? 2) Doubt everything,lead to Locke's concept of political rights,
? 3) Linked to development of modern science,e.g.,Immanuel Kant,
? 4) Important figures - Descartes,John Locke,Leibnitz,John Stuart
Mill,David Hume,Adam Smith,John Milton,
? The Enlightenment defined and celebrated modern ideas about
reason and rationalism
Montesquieu and Rousseau
Ethos of 18 Century,
Reason and Intellectual
? 对比十七世纪：演绎理性（ Descartes）和本体论
个人主义（ Hobbes & Locke）；
? 启蒙运动的理性：作为能力的理性（对比先验理
性）；作为分析和建构的理性，分解一切对象至
于最简单的成分，并据以建构对象的整体；作为
批判的理性，确立理性为最高及最后的标准，将
一切事物置于理性的法庭上加以审判，以能动的
人的理性取代任何其他的权威。
? 知识分子：作为知识的生产者、传播者和世界秩
序的立法者，世俗知识分子第一次在教会外形成
为独立的知识群体和阶层（沙龙、咖啡馆等）。
Theory of Human Nature
? Here then is the only expedient,from which we can hope for
success in our philosophical researches,to leave the tedious
lingering method,which we have hitherto followed,and instead
of taking now and then a castle or village on the frontier,to
march up directly to the capital or center of these sciences,to
human nature itself; which being once masters of,we may
every where else hope for an easy victory,From this station we
may extend our conquests over all those sciences,which more
intimately concern human life,and may afterwards proceed at
leisure to discover more fully those,which are the objects of
pore curiosity,There is no question of importance,whose
decision is not compriz'd in the science of man; and there is
none,which can be decided with any certainty,before we
become acquainted with that science,In pretending,therefore,
to explain the principles of human nature,we in effect propose
a compleat system of the sciences,built on a foundation almost
entirely new,and the only one upon which they can stand with
any security,
? Hume
Theory of Human Nature
? 休谟, 人性的科学是一切科学的首都和心脏,一旦掌握了
人性以后,我们在其他各方面就有希望轻而易举地取得胜
利了,从这个岗位,我们可以扩展到征服那些和人生有较为
密切关系的一切科学,任何重要问题的解决关键,无不包括
在关于人的科学中间 ;在我们没有熟悉这门科学之前,任何
问题都不能得到确实的解决,因此,在试图说明人性的原理
的时候,我们实际上就是在提出一个建立在几乎是全新的
基础上的完整的科学体系,而这个基础正是一切科学唯一
稳固的基础,
? 卢梭,人类的各种知识中最有用的就是关于人的知识。
What is Modernity
? So what is modernity? One way of describing it is to call it a period
of history characterized by a complex set of industrial developments,
including the increasing concentration of people in towns and cities,
greater geographical mobility occasioned by steam engines and
railway networks,and enormous popular faith in industrial and
technological progress,This all took place sometime between the
16th and early 20th centuries,
? Modernity,in a nutshell,is the continuation of the Enlightenment
project,One way of classifying it in broad terms is as the most
recent of the three great eras of Western development,the other
two being the Classical era of the ancient Greeks and the medieval
era,
? The modern era,from the deep perspective of the historian of
human thought,began after the Renaissance,or possibly with the
Enlightenment,or at any rate when ever ideas such as technological
progress and the discovery of knowledge through reason and
science began to undermine the authority of religion
Kant,What is Enlightenment?
? 什么是启蒙？启蒙就是人从由他自
己造成的不成熟状态中走出来．不
成熟是指一个人若无他人指导便不
能运用他自己的理智．如果不成熟
的原因不是由于缺少理智，而是由
于若无他人指导便缺少运用理智的
决心和勇气，这种不成熟就是由他
自己所造成的．因此，启蒙运动的
格言是：有勇气运用你自己的理
智,
Kant,What is Enlightenment?
? 这一启蒙运动除了自由而外并不
需要任何别的东西,而且还确乎是
一切可以称之为自由的东西之中
最无害的东西,那就是在一切事情
上都有公开运用自己理性的自由,
? 理性的公开运用,指任何人作为学
者在全部听众面前所能做的那种
运用,一个人在其所受任的一定公
职岗位或者职务上所能运用的自
己的理性,为私下的运用,
Foucault,What is Enlightenment?
? Kant indicates right away that the 'way
out' that characterizes Enlightenment is
a process that releases us from the
status of 'immaturity.' And by
'immaturity,' he means a certain state of
our will that makes us accept someone
else's authority to lead us in areas
where the use of reason is called for,
Kant gives three examples,we are in a
state of 'immaturity' when a book takes
the place of our understanding,when a
spiritual director takes the place of our
conscience,when a doctor decides for
us what our diet is to be,
Private Use and Public Use of Reason
? What constitutes,for Kant,this private use of reason? In what area
is it exercised? Man,Kant says,makes a private use of reason when
he is 'a cog in a machine'; that is,when he has a role to play in
society and jobs to do,to be a soldier,to have taxes to pay,to be in
charge of a parish,to be a civil servant,all this makes the human
being a particular segment of society; he finds himself thereby
placed in a circumscribed position,where he has to apply particular
rules and pursue particular ends,Kant does not ask that people
practice a blind and foolish obedience,but that they adapt the use
they make of their reason to these determined circumstances; and
reason must then be subjected to the particular ends in view,Thus
there cannot be,here,any free use of reason,
? On the other hand,when one is reasoning only in order to use one's
reason,when one is reasoning as a reasonable being (and not as a
cog in a machine),when one is reasoning as a member of
reasonable humanity,then the use of reason must be free and
public,Enlightenment is thus not merely the process by which
individuals would see their own personal freedom of thought
guaranteed,There is Enlightenment when the universal,the free,
and the public uses of reason are superimposed on one another,
Enlightenment and Critiques
? I believe that it is necessary to stress the connection
that exists between this brief article and the three
Critiques,Kant in fact describes Enlightenment as the
moment when humanity is going to put its own reason
to use,without subjecting itself to any authority; now
it is precisely at this moment that the critique is
necessary,since its role is that of defining the
conditions under which the use of reason is legitimate
in order to determine what can be known,what must
be done,and what may be hoped,Illegitimate uses of
reason are what give rise to dogmatism and
heteronomy,along with illusion; on the other hand,it
is when the legitimate use of reason has been clearly
defined in its principles that its autonomy can be
assured,The critique is,in a sense,the handbook of
reason that has grown up in Enlightenment; and,
conversely,the Enlightenment is the age of the
critique,
Modernity,an Attitude not a Period
? Thinking back on Kant's text,I wonder whether we
may not envisage modernity rather as an attitude
than as a period of history,And by 'attitude,' I
mean a mode of relating to contemporary reality; a
voluntary choice made by certain people; in the
end,a way of thinking and feeling; a way,too,of
acting and behaving that at one and the same time
marks a relation of belonging and presents itself as
a task,A bit,no doubt,like what the Greeks called
an ethos,And consequently,rather than seeking to
distinguish the 'modern era' from the 'premodern'
or 'postmodern,' I think it would be more useful to
try to find out how the attitude of modernity,ever
since its formation,has found itself struggling with
attitudes of 'countermodernity.'
philosophical interrogation
? I have been seeking,on the one hand,to
emphasize the extent to which a type of
philosophical interrogation -- one that
simultaneously problematizes man's relation to
the present,man's historical mode of being,
and the constitution of the self as an
autonomous subject -- is rooted in the
Enlightenment,On the other hand,I have
been seeking to stress that the thread that
may connect us with the Enlightenment is not
faithfulness to doctrinal elements,but rather
the permanent reactivation of an attitude --
that is,of a philosophical ethos that could be
described as a permanent critique of our
historical era,
Enlightenment,
as an Historical Event and Process
? This permanent critique of ourselves has to avoid the
always too facile confusions between humanism and
Enlightenment,
? We must never forget that the Enlightenment is an
event,or a set of events and complex historical
processes,that is located at a certain point in the
development of European societies,As such,it
includes elements of social transformation,types of
political institution,forms of knowledge,projects of
rationalization of knowledge and practices,
technological mutations that are very difficult to sum
up in a word,even if many of these phenomena
remain important today,The one I have pointed out
and that seems to me to have been at the basis of an
entire form of philosophical reflection concerns only
the mode of reflective relation to the present,
What is Humanism?
? Humanism is something entirely different,It is a theme
or rather a set of themes that have reappeared on
several occasions over time in European societies; these
themes always tied to value judgments have obviously
varied greatly in their content as well as in the values
they have preserved,Furthermore they have served as a
critical principle of differentiation,In the seventeenth
century there was a humanism that presented itself as a
critique of Christianity or of religion in general; there was
a Christian humanism opposed to an ascetic and much
more theocentric humanism,In the nineteenth century
there was a suspicious humanism hostile and critical
toward science and another that to the contrary placed
its hope in that same science,Marxism has been a
humanism; so have existentialism and personalism;
there was a time when people supported the humanistic
values represented by National Socialism and when the
Stalinists themselves said they were humanists,
Enlightenment and humanism in a
state of tension rather than identity
? Now in this connection I believe
that this thematic which so often
recurs and which always depends
on humanism can be opposed by
the principle of a critique and a
permanent creation of ourselves
in our autonomy,that is a
principle that is at the heart of
the historical consciousness that
the Enlightenment has of itself,
From this standpoint I am
inclined to see Enlightenment and
humanism in a state of tension
rather than identity,
critical question today has to be
turned back into a positive one
This philosophical ethos may be characterized as a limit-
attitude,We are not talking about a gesture of rejection,
We have to move beyond the outside-inside alternative;
we have to be at the frontiers,Criticism indeed consists
of analyzing and reflecting upon limits,But if the Kantian
question was that of knowing what limits knowledge has
to renounce transgressing,it seems to me that the
critical question today has to be turned back into a
positive one,in what is given to us as universal
necessary obligatory what place is occupied by whatever
is singular contingent and the product of arbitrary
constraints? The point in brief is to transform the critique
conducted in the form of necessary limitation into a
practical critique that takes the form of a possible
transgression,
Genealogy and Archaeology
? This entails an obvious consequence,that criticism is no longer going to be
practiced in the search for formal structures with universal value,but
rather as a historical investigation into the events that have led us to
constitute ourselves and to recognize ourselves as subjects of what we are
doing,thinking,saying,In that sense,this criticism is not transcendental,
and its goal is not that of making a metaphysics possible,it is genealogical
in its design and archaeological in its method,Archaeological -- and not
transcendental -- in the sense that it will not seek to identify the universal
structures of all knowledge or of all possible moral action,but will seek to
treat the instances of discourse that articulate what we think,say,and do
as so many historical events,And this critique will be genealogical in the
sense that it will not deduce from the form of what we are what it is
impossible for us to do and to know; but it will separate out,from the
contingency that has made us what we are,the possibility of no longer
being,doing,or thinking what we are,do,or think,It is not seeking to
make possible a metaphysics that has finally become a science; it is
seeking to give new impetus,as far and wide as possible,to the undefined
work of freedom,
Reference and Question
? Reference
? 休谟,,人性论,,第 6-10页，商务印书馆,1980
年；
? 康德,,历史理性批判文集,,第 22-31页，商务
印书馆,1996年；
? Foucault,What is Enlightenment?
? Question,
? 康德的批判理性与福柯谱系学的区别何在？
