Misplaced Pages

#808191

171-457: In the 18th century, Enlightenment philosophers applied the term obscurantist to any enemy of intellectual enlightenment and the liberal diffusion of knowledge. In the 19th century, in distinguishing the varieties of obscurantism found in metaphysics and theology , from the "more subtle" obscurantism of the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant and of modern philosophical skepticism , Friedrich Nietzsche said that: "The essential element in

342-402: A pseudoscientific article proposing that physical reality is a social construct, in order to learn whether Social Text would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if: (a) it sounded good, and, (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions". Sokal's fake article was published in the spring/summer 1996 issue of Social Text , which was dedicated to the science wars about

513-589: A skeptic Bayle only partially accepted the philosophy and principles of rationality. He did draw a strict boundary between morality and religion. The rigor of his Dictionnaire Historique et Critique influenced many of the Enlightenment Encyclopédistes . By the mid-18th century the French Enlightenment had found a focus in the project of the Encyclopédie . The philosophical movement

684-462: A German physician, pupil of Immanuel Kant . The Treatise on Logic (Arabic: Maqala Fi-Sinat Al-Mantiq ) has been printed 17 times, including editions in Latin (1527), German (1805, 1822, 1833, 1828), French (1936) by Moïse Ventura and in 1996 by Rémi Brague, and English (1938) by Israel Efros, and in an abridged Hebrew form. The work illustrates the essentials of Aristotelian logic to be found in

855-525: A God who punishes evil, the moral order of society was undermined; that is, since atheists gave themselves to no supreme authority and no law and had no fear of eternal consequences, they were far more likely to disrupt society. Bayle observed that, in his day, "prudent persons will always maintain an appearance of [religion]," and he believed that even atheists could hold concepts of honor and go beyond their own self-interest to create and interact in society. Locke said that if there were no God and no divine law,

1026-462: A basis for the latter in the former. Maimonides' admiration for the Neoplatonic commentators led him to doctrines which the later Scholastics did not accept. For instance, Maimonides was an adherent of apophatic theology . In this theology, one attempts to describe God through negative attributes. For example, one should not say that God exists in the usual sense of the term; it can be said that God

1197-547: A cluster of associated notions. The meaning of the words is explained and illustrated with examples. At the end of each chapter, the author carefully draws up the list of words studied. Until very recently, it was accepted that Maimonides wrote the Treatise on Logic in his twenties or even in his teen years. Herbert Davidson has raised questions about Maimonides' authorship of this short work (and of other short works traditionally attributed to Maimonides). He maintains that Maimonides

1368-497: A deliberately obscure philosopher. In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), Richard Rorty proposed that in The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond (1978), Jacques Derrida purposefully used undefinable words (e.g. différance ) and used defined words in contexts so diverse that they render the words unintelligible, hence, the reader is unable to establish a context for his literary self. In that way,

1539-464: A distinction of intended audience , where exoteric works were written for the public, and the esoteric works were more technical works intended for use within the Lyceum . Modern scholars commonly assume these latter to be Aristotle's own (unpolished) lecture notes or, in some cases, possible notes by his students. However, the 5th-century neoplatonist Ammonius Hermiae writes that Aristotle's writing style

1710-579: A drab period in the history of science. The century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy ; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry. The influence of science began appearing more commonly in poetry and literature. Some poetry became infused with scientific metaphor and imagery, while other poems were written directly about scientific topics. Richard Blackmore committed

1881-562: A good religion based in instinctive morals and a belief in God should not theoretically need force to maintain order in its believers, and both Mendelssohn and Spinoza judged religion on its moral fruits, not the logic of its theology. Several novel ideas about religion developed with the Enlightenment, including deism and talk of atheism . According to Thomas Paine , deism is the simple belief in God

SECTION 10

#1732880475809

2052-548: A knighthood and a very lucrative government office. A common theme among most countries which derived Enlightenment ideas from Europe was the intentional non-inclusion of Enlightenment philosophies pertaining to slavery. Originally during the French Revolution, a revolution deeply inspired by Enlightenment philosophy, "France's revolutionary government had denounced slavery, but the property-holding 'revolutionaries' then remembered their bank accounts." Slavery frequently showed

2223-448: A long, arduous trip through the desert, however, David was unimpressed by the goods on offer there. Against his brother's wishes, David boarded a ship for India, since great wealth was to be found in the East. Before he could reach his destination, David drowned at sea sometime between 1169 and 1177. The death of his brother caused Maimonides to become sick with grief. In a letter discovered in

2394-406: A positive political program that benefits everyone in a society. In that context, Hayek used the term obscurantism differently, to denote and describe the denial of the empirical truth of scientific theory, because of the disagreeable moral consequences that might arise from acceptance of fact. The second sense of obscurantism denotes making knowledge abstruse, that is, difficult to grasp. In

2565-461: A pseudoscientific opus , the article "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" is described as an exemplar " pastiche of left-wing cant , fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense, centered on the claim that physical reality is merely a social construct". Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also

2736-463: A scientific study of how humans behaved in ancient and primitive cultures with a strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity . Modern sociology largely originated from this movement, and Hume's philosophical concepts that directly influenced James Madison (and thus the U.S. Constitution), and as popularised by Dugald Stewart was the basis of classical liberalism . In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations , often considered

2907-471: A single innocent one to death ." He argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until defendants would be convicted merely according to the judge's caprice. Maimonides composed works of Jewish scholarship, rabbinic law , philosophy, and medical texts. Most of Maimonides' works were written in Judeo-Arabic . However,

3078-478: A society based on reason and that women as well as men should be treated as rational beings. She is best known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Science played an important role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favour of

3249-447: A student of Isaac Alfasi . At an early age, Maimonides developed an interest in sciences and philosophy. He read ancient Greek philosophy accessible via Arabic translations and was deeply immersed in the sciences and learning of Islamic culture . Maimonides, who was revered for his personality as well as for his writings, led a busy life, and wrote many of his works while travelling or in temporary accommodation. A Berber dynasty,

3420-511: A team of 150 others. The Encyclopédie helped in spreading the ideas of the Enlightenment across Europe and beyond. Other publications of the Enlightenment included Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), Voltaire's Letters on the English (1733) and Philosophical Dictionary (1764); Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1740); Montesquieu's The Spirit of

3591-518: A true faith in God. For moderate Christians, this meant a return to simple Scripture. Locke abandoned the corpus of theological commentary in favor of an "unprejudiced examination" of the Word of God alone . He determined the essence of Christianity to be a belief in Christ the redeemer and recommended avoiding more detailed debate. Anthony Collins , one of the English freethinkers , published his "Essay concerning

SECTION 20

#1732880475809

3762-508: A year, suffering from a sore boil, fever, and depression , and was almost given up. About eight years have passed, but I am still mourning and unable to accept consolation. And how should I console myself? He grew up on my knees, he was my brother, [and] he was my student. Around 1171, Maimonides was appointed the Nagid of the Egyptian Jewish community. Arabist Shelomo Dov Goitein believes

3933-498: Is a pseudo-philosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage". Nevertheless, biographer Terry Pinkard notes: "Hegel has refused to go away, even in analytic philosophy, itself." Hegel was aware of his perceived obscurantism and perceived it as part of philosophical thinking: to accept and transcend

4104-500: Is called רמב״ם , short for "our Rabbi, Moshe son of Maimon" and pronounced Rambam . In Arabic, he is sometimes called "Moses ' son of Amram ' son of Maimon, of Obadiah, the Cordoban " ( أَبُو عَمْرَان مُوسَى بْن مَيْمُون بْن عُبَيْد ٱللّٰه ٱلْقُرْطُبِيّ , Abū ʿImrān Mūsā bin Maimūn bin ʿUbaydallāh al-Qurṭubī ), or more often simply "Moses, son of Maimon" ( موسى بن ميمون ). In Greek,

4275-468: Is deliberately obscurantist so that "good people may for that reason stretch their mind even more, whereas empty minds that are lost through carelessness will be put to flight by the obscurity when they encounter sentences like these". In contemporary discussions of virtue ethics , Aristotle 's Nicomachean Ethics ( The Ethics ) stands accused of ethical obscurantism, because of the technical, philosophic language and writing style, and their purpose being

4446-426: Is grounded in a ruler's habitual authority and force. It is precisely because of the ruler's authority over-and-against the subject that the subject tacitly consents, and Hume says that the subjects would "never imagine that their consent made him sovereign," rather the authority did so. Similarly, Ferguson did not believe citizens built the state, rather polities grew out of social development. In his 1767 An Essay on

4617-519: Is in comparison to God. This is the basis of the Torah. The principle that inspired his philosophical activity was identical to a fundamental tenet of scholasticism : there can be no contradiction between the truths which God has revealed and the findings of the human mind in science and philosophy. Maimonides primarily relied upon the science of Aristotle and the teachings of the Talmud, commonly claiming to find

4788-550: Is not corporeal. This was central to his thinking about the sin of idolatry . Maimonides insisted that all of the anthropomorphic phrases pertaining to God in sacred texts are to be interpreted metaphorically . A related tenet of Maimonidean theology is the notion that the commandments , especially those pertaining to sacrifices , are intended to help wean the Israelites away from idolatry. Maimonides also argued that God embodied reason , intellect , science , and nature , and

4959-444: Is not non-existent. One should not say that "God is wise"; but it can be said that "God is not ignorant," i.e., in some way, God has some properties of knowledge. One should not say that "God is One," but it can be stated that "there is no multiplicity in God's being." In brief, the attempt is to gain and express knowledge of God by describing what God is not, rather than by describing what God "is." Maimonides argued adamantly that God

5130-453: Is often determined by factors outside of one's control, human beings have free will to choose to behave in ways that build character. He wrote, "One is obligated to conduct his affairs with others in a gentle and pleasing manner." Maimonides advised that those with antisocial character traits should identify those traits and then make a conscious effort to behave in the opposite way. For example, an arrogant person should practice humility. If

5301-467: Is proper for the philosophic text. Rather than explicitly presenting his thoughts, the philosopher's esoteric writing compels the reader to think independently of the text, and so learn. In the Phædrus , Socrates notes that writing does not reply to questions, but invites dialogue with the reader, thereby minimizing the problems of grasping the written word. Strauss noted that one of writing's political dangers

Obscurantism - Misplaced Pages Continue

5472-416: Is students' too-readily accepting dangerous ideas—as in the trial of Socrates , wherein the relationship with Alcibiades was used to prosecute him. For Leo Strauss, philosophers' texts offered the reader lucid "exoteric" (salutary) and obscure "esoteric" (true) teachings, which are concealed to the reader of ordinary intellect; emphasizing that writers often left contradictions and other errors to encourage

5643-452: Is that which provides, in his words, "the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers." Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method (the nature of knowledge, evidence, experience, and causation) and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by Hutcheson's protégés in Edinburgh : David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a major figure in

5814-616: Is the insistence that nothingness is something positive. As with much else in Existentialism, this is a psychological observation made to pass for logic." That is Russell's complete entry on Heidegger, and it expresses the sentiments of many 20th-century analytic philosophers concerning Heidegger. In their obituaries " Jacques Derrida , Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74" (10 October 2004) and "Obituary of Jacques Derrida, French intellectual" (21 October 2004), The New York Times newspaper and The Economist magazine described Derrida as

5985-613: The Mishneh Torah was written in Hebrew. In addition to Mishneh Torah, his Jewish texts were: Maimonides' achievements in the medical field are well known, and are cited by many medieval authors. One of his more important medical works is his Guide to Good Health ( Regimen Sanitatis ), which he composed in Arabic for the Sultan al-Afdal , son of Saladin , who suffered from depression . The work

6156-581: The philosophes of the French Enlightenment were not revolutionaries and many were members of the nobility, their ideas played an important part in undermining the legitimacy of the Old Regime and shaping the French Revolution . Francis Hutcheson , a moral philosopher and founding figure of the Scottish Enlightenment , described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue

6327-520: The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment ) was an intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in the 17th and the 18th centuries. The Enlightenment featured a range of social ideas centered on the value of knowledge learned by way of rationalism and of empiricism and political ideals such as natural law , liberty , and progress , toleration and fraternity , constitutional government , and

6498-524: The Almohads , conquered Córdoba in 1148 and abolished dhimmi status (i.e., state protection of non-Muslims ensured through payment of a tax, the jizya ) in some of their territories. The loss of this status forced the Jewish and Christian communities to choose between conversion to Islam , death , or exile . Many Jews were forced to convert, but due to suspicion by the authorities of fake conversions,

6669-503: The Cairo Geniza , he wrote: The greatest misfortune that has befallen me during my entire life—worse than anything else—was the demise of the saint, may his memory be blessed, who drowned in the Indian sea, carrying much money belonging to me, to him, and to others, and left with me a little daughter and a widow. On the day I received that terrible news I fell ill and remained in bed for about

6840-492: The Declaration of Independence ; and Madison incorporated these ideals into the U.S. Constitution during its framing in 1787. Locke, one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers, based his governance philosophy in social contract theory, a subject that permeated Enlightenment political thought. English philosopher Thomas Hobbes ushered in this new debate with his work Leviathan in 1651. Hobbes also developed some of

7011-469: The French Revolution of 1789—both had some intellectual influence from Thomas Jefferson. One view of the political changes that occurred during the Enlightenment is that the " consent of the governed " philosophy as delineated by Locke in Two Treatises of Government (1689) represented a paradigm shift from the old governance paradigm under feudalism known as the " divine right of kings ." In this view,

Obscurantism - Misplaced Pages Continue

7182-504: The Geonim (post-Talmudic early Medieval scholars, mainly from Mesopotamia ). It is also known as Yad ha-Chazaka or simply Yad ( יד ) which has the numerical value 14, representing the 14 books of the work. The Mishneh Torah made following Jewish law easier for the Jews of his time, who were struggling to understand the complex nature of Jewish rules and regulations as they had adapted over

7353-489: The God of Abraham to what philosophers refer to as the Necessary Being . God is unique in the universe, and the Torah commands that one love and fear God ( Deut 10:12) on account of that uniqueness. To Maimonides, this meant that one ought to contemplate God's works and to marvel at the order and wisdom that went into their creation. When one does this, one inevitably comes to love God and to sense how insignificant one

7524-668: The Jewish medical ethicist Fred Rosner into contemporary English. Lectures, conferences and research on Maimonides, even recently in the 21st century, have been done at medical universities in Morocco . The Oath of Maimonides is a document about the medical calling and recited as a substitute for the Hippocratic Oath . It is not to be confused with a more lengthy Prayer of Maimonides . These documents may not have been written by Maimonides, but later. The Prayer appeared first in print in 1793 and has been attributed to Markus Herz ,

7695-788: The Mishnah , during the years 1166–1168. Following this sojourn in Morocco, he lived in Acre with his father and brother, before settling in Fustat in Fatimid Caliphate -controlled Egypt by 1168. There is mention that Maimonides first settled in Alexandria, and moved to Fustat only in 1171. While in Cairo , he studied in a yeshiva attached to a small synagogue , which now bears his name. In Jerusalem , he prayed at

7866-468: The Scholastic philosophers, especially on Albertus Magnus , Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus . He was a Jewish Scholastic. Educated more by reading the works of Arab Muslim philosophers than by personal contact with Arabian teachers, he acquired an intimate acquaintance not only with Arab Muslim philosophy, but with the doctrines of Aristotle. Maimonides strove to reconcile Aristotelianism and science with

8037-637: The Temple Mount . He wrote that this day of visiting the Temple Mount was a day of holiness for him and his descendants. Maimonides shortly thereafter was instrumental in helping rescue Jews taken captive during the Christian Amalric of Jerusalem 's siege of the southeastern Nile Delta town of Bilbeis . He sent five letters to the Jewish communities of Lower Egypt asking them to pool money together to pay

8208-621: The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom . Jefferson's political ideals were greatly influenced by the writings of Locke, Bacon, and Newton, whom he considered the three greatest men that ever lived. The Enlightenment took hold in most European countries and influenced nations globally, often with a specific local emphasis. For example, in France it became associated with anti-government and anti-Church radicalism, while in Germany it reached deep into

8379-419: The education of a cultured governing elite . Immanuel Kant employed technical terms that were not commonly understood by the layman. Arthur Schopenhauer contended that post-Kantian philosophers such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel deliberately imitated the abstruse style of writing practiced by Kant. G. W. F. Hegel 's philosophy, and

8550-573: The ransom . The money was collected and then given to two judges sent to Palestine to negotiate with the Crusaders. The captives were eventually released. Following this success, the Maimonides family, hoping to increase their wealth, gave their savings to his brother, the youngest son David ben Maimon, a merchant. Maimonides directed his brother to procure goods only at the Sudanese port of ʿAydhab . After

8721-468: The skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason. Kant's work continued to shape German thought and indeed all of European philosophy, well into the 20th century. Mary Wollstonecraft was one of England's earliest feminist philosophers. She argued for

SECTION 50

#1732880475809

8892-544: The state of nature as a condition in which humans are rational and follow natural law, in which all men are born equal and with the right to life , liberty, and property. However, when one citizen breaks the law of nature both the transgressor and the victim enter into a state of war, from which it is virtually impossible to break free. Therefore, Locke said that individuals enter into civil society to protect their natural rights via an "unbiased judge" or common authority, such as courts. In contrast, Rousseau's conception relies on

9063-739: The suppression of the Jesuits , and the expulsion of religious orders . Contemporary criticism, particularly of these anti-religious concepts, has since been dubbed the Counter-Enlightenment by Sir Isaiah Berlin . The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the Scientific Revolution . Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon , Pierre Gassendi , René Descartes , Thomas Hobbes , Baruch Spinoza , John Locke , Pierre Bayle , and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz . Some of figures of

9234-510: The 19th and 20th centuries obscurantism became a polemical term for accusing an author of deliberately writing obscurely, in order to hide his or her intellectual vacuousness. From that perspective, obscure (clouded, vague, abstruse) writing does not necessarily indicate that the writer has a poor grasp of the subject, because unintelligible writing sometimes is purposeful. Aristotle divided his own works into two classifications: " exoteric " and " esoteric ". Most scholars have understood this as

9405-564: The 19th century, the mathematician William Kingdon Clifford , who was an early proponent of Darwinism , worked to eliminate obscurantism in England after hearing clerics — who privately agreed with him about evolution — publicly denounce evolution as un-Christian heresy. Moreover, in the realm of organized religion, obscurantism is a distinct strain of anti-intellectualism that is independent of theologic allegiance, by which distinction, religious fundamentalism presupposes sincere religious belief in

9576-624: The Affairs of Europe now turn." Locke's theory of natural rights has influenced many political documents, including the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the French National Constituent Assembly's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen . Some philosophes argued that the establishment of a contractual basis of rights would lead to the market mechanism and capitalism , the scientific method, religious tolerance , and

9747-762: The Creator with no reference to the Bible or any other miraculous source. Instead, the deist relies solely on personal reason to guide his creed , which was eminently agreeable to many thinkers of the time. Atheism was much discussed, but there were few proponents. Wilson and Reill note: "In fact, very few enlightened intellectuals, even when they were vocal critics of Christianity, were true atheists. Rather, they were critics of orthodox belief, wedded rather to skepticism, deism, vitalism, or perhaps pantheism." Some followed Pierre Bayle and argued that atheists could indeed be moral men. Many others like Voltaire held that without belief in

9918-561: The Criminal Trial, 1787), which established him as an international authority on criminal law. The Enlightenment has long been seen as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture. The Enlightenment brought political modernization to the West, in terms of introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies. This thesis has been widely accepted by scholars and has been reinforced by

10089-464: The Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria , George Berkeley , Denis Diderot , David Hume , Immanuel Kant , Lord Monboddo , Montesquieu , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Adam Smith , Hugo Grotius , and Voltaire . One influential Enlightenment publication was the Encyclopédie ( Encyclopedia ). Published between 1751 and 1772 in 35 volumes, it was compiled by Diderot, Jean le Rond d'Alembert , and

10260-580: The Enlightenment were individual liberty , representative government, the rule of law , and religious freedom , in contrast to an absolute monarchy or single party state and the religious persecution of faiths other than those formally established and often controlled outright by the State. By contrast, other intellectual currents included arguments in favour of anti-Christianity , Deism , and even Atheism , accompanied by demands for secular states , bans on religious education, suppression of Monasteries ,

10431-530: The Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was marked by an increasing awareness of the relationship between the mind and the everyday media of the world, and by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism , along with increased questioning of religious dogma — an attitude captured by Kant's essay Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment? , where the phrase sapere aude ('dare to know') can be found. The central doctrines of

SECTION 60

#1732880475809

10602-509: The French government, was eager to accept Frederick's invitation to live at his palace. Frederick explained: "My principal occupation is to combat ignorance and prejudice... to enlighten minds, cultivate morality, and to make people as happy as it suits human nature, and as the means at my disposal permit." The Enlightenment has been frequently linked to the American Revolution of 1776 and

10773-585: The Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Leopold II of Tuscany and Joseph II of Austria. Joseph was over-enthusiastic, announcing many reforms that had little support so that revolts broke out and his regime became a comedy of errors, and nearly all his programs were reversed. Senior ministers Pombal in Portugal and Johann Friedrich Struensee in Denmark also governed according to Enlightenment ideals. In Poland,

10944-519: The Hebrew ben ('son of') becomes the patronymic suffix [[[wikt:-ίδης|-ides]]] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) , forming Μωησής Μαϊμονίδης "Moses Maimonides". He is sometimes known as "The Great Eagle" (Hebrew: הנשר הגדול , romanized:  haNesher haGadol ). Maimonides was born 1138 (or 1135) in Córdoba in the Muslim -ruled Almoravid Caliphate , at

11115-652: The Hebrew acronym Rambam ( Hebrew : רמב״ם ), was a Sephardic rabbi and philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages . In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician , serving as the personal physician of Saladin . He was born and lived in Córdoba in al-Andalus (now in Spain) within the Almoravid Empire on Passover eve 1138 or 1135, until his family

11286-576: The Hebrew versions, the Treatise is called The words of Logic which describes the bulk of the work. The author explains the technical meaning of the words used by logicians. The Treatise duly inventories the terms used by the logician and indicates what they refer to. The work proceeds rationally through a lexicon of philosophical terms to a summary of higher philosophical topics, in 14 chapters corresponding to Maimonides' birthdate of 14 Nissan. The number 14 recurs in many of Maimonides' works. Each chapter offers

11457-715: The History of Civil Society , Ferguson uses the four stages of progress, a theory that was popular in Scotland at the time, to explain how humans advance from a hunting and gathering society to a commercial and civil society without agreeing to a social contract. Both Rousseau's and Locke's social contract theories rest on the presupposition of natural rights , which are not a result of law or custom but are things that all men have in pre-political societies and are therefore universal and inalienable. The most famous natural right formulation comes from Locke's Second Treatise, when he introduces

11628-614: The Judge, son of Joseph the Wise, son of Isaac the Rabbi, son of Obadiah the Judge. At the end of his commentary on the Mishnah , however, a longer, slightly different genealogy is given: Moses son of Maimon the Judge, son of Joseph the Wise, son of Isaac the Judge, son of Joseph the Judge, son of Obadiah the Judge, son of Solomon the Rabbi, son of Obadiah the Judge. Maimonides studied Torah under his father, who had in turn studied under Joseph ibn Migash ,

11799-488: The Laws (1748); Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality (1754) and The Social Contract (1762); Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments (1764); Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1776); and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Bacon's empiricism and Descartes' rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking. Descartes' attempt to construct

11970-536: The Newtonian system to verse in Creation, a Philosophical Poem in Seven Books (1712). After Newton's death in 1727, poems were composed in his honour for decades. James Thomson penned his "Poem to the Memory of Newton," which mourned the loss of Newton and praised his science and legacy. Hume and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed a " science of man ," which was expressed historically in works by authors including James Burnett , Adam Ferguson , John Millar , and William Robertson , all of whom merged

12141-404: The Rambam to follow any other decisor [of Jewish law], early or late? [...] The Rambam is the greatest of the decisors, and all the communities of the Land of Israel and the Arabistan and the Maghreb practice according to his word, and accepted him as their rabbi." An oft-cited legal maxim from his pen is: " It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put

12312-548: The Scientific Revolution as the creators of scientific knowledge, in contrast to the scholasticism of the university. Some societies created or retained links to universities, but contemporary sources distinguished universities from scientific societies by claiming that the university's utility was in the transmission of knowledge while societies functioned to create knowledge. As the role of universities in institutionalized science began to diminish, learned societies became

12483-660: The Use of Reason in Propositions the Evidence whereof depends on Human Testimony" (1707), in which he rejects the distinction between "above reason" and "contrary to reason," and demands that revelation should conform to man's natural ideas of God. In the Jefferson Bible , Thomas Jefferson went further and dropped any passages dealing with miracles, visitations of angels, and the resurrection of Jesus after his death , as he tried to extract

12654-468: The absolutist government was very strong. The early enlightenment emerged in protest to these circumstances, gaining ground under the support of Madame de Pompadour , the mistress of Louis XV . Called the Siècle des Lumières, the philosophical movement of the Enlightenment had already started by the early 18th century, when Pierre Bayle launched the popular and scholarly Enlightenment critique of religion. As

12825-399: The antechambers filled with gentiles and Jews [...] I would go to heal them, and write prescriptions for their illnesses [...] until the evening [...] and I would be extremely weak." As he goes on to say in this letter, even on Shabbat he would receive members of the community. Still, he managed to write extended treatises, including not only medical and other scientific studies but some of

12996-405: The atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as they did, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions. Critics readily noted

13167-481: The beginning of the Enlightenment. European historians traditionally dated its beginning with the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715 and its end with the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. Many historians now date the end of the Enlightenment as the start of the 19th century, with the latest proposed year being the death of Immanuel Kant in 1804. In reality, historical periods do not have clearly defined start or end dates. Philosophers and scientists of

13338-400: The better you listen." In the 1973 seminar Encore , he said that his Écrits ( Writings ) were not to be understood, but would effect a meaning in the reader, like that induced by mystical texts. The obscurity is not in his writing style, but in the repeated allusions to Hegel, derived from Alexandre Kojève 's lectures on Hegel, and similar theoretic divergences. The Sokal affair (1996)

13509-405: The black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence." In restricting education and knowledge to a ruling class, obscurantism is anti-democratic in its components of anti-intellectualism and social elitism , which exclude the majority of the people, deemed unworthy of knowing

13680-622: The cardinal principles of faith for Orthodox Jews . Two poetic restatements of these principles ( Ani Ma'amin and Yigdal ) eventually became canonized in many editions of the Siddur (Jewish prayer book). The omission of a list of these principles as such within his later works, the Mishneh Torah and The Guide for the Perplexed , has led some to suggest that either he retracted his earlier position, or that these principles are descriptive rather than prescriptive. Maimonides equated

13851-531: The circumstances of one's environment are such that it is impossible to behave ethically, one must move to a new location. Maimonides agreed with "the Philosopher" (Aristotle) that the use of logic is the "right" way of thinking. He claimed that in order to understand how to know God, every human being must, by study, and meditation attain the degree of perfection required to reach the prophetic state. Despite his rationalistic approach, he does not explicitly reject

14022-536: The clergy of all churches and was a plea for deism. Roy Porter argues that the reasons for this neglect were the assumptions that the movement was primarily French-inspired, that it was largely a-religious or anti-clerical, and that it stood in outspoken defiance to the established order. Porter admits that after the 1720s England could claim thinkers to equal Diderot , Voltaire, or Rousseau. However, its leading intellectuals such as Gibbon, Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson were all quite conservative and supportive of

14193-588: The conceptual validity of scientific objectivity and the nature of scientific theory, among scientific realists and postmodern critics in American universities. Sokal's reason for publication of a false article was that postmodernist critics questioned the objectivity of science, by criticising the scientific method and the nature of knowledge, usually in the disciplines of cultural studies, cultural anthropology , feminist studies , comparative literature , media studies , and science and technology studies . Whereas

14364-503: The cornerstone of organized science. Official scientific societies were chartered by the state to provide technical expertise. Most societies were granted permission to oversee their own publications, control the election of new members and the administration of the society. In the 18th century, a tremendous number of official academies and societies were founded in Europe, and by 1789 there were over 70 official scientific societies. In reference to this growth, Bernard de Fontenelle coined

14535-525: The country (land) ruled by the state belongs to it (despite some having been conquered from others), and that citizenship derives from more than the accident of birth in the city-state. Thus, in the New Yorker magazine article "Selective Intelligence", Seymour Hersh observes that Strauss endorsed the " noble lie " concept: the myths politicians use in maintaining a cohesive society. Shadia Drury criticized Strauss's acceptance of dissembling and deception of

14706-405: The daughter of Mishael ben Yeshayahu Halevi, had one child who survived into adulthood, Abraham Maimonides , who became recognized as a great scholar. He succeeded Maimonides as Nagid and as court physician at the age of eighteen. Throughout his career, he defended his father's writings against all critics. The office of Nagid was held by the Maimonides family for four successive generations until

14877-450: The decision, philosophers including Barry Smith , W. V. O. Quine , David Armstrong , Ruth Barcan Marcus , René Thom , and twelve others, published a letter of protestation in The Times of London, arguing that "his works employ a written style that defies comprehension ... [thus] Academic status based on what seems to us to be little more than semi-intelligible attacks upon

15048-510: The development of free speech and thought. There were immediate practical results. The experiments of Antoine Lavoisier were used to create the first modern chemical plants in Paris, and the experiments of the Montgolfier brothers enabled them to launch the first manned flight in a hot air balloon in 1783. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and

15219-454: The dilemma of either an informed populace "interfering" with government, or whether it were possible for good politicians to be truthful and still govern to maintain a stable society—hence the noble lie necessary in securing public acquiescence. In The City and Man (1964), he discusses the myths in The Republic that Plato proposes effective governing requires, among them, the belief that

15390-530: The end of the golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula after the first centuries of Muslim rule. His father, Maimon ben Joseph , was a dayyan or rabbinic judge. Aaron ben Jacob ha-Kohen later wrote that he had traced Maimonides' descent back to Simeon ben Judah ha-Nasi from the Davidic line . His ancestry, going back four generations, is given in his Epistle to Yemen as Moses son of Maimon

15561-513: The end of the 14th century. A statue of Maimonides was erected near the Córdoba Synagogue . Maimonides is sometimes said to be a descendant of King David , although he never made such a claim. With Mishneh Torah , Maimonides composed a code of Jewish law with the widest-possible scope and depth. The work gathers all the binding laws from the Talmud , and incorporates the positions of

15732-609: The entire Enlightenment include England and others ignore it, although they do include coverage of such major intellectuals as Joseph Addison , Edward Gibbon , John Locke, Isaac Newton, Alexander Pope , Joshua Reynolds , and Jonathan Swift . Freethinking , a term describing those who stood in opposition to the institution of the Church, and the literal belief in the Bible, can be said to have begun in England no later than 1713, when Anthony Collins wrote his "Discourse of Free-thinking," which gained substantial popularity. This essay attacked

15903-440: The facts about their government and the political and economic affairs of their city-state . In 18th century monarchic France, the political scientist Marquis de Condorcet documented the obscurantism of the aristocracy and their indifference to the social problems that provoked the French Revolution (1789–1799), which violently overthrew the aristocracy and deposed the monarch, King Louis XVI of France (r. 1774–1792). In

16074-934: The first modern geologist. Several Americans, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, played a major role in bringing Enlightenment ideas to the New World and in influencing British and French thinkers. Franklin was influential for his political activism and for his advances in physics. The cultural exchange during the Age of Enlightenment ran in both directions across the Atlantic. Thinkers such as Paine, Locke, and Rousseau all take Native American cultural practices as examples of natural freedom. The Americans closely followed English and Scottish political ideas, as well as some French thinkers such as Montesquieu. As deists, they were influenced by ideas of John Toland and Matthew Tindal . There

16245-496: The first work on modern economics as it had an immediate impact on British economic policy that continues into the 21st century. It was immediately preceded and influenced by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot 's drafts of Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766). Smith acknowledged indebtedness and possibly was the original English translator. Beccaria, a jurist, criminologist, philosopher, and politician and one of

16416-400: The formal separation of church and state . The Enlightenment was preceded by and overlaps the Scientific Revolution and the work of Johannes Kepler , Galileo Galilei , Francis Bacon , Pierre Gassendi , and Isaac Newton , among others, as well as the rationalist philosophy of Descartes , Hobbes , Spinoza , Leibniz , and John Locke . Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment to

16587-419: The fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual, the natural equality of all men, the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state), the view that all legitimate political power must be " representative " and based on the consent of the people, and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever

16758-410: The government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he said must therefore remain protected from any government authority. These views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual conscience, along with

16929-502: The great Enlightenment writers, became famous for his masterpiece Dei delitti e delle pene (Of Crimes and Punishments, 1764). His treatise, translated into 22 languages, condemned torture and the death penalty and was a founding work in the field of penology and the classical school of criminology by promoting criminal justice . Francesco Mario Pagano wrote important studies such as Saggi politici (Political Essays, 1783); and Considerazioni sul processo criminale (Considerations on

17100-479: The history of Islamic and Arab sciences. Influenced by Aristotle , Al-Farabi , Ibn Sina , and his contemporary Ibn Rushd , he became a prominent philosopher and polymath in both the Jewish and Islamic worlds . Maimonides referred to himself as "Moses, son of Rabbi Maimon the Spaniard " ( Hebrew : משה ברבי מימון הספרדי ). In Medieval Hebrew, he was usually called ר״ם , short for "our Rabbi Moshe", but mostly he

17271-476: The human race (מבחר המין האנושי)', so that instead it read 'the excommunicated heretic (מוחרם ומין)'. But later, after the provocateurs had repented of their act, and praised this great man, a student repaired the gravestone to read 'choicest of the Israelites (מבחר המין הישראלי)'". Today, Tiberias hosts the Tomb of Maimonides , on which is inscribed "From Moses to Moses arose none like Moses." Maimonides and his wife,

17442-404: The inevitable result of the radical opposition created in the 18th century between the monarchy and the men of letters of the Enlightenment. These men of letters constituted a sort of "substitute aristocracy that was both all-powerful and without real power." This illusory power came from the rise of "public opinion," born when absolutist centralization removed the nobility and the bourgeoisie from

17613-419: The introduction, he gave the impression of wanting to "cut out" study of the Talmud, to arrive at a conclusion in Jewish law, although Maimonides later wrote that this was not his intent. His most forceful opponents were the rabbis of Provence (Southern France), and a running critique by Rabbi Abraham ben David (Raavad III) is printed in virtually all editions of Mishneh Torah . Nevertheless, Mishneh Torah

17784-495: The key to imposing reforms designed by the intellectuals. Voltaire despised democracy and said the absolute monarch must be enlightened and must act as dictated by reason and justice—in other words, be a " philosopher-king ." In several nations, rulers welcomed leaders of the Enlightenment at court and asked them to help design laws and programs to reform the system, typically to build stronger states. These rulers are called "enlightened despots" by historians. They included Frederick

17955-405: The large-scale studies by Robert Darnton , Roy Porter , and, most recently, by Jonathan Israel. Enlightenment thought was deeply influential in the political realm. European rulers such as Catherine II of Russia , Joseph II of Austria , and Frederick II of Prussia tried to apply Enlightenment thought on religious and political tolerance, which became known as enlightened absolutism . Many of

18126-458: The law does not explicitly forbid. Both Locke and Rousseau developed social contract theories in Two Treatises of Government and Discourse on Inequality , respectively. While quite different works, Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau agreed that a social contract, in which the government's authority lies in the consent of the governed , is necessary for man to live in civil society. Locke defines

18297-462: The law of nature because a person cannot surrender their own rights: freedom is absolute, and no one can take it away. Locke argues that one person cannot enslave another because it is morally reprehensible, although he introduces a caveat by saying that enslavement of a lawful captive in time of war would not go against one's natural rights. The leaders of the Enlightenment were not especially democratic, as they more often look to absolute monarchs as

18468-549: The layman. In his early works, Karl Marx criticized German and French philosophy, especially German Idealism , for its traditions of German irrationalism and ideologically motivated obscurantism. Later thinkers whom he influenced, such as the philosopher György Lukács and social theorist Jürgen Habermas , followed with similar arguments of their own. However, philosophers such as Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek in turn criticized Marx and Marxist philosophy as obscurantist (however, see above for Hayek's particular interpretation of

18639-465: The leadership he displayed during the ransoming of the Crusader captives led to this appointment. However he was replaced by Sar Shalom ben Moses in 1173. Over the controversial course of Sar Shalom's appointment, during which Sar Shalom was accused of tax farming , Maimonides excommunicated and fought with him for several years until Maimonides was appointed Nagid in 1195. A work known as "Megillat Zutta"

18810-488: The limitations of quotidian (everyday) thought and its concepts. In the essay "Who Thinks Abstractly?", he said that it is not the philosopher who thinks abstractly, but the layman, who uses concepts as givens that are immutable, without context. It is the philosopher who thinks concretely, because he transcends the limits of quotidian concepts , in order to understand their broader context. This makes philosophical thought and language appear obscure, esoteric, and mysterious to

18981-811: The limitations of the Enlightenment ideology as it pertained to European colonialism, since many colonies of Europe operated on a plantation economy fueled by slave labor. In 1791, the Haitian Revolution , a slave rebellion by emancipated slaves against French colonial rule in the colony of Saint-Domingue , broke out. European nations and the United States, despite the strong support for Enlightenment ideals, refused to "[give support] to Saint-Domingue's anti-colonial struggle." The very existence of an English Enlightenment has been hotly debated by scholars. The majority of textbooks on British history make little or no mention of an English Enlightenment. Some surveys of

19152-473: The low level of philosophical argumentation, the deliberate obscurantism of the prose, the wildly exaggerated claims, and the constant striving to give the appearance of profundity, by making claims that seem paradoxical, but under analysis often turn out to be silly or trivial". Jacques Lacan was an intellectual who defended obscurantism to a degree. To his students' complaint about the deliberate obscurity of his lectures, he replied: "The less you understand,

19323-485: The main goal of enlightenment. According to Derek Hirst , the 1640s and 1650s saw a revived economy characterised by growth in manufacturing, the elaboration of financial and credit instruments, and the commercialisation of communication. The gentry found time for leisure activities, such as horse racing and bowling. In the high culture important innovations included the development of a mass market for music, increased scientific research, and an expansion of publishing. All

19494-493: The major political and intellectual figures behind the American Revolution associated themselves closely with the Enlightenment: Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia; Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into

19665-446: The middle classes, where it expressed a spiritualistic and nationalistic tone without threatening governments or established churches. Government responses varied widely. In France, the government was hostile, and the philosophes fought against its censorship, sometimes being imprisoned or hounded into exile. The British government, for the most part, ignored the Enlightenment's leaders in England and Scotland, although it did give Newton

19836-574: The model constitution of 1791 expressed Enlightenment ideals, but was in effect for only one year before the nation was partitioned among its neighbors. More enduring were the cultural achievements, which created a nationalist spirit in Poland. Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, saw himself as a leader of the Enlightenment and patronized philosophers and scientists at his court in Berlin. Voltaire, who had been imprisoned and maltreated by

20007-464: The moderate variety, following Descartes, Locke, and Christian Wolff , which sought accommodation between reform and the traditional systems of power and faith, and, second, the Radical Enlightenment, inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza, advocating democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression, and eradication of religious authority. The moderate variety tended to be deistic whereas

20178-454: The moral and collective legislative body constituted by citizens. Locke is known for his statement that individuals have a right to "Life, Liberty, and Property," and his belief that the natural right to property is derived from labor. Tutored by Locke, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury , wrote in 1706: "There is a mighty Light which spreads its self over the world especially in those two free Nations of England and Holland; on whom

20349-605: The most systematically thought-through and influential treatises on halakha (rabbinic law) and Jewish philosophy of the Middle Ages. In 1172–74, Maimonides wrote his famous Epistle to Yemen . It has been suggested that his "incessant travail" undermined his own health and brought about his death at 69 (although this is a normal lifespan). Maimonides died on 12 December 1204 (20th of Tevet 4965) in Fustat. A variety of medieval sources beginning with Al-Qifti maintain that his body

20520-561: The new converts had to wear identifying clothing that set them apart and made them subject to public scrutiny. Maimonides' family, along with many other Jews , chose exile. For the next ten years, Maimonides moved about in southern Spain and North Africa, eventually settling in Fez, Morocco . Some say that his teacher in Fez was Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Cohen Ibn Susan , until the latter was killed in 1165. During this time, he composed his acclaimed commentary on

20691-738: The obscurantism in Joy's elitist proposal for limiting the dissemination of "certain knowledge" in order to preserve society. A year later, in the Science and Technology Policy Yearbook 2001 , the American Association for the Advancement of Science answered Joy's propositions with the article "A Response to Bill Joy and the Doom-and-Gloom Technofuturists", wherein the computer scientists John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid said that Joy's proposal

20862-538: The organization of states into self-governing republics through democratic means. In this view, the tendency of the philosophes in particular to apply rationality to every problem is considered the essential change. Although much of Enlightenment political thought was dominated by social contract theorists, Hume and Ferguson criticized this camp. Hume's essay Of the Original Contract argues that governments derived from consent are rarely seen and civil government

21033-432: The patient's autonomy . Although he frequently wrote of his longing for solitude in order to come closer to God and to extend his reflections—elements considered essential in his philosophy to the prophetic experience—he gave over most of his time to caring for others. In a famous letter, Maimonides describes his daily routine. After visiting the Sultan's palace, he would arrive home exhausted and hungry, where "I would find

21204-496: The period widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies , Masonic lodges , literary salons , coffeehouses and in printed books , journals , and pamphlets . The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and religious officials and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism, socialism , and neoclassicism , trace their intellectual heritage to

21375-436: The person, whereas censorship is obscurantism that is based upon the élite power-group manipulating the religious faith of the majority of the population of believers. In the 20th century, the American conservative political philosopher Leo Strauss and his neo-conservative adherents adopted the notion of government by the enlightened few as political strategy. He noted that intellectuals , dating from Plato , confronted

21546-551: The philosopher Derrida escapes metaphysical accounts of his work. Since the work ostensibly contains no metaphysics, Derrida has, consequently, escaped metaphysics. Derrida's philosophic work is especially controversial among American and British academics, as when the University of Cambridge awarded him an honorary doctorate, despite opposition from among the Cambridge philosophy faculty and analytical philosophers worldwide. In opposing

21717-474: The philosophies of those he influenced, especially Karl Marx , have been accused of obscurantism. Analytic and positivistic philosophers, such as A. J. Ayer , Bertrand Russell , and the critical-rationalist Karl Popper , accused Hegel and Hegelianism of being obscure. About Hegel's philosophy, Schopenhauer wrote that it is "a colossal piece of mystification, which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it

21888-600: The political sphere. The "literary politics" that resulted promoted a discourse of equality and was hence in fundamental opposition to the monarchical regime. De Tocqueville "clearly designates... the cultural effects of transformation in the forms of the exercise of power." It does not require great art or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of

22059-415: The populace as "the peculiar justice of the wise", whereas Plato proposed the noble lie as based upon moral good. In criticizing Natural Right and History (1953), she said that "Strauss thinks that the superiority of the ruling philosophers is an intellectual superiority and not a moral one ... [he] is the only interpreter who gives a sinister reading to Plato, and then celebrates him." Leo Strauss also

22230-559: The practical Christian moral code of the New Testament . Enlightenment scholars sought to curtail the political power of organized religion and thereby prevent another age of intolerant religious war. Spinoza determined to remove politics from contemporary and historical theology (e.g., disregarding Judaic law ). Moses Mendelssohn advised affording no political weight to any organized religion but instead recommended that each person follow what they found most convincing. They believed

22401-451: The publication of René Descartes ' Discourse on the Method in 1637, with his method of systematically disbelieving everything unless there was a well-founded reason for accepting it, and featuring his famous dictum, Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"). Others cite the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) as the culmination of the Scientific Revolution and

22572-575: The publication of his fake article in Social Text magazine, Sokal addressed the matter in the May 1996 edition of the Lingua Franca journal, in the article "A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies", in which he revealed that his transformative hermeneutics article was a parody , submitted "to test the prevailing intellectual standards", and concluded that, as an academic publication, Social Text ignored

22743-461: The radical tendency separated the basis of morality entirely from theology. Both lines of thought were eventually opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment which sought a return to faith. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines and dogmas. After the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, the relationship between church and

22914-622: The reader's more scrupulous (re-)reading of the text. In observing and maintaining the " exoteric — esoteric " dichotomy, Strauss was accused of obscurantism, and for writing esoterically. In the article " Why the Future Doesn't Need Us " (April 2000), the computer scientist Bill Joy , then chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, in the sub-title of the article proposed that: "Our most powerful twenty-first-century technologies—robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech—are threatening to make humans an endangered species", and said that: The experiences of

23085-402: The required beliefs of Judaism: Maimonides is said to have compiled the principles from various Talmudic sources. These principles were controversial when first proposed, evoking criticism by Rabbis Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo , and were effectively ignored by much of the Jewish community for the next few centuries. However, these principles have become widely held and are considered to be

23256-419: The requisite intellectual rigor of verification and "felt comfortable publishing an article on quantum physics without bothering to consult anyone knowledgeable in the subject". Moreover, as a public intellectual , Sokal said that his hoax was an action protesting against the contemporary tendency towards obscurantism—abstruse, esoteric, and vague writing in the social sciences : In short, my concern over

23427-417: The result would be moral anarchy: every individual "could have no law but his own will, no end but himself. He would be a god to himself, and the satisfaction of his own will the sole measure and end of all his actions." The "Radical Enlightenment" promoted the concept of separating church and state, an idea that is often credited to Locke. According to his principle of the social contract, Locke said that

23598-407: The revolutions were caused by the fact that this governance paradigm shift often could not be resolved peacefully and therefore violent revolution was the result. A governance philosophy where the king was never wrong would be in direct conflict with one whereby citizens by natural law had to consent to the acts and rulings of their government. Alexis de Tocqueville proposed the French Revolution as

23769-495: The same father and creatures of the same God? Voltaire (1763) Enlightenment era religious commentary was a response to the preceding century of religious conflict in Europe, especially the Thirty Years' War . Theologians of the Enlightenment wanted to reform their faith to its generally non-confrontational roots and to limit the capacity for religious controversy to spill over into politics and warfare while still maintaining

23940-409: The sciences for distancing man from nature and not operating to make people happier. Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies , which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Scientific academies and societies grew out of

24111-544: The sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His skepticism was refined by Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Hume's writings in the 1740s. His dualism was challenged by Spinoza's uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus (1670) and Ethics (1677). According to Jonathan Israel , these laid down two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: first,

24282-426: The scientific realists countered that objective scientific knowledge exists, riposting that postmodernist critics almost knew nothing of the science they criticized. In the event, editorial deference to " academic authority " (the author-professor) prompted the editors of Social Text not to fact-check Sokal's manuscript by submitting it to peer review by a scientist. Concerning the lack of editorial integrity shown by

24453-747: The social contract, became particularly influential in the American colonies and the drafting of the United States Constitution. In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, Thomas Jefferson calls for a "wall of separation between church and state" at the federal level. He previously had supported successful efforts to disestablish the Church of England in Virginia and authored

24624-522: The spread of subjectivist thinking is both intellectual and political. Intellectually, the problem with such doctrines is that they are false (when not simply meaningless). There is a real world; its properties are not merely social constructions; facts and evidence do matter. What sane person would contend otherwise? And yet, much contemporary academic theorizing consists precisely of attempts to blur these obvious truths—the utter absurdity of it all being concealed through obscure and pretentious language. As

24795-414: The standing order. Porter says the reason was that Enlightenment had come early to England and had succeeded such that the culture had accepted political liberalism, philosophical empiricism, and religious toleration, positions which intellectuals on the continent had to fight against powerful odds. Furthermore, England rejected the collectivism of the continent and emphasized the improvement of individuals as

24966-411: The state of nature. For Locke, the law of nature is grounded on mutual security or the idea that one cannot infringe on another's natural rights, as every man is equal and has the same inalienable rights. These natural rights include perfect equality and freedom, as well as the right to preserve life and property. Locke argues against indentured servitude on the basis that enslaving oneself goes against

25137-417: The supposition that "civil man" is corrupted, while "natural man" has no want he cannot fulfill himself. Natural man is only taken out of the state of nature when the inequality associated with private property is established. Rousseau said that people join into civil society via the social contract to achieve unity while preserving individual freedom. This is embodied in the sovereignty of the general will ,

25308-666: The teachings of the Torah . In his Guide for the Perplexed , he often explains the function and purpose of the statutory provisions contained in the Torah against the backdrop of the historical conditions. The book was highly controversial in its day, and was banned by French rabbis, who burnt copies of the work in Montpellier . In his commentary on the Mishnah ( Tractate Sanhedrin , chapter 10), Maimonides formulates his "13 principles of faith"; and that these principles summarized what he viewed as

25479-458: The teachings of the great Islamic philosophers such as Avicenna and, above all, Al-Farabi , "the Second Master," the "First Master" being Aristotle . In his work devoted to the Treatise, Rémi Brague stresses the fact that Al-Farabi is the only philosopher mentioned therein. This indicates a line of conduct for the reader, who must read the text keeping in mind Al-Farabi's works on logic. In

25650-459: The term "the Age of Academies" to describe the 18th century. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories, most notably through the Encyclopédie and the popularization of Newtonianism by Voltaire and Émilie du Châtelet . Some historians have marked the 18th century as

25821-518: The term). Martin Heidegger , and those influenced by him, such as Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas , have been labeled obscurantists by critics from analytic philosophy and the Frankfurt School of critical theory . Of Heidegger, Bertrand Russell wrote: "his philosophy is extremely obscure. One cannot help suspecting that language is here running riot. An interesting point in his speculations

25992-530: The trends were discussed in depth at the newly established coffee houses . In the Scottish Enlightenment , the principles of sociability, equality, and utility were disseminated in schools and universities, many of which used sophisticated teaching methods which blended philosophy with daily life. Scotland's major cities created an intellectual infrastructure of mutually supporting institutions such as schools, universities, reading societies, libraries, periodicals, museums, and masonic lodges. The Scottish network

26163-478: The values of reason, truth, and scholarship is not, we submit, sufficient grounds for the awarding of an honorary degree in a distinguished university." In the New York Review of Books article "An Exchange on Deconstruction" (February 1984), John Searle comments on Deconstruction : "anyone who reads deconstructive texts with an open mind is likely to be struck by the same phenomena that initially surprised me:

26334-410: The years. Later codes of Jewish law, e.g. Arba'ah Turim by Rabbi Jacob ben Asher and Shulchan Aruch by Rabbi Yosef Karo , draw heavily on Mishneh Torah : both often quote whole sections verbatim. However, it met initially with much opposition. There were two main reasons for this opposition. First, Maimonides had refrained from adding references to his work for the sake of brevity; second, in

26505-443: Was omnipotent and indescribable. He said that science, the growth of scientific fields, and discovery of the unknown by comprehension of nature was a way to appreciate God. Maimonides taught about the developing of one's moral character . Although his life predated the modern concept of a personality , Maimonides believed that each person has an innate disposition along an ethical and emotional spectrum. Although one's disposition

26676-589: Was "predominantly liberal Calvinist , Newtonian, and 'design' oriented in character which played a major role in the further development of the transatlantic Enlightenment." In France, Voltaire said "we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization." The focus of the Scottish Enlightenment ranged from intellectual and economic matters to the specifically scientific as in the work of William Cullen , physician and chemist; James Anderson , agronomist ; Joseph Black , physicist and chemist; and James Hutton,

26847-441: Was a form of technological tunnel vision, and that the technologically derived problems are infeasible, for disregarding the influence of non-scientists upon such societal problems. In the essay "Why I Am Not a Conservative" (1960), the economist Friedrich von Hayek said that political conservatism is ideologically unrealistic, because of the conservative person's inability to adapt to changing human realities and refusal to offer

27018-638: Was a great emphasis upon liberty , republicanism , and religious tolerance . There was no respect for monarchy or inherited political power. Deists reconciled science and religion by rejecting prophecies, miracles, and biblical theology. Leading deists included Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason and Thomas Jefferson in his short Jefferson Bible, from which he removed all supernatural aspects. Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides ( / m aɪ ˈ m ɒ n ɪ d iː z / , my- MON -ih-deez ) and also referred to by

27189-446: Was a publishing hoax that the professor of physics Alan Sokal perpetrated on the editors and readers of Social Text , an academic journal of post-modern cultural studies that was not then a peer-reviewed publication. In 1996, as an experiment testing editorial integrity ( fact-checking , verification, peer review, etc.), Sokal submitted "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity",

27360-485: Was appointed court physician to al-Qadi al-Fadil , the chief secretary to Sultan Saladin , then to Saladin himself; after whose death he remained a physician to the Ayyubid dynasty . In his medical writings, Maimonides described many conditions, including asthma , diabetes , hepatitis , and pneumonia , and he emphasized moderation and a healthy lifestyle. His treatises became influential for generations of physicians. He

27531-590: Was buried in Tiberias . His tomb in Tiberias is a popular pilgrimage and tourist site. He was posthumously acknowledged as one of the foremost rabbinic decisors and philosophers in Jewish history , and his copious work comprises a cornerstone of Jewish scholarship. His fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah still carries significant canonical authority as a codification of halakha . Aside from being revered by Jewish historians, Maimonides also figures very prominently in

27702-458: Was criticized for proposing the notion of "esoteric" meanings to ancient texts, obscure knowledge inaccessible to the "ordinary" intellect. In Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), he proposes that some philosophers write esoterically to avert persecution by the political or religious authorities, and, per his knowledge of Maimonides , Al Farabi , and Plato , proposed that an esoteric writing style

27873-409: Was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. The study of science, under the heading of natural philosophy , was divided into physics and a conglomerate grouping of chemistry and natural history , which included anatomy , biology , geology, mineralogy , and zoology . As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally: Rousseau criticized

28044-606: Was expelled for refusing to convert to Islam. Later, he lived in Morocco and Egypt and worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher. During his lifetime, most Jews greeted Maimonides' writings on Jewish law and ethics with acclaim and gratitude, even as far away as Iraq and Yemen. Yet, while Maimonides rose to become the revered head of the Jewish community in Egypt , his writings also had vociferous critics, particularly in Spain. He died in Fustat , Egypt, and, according to Jewish tradition,

28215-454: Was interred near Lake Tiberias , though there is no contemporary evidence for his removal from Egypt. Gedaliah ibn Yahya records that "He was buried in the Upper Galilee with elegies upon his gravestone. In the time of [David] Kimhi , when the sons of Belial rose up to besmirch [Maimonides] . . . they did evil. They altered his gravestone, which previously had been inscribed 'choicest of

28386-485: Was knowledgeable about Greek and Arabic medicine, and followed the principles of humorism in the tradition of Galen . He did not blindly accept authority but used his own observation and experience. Julia Bess Frank indicates that Maimonides in his medical writings sought to interpret works of authorities so that they could become acceptable. Maimonides displayed in his interactions with patients attributes that today would be called intercultural awareness and respect for

28557-491: Was led by Voltaire and Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law , and for science based on experiments and observation. The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution . While

28728-610: Was not the author at all, based on a report of two Arabic-language manuscripts, unavailable to Western investigators in Asia Minor. Rabbi Yosef Kafih maintained that it is by Maimonides and newly translated it to Hebrew (as Beiur M'lekhet HaHiggayon ) from the Judeo-Arabic. Through The Guide for the Perplexed and the philosophical introductions to sections of his commentaries on the Mishna, Maimonides exerted an important influence on

28899-448: Was recognized as a monumental contribution to the systemized writing of halakha . Throughout the centuries, it has been widely studied and its halakhic decisions have weighed heavily in later rulings. In response to those who would attempt to force followers of Maimonides and his Mishneh Torah to abide by the rulings of his own Shulchan Aruch or other later works, Rabbi Yosef Karo wrote: "Who would dare force communities who follow

29070-515: Was translated into Latin, and published in Florence in 1477, becoming the first medical book to appear in print there. While his prescriptions may have become obsolete, "his ideas about preventive medicine, public hygiene, approach to the suffering patient, and the preservation of the health of the soul have not become obsolete." Maimonides wrote ten known medical works in Arabic that have been translated by

29241-482: Was written by Abraham ben Hillel , who writes a scathing description of Sar Shalom while praising Maimonides as "the light of east and west and unique master and marvel of the generation." With the loss of the family funds tied up in David's business venture, Maimonides assumed the vocation of physician, for which he was to become famous. He had trained in medicine in both Spain and in Fez. Gaining widespread recognition, he

#808191