Rethinking the Enlightenment: Between History, Philosophy, and Politics

One of the most persistent, troubling, and divisive of the ideological divisions within modernity is the struggle over the Enlightenment and its legacy. Much of the difficulty is owed to a general failure to think history, philosophy, and politics in conjunction. Rethinking the Enlightenment will move to bridge these disciplinary divides. Recent work by historians has now called into question many of the clichés which still dominate scholarly understanding of the Enlightenment’s literary, philosophical, and political culture. Yet this work has so far had little impact on the reception of the Enlightenment, its key players, debates, and ideas in the disciplines that most rely on its legacy, namely, philosophy and political science. Rethinking the Enlightenment makes the case for connecting new work in intellectual history with fresh understandings of ‘Continental’ philosophy and political theory. In doing so, in this collection moves towards a critical self-understanding of the present.