The Question of Enlightenment - Theory and Practice in Eighteenth ...

Recommendations

Info

The Question of Enlightenment 16 Caird’s usage of the term is familiar enough, as, indeed, are his criticisms, which still enjoy some currency today. Yet a closer look at the examples from Stirling’s Secret of Hegel yields a few surprises. For it turns out that in the first extract the OED misquoted Stirling and in the second it misrepresented what he was saying. Both of the examples are taken from a passage in the Preface to Stirling’s book in which he launches a diatribe against Henry Thomas Buckle, a British historian whose materialist approach particularly incensed Stirling. At issue in the first is the question of whether Buckle — who conveyed to Stirling “the air of a man who is speaking by anticipation, and who only counts on verifying the same” — was capable of understanding Kant’s work. The passage runs as follows (the portion extracted, and misquoted, by the OED has been underlined): He had a theory, had Mr Buckle, or, rather, a theory had him — a theory, it is true, small rather, but still a theory that to him loomed huge as the universe, at the same time that it was the single drop of vitality in his whole soul. — Now, that such redoubted thinkers as Kant and Hegel, who, in especial, had been suspected or accused of Deism, Atheism, Pantheism, and all manner of isms dear to Enlightenment, but hateful to Prejudice — (or vice versa) — that these should be found not to fit into his theory — such doubt never for a moment crossed even the most casual dream of Buckle! 59 In the passage misquoted in the OED Stirling speaks not of “isms due to Enlightenment” but rather of “isms dear to Enlightenment.” The notion that “Enlightenment” holds Deism, Atheism, Pantheism dear, while “Prejudice” finds them hateful conforms rather nicely with our conventional understanding of the Enlightenment. Since the Enlightenment is typically seen as denouncing as “superstition” everything that the faithful hold dear, it is hardly surprising that Stirling would suggest that “Deism, Atheism, Pantheism” are “dear to Enlightenment” but “hateful to Prejudice.” What is puzzling about the passage has less to do with what the first editors of the OED misquoted than with what they left out: Stirling’s equivocal “or vice versa.”
The Question of Enlightenment 17 We can make sense of Stirling’s “vice versa” only if we recognize that the “Enlightenment” that he is invoking is something quite different from what we understand as “the Enlightenment.” In the passage in question, Stirling would appear to be using enlightenment in the first of the two definitions in the OED — “The action of enlightening; the state of being enlightened …. [I]mparting or receiving mental or spiritual light” — rather than the second. In its non-religious sense (as “mental” rather than “spiritual” light) Enlightenment is kin to “Deism, Atheism, Pantheism” and will be viewed with revulsion by the faithful (who, in turn, will be regarded by the enlightened as the victims of prejudice). But since Stirling implies that it is Buckle — a man who is a victim of his own “anticipations” and who finds in texts only what he presumes that he will find there — who is prejudiced, it is simple enough for Stirling to reverse the relationship, and make Deism, Atheism, Pantheism “dear” to prejudiced souls such as Buckle and hateful to the spiritually enlightened. Hence, while Stirling may have associated Buckle with any number of the “isms” that, allegedly, were dear to French philosophers of the eighteenth century, the relationship of the word enlightenment to these "isms" is rather unstable: it can regard them as either "dear" or as “hateful.” Behind the OED’s confusion about how Stirling employed the term enlightenment stands a more fundamental problem: Stirling typically did not use the term Enlightenment to refer to the French philosophes and their allies was not Enlightenment. His preferred English term was Illumination. The attack on Buckle, for example, is preceded by a dismissal of Ludwig Feuerbach and David Friedrich Strauss as representatives of “an inferior Atheistico-Materialist sect” which constitutes the “remnants of the Aufklärung, of Eighteenth Century Illumination.” 60 Buckle — who “still knew nothing and would know nothing but the Illumination” — is placed among their ranks. 61 Stirling’s terminology is likely to strike us as peculiar (indeed, almost everything about Stirling’s staggeringly prolix book is likely to strike a modern reader as odd), but it is not capricious. Enlightenment – used sparingly and never with a definite article — denotes an activity that, for lack of a better description, involves “imparting or receiving mental or spiritual light”: the first meaning noted by the OED, not the second. 62 Illumination is
Page 1 and 2: The Question of Enlightenment: A Co
Page 3 and 4: The Question of Enlightenment 3 Yet
Page 5 and 6: The Question of Enlightenment 5 who
Page 7 and 8: The Question of Enlightenment 7 be
Page 9 and 10: The Question of Enlightenment 9 his
Page 11 and 12: The Question of Enlightenment 11 Wh
Page 13 and 14: The Question of Enlightenment 13 it
Page 15: The Question of Enlightenment 15 Un
Page 19 and 20: The Question of Enlightenment 19 sm
Page 21 and 22: The Question of Enlightenment 21 se
Page 23 and 24: The Question of Enlightenment 23 hi
Page 25 and 26: The Question of Enlightenment 25
Page 27 and 28: The Question of Enlightenment 27 be
Page 29 and 30: The Question of Enlightenment 29 mo
Page 32 and 33: The Question of Enlightenment 32 an
Page 34 and 35: The Question of Enlightenment 34 In
Page 36 and 37: The Question of Enlightenment 36 hi
Page 38 and 39: The Question of Enlightenment 38 No
Page 40 and 41: The Question of Enlightenment 40 Ph
Page 42 and 43: The Question of Enlightenment 42 St
Page 44 and 45: The Question of Enlightenment 44 Sc
Page 46 and 47: The Question of Enlightenment 46 57

The Question of Enlightenment - Theory and Practice in Eighteenth ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?