Random Enlightenment Thoughts

[whorishconsumer]

It's absolutely true. The Enlightenment sprang nearly completely from countries where an Abrahamic religion was the basis of people's worldview, and Enlightenment thought really only makes sense in that context. The common appeal to natural law, for example, only makes sense in the context of a fundamentally good universe. It would be an odd appeal in an evil universe or one of competing forces of various daemons. To be clear, I'm just saying that the Enlightenment was a product of an Abrahamic world, not that any individual thinker was a disciple of an Abrahamic religion, though that is also true in many cases. It's not a particularly controversial statement.

"The Enlightenment" didn't just spring up out of nowhere, and most certainly did not spring from Abrahamic ideas, as you said in your earlier post. The basis for enlightenment was ancient Greek philosophy, who were obviously not of Abrahamic origin. They clearly didn't need to think that the universe needed to be a fundamentally good place to come up with rationalism.

Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke and, later, Kant were all big ol’ Christians, were they not.

 

[dieworkwear]

It's absolutely true. The Enlightenment sprang nearly completely from countries where an Abrahamic religion was the basis of people's worldview, and Enlightenment thought really only makes sense in that context. The common appeal to natural law, for example, only makes sense in the context of a fundamentally good universe. It would be an odd appeal in an evil universe or one of competing forces of various daemons. To be clear, I'm just saying that the Enlightenment was a product of an Abrahamic world, not that any individual thinker was a disciple of an Abrahamic religion, though that is also true in many cases. It's not a particularly controversial statement.

Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke and, later, Kant were all big ol’ Christians, were they not.

John Locke's work is believed to be heavily influenced by Christianity. He once argued people should tolerate all beliefs except atheism since he felt a belief in God is what anchored order and justice in society.

 

[dotcomzzz]

I always felt Enlightenment thought, at least the more sciencey related stuff, was influenced by the Aristotelian model of the universe. Like scientific thinking during the Enlightenment was an extension of Aristotle's world view. More or less, I'm sure it's not that simple.

I could also be totally wrong about this, that's entirely possible.

 

[hendrix]

Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke and, later, Kant were all big ol’ Christians, were they not.

What does that have to do with anything?

I never said they couldn't be Christians. I refuted the position that Abrahamic thinking prompted the enlightenment more readily than other religious or non-religious cultures.

John Locke's work is believed to be heavily influenced by Christianity. He once argued people should tolerate all beliefs except atheism since he felt a belief in God is what anchored order and justice in society.

Yes, but how exactly has his Christianity contributed to the Enlightenment more so than any other religion might have? Or non-religion?

Descartes and Voltaire and Locke being wrong about various things are not the main features of enlightenment. Enlightenment was about individual liberty, a shift in culture to value reason and science, separation of church and state etc etc. There's nothing Abrahamic that contributes to that more than the non-Abrahamic religions.

 

[hendrix]

I always felt Enlightenment thought, at least the more sciencey related stuff, was influenced by the Aristotelian model of the universe. Like scientific thinking during the Enlightenment was an extension of Aristotle's world view. More or less, I'm sure it's not that simple.

I could also be totally wrong about this, that's entirely possible.

Pretty much this.

A bunch of people read Aristotle at a time when the world and Western economies were greatly expanding.

 

[LA Guy]

What does that have to do with anything?

I never said they couldn't be Christians. I refuted the position that Abrahamic thinking prompted the enlightenment more readily than other religious or non-religious cultures.

Yes, but how exactly has his Christianity contributed to the Enlightenment more so than any other religion might have? Or non-religion?

Descartes and Voltaire and Locke being wrong about various things are not the main features of enlightenment. Enlightenment was about individual liberty, a shift in culture to value reason and science, separation of church and state etc etc. There's nothing Abrahamic that contributes to that more than the non-Abrahamic religions.

The Christian worldview provided the scaffolding for the Enlightenment to occur. Maybe it's possible that Christianity was not necessary for the Enlightenment to occur, but it would likely have looked much different without the influence of Christianity.

The fact is that it did occur in the Christian World, that some of the most influential figures in the Enlightenment explicitly wrote from a Christian perspective, and that many of the key features of the Enlightenment do have a basis in core Judeo-Christian beliefs.

The most obvious examples: free will, the foundation of the importance of individual liberty, is a cornerstone of the Christian Creed. And Descartes Rationalism is premised on the existence of an objective truth, which is something that is again part of the Christian creed. Any argument that it is not uniquely Christian is immaterial, since Descartes was undoubtedly Christian. Kant, who is arguably one of the most influential and important of the Enlightenment figures, devotes a lot of time to discussions of the limits of reason and attempts a reconciliation of rationalism and empiricism in Critique of Pure Reason. He specifically discusses a class of objects that is beyond the grasp of reason, specifically the existence of God, free will (as mentioned, a core part of Christian creed), and the immortality of the human soul.

Books like Enlightenment Now are interesting, and are popular literature that divorce the application of Enlightment ideals from their historical Christian roots, but that those roots exist are not really a matter of debate.

Again, I'm not sure why you seem so invested in refusing to believe this. The langage you use in your posts betrays your emotional biases.

 

[hendrix]

The Christian worldview provided the scaffolding for the Enlightenment to occur. Maybe it's possible that Christianity was not necessary for the Enlightenment to occur, but it would likely have looked much different without the influence of Christianity.

The fact is that it did occur in the Christian World, that some of the most influential figures in the Enlightenment explicitly wrote from a Christian perspective, and that many of the key features of the Enlightenment do have a basis in core Judeo-Christian beliefs.

The most obvious examples: free will, the foundation of the importance of individual liberty, is a cornerstone of the Christian Creed. And Descartes Rationalism is premised on the existence of an objective truth, which is something that is again part of the Christian creed. Any argument that it is not uniquely Christian is immaterial, since Descartes was undoubtedly Christian. Kant, who is arguably one of the most influential and important of the Enlightenment figures, devotes a lot of time to discussions of the limits of reason and attempts a reconciliation of rationalism and empiricism in Critique of Pure Reason. He specifically discusses a class of objects that is beyond the grasp of reason, specifically the existence of God, free will (as mentioned, a core part of Christian creed), and the immortality of the human soul.

Books like Enlightenment Now are interesting, and are popular literature that divorce the application of Enlightment ideals from their historical Christian roots, but that those roots exist are not really a matter of debate.

Again, I'm not sure why you seem so invested in refusing to believe this. The langage you use in your posts betrays your emotional biases.

1. You are confusing "Abrahamic religion" with Western Christianity - the latter of which was dominated by Roman and Greek civilisation and philosophy, most obviously Plato. See true Eastern Christianity (and by that I mean Oriental Christianity, not Eastern Orthodox) as an example of an Abrahamic religion that was largely not dominated by Greek and Roman civilisation (of course there are still influences or whatever. E.G. look at the ancient Christianity in Ethiopia and compare those philosophies.
2. RE: Free will, *objective truth and the other tenets you're attributing as being a cornerstone of the Christian creed - see the above.
3. Writing something from a Christian tradition does not mean that Christianity predicated an idea. Moreover, Kant's ideas were strongly opposite to traditional Christian ontology.
4. I've never heard of Enlightenment Now and have no interest in reading it. It's easy enough to just read the writings of the key figures.

*Moreover, on this last point I want to stress that there was very little actual epistemological advancement during the Enlightenment period.

Finally, I'm not sure what biases you're referring to. My interest is in refuting something that I don't think is true.

 

[Benesyed]

1. You are confusing "Abrahamic religion" with Western Christianity - the latter of which was dominated by Roman and Greek civilisation and philosophy, most obviously Plato.
2. RE: Free will, *objective truth and the other tenets you're attributing as being a cornerstone of the Christian creed - see the above.
3. Writing something from a Christian tradition does not mean that Christianity predicated an idea. Moreover, Kant's ideas were strongly opposite to traditional Christian ontology.
4. I've never heard of Enlightenment Now and have no interest in reading it. It's easy enough to just read the writings of the key figures.

*Moreover, on this last point I want to stress that there was very little actual epistemological advancement during the Enlightenment period.

Finally, I'm not sure what biases you're referring to. My interest is in refuting something that I don't think is true.

You can give secular arguments that support the enlightenment, that's why there are atheist/secular thinkers who carry on friom the enlightenment. That being said enlightenment thinkers interpretation and application of aristotle and greek thinkers was very strongly shaped by judeo-christianity. There was a decidedly christian reading of aristotelian principles that led to enlightenment philosphy. One of the key examples is overall ignoring virtue ethics and aristotilean ethics but keeping logic as a useful tool for understanding Gods law.

I think your argument that the enlightenment is based on aristotle and doesnt need christianity is kind of missing the point. I agree it doesnt. You theoretically could have had a version of enlightenment anywhere. But you had it in christiandom and that shaped what it looked like. You can look to Islamic scholars who studied aristotle and plato and took it in a different direction or repudiated it.

 

[double00]

i've noticed folks often invoke 'judeo-christian tradition' often with little or no understanding of actual judaic traditions (or at least how profoundly differently expressed a 'shared' tradition can be) - i figure that most of the time they simply mean 'christian' tradition (for whatever that's worth considering the diversity of christian expression). i would bet that 'abrahamic' gets similarly abused.

 

[Benesyed]

Also Kant not being "traditional" christian ontology as a reason why he isnt a christian philosopher or christianity didnt predicate his ideas is a crazy argument. Are lutherans not christians because of their radically different theology compared to catholics?

Are tomatoes fruits or vegetables?

 

[Benesyed]

i've noticed folks often invoke 'judeo-christian tradition' often with little or no understanding of judaic traditions (or at least how profoundly differently expressed a 'shared' tradition can be) - i figure that most of the time they simply mean 'christian' tradition. i would bet that 'abrahamic' gets similarly abused.

i add judeo just so my jewish friends dont feel left out of the party

 

[hendrix]

You can give secular arguments that support the enlightenment, that's why there are atheist/secular thinkers who carry on friom the enlightenment. That being said enlightenment thinkers interpretation and application of aristotle and greek thinkers was very strongly shaped by judeo-christianity. There was a decidedly christian reading of aristotelian principles that led to enlightenment philosphy. One of the key examples is overall ignoring virtue ethics and aristotilean ethics but keeping logic as a useful tool for understanding Gods law.

I think your argument that the enlightenment is based on aristotle and doesnt need christianity is kind of missing the point. I agree it doesnt. You theoretically could have had a version of enlightenment anywhere. But you had it in christiandom and that shaped what it looked like. You can look to Islamic scholars who studied aristotle and plato and took it in a different direction or repudiated it.

'
Right, I don't disagree with any of this. There was certainly a Christian reading of Aristotle, and they tried to fit things into their Christian worldview.

Also Kant not being "traditional" christian ontology as a reason why he isnt a christian philosopher or christianity didnt predicate his ideas is a crazy argument. Are lutherans not christians because of their radically different theology compared to catholics?

Are tomatoes fruits or vegetables?

I never said he wasn't a Christian philosopher. He was religious, I'm not disputing that.

I AM saying that he very much rejected a lot of Christian ontology.

 

[hendrix]

i've noticed folks often invoke 'judeo-christian tradition' often with little or no understanding of actual judaic traditions (or at least how profoundly differently expressed a 'shared' tradition can be) - i figure that most of the time they simply mean 'christian' tradition (for whatever that's worth considering the diversity of christian expression). i would bet that 'abrahamic' gets similarly abused.

Right, and more specifically they mean Western Christian - i.e. NOT the Eastern Oriental Christianity that was never part of the Roman empire.

And yeah, actual judaic traditions are the more obvious example of a religion that predates and isn't informed by Greek and Roman civilisation to the extent that Western Christianity is.

 

[LA Guy]

1. You are confusing "Abrahamic religion" with Western Christianity - the latter of which was dominated by Roman and Greek civilisation and philosophy, most obviously Plato.
2. RE: Free will, *objective truth and the other tenets you're attributing as being a cornerstone of the Christian creed - see the above.
3. Writing something from a Christian tradition does not mean that Christianity predicated an idea. Moreover, Kant's ideas were strongly opposite to traditional Christian ontology.
4. I've never heard of Enlightenment Now and have no interest in reading it. It's easy enough to just read the writings of the key figures.

*Moreover, on this last point I want to stress that there was very little actual epistemological advancement during the Enlightenment period.

Finally, I'm not sure what biases you're referring to. My interest is in refuting something that I don't think is true.

Just to address your points:
1 and 2) Western Christianity is an Abrahamic religion. Just because it was influenced by classical Greek and Roman philosophy does not preclude that. Religions are not static. tbh, I'm not certain what is your point, but I guess we can agree then that Western Christianity had a profound influence the direction of the Enlightment and the thinking of individual philosophers.
3) I said that a Christian worldview provided the scaffolding for the Enlightenment thinkers, and that the ideas were predicated ideas that were core to (western) Christian code. I guess that I should have been more specific?
4) Enlightment Now takes a similar tack to what you seem to be arguing, which is why I brought it up. I read the original texts a long time ago (yay classical training). But I do find reading analyses, whether I agree with them or not, to be useful in my understanding of them. Maybe that makes me a simpleton. Who knows.

The language of your posts, like this:
"Yes, but how exactly has his (Locke's) Christianity contributed to the Enlightenment more so than any other religion might have? Or non-religion?

Descartes and Voltaire and Locke being wrong about various things are not the main features of enlightenment. " would seem to suggest a bias, but maybe I'm misreading you.

 

[hendrix]

Just to address your points:
1 and 2) Western Christianity is an Abrahamic religion. Just because it was influenced by classical Greek and Roman philosophy does not preclude that. Religions are not static. tbh, I'm not certain what is your point, but I guess we can agree then that Western Christianity had a profound influence the direction of the Enlightment and the thinking of individual philosophers.
3) I said that a Christian worldview provided the scaffolding for the Enlightenment thinkers, and that the ideas were predicated ideas that were core to (western) Christian code. I guess that I should have been more specific?

The point I am disputing is the idea that Abrahamic religions provided a special mindset that allowed for philosophy and scientific ideas to flourish, more special than other religions in antiquity of Europe and the Middle East (that may have otherwise been influential had they gained the same traction). I dispute this because most of the influence for enlightenment philosophers comes from reading Ancient Greek philosophy (which obviously wasn't Abrahamic in religion), and moreover the particular set of features features of the particular Abrahamic religion we're talking about (Western Christianity) was already profoundly influenced by that same ancient greek philosophy.

4) Enlightment Now takes a similar tack to what you seem to be arguing, which is why I brought it up. I read the original texts a long time ago (yay classical training). But I do find reading analyses, whether I agree with them or not, to be useful in my understanding of them. Maybe that makes me a simpleton. Who knows.

The language of your posts, like this:
"Yes, but how exactly has his (Locke's) Christianity contributed to the Enlightenment more so than any other religion might have? Or non-religion?

Descartes and Voltaire and Locke being wrong about various things are not the main features of enlightenment. " would seem to suggest a bias, but maybe I'm misreading you.

I think you are misreading me.

I am disputing a point.