The Philosophy of the Enlightenment

by Cassirer, Ernst; Koelln, Fritz C. A.; Pettegrove, James P.; Gay, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780691143347
• ISBN10: 069114334X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-10
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

In this classic work of intellectual history, Ernst Cassirer provides both a cogent synthesis and a penetrating analysis of one of history's greatest intellectual epochs: the Enlightenment. Arguing that there was a common foundation beneath the diverse strands of thought of this period, he shows how Enlightenment philosophers drew upon the ideas of the preceding centuries even while radically transforming them to fit the modern world. In Cassirer's view, the Enlightenment liberated philosophy from the realm of pure thought and restored it to its true place as an active and creative force through which knowledge of the world is achieved.In a new foreword, Peter Gay considersThe Philosophy of the Enlightenmentin the context in which it was written--Germany in 1932, on the precipice of the Nazi seizure of power and one of the greatest assaults on the ideals of the Enlightenment. He also argues that Cassirer's work remains a trenchant defense against enemies of the Enlightenment in the twenty-first century.

Author Biography

Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) was a German-Jewish philosopher who taught at several universities in Germany and the United States. He was the author of many books, including "The Myth of the State", "An Essay on Man", and "Language and Myth".

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. vii
Preface	p. xi
The Mind of the Enlightenment	p. 3
Nature and Natural Science	p. 37
Psychology and Epistemology	p. 93
Religion	p. 134
The Dogma of Original Sin and the Problem of Theodicy	p. 137
Tolerance and the Foundation of Natural Religion	p. 160
Religion and History	p. 182
The Conquest of the Historical World	p. 197
Law, State, and Society	p. 234
Law and the Principle of Inalienable Rights	p. 234
The Contract and the Method of the Social Sciences	p. 253
Fundamental Problems of Aesthetics	p. 275
The "Age of Criticism"	p. 275
Classical Aesthetics and the Objectivity of the Beautiful	p. 278
Taste and the Trend toward Subjectivism	p. 297
Intuitional Aesthetics and the Problem of Genius	p. 312
Reason and the Imagination: Gottsched and the Swiss Critics	p. 331
The Foundation of Systematic Aesthetics: Baumgarten	p. 338
Index	p. 361
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