Historiography and Enlightenment

A View of Their History

Bibliographic Data

ID12740791
AuthorsJ G A Pocock (Johns Hopkins University, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume5
Issue1
Pages83-96
Publication date2008-03-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern Intellectual History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1479-2443 • E-ISSN: 1479-2451
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1479244307001540
OpenAlexW2029158196
LanguageEN
Citations received33
References cited10

This essay is written on the following premises and argues for them. “Enlightenment” is a word or signifier, and not a single or unifiable phenomenon which it consistently signifies. There is no single or unifiable phenomenon describable as “the Enlightenment,” but it is the definite article rather than the noun which is to be avoided. In studying the intellectual history of the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth, we encounter a variety of statements made, and assumptions proposed, to which the term “Enlightenment” may usefully be applied, but the meanings of the term shift as we apply it. The things are connected, but not continuous; they cannot be reduced to a single narrative; and we find ourselves using the word “Enlightenment” in a family of ways and talking about a family of phenomena, resembling and related to one another in a variety of ways that permit of various generalizations about them. We are not, however, committed to a single root meaning of the word “Enlightenment,” and we do not need to reduce the phenomena of which we treat to a single process or entity to be termed “the” Enlightenment. It is a reification that we wish to avoid, but the structure of our language is such that this is difficult, and we will find ourselves talking of “the French” or “the Scottish,” “the Newtonian” or the “the Arminian” Enlightenments, and hoping that by employing qualifying adjectives we may constantly remind ourselves that the keyword “Enlightenment” is ours to use and should not master us

Art · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Historiography · Linguistics · Literature · Meaning (existential · Narrative · Noun · Phenomenon · Political science · Politics · Reification (Marxism · Root (linguistics · Variety (cybernetics · Biographical and Historical Analysis · Computer Science · History · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought · Artificial Intelligence

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