Enlightenment Shadows

by Genevieve Lloyd

The idea of the Enlightenment has become a touchstone for emotive and often contradictory articulations of contemporary western values. Enlightenment Shadows is a study of the place of Enlightenment thought in intellectual history and of its continued relevance. Genevieve Lloyd focuses especially on what is distinctive in ideas of intellectual character offered by key Enlightenment thinkers--on their attitudes to belief and scepticism; on their optimism about the future; and on the uncertainties and instabilities which nonetheless often lurk beneath their use of imagery of light. The book is organized around interconnected close readings of a range of Montesquieu's Persian Letters ; Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary ; Hume's essay The Sceptic ; Adam Smith's treatment of sympathy and imagination in Theory of Moral Sentiments ; d'Alembert's Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia --together with Diderot's entry on Encyclopedia ; Diderot's Rameau's Nephew ; and Kant's essay
Perpetual Peace . Throughout, the readings highlight ways in which Enlightenment thinkers enacted in their writing--and reflected on--the interplay of intellect, imagination, and emotion. Recurring themes the nature of judgement--its relations with imagination and with ideals of objectivity; issues of truth and relativism; the ethical significance of imagining one's self into the situations of others; cosmopolitanism; tolerance; and the idea of the secular.

Genres: Philosophy, History

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Genevieve Lloyd (born at Cootamundra, New South Wales, 16 October 1941) is an Australian philosopher and feminist. She studied philosophy at the University of Sydney in the early 1960s and then at Somerville College, Oxford. Her D.Phil, awarded in 1973, was on 'Time and Tense'. From 1967 until 1987 she lectured at the Australian National University, during which period she developed her most influential ideas and wrote The Man of Reason, which was published in 1984. In 1987 she was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the University of New South Wales, being the first female professor of philosophy appointed in Australia.[1] On retirement, she was appointed Professor Emeritus.
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Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating analysis of some key Enlightenment texts effectively makes the argument that, despite its reputation as all cold cognition, a big of of Enlightenment thinking was imagination. Specifically, imagination was required for the kind of ethical outside observer stance needed for many of their theories. One must be able to imagine things differently to question the church, state, tradition, etc.