The Legacy of the Enlightenment in Contemporary Debates

The Enlightenment is not a closed chapter of history; it is a living tradition that continues to shape the most important debates of our time. From the relationship between science and religion to the proper response to climate change, from the future of democratic politics to the challenge of global inequality, the questions raised by the Enlightenment thinkers remain central to contemporary discourse. This article examines the legacy of the Enlightenment in contemporary debates, considering both the insights that have stood the test of time and the critiques that have shaped our understanding of the original movement.

The Science-Religion Debate

The relationship between science and religion was one of the central preoccupations of the Enlightenment thinkers, and it remains a central preoccupation of contemporary thought.

The Enlightenment defenders of the new science, including Voltaire, Diderot, and the various other writers who contributed to the Encyclopédie, argued that the new science required a thoroughgoing reexamination of the traditional religious beliefs. The discoveries of the Scientific Revolution had made it possible to understand the natural world in terms of natural causes, without appeal to supernatural intervention, and the proper response to this development was a reformation of the religious life that would bring it into harmony with the new science.

The contemporary debate about the relationship between science and religion continues to be shaped by the insights of the Enlightenment. The defenders of the “methodological naturalism” of the modern sciences argue that the proper scientific inquiry requires the suspension of the appeal to supernatural causes, and that the proper role of religion is in the domain of the moral and the existential, not in the domain of the natural. The defenders of the various forms of religious apologetics argue that the modern scientific worldview is incomplete, and that the proper response to the natural world requires the recognition of the divine.

The contemporary debate is more sophisticated than the Enlightenment debate, and the participants are more aware of the limits of their various positions. But the basic questions that the Enlightenment raised — about the proper scope of the scientific inquiry, the proper foundation of the religious belief, the proper relationship between the natural and the supernatural — remain the central questions of the contemporary debate.

The Crisis of Democratic Politics

The contemporary crisis of democratic politics is, in important respects, a crisis of the Enlightenment tradition. The principles of the Enlightenment — popular sovereignty, the protection of individual rights, the rule of law, the separation of powers, the free exchange of ideas — have been the basic principles of the modern democratic tradition, and the contemporary challenges to these principles are a serious challenge to the modern democratic order.

The rise of authoritarian populism in various parts of the world, the erosion of public trust in democratic institutions, the manipulation of public opinion through digital technologies, the increasing polarization of political life, the various other challenges to the contemporary democratic order — all of these are descendants of challenges that the Enlightenment thinkers themselves identified. The proper response to these challenges, on most contemporary accounts, requires a recovery of the basic commitments of the Enlightenment — to the use of reason, to the protection of individual rights, to the rule of law, to the free exchange of ideas — combined with a recognition of the limits and blind spots of the original movement.

The contemporary debate about the crisis of democratic politics is shaped by a recognition of both the achievements and the failures of the Enlightenment tradition. The defenders of the tradition emphasize the importance of the basic commitments, and they argue that the proper response to the contemporary challenges is a recovery of the original commitments. The critics of the tradition emphasize the limits of the original commitments, and they argue that the proper response is a fundamental rethinking of the basic principles of the modern democratic tradition.

The Challenge of Global Inequality

The challenge of global inequality is, in important respects, a challenge to the Enlightenment tradition. The Enlightenment thinkers, especially the British and French writers of the eighteenth century, had assumed that the proper functioning of the economic life would produce general prosperity, and that the proper response to the problems of poverty was the development of the economic life and the improvement of the institutions of the state.

The contemporary reality of massive global inequality has called into question this assumption. The fact that billions of human beings live in conditions of extreme poverty, that the gap between the rich and the poor countries is wider than ever, that the various economic and political institutions of the modern world have not produced the general prosperity that the Enlightenment thinkers had expected — all of these are serious challenges to the Enlightenment faith in the possibility of progress.

The contemporary debate about global inequality is shaped by a recognition of the limits of the Enlightenment tradition. The defenders of the tradition emphasize the importance of the basic commitments — to the free exchange of goods and ideas, to the protection of individual rights, to the development of the institutions of civil society — and they argue that the proper response to global inequality is the extension of these commitments to the global level. The critics of the tradition emphasize the importance of more fundamental changes in the economic and political institutions of the modern world, and they argue that the proper response requires a more radical rethinking of the basic principles of the modern order.

The Environmental Crisis

The environmental crisis is, in important respects, a crisis of the Enlightenment tradition. The Enlightenment thinkers, especially the British and French writers of the eighteenth century, had assumed that the proper relationship between human beings and nature was one of domination, and that the proper use of the natural world was the development of the productive forces of human civilization.

The contemporary reality of the environmental crisis — climate change, biodiversity loss, the degradation of the natural systems that support human life — has called into question this assumption. The fact that the unbridled pursuit of economic growth has produced a serious threat to the natural systems that support human civilization, that the various economic and political institutions of the modern world have not been able to address the environmental crisis, that the very success of the Enlightenment project of the domination of nature has produced a serious threat to the future of human civilization — all of these are serious challenges to the Enlightenment faith in the possibility of progress.

The contemporary debate about the environmental crisis is shaped by a recognition of the limits of the Enlightenment tradition. The defenders of the tradition emphasize the importance of the basic commitments — to the use of reason, to the development of science, to the application of the new knowledge to the practical problems of human life — and they argue that the proper response to the environmental crisis is a more sophisticated application of these commitments. The critics of the tradition emphasize the importance of a more fundamental rethinking of the relationship between human beings and nature, and they argue that the proper response requires a more radical break with the basic principles of the modern order.

The Dialogue of Traditions

The contemporary engagement with the Enlightenment is, a dialogue of traditions. The various traditions that have been influenced by the Enlightenment — the liberal tradition, the republican tradition, the socialist tradition, the feminist tradition, the various religious traditions, the various indigenous traditions — are all engaged in a conversation about the proper response to the challenges of the modern world.

The conversation is not, in most cases, a rejection of the Enlightenment in favor of some alternative tradition. It is, rather, a critical engagement with the Enlightenment, in which the various traditions draw on the insights of the Enlightenment while also recognizing the limits of the original movement. The result is a more nuanced and more complex understanding of the relationship between the Enlightenment and the modern world, and of the proper response to the challenges of contemporary life.

The basic commitment of the Enlightenment — to the use of reason, to the development of science, to the protection of individual rights, to the improvement of the human condition — remains a basic commitment of contemporary thought, even in the most critical engagements with the original movement. The contemporary engagement with the Enlightenment is, in this sense, an engagement with the unfinished business of the modern world. The various challenges of contemporary life — the science-religion debate, the crisis of democratic politics, the challenge of global inequality, the environmental crisis, the various other challenges that the modern world faces — draw on the central arguments of the challenges that the Enlightenment began to address. The proper response to these challenges, on most contemporary accounts, requires a critical engagement with the Enlightenment tradition, a recognition of both the achievements and the limits of the original movement, and a commitment to the development of new resources for the address of the contemporary challenges.

Further Reading

• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (plato.stanford.edu), relevant entry
• Mark Goldie & Robert Wokler, eds., The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (2006)
• Terence Ball, Reappraising Political Theory (1995)