Overview

Going against the grain, this refreshing book argues for a non-ideological portrait of the Enlightenment as having been, above all else, a self-critical enterprise. The Enlightenment has come under substantial attack over the past several years, with some going so far as to recommend leaving its thinkers—and their Eurocentric prejudices—behind. On the other hand, the most orthodox defenders of the Enlightenment insist that its values are not just foundational but indispensable and that leaving them behind means opening the door to nihilism and relativism. For Antoine Lilti, one of the leading scholars of the French Enlightenment, both sides are wrong. In this remarkable series of essays, Lilti emphasizes a non-dogmatic, non-ideological view of the Enlightenment—one that sees its legacy as a critical, subversive attitude that can and should serve as its own best critic. Along the way, he engages the way with everyone from Rousseau and Kant to Foucault and Habermas, as well as prominent contemporary scholars such as Jonathan Israel. The result is a new reading of the Enlightenment that breathes life into old debates and offers an alternative way to engage with canonical thinkers and traditions that is both honest about the past and useful for the future.

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9780226820613

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Reviews

“With great learning lightly worn, Lilti brilliantly shows how many of the Enlightenment’s postcolonial critics unwittingly draw upon the intellectual inheritance of this movement. In this and other respects, The Legacy of the Enlightenment mounts a sophisticated argument for the relevance of the Enlightenment in a moment when many of its critics, both left and right, would prefer to bury it.” * Paul Cheney, University of Chicago * “This book is a must-read for scholars and students of eighteenth-century European thought and culture. Written by one of the world’s great authorities on the subject, it is an erudite, eloquent, and satisfyingly nuanced account of a contentious topic: how to make sense of Voltaire and company from the vantage point of today. But this is also a book for anyone who likes to think about history—how we compose it, what we do with it, what it can do for us.” * Sophia Rosenfeld, author of The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life * “Lilti’s engaging and thought-provoking book recovers the truly revolutionary aspects of the Enlightenment, not as a fixed canon of values and ideas to be celebrated, but as an enduring intellectual project that asks questions, answers them, and then critiques its own answers. This is a timely and compelling work that speaks directly to the challenges of the present day.” * Paul Friedland, Cornell University *

Author Information

Antoine Lilti is professor at the Collège de France, where he holds the chair in the History of the Enlightenment, 18th to 21st century. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, The Invention of Celebrity. C. Jon Delogu is professor in the English Department at Université Jean Moulin-Lyon 3. He has translated over a dozen books, fiction and nonfiction, and is the author of three of his own on Emerson, Tocqueville, and the temptations fascism poses during vulnerable times.

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