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On what basis might we consider European thinkers to have bequeathed to us a theory of recognition? How relatable were their ideas across national lines—and coherent within them? And to what use can such a theory be put? This piece explores how Axel Honneth’s Recognition: A Chapter in the History of European Ideas (2021) tackles these questions. It examines its premises and uses of history, and tries to understand it both as part of a wider political-philosophical project, as well as an intervention in the history of political thought.

Outside the field of animal studies, Humphrey Primatt’s Duty of Mercy has received little attention. This article offers a new perspective on his work by contextualizing Primatt’s ecological worldview within Enlightenment debates about the “essence of mankind.” I argue that Primatt’s call to extend “rights” to all creatures was a deliberate attempt to redraw the contested borders between humans and animals by privileging morality over other characteristics of humanity. The article shows how Primatt, an Anglican vicar, incorporated contemporary ideologies and knowledge into Christian teachings in order to formulate his anthropocentric argument and transform the nature of human-animal interactions.

The relationship between far-right political streams and fascism is a recurring topic in scientific literature. However, we find a low number of academic publications which try to create a framework for their similarities. This article uses Zeev Sternhell’s theory of fascism as a tool to measure different interpretations of fascism and the far right. According to its basic statement, there exists an anti-Enlightenment tradition in the Western world, which could serve as a substratum of these streams. This proves two points. Firstly, that there are several political groups which share a very similar political vision, even if their levels of aggression and radicalism are different. This is the reason why many neo-fascist, post-fascist, ‘populist’ and conservative parties have interchangeable rhetorical clichés and ideological patterns. Second, it shows that Western countries could successfully fight the rise of upcoming anti-democratic forces through strengthening the values of the Enlightenment-tradition.

The Enlightenment has often been presented as the ideological programme of modernity, the set of ideas and values from which modern, democratic and secularized Western societies have emerged. This reading, however, fails to account for the diversity and polyphony of the Enlightenment. Another reading, that of Michel Foucault, insisted on the ethos of modernity that the Enlightenment would have brought: a critical relationship with the present and current events. Conversely, this interpretation neglects the militant and collective dimension of the Enlightenment that favoured emancipation through knowledge. This article suggests, rather, seeing in the Enlightenment a way of problematizing modernity, of thinking about its contradictions. It develops this argument from a case study: the philosophes’ reflections on the public and its ambivalences. The optimism of the Enlightenment’s fight against prejudice was counterbalanced by a more pessimistic analysis of the new public space and of the media obstacles to the dissemination of knowledge and critical thinking.

Since the 1990s, historians of the Enlightenment have been notably keen to emphasise their subject’s contribution to modernity. In doing so, they have not shied away from ground usually occupied by philosophers, identifying Enlightenment’s modernity with a system of values and even with specific philosophical positions. This article asks how this has come about, and what have been its consequences. It does so by offering an account of Enlightenment historians’ relations with philosophy since the 1960s, when Franco Venturi repudiated Ernst Cassirer’s philosophical understanding of Enlightenment and urged historians to adopt a different approach. Before 1989, it will be argued, historical study of Enlightenment expanded rapidly but with little reference to philosophers, or interest in demonstrating the modernity of Enlightenment. It was the challenge of Postmodernism (however intellectually chaotic it seemed) in the 1980s, and still more Jürgen Habermas’s vigorous espousal of modernity, which gave historians their cue. Three dimensions of the ensuing association of Enlightenment with modernity are identified: Enlightenment and the public sphere; Radical Enlightenment and one-substance metaphysics; and Enlightenment as cosmopolitan and global. In conclusion, it is argued that while this enthusiasm for modernity appears to be on the wane, the episode has underlined the impossibility of separating historical and philosophical study of Enlightenment.

This article examines how Danish Muslim organisations ascribe meaning to hate crimes against Muslims in Denmark. The study is a maximum variation case study of three Muslim organisations. Drawing on intersectional theory, organisations were included that vary on identity markers. While there are great similarities in how the organisations define hate crime, the article argues that they articulate the concept as part of very different socio-political contexts. This suggests that while the organisations in general agree on what hate crime is, the organisations’ intersectional identities affect which socio-political contexts they articulate as relevant in relation to hate crime.

Cross-culturally two widely observed forms of social structure are individualism (open societies) and ascribed hierarchies (closed societies). Associated with these two types of social structure are a wide range of recurrent concomitant features. It is proposed that these two forms of social structure are common, in part, because they are associated with modular forms of understanding that lend intuitive support to them. In particular, it is proposed that individualistic open societies are associated with a folk-physics mode of construal whereas closed societies are associated with a folk-biological mode of construal. These distinctions are illustrated with the European Enlightenment as a hypothesized transition from closed to open societies.

Was Immanuel Kant Russian? More striking than the fact itself is the length of time it was overlooked: following historian Alexander Etkind’s research on the topic, this paper details Königsberg’s occupation by the Russian Empire, considering the possibilities of reinstating Kant’s thought in the postcolonial tradition, more specifically that of the subaltern (as framed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak). Taking this colonial context into account via a range of historical records and correspondences, I argue for a postcolonial reinterpretation and re-evaluation of the philosopher’s work, beginning with his famous essay on the topic of enlightenment. In what ways does this pertain to the enlightenment, as Kant sees it, and the way he distinguishes between the public and private spheres? Furthermore, how does Spivak’s reading of Kant overlook the subaltern status that she herself defines?

Although many new agers believe that enlightenment is the end goal of spiritual development, the importance of this concept has largely been overlooked by scholars until now. This article contextualizes the concept of enlightenment historically. After a detailed description of what the new age concept of enlightenment entails, it traces the origin of the concept to the late 19th-century “Oriental reaction” to Theosophy, when “missionaries from the East” like Vivekananda and Suzuki drew on transcendentalism, Theosophy, and recent innovations in psychology to articulate a paradigmatic expression of Asian soteriology. It highlights the importance of models of enlightenment in the transmission of Asian ideas and follows the trajectory that starts with Vivekananda and Suzuki to figures and currents like Aldous Huxley, 1960s counterculture, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and neo-advaita. Thereby, it provides an account of the formation of the new age concept of enlightenment.

Three key moments defined pre-university education in the Republic of Venice between 1400 and 1797. In the Renaissance, Venice created new state schools that lasted to the end of the Republic. Moreover, all Latin schools, whether state, independent, or clerical, adopted the humanistic curriculum, as humanism became the culture of the Latin-educated. Second, Venice did not participate fully in Catholic Reformation education, the pre-university schooling of the new religious orders that dominated Latin education in Italy from the late 16th century to 1773. Although the Somaschans operated schools in the Venetian Republic, the schools of the religious orders of the Catholic Reformation had less influence than in other Italian states. Third, in the late 18th century the Venetian government imposed major educational changes that reflected Enlightenment values. It expelled the regular clergy from the classroom and implemented a more utilitarian curriculum to be taught in the vernacular. Keywords: Catholic Reformation; humanism; pre-university education; Renaissance; republic of Venice; Somaschans

When Japanese Buddhists faced the challenge of materialistic natural sciences in the last decades of the nineteenth century, their responses were not uniform. Some advocated a unity of science and religion in the sense that Buddhism was thought to be substantially compatible with the findings of modern natural science, while others argued for a separation of domains, salvaging for religion a sphere of life that would remain unaffected by modern rationalist forms of critique. Yet, both sides already argued from within a logic of the secular/non-secular, thus showing that, next to political demands, the challenges posed by modern science were an important catalyst for the emergence of expressions of secularity in modern Japan. This article attempts to make sense of the diverse Buddhist self-articulations vis-à-vis modern science by differentiating chronologically, by sect, and by addressee, thus seeking out patterns to explain the contemporaneity of opposing positions within Japanese Buddhism.

The article explores the themes of Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment through the lens of Freemasonry, and, more specifically, Freemasons in Russia who wrote history. It tests the approaches of Masonic history writers against Berlin’s definitions of the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment. Whilst a definitive break between the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment seems attractive, the article advances a more nuanced picture of the plurality of religious and secular discourse in Russia. Instead of opposing the Enlightenment, many late eighteenth-century Masonic writers of history provided their own, alternative interpretative models of history as a way out of the perceived crisis between the mind and the soul.

At once neglected and deeply controversial, the Spanish Counter- Enlightenment is crucial to understanding the development of Spanish politics and social thought until at least the mid-twentieth century. From Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo’s praise to Javier Herrero’s denigration to the more balanced assessments of present-day scholars, the movement continues to be a source of debate and varying evaluations. Still, key aspects of it remain to be known, including its anthropology, its approach to Enlightened political concepts, its inheritance from Salamanca scholastics and its ideas on interiority and the relationship between the individual and the state. This paper defines these aspects by examining the works of five of the Spanish Counter-Enlightenment’s major representatives: Fernando de Ceballos y Mier, (1732–1802), Vicente Fernández de Valcarce (1723–98), Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro (1735–1809), Francisco Alvarado (1756–1814) and Rafael de Vélez (1777–1850). The first aim is to identify what made the Spanish Counter- Enlightenment unique yet related to the French Counter-Enlightenment that nurtured and preceded it. The second aim is to provide a general overview of the movement even while introducing it to an Englishspeaking audience for the first time.

While resistance to Enlightenment thought occurring in the eighteenth century is often framed by the concept of ‘Counter-Enlightenment’, the term itself was not introduced before the twentieth century. The article first reconstructs the anti-Enlightenment polemic before and after the French Revolution to highlight that while the notion of Counter- Enlightenment is appropriate for the identification of hitherto unexplored strands of thought, in view of a broader and more differentiated approach to the intellectual history of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it does not allow for a substantial definition. Subsequently, the article examines the history of the concept in French, English and German linguistic contexts, the German sociology of the interwar period and discussions about the legacy of the Enlightenment after World War II, to retrace how the different iterations have to be understood as a key for the self-reflection of modern societies throughout the twentieth century.

This study explores the possible dialogue between Catholic Philosopher Lonergan and Zen (Seon) Master Chinul in the light of enlightenment or conversion as ‘Christian enlightenment’. Keeping in mind that Zen Buddhism puts much stress on ‘direct cutting’ or ‘intuition’ rather than language or knowing, this comparative study examines Lonergan’s ‘transcendental epistemology’ in which he shows how humans could reach ‘conversion’ (Metanoia) or ‘Christian enlightenment’ with Chinul’s idea of Buddha-nature as ‘mystical or spiritual knowing’(靈智). Such ‘enlightenment-centered’ comparison will suggest a ‘deeper dialogue’ on the level of fundamental human consciousness, such that this study could be a suggestion or even a challenge for both Eastern and Western religious traditions by expanding the horizon of interreligious dialogue for a new and deeper way of promoting such dialogue.

This paper examines the musical Orientalism and representation of Oriental Others in Haydn’s seraglio opera, L’incontro improvviso. In seraglio opera, one of the Turkish-themed musical genres of “Turcomania” that swept Europe in the eighteenth century, Oriental Others were defined by their supposed negative human traits such as slyness, crudeness or irrationality. Alla turca topos in L’incontro, as in other seraglio operas, are extensively used to accentuate the inferiority of Others, their customs or religions. The representation of Others demonstrates little ethical complexity, exhibiting a stark dichotomy between morally upright Westerners and unsophisticated Others with dubious morals. I argue that despite presenting no European characters dueling with Others and thus foregoing such a narrative format as “East meets West on stage,” Haydn’s L’incontro is, nonetheless, more diminishing in its portrayal of Others than in most seraglio operas: even the male protagonist is among the degraded Others who are usually subplot characters from a low social echelon. No “rescuer,” the protagonist in L’incontro is rendered as an incompetent figure. Ali’s unmanly stature is further highlighted by the active, counter-stereotypical Oriental heroine, Rezia, who is presented as a foil to emphasize the inadequacy of Ali. The ultimate male Other, the Sultan, suffers equally from a weak stage presence despite fulfilling his role as a conveyer of Enlightenment ideals in a typical lieto fine of Turkish opera.

This article evaluates the early career of the French Jesuit Jean Hardouin (1646–1729) and the impact that it had on other Jesuit scholars of the first decades of the eighteenth century. It argues that Hardouin’s historical criticism—a response to skeptical critiques of the certainty of knowledge—pushed other Jesuit writers to consider new epistemological arguments and use new philosophical tools. In this way, Hardouin’s career helped motivate French Jesuit engagement with the ideas and sensibilities of the Enlightenment.

The former Jesuits Adam František Kollár and György Pray each devoted much of their careers to work in libraries; thereby contributing to the literary and scholarly culture of the eastern Habsburg lands during the second half of the eighteenth century. Kollár, who left the Jesuits early in his career, authored works defending the rights of the Hungarian crown, and chronicled the history of the Rusyn people, ultimately achieved an international reputation as a scholar, coining the term ethnologia. Pray is remembered for his discovery of the oldest written example of the Hungarian language, his extensive historical publications, and for his role, following the papal suppression of 1773, as “Historiographus Hungariae” (Hungary’s hagiographer). The impact of these scholarly efforts by these former Jesuits was a rich and enduring foundation upon which later Hungarian historiography and library science would be based.

Although works on religious, specifically Catholic, and more specifically Jansenist, contributions to the Enlightenment abound, the contributions of the Jesuits to the Enlightenment have remained relatively unexplored since Robert R. Palmer initially identified affinities between Jesuit thought and the emergence of the French Enlightenment as long ago as 1939. Accordingly, this introduction and the essays contained within the pages of this special issue revisit and further explore ways in which the individual Jesuits contributed to broader patterns of European intellectual and cultural history during the age of Enlightenment. Taken together, the contributions to this special issue investigate different aspects of an important question: to what extent were some Jesuits (at time, despite themselves, and at times, even against the grain of the order’s official positions) unlikely contributors to the Enlightenment? This question of whether one might speak of a specifically Jesuit Enlightenment is complicated by the still unsatisfactory scholarly consensus regarding the definition of the Enlightenment. But, growing scholarly attention to the nature of Catholic Enlightenment, and to the continuities linking eighteenth-century preoccupations to the controversies of the seventeenth century have further underscored the need for greater attention to Jesuit contributions to the Enlightenment itself. In this introduction, rather than considering the Enlightenment as a series of transformative and largely eighteenth-century debates rooted in the middle or late seventeenth century, I suggest that Jesuit engagement with the Enlightenment is best understood if the Enlightenment is more firmly anchored somewhat earlier in the culture of late Humanism—a culture that was first weaponized then chastened within the crucible of the European Reformations.

In public discourse and scholarly literature alike, the notions of “modernity,” “Enlightenment” and “the West” are often associated. This article underscores the problems inherent in these associations by focusing on the Egyptian context of the second and third decades of the twentieth century, and in particular on several nationalist articles published by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal (1888–1956). The article contends that Haykal’s writings contributed to the shaping of a modern worldview, the unifying elements of which are represented by the tenets of the anti-Enlightenment tradition. Reference to this intellectual tradition, which the eminent historian of ideas Zeev Sternhell theorized almost exclusively in relation to European intellectual debates, proves to be a far more accurate approach to Haykal’s ideological orientations than the paradigms traditionally employed in the critical analysis of his writings.

What can be learned about the paper trade from digital and archival sources on the business of a single publishing house? Would the lessons it teaches be of merely local interest, or can such a case study reveal wider information about the, rhythms, networks and scale of the trade? These are questions we seek to address in this study. In the process we hope to shed fresh light on the practices, materials, and networks of the early modern paper trade in Europe, particularly the mechanisms by which printers and publishers attempted to ensure a regular supply of paper to their workshops. By analyzing the supply and demand for paper from a single company’s business records across a time span of almost two decades, our study illuminates the business practices of paper traders, and the interplay of supply networks and purchasing strategies of major paper buyers in early modern Europe.This chapter grew from of a desire to explore the rich data on professional groups in the award-winning French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe (FBTEE) database, which documents the trade of a large Swiss publisher-wholesaler, the Societe typographique de Neuchâtel (STN). We first describes the database from which the analysis was derived (§1), then describes the methods used to estimate the STN's usage of printing paper (§2.1) and business paper (§2.2) from the available sales and publication records. We use this data to consider demand for paper in Francophone Europe during the Enlightenment. We consider first what the STN's paper usage tells us about the volatility of the paper market in the period (§3.1), and then build on what we know about the STN's installed capacity to re-estimate the total paper usage of the book trade in Enlightenment Europe (§3.2). Finally we turn to the records of STN's business correspondence to determine how they sourced their paper (§4). We conclude with our reflections on how economic, political and cultural forces shaped the publication of Enlightenment texts, and on how digital methods can help us study these forces (§5). Reason, it seems, was not the only driver of the Age of Reason.