| Popis: |
The Enlightenment marks the end of the idea that human action in the end contributes to a divine project as a common point of reference for Western European society. The first Enlightenment philosophers, like Diderot and Voltaire, did not consider this much of a problem. On the contrary, they stimulated and supported the project of the Enlightenment as much as they could. From their point of view the replacement of religion by science could only mean the freeing of human reason from the cobwebs spun by religion and its priests and as a result the triumph of common sense over superstition. ‘Ecrasez l’infame’ was Voltaire’s famous slogan in this context. Nonetheless, at the turn of the eighteenth century, French philosophers started to realise that you should not take away the heavenly rewards promised by the church from the people without offering something in return. |
