Enlightenment and Modernity

This collection of essays is addressed to the legacy of Enlightenment thought, with respect to eighteenth-century notions of human nature, human rights, representative democracy or the nation-state, and with regard to the barbarism, including the Holocaust, allegedly unleashed by eighteenth-century ideals of civilization.

Notes on the Contributors Editor's Preface Introduction; R.Wokler PART I: INTERPRETING ENLIGHTENMENT PRINCIPLES The Sceptical Enlightenment: Philosopher Travellers look back at Europe; U.Vogel Education Can Do All; G.Parry Kant: The Arch-enlightener; A.T.Baumeister Kant, Property and the General Will; H.Steiner Can Enlightenment Morality be Justified Teleologically? I.Carter Ganging a'gley; A.Edwards PART II: ASSESSING THE ENLIGHTENMENT ROOTS OF MODERNITY English Conservatism and Enlightenment Rationalism; I.Holliday Four Assumptions about Human Nature; N.Geras The Enlightenment, the Nation-state and the Primal Patricide of Modernity; R.Wokler Critique and Enlightenment: Michael Foucault on Was ist Aufklärung ; M.P.d'Entrèves The Enlightenment, Contractualism, and the Moral Polity; V.Bufacchi Index

NORMAN GERAS is Professor of Government at the University of Manchester. His main current research interest is the Holocaust. Recent publications include Solidarity in the Conservation of Humankind: The Ungroundable Liberalism of Richard Rorty and The Contract of Mutual Indifference: Political Philosophy after the Holocaust.

ROBERT WOKLER is Research Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Exeter and was formerly Reader in the History of Political Thought at the University of Manchester. His most recent publications include Diderot's Political Writings (with John Hope Mason) and Rousseau, and he is (with Mark Goldie) co-editor of the Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought.