The Philosophes aimed to disenchant the World. Discuss

The Philosophes aimed to disenchant the World. Discuss

In this light, one can see how the philosophes aspired to do away with the traditions and superstitions, commonly superimposed by religion, so as to bring about an age of reason and rationality and with it, man?s liberty and progress.

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However, this idealism held amongst philosophes was restricted in both its theory and practice by the culture and society that characterised it. With society and social strata tempering the philosophes?

mentality, their rationality did not so much as disenchant the world, as it did offer new alternatives to the precedent that had been laid down by religious enchantment.

This is seen with the differentiations of opinions held by philosophes and the historical criticisms that can be made of them. Likewise, society?s practice of the philosophes? ideals of rationality and reason was not so much fuelled by the philosophes?

writings, as it was stimulated by the debate of such writings. In this sense, such debate resulted not in disenchantment per se, but a practical application of reason toward the reinterpretation of society?s makeup and administration.

What becomes apparent was that the philosophes did not take on the grandiose aim of disenchanting the world, but were instigating and contributing to the wider cultural processes that were shaping the European identity. …

What this indicates of philosophe ideals is a far more engrained bias than the philosophes would concede and a bias which was held by individuals considered almost messianic to the public sphere.

Not only did they construe questionable arguments from their reason and rationality, but they realised the utility of factors otherwise opposed to the enlightenment ideals.

What truly puts this bias in the context of one?s wider critique of the philosophes? ideals was Mary Wollstonecraft?s A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

In it Wollstonecraft criticises patriarchal precedents and that ?the power of generalising ideas? from individual observations, is the only acquirement, for an immortal being? and that ?this exercise is the true cultivation of understanding.

Not only does she encapsulate the misplaced messianic qualities which were seen in individuals, such as Rousseau, but she highlights a fatal flaw in the philosophe mentality; that their objective and questionable observations