Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge Sociology 250 - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge Sociology 250 January 15, 2013 () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge Sociology 250January 15, 2013 1 / 21

What Does Theory Do? Theory frames empirical work Theory structures empirical methods Theory offers rules and ideas for generating and interpreting empirical observations Theory synthesizes scattered realities into coherent ideas () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge Sociology 250January 15, 2013 2 / 21

Enlightenment: Prisoners of Illusion Plato, “Allegory of the Cave,” Republic VII (ca. 360 BCE) Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge Sociology 250January 15, 2013 3 / 21

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The Cave and the Enlightenment Plato, “Allegory of the Cave,” Republic VII (ca. 360 BCE) 1 Deception is systematic and constraining 2 Understanding is at once difficult or painful and liberating 3 Truth itself is a social thing, pieced together by common perceptions () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge Sociology 250January 15, 2013 5 / 21

Spoof on social science Plato, “Allegory of the Cave,” Republic VII (ca. 360 BCE) . . . they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future. . . () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge Sociology 250January 15, 2013 6 / 21

The Enlightenment Roughly 1650–1750 () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge Sociology 250January 15, 2013 7 / 21

The Enlightenment Faith ⇒ Science Authority ⇒ Reason () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge Sociology 250January 15, 2013 8 / 21

The Enlightenment Monarchy ⇒ Democracy () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge Sociology 250January 15, 2013 9 / 21

Immanuel Kant Was ist Aufkl¨ arung? (What is Enlightenment?) (1784) Sociology 250January 15, 2013 10 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Sociology 250January 15, 2013 11 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

G. F. Hegel, “Enlightenment” From The Phenomenology of Mind (1807) Pure insight. . . can have no activity and content of its own and thus can only take up the attitude of formally and truly apprehending this witty insight peculiar to the world and the language it adopts. Since this language is a scattered and broken utterance and the pronouncement a fickle mood of the moment, which is again quickly forgotten,. . . this latter can be distinguished as pure insight only if it gathers those several scattered traces into a universal picture, and then makes them the insight of all. Sociology 250January 15, 2013 12 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

Enlightenment and Belief G. F. Hegel, “Enlightenment, ” from The Phenomenology of Mind (1807) Enlightenment does not operate against the believing mind with special principles of its own, but with those which belief itself implies and contains. Enlightenment merely brings together and presents to belief its own thoughts, the thoughts that lie scattered and apart within belief, all unknown to it. Sociology 250January 15, 2013 13 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

Modern Cynicism Enlightenment. . . wanted to dispel myths, to overthrow fantasy with knowledge. . . . Knowledge obtained through [scientific] enquiry would not only be exempt from the influence of wealth and power but would establish man as the master of nature. Horkheimer and Adorno “The Concept of Enlightenment” Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) Sociology 250January 15, 2013 14 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

Sociology 250January 15, 2013 15 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

A Slogan for Modernity? All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind. Marx & Engels The Communist Manifesto Sociology 250January 15, 2013 16 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

The Experience of Modernity . . . agitation and turbulence, psychic dizziness and drunkenness, expansion of experiential possibilities and destruction of moral boundaries and personal bonds, self-enlargement and self-derangement, phantoms in the street and the soul—is the atmosphere in which modern sensibility is born. —Marshall Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air Sociology 250January 15, 2013 17 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

From Modernity to Postmodernity Mythology itself set in motion the endless process of enlightenment by which. . . every definite theoretical view is subjected to the annihilating criticism that it is only a belief, until even the concepts of mind, truth, and, indeed, enlightenment itself have been reduced to animistic magic. Horkheimer & Adorno Sociology 250January 15, 2013 18 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

Modernity and Postmodernity Modernity Postmodernity We can know the Truth Truth is partial and contextual Big systems work well Small, local, interconnected systems Information generates power Power generates information Sociology 250January 15, 2013 19 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

Reading Theory 1 Who are we? 2 What can we know? 3 What can we do? 4 Who’s in control? 5 Why do things happen? 6 (Why) do we care? Sociology 250January 15, 2013 20 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21

Reading Theory II Theory has a history Theory happens in a social context Be prepared to turn from the cave Nothing is: Natural Self-evident Obvious “Just human nature” What would it mean if the theory were true? Is the theory true? Was the theory true when it was written? Sociology 250January 15, 2013 21 / () Enlightenment, Reason, Religion, and Knowledge 21