Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download A Global Enlightenment PDF full book. Access full book title A Global Enlightenment by Alexander Statman. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Alexander Statman Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226825760 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 367
Book Description
"A Global Enlightenment is a book about the idea of Western progress, told through a series of conversations about Chinese science. Its protagonists - an ex-Jesuit missionary, a French statesman, a Manchu prince, Chinese literati, European savants, and other figures of the late Enlightenment world - exchanged ideas across cultures. In telling their stories here, Alexander Statman shows how Chinese science shaped a signature legacy of the European Enlightenment: the idea of Western progress. By focusing on the orphans of the Enlightenment, those who sought to vindicate ancient wisdom as others left it behind, Statman reveals that ideas about the uniqueness of the West - and the mystery, inscrutability, or otherness of the East - did not follow from the Enlightenment idea of progress but had to be invented. The orphans of the Enlightenment believed that the knowledge of the past and the East still had value for modern Europe, and their efforts to recover and explain it, in turn, uncover an unknown story of European engagement with Chinese science. In contrast to the common view, that over the course of the Enlightenment non-Western ideas were banished from European thought, Statman found that the opposite is true. Toward the end of the Enlightenment, Europeans only grew more interested in Chinese science, and this has had lasting effects, from the eighteenth century to today"--
Author: Alexander Statman Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226825760 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 367
Book Description
"A Global Enlightenment is a book about the idea of Western progress, told through a series of conversations about Chinese science. Its protagonists - an ex-Jesuit missionary, a French statesman, a Manchu prince, Chinese literati, European savants, and other figures of the late Enlightenment world - exchanged ideas across cultures. In telling their stories here, Alexander Statman shows how Chinese science shaped a signature legacy of the European Enlightenment: the idea of Western progress. By focusing on the orphans of the Enlightenment, those who sought to vindicate ancient wisdom as others left it behind, Statman reveals that ideas about the uniqueness of the West - and the mystery, inscrutability, or otherness of the East - did not follow from the Enlightenment idea of progress but had to be invented. The orphans of the Enlightenment believed that the knowledge of the past and the East still had value for modern Europe, and their efforts to recover and explain it, in turn, uncover an unknown story of European engagement with Chinese science. In contrast to the common view, that over the course of the Enlightenment non-Western ideas were banished from European thought, Statman found that the opposite is true. Toward the end of the Enlightenment, Europeans only grew more interested in Chinese science, and this has had lasting effects, from the eighteenth century to today"--
Author: Alexander Statman Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226825744 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 367
Book Description
A revisionist history of the idea of progress reveals an unknown story about European engagement with Chinese science. The Enlightenment gave rise not only to new ideas of progress but consequential debates about them. Did distant times and places have anything to teach the here and now? Voltaire could believe that they did; Hegel was convinced that they did not. Early philosophes praised Chinese philosophy as an enduring model of reason. Later philosophes rejected it as stuck in the past. Seeking to vindicate ancient knowledge, a group of French statesmen and savants began a conversation with the last great scholar of the Jesuit mission to China. Together, they drew from Chinese learning to challenge the emerging concept of Western advancement. A Global Enlightenment traces this overlooked exchange between China and the West to make compelling claims about the history of progress, notions of European exceptionalism, and European engagement with Chinese science. To tell this story, Alexander Statman focuses on a group of thinkers he terms “orphans of the Enlightenment,” intellectuals who embraced many of their contemporaries’ ideals but valued ancient wisdom. They studied astronomical records, gas balloons, electrical machines, yin-yang cosmology, animal magnetism, and Daoist medicine. And their inquiries helped establish a new approach to the global history of science. Rich with new archival research and fascinating anecdotes, A Global Enlightenment deconstructs two common assumptions about the early to late modern period. Though historians have held that the idea of a mysterious and inscrutable East was inherent in Enlightenment progress theory, Statman argues that it was the orphans of the Enlightenment who put it there: by identifying China as a source of ancient wisdom, they turned it into a foil for scientific development. But while historical consensus supposes that non-Western ideas were banished from European thought over the course of the Enlightenment, Statman finds that Europeans became more interested in Chinese science—as a precursor, then as an antithesis, and finally as an alternative to modernity.
Author: Anh Tuan Nguyen Publisher: ISBN: 9780578950372 Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
"Remaking the World - the Age of Global Enlightenment" proposes pathways toward a more humane, peaceful, and secure world, largely by harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, and other Digital Age technologies. A key proposal is the adoption of an AI International Accord that would bind nations to constructive uses of AI and prohibit destructive uses. The book proposes a Social Contract for the AI Age as the theoretical and ethical foundation of the Accord. The book also proposes the AI World Society (AIWS) as a vehicle through which individuals and civic organizations can help foster an Age of Global Enlightenment.
Author: David T. Gies Publisher: University of Virginia Press ISBN: 0813940761 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 405
Book Description
Today, when "globalization" is a buzzword invoked in nearly every realm, we turn back to the eighteenth century and witness the inherent globalization of its desires and, at times, its accomplishments. During the chronological eighteenth century, learning and knowledge were intimately connected across disciplinary and geographical boundaries, yet the connections themselves are largely unstudied. In The Eighteenth Centuries, twenty-two scholars across disciplines address the idea of plural Enlightenments and a global eighteenth century, transcending the demarcations that long limited our grasp of the period’s breadth and depth. Engaging concepts that span divisions of chronology and continent, these essays address topics ranging from mechanist biology, painted geographies, and revolutionary opera to Americanization, theatrical subversion of marriage, and plantation architecture. Weaving together many disparate threads of the historical tapestry we call the Enlightenment, this volume illuminates our understanding of the interconnectedness of the eighteenth centuries.
Author: Michael Schacker Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 159477515X Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 283
Book Description
Shows how we must make deep changes to complete our paradigm shift from the old mechanistic worldview to the new organic worldview • Reveals the distinct stages of paradigm shifts through the ages, including the 18th-century Enlightenment and the critical stage of our current shift • Explains how the new organic worldview began with Goethe and Kant • Offers solutions for each of us to be able to realize and make the deep changes needed for global regeneration In Global Awakening, Michael Schacker shows that hidden within our global crises is a positive future for the planet. Sharing his 30 years of intensive research into the history of change as well as the evolution of consciousness and regenerative science, Schacker explains how our current shift from the old mechanistic worldview to a new organic worldview based on biological models follows the same pattern as other paradigm shifts across history, including the 18th-century Enlightenment and the American Revolution. He reveals the creative geniuses who have contributed to the birth of the organic worldview, beginning with Goethe, Kant, and Hahnemann. Exposing the scientific and social forces that drive paradigm shifts, he details the stages every paradigm shift progresses through: the early Enlightenment, the conservative backlash, the intensive phase, and and the transformational phase leading to the Organic Shift. Explaining that we are currently in the throes of the paradigm flip, the critical last phase of our paradigm shift, Schacker shows how the mechanistic worldview is crumbling around us and nothing but a complete transformation in the way we think will keep us from the path of total self-destruction. Providing a map to overcome the allure of the simplistic mechanical model that has spawned countless unsustainable practices and problems--from global warming to intense economic disparities--the author offers concrete solutions showing how each of us can use our talents, skills, and time to make the deep changes needed for global regeneration.
Author: John M. Owen IV Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231526628 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
Largely due to the cultural and political shift of the Enlightenment, Western societies in the eighteenth century emerged from sectarian conflict and embraced a more religiously moderate path. In nine original essays, leading scholars ask whether exporting the Enlightenment solution is possible or even desirable today. Contributors begin by revisiting the Enlightenment's restructuring of the West, examining its ongoing encounters with Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. While acknowledging the necessity of the Enlightenment emphasis on toleration and peaceful religious coexistence, these scholars nevertheless have grave misgivings about the Enlightenment's spiritually thin secularism. The authors ultimately upend both the claim that the West's experience offers a ready-made template for the world to follow and the belief that the West's achievements are to be ignored, despised, or discarded.
Author: Steven Pinker Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0525427570 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 578
Book Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR "My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. By the author of the new book, Rationality. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.
Author: James MacGregor Burns Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1250024900 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 434
Book Description
"With this profound and magnificent book, drawing on his deep reservoir of thought and expertise in the humanities, James MacGregor Burns takes us into the fire's center. As a 21st-century philosopher, he brings to vivid life the incandescent personalities and ideas that embody the best in Western civilization and shows us how understanding them is essential for anyone who would seek to decipher the complex problems and potentialities of the world we will live in tomorrow." --Michael Beschloss, New York Times bestselling author of Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989 "James MacGregor Burns is a national treasure, and Fire and Light is the elegiac capstone to a career devoted to understanding the seminal ideas that made America - for better and for worse - what it is." --Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning author Revolutionary Summer Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling historian James MacGregor Burns explores the most daring and transformational intellectual movement in history, the European and American Enlightenment In this engaging, provocative history, James MacGregor Burns brilliantly illuminates the two-hundred-year conflagration of the Enlightenment, when audacious questions and astonishing ideas tore across Europe and the New World, transforming thought, overturning governments, and inspiring visionary political experiments. Fire and Light brings to vivid life the galaxy of revolutionary leaders of thought and action who, armed with a new sense of human possibility, driven by a hunger for change, created the modern world. Burns discovers the origins of a distinctive American Enlightenment in men like the Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and their early encounters with incendiary European ideas about liberty and equality. It was these thinker-activists who framed the United States as a grand and continuing experiment in Enlightenment principles. Today the same questions Enlightenment thinkers grappled with have taken on new urgency around the world: in the turmoil of the Arab Spring, in the former Soviet Union, and China, as well as in the United States itself. What should a nation be? What should citizens expect from their government? Who should lead and how can leadership be made both effective and accountable? What is happiness, and what can the state contribute to it? Burns's exploration of the ideals and arguments that formed the bedrock of our modern world shines a new light on these ever-important questions.
Author: Ulrich L. Lehner Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190232919 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 273
Book Description
"Whoever needs an act of faith to elucidate an event that can be explained by reason is a fool, and unworthy of reasonable thought." This line, spoken by the notorious 18th-century libertine Giacomo Casanova, illustrates a deeply entrenched perception of religion, as prevalent today as it was hundreds of years ago. It is the sentiment behind the narrative that Catholic beliefs were incompatible with the Enlightenment ideals. Catholics, many claim, are superstitious and traditional, opposed to democracy and gender equality, and hostile to science. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that Casanova himself was a Catholic. In The Catholic Enlightenment, Ulrich L. Lehner points to such figures as representatives of a long-overlooked thread of a reform-minded Catholicism, which engaged Enlightenment ideals with as much fervor and intellectual gravity as anyone. Their story opens new pathways for understanding how faith and modernity can interact in our own time. Lehner begins two hundred years before the Enlightenment, when the Protestant Reformation destroyed the hegemony Catholicism had enjoyed for centuries. During this time the Catholic Church instituted several reforms, such as better education for pastors, more liberal ideas about the roles of women, and an emphasis on human freedom as a critical feature of theology. These actions formed the foundation of the Enlightenment's belief in individual freedom. While giants like Spinoza, Locke, and Voltaire became some of the most influential voices of the time, Catholic Enlighteners were right alongside them. They denounced fanaticism, superstition, and prejudice as irreconcilable with the Enlightenment agenda. In 1789, the French Revolution dealt a devastating blow to their cause, disillusioning many Catholics against the idea of modernization. Popes accumulated ever more power and the Catholic Enlightenment was snuffed out. It was not until the Second Vatican Council in 1962 that questions of Catholicism's compatibility with modernity would be broached again. Ulrich L. Lehner tells, for the first time, the forgotten story of these reform-minded Catholics. As Pope Francis pushes the boundaries of Catholicism even further, and Catholics once again grapple with these questions, this book will prove to be required reading.
Author: Alexander Statman
Author: Alexander Statman
Author: Seung Heun Lee
Author: Alexander Statman
Author: Anh Tuan Nguyen
Author: David T. Gies
Author: Michael Schacker
Author: John M. Owen IV
Author: Steven Pinker
Author: James MacGregor Burns
Author: Ulrich L. Lehner