Ben Waber reviewed Enlightenment by Anthony Pagden
A Decontextualized Tour Through Enlightenment Philosophy
4 stars
Pagden provides an interesting but esoteric tour through Enlightenment thought, examining the different strands of inquiry and debate that took place across the Western world. Most of these discussions are presented without context - besides biological details history only makes brief appearances until, ironically, the French Revolution - and this makes it hard to fully understand the forces behind these philosophical inquiries. It's still an interesting distillation of primary sources, and is helpful if you want pointers for where to dig in more
Pagden provides an interesting but esoteric tour through Enlightenment thought, examining the different strands of inquiry and debate that took place across the Western world. Most of these discussions are presented without context - besides biological details history only makes brief appearances until, ironically, the French Revolution - and this makes it hard to fully understand the forces behind these philosophical inquiries. It's still an interesting distillation of primary sources, and is helpful if you want pointers for where to dig in more