Autore
Abbattista, Guido

Titolo
Attualità dell'Illuminismo
Periodico
Contemporanea
Anno: 2020 - Volume: 90 - Fascicolo: 3 - Pagina iniziale: 477 - Pagina finale: 490

The article takes its cue from Antoine Lilti’s book, L’héritage des Lumières (2018) and retracesthe themes dealt with by the author with the intention of describing the central problem areasin the culture of the Enlightenment. The author’s reflection focuses on the issues of Westerneconomic and colonial expansion and the conflictual nature of the commercial civilization ofthe West, highlighting how European Enlightenment – the analysis focuses on French cultureand, subordinately, Scottish culture – has shown a lively awareness of the problems of contemporaryglobalization and the demands it has subjected ethics, the vision of history, the conceptionof society and political power, religious ideas. These phenomena have influenced thedevelopment of a cosmopolitan attitude, paradoxically divided between acceptance of diversitiesand eurocentrism that is, in its contradictory aspects of recognition of the variety of humancultures and of universalistic tension, aimed at affirming the superiority of the values of thewhite, expanding West and the historical, almost messianic necessity of their global spreading.The article then dwells on the problems of modernity and politics, the other two central aspectsof Enlightenment reflection as it is retraced by the author of the book: modernity as the developmentof a public media communication dimension and as a profound change in the space ofprivate subjectivity; and politics as a space for the affirmation of rights and freedom in whichthe role played by the intellectual has been experienced by the Enlightenment in a conflictualand contradictory way, between challenge of and cooperation with powerful absolute sovereigns.The final part of the article dwells precisely on how the return to the Enlightenment hasrepresented in various historical periods, as an inspiration for the critical use of reason, doubtand subjective engagement, a necessary moment for the redefinition of the tasks of intellectualsin the face of the conflicts of contemporary societies.



SICI: 1127-3070(2020)90:3<477:AD>2.0.ZU;2-4
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1409/97622
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1409/97622

Esportazione dati in Refworks (solo per utenti abilitati)

Biblioteche ACNP che possiedono il periodico