Stephen Scheidell

Dr. Yamamoto
HIST 493
16 September 2009
On Enlightenment Anthropology
At the surface, "the" Enlightenment(s) appears as a seemingly disconnected series
of questions arising in 18th century Europe involving reason, religion, liberty,
government, society and related questions. To advocate a simpler model we might unify
these questions by viewing them as dancing around these two fundamental questions.
First, what does it mean to be human? Secondly, how can we construct a society best
suited to nourish humanity? By revisiting enlightenment era texts with these questions in
mind, we might provide ourselves with a coherent hermeneutic for their answers to
enlightenment questions.
Barhdt's essay raised a very pivotal question: Which of the following two claim
ontological priority: the individual or society, and which defines itself according to the
other? Rousseau's social contract theory clearly places the society as subject to the
individuals therein, while Smith sees ethical questions and norms as defined by society.
To probe this question in relation to the role of reason, we begin with Kant's famous
essay. Kant clearly sees humanity driven by public reason,1 yet restrained by private
reason.2 Humanity relies on convention for daily functionality, but it may nonetheless be
overturned by public reason. For Kant, humanity progresses by surpassing pre-

Kant means that of a scholar before a reading public.

He uses the example of one paying taxes. One may not refuse to pay taxes according to one's private
reason, for it would damage the commonwealth, but one may write an article proposing a more just system,
thereby bettering the commonwealth through exercise of public reason.
2

enlightened ideas; "Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own understanding!"3 To
subjugate reason to convention would be to allow no future generations to progress
farther"a crime against human nature, whose original destiny consists in this progress."4
Hamann responds to Kant in characteristic fashion, with vague allusions galore
and more un-translated quotes per page than a Heidegger text. To Kant's "Sapere aude"
he rejoins "Anch'io sono tuturo!"5 He contends that humanity cannot mature without the
guidance of the wisest in our history, but he also recognizes that a turning point and
establish itself for each person. Each must take up the teachings and wisdom of the
guardian but also the courage to add to that body of ideas. According to Hamann, we
therefore proceed with fear and tremblingcourageously enough to think old questions
anew, yet humbly enough to understand why ancient ideas have such staying power. In
fine, debate among the emancipated immature will never progress farther than children's
disagreement over private property. True enlightenment, however, occurs on the
shoulders of giants. Human nature and Hamann himself progress under the guidance of
matured guardians, thereby also becoming guardians. Reinhold recognizes the inability of
all to become such guardians for "lack of opportunity and means,"6 but his essay strays
from the hereditary nature of guardianship. He thereby sets up that diversity of human
situations and contexts, which gives rise to the need of guardians in the first place.
While Kant, Hamann and Reinhold debate the place of reason in human nature in
context of heritage, religion and society, Condorcet, Priestley, Hume and Hutcheson
further analyze human nature by evaluating the extent and limits of reason. Apart from
3

Schmidt: Kant 58
Ibid. 61
5
"I, too, am a guardian!" This line also hints toward Plato's "guardians" in his text The Republic, who are
charged with the duty of protecting the city-state.
6
Schmidt: Reinhold 70
4

Priestley, these advocates of reason have surprisingly modest recognitions of the

limitations of reason, most notably obvious in Hutcheson. Condorcet's argument might be
thus summarized: "Look how practical and useful science has been in advancing our
understanding! Why would we not continue to explore this newfound aspect of human
identity called rationality?" Characteristic of his essay is the same enthusiasm of his era.
Like a child who comes home with a new toy with an excitement that causes all others
toys to fade into oblivion, many of these thinkers get so enraptured by this newly
"emancipated" rationality that other modes of Being seem to fade away. Condorcet,
however, demonstrates a certain balanceforgone by Priestleyby not equating reason
with the fullness of humanity as when he says that these tools serve humanity. Priestley,
in contrast, says that reason raises "men above brutes and civilization above barbarity."7
For Priestley, emancipated reason equals emancipated humanity.
Another obvious question of human identity is the issue of divinity. Do we relate
somehow to a transcendent reality or does our surrounding material world constitute all
that exists? Little agreement actually surfaces on this topic. While conservatives like
Hamann and Hutcheson answer affirmatively, Condorcet, Hume, Priestley and others
view religion, in general, as little more than human attempts at scare tactics to control the
lives of fellow humans. Still others, like Paine, take it to be a necessary moral source, at
which point, religion is again subject to reason's authority.
Despite Hume's caricature as enlightenment thinker par excellance, his material
reductionism forces him to admit reason's limit at the bare essentials of what it sees. In
fact, his billiard example forces him to say that we can rationally arrive at cause-effect

TPER: Priestley 72

relationships, but we nonetheless rely upon convention when we assume that nature will
always operate uniformly which we must assume to conduct the natural sciences.
Moving now into questions of society and human identity, Hutcheson paints an
image of humanity neither reduced to its rationality nor made into a hierarchy of
faculties. He instead offers a synthetic, integrated "system" of decision-making. While
others attempt to paint self-interest as a motivation in conflict with the interests of
society, Hutcheson offers a theory of "moral sense" which compels one to seek the wellbeing of another. Acting in this accord feeds into one's personal happiness. Hutcheson
thereby avoids the self/societal interest dichotomy while also bringing one's feeling of
happiness into the decision-making process. Such an image of humanity puts reason,
feeling, society and even social convention back into relation with each other, thus
allowing for a very holistic model of human nature.
Smith conveys a vaguely similar idea when he argues that one's self identity
comes only through one's relationship with others. As Blake Edwards aptly quipped in
class, there is "no self without society and other." This concept incorporates feeling of
worth as well as identity of self into that larger context of social relationships, thereby
putting them into a web of social responsibilities. For instance, one not only derives
morals from others but also acts as one from whom others derive their morals.
This survey thus demonstrates the centrality of fundamental issue at stakethat of
authentic humanity and its nourishment. While this article does not closely interacting
with the thinkers discussed, doing so would in fact detract from its aim, to demonstrate
the legitimacy of subsuming the wide variety of themes in enlightenment thought under
the rubric of the two fundamental questions cited above.