Level 37
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Modern Philosophy

The Enlightenment and Kantian Philosophy

The eighteenth-century Enlightenment's critique of tradition, superstition, and arbitrary authority, from Voltaire and Rousseau to the Scottish moralists, culminating in Kant's critical synthesis of the powers and limits of human reason.

60-Second Review

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A condensed, point-by-point summary of the module, for reviewing right before a test or exam.

  1. The Enlightenment and Voltaire. The Enlightenment's "Sapere Aude" and Voltaire's campaigns against intolerance and optimism.
  2. Rousseau: Nature, Society, and Education. Rousseau on the state of nature, the general will, natural education, and the corruption of civilization.
  3. Montesquieu, the Encyclopédie, and Materialist Fiction. Montesquieu's separation of powers, the Encyclopédie project, and Diderot's materialist writing.
  4. Sensationism, Progress, and French Materialism. Condillac's sensationism, Condorcet's progress, and the radical materialism of La Mettrie, Helvétius, and d'Holbach.
  5. The Scottish Enlightenment and Adam Smith. Adam Smith on sympathy and the invisible hand, alongside Hutcheson and Ferguson's moral sense theory.
  6. Kant's Critical Turn and the Transcendental Aesthetic/Analytic. Kant's Copernican revolution, and the Transcendental Aesthetic and Analytic of the first Critique.
  7. Kant's Dialectic and the Limits of Metaphysics. The Antinomies, the critique of rational theology, and the problem of synthetic a priori knowledge.
  8. Kant's Moral, Political, and Aesthetic Philosophy. The Categorical Imperative, the postulates of practical reason, aesthetic judgment, and cosmopolitan right.
  9. Kant's Reception: Fichte, Schiller, Jacobi, and Religion. Fichte, Schiller, and Jacobi's responses to Kant, and his own writings on religion within reason.

This module continues after "Renaissance Humanism and the Return to Classical Sources" in the syllabus. If you haven't reviewed it yet, it may help set the context.

Key points

Visual module map

1The Enlightenment and Voltaire
2Montesquieu, the Encyclopédie, and Materialist Fiction
3The Scottish Enlightenment and Adam Smith
4Kant's Dialectic and the Limits of Metaphysics
5Kant's Reception: Fichte, Schiller, Jacobi, and Religion

Alternative visual view: a simplified sequence of some of the module's key points, in their order within the syllabus.

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Final test

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Memory

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Chronological Order

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Further reading

Bibliography and cited sources used to create this module.

  • Gay, P. (1966-1969). The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (2 vols.). New York: Knopf.
  • Israel, J. (2001). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Cassirer, E. (1951) [1932]. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Guyer, P. (2014). Kant (2nd ed.). Abingdon: Routledge.
  • Kuehn, M. (2001). Kant: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Kant, I. (1998) [1781/1787]. Critique of Pure Reason (P. Guyer and A. Wood, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.