This concise yet comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of the Enlightenment is designed for a general academic audience. Combining historical context with philosophy, it targets both students and researchers. It is of relevance for historians, philosophers and anyone interested in the Enlightenment, the eighteenth century, modernity, and contemporary discussions on reason, emotions, science, religion, freedom, justice, and progress.
Georg Cavallar, Universität Wien, Wien, Österreich.
"The challenge for a philosophical overview of a phenomenon as important and influential as the Enlightenment is that there are an infinite number of facts about this period and its ideas, and an almost infinite number of contesting interpretations of them. If in addition one wants to keep the survey under a thousand pages, good judgment is needed to winnow the necessary from the unnecessary for a comprehensive evaluation. The reader will find that here. A sophisticated philosophical analysis of one of the most important philosophical movements ever." -John Christian Laursen, Professor of the Graduate Division, Political Science Dept, University of California
"The distinguished Kant scholar and international political theorist Georg Cavallar is the ideal person to have written this book. A general updated introduction to the much-debated European enlightenment of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is badly needed. Georg Cavallar provides that indispensable text. He brings to the work an impressive historical imagination forged in extensive research, teaching and a profound knowledge of educational skills." -Howard Williams, Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University
