Professor Li Hongtu of the Department of History of Fudan University
Creating the Modern World: The Hook and Sink of the British Enlightenment, by Roy Porter, translated by Li Yuan, Zhang Hengjie, Li Shang, and Liu Beicheng, published by the Commercial Press in February 2022, 810 pp. 228.00 yuan
Due to the needs of teaching and research, I often take out Roy Porter's Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (The Penguin Press, 2000) to read and reference, during the epidemic in Shanghai, I learned that this book has been translated by Professor Liu Beicheng as Chinese published, the title of the book is "Creating the Modern World: The British Enlightenment Hook Sinks", I am overjoyed, Deeply feel that this book is worth reading.
The author of this book, Roy Porter, trained at the University of Cambridge, studied the history of ideas with Quentin Skinner, a representative figure of the "Cambridge School", and then turned to the study of medical social history, and his academic achievements were so remarkable that many people in the academic community now often regard him as an authority in the field of medical social history research. In fact, for a long time, he continued to cultivate the field of intellectual history, especially the history of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. As far as I know, this Update: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World was followed by the Enlightenment (2001, Peking University Press, Chinese edition in 2018) and Flush in the Age of Reason: How the Enlightenment Transformed the Way We See Our Bodies and Souls (Penguin Press, 2004), et al.
Roy Potter
From an academic perspective, the Enlightenment was a field of rich academic accumulation, but also controversial. Since the 1980s, scholars have increasingly expanded the field of study of the Enlightenment: First, they have broken the old paradigm centered on the French Enlightenment in the past, regarded the Enlightenment as a plural, and rediscovered the different styles of the Enlightenment unfolding in various countries, such as the Scottish Enlightenment, the Italian Enlightenment, etc. The second is to pay attention to the differences and diversity within the Enlightenment movements of each country itself, and to distinguish their rich and complex multiple discourses. Third, from the perspective of academic research, there are philosophical research methods, such as Cassirer, Adorno, Holheim and other academic factions; On the historical path, there are Daniel Roche, and the representative figures of new cultural history, Robert Daenton, Chatier, etc.; There are also research paradigms that hope to combine philosophy and historicity, such as John Robertson, Istefan Hunt, etc. It is worth noting that while the study of the Enlightenment continued to expand and deepen, with the rise of postmodernism, the Enlightenment also suffered severe criticism, believing that the Enlightenment ideology centered on "reason" brought many catastrophic social problems, and even took responsibility for the emergence of totalitarianism in the twentieth century.
Academically, different epochal contexts will of course bring about changes in historical interpretation, and the merits and demerits of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century do need to be re-examined, especially in the face of the postmodern critique of "stigmatization", scholars began to rethink and answer what the Enlightenment was. It is in this academic context that Roy Potter, who is in this academic whirlpool, develops his own academic thinking and gives his own answers.
As a British scholar, Roy Porter insisted on understanding the Enlightenment in the light of the British Enlightenment, and the title of his book shows the idea that not only these British intellectual forces created the modern world, but also that "these Enlightenment thinkers in England transmitted the candlelight of this idea to the European continent.". Of course, some people may think that Roy Porter can actually use the concept of "The Scottish Enlightenment" that is often accepted by scholars as the title of the book, because it belongs to the entire European Enlightenment intellectual genealogy, and the use of the term "British Enlightenment" gives the impression that British scholars are adhering to their own national position. Roy Porter himself said that one would be surprised to have "The English Enlightenment" as the title, because until now there had not been a book like "The English Enlightenment", but in 1976 the book Reason, Ridicule and Religion: The Age of Enlightenment in England, written by John Redwood, was published. Its subtitle is "Britain's Age of Enlightenment". In Roy Potter's view, it is precisely because this is a "blind spot" in academic research that scholars need to illuminate it. In my opinion, given that today's academic research has greatly broadened the spatial scope of the Enlightenment, Roy Porter's arrangement in the title of the book clearly echoes this change in the academic community, breaking the previous research paradigm with the Eighteenth-Century French Enlightenment as the "center" and the other as the "edge". At the same time, in terms of the inheritance and circulation of ideas, the ideas of British thinkers, including Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, are actually a vein in the entire "Enlightenment" ideological torrent, and more importantly, it is precisely these British thinkers who took the lead in creating modernity and leading the way of the modern world in setting off this Enlightenment. In this dimension, behind the title of this book, its innovative significance is self-evident.
Reason, Ridicule and Religion: The Age of Enlightenment in England, 1660-1750
However, as far as the origin of the concept of the "Enlightenment" is concerned, we need to start with the French Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. When the eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers were carrying out the "Enlightenment", they did not explicitly call this ideological discourse of their own "Enlightenment" and give a definition, so that "there is not a single noun or verb in French that refers specifically to the Enlightenment or the Enlightenment, usually only in terms of 'Lumières' (light- plural)" (see Zhang Zhilian, "Some Questions On the Enlightenment", p. 2, in Collected Papers on French History edited by Chen Chongwu, Xuelin Publishing House, 2000 edition). And why people at that time used the metaphor of "light", on the one hand, was the invention of natural science, especially Newton's invention, which was compared to bringing "light" to people's understanding of nature. (See Margaret C. Jacob, The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents, Boston 2001, P.2) Also because of religious belief, Enlightenment thinkers liken reason to "divine light" (see Martin Fitzpatrick, Peter Jones, Christa Knellwolf and Iain for details).) McCalman(eds), The Enlightenment World, Routledge 2007, pp.159-160）。 It is called "Aufklärung" in German, illuminismo in Italian and "ilutración" in Spanish. As far as the concept of the Lumières (Lumières) was concerned, it originally meant "light" or "light", and by the late nineteenth century, it was translated into English as "Enlightenment", and thus the term was finalized and has been used ever since.
It is precisely because the Eighteenth Century French Enlightenment thinkers did not define and generalize the "Enlightenment", so the German thinkers who were influenced by the Eighteenth Century French Enlightenment at that time naturally asked directly, what is the Enlightenment? In December 1783, the BerlinErnth published an article by the theologian and educational reformer Johann Friedrich Zerner, in which he raised the issue in a footnote to the article. "What is enlightenment? This question, which is as important as what is truth, should be answered before one begins enlightenment! But I haven't found out yet that it's been answered! (James Schmidt, The Enlightenment and Modernity: A Dialogue between the 18th and 20th Centuries, translated by Xu Xiangdong et al., Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2005, p. 2) Zerner's question then sparked a great debate, and the Berlin Monthly published an essay on the title of "What is the Enlightenment?", in which Kant's answer was fascinating and later became the most classic interpretation. Today's academic circles unanimously admit that although the Enlightenment is a European phenomenon and a movement of ideas throughout Europe, it is a down-to-earth German question as to what constitutes "Enlightenment". (Ibid., p. 1) And it is from this definition of Kant that Roy Potter's masterpiece is also an inquiry.
In 1784, Kant wrote in Answering the Question: What is the Enlightenment? The article gives the following answer to "what is the Enlightenment": "The Enlightenment is the detachment of man from the immaturity that he has imposed on himself. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own intellect without being guided by others. When the cause is not a lack of reason, but a lack of courage and determination to apply it without being guided by others, then this immaturity is imposed on oneself. Sapere aude！ Have the courage to use your own sanity! This was the slogan of the Enlightenment. (Kant: A Critical Anthology of Historical Reason, translated by He Zhaowu, The Commercial Press, 1990, p. 22) The thinker and composer Mendelssohn of the time also believed that reason was at the heart of the Enlightenment, and their understanding was to some extent in line with the thrust of the Eighteenth-Century French Enlightenment. For example, the Eighteenth-Century French Enlightenment thinker said, "Reason inspires us, and she spreads wisdom and leads mankind to freedom" (Xu Qianjin, "The Origin and Method of the Global History of the Enlightenment: On the Enlightenment of Philosophers and the Enlightenment of Historians", in World History Review, 14, Winter 2019, p. 77). In his letter to D'Alembert, Voltaire wrote: "The age of reason has arrived" and "this age demands the affirmation of reason against imagination and prejudices of other epochs, and victory" (Wang Yangchong, Wang Lingyu: A History of the French Revolution, Oriental Publishing Center, 2007 edition, p. 51). Rhinehard, a contemporary of Kant, also believed that enlightenment was a "making ... Rational people are able to harness the process of reason."
Kant
After Kant and until now, the academic understanding of the "Enlightenment" has generally followed Kant's expression, from academic works to textbooks. For example, I have at hand a book by The Portable Enlightenment Reader written by the famous intellectual historian Isaac Kramnick, which is arranged according to the core concept of "reason": "reason and nature", "reason and God", "reason and humanity", "reason and society", etc. In the 1930s, the eminent scholar E. In his book Philosophy of enlightenment, Cassirer also analyzed the ideological connotations of the Enlightenment according to "reason", and in the first chapter of his book, "The Spirit of the Age of Enlightenment", he summarized the characteristics of the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment, arguing that when the eighteenth century wanted to express the characteristics of this spiritual force in one word, it was called "reason". Reason became the meeting point and center of the eighteenth century, expressing all that was pursued and fought for in that century, and all the achievements of that century. （E. Cassirer: Philosophy of Enlightenment, translated by Gu Weiming et al., Shandong People's Publishing House, 1988, pp. 3-4) "The 18th century was imbued with a belief in the unity and immutability of reason. (p. 4) This is "an intellectual force that leads us to discover, establish, and determine the originality of truth" (p. 11). Reason is seen not merely as a vessel of knowledge, principles, and truth, but as an ability, a power, which can be fully understood only through its action and effectiveness. (p. 11) It is precisely for this reason that scholars often refer to the eighteenth century throughout Europe as the "century of reason" and the "century of the philosophers."
As soon as "reason" is regarded as the ideological core of the Enlightenment, the inherent critical qualities of reason immediately appear, and thus criticality becomes another dimension of understanding the Enlightenment. Peter Guy, a master scholar of the Enlightenment, said that enlightenment philosophers used destructive criticism to clear the ground for construction, so criticism itself became a creative role. (Peter Guy: The Enlightenment, translated by Liang Yong'an, National Compilation Hall and Lixu Cultural Undertaking Co., Ltd., 2008, p. 3) For the Enlightenment, this was an era of philosophy, or primarily criticalism. Indeed, going back to the french historical scene of the eighteenth century, the Eighteenth Century French Enlightenment thinkers extended the object of rational analysis and criticism to the religious and social aspects that the thinker Descartes did not dare to deal with, that is, the "old system" of the time. They hold high the banner of reason, and they must use reason to criticize everything, judge everything, and reconstruct everything. In the political sphere, they demanded a change in the authoritarian system under the old system; On the social front, criticizing the unequal hierarchical system of privilege at that time, where the nobility enjoyed privileges and "the third class was nothing"; In the field of religion, they oppose church authority and religious superstition, and want to replace God's will with human reason and achieve religious tolerance; In the field of knowledge, they advocate scientific knowledge, carry out scientific exploration, promote scientific experiments and discoveries, and liberate the people from ignorance. In short, through this critique, the aim is to establish a "new system" that realizes human rights and guarantees human freedom and equality. As Engels said, "They do not recognize any external authority, whatever it may be." Religion, nature, society, state system, everything has been most ruthlessly criticized; Everything must defend its existence or renounce its right to exist before a court of reason. ...... All previous social and state forms, all traditional ideas, were thrown into the garbage heap as irrational things... From now on, superstition, selfishness, privilege and oppression will be excluded by eternal justice, for equality based on nature and for inalienable human rights" (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, vol. 3, People's Publishing House, 2001 edition, pp. 56-57).
It is worth noting that in recent years, with the continuous advancement of the study of the Enlightenment, the academic community's understanding of the connotation of the Enlightenment thought has also changed, and the ideological core of the Enlightenment has begun to shift from the original "dare to use reason" to what the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Hume called "The Science of Man", believing that the essence of the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment is the understanding and elaboration of "man", thinking about "who I am, where I come from, what kind of situation I am in, and what state I live in". 。 As Roy Porter points out, the most important of the goals pursued by Enlightenment thinkers was to find a true "science of man" (Roy Porter: The Enlightenment, translated by Yin Hong, Peking University Press, 2018, p. 21), which is "the core of the enlightenment, the ideological adventure." "The Enlightenment gave birth to and created various types of people." (Roy Potter: Flesh in the Age of Reason: How the Enlightenment Transformed the Way We See Our Bodies and Souls, Penguin Press, 2004, p. 323) John Robertson points out that the eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers made a new and deterministic modern understanding and depiction of man's place in the world. They are eager to improve the human condition. (John Robertson: The Enlightenment: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press 2015, p.1) Italian intellectual historian Fellone says that if we must find a common factor, a unified principle, in the field of Enlightenment thought, it is the humanism of the eighteenth century. Therefore, what really needs to be studied, and what really determines the characteristics of the Enlightenment way of thinking, is not only critical rationality with various historical disguises, but also, above all, man's courageous and unbiased reflection on himself. We must shift our focus from "critical reason" to the decisive person. (Vincenzo Ferrone: A History of enlightenment concepts, translated by Ma Tao and Zeng Yun, The Commercial Press, 2018, p. 169) Antoni Paggoden also believes that the core of the "Enlightenment Project" is nothing more than an effort to discover a full definition of human nature... Eventually it will lead to the creation of what the eighteenth-century "science of man" called, and will replace all previous attempts, especially attempts by theologians to explain, why man is human. (Anthony Paggoden, Why the Enlightenment Is Still Important, translated by Wang Lihui et al., Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2017, pp. 21-22) Thus, the slogan of the Enlightenment is not just "dare to know" or "dare to use one's own reason", but "I am human". People here are no longer natural people in the biological sense, but social people with human dignity, rights and freedoms, and strive to pursue their rights and achieve their own happiness.
This understanding of the Enlightenment is not only a paradigm shift in research, but also a new insight and grasp of the ideological connotation of the Enlightenment. If we look at the ideas of these thinkers of the Enlightenment, this interpretation is indeed in line with the essence of the Enlightenment. Diderot said that man is the only point of departure and the ultimate destination of all things. Why not introduce "man" into our work, just as he was placed in the universe? Why not let him be a common center? Voltaire repeatedly said, "Remember your dignity as a human being." In 1763, when the word "human rights" first appeared in French, Diderot said that as a human being, I have no human rights other than those truly inalienable natural rights. For the first time, Condorcet defined human rights, including the safety of persons and property, an impartial judicial system, and the right to participate in the making of laws. For this group of Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, whether it is Paine's "Rights of Man" written in England, or Adam Smith's theory of "economic man" in "The Wealth of Nations", its purpose is to explore the characteristics of human beings, protect human rights, and achieve human happiness.
Faced with the situation of the "old system" of the time, which wantonly trampled on human dignity and deprived people of their rights, Voltaire introduced the freedom enjoyed by the British in his Philosophical Correspondence, thus criticizing the lack of freedom under the French autocracy. It can be said that voltaire's following expression basically represents the yearning of that generation of Enlightenment thinkers for human rights and freedoms, and the understanding of "human science". He wrote: To be free is to be governed only by the law. (Voltaire: Philosophical Correspondence, Translated by Gundam Guan, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 1986, p. 191) He also gave a detailed account of the British political system, arguing that in England "everyone is given the right to be endowed with, and in almost all monarchies they are deprived of these rights." These rights are: the total freedom of person and property; The freedom to express opinions to the State with a pen; Freedom to be subject to criminal interrogation only before a meeting of assessors composed of free persons; The freedom to adjudicate no matter what the case is, only in accordance with the clear provisions of the provisions of the law; Renounce the prerogatives of Anglican believers for certain positions, freedom of belief. The following is called privilege: when you sleep, you can be guaranteed to wake up the next day, your property is still the same as yesterday, without the slightest change: this is a great, very happy, more privilege than many countries; You are also guaranteed that you will not be dragged out of the arms of your wife, or from the arms of your children, into the city towers, or driven into the desert in the middle of the night: this is also a privilege; You are also guaranteed that when you wake up from a dream, you have the right to express all your thoughts: this is a privilege; You are also guaranteed that when you are accused, or have done something bad, or have told a lie, or written a troublemaker, you will be judged according to the law: this is a privilege. This privilege is universal to all those who live in England. In the UK, a foreigner enjoys the same property freedom as personal freedom; If he had been accused, he could have asked that half of the jurors who tried him were foreigners, that is, not necessarily British. I dare say that if we were to summon humanity to make laws, they would have to make such laws for their own safety. So why don't other countries adopt these laws? (Ibid., pp. 192-193) In the text, considering that the original meaning of the word "Liberty" was the meaning of "privilege", it is well understood that Voltaire's use of the word "privilege" here is in fact only a synonym for "freedom" or "right". Therefore, Voltaire stood up and shouted for the rights of man, if the above quotation only lists the rights of man, then the following passage can reflect Voltaire's shouting for the rights and freedoms of man, and even use the very figurative metaphor of "chain". "My poor man, if you are the governor, the minister, the lord, you must not be rather foolish and tyrannical to tighten the chains of your country. Think about it: the more you bind the people, the more your children and grandchildren (who are not all governors) will become slaves. How! Poor worm! For the sake of a momentary heroism, coveting the pleasures of a little tyrant for a few days, have you sacrificed your offspring to make them groan under handcuffs and shackles? (Ibid., p. 193)
Voltaire
It was under the appeal of the Enlightenment thinkers that the status of man was established, and he also thought about how to construct a new world from the perspective of "man". For example, under the "old system", people judged everything by arbitrary power and the privileges of the nobility, but now they are thinking according to the principles of freedom and equality. Look at the following dialogue to understand this change in mindset.
Q: What is despotism?
A: Despotism is a state of affairs in which a ruler or ruling group exercises all power without any law restricting their will, capriciousness or special interests...
Q: Do nations have the right to make laws individually?
A: Yes, because sovereignty belongs to the nation, it alone can delegate to those powers that constitute sovereignty...
Q: So, what is the best constitution?
A: A Constitution based on human rights and citizenship.
Q: What do you mean by that?
A: A person has a natural and inalienable right, and everyone can give it up, and no one can deprive it, no matter what excuse it is.
Q: Have people always enjoyed these rights?
A: Unfortunately, people have been deprived of these rights for too long.
Q: How and when did this deprivation occur?
A: By dividing into three classes: priest, noble, and third rank. In times of barbarism and ignorance, it has always been the most powerful first two classes, enslaving the third class with the shackles of their tyrannical rule.
Q: What finally opened our eyes?
Answer: Philosophy enlightened the nation, and the nation gathered and took its rightful place...
Q: What would it be like to have a social formation in which all citizens obey the law?
A: Heaven on earth. Everyone will be happy because of freedom, justice, and the richness of the wealth or labor that stems from them.
(Melvin Richter, A Study of the History of Political and Social Concepts, translated by Zhang Zhi, East China Normal University Press, 2010, pp. 164-165)
Indeed, in the eighteenth century, no matter which country the Enlightenment took place, it was all running through this purpose, thinking about the characteristics of man, the rights and happiness of man, which can be said to be the characteristic of the Enlightenment in Europe as a whole in the eighteenth century. As Roy Potter said, people used to say, how I can be redeemed, but now it's talking about how I can be happy. Here, it can be summarized by the enlightenment thinker Condorcet, who believes that man should be regarded as the object of thinking and study, and the human condition as the object of cognition; Apply the scientific method to this new object of study; And to establish a science of man like applied science, the purpose of which is to realize human rights and promote human happiness. It can be said that these thinkers, with the ideal of human progress, passionately call for the need to improve the human condition, the human condition, to realize the independence and autonomy of each individual, to ensure the rights of each individual, to realize the value of each person, and to enable them to live a dignified and prosperous life. Achieve, as Smith put it, "prosperity and freedom," or "civilization and prosperity." In short, we must make everyone happy and achieve human progress. Therefore, the destruction of royal power, privileges and theocracy, the change of existing institutional arrangements, the reconstruction of the operating rules of society, and the pursuit and realization of human rights were the main contents of the Enlightenment, the inner spirit of the Enlightenment, and also the spirit of the times in the eighteenth century. In this regard, a group of British thinkers at that time always said that the sun of freedom has risen, this is an era of enlightenment, this is a country of freedom and enlightenment. Therefore, whether or not it has undergone "enlightenment" naturally becomes a marker for judging a country's move towards the modern world. Because of this, from a chronological point of view, the English Enlightenment, which began in the seventeenth century and continued until the eighteenth century, led England to create the modern world, showing a model for those who came after it, and establishing a model. In this sense, the title of Roy Potter's book truly reflects this historical process.
When Kant was asked if humanity had entered the Age of Enlightenment, an age of true enlightenment, he replied, "No, but an age of enlightenment." Today, looking back at the history of the Enlightenment, revisiting the discourse expressions of the Enlightenment thinkers, flipping through the various research results of the academic community, and witnessing the various dilemmas of reality, we naturally inspire us to ask again, have we entered the era of enlightenment? Is the Spirit of Enlightenment still needed? Here, I very much agree with Roy Potter that the Enlightenment, while it helped people to break free from the past, did not put an end to the shackles that the future would impose on humanity. We are still trying to solve the problems that arose in industrial societies such as modernization and urbanization promoted by the Enlightenment. In the course of our efforts, we are bound to make great use of the techniques of social analysis, the values of humanism, and the scientific skills created by philosophers. Today we still need the nourishment of the Enlightenment. (Roy Porter: The Enlightenment Movement, translated by Yin Hong, Peking University Press, 2018, p. 120) It can be said that the spirit of enlightenment should be kept alive and the spirit of enlightenment should be perpetuated, which is what Roy Porter called "Lasting Light." Indeed, while "the Enlightenment belongs to the past, it cannot be 'past' because it ultimately points no further to a doctrine of historical positioning, but to an attitude toward the world" (Zvetan Todorov: The Spirit of Enlightenment, translated by Ma Lihong, East China Normal University Press, 2012, p. 159).
Moreover, once we understand the core of the Enlightenment as the "science of man", then naturally we will establish such a cognition and conception, and no one can put him in a state of slavery for the sake of any external illusory strength and glory, even the so-called "great deeds" of the individual, without any regard for human dignity, human rights and human happiness. Just as Roy Porter in this book proceeds from the "Long 18th Century Enlightenment", including the ideas of the seventeenth-century British thinker Locke in the Enlightenment, regarding Locke as the "father of the Enlightenment", and highly praising Locke's thought, believing that Locke insisted on opposing the arbitrary rule of the rulers, ensuring individual freedom, and creatively listing "life, liberty and property" as a list of human rights. Here, it may be interesting to revisit such a passage from Locke. Locke argues in the chapter "On Slavery" in The Treatise on Government that human freedom is "freedom which can be done according to my own will, and not subject to the capricious, pre-unknown, and arbitrary will of another." No one agrees to "leave oneself into slavery by anyone or to be placed under the absolute, arbitrary power of others and let them take their lives". This means that everyone will never give "the power to control his own life to another person." If someone is in this "unfree condition or in this position", he is undoubtedly "enslaved", and it is no different from a slave.
Standing in the current world, flipping through this masterpiece of studying the "Enlightenment" seems to bring us back to the historical time when ideas were rushing, and here, if we try to imitate Kant's dialogue on the "Enlightenment" to ask, have we entered the era of enlightenment? I think Kant will surely answer as he did then: no, but an era of urgent need for "enlightenment" in need.
Editor-in-Charge: Yu Shujuan