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Notes from the
Sixth Meeting: Reconsidering the Universalist Message
of the Enlightenment - 4 April 1998
Section
1 | Section
2 | Section
3 | Section
4
Foreword
To
continue its work on the moral and spiritual dimensions
of social progress, the Triglav Circle met for its 6'
time on 4 April 1998. This gathering took place at the
Harvard Faculty Club and was hosted by the Harvard-Yenching
Institute. Thirty-seven persons reflecting diverse political
orientations, cultures and occupations considered how
ideas on moral values and spirit of humanity could further
debates on the humane organization and sustainable progress
of societies.
The
discussion focused on the globalized ideology of western
liberalism and its application of concepts articulated
in the 17' and 18" century writings of Enlightenment
philosophers. Using insights from different philosophical
and religious traditions, the participants considered
concepts that would give more emphasis to non material
dimensions of life in order to enrich the prevailing
liberal political ideology. The Circle also gave attention
to public intellectuals as critics of the spirit of
the time and to institutions for a universal society.
The
following notes were derived from the rich discussions
that took place and from the background papers that
were prepared for the meeting. The notes were written
by Barbara Baudot Coordinator of the Circle. Bethany
Wilson, assistant to the Assistant Director of the Institute
of Politics, J.F. Kennedy School of Public Administration,
offered valuable editorial assistance in compiling the
material for the notes.
Added
to the notes are the agenda for the meeting and the
list of participants. The fist of participants is necessary
to identify the authors of direct quotations cited in
the text only by first and last initials.
Special
appreciation is extended to Professor John Kenneth Galbraith
for participating in the meeting. His comments to the
Circle are presented as a discrete section in the context
of the notes. The Triglav Circle also thanks the Harvard-Yenching
Institute and its students for their contribution to
this meeting.
Reconsidering
the Universalist Message of the Enlightenment
Despite
the veil of ignorance that may impair their vision and
the professional loyalty that may compromise their impartiality,
public intellectuals are constantly guided by what the
best of the liberal arts education can offer: a common
sense rooted in the spirit of selflessness. —
Tu Weiming
I.
Introduction
Global liberalism embodies contemporary concepts of
rationality and progress, individualism and human rights
whose early philosophical articulations are traced to
the writings of western Enlightenment philosophers in
the 17th and 18th centuries. This doctrine determines
a global ethos of modernity used as a universal criteria
for assessing human progress. Its instruments are global
capitalism, economic gain as a yardstick of human progress,
and promotion of the rights of the individual. The global
success of the American culture testifies to the immense
attractiveness of global liberalism. It is this contemporary
avatar of the universalist message of the Enlightenment
that occupied the attention of the Triglav Circle on
4 April, 1998.
For
its critics, this ethos of modernity is dominated by
a culture of self-interest, the emergence of market
societies and excessive materialism. Questions about
the moral basis of these phenomena and about broadening
the intellectual scope of the modernity ethos are attracting
increasing attention in Cambridge, Paris, and in many
other academic centers in the world. Such questions
are raised:
How
will society be able to understand distributive justice
when it is totally committed to the importance of liberty?
How can the emphasis on rationality leave room for other
important values such as compassion and empathy, especially
for the marginalized, the poor, and for the otherwise
under privileged? How could a culture obsessed with
individual rights address correctly issues of responsibility
and duty? These issues should be of particular relevance
to the affluent and to those who have easy access to
information and power.
The
discussion of the Circle concerned the following topics:
•
The legacy of Enlightenments
• Facets of progress and change since the 18th
century
• Religious and non-European sources of Enlightenment
• Enriching the dimensions of contemporary political
and economic thinking
• Institutions to govern a global culture
• Virtues and responsibilities of the public intellectual
• Valuing a diversity of cultures
• Marking paths to the future
II.
The Legacy of Enlightenments
Though diverse in their components and orientations,
the intellectual movements flourishing in France, the
United Kingdom, and Germany in the 17th and 18th century
are generically referred to as the Enlightenment. From
John Locke to Montesquieu and Voltaire, and from David
Hume to Adam Smith, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Emmanuel
Kant, the philosophers of the Enlightenment believed
that human beings were naturally endowed with the faculty
of Reason, which, when properly cultivated through the
acquisition of knowledge, would guide them toward happiness
and self-realization. Societies ruled by reason would
be harmonious, and prosperous, because Law, rather than
the arbitrary power of monarchs deriving their legitimacy
from God, would regulate social mores, economics, and
politics. Amazed by the discoveries of Newton and other
prominent thinkers, the European gentlemen of the 18th
century saw no limits to human progress. They were convinced
that, after centuries of fear, prejudice, and ignorance,
human beings would be able to take possession of themselves,
of their destiny, and of the natural world in which
they lived.
While
there are great variances in the writings of Enlightenment
thinkers concerning the moral quality of human nature,
the existence of a super human power or deity, the relevance
of history and views on political theory, there are
certain ideas shared by virtually all the Enlightenment
fathers that formed the foundation of what is commonly
called "the legacy of the European Enlightenment."
These ideas are the following:
Faith
in reason defined as a logically connected structure
of laws and generalizations susceptible to demonstration
or verification and capable of reaching the truth in
all domains of human inquiry.
Conviction that nature or the world is a single whole,
subject to this structure of laws discoverable by human
intelligence. The laws governing inanimate matter are
in principle the same as those which govern plants,
animals, and sentient beings.
Belief
that these general laws could become the foundations
of a rational, happy, just, and self-perpetuating human
society.
Conviction
that human nature is fundamentally the same in all times
and places and that all human beings are capable of
improvement and of possessing virtue.
View
that the attainment of universal human goals, such as
the search for happiness and liberty, would bring about
social harmony and progress through the power of the
logically and empirically guided intellect.
Assertion
that human misery, vice, and folly are mainly due to
ignorance defined as insufficient knowledge of the laws
of nature.
These ideas provided the intellectual foundations for
social revolutions that took place in the 17th and 18th
centuries first in England, then in America and France,
and later in Germany, Italy, and Russia.
Although
the Enlightenment is commonly understood to be a uniquely
western phenomenon, it has not been the privilege of
one culture. Even before the Western European Enlightenment,
a comparable intellectual awakening or revival had occurred
in the Middle East and in China. In Japan, Enlightenment
occurred independently but simultaneously with western
Europe. In a global society it is important to recognize
the different revelations of reason.
The
period of Enlightenment in the Muslim world occurred
between the 9th and 13th centuries, corresponding to
the Dark Ages in western Europe. Comparison of the western
and Islamic perspectives on Enlightenment is complicated
by the different historical time periods in which these
movements took place. During the Middle Eastern Enlightenment,
scientist/philosophers and some moralists grappled with
the scientific and technological discoveries of that
epoch,
giving at the same time thought to the issues that these
would raise for humanity and for a monotheistic society.
The influence of poetry, reason and revelation, and
the coming to grips with the relationship between the
secular and the religious were facilitated by proximity
to Greece and concomitant access to the classic texts.
Some Muslims claim that the European Renaissance would
not have happened without those texts and interpretations.
Because
of other historical circumstances, including invasions
resulting in destruction of urban centers where intellectual
renaissances occurred, and other external and internal
political problems, the Islamic world slipped into a
dark age just as Europe was enjoying the full day of
its Enlightenment. In subsequent years, the Ottoman
Empire borrowed heavily from European intellectual thought.
Today, aside from the fundamentalist movement, many
segments of society in the Middle East and the wider
Islamic world are bound in significant measure through
the heritage of European colonialism to western principles
and values. The reality of today's Muslim world is that
it is emerging out of a post-colonial period with all
the associated problems. Most Muslim societies, whether
they are in India or Pakistan or the Middle East or
other parts of the world, technically belong to the
Third World. They are poor societies seeking improvements
in the living conditions of people. In that respect,
they are accepting unquestioningly western ideas on
the virtues of technologies and market principles. The
questioning of the premises of the western Enlightenment
is to a large extent a privilege of the affluent.
On
the other side of the Eurasian continent, William McNeil,
the world historian, often situates modernity rising
from Sung China in the 10th to the 12th centuries. The
synthesis that came about in that period of Chinese
civilization was based on a highly integrated political
and metaphysical thought of neo-Confucianism. It was
a synthesis of metaphysical, cosmological, and political
ideas, including social equity, embedded in a new coherent
framework. This new intellectual movement occurred within
the context of a highly sophisticated economic system
based on the market, the building of the Silk Road,
and a period of flourishing multiculturalism. Urbanization
was commonplace. It is later in the Ming Dynasty, after
the Chinese had already developed the compass and printing
and other things which influenced the Middle East and
Renaissance in Europe, that there was a self conscious
decision in China to limit expansionism to take care
of what was needed in the Empire.
During
Japan's Edo era in the 17th and 18th centuries, a form
of Enlightenment was unfolding. The thinking is notably
embodied in a philological interpretation of the classical
Japanese text of Mabuchi Kamo. Philosophical thinking,
however, was divorced from material scientific progress
even though such advances were occurring independently
of European influence [with the exception of some exchanges
with Dutch scientists from whom were obtained texts
in the fields of medicine and natural science]. Science
or knowledge, reason, and rationality were conceptualized
as spiritual phenomena, but not as they had been in
earlier epochs when they were thought to be controlled
by supernatural and enigmatic forces. Other philosophers
in the Edo era, for example, Lanshoi Goi, however, took
on a more empirical approach in writing a book criticizing
Shintoism and denying a spiritual dimension to life.
The
Japanese Enlightenment generally brought relief from
Shinto, Buddhist, and Confucian forms of control but
did not introduce the concept of individual rights as
they were conceived in the west. While social movements
were occurring at that time, for example, protests against
taxes and poverty, the Enlightenment writings did not
give rise to social revolutionary ideas. However, some
strains of this eastern Enlightenment were linked to
Japanese humanism wherein equality between men and women
was found to be important in the minds of at least a
few prominent thinkers. Education was highly prized.
In this era there were many schools for the young, literacy
was very high, and Encyclopedias were even produced
for common people.
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