 Modern science, medicine, political freedom, the market economy, all of them were told are the result of a sort of miracle that took place 250 years ago. That miracle is called the Enlightenment. All right. You didn't even make it to 30 seconds. No, I can't. This is how it's going to be, guys. And unfortunately, I think pinker uses the term miracle in and a lot of what we're going to hear today is kind of a response to Pinkers Enlightenment now book. But pinker doesn't take miracle seriously as Hosoni tries to imply in this is kind of coming out of nowhere. He does give the historical context for this. But nobody actually believes that the Enlightenment is just. Yeah, I mean he goes on in this video. The miracle is calling like a moment in history as though it's again just this one split second 30 years ago or a couple of years and that's a straw man who argues for that. That to actual Enlightenment thinkers, people like Dylan bear the encyclopedists, they're very historical they're seeing this is a progression that's been developing bacon with a progenitor of it and people before that and they all see this as something, a light that's been dawning over civilization for hundreds of years and they see themselves as out of kind of cresting time in it, but not, you know, it came out of the blue. He's going to go on in a few seconds to quote Pinker, and the quote is going to be progress is the gift of the ideals of the Enlightenment. And that's not the same thing as calling it a miracle that it's a gift of the ideals that were embraced it doesn't mean those ideals don't have any precursors. But that the Enlightenment's a period when the ideals of reason and political freedom are embraced and it's that those two things above all else that produces the progress that we all enjoy today that is a gift of those thinkers who champion those ideals so it's not putting in the category of what he quotes and there's a lot of that like there's no evidence for a lot of the things that he presents and this is there's no reason to think it's a miracle that that that's what Pinkers argue. No and I read Pinker's book he talks about he talks about the development of secular humanism in the Renaissance and he talks about the importance of scientific revolution to the Enlightenment how it couldn't have come about without scientific revolution. And so, you know, I don't know that Pinker does complete justice to the precursors of the Enlightenment he probably doesn't that's not his job that's not what he's trying to do in the book, but he certainly doesn't view it as coming out of nowhere is this this. Now he does view it and there's a sense in which it's a miracle. I mean not really but there's a sense in which. Wow. I mean all these amazing thinkers all at once doing this amazing work coming up with these amazing ideas and look at the consequences. That sense of wonder, I think is what Pinker would use the word miracle for it is in wonder. Wow isn't this amazing, rather than as unexplained coming out of no way starting point. It's a fantastic kind of synergy of that happens when good ideas catch on right we've been partial good ideas catch on. And that's what we're all trying to make there be more of in the world. And from that perspective it really is. So you can use miracle in that sense that it's wondrous but not inexplicable. And I mean what we're doing now the three of us talking in different geographical locations and watching a fourth video from some. They couldn't have even dreamt that people would be doing this in 200 300 years and in that sense it is miraculous and streaming it on three different platforms getting live comments from people it truly is amazing. All right, let's I'll try to hold off and more than 16 seconds and more than 16 seconds. A moment in history and philosophers suddenly overthrew religious dogma and tradition and replaced it with human reason. Harvard professor Stephen Pinker puts it this way. Progress is a gift of the ideals of the Enlightenment. There's just one problem with this claim. It isn't really true. Consider the US Constitution, which is frequently said to be a product of Enlightenment thought. But you only need to read about English common law, which Alexander Hamilton and James Madison certainly did to see that this isn't so. And this is such a strong man. Right. I mean, English common law was already significantly influenced by Renaissance and Enlightenment thought and maybe we should talk about the a little bit about the origins of the Enlightenment and different views of it and ran view of it. But there are all kinds of influences on the Constitution that are claimed by different people, some of them plausibly from like a certain Iroquois documents that Ben Franklin like to this and France and that and England and especially the British constantly English Constitution. And these things are all real influences, but part of what a philosophy of reason is about is about integrating and finding the best material from different sources critically evaluating it thinking of how to put it together. And not going by it because it's traditional. And that this is the idea of reason is overthrowing tradition. It's not saying nothing from the past is any good. It's overthrowing the idea that we should follow it because it's the past, because it's venerable because it's old, we have to think about it consider it keep what's good get rid of what's bad. And of course there's good stuff in English common law and lots of other places that they're going to keep, or stuff that they think is good some of it wasn't but they thought it was and some of it was really good. And it's, it's way under playing what the achievement was so if you say that the Constitution was an achievement of enlightenment thought, or the creation I think better the creation of the United States of America is the product of the enlightenment. It's the creation of a new country it's not just thinking, you know, it would be better if we had a government that had a little more checks and balances not this absolute power. It's, and this goes back to Pinker is putting it as an ideal, they're thinking of it as this is what we're striving for, and this is what we're going to work in action to create and having a whole vision for that, and then taking all the steps to create the actual government that's the achievement, and you don't get that in any other era and nothing similar to it that we're going to rethink government from the ground up and create a new government based on these principles that we've articulated. And they never claim we've come up with every principle that's embedded in this, but it's rather we've done something that is unprecedented and that they're right. And it's such a breaking with tradition so the idea that what they're doing is looking back, and they really used to do that so that's what we're going to do. It's that is not at all proper view of what the founding fathers of America are doing. Already in the 15th century, the English jurist, John Fortescue, elaborated the theory of checks and balances due process and the role of private property in securing individual freedom and economic prosperity. Similarly, the US Bill of Rights has its sources in English common law of the 1600s, or consider modern science and medicine. Long before the Enlightenment, tradition bound English King sponsored pathbreaking scientific institutions such as the Royal College of Physicians founded in 1518 and the Royal Society of London founded in 1660. The truth is that statesmen and philosophers, especially in England and the Netherlands, articulated the principles of free government centuries before America was founded. I mean, this strikes me as, you know, a historical in a sense of a that they articulated to the extent that a lock and then the founders articulated in that's a kind of integrated way, and be that it was taken seriously. There's a reason why I mean there might have been some scholar a long time ago came up with a good idea, and then a culture ignored it so he's ignoring the culture of the Enlightenment, a culture that was created by these thinking by these thinkers as well. Yeah, I mean I would say it's, I would put it way stronger than it's a historical, it's completely wrong that so and no and there's, I think here you start seeing the slanting you put it if you know his views about nationalism, conservatism, religion, you could predict what's going to be in this video. What's absent, I think it's worth thinking about what's absent there's no mention of greaser Rome. And I think the basic reason is because we can't ascribe that to Christianity or Judeo Christian tradition. So I don't want. But if you ask who did the founding fathers study so they certainly studied the English tradition English common law. They were experts in knowledge of Rome, and Greece and Rome's political history and drawing on that. And that's a far greater achievement than anything in the medieval period if we're thinking politically, and they knew that and that was their view so to. So, and this is the sense the issue that obviously this had precursors the founding fathers were students of history. And they said they took all kinds of lessons from history positive and negative, but it's fascinated now into a new ideal of political freedom and of rights that you get really with lock as articulating it as a full ideal, and that government should be based on this. And that's what they're trying to put into practice. So it has a history, but it also has many novelties. And that's what the enlightenment political achievement is. And also, what are we contrasting the enlightenment with. If we're saying oh there was this stuff in 1600 like the Royal Society is the contrast, which is a clear precursor to it. So the enlightenment is part of a process and it's seen by the enlightenment intellectual, again by the people who are later in this period and reflecting on what it is. And the obvious touch zone here is the encyclopedist, and particularly the there was a dark ages there was a period where people were ignorant they didn't know anything there had been Roman Greece and a flowering of learning and all of that was thrown away by Hassani's ilk these religionist anti intellectual bastards right and then there's a period where this is being rediscovered and it takes hundreds of years for it to filter out and and the the enlightenment figures think about this it was the Renaissance. There's a rebirth of knowledge. There's a period where people are studying up on the classics, but doing so in in two slavish away so there's a rebirth of science but it's a kind of science where we're timidly following Aristotle or and not thinking about, you know, how we might differ from them. And then you get figures like bacon, saying, no, we've got a what the right lesson from the Greeks is to think about their methodology and how do you prove things from the census. And what is the nature and standards of evidence we need a new organ and you get a scientific revolution you get Galileo you get all of these people you get the Royal Society is an organ for the kind of addition of information between these people as part of a process of enlightenment. And although the scientific revolution and bacon are considered Renaissance thinkers, they're seen as kind of patron saints to speak of this developing movement. And now you get after there's a scientific revolution after there's a Newton or being the period when Newton's writing a kind of graph now we're really onto something. And you get in the kind of high enlightenment the 18th century. The idea of this is now catching fire culture wide and Leonard Peacup has a really great quote about what's special about the enlightenment. It's the first time in modern history, modern as opposed to ancient right the first time in modern history, when an authentic respect for reason became the mark of an entire culture. That's what's special here, but it happens as a process, and the Royal Society and some of the things are part of that process. The contrast is before that process was going. When people were prostrating themselves before God, thinking that reason is the harlot of the senses which is a protesting quote but never got relevant here. Because we can talk about the role of the reformation of it. And, you know, did this kind of anti reason anti man anti happiness worldview that had crippled Europe for 1000 millennia basically. So why give the enlightenment all the credit apparently because it doesn't look good to admit that the best and most important parts of modernity were given to us by individuals who nearly all held conservative religious and political beliefs. So here's the cash in right this is this is the goal ultimately is to bolster the idea that that all the good stuff ultimately comes from religion and tradition. And religionists people who are going to tinker just a little bit on the margins and would never pledge their life. Fortran and sacred honor to the cause of defeating the most powerful government in the world. And it's a, it's an example of the of slanting and of weasel kind of formulation so it's, it gives the enlightenment, all the credit. Everything hinges on the all that it's it's that's the it's goes back to activating the miracle like it's came out of the blue and it dessert there was no precursor to it no history. But if you take seriously that it's coming out of the Renaissance and I think Rand's view which I agree with that the enlightenment is Aristotelian. So if you think of the great battle and philosophy between Plato and Aristotle Christianity was when Plato is dominant and from the Renaissance on its Aristotle is coming back on the scene and even though the many of the others, because Aristotle was sort of incorporated into the church saw themselves as rebelling against it. It's in the deepest sense in their methodology. And in the non skepticism that so that you can both use your senses in your mind and you have to use both if what you really as after his knowledge, which is what the enlightenment is about that is all Aristotelian. That it just, it's all, as he puts it all the credit belongs to the enlightenment that nobody I think it no real student of the enlightenment thinks that the claim that all good things come from the enlightenment is most closely associated with the late 18th century German philosopher Emanuel Kant for Kant reason is universal infallible and independent of experience. His extraordinarily dogmatic philosophy insisted that there can be only one correct answer to every question in science morality and politics and that to reach the one correct answer mankind had to free itself from the chains of the past. He almost makes Kant sound good. There is one correct answer to every question in those fields. We don't always know it but I mean, there are, you know, provisional answers on the what does it mean to say there's not one correct answer to questions and morality or politics or science. Like that there either are aren't atoms which one is it. It is either either is not right to enslave people which one is it. And that is not a distinctive or radical view of cons that there's one answer it was I mean, did the Christian philosophers not think there was one right answer to things. They thought there was he just had to destroy your mind or subvert it to get it. And there's such package deals going on. I think the looking at the conservative perspective is interesting for what gets packaged together. It's so it's breaking free of the chains of the past history tradition and experience. They don't belong together into one. So it's not true that they were breaking free of history in the sense of ignoring history. As we talked about there. It's incredible study of history to learn positive and negative lessons and not to repeat the negative. And in that sense, there is no worship of tradition. They're interested in history, not traditions. To learn from history what you can learn positive and negative and then experience is if he's going to go on to the view that I mean this is part of what why the enlightenment is incomplete or it's just a partial success. We have this view of reason that is pulling apart that it's either you deal with abstract theory concepts and you don't engage in observation in sensory experience, or you have observation but you can't have any grand theorizing and so on. And his experience is using that and experience like experience of the past, which is why he puts it into that you're right, which is itself a package so you can't think with like if these are your categories that you just throw out as though you know what you're talking about you can't think with these. Now is it even true with regard to content he said all good things came from the enlightenment and that he abandoned he ejected tradition. It's not true that I don't know any time places had all good things come from the enlightenment. I don't know every word that I wrote, but I can't imagine him saying that. I mean, he was a political, kind of pretty moderate political liberal of his time so he was, you know, he was in favor of the American, well, the little ambiguous if you use the American revolution actually but generally pro. So, but he was not a kind of, I mean he was pro the Prussian, you know, state and he wasn't a firebrand burn it all down. But what he does say in the essay what is enlightenment is that what enlightenment is about is kind of growing up intellectually. The culture is growing up intellectually and therefore standing on its own two feet intellectually rather than being tradition bound hide bound accepting things because they're true using your own reason and just, you know, taking out of context understood that way. That's true I think and he can't write about that his view of what it is to reason for yourself and what yourself is and what reasoning is is very different from mine and very different from the majority of the enlightenment figures. And I think he represents a kind of distorting and perverting of it and a carrying on from Rousseau which we can talk about. Yeah. Well, so he doesn't think reasons infallible I don't know where that comes from. So, and it's a major, I mean I think part of the that we're now that contests the end of the enlightenment, it's that it's cementing home that reason is independent of experience hit and that here means sensory experience sense perception. And you get the view of it's he's on the one hand supposedly pro science but science doesn't tell you about true reality. And it's, it's the voice of Plato in a different kind of form that I think is coming back with con and it's the end of the Aristotelian dominance in philosophy. And this thing that that, particularly when I mean pinker does this and as any starts lining up these figures either enlightenment to these are not enlightenment. One thing that's worth keeping in mind is, this isn't a club that people have like cards that they're members of and then it's very clear who's enlightenment and who's counter enlightenment. It's a broad intellectual movement. It's the fact that people are becoming educated and thinking and debating ideas on this implicit premise of the centrality of reason. And there are all sorts of huge disagreements among these people about basically everything, and about which ideas are the important ones where there are conflicts, and then how to resolve them and whether they can be resolved. I want to talk about enlightenment thought. It's not like there's one philosophy that's the philosophy of the enlightenment. There are debates and then trends and things emphasized among these within these debates. What we need today, what I called a new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think, meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason by the intellect, by feelings, wishes, wins or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist. So using the super chat and I noticed yesterday when I appealed for support for the show, many of you step forward and actually supported the show for the first time so I'll do it again maybe we'll get some more today. If you think what you're hearing, if you appreciate what I'm doing, then I appreciate your support. Those of you who don't yet support the show, please take this opportunity go to your own book show dot com slash support or go to subscribe star dot com your own book show. 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