The Enlightenment

And Why It Still Matters

By: Anthony Pagden

Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld

Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's Summary

One of our most renowned and brilliant historians takes a fresh look at the revolutionary intellectual movement that laid the foundation for the modern world. Liberty and equality. Human rights. Freedom of thought and expression. Belief in reason and progress. The value of scientific inquiry. These are just some of the ideas that were conceived and developed during the Enlightenment, and which changed forever the intellectual landscape of the Western world. Spanning hundreds of years of history, Anthony Pagden traces the origins of this seminal movement, showing how Enlightenment concepts directly influenced modern culture, making possible a secular, tolerant, and, above all, cosmopolitan world. Everyone can agree on its impact. But in the end, just what was Enlightenment? A cohesive philosophical project? A discrete time period in the life of the mind when the superstitions of the past were overthrown and reason and equality came to the fore? Or an open-ended intellectual process, a way of looking at the world and the human condition, that continued long after the eighteenth century ended?

A clear and compelling explanation of the philosophical underpinnings of the modern world, The Enlightenment is a scintillating portrait of a period, a critical moment in history, and a revolution in thought that continues to this day.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2013 Anthony Pagden (P)2013 Audible Inc.

How they thought about thinking about nature

The book it's not a book on the history or the philosophy of the enlightenment age, but, rather, a chronicle on how they thought about thinking about science and the science of man.

He characterizes the Enlightenment by it's "dynamic and cosmopolitan" approach to thinking. The dynamic approach rejected knowledge based only on tradition, authority, revelation, or pretending to know things that weren't really known, and the cosmopolitan approach made the thinkers base there beliefs on logic, empirical, and analytical methods (when they were at their best which was not always!). Their method of thought is a guidebook for critical reasoning and is still completely relevant to today's times.

He starts the enlightenment age with Hobbs and says that most of the rest of the century is spent humanizing Hobbs and putting his thought into the Stoic, Epicurean or the Skeptical camp. Mostly this is in the first third of the book when he is talking about philosophy and natural philosophy (science).

Everybody needs to read at least one book on this time period, and this probably is the best book available on audible to introduce the topic. The author is probably not a philosopher or a pure historian and therefore, writes an accessible and easy to follow book for the listener to be able to follow the dialog of the the "Enlightenment Project" and presents the ideas of the time period by looking at a topic as if it were one long conversations between enlightenment thinkers.

He looks at one topic, takes one or two of the great thinkers of the topic and covers that topic in depth and than adds what others during that period thought about that period of time. He'll spend two hours on Tahiti and he'll tell you why it was so important at that time period.

I read a lot books on science and they often point me to the importance of The Enlightenment Age. This book tells me why that period of time was so important and is still relevant to today and how we should approach critical reasoning today. There doesn't seem to be that many good books on audible on this period of time and this one is probably the best overview of the time period.

A thorough political tract rather than history

The expectation with which you come to a book can often colour how you judge a book in the end. With 'The Enlightenment - And Why it Still Matters' I expected a piece of objective history writing. If you have the same expectation you might be disappointed as Prof Anthony Pagden who specialises in Political Science and History has very clear cut ideas about the Enlightenment.

Prof Pagden is a heavy-weight in his field and speaks with authority of what he knows... but it seems more as a Political Scientist than as a Historian. That said his facts seems to be impeccable. His tract gives a positive evaluation of the 'Enlightenment' by introducing the major thought leaders of its time as well as their thoughts. By doing so he successfully explains the phenomena that lead to the modern world. The book is often very informative. But it seems that Padgen purposefully ignores the dark side of the Enlightenment, maybe because of the negative way it impacted on religion in the West and because he shares this negative inclination towards it.

Pairing Pagden's book with the voice of Robert Blumenfeld (who also read 'Jurgen' under the "Neil Gaiman presents" label) might not have been the best match. I found Blumenfeld very difficult to follow. He has a rushing quality in his reading. Furthermore he is not consistent in his pronunciation of Latin, while his German and French pronunciation are excellent. Yet he is not one of my favourite interpretative readers.

It is a solid book, but biased... It is difficult at some times to follow. Yet Padgen has written a tract that do not only introduce you to the Enlightenment, it is sure to produce proper debate.

Decent

First, it was read way way way too fast. Before you even begin, turn it down to 80-85% speed. That pretty much fixes the problem. Then, the actual content is decent. He starts over at the beginning of the enlightenment in every chapter and goes through how another theme developed. It was pretty cool. Near the end he goes off a little bit on some post-modern kick, which was whatever. Overall, it was pretty good, I do think it was worth it. I also think this should not be the only book on the enlightenment and how/why it happened that you listen to or read, especially if you're really interested in the topic.

Very very good

All things considered, this was one of my favorite books to have read. Given that, when googling several catchy enlightenment insights from this book, I found no other matches besides this book—I think that this book is incredibly unique in capturing the body of enlightenment thinking. The author also has a good mind for traversing the big thinkers and giving the reader a sense of their respective contributions, without starting from obnoxiously simple first principles or without sounding too scholarly.

I suspect that this isn’t a book for someone seeking a doctorate in philosophy, but for someone like me who has a passing familiarity with the big enlightenment thinkers, this was an excellent resource that saved me the time of reading numerous original sources.

Consistent with some other critiques, the book is comparably light on the “why it still matters” part of the book’s title. However, I disagree with other critiques that say that the book never broaches this question—it does—it just doesn’t provide a particularly “hot take”, if you will, and doesn’t substantiate why it needs to asset its proposition that the enlightenment STILL matters. Paradoxically, the first 90% of the book does such a stellar job of convincing the reader that the enlightenment DOES matter, that when the author makes a defense of his proposition, it falls somewhat flat because the reader already agrees with the author—so—it is unclear who the author is arguing against.

In any event, I did not purchase this book for a defense of why the enlightenment still matters. I just wanted to learn more about the enlightenment, and hopefully, “enlightenment” myself at bit. And for this purpose, this book is absolutely wonderful and deserves very high praise.

Fruits of the Enlightenment

The author reminds us that the Enlightenment made possible pluralism, modernity, and democracy as we have managed to achieve thus far, while reminding us that the work goes on, and suggesting how much worse we could have been without it. Recommended.

Lacks the Promised "Why"

What would have made The Enlightenment better?

I wanted a book that answered the question "Why is this relevant?" or, more to my purpose, "How did The Enlightenment become Humanism?" Obviously you can't answer that without talking about what The Enlightenment IS, who contributed to it, what they thought and so on and so on. So I waded through all the "so on" but never got to the payoff. He could have made it much better by fulfilling the promise in the title: "And why it still matters." Or by leaving that part off the title (I only bought it for that part so I wouldn't have bought it -- the best book is the book you don't read that you wouldn't have liked).

Would you ever listen to anything by Anthony Pagden again?

I might but I will read all the reviews first. But doing a lot of research before reading a non-fiction book sounds like a lot more work than I want. So probably not.

What three words best describe Robert Blumenfeld’s performance?

Very Proper English

Good information but heavy at times

Great discussion of racial and religious issue's in the enlightenment
It gets heavy at times discussing philosophical issues of little current interest.

Great overview with a couple concerns

This is a great overview of the history of the enlightenment focusing on 3-5 major themes of the movement and who/how/why they came to be. Phenomenal performance by the narrator. A little too granular at times... But still very informative.

That being said, I don't know if its an issue with the text, the performance or my download.... But I felt like some passages were repeated multiple times and felt a little redundant.

Good information, Confusing Organization

Although I really enjoyed the content provided by this book, I had a difficult time following its organization. It seemed to jump from one philosopher to another and back in a way that only made vague thematic sense. Still, if what you are expecting is just more info on some major thinkers of the 18th century you'll appreciate it.

Dry but very informative for those with interest

Where does The Enlightenment rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Its is one of the more informative books I have listened to. Since I got into politics, I wanted to read a book that was about where mine all began. The enlightenment was a very interesting period with many important figures to learn about.

What did you like best about this story?

Its not a story so much as it is a bunch of sections telling you about the zeitgeist, figures and ideas that rose during the time period.

Which scene was your favorite?

I am a huge fan of Thomas Jefferson and Voltaire so those sections were my favorite.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

NOOOO waaaaaaaaay too long and had too much information for one sitting.

Worth every penny.

Fantastic!
I enjoyed Every Minute of this outstanding work. The reading and presentation are simply breathtaking. Kept me totally enthralled from beginning to end. The work itself is so rewarding. I am not educated in any philosophy but found this book very intelligible and the Big Ideas presented very easy to follow and understand. I've started listening to it again and I am finding it just as exciting. On a second listening I have noticed many subtleties and nuances that on my first listening I did not pay attention too.
Anyone who wants to know how and why we live in this particular modern world and the ideas that have helped to shape it, should start here. I think you will not be disappointed. I would have given it many more stars but only five were offered