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.Even thoughNietzsche was later explicit in rejecting his intellectual predecessors, they stillcontinued to influence his thinking, eventually as models of inadequacy againstwhich to contrast his own thought16.Before Nietzsche s time, Western Renaissance artists had already shifted theirattention away from the heavenly realm, to a general renewal and rebirth of interestin the dignity and inherent value of man.The move was reflected in the political,religious and social institutions of the period, particularly in the arts and inphilosophy.Typical was the architectural shift away from ornate Gothic cathedralswith spires pointing heavenwards, to a resurgence of interest in neoclassical forms;particularly the Roman arch (Hale, 1965) as a signifier of worldly humanism.Although the church maintained its patronage, the Renaissance had seen a growingtendency towards secularisation of musical production, with the focus onentertainment as much as worship (Wold & Cykler, 1985).The end of the 15th century had seen developments in printing technology and acorresponding erosion of the authority of medieval scholars and theologians.Thedominant intellectual movement of the Renaissance was humanism, a philosophythat emphasised the dignity and worth of the individual based on the idea thatpeople are rational beings with the capacity for truth and goodness.TheRenaissance saw a revival of Greek and Roman studies with a focus on sensoryrather than religious experience.17 The medieval religious view of the world wassupplanted by a mechanistic model as the physical sciences assumed a moredominant role in explaining the universe.Copernicus proposed the solar systemwith the Sun at the centre of the earth s revolution, challenging Ptolemy s model16As late as 1888, Nietzsche devotes a whole paper (with postscripts and epilogue) to his earlier Wagnerizing (CW: Preface), i.e.his devotion to the decadence and sickness inherent in  allmodern humaneness (ibid.) and epitomised by Wagner and Schopenhauer.17Nietzsche s first book (BT), published in 1872, echoed Renaissance calls to the classical period,celebrating the ancient Greek embrace of tragedy, valorising Dionysian revelry as a tonic forreligious conformity and Apollonian social graces.30THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND GERMAN IDEALISMwhich had prevailed as wisdom since the 2nd century (Distante, 2000), lending hisname to Kant s later critique of pure reason as a  Copernican Revolution.In the development of humanism and modernity, liberal thought promoted thedignity of humanity, incorporating the twin threads of freedom and equality.Therise of literacy, growing affluence, and the spread of publishing facilitated theemergence of a  secular intelligentsia (Porter, 1990) able to challenge the clergy sproprietary rights to power through knowledge.Nineteenth century Germanphilosophy was to a large extent underpinned by the Cartesian framework(Bracken, 1999), by Kant s metaphysics as a continuation of Enlightenmentphilosophy and the improvement of the human condition through reasoned thought(Ameriks, 1999).Through the work of such philosophers as Descartes and Kant,feudal allegiances, religious fundamentalism and the divine right of kings gaveway to the ideal of the rational human being as the basis for ethical responsibility.After centuries of Christian monotheism, it is not surprising that the individual person that evolved from the Cartesian cogito (through Kantian reason intomodernity) was an individuated entity.The rational  self is the subject ofmodernity and of Enlightenment thought, and so evolved as the focus for educationin Western society.Based on the idea of the reasoned will, the Kantian subject issupposedly capable of free choice and moral autonomy.ENLIGHTENMENT The Enlightenment is a term used to describe the trends in Western intellectualthought up to the end of the eighteenth century, typified by challenges to scriptureand the classics as traditional sources of authority, and a growing reliance onreason as the basis for knowledge  reason  unhampered by belief in revelation, bysubmission to authority, by deference to established customs and institutions(Copleston, 1958, p.34).The term  enlightenment is often used to signify anemergence from centuries of darkness and ignorance into a new age enlightened byreason and science.Kant, for example, depicted  enlightenment as the public useof reason, as freedom from religious or monarchial authority, and as overcoming laziness and cowardice as a means of release from  man s self-incurred tutelage :Tutelage is man s inability to make use of his understanding withoutdirection from another.Self incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies notin lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it withoutdirection from another.Sapere aude!18  Have courage to use your ownreason!  that is the motto of enlightenment (Kant, 1990, p.83).Although reason is often seen as a central value, many commentators (e.g.,Copleston, 1958; 1960; Hampson, 1968; Porter, 1990; Inwood, 1995; Marshall,1996a; Popkin, 1999) argue for a more expansive view of the Enlightenment.Theyhighlight values like autonomy, freedom, equality, curiosity and scepticism, andpolitical ideas like reform, citizenship and democracy.The broad picture includes18 Dare to be wise! The footnote in the 1990 edition notes the original source as Horace s Ars Poeticaand that this was the motto adopted by the society of the Friends of Truth  an important circle in theGerman Enlightenment.31CHAPTER 3themes as diverse as Kant s autonomy, Goethe s caution about the limits ofknowledge, Rousseau s attack on the idea of progress, and the location of moraldevelopment in personal relationships rather than abstract principles (à laRousseau and Hume).Rather than limiting the Enlightenment to themes such asthe progress of society and the liberation of human beings through their use ofreason, the Enlightenment might be conceptualised as broadly as a  defence ofdifference (Marshall, 1996a, p.175).Despite the slightly tongue-in-cheek conjecture that  the Enlightenment waswhat one thinks it was (Hampson, 1968, p.9), there was a view of humanity asfreeing itself from prejudice and superstition with a  beneficent Providence (ibid.,p.155) regulating the course of nature [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]