The book The Philosophy of the Enlightenment aims to be less than a monographic study of the Enlightenment philosophy, and more than that at the same time: it is much less, because such a study must lay out the details in their abundance and meticulously trace the specific problems of Enlightenment philosophy in their origin and formation, a treatment fundamentally precluded by the form and intended purpose of this work. The book is composed of seven chapters.

Forms of Thought

In the first chapter, "Forms of Thought in the Age of Enlightenment," Cassirer links the form of thought in the eighteenth century to the development of the analytical spirit in France, the home and classical ground of analysis. "Descartes built his decisive reform and reshaping of philosophy on analysis. From the mid-seventeenth century, the spirit of Descartes became active in all fields; it dominated not only in philosophy but also in literature, ethics, political theory, state, and society, and even managed to penetrate theology and give it a new form." In philosophy, as in the history of the mind generally, protests arose against this influence; "Leibniz's philosophy developed into a new intellectual force, and in this philosophy, the world-picture not only took on a new content, but a new fundamental form and direction of thought also emerged. At first, it seemed as if Leibniz sought to continue Descartes' work and to unleash and develop the forces still dormant in it."

Nature and Natural Knowledge

In the second chapter, "Nature and Natural Knowledge in the Thought of Enlightenment Philosophy," Cassirer argues that it is not enough to merely observe the individual features that natural knowledge contributed to the content of the world-picture and through which it decisively reshaped this picture. According to him, the extent of this influence seems almost limitless, "yet the entire progressive force that emanated from natural knowledge is confined to that extent, for its decisive achievement was elsewhere; it lies not in the content that this knowledge made available to the human mind, but in the new function it assigned to this mind." He adds that knowledge of nature does not lead to penetrating the world of objects, but rather becomes the means by which the mind achieves its own self-knowledge, "thus beginning a process more important and more serious than merely increasing and expanding knowledge, which enabled the newly emerging natural science to enrich human knowledge."

Psychology and Epistemology

In the third chapter, "Psychology and Epistemology," Cassirer says that a distinctive feature of eighteenth-century thought is the close connection between the problem of nature and the problem of knowledge. The idea could not turn to the external world of objects without simultaneously turning back on itself, attempting to arrive at the truth of nature and its own truth. Knowledge was not used as a disinterested tool; the question of the justification for using this tool and its nature was constantly raised. He believes the question to be asked is: what kind of objects are suitable for our knowledge and can be determined by it? "The solution to this question lies only in a precise understanding of the specific nature of human perception, by measuring the scope of this perception, which means the entire area that belongs to it, and tracing its development from its primary elements to its highest forms. Accordingly, the critical problem reverts to a genetic one, because only the becoming of the human mind can provide us with a sufficient explanation of its nature. Hence, psychology was declared the basis for the critique of knowledge."

The Idea of Religion

In the fourth chapter, "The Idea of Religion," Cassirer rejects the claim that the Enlightenment was an irreligious and anti-faith era in its basic orientation, "because such an understanding of the Enlightenment risks ignoring its most important positive achievements. Doubt in itself cannot generate such achievements. The most powerful intellectual impulses of the Enlightenment are not found in its aversion to religion but in presenting new ideals for faith, and in the new form of religion it embodied. According to him, a fundamental and genuine creative feeling prevails in the Enlightenment: confidence in shaping and renewing the world. Such a renewal was demanded and expected from religion. He says: we should not let all the apparent opposition to religion we encounter in the Enlightenment obscure the fact that all intellectual problems in the Enlightenment were fused with religious problems, and that these religious problems were the most powerful permanent driver of intellectual problems."

The Conquest of the Historical World

In the fifth chapter, "The Conquest of the Historical World," Cassirer argues that Romanticism could not have gained its position and established itself without the help of Enlightenment philosophy. If Romanticism wanted to distance itself from Enlightenment philosophy, it would remain tied to it and methodologically committed to it permanently and most profoundly. In his view, it was the eighteenth century that posed the true philosophical question in this field, when it asked about the conditions of the possibility of history, just as it had previously asked about the conditions of the possibility of natural sciences. This century tried to outline the basic framework of these conditions, attempting to understand the meaning of history by striving for a clear and specific concept of it, and also to ascertain the relationship between the general and the particular, between idea and reality, between laws and facts, and to draw precise boundaries between these terms.

Law, State, and Society

In the sixth chapter, "Law, State, and Society," Cassirer discusses the idea of law and the principle of inalienable rights. In his view, one of the essential features of Enlightenment philosophy is that it always returned to the fundamental philosophical problems of humanity, despite its efforts to shatter old legal tablets and achieve a completely new intellectual existence. He also addresses the idea of the contract and the methods of social sciences, saying: "If we wish to understand the direction of sociology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and if we want to explain with complete clarity the new methodology that developed here, we must compare this development with the simultaneous development of logic and link them. Even if this link seems strange, it describes the basic intellectual trends of the historical period; since the Renaissance, a new form of logic can be clearly observed that was not content with merely categorizing and organizing available knowledge, but wanted to become an instrument of knowledge itself."

Fundamental Problems of Aesthetics

In the seventh chapter, "Fundamental Problems of Aesthetics," Cassirer says that the eighteenth century likes to call itself the "century of philosophy," but it also likes to call itself the "century of criticism." "Both names describe a single reality regarding this century; each seeks to describe the fundamental intellectual force from different aspects, the force that the era felt within itself as a living power to which it owed its decisive intellectual drives." According to Cassirer, one finds in all the major thinkers of this century that union between philosophy and aesthetic literary criticism. He writes: "There has always been a close relationship between the fundamental questions of systematic philosophy and the fundamental questions of literary criticism; since the renewal of the philosophical mind, that is, since the Renaissance which wanted to be a renaissance of arts and sciences, this relationship has led to a direct and vital mutual influence, a constant give and take between the two sides. But the Enlightenment took this relationship a step further, understanding the existing unity here in another, stricter sense. It did not view it merely as a causal unity, but as an original and essential unity between philosophy and criticism. It did not believe that philosophy and criticism were merely linked and harmonious in their direct effects, but it assumed and sought a unity of existence between them. From this idea and this demand for unity between them, systematic aesthetics arose."

• Author: Ernst Cassirer
• Translator: Ibrahim Abu Hashhash
• Publisher: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies
• Edition: 1
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Pages: 488
• Parts: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• ISBN: 9786144451908