5 ms·
GLF was terrible, but the west shares a shame in throwing away our intellectual and cultural pursuits. There's an argument that a very long time ago, the islami
by friendlybus 7y ago
GLF was terrible, but the west shares a shame in throwing away our intellectual and cultural pursuits. There's an argument that a very long time ago, the islamic intellectual tradition preserved enlightenment values whilst we were off doing other things. I don't know the gritty details of the argument, so I'd be the first to say I'm wrong.
- philipov 7y agoI think you mean they preserved Greek and Roman knowledge, which was the basis of the Renaissance. The Enlightenment was a few hundred years later, and consisted of new ideas.
- barry-cotter 7y agoThey didn’t just preserve Greek and Roman knowledge. Averroes, Avicenna, the Mutazilites, al-Razi, Maimonides, al-Farabi and others made enormous and original contributions to philosophy, medicine, chemistry and other fields. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment would have been unrecognizably different without the contributions of the thinkers of the Islamic world.
- missosoup 7y agoCan you suggest some reading materials to those who want to know more about this?
- barry-cotter 7y agoMy knowledge of this period is very shallow and mostly comes from the History of Phiosophy Without Any Gaps podcast. Lost Enlightenment is probably the best place to start. https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00F8MIJMQ/geneexpressio-20 https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00F8MIJMQ/geneexpre...
- barry-cotter 7y agoThe Enlightenment was something new under the sun. The Islamic Golden Age was intellectually impressive but nothing in it presages the ideas of individualism and freedom that are at the heart of the Enlightenment project.
- hoseja 7y agoThe heart of the Enlightenment project is the realization that educated, non-poor citizens are more effective at waging war with other countries.
- barry-cotter 7y agoThat’s not an accurate description of the military revolution that began with Revolutionary France and the levée en masse or of the Prussian General Staff system, the two major military organizational innovations of the Enlightenment era. Prussia and France both had mass armies but neither was terribly well educated, officers aside, and calling Prussian subjects citizens is misleading in the extreme. It suggests participation in political life that was restricted to a tiny segment of the population.