He manages to convey the excitement of ideas, and the humanity of thinkers, without swamping readers with complexity. The author has a light touch, and his book is a joy to read. Wilson I have never seen a discussion of philosophy as fun to read - Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Dream of Enlightenment is an entertaining introduction to a range of daring thinkers of the long Enlightenment from Descartes to Rousseau. Wondrously perceptive and exceptionally well-written - Edward O. The Dream of Enlightenment creates a sweeping account of what they amounted to, and why we are still in their debt. Gottlieb puts readers in the minds of these frequently misinterpreted figures, elucidating the history of their times while engagingly explaining their arguments and assessing their legacy. It is tempting to think they speak our language and live in our world but to understand them properly, we must step back into their shoes. Yet it is because we still want to hear them that we can easily get these philosophers wrong. What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and for our ideas of God? How should a government deal with religious diversity - and what is government actually for? Such questions remain our questions. They tried to fathom the implications of the new science and of religious upheaval, which led them to question traditional teachings and attitudes. As Gottlieb explains, all these men were amateurs: none had much to do with any university. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy. In a relatively short period - from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution - Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark. Now, in The Dream of Enlightenment, Gottlieb expertly navigates the second great explosion of thought, taking us to northern Europe in the wake of its wars of religion and the rise of Galilean science.
In his landmark survey of Western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance, The Dream of Reason, Anthony Gottlieb documented the first of these, which came in the Athens of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The author of the celebrated The Dream of Reason vividly explains the rise of modern thought from Descartes to Rousseau Western philosophy is now two and a half millennia old, but much of it came in just two staccato bursts, each lasting only about 150 years. Print The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy
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