One of the greatest essays in Western Philosophy is this one of Kant's - 'What is Enlightenment?' In it, he gives definition to this key philosophical movement, and to highlight the importance of autonomy, or freedom: in particular in the intellectual sphere. The essence of this essay, which is here presented in full, is that we should think for ourselves - or as Horace (a Roman poet and thinker) puts it: Dare to be wise!
From Knowledge Products' "World of Philosophy" Series
Descartes, Bacon, & Modern Philosophy Narrated by Lynn Redgrave
Rene' Descartes (1596-1650), the father of modern rationalism, abandoned traditional paths to knowledge and developed a new method of seeking truth. Descartes doubted everything to eliminate preconceptions, and to test all candidates for true knowledge -- but he discovered he could not doubt his own existence as a conscious being. Through rigorous self-examination, he offered an account of the nature and reality of mind, body, God, and their interconnections. He aimed to affirm human individuality, freedom, and spirituality in a way that was consistent with his revolutionary, unified, mathematical approach to science.
Descartes argued that philosophies based on sense experience are unreliable; he said that the human soul and God can and must be known before we know anything about the physical world. He noted that our capacity for error results from the gift of free will -- but he argued that by using his method for seeking knowledge we can infallibly know the timeless nature of things. Descartes said that humans are not merely physical beings; each of us is a composite, in which an unthinking, spatially extended, physical body is combined with a free, conscious, non-spatial mind or soul (which is the true self). The body and soul intimately interact, yet each can exist separately -- so it's metaphysically possible that the soul may survive the death of the body.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) pioneered the other major early-modern philosophical method known as empiricism; unlike Descartes, Bacon based all genuine knowledge on sense experience. He said the growth of knowledge is inhibited by faulty assumptions, habits of mind and methods of investigation, and he developed experimental procedures to enable otherwise limited human minds to interpret nature correctly. Item # 10557
On three CDs - 2 hours and 46 minutes in length.
Narrator: Lynn Redgrave Author: Professor Jeffrey Tlumak Editor: Professor John Lachs and Wendy McElroy Publisher: Knowledge Products, Inc.
This title is part of the Audio Classics Series by Knowledge Products. Knowledge Products publishes a variety of audio presentations on the great ideas and events of history.
It goes without saying that I recommend these audiobooks. I cannot claim to have listened to them all, but they come from generally trusted sources - online colleges, books for the blind, that sort of thing.
I also recommend them because if there is one thing that you need to have done as part of your overall A Level course then it is to have thought about the topics that we are studying. You need to ingest these ideas as much as possible - to become comofrtable with them. Reading books, essays, websites etc., is good, but audio books and lectures can be good too.
Furthermore, regardless of what I say below, even bad information can be good in some regards.
It can still raise questions for you to chew over.
It can enable to you to critically consider what the audio books or lecture is telling you - to decide what is right or wrong about them.
However, before you start listening, please remember the following things.
The lecturer has a point of view. In Religious Studies, the lecturer might have a particular faith. He/She might find it hard to be neutral about particular traditions, They may promote one way of viewing an issue over others. We need to retain some level of critical analysis.
The quality of these lectures/audio books may vary. Some might explain an idea very well, or they may do it badly. You need to think about the quality of what you are listening to.
Finally, these are not aiming towards the course you are doing. They may twist and turn throughout a variety of aspects or they may remain fairly descriptive without offering any real analysis. Again, you need to think about what you are listening to.
