Philosophy

Enlightenment shadows

Item: Enlightenment Shadows
Author: Janna Thompson

by Janna Thompson •

March 2014, no. 359

Enlightenment Shadows by Genevieve Lloyd

Oxford University Press, $57.95 hb, 191 pp, 9780199669561

Philosophy

Enlightenment shadows

by Janna Thompson •

March 2014, no. 359

From the Enlightenment, according to contemporary critics, came a dream about human progress from which we have awakened. The Enlightenment is commonly presented as an intellectual era when philosophers believed that reason would solve all human problems and provide a solid foundation for morality and politics. But surely we now know better.

Janna Thompson

Janna Thompson is a professor of philosophy at La Trobe University. She is the author of Taking Responsibility for the Past: Reparation and Historical Injustice (2002) and Intergenerational Justice: Rights and Responsibilities in an Intergenerational Polity (2009). She has also written articles on environmental philosophy, aesthetics, feminism, and global justice.