The Enlightenment

The scientific revolution was part of a wider intellectual revolution, the Enlightenment, which also brought progress in other fields, especially moral and political philosophy, and in the institutions of society. Unfortunately, the term ‘the Enlightenment’ is used by historians and philosophers to denote a variety of different trends, some of them violently opposed to each other... But one thing that all conceptions of the Enlightenment agree on is that it was a rebellion, and specifically a rebellion against authority in regard to knowledge. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

The Enlightenment [was the start of] a way of pursuing knowledge with a tradition of criticism and seeking good explanations instead of reliance on authority. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

From the least parochial perspectives available to us, people are the most significant entities in the cosmic scheme of things. They are not ‘supported’ by their environments, but support themselves by creating knowledge. Once they have suitable knowledge (essentially, the knowledge of the Enlightenment), they are capable of sparking unlimited further progress. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

Bad philosophy before the Enlightenment was typically of the because-I-say-so variety. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

The sea [of] change in the values and patterns of thinking of a whole community of thinkers, which brought about a sustained and accelerating creation of knowledge, happened only once in history, with the Enlightenment and its scientific revolution. An entire political, moral, economic and intellectual culture – roughly what is now called ‘the West’ – grew around the values entailed by the quest for good explanations, such as tolerance of dissent, openness to change, distrust of dogmatism and authority, and the aspiration to progress both by individuals and for the culture as a whole. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

The quest for good explanations is, I believe, the basic regulating principle not only of science, but of the Enlightenment generally. It is the feature that distinguishes those approaches to knowledge from all others, and it implies all those other conditions for scientific progress I have discussed: It trivially implies that prediction alone is insufficient. Somewhat less trivially, it leads to the rejection of authority, because if we adopt a theory on authority, that means that we would also have accepted a range of different theories on authority. And hence it also implies the need for a tradition of criticism. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform The World

We do so by seeking good explanations – explanations that are hard to vary in the sense that changing the details would ruin the explanation. This, not experimental testing, was the decisive factor in the scientific revolution, and also in the unique, rapid, sustained progress in other fields that have participated in the Enlightenment. That was a rebellion against authority which, unlike most such rebellions, tried not to seek authoritative justifications for theories, but instead set up a tradition of criticism. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform The World

But one thing that all conceptions of the Enlightenment agree on is that it was a rebellion, and specifically a rebellion against authority in regard to knowledge. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform The World

Rejecting authority in regard to knowledge was not just a matter of abstract analysis. It was a necessary condition for progress, because, before the Enlightenment, it was generally believed that everything important that was knowable had already been discovered, and was enshrined in authoritative sources such as ancient writings and traditional assumptions. Some of those sources did contain some genuine knowledge, but it was entrenched in the form of dogmas along with many falsehoods. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform The World

But that rapid progress lasted for only a generation or so. A charismatic monk, Girolamo Savonarola, began to preach apocalyptic sermons against humanism and every other aspect of the Florentine enlightenment. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

the Principle of Mediocrity opposes the pre-Enlightenment arrogance of believing ourselves significant in the world; the Spaceship Earth metaphor opposes the Enlightenment arrogance of aspiring to control the world. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

Bad philosophy before the Enlightenment was typically of the because-I-say-so variety. When the Enlightenment liberated philosophy and science, they both began to make progress, and increasingly there was good philosophy. But, paradoxically, bad philosophy became worse. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

One thing that all conceptions of the Enlightenment agree on is that it was a rebellion, and specifically a rebellion against authority in regard to knowledge. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

Good/bad explanation: An explanation that is hard/easy to vary while still accounting for what it purports to account for. The Enlightenment (The beginning of) a way of pursuing knowledge with a tradition of criticism and seeking good explanations instead of reliance on authority. Mini-enlightenment A short-lived tradition of criticism. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

Rational: Attempting to solve problems by seeking good explanations; actively pursuing error-correction by creating criticisms of both existing ideas and new proposals. The West The political, moral, economic and intellectual culture that has been growing around the Enlightenment values of science, reason and freedom. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

What was needed for the sustained, rapid growth of knowledge was a tradition of criticism. Before the Enlightenment, that was a very rare sort of tradition: usually the whole point of a tradition was to keep things the same. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

The first person to measure the circumference of the Earth was the astronomer Eratosthenes of Cyrene, in the third century BCE. His result was fairly close to the actual value, which is about 40,000 kilometres. For most of history this was considered an enormous distance, but with the Enlightenment that conception gradually changed, and nowadays we think of the Earth as small. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

The post-Enlightenment West is the only society in history that for more than a couple of lifetimes has ever undergone change rapid enough for people to notice. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

I have argued that the laws of nature cannot possibly impose any bound on progress: by the argument of Chapters 1 and 3, denying this is tantamount to invoking the supernatural. In other words, progress is sustainable, indefinitely. But only by people who engage in a particular kind of thinking and behaviour – the problem-solving and problem-creating kind characteristic of the Enlightenment. And that requires the optimism of a dynamic society. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

In reality, the difference between Sparta and Athens, or between Savonarola and Lorenzo de’ Medici, had nothing to do with their genes; nor did the difference between the Easter Islanders and the imperial British. They were all people – universal explainers and constructors. But their ideas were different. Nor did landscape cause the Enlightenment. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World