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What is (The) Enlightenment? In conversation with Jonathan Clark

What is (The) Enlightenment? In conversation with Jonathan Clark

Nick Spencer speaks with Historian Jonathan Clark. 03/12/2024

The Enlightenment has become weaponised over recent years. Numerous public figures, not all of them historians, have lined up to state defiantly that it needs protecting from… postmodernity? populism? religion?… take your pick.

But what is – or was – The Enlightenment? What are we being called to defend here? Is The Enlightenment actually a thing? Was it even “a thing” in the first place? And if not, when did we start talking about it, and why?

Purchase a copy of Jonathan’s book here.

 


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Nick Spencer

Nick Spencer

Nick is Senior Fellow at Theos. He is the author of The Landscapes of Science and Religion (OUP, 2025), Playing God: Science, Religion and the Future of Humanity (2024), and Magisteria: the entangled histories of science and religion (Oneworld, 2023). Nick is host of the podcast Reading Our Times.

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Posted 3 December 2024

History, Philosophy, Reading Our Times

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