Bilim ve Düşünce Tarihçisi Derya Gürses Tarbuck ve alanının önde gelen akademisyenlerinden oluşan konukları arasında söyleşi formatında gerçekleşecek seminer serisinin beşincisinde Richard Whatmore 10 Ocak 2024 Çarşamba günü 15:00-16:30 saatleri arasında bizlerle olacak. Konu başlığı ”Aydınlanmanın Sonu” olacak.
Her ay bir konuğun katılacağı ‘’Bilim ve Düşünce Tarihi Sohbetleri’’ Ekim 2023 – Nisan 2024 tarihleri arasında devam edecektir.
“Conversations in History of Science and Intellectual History Talks” continues! The 5th guest of the seminar series, which will take place in a conversation format between Derya Gürses Tarbuck and her guests consisting of leading academics in the field, will be Richard Whatmore on the 10th January 2024, between 15:00-16:30. The topic will be ‘the End of Enlightenment” “Conversations in History of Science and Intellectual History Talks”, in which one guest will participate every month, will continue between October 2023 – June 2024.
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Hello everybody Welcome to the conversations in history of Science and intellectual distri so I hold these subjects in alternative way according to my guests interests and uh thank you uh I would like to welcome Richard watmore uh to istan and to the historical Foundation to have this conversation
With us thank you for invi accepting our invitation pleasure thank you for us as well I would like to introduce Richard to you first professor of intellectual history and the history of political thought at the University of Sussex Richard join the University of St Andrews in 2013 terribly I can’t remember it’s it’s 2014 I think okay what do you actually transferred from Sussex yes yes 2019 13 it is 13 thank you for putting me right okay uh as a professor of modern history and director of The Institute of intellectual history he his research interests include early modern and
Modern intellectual history including politics international relations political economy and religion variety of interests definitely there are theories of Empire democracy and War Enlightenment and Revolution Republican diaspora small states and fabl States relations between Briton and your political cartoons which we’re going to have the pleasure of uh you
Know uh seeing some of them today among them uh you know the books uh are some of the books he published is republicanism and the French Revolution came from Oxford in 2000 against war and Empire gen IA Britain and France in the 18th century came out from Yale in 2012
What is intellectual history from po press 2015 which is a Turkish object it you can find on the tables there you can have a free copy of it if you wanted and um the terrorists anarchists and Republicans the genevans and the Irish in time of the Revolution Princeton University press
2019 and and uh a very short introduction history of political thought uh from Oxford 2021 and obviously the end of Enlightenment which will be the main subject of our conversation which came out from penguin in late 2023 uh so um Richard was the editor and this is how
We met 20 years ago still he is the editor of the history of European ideas since 2000 and I met him in 2003 when I first published my first article and uh since then yeah I have the pleasure of keeping in touch with him uh and also
Which is quite relevant uh resonate this this information will resonate with our church academics here uh he’s at the he’s the subject chair for arts and humanities Journal for the database scopus so uh there will be some sort of interest for that as well as you might
Guess uh uh so thank you Richard again and uh if you’re ready I want to ask the first question I am ready okay thank you for that introduction you’re welcome um so the book the end of Enlightenment chose you chose uh certain thinkers who lived in the 18th century
Who had ideas and aspirations about Enlightenment and disappointments about it but you chose how many thinkers how many Intellectuals I mean eight or nine eight or nine obviously the book covers many other figures tangentially but each chapter does focus on a particular figure yes so one first question I I would like to ask what is the representative value of these uh people who are representing the certain different chapters
Um I think I chose them in order to tell a story because I believe that they’re linked together and that means I should tell you who they are and the story really begins with David Hume again people will know David Hume from the history of philosophy he’s still
A somebody who I I suppose is one of the most studied philosophers but Hume writes about human nature he writes about morality and virtue and self-interest in his philosophical Works he also writes a history of England partly to make money but he writes essays that are commentaries on his own
Time and these essays he they’re first published in uh the early 1740s and the thing about hume’s essays is that they really saved hume’s intellectual life because again the famous comment on the treaties of human nature that he that he published in the in the late 1730s as he described it was
That it fell dead born from the Press so in other words this book didn’t have an impact at all and so he thought he was a failure as a philosopher but then he starts writing essays and the first essays moral political literary are published in the 1740s and
Hume changes the essays he adds to them for the rest of his life and the essays are translated across Europe ultimately they’re translated across the world and they have a simply enormous impact and the interesting thing if you read different additions of the essays that I
Did for the book is that you realize that Hume becomes more and more pessimistic about the world in which he lives as time passes and he starts off as an advocate of what he calls civilized monarchy and the best example of civilized monarchy is that he thinks that Britain and France obviously France
At the time is an absolute monarchy Britain is supposed to be a free free state he says they’re coming closer together they’re both going to become civilized monarchies that means you know Hume loves France and he thinks that French culture he lives in France for a long time has diplomatic activity in
France lots of French friends he hates British xenophobia the critique of France and he thinks it can end you know he’s very very optimistic and then he becomes the most acute pessimist possible he does after the end of the 7 years war so in the 1760s 7 years war ends
1763 mainly again between Britain and France obviously Spain and other countries are revolved but then uh Hume dies just after the American Declaration of Independence is signed in Philadelphia so he dies in in 1776 and he by that point he thinks Britain as a state is doomed partly
Because he thinks it’s addicted as a pol to the pursuit of war and Empire he thinks Commerce is is corrupt and ultimately very a selfish Force he’s famous for defending luxury earlier in his life that’s not his view at the end of his life and Hume hume’s essays had
Really resonate with contemporaries and what I noticed was that many other people including people like Mary wolston craft obviously the famous author of The Vindication of the rights of woman uh Katherine McAuley uh the the historian I mean Richard Price shelburn who’s prime minister uh for a short
Period of time Edmund Burke Edward Gibbon they all engage with h Thomas Payne is another example so people across on different who you might think be on diametrically opposed sides of the political spectrum they go through the same process of being remarkably optimistic about possibilities of the
Future and then they become the deepest of pessimists because they think that the enlightenment has ended I mean that’s what they share there could have been other people that I included but it’s really those figures and they’re all responding to Hume in one way or another
And that’s why the book begins with with Hume obviously it also engages with hume’s very great friend Adam Smith who’s there at Humes death writes an account of Humes death that got him in a lot of trouble because he said Hume died a death a secular death you know he
Wouldn’t James Boswell visits Hume on his deathbed and says are you going to convert to Christianity because you must have a good death and Hume ridicules Boswell as he often did the younger man who he liked but he also thought was a bit of an idiot and uh but
Smith with Smith he’s much more candid and he has a he has a good death and when Smith writes about hume’s good death it gets him into a lot of hot water so uh so that’s why it’s this cast I think even though politically they have very little in common they have similar
Experiences of trying to put visions of Reform let’s say into practice than failing and it’s how they respond to that which is the main one of the main things of the book uh what did contribute I mean I’m going to specify the uh subjects but what did contribute to the demise of the
Enlightenment project um what how does the colonialist tool as a tool colonialist um experience is applications in this whole Imperial project how did they contribute to it or among others obviously so one of the purposes of the book is to redefine the enlightenment because I think that we use the
Term in an ahistorical way for the most part we either use the enlightenment as a synonym for modernity often Western modernity program Rive reason in the most General ways obviously people like Steve Pinker saying actually our world is okay because it’s still characterized by Enlightenment and if you if you
Compare it using the tools of the social sciences to how people lived historically you know we’re much richer we just have better lives that’s very broad brush version of think’s argument therefore don’t worry so much now I think that’s well the reason that I think that pinker’s approach is silly is because
Historically the reason why you study the past is to help you deal with crisis so the point is never to assume that you’re always all right because societies can look all right and they can very quickly descend into the abyss so it’s not about how well you do
Doing it’s not about comparisons direct comparisons historically so much it’s about how you deal with crisis and I think the science of the Statesman or legislator historically uh which doesn’t really map onto contemporary disciplines obviously one of the reasons for studying intellectual history is you abandon disciplinary
Boundaries and it tells you how to deal with crisis and in the 18th century there is an enormous amount out of Crisis and the enlightenment if you define it in the way that I want it to be defined is any strategy that prevents Wars of religion from breaking
Out now that means there are a multitude of enlightenments because any strategy that stops Wars of religion constitutes an Enlightenment now if you would Embrace that definition then you’ll see why in the the 18th century lots of people genuinely believed in something called their Enlightenment and they they were
Very pleased they thought it had worked they thought there was no longer the kinds of controversy obviously there are examples of dreadful instances you know volz’s obsession with the kalas case you know uh uh the attacks on Protestants there are still instances of religious bigotry but it’s not on the general
Scale that led Europe to descend into Rel religious Warfare those times have gone Catholics are no longer killing Protestants especially because they believe that God has told them to do so so there was an a genuine Enlightenment if you define it in my way what becomes very interesting is that
Autocracy is a perfectly valid way of preventing Wars of religion from breaking out because he if you control everything that people do they’re not going to have the the Liberty let’s say to castigate others uh for their religious views that means that in my story of the Enlightenment the relationship between
Free states becomes much much more important and this is one of the things that I think again partly because we think about the past aor ially uh we haven’t appreciated and if you look at the history of free states and obviously as you know but uh other people there’s
No reason why they would know I’ve spent a lot of my life studying the little Republic and little republics in general but the little Republic of Geneva and small states right through this period are endangered species to the point of becoming extinct especially Republics so in the 18th century there’s
A crisis of free states and the idea of being a free state of having Liberty It’s associated with religious fanaticism It’s associated with um uh with bigotry and actually um I’ll just uh mention one of the slides if I if I may and it’s it’s a it’s a a scene from Beth
Uh and it’s the witches scene so it’s when The Cauldron from Shakespeare’s MC so when The Cauldron is pouring out the the spirits and uh and the witches obviously in the play say uh Double Double Toil them trouble and then that leads up to something evil This Way
Comes and the something evil that is coming these are all British Republicans who are embracing French Spirits French Revolutionary spirits and it’s going to lead them to evil and you can see the nature of the evil in the images at the top because they show the history of republicanism being
Associated with fanaticism and one of the things that people don’t realize in the history of republicanism especially is that it’s associated with religious Warfare and democracy itself in the 18th century especially is depicted as a form of fanaticism that is likely to restore the kinds of religious conflict last
Seen in times of reformation so in other words the democracy and republicanism are themselves religious ideologies that are attempts to create secular churches now that really comes up in the French Revolution always when republicanism is discussed by its critics and as in this print you always get Devils you always
Get fire and I’ll just very quickly prove this very religious metaphor now this is a very famous print that’s called philosophy run mad and it’s another critique of the French Revolution but what’s important about it is the image right in the middle that you see obviously there’s a figure on a
Throne that’s that’s collapsed and you have all of the evils of the French Revolution it’s a it’s ridiculing equality it’s ridiculing Liberty it’s ridiculing the the claim that you’re going to abolish Warfare that societies are going to be more peaceful that there’s going to be social harmony but
The most important part of the print is the image in the middle and what is it it’s a French Republican burning Bishops and Kings burning Bishops and priests so in other words what’s the worst thing you can do to another human being I mean obviously we’ve discovered other things in our in our
In the 20th century but you would say to burn another human being is is probably one of the worst things you could do the burning of humans is something that the Republicans do and it’s part of the process of establishing a fanatic church now the reason that’s important
For the history of Liberty is because republics are free states so in the 18th century when people talk about free states they think of the republics they think which might be genuinely independent republics like Geneva Venice genua they might think of Republican confederations obviously the best examples are the Swiss Confederation or
The Dutch Republic and they might think of Britain now all of these republics are in Decline famously Moncure called Britain a republic hiding beneath the form of a monarchy Britain thinks of itself as a free state and when we look back at the history of free states our
Assumption is free states are stable you know obviously Most states these dayses claim that they’re free states most states claim that they’re de Democratic in one way or another in these days it’s the free states that are endangered as well as the republics and if you look at
The perspective of the end of Enlightenment if you look at this period from the perspective of those who believe they were living through an end of Enlightenment then the main thing that they’re obsessed with is how can you create free states in the modern world and their conclusion is it’s extremely
Hard to do and the book tells the story of something very very unexpected that happens and I’m going to tell you what that is after your next question um it’s connected to Empire because I haven’t answered the colonialist bid because a lot of contemporaries thought that the
Problem with Britain was its Empire you know free states are successful the claim went if they don’t have Empires you know they look at if you look at the history of free commercial States the argument would be the Dutch would have been perfectly fine if they hadn’t attempted to estab attempted to
Establish commercial empire you know that’s the weak part and in the British case obviously they’re living through what we call the American Revolution it’s a civil war between Britains they go through that civil war against John pook who who’s one of the people who called it a civil war um and
Then they experience crisis in India there’s crisis in Ireland and a lot of contemporaries think the solution to the the crisis that Britain’s living through is to get rid of Empire all together so obviously we think in our times you know decolonize everything they really try it you know
They genuinely try to abolish Empire and they think the British are lucky because they’ve experienced the loss of America so they can go the whole way but then if you want to abolish Empire genuinely you have to imagine how are you going to get there that’s the debate about transition
Mechanisms and one of the things I’m really fascinated by is when you have an idea for change you say what exists is bad and corrupt and not working you can imagine an alternative future that’s better but the big question is how you get there what’s the transition mechanism so you want to
Get rid of Empire you have to work out the transition mechanism of exactly how to abolish it and then you have to work out how the world of states without Empire is going to work and that’s usually the problematic bit because when you create the nation states
They tend to replicate some of the problems of the empires they either want to turn themselves into Empires or they descended to Civil War because and just to uh say one point about the French Revolution a lot of people who looked at the French Revolution and obviously
France is a Catholic country even though they abolished the role of the the enormous role of the church in French society that’s one of the key themes of the French Revolution as you know they think that the French are are finally turning Protestant now you might think that’s an
Odd thing to say but to somebody in the 18th century it make complete sense because the way that people thought about protestantism is Protestants rebel against Catholics and then they split into two churches and then they split into more churches the French Republicans create a revolutionary world and then they split into different
Factions and then they split so it looks like the history of the French Revolution is a history of faction faction faction faction going to war with each other and they map that onto the history of protestantism so they think that although France is not forly becoming a Protestant country obviously
Never has uh it’s actually its politics are Protestant and the problem with the history of protestantism is its character is characterized by division and Civil War theological conflict if you transpose that onto a secular World you’ve got incredible trouble right okay uh so the theme um is disillusionment um throughout the uh
Book and um what connects these thinkers in their disappointment I mean you already gave us some ideas about what kind of ideals they had how to get from A to B but um and I’m kind of yeah we know some we have some ideas about how they were disappointed but can you give
Us more insight about their this illusion this different intellectuals sure so the interesting thing about my cast is that often they have the grandest Visions for the world and I suppose an example would be Thomas pay Thomas Payne is somebody who believes that a a republican World Of Perpetual
Peace is just in front of us all that you have to do is go through the process of Revolution he thinks when he writes for example the rights of man you know Parts one and part two in 1791 and then 1792 he thinks Revolution is the transition mechanism that you need to
Embrace and that the world is going to be glorious we have wonderful marvelous Futures ahead and again the parallel that I draw is with somebody like Edmund Burke because pay and Edmund Burke were friends they were both supporters of the American Revolution they were friends of Liberty that’s how they would describe
Themselves and then they become bitter enemies in the 1790s cuz they fall out over the French Revolution pain thinks it’s the most important event in human history by far because it’s going to create Perpetual peace and everybody’s going to stop fighting each other and hating each other Edmund Burke thinks
It’s the worst event in human history because he cannot understand anybody who attempts to reform a society by abolishing its very foundations and the Very foundations of society for Burke are monarchy aristocracy and church and that’s why uh for those who know Burks text the reflections on the revolution
In France that’s published in November 1790 it’s a remarkably optimistic book because it says basically to to people who are worried about the French Revolution don’t worry about it they’re crazy they’re going to descend into Civil War you cannot create a society on this basis you cannot create a stable
Revolutionary Society it’s utterly utopian I’ll tell you what the future is going to be now lots of people read Burke’s book and they thought by the time you get to the terror for example Burton was right he’s the greatest seer in our times because he’s predicted exactly the future but Burke didn’t
Think that at all because by the time the French Revolution has reached the point of the terror International War has broken out and Burke thinks he was wrong completely wrong about his earlier optimism that the French Revolution was going to fail because he thinks the part of the Revolution that has succeeded is
Its capacity to wage war because he thinks that revolutionary fanaticism and he thinks it’s turned into a fanatic Church Republican ideology turned fanatic hyper levels of patriotism turned xenophobic they are all going to lead to uh War kinds of war that uh we that have never been experienced on the continent
Of Europe before and his friend Edward Gibbon obviously who’s lived in Switzerland for 16 years of his life is also profoundly depressed because he thinks the French are better at War than any other people in history and that means that they’re deadly now pain is the opposite he thinks the French are
The best at war in history how glorious because that’s how they’re going to make to to make Revolution everywhere and the irony of pain and bir these opposite Visions is that pain thinks as he realized the French are not easily uh exporting republicanism globally he thinks the problem is
Britain and he calls Britain a Cancer and he says you have to have all out war against the British in order to cut it out so Pain’s transition mechanism is all out War what does Burke say the French is so awful the French Revolution is so dangerous we have to have all out
War against them to cut out that cancer so they both end up justifying allout War Britain against France and that’s how diametrically opposed thinkers when you look at their ideas in action and the thing that I’m very interested in as a as a historian of ideas is what happens
When you have an idea you put it into practice you see it fail and you adjust and you have another idea to to make it a reality and you adjust when that fails and then when it fails again and that’s you know people live through that the
Best example is Mary Wilson craft Mary Wilson craft equality between the Sexes uh let’s get rid of hierarchy let’s live in egalitarian societies she watches it fail in her own experience partly through her relationship with Gilbert imy uh and then she adjusts and she has a different philosophy and then she
Adjusts so its ideas in action is what I’m most interested in and the way they’re put into practice and failed and the ultimate failure realizing you’re in a world characterized by Wars of religion again but secular Wars of religion that’s why it’s called the end
Light so would it be fair to say uh the disappointment or for failure uh these uh people you chose were actually 18th century activists who failed miserably in the you know or who the process actually disappointed them process failed them I mean would you call them activists of 18th century um
In a sense they’re the greatest activists in human history if we’re talking about the people who live live through the French Revolution because I don’t know what the parallel would be I suppose living through a revolution that becomes Glo a global phenomenon I suppose it would be as if I
Don’t know Greta tunberg became Queen of the world let’s let’s fantasize about that and uh that’s what happens to the French Revolution you know they they realized their Vision they’re living it they see the change you know they successfully abolished church and aristocracy initially and then monarchy
Itself they are creating the Republic so I guess our word activist I mean for them it’s less about protest it’s more about the realization it’s putting the ideas into practice I think that’s the obsession obviously lots of activists these days yes of course that’s what you’re obsessed with because you want to
Realize your vision so I think that’s a it’s a good way of putting it but they really do get into power and obviously when activists get into Power interesting things happen and there’s always unintended consequences which is something else that I’m that I’m uh fascinated by uh especially in this period but you
Know right right uh right the way through okay um this is a question uh from I will first ask the question but I will actually turn it around and ask uh another like a methodological question to you um how do you think the failures of the Enlightenment period have shaped our
Modern understanding of Liberty reason and progress but also I’m read quite curious how did the modern agenda Inspire your quest you know for this book um I’m really interested in hearing your um Insight okay um I just to say start there extremely good questions um and already reviewers who reviewed the book have
Said it’s a history book about the present it’s not about the past he’s actually not really a historian it’s about the Contemporary end of Enlightenment it’s about British people being very paranoid about their own identity and it’s about brexit right or uh what’s the word the post truth or post truth populism
Populism yeah obviously being British these days you experience all of that on a daily basis um but I think that the reviewers are wrong uh and I’ll try and explain why and I’ll try and explain why uh with a by just showing you another another print very
Very quickly and um uh the print um is to do with I’m not going to show that actually was going to the print is to do with the effects of commercial Society because I suppose one of the themes of the book is the experience of Britain becoming a commercial Society because it becomes
The most advanced commercial Society on Earth and it it remains that way for a long time and historically commercial Society especially commercial republics they haven’t lasted and the expectation is this is a famous Point that’s made about the Dutch Republic is that they rise and then they fall and it’s as if
You’re seeing a meteor across the sky you know you see it Blaze gloriously and then it burns out now Comm is a force that is associated with chaos one of the people why Republicans and Advocates of free states especially they’re worried about Commerce as Commerce turns the world upside down you
Know a state is rising somebody under cuts it economically it’s falling Rich States become poor states poor states become rich States Commerce represents chaos what Hume in particular worries about is that the British have discovered a way of making War through the use of Public Credit so
You generate enormous debts you use the debts to go to war to expand your markets and obviously we talked earlier about free about small states and why small states are becoming endangered species the reason that they’re becoming endangered species is because there’s a turn to Empire because of Commerce
Because all states need to generate revenues to pay for the military technology that defends them the best way of doing that is by uh drawing on uh Public Credit you use the credit to expand your markets you suddenly eat up the small states and it’s fascinating in the case of a state like
Geneva all of a sudden the French are interested historically yes take their watches from Geneva use their manufacturers it’s a kind of calvinist Enclave make sure it doesn’t go fanatic religiously otherwise you don’t need to worry about it all of a sudden you want its wealth you want their markets you
Want to use them to trigger your own economy to develop your own economy so as that turn to Empire Hume thinks that Britain especially has become addicted to war for Empire funded by debt and it’s a Perpetual cycle that will end up in National bankruptcy but the problem is in the
Process you know millions of people literally will die or experience War Empire Invasion chaos it’s as if Commerce at war is the worst form of fanaticism that the human species can envisage now I’ve just I’m showing you the print and it’s a print of Warren Hastings pouring The Riches of the
Indies I mean it’s the riches of India into the stomach of his friend who’s the chancellor called Edmund thurlo and if you look at the legs the legs are significant because it’s Ireland and Bengal they are the legs and again it’s an addiction to Empire it’s called Alexander the Great
Conquering the world so Britain is effectively and people like Hastings obviously the governor general of Bengal they’re the modern Alexanders but it’s unstable because if if you pour wealth perpetually into the human stomach it will explode and you can see what the future is it’s going to be an explosion so it’s completely
Unstable as a form of politics and as a system now Adam Smith hume’s great friend in one of his books in The Wealth of Nations it’s called the mertile system and the mertile system is a description of a political system where merch merchs and bankers bribe politicians to pass
Legislation for their personal profit rather than for the public good and Smith described The Wealth of Nations which obviously we associate sometimes with neoliberal economics whatever that is for Smith it’s the great attack on the British Empire that’s the purpose of the book it’s to tell the British they’re in real trouble so
That’s uh an example of why they’re so depressed so it’s all about commercial Society if you need Commerce but it’s a force for Destruction and yet everybody needs it because they need the military technology you are profoundly depressed now what I said I was going to tell you
Is the what happens that nobody expects to happen and in some way ways you could say oh how great and in some ways you can say oh no and it is that Britain lasts all of my cast all of the figures I think right across the 18th century
People think Britain is doomed and people worry that you can’t have a free state that’s also commercial and that’s also enlightened you can’t have them together but Britain surviv Britain not only survives the next for the Next Generation if we look at Republicans people who were attracted by
The French Revolution Let’s I don’t know take three examples I’m going to use the same examples I always do sismondi Madame D baman kstar they were all attracted by French republicanism and they become angli files and they end up being liberals and liberalism isn’t historic it’s an early 19th century defense of
The British model and unless you see liberalism as a defense of the British version of a free state that means liberalism right from the outset was profoundly problematic because Britain was still a mertile system and it was a mertile system addicted to war and Empire and it’s significant that people
Who are liberals they can’t Square this circle for this generation is very problematic for them it’s the reason why bonjan conston for example ends up studying the history of religions because he thinks actually there might be a religious solution to the problem of secular fanaticism and if you take
The generation after somebody like Alexis to teville what does he say when the French go into Algeria he says it’s terrible it’s dreadful for the algerians I feel as sorry for them as I do for the Native Americans and obviously in Democracy in America he has you know
Really moving passages when he describes the the movement of the Cho TOS across the Mississippi the victims of Commerce as he sees it the victims of what he effectively calls an American Empire and he obviously sees democracy as profoundly expansive as a as a as a political form if it’s coupled with uh
With Commerce he says the French have no option they have to go into Algeria cuz if they don’t they’re not a great state they’re never going to be able to compete with the British and that’s what you have to do and that’s why I call the period after the end of Enlightenment
After Enlightenment cuz the enlightenment died you know it failed and we’ve never got it back so to me all of the problems in the late 18th century we’ve we’ve had satisfactory solutions for periods of time partly because of the history of free states that are coupled with versions of Moder modation
Moderation becomes an obsession in the early 19th century it’s part of how do you prevent mertile systems from turning fanatic so this book is one of ultimately probably three books that tell the whole story and it’s just to make one final very quick point if you look at the
History of Enlightenment one of the reasons where I started I started being very critical of postc world war historians who said who were defining the exam the enlightenment as the progress of reason anti-is and and I thought they’re not getting the history right an example would be somebody like
Peter Gay who defines the enlightenment Enlightenment figures as the party of humanity but actually I realized in a sense especially in the case of Peter Gay that profoundly right and the reason that they’re profoundly right is because they were often Jewish intellectuals who experienced Holocaust and War and
Massacre uh and they were looking at European history to say CU they felt it was their history as much as anybody else’s they were not turning their backs on it they were not rejecting it they were not saying there’s nothing here except a history of crime and and and
Evil we want lessons from it and their lessons the lesson that they were seeking is how do you use history to develop tools to prevent fanaticism from reestablishing itself and one of I collect the papers of historians I know you know that at the Institute of intellectual history at St
Andrews and one of the people I used to do at the University of Sussex one of the first people was a a historian uh called helmet Pape he he was obsessed with sismondi whose people don’t know VX M these days he was originally Geneva and he ends up in Italy he calls himself
Liberal writes about French literature in the early 19th century and I said to helmet Pape one day why have you spent your life being devoted to sismondi and for him it was about publishing editions of sismondi’s work and getting people to read them and study them and read them
Correctly and I said why have you done it he literally he spent his entire uh life he used to take his wife to the archives and he would even though she had a doctorate herself on something completely different she would be employed cuz the work was so important
Transcribing all of sismondi’s Works he said anybody who reads sismondi cannot be a fascist so it was his way of fighting Hitlers fighting Nazis is establishing editions and texts that describe a anti fanatic history m and I think we’ve lost you know you need to recover that I guess as a mission of
Intellectual history of the history of political thought and it fits with M obviously the way that I see the late 18th century and after but I would say to answer your question the way well I would say that we are still living after Enlightenment but we don’t realize how
Problematic the history especially if free states has been because if you’d asked anybody in the 18th century what’s the most depressing thing in politics that could ever happen many of them would have said Britain becomes the model of a free state Britain being a model for anybody in these years it’s a depressing
Conclusion because it’s seen as a state on the edge of fanaticism riddled by this corrupt economic system uh addicted to war and Empire that happens in the history of free states Britain becomes a model we’re still living with the consequences and if you understand the crisis that Britain especially went
Through and the subsequent history of Empire Etc obviously then you have a different perspective I think on certainly on Modern free states and the alternatives to free states so um I mean there are there has been for a long time uh National enlightenments you know all over Europe
And actually there are nonwestern forms of Enlightenment literature like uh you know Isam that kind of subject is very popular for some time now so uh does that mean to say Enlightenment was an internationalist project and failed in a colossal way or or what what happened there you know
This is the British compex you know the you know kind of I know it starts off with the context but what happens to the internationalist project um it’s another good question again historically I’ve not been a British historian no uh and now I’m being described as overly obsessed with
The history of my own country um but actually obviously one of the chapters is on Jac Pierre bro yes you know Thomas Payne becomes American he’s imprisoned during the terror as somebody who’s English and one of the reasons why he could he never gets over it he blames George Washington
For not contacting the French authorities and screaming at them pains and American and therefore releasing him so uh it’s also the case that a lot of the a lot of the cast hate contemporary Britain so it’s actually the book is about free states and fanaticism it’s about the French version
Of a free State against the British version of a free state and I think it’s very significant at the end of the 18th century that it’s the French Republic that eats up Venice genua the Dutch Republic the Swiss Confederation so republics eat up republics a large Republic eats up smaller
Republics and the end of the 18th century is characterized by Liberty Wars you know free states fighting free states and the British what are they doing they’re subsidizing Russia Ostro Hungary obviously it’s still the Holy Roman Empire for a part of this period and they’re still subsidizing Prussia to fight for them so
You’ve got free states funding autocratic states to do their bidding you know that’s historically that’s a profound significance so the reason it’s a global story is because you also see the attempt to establish Enlightenment putting an end to Wars a religion Wars of religion have existed throughout human history and there are
Enlightenment strategies to end them everywhere yes so it that means you can map it onto particular Nations onto Empires onto anywhere anywhere where there’s a war of religion and there can be obviously my argument is that there are secular Wars of religion as much as there are
Religious wars of religion the the the theological the sense that Theology and secularity can be a separate spheres makes no sense in politics it makes no sense historically it’s not as if Behavior human behavior changes same problems repeated over and over so if you define it Enlightenment
In the way that I’d like to of course it ceases to be necessarily a European phenomenon you can find it everywhere of course you can have an Islamic Enlightenment again where do people find remarkable instances of Toleration obviously it’s not generalized uh is in in the Ottoman
Empire so and often it’s China as a stable State it’s it’s an obsession of human Smith in particular so it’s not the case that this is necessarily a European story or necessarily a British story The reason I’m focused on Britain is because it becomes a model free state
Right that’s the only reason because the French Revolution fails and I think I think once you acknowledge that for contemporaries the French Revolution had failed because it becomes a normal Revolution revolutions you have a revolution you have a vision you have an ideology you put it into practice everybody divides and they
Start fighting each other and then you have the rise often of a republican General who says he’s on the side of the Revolution and he turns himself into a dictator or an emperor how many times have we seen that many many times in human history so that’s why the British seem to avoid
Caesar figures and as fanatic as they are that’s one of the reasons why people turn away from the French Revolution towards the British example in the early 19th century uh so this is a personal question I’m quite interested having written this book I would like to ask you are you yourself disillusioned
By the uh Enlightenment project I mean there are not so short line of uh Enlightenment critiques Scholars who argued that Enlightenment was a failure uh or it never happened you know which school of C do you comply with and what do you think about this whole uh
Project yourself um the short answer is that I love it because I think we’ve lost it and we need to cover it you know the battle against fanaticism acknowledging that Liberty it’s a fragile plan and we need strategies to maintain it um so I think that in the 18th century partly
Because they didn’t adhere to disciplinary boundaries you know that we we think oh you’re a student of politics or economics or international relations or sociology or psychology or something like that they don’t think of of disciplines in the way that we think about disciplines and they think everything is connected
To each other so you can’t so you have to think what is the problem what’s the solution what’s the problem what’s the solution put the ideas into practice see how they operate then adjust so that to me was the let’s call it the end of Enlightenment mission to
Try and save the enlightenment so do I appreciate what they all tried to do and you know you can see it in cases like Mary Wilston craft you know you have to just stand back and admire somebody who was vilified and obviously once her husband William Godwin reveals that she
Liked sex you know which he does cuz he’s so brokenhearted after he dies and he he publishes obviously letters and other things it’s so devastating for her reputation that she gets vilified until the sub rejects become interested in her in the in the early 20th century she was so committed to the idea
Of equality between the Sexes that she puts one set of ideas into practice and if you read her letters and obviously I think letters are very very revealing of people’s views uh it means I never ever want to go through anybody’s email so I think that would be
Night marriage but the this letter world that I deal with is wonderful um so you can see her I know it’s fail I failed how do I change how do I change so I think it’s a it’s really uh inspiring and in terms of you know with school I think pretty much all
Intellectual historians and I know you’d agree with this you’re ultimately apoll of montar because you believe everything depends on particular circumstances and what works in one situation will not work in another circum an therefore you have to appreciate particularity but then you have to come to General conclusions
Which you can’t avoid and you also fascinated and this is where I’d say I’m with somebody like Edward Gibbon or or uh lots of figures who Smith again or Hume 2 they’re interested in unintended consequences so ideas in practice never work out the way that you expect them to
You look at for the unint consequence you’re always looking for it and then you see it in practice and you have to adjust your practice to that unintended consequence in terms of methodologically just to fully answer the question you know uh John pook uh is somebody who the book is
Dedicated to uh obviously he I I write in the acknowledgements that he’s still going strong obviously he was 99 he dies uh 5 days after the book is uh is published uh so I I’ll have to change the acknowledgements as it as it hopefully gets reprinted um and goes into paperback uh
So um pook’s attention to circumstance you know I know that pook was obsessed with Gibbon but attention to to Monto SKU as well it’s also the case that you know Quentin SK Skinner and the focus on recovering arguments that are lost I’m not recovering ideology but I
Do want to recover a way of seeing the world that I think we have partly lost and it it merits recovering so those are the people that I follow obviously in terms of approach to history of commercial Society then you know ish van hont is somebody else the whole so that
Sounds as if I’m kind of a fully paid up member of the Cambridge School which is uh sub sometimes the assumption but actually once you know about the inside of the school then you know that it’s utterly divided so descriptions of the cambri school if if this talk was about
The cambri school then I would tell you there are lots and lots of different approaches within the Cambridge School the thing that I’m most interested in in of all obviously I’ve said it several times is ideas in action yes you know that’s what I’m most interested in I’m
Most committed to it means I’m less interested in genealogy it means I’m less interested in the history of Concepts CU I’m interested when the concept or whatever the outcome of the genealogy hits the reality how do you adjust when that reality fails that’s it so that’s that actually
Don’t you think makes you a activist for today um I’m just obviously I’m laughing the idea of myself as a as an activ history for today is that correct um yes I think it’s relevant I think we leave live in an increasingly a historical world where we assume we live
In the world of what’s new yeah you know because we think technological change has altered humans obviously we talk about AI Etc uh meaning that we live in a world that’s new and I do not think anything of about the present is new because I don’t think Human Nature has
Changed and because Human Nature has not changed it means all the old problems of politics all the old problems of the economy all the old problems of theology are still with us until human nature itself changes and that’s directly relevant to the book because ultimately some people say that people like Condor
William Godwin Mary Wilston craft they’re the ultimate optimists because they think pain is another example they think if you get to the right kind of Republic human nature itself will change after they experience the end of Enlightenment and their ideas fail they say we can only live in a in a republic
When Human Nature has changed so you have to change nature that means that they’re profoundly depressed of about their world because if you can only change the world by entirely changing human nature what kind of utopian fantasist are you and the danger is that changing human nature itself is always
Associated with the deepest forms of fanaticism and again that’s an example why uh I think it’s it’s relevant obviously I don’t think I’ll ever call myself an activist but I don’t mind you doing it thank you well I actually wanted to use this word for the next question as well so um with
This popular book you actually engaged in a bit of a public engagement um which I have been doing it for four three four years and uh I actually found myself the struggle that I had with this kind of Engagement is U when you try to ride in a popular manner
Uh you have to find a balance between your expertise and your objective to become more understandable more Basics so uh you have to strike a balance otherwise it will be either to academical or too shallow if you know what I mean uh what was your uh ideas about your own
Experience my own experience was to to write the book and I thought I could write yes okay so obviously uh as you know I’ve written what is intellectual history which was supposed to be a more popular book and then more recently I’ve written this very short introduction to the history
Of political thought and and I thought that was accessible and then I sent the first version of the book book of the end of Enlightenment to my publisher penguin and they told me I had to rewrite it and uh over the period of a few years
They advised me I’m going to say they made me cuz they did and they were right to do so they made me rewrite it six times so that process of being edited professionally by people who really know how to communicate with a popular audience I can’t tell you how valuable that process
Was for me as an author as a writer because I hope I’ve learned the lessons I really I actually pray that I’ve learned the lessons from them they were wonderful yes it was painful it’s still the case however so you’re absolutely right about the tension and the problem
Because even some of the reviews again that have come out said what a shame Richard watmore can’t write you know it’s what it’s it’s not well written some of them have said it’s very well written I’m pleased to say but it’s not the case that it isn’t very very hard to
Explain complex ideas and this is a complex story you know I I you can tell there’s a lot of complexity there’s a lot of nuance it’s it’s it’s it’s a tough it’s a tough cell but I’ve learned a lot I suppose the main thing I’d say I’ve learned a lot from really
Wonderful uh editors in fact uh uh I’m going to say they are uh at penguin uh Ciana yanita and Edward Kirk they they have been marvelous and I’m eternally grateful to excellent have you got any other uh projects like you know not the same subject about the same style of
Writing in the near future um well I’ve got uh to tell the story of what happens to free states and fanaticism and I’d like to to bring that it might not be absolutely up to the present because I still can’t imagine myself as that relevant to the world or
Is that directly relevant to the world activist that you’ve uh described but the other project that I really want to finish is is a book called after Enlightenment because if you have lived through the end of Enlightenment and you believe that the world has collapsed that what exists cannot last it can’t
Remain and all of your hopes are dead everything you believed in has failed and you’re in the worst world you can possibly imagine and that is the after Enlightenment world and it characterizes people who lived after the French Revolution you know people like William Godwin William Blake The
Romantics uh up to teville and after the attempt to rerun the French Revolution rerun the French Revolution so it works this time you know which is a an aspiration socialism in the form of churches simonianism I’ve always been fascinated by and uh and the other forms that are
Especially uh popular in France and elsewhere so I’d like also to to do that do that well thank you so very much for this conversation I horribly enjoyed it so we thank Richard