Which text of which philosopher marks the start of the Enlightenment?

Question

Here is what Wikipedia says on the beginning of the Enlightenment:

The Enlightenment was preceded by and overlaps the Scientific Revolution and the work of Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, and Isaac Newton, among others, as well as the rationalist philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and John Locke. Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment to the publication of René Descartes' Discourse on the Method in 1637, with his method of systematically disbelieving everything unless there was a well-founded reason for accepting it, and featuring his famous dictum, Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"). Others cite the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) as the culmination of the Scientific Revolution and the beginning of the Enlightenment. European historians traditionally dated its beginning with the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715 and its end with the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. Many historians now date the end of the Enlightenment as the start of the 19th century, with the latest proposed year being the death of Immanuel Kant in 1804. In reality, historical periods do not have clearly defined start or end dates.

In reality, historical periods do not have clearly defined start or end dates. Still, in this case at least, most academics presumably have a reasonably clear idea of what they themselves mean by "Enlightenment".

So, which text of which philosopher is regarded by most academics as marking the start of the Enlightenment?

(I'm not sure the tag "enlightenment" means what it seems to mean).

Thank you for any scholarly references.

Answer 1

This is a Europe-wide intellectual movement which developed slowly. There is no single work or author.

As of early influence, Samuel von Pufendorf certainly is an important writer. Immanuel Kant, who himself is sometimes seen as marking the start of Enlightenment proper, names Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf (AK. VIII:127) as important figures. Pufendorf's works and translations of it spread fast across the continent and certainly can be considered very important for the political dimension of the Enlightenment.

Thus, understanding (philosophical) Enlightenment as the movement that puts individual reason as the most authoritative source of knowledge and morals (above worldly and religious authorities), I'd argue the line Pufendorf (early) and Kant (mature) are the most expressive authors.

Answer 2

The primordial source for enlightenment in German philosophy is "Immanuel Kant: Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?" from 1784, see What Is Enlightenment?.

Note that enlightenment is not a final state but an ongoing process - continuing also in our time.

Added: As @MauroALLEGRANZA correctly emphasizes, Kant's essay defines enlightenment. Which text marks the begin of enlightenment is indeed questionable. In any case, to answer the OP's question one first needs a definition of the period in question.

Answer 3

I had offered Descartes' major works published in 1637 as the most reasonable start point for philosophic enlightenment.

However, as most respondents have noted, intellectual movements don't have clear lines, and that includes who is or isn't an enlightenment philosopher. A noteworthy transition figure who has major enlightenment features, and was considered highly influential by about half of the more clearly enlightenment philosophers was Hugo Grotius. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Grotius

Here are summaries from the Wikipedia article:

Grotius was a major figure in the fields of philosophy, political theory and law during the 16th and 17th centuries. Along with the earlier works of Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili, his writings laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law in its Protestant side. Two of his books have had a lasting impact in the field of international law: De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) dedicated to Louis XIII of France and the Mare Liberum (The Free Seas) for which Grotius has been called the "father of international law".[6] Grotius has also contributed significantly to the evolution of the notion of rights. Before him, rights were above all perceived as attached to objects; after him, they are seen as belonging to persons, as the expression of an ability to act or as a means of realizing something.

Peter Borschberg suggests that Grotius was significantly influenced by Francisco de Vitoria and the School of Salamanca in Spain, who supported the idea that the sovereignty of a nation does not lie simply in a ruler through God's will, but originates in its people, who agree to confer such authority upon a ruler.[7] It is also thought that Grotius was not the first to formulate the international society doctrine, but he was one of the first to define expressly the idea of one society of states, governed not by force or warfare but by actual laws and mutual agreement to enforce those laws. As Hedley Bull declared in 1990: "The idea of international society which Grotius propounded was given concrete expression in the Peace of Westphalia, and Grotius may be considered the intellectual father of this first general peace settlement of modern times."[8]

Some philosophers, notably Protestants such as Pierre Bayle, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the main representatives of the Scottish Enlightenment Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Reid held him in high esteem.[46] The French Enlightenment, on the other hand, was much more critical. Voltaire called it boring and Rousseau developed an alternative conception of human nature. Pufendorf, another theoretician of the natural law concept, was also skeptical.[46]

Grotius had two major works that could qualify that preceded 1637:

• Mare Liberum (The Free Seas) – 1609
• De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) 1625