ABSTRACT
A spectre is haunting the social sciences: enlightenment. Everywhere the extent to which “we” are enlightened-whether such a “we” refers to “we” moderns (or postmoderns), “we” Westerners, “we” Europeans, or even “we” citizens of the world-is the focus for debate and controversy. There are some for whom the very idea of enlightenment is a sham, an excuse for the machinations of cultural experts and bureaucrats of all sorts, those who would even oblige us to be free. Others claim that enlightenment is our only hope in an age of violence, exploitation and despair; that merely to criticize enlightenment is to submit willingly to degeneracy. But whether we think of ourselves as being for or against enlightenment, what is certain is that the concept of enlightenmentthe space of concerns that such a concept designates-is itself a key point of orientation for all those concerned with the status of the knowledges that we possess or pursue. This is so even if the word-enlightenment-is not often used. Rather, the conversation of enlightenment is taking place wherever people are concerned to debate or agonize over the links between truth and power, belief and ethics, knowledge and society, expertise and freedom, expression and redemption, and wherever they attempt, as all those who work in the social sciences must, to take a stand on such questions. In this sense at least, postmodern talk of being beyond enlightenment is certainly premature; we are all of us beholden to “enlightenmentality”. As the philosopher, Kant, observed in his famous essay on the subject in 1784, we do not live so much in an enlightened age as in an age of enlightenment: that is, an age where enlightenment is a central cultural aspiration if not a demonstrable, existing reality (Kant 1970:54).
