ABSTRACT
This essay considers the Enlightenment within the conceptual field of Modernity. It argues: fluctuations in cognitive or cultural value rather than causality initiated by influential people re-evaluate knowledge systems. These re-evaluations reveal the fate of knowledge: whether it commits to political dissent or blends into academic orthodoxy. The argument is based on reciprocity within the encompassing conceptual field and its constituent heterogeneous values. The Enlightenment, assimilated to the socio-economic ‘general intellect’, is also conducive to intellectual autonomy. Modern historians evaluate its achievements with their ‘sophistical’ historicism, but Enlightenment (as Modernity), predicated on its ‘naïve’ historicism, is well positioned to reciprocate, to re-evaluate them. Sustaining this reciprocity is mind as a ‘cultural constant’.
