ABSTRACT
‘Enlightenment as an ethos’, or ‘the ethos of Enlightenment’, implies the inability to presume a definitive answer to the question ‘What is Enlightenment (?)’ – a question that modern philosophy has never been able to answer adequately but has not been able to get rid of (to paraphrase Michel Foucault's words). In fact, this question – which has not ceased to resonate in various different forms since the 18th century – problematizes in a nutshell ‘modernity’ as a general concept. This chapter pursues this issue through the discourse on the concept of ‘progress’ – often viewed as a synonym for ‘enlightened modernity’. An examination of the basic assumptions regarding the idea of progress as the development of modern rationalism will provide a critical perspective on ‘the morality of reason’. The ethos of the Enlightenment as the celebration of progress, as primed by the march of reason, will illuminate the ethical presuppositions that inform the overarching values of governing modernity, its goals, social structures, and ideologies.
