Introduction

This chapter argues that much of contemporary intellectual historical debate is not so much about the history of European thought but concerns mostly the Enlightenment’s claim to having accelerated human emancipation. The interest in emancipation above all is, however, distorting in itself and must be contested in any differentiated view of Europe’s past. Among other thinkers considered are Jeremy Bentham (1747–1832), Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464), Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955), and Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1748–1832).