What is Modernity?

What is Empiricism?

What is Induction in Philosophy?

What is Epistemology?

What is Rationalism?

What is Ontology?

What is Liberalism?

What is Imperialism?

What is Neoclassicism?

What is Liberal Feminism?

What is Aesthetics?

What is the Enlightenment? | Definition, Examples & Analysis

The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was a philosophical movement in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe, emphasizing rationality and the power of individuals to use their reason to make sense of the world. The Enlightenment saw a shift from the authority of religion and the monarchy, towards science and empiricism. The Enlightenment, above all, valued progress, freedom, democracy, tolerance, and the pursuit of knowledge. Though there is disagreement as to whether the Enlightenment marked the beginning of the modern era, it is generally accepted that the Enlightenment was a foundational moment within modernity. 

The Philosophy of the Enlightenment

It was an age characterised by a restless spirit of inquiry — a century of challenge. A new life was awake and stirred in the minds of men. Traditions which had been long venerated became the objects of searching investigation and criticism. The authority of the church, of the state and of the school was no longer regarded as the court of last appeal. The old beliefs which failed to justify themselves at the bar of reason were discarded. The foundations of time-honoured systems seemed shifting and uncertain. There was an insistent demand for the free play of the individual judgment. There was, also, a constant reference to the light of reason, the inner illumination shining bright and clear in contrast to the shadows of mysticism, or to the false and flickering light of dogmatism. (2018)

Keiron O’Hara identifies six characteristics of the Enlightenment: 

The Enlightenment

1. A reliance upon the natural faculties of the individual to understand the world, society and our fellow man, at the expense of tradition, authority or (Biblical) revelation. 

2. An increasing confidence about human control of the world, optimism about progress and a belief in the providence of a reasonable and benevolent God. 

3. Scepticism, including scepticism about (1) and (2) above. 

4. The importance of reason, of universal principles over local ones and of truth as a value. 

5. A focus on personal goods such as happiness and Enlightened self-interest, based on theories of human nature.

6. A focus on the beliefs of the highly educated minority.

While it can be difficult to pinpoint a specific date range for the Enlightenment, it is generally accepted that it began around 1680. Some historians argue it ended in 1789 with the French Revolution, while others suggest it in fact ended with the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars and the death of Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant in 1804. 

This guide will explore some of the key features of the Enlightenment, including the introduction of new sources of authority, the pursuit of scientific progress, and new ideas about social organization and religion. 

As O’Hara discusses, Enlightenment thinkers (known as “philosophes” in France) challenged pre-existing forms of authority and encouraged individuals to use their critical thinking and capacity for reason to make sense of the world. As Immanuel Kant argued in his essay “An Answer to the Question: ‘What Is Enlightenment?’”, “Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage” (1784, [2017]):

An Answer to the Question: "What Is Enlightenment?"

Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! “Have courage to use your own reason!” – that is the motto of enlightenment.

With this, new scientific and philosophical approaches disrupted the status quo — and we will cover the specifics of these approaches throughout this guide. 

If thinkers like Kant were suggesting that dogmatic authorities (such as organized religion and the state) should not be relied upon, then they would need to provide alternative sources of verifiable, unbiased knowledge. From this noble pursuit, the Encyclopédie was created. 

First published in France between 1751 and 1772, the Encyclopédie (edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert) comprised 28 volumes and 70,000 articles written by over 140 contributors — these contributors and editors became known as “the Encyclopedists.” As Nelly Noémie Schargo explains in History in the Encyclopédie, many of the historical entries in the Encylopédie were not new material, but their approach “had a novel tint to it” (2019). Schargo goes on to state, 

History in the Encyclopédie

Their importance does not lie in new material uncovered. It lies in the significance which they assigned to scientific method in history, a method which the following century believed it alone had discovered. It lies in the angle in which the Encyclopedists present the historical prism; it lies in the enthusiasm which they express so often for this branch of human knowledge; it lies in the importance which they assign to history in the intellectual scheme of things. (2019)

With its dedication to the advancement of human knowledge, and its determination to pass on that knowledge to future generations, the Encyclopédie epitomizes the spirit of the Enlightenment. 

Enlightenment thinkers aimed to better the human condition through the pursuit of knowledge, progress, and the ordering of society in a way which promoted freedom. As such, many spoke out against absolute monarchies and unjust and arbitrary laws, putting forth their own views as to how society should be organized in a way that both promoted liberty and maintained order: 

In matters of politics, enlightenment thinkers shared a common antipathy to arbitrary rule and its various mani­festations: judicial torture, imprisonment without trial, proliferation of capital punishments and corruption of tribunals. However, the path to reform they proposed differed from one country to another depending on the nature of the status quo. Where there was an absolute monarch, his or her power should be subjected to some external restraint, if only by allowing their subjects freedom of speech. In a constitutional monarchy, and even in a republic, there must be a separation of powers between executive, legislature and judiciary. (Anthony Kenny, 2017)

John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1689), for example, criticizes the concept of an absolute monarchy. In this work, he focuses on Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha (1680) as a starting point. Filmer’s book emphasized the infallibility of monarchs and the divine right of kings, arguing that the State’s authority came from Biblical patriarchs, originating with Adam. Locke vehemently disagreed with Filmer and argued that there are no divine rights, but natural rights which all individuals are granted by God; these rights include life, liberty, health, and property. 

Locke believed that no monarch or form of government could override these natural rights:

Two Treatises of Government

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. (1689, [2014])

Locke felt society should be governed by the consent of the people. Locke’s concept of natural rights is at the core of liberalism.

Locke’s discussions of natural rights led to feminists of the period arguing that such principles should apply to women also. Feminists such as Mary Wollstonecraft, for example, highlighted that if such natural rights were given to rational beings, then women should also have the same inalienable rights. In Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792, [2022]), she argues that women should be given these rights and be able to seek education in the pursuit of knowledge. 
In Feminist Theory (2012), Josephine Donovan outlines the arguments from liberal feminists that they should be included in the natural rights doctrine and, subsequently, be allowed the same rights as men. Namely, that men and women as rational beings are “ontologically identical,” that women also seek truth and knowledge, and that their dignity relies upon being granted independence. 

For more information, see our guide “What is Liberal Feminism?”

Another key figure in discussing social organization was Baron de Montesquieu. In The Spirit of Laws (1748), he argued that political authority should be divided into separate legislative, executive, and judicial powers.  

The questioning of assumptions about science, philosophy, and truth is at the center of Enlightenment thought. The Enlightenment encouraged skepticism (i.e., the questioning of our knowledge and assumptions) as a way to evaluate previous schools of thought. In Meditations on the First Philosophy (1641, [2013]), Descartes highlights the usefulness of doubt, laying the foundations for much of Enlightenment thought: 

Meditations on the First Philosophy

although the utility of a doubt so general may not be manifest at first sight, it is nevertheless of the greatest, since it delivers us from all prejudice, and affords the easiest pathway by which the mind may withdraw itself from the senses; and, finally, makes it impossible for us to doubt wherever we afterwards discover truth.

Skepticism is most commonly associated with the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Hume refers to skepticism as a

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

[...] universal doubt, not only of all our former opinions and principles, but also of our very faculties; of whose veracity, say they, we must assure ourselves, by a chain of reasoning, deduced from some original principle, which cannot possibly be fallacious or deceitful. (1748, [2020])

Hume thus posits this question: How do we know what is true? Epistemology, the study of knowledge, is a crucial branch of philosophy.

Skepticism makes us question our beliefs and their sources. We have reason to doubt our knowledge, according to Hume, due to the problem of inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning describes reasoning formed upon the basis of experience. For example, we reason that the sun will rise tomorrow as it has always risen. However, we have no guarantee this will happen in the future.

In A Treatise of Human Nature (later developed and expanded into An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 1751), Hume argues that no scientific method is infallible: 

A Treatise of Human Nature

all knowledge degenerates into probability; and this probability is greater or less, according to our experience of the veracity or deceitfulness of our understanding, and according to the simplicity or intricacy of the question.

     There is no Algebraist nor Mathematician so expert in his science, as to place entire confidence in any truth immediately upon his discovery of it, or regard it as any thing, but a mere probability. (1739, [2019])

Hume goes on to explain that, due to our reliance on probability, we are likely to make a mistake when we reach conclusions. 

For more on David Hume, skepticism and reasoning, see our guide “What is Empiricism?”

Emilie Du Châtelet argued that one way of arriving at the truth is by creating a hypothesis which can then be tested. In her work The Foundations of Physics (1740), she wrote that

Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings

There must be a beginning in all researches, and this beginning must almost always be a very imperfect, often unsuccessful attempt. There are unknown truths just as there are unknown countries to which one can only ﬁnd the good route after having tried all the others. Thus, some must run the risk of losing their way in order to mark the good path for others; so it would be doing the sciences great injury, inﬁnitely delaying their progress, to banish hypotheses as some modern philosophers have. (Du Châtelet, 1740, in Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings, 2009)

Two approaches to knowledge which engage with the doubt that skepticism raises are rationalism and empiricism. 

Rationalism holds that we acquire knowledge through reason and logic. Rationalism in this period was inspired by the writings of René Descartes, later developed by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and Kant. Descartes believed that the only real unshakeable truth was of our own existence, due to our ability to think and doubt, epitomized in his famous phrase “I think, therefore, I am” Discourse on the Method (1637, [2015]). (For more on this, see our study guide “What is Rationalism?”)

In opposition to rationalism is empiricism, the belief that knowledge is derived from our senses, observations, and experiences. Though Enlightenment thinkers privileged reason, they did not see it as the source of all knowledge, with many favoring the empiricist approach. 

Francis Bacon is seen as the father of this school of thought. In perhaps his most famous work Novum Organum (1620, [2016]), Bacon argues that the sciences should utilize the method of induction, and be based on observation and experimentation. This inductive method (i.e., an approach based on observation) was famously employed by Isaac Newton in The Principia (1687, [2016]). This scientific approach marked a radical departure from previous methods and is one we still use today. 

John Locke was a significant proponent of empiricism. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, (1689, [2013]), Locke argues that humans do not have any innate knowledge, capacity for reason, or sense of morality. Instead, we are a “blank slate” and all our knowledge is derived from experience. While Locke agrees with Descartes that we cannot solely rely on our senses, he argues that our senses are still valuable in our search for truth and knowledge. 

Hume builds upon the work of Locke and argues that the human mind has the capacity to make generalizations and form concepts. Though Hume agrees we are blank slates, he argues that when we encounter something we build a mental category; this mental category becomes more complex and refined through our experiences (1748, [2020]).

It is worth noting that not every philosopher fell squarely into the camps of rationalism or empiricism. As Immanuel Kant writes in The Critique of Pure Reason, 

Critique of Pure Reason

All our knowledge begins with sense, proceeds thence to understanding, and ends with reason, beyond which nothing higher can be discovered in the human mind for elaborating the matter of intuition and subjecting it to the highest unity of thought. (1781, [2009])

In other words, Kant believed that experience forms the starting point for knowledge. From that, we can use reason to reach logical conclusions. 

Enlightenment thinkers sought to challenge religious authority and religious intolerance. The Enlightenment was partially a reaction to religious conflict in Europe, typified by the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). Enlightenment thinkers reflected upon such events and many found that the church’s dogmatic approach would inevitably result in more violence and conflict in the future. Deism (the belief in God, but a rejection of religious figures as a source of divine revelation) and atheism also gained traction in this period. 

One of the most important works on religious intolerance is The Treatise on Tolerance (1763, [2012]), written by Voltaire. Here, Voltaire writes on religious persecution, focusing on the story of a merchant, Jean Calas, who was tortured and executed for the alleged murder of his son. Rumors were spread that the motive for the murder was that Calas feared his son would convert to Catholicism. Calas was later exonerated (followed by a campaign involving Voltaire) and became symbolic of religious persecution. Voltaire uses the case to condemn the violence that has been wrought due to religious differences:

A Treatise on Tolerance

The law of persecution [...] is equally absurd and barbarous; it is the law of tigers; nay, it is even still more savage, for tigers destroy only for the sake of food, whereas we have butchered one another on account of a sentence or a paragraph. (1763, [2012])

He further argues that it is irrational to expect everyone to have the same religion or belief system: 

It would be the height of madness to pretend to bring all mankind to think exactly in the same manner in regard to metaphysics. We might, with much greater ease, subject the whole universe by force of arms than subject the minds of all the inhabitants of one single village. (Voltaire, 1763, [2012]) 

Voltaire’s work can be summarized in his statement: “The fewer dogmas, the fewer disputes; and the fewer disputes, the fewer calamities” (1763, [2012]).

The Enlightenment seems to have found critics in every age. As Roy Porter states in The Enlightenment,

The ‘Age of Reason’ found few friends in the nineteenth century. Romantics judged it soulless, conservatives thought it too radical, while radicals in turn were distressed to find its leaders, notably Voltaire, were at bottom worldly elitists, salon talkers rather than revolutionary activists. Only in the twentieth century, when the true complexities of the relations between ideology and action have forced themselves upon us, have the subtle ironies of the Enlightenment come to be appreciated. (2019)

Even today, the Enlightenment still draws criticism — as Sarah Knott and Brenda Taylor summarize in Women, Gender and Enlightenment: 

Women, Gender and Enlightenment

Enlightenment is contentious. Once an age of reason, tolerance and emancipation, today it is routinely characterised as repressive and incipiently totalitarian [...]. (2005)

Though the movement had its foundations in knowledge, freedom, and progress, it has since become associated with totalitarianism and imperialist ideologies. Moreover, the Enlightenment period has faced criticisms for its lack of gender inclusivity. 

Totalitarianism and Dialectic of Enlightenment

In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Frankfurt School philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno argue,

Dialectic of Enlightenment

For the Enlightenment, whatever does not conform to the rule of computation and utility is suspect. So long as it can develop undisturbed by any outward repression, there is no holding it. In the process, it treats its own ideas of human rights exactly as it does the older universals. Every spiritual resistance it encounters serves merely to increase its strength. [...] Enlightenment is totalitarian. (1944, [2002])

Despite its ideals of humanism and freedom, Adorno and Horkheimer argue that the Enlightenment has resulted in the domination of individuals within society. 

As Dorinda Outram explains, Horkheimer and Adorno’s argument resulted in a “hostile interpretation of the Enlightenment”:

Interpreting Early Modern Europe

it was easy then to support the view that the Enlightenment’s allegedly ‘instrumental’, value-free, ends-orientated reason had led not only to the Holocaust, but to the exploitation of nature, and exploitative attitudes towards women and non-European races. (“Enlightenment Struggles,” in Interpreting Early Modern Europe, 2019)

However, as Outram explains, the Enlightenment was not a “unified movement of thought” and in fact: 

Ideas were often not carried to their logical conclusions, and practice and theory often swung widely away from each other. Beliefs about the inferiority of women and non-white races, for example, were difficult to fit into Enlightenment generalisations about the dignity of humanity, and human rights. This may also go far to explain the ‘interpretative overload’ which we have noted before. All who wished could find in the Enlightenment a hook for their own views, or fulfil their interpretative needs in the construction of a world philosophy or outlook, whether their views of the Enlightenment were positive or not. (2019)

The Enlightenment is often criticized by postcolonial scholars who argue that the ideology spawned from these philosophers resulted in the further oppression of non-Europeans around the globe: 

War, Violence and Social Justice

Enlightenment ideology also included explicitly racialised thinking about non-Europeans, whose religions, cultures, and attributes were seen as encompassing a different ‘race’ to that of Europeans. [...] The Enlightenment gave rise to an ‘Us-and-Them’ system of thinking which still dominates understandings of the world and its peoples. (Masoud Kamali, 2016)

This Eurocentric mentality gave rise to Orientalism and Social Darwinism:

Decolonizing Enlightenment

[...] as has been pointed out by both scholars of Postcolonial Studies as well as Holocaust Studies, Enlightenment’s promise of attaining freedom through the exercise of reason has ironically resulted in domination by reason itself. Along with progress and emancipation, it has brought colonialism, slavery, genocide, and crimes against humanity. (Nikita Dhawan, 2014)

The pursuit of progress served as justification for imperialism and colonization. Imperialists in Europe often used the discourses of the Enlightenment, focusing on the advancement of knowledge and freedom in the West, which invariably resulted in colonizing and “civilizing” other nations. 

For more on this, see our guide “What is Imperialism?”

Despite the numerous achievements of women during the Enlightenment (particularly in the fields of science, mathematics, and philosophy), they were often omitted from Enlightenment discussions and have been comparatively neglected in contemporary research of the period. For example, in the French “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens” in 1789 (which included many ideas put forward by Enlightenment thinkers), there was no mention of the rights of women. Olympe de Gouges, a published playwright, in response wrote “Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the [Female Citizen]” (1791) which asserted that women had the same inalienable rights as men and must, as such, be made full citizens. In this letter, she writes, 

Women's Rights and the French Revolution

Bizarre, blind, bloated with science and degenerated in this century of enlightenment and wisdom, in the grimiest ignorance, [man] wants to command as a despot over a sex which has been gifted with all intellectual faculties; he claims to rejoice in the Revolution, and claims his rights for equality, to say the least. (de Gouges, 1791, in Women's Rights and the French Revolution, 2017)

More recently, scholars have sought to amend this oversight and draw attention to the contributions of women during the Enlightenment. As Ruth Edith Hagengruber and Sarah Hutton write, 

Women Philosophers from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

Today, the influence of women’s contributions to the political and liberal development of the Enlightenment can hardly be denied. The contributions of Margaret Cavendish, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Anne Conway, Emilie Du Châtelet, and Mary Wollstonecraft are no longer overlooked. The claims for equality in Wollstonecraft, Conway’s monist metaphysics, the vitalist materialism of Cavendish, and Du Châtelet’s synthesis of Leibniz and Newton are becoming more and more part of the intellectual narrative in the history of philosophy. (2021)

The Enlightenment has shaped the world as we know it. The values of liberty, freedom, and equality are cited as having inspired the French and American revolutions. In addition, the pursuit of knowledge saw the development of technology and mathematics, the implementation of the scientific method, and a questioning of previous ideas. Many of the ideas characteristic of this movement are still discussed today, such as the separation of powers, freedom of speech, and democratic accountability. 

The Enlightenment is a crucial period in human history and the development of the modern world. Its promotion of human rights and scientific inquiry, alongside its questioning of traditional institutions and sources of authority, paved the way for greater social and political freedoms. 

A Cultural History of Law in the Age of Enlightenment (2021) by Rebecca Probert and John Snape (eds.)

Enlightened Colonialism: Civilization Narratives and Imperial Politics in the Age of Reason (2017) by Damien Tricoire (ed.) 

The Enlightenment: History, Documents, and Key Questions (2015) by William E. Burns 

The Labor of the Mind: Intellect and Gender in Enlightenment Cultures (2017) by Anthony J. La Vopa

The Secular Enlightenment (2019) by Margaret Jacob

Bacon, F. (2016) Novum Organum. Jazzybee Verlag. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1071433/novum-organum 

de Gouges, O. (2017) “Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the [Female Citizen]” in Mousset, S. (Ed.) Women's Rights and the French Revolution: A Biography of Olympe De Gouges. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1577302/womens-rights-and-the-french-revolution-a-biography-of-olympe-de-gouges 

Descartes, R. (2013) Meditations on the First Philosophy. HarperTorch. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/601930/meditiations-on-the-first-philosophy-pdf 

Descartes, R. (2015) Discourse on Method. Philosophical Library/Open Road. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2428537/discourse-on-method

Dhawan, N. (2014) Decolonizing Enlightenment: Transnational Justice, Human Rights and Democracy in a Postcolonial World. Verlag Barbara Budrich. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3256274/decolonizing-enlightenment-transnational-justice-human-rights-and-democracy-in-a-postcolonial-world 

Donovan, J. (2012) Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions. 4th edn. Continuum. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1353641/feminist-theory-fourth-edition-the-intellectual-traditions-pdf 

Du Châtelet, E. (2009) “The Foundations of Physics,” in Judith P. Zinsser (ed.) Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings. University of Chicago Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1853174/selected-philosophical-and-scientific-writings 

Filmer, R. (2017) Patriarcha and Other Political Works. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1578271/patriarcha-and-other-political-works 

Hagengruber, R. E. and Hutton, S. (2021) Women Philosophers from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment: New Studies. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2489639/women-philosophers-from-the-renaissance-to-the-enlightenment-new-studies 

Hibben, J. (2018) The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Jovian Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2731270/the-philosophy-of-the-enlightenment 

Horkheimer, M. and Adorno, T. W. (2002) Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Standard University Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/745055/dialectic-of-enlightenment 

Hume, D. (2003) An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Perlego. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1716431/an-enquiry-concerning-the-principles-of-morals 

Hume, D. (2020) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Vintage Books. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2450496/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding 

Hume, D. (2019) A Treatise of Human Nature. Laurus Book Society. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2896568/a-treatise-of-human-nature 

Jellinek, G. (ed.) (2009) “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens.” Perlego. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1820567/the-declaration-of-the-rights-of-man-and-of-citizens 

Kamali, M. (2016) War, Violence and Social Justice: Theories for Social Work. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1635418/war-violence-and-social-justice-theories-for-social-work 

Kant, I. (2009) The Critique of Pure Reason. The Floating Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1302699/critique-of-pure-reason 

Kant, I. (2017) An Answer to the Question "What Is Enlightenment". Delphi Classics. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1655063/an-answer-to-the-question-what-is-enlightenment-by-immanuel-kant-delphi-classics-illustrated-pdf 

Kenny, A. (2017) The Enlightenment: A Very Brief History. SPCK Publishing. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1469683/the-enlightenment-a-very-brief-history-pdf 

Knott, S. and Taylor, B. (eds.) (2005) Women, Gender and Enlightenment. Palgrave Macmillan. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3505120/women-gender-and-enlightenment 

Locke, J. (2014) Two Treatises of Government. Passerino. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2099897/two-treatises-of-government 

Locke, J. (2013) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Pomona Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3453849/an-essay-concerning-human-understanding 

Montesquieu, B. de. (2023) The Spirit of Laws: A Compendium of the First English Edition. The University of California Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3905499/the-spirit-of-laws-a-compendium-of-the-first-english-edition 

Newton, I. (2016) The Principia: The Authoritative Translation and Guide. University of California Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/550775/the-principia-the-authoritative-translation-and-guide 

O'Hara, K. (2012) The Enlightenment: A Beginner's Guide. Oneworld Publications. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/949938/the-enlightenment-a-beginners-guide 

Outram, D. (2019) “Enlightenment struggles” in C. Scott Dixon and Beat Kümin (eds.) Interpreting Early Modern Europe. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1518057/interpreting-early-modern-europe 

Porter, R. (2019) The Enlightenment. Red Globe Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2995828/the-enlightenment-pdf 

Schargo, N. N. (2019) History in the Encyclopédie. Columbia University Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3183033/history-in-the-encyclopedie 

Voltaire (2012) A Treatise on Tolerance. Barnes & Noble. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3716094/a-treatise-on-tolerance-barnes-noble-digital-library-and-other-writings 

Wollstonecraft, M. (2022) The Vindication of the Rights of Women: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. Dreamscape Media. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3254783/a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman-with-strictures-on-political-and-moral-subjects-pdf 

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What is The Sublime? | Definition, Examples & Analysis

The sublime is a term used across a multitude of philosophical categories. Whether it refers to aesthetics, spirituality, morals, or metaphysics, the sublime is primarily used to describe a sense of incalculable greatness. It refers to an experience which makes us feel small, that reminds us of our own insignificance, and which compromises our rational frames of reference. Often originally associated with a transcendent, divine, or mythological encounter – a colossal storm, for example, a great landform, or a monumental cathedral – the sublime offers an experience that overwhelms our logical faculties. Philip Shaw describes such an experience in his book, where he writes,

The Sublime

Sublimity, then, refers to the moment when the ability to apprehend, to know, and to express a thought or sensation is defeated. Yet, through this very defeat, the mind gets a feeling for that which lies beyond thought and language. (2017)

So, the sublime is an experience that overwhelms the senses and subverts the mental frameworks we rely on to shape our understanding of the world.

The sublime has a long intellectual history. It is thought to have emerged in either the first or third century with a text by Longinus, a manuscript that Shaw describes as ‘a work of rhetorical instruction, intended to be used by politicians and lawyers seeking to inform, persuade or influence an audience’ (2017). The type of rhetoric that Longinus considers is ‘lofty’ and ‘grand’, corresponding to the Latin translation of ‘sublime’ (2017). It sought to ‘overwhelm the audience so that a weighty conception may be instilled in the mind without any bothersome appeal to reason or justice’ (2017). This may sound like a potentially manipulative linguistic approach, but what is significant is the way that the sublime was theorized, even then, to challenge our senses and evoke strong emotion; an encounter where our logical faculties succumb to the power of something beyond their comprehension.  

Since then, the sublime has become associated with many prominent philosophers: Burke, Kant, Derrida, and Nietzsche, among many others. One of the prevailing philosophical challenges posed by the sublime is the particular ways in which it is vulnerable to scepticism, such as the task of empiricist explanation. How can the existence of a subjective and ineffable experience like the sublime be verified? How can this experience that transcends the reach of rational thought and language be explained? There are various means of approaching these questions, but a good place to start is by supposing that what this experience of the sublime presents us with is a different means of aesthetic judgement of the world. It describes an experience that is not pleasure and not pain, not happiness nor grief, not beautiful nor ugly, but has been thought to exist in an entirely different mode of consciousness.

In 1757, Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful was published. Although the concept of the sublime preceded Burke’s publication, this was an important development in the sublime as an empiricist concept. Burke examined the effects of the aesthetic experience of the sublime on our bodies and minds. He defined the sublime as a response to nature and art that brought forth ‘the strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling’ (1958, 39). It was Burke’s assertion that this degree of emotion eclipsed sensations of aesthetic beauty and pleasure and more closely approximated sensations of ‘terror’ and ‘danger’ (1958).

"I am satisfied", Burke wrote, "the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure." (1958)

Given this definition, the sublime might seem like an experience to avoid, but Burke emphasizes the complicated relationship and the close proximity between pain and pleasure, grief and joy. With this in mind, Burke proposed the sublime as not only an important human experience, but one with the potential to be quite wonderful. ‘Things which are terrible are always great’, Burke supposed (1958). In the experience of the sublime, we are faced with terror, danger – a colossal fear of the unknown and incomprehensible – which we ultimately derive pleasure from. This experience can come in a variety of forms that assault our different senses. Morose colours, loud noises, and sour stenches can all be experiences of the sublime, asserted Burke. ‘Soft’ and ‘cheerful’ colours, for example, would be ‘unfit to produce grand images’ whereas strong, dark colours might create this sense of greatness (1958). These colours alone could not account for the sublime, but they were likely to contribute such an experience. Of this, Burke wrote,

A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

An immense mountain covered with a shining green turf, is nothing in this respect, to one dark and gloomy ; the cloudy sky is more grand than the blue ; and the night more sublime and solemn than day. (1958)

Burke exemplified the way these elements that confront our different senses might come together to create a sublime experience through a storm. The overwhelming activity of a storm – the huge, darkened sky, the whipping wind, the sudden crashes of thunder and lightning – serves to remind us of our own vulnerability, our own physical, mental, and circumstantial smallness. In the experience of a storm, our own lives are put into perspective. This is a crucial experience and something which the sublime uniquely offers.

Burke famously emphasized the difference between beauty and sublimity, asserting that no experience could be both beautiful and sublime. In The Sublime Reader, this distinction is explained:

The Sublime Reader

Beauty is grounded in the passion of love and society, consists in a calming relaxation of our “nerves,” and is a response caused by an object’s (or person’s) qualities of being small, smooth, polished, light, delicate… Sublimity, by contrast, is rooted in the fear of death and desire for self-preservation and consists in tension in our nerves. It is caused by qualities such as an object’s vastness, infinity, and power. (2018)

This was significant because it challenged the aesthetic standards of classicism that prioritized precision, harmony, order, and restraint. Romanticism, a movement that succeeded classicism, ushered in an era of sentimental freedom, subjectivity, and expression.  Where a sense of the beautiful is ‘produced’ by ‘our reasonings’, the sublime ‘anticipates’, and ultimately, defeats it (2018). Classicism, then, corresponds to Burke’s concept of beauty – that which is aesthetically pleasing due to its balanced, smooth, orderly and delicate appearance – romanticism corresponds to the sublime; that which is powerful, unrestrained, dark and emotional.  Burke’s sublime became a founding concept for the early Romantics, influencing the trajectory of western culture in its wake.  

Because of Burke’s focus on the physiological and psychological effects of the sublime,

Kant considered his study as ‘an empirical psychology’ (2013).  As an idealist, however, Kant was not particularly interested in the empiricist verification of the sublime object. It was Kant’s general position that reality and the outside world could not be separated from the perceiving subject; that it is the mind that shapes experience rather than the other way around. Using this epistemological concept, Kant was able to discern the universality of the sublime.

In order to do this, Kant, like Burke, considered the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime. Neither beauty nor the sublime, for Kant were features of the outside world. When we look at a beautiful flower, or experience a thunderstorm, the sensations we feel are not intrinsic physical properties of the flower or storm. Instead, beauty and the sublime correspond more to ‘conditions of perception than to qualities inherent in the sensuous world’ (2017). Both can be said to belong to a similar realm; they exist as modes of consciousness rather than features of the outside world.

In The Critique of Judgement Part 1: The Critique of Aesthetic Judgement (1790), Kant describes the difference between the two: 

The Critique of Judgement Part I: Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

The beautiful in nature is a question of the form of an object, and this consists in limitation, whereas the sublime is to be found in an object even devoid of form, so far as it immediately involves, or else by its presence provokes a representation of limitlessness, yet with a superadded thought of its totality. (1790 [2020])

Beauty is an aesthetic judgement garnered from the form of an object. When we look at a flower, we can coherently apprehend its form which our mind then organizes as beautiful. Where the sublime differs from the beautiful is that the sublime is the experience of a formless object. Like the storm or a great mountain, the very scale or infiniteness of the object might prevent us from recognizing its form, so it ceases to be understood as beauty. Beauty employs the mind’s power of sensory comprehension, of understanding, while sublimity overthrows those powers. For Kant, the sublime is that which our senses fail to apprehend, creating that overwhelming or threatening feeling of fear. This results in two very different sensations:

"The beautiful", according to Kant, "is directly attended with a feeling of furtherance of life, and thus compatible with charms and a playful imagination. On the other hand, the feeling of the sublime is a pleasure that only arises indirectly, being brought about by the feeling of a momentary check to the vital forces followed at once by a discharge all the more powerful…" (1790 [2020])

In apprehending beauty, our imagination has room to play and explore while the sublime confronts the limits of our imagination.

For Kant, the sublime fit within his crucial theory of the mind’s intrinsic ability to generate concepts. While the formlessness of a storm, a sea, a night sky, might confront the limits of our sensuous perceptions, the categories of our mind are able to conceptualize the sublime, even when our senses fail to. This ability functions independent of our experience, hence how we are able to organize the experience of something like the sublime that overwhelms our sense perception.

Romanticism is a cultural movement with strong affinity to the sublime. Based largely on the work of Burke and Kant, among others, romanticism in part hoped to free artistic expression from the oppressive standards of classicism. That which we associate as ‘beautiful’, which gives us pleasure, is often assigned to a reductive classicist world view. Romanticism, however, offers an experience beyond pleasure of the beautiful. To this end, the sublime provided a profound opportunity to access a raw and unstructured emotional experience. Hence, regular ruminations and examples of the sublime can be identified in romanticist works, both theoretic and artistic. Notably, the sublime has been a framework through which to study and interpret romanticism.

In romanticism, it is typically scenes of nature that exemplify the sublime. Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog (1818) by Casper David Friedrich is a painting that has become representative of the romantic movement. It depicts a person in the foreground with their back turned to the viewer as they look out from a high precipice over a landscape enshrouded in clouds. Jagged rocks cut through the thick fog and in the background the great mountain range continues as far as the eye can see. Due to its subject matter of contemplation, subjectivity, and the natural world, Wanderer has not only become a symbol for romanticism, but it is widely accepted to evoke the sublime. The figure in Wanderer seems to be confronted with the vast power of nature. There is something potentially threatening and frightening about this encounter; the great drop of the mountain edge, the huge jagged cliffs, the unknown landscape in a veil of fog. The subject’s smallness in the face of this incomprehensible and infinite vastness creates a sense of danger, however, the subject seems to be inviting – welcoming even –  this experience. This confrontation of mortality, of vulnerability and insignificance, must offer something other than despair and fear.

Some facets of romanticism saw the natural world as the interface between the subject and God, so the sublime was an act of divine communication for which the natural world was the vessel. Hence, the vastness and power of the landscape in Wanderer could be that which Ferguson suggests, in Solitude and the Sublime, ‘affirms God’s omnipotence’ (2013). Or, the painting could depict ‘the experience of sublime pleasure in nature’ without necessitating a divine presence (2013). Whether the sublime is experienced as a moment of spiritual intervention or a stirring of deep visceral emotion, one relief that the sublime might offer is transcendence from the trappings of temporal, every-day life. A more in-depth analysis of Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog can be found here:

Wherever scenes of nature dwarf, threaten and thrill a perceiving subject in romantic works, there are suggestions of the sublime. In romanticist poetry, literature, music and visual art, the sublime stands for the purpose of freedom of expression, unrestrained emotion, and liberation from conventions of beauty. Romanticism offers an example of the way that millennia-old philosophical ideas can be implemented to change the perspective and aesthetic purpose of art.

The contemporary moment and the technological sublime

Shaw suggests that The Sublime often describes an experience that may not have much contemporary relevance. He writes that, 

such instinctive feeling for the transcendental is rare these days. As a result of secularism, together with increasing global awareness and media sophistication, we seem less inclined to regard the breakdown of reason and expression as indicators of a higher or spiritual realm. (2017)

If the sublime is taken to be an experience that infers spiritualism, or an awe and wonder in the new experiences the world affords us, it is likely not as widely accepted or universally experienced as it perhaps once was. A prevailing scepticism as well as the wide dissemination of digital images might prevent us from giving the sublime much credence. This all might result in a desensitization towards the original stimulators of the sublime experience. However, theories of the sublime continue to develop alongside these advancements. 

Leo Marx, for example, theorized what he dubbed the ‘technological sublime’, where we may come into contact with this transcendent power through the introduction of new technologies (1964). This is a feature of science fiction that uses new technological concepts – time machines, tractor beams, or intergalactic space travel, for example – to invoke a sense of the sublime. The same can be true, however, of our own reality. When rail or air travel was first introduced, it certainly would have been awe-inspiring in its power, challenging the reach of our comprehension of time and space (see our study guide on Time-Space Compression for more information on this topic). As humans, we quickly become accustomed to technologies that are part of daily life, but ever changing fields of industry, transportation, medicine and science may continue to confront the stretches of imagination and challenge our understanding of the world.

Technology constantly offers us new and often overwhelming experiences that then become integrated into the temporality of our lives. Art, on the other hand, may be said to have a timeless transcendental power that can repeatedly immerse the audience and evoke the sublime. Marx supposes that a feature of the technological sublime is the way in which it intrudes into nature. Perhaps, though, while the technological sublime is contingent on developments in contemporary culture and keeps pace with our rapidly adjusting judgements, arts that evoke the sublime can keep the wonder of nature alive in an ever-advancing technological age.

Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. 1st ed. Columbia University Press, 1958.

Clewis, Robert. The Sublime Reader. 1st ed. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.

Ferguson, Frances. Solitude and the Sublime. 1st ed. Taylor and Francis, 2013.

Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgement Part I: Critique of Aesthetic Judgement. 1st ed.  1790.

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