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The Enlightenment is a term used to describe an era in Western philosophy
and cultural life, centered in the eighteenth century, where reason has
been recommended as the primary source and legitimacy of the authority.
The development more or less simultaneously in Germany, France, Britain,
the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and with the support of a
successful rebellion of the American colonies against Britain in the war
of 'American Revolution, the culmination of movement spread through much
of Europe, including the Polish-Lithuanian, Russia and Scandinavia, Latin
America and the instigator of the Haitian revolution. They argued that
the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the United States Bill
of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen,
and Poland-Lithuania Constitution May 3, 1791, were motivated by "the
principles of the Enlightenment" .
In contrast to the historiographical approach of intellectual enlightenment,
which examines the different currents of thought and intellectual discourse
in the European context during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
the cultural (or social) examines changes in European culture, society
. Under this approach, the Enlightenment is less a compendium of thought
process of a change of sociability and cultural practices - both the "content"
and the process by which that content was distributed very important.
Roger Chartier described as follows:
This movement [of intellectuals to the cultural and social] implies doubt
on two ideas: first, that practice can be derived from allowing or justifying
speech, secondly, it is possible to translate the terms of an ideology
explicitly the latent meaning of the social mechanisms.
One of the main elements of the cultural interpretation of the Enlightenment
is the increase in the public sphere in Europe. Jürgen Habermas has
influenced thinking about the public sphere more than any other, although
the model is increasingly questioned. The main problem that Habermas has
sought to respond because of the conditions for "rational, critical
and truly open discussion of public affairs. Or more simply, the social
conditions so that the ideas of the Enlightenment to the dissemination
and debate. His response was the creation in the XVII and XVIII of the
"bourgeois public sphere", a "field of communication marked
by new spaces for debate, more open and accessible public spaces and urban
sociability, and an explosion of print culture. " In particular,
Habermas identifies three essential elements of the public sphere: it
is equal, which has considered the domain of "common interest"
and that "in principle included .
James Van Horn Melton provides a good summary of the values of the bourgeois
public sphere: its members have taken the place of the supreme being,
everything was open to criticism (the public sphere is essential), and
its participants objected to the secrecy of kinds. This helps explain
what Habermas means that the domain of "common interest". Habermas
uses the term to describe the fields of socio-political knowledge and
debate that the authorities were once the exclusive territory of state
and religion, now open to critical scrutiny of the public sphere.
Habermas claims the creation of the bourgeois public sphere, with two
long-term historical developments: the advent of the modern nation state
and the emergence of capitalism. The modern nation-state in its consolidation
of power created by the counterpoint of a private company independent
of the state - which allows the public sphere. Capitalism further society's
autonomy and self-consciousness, to creating a growing need for information
exchange. In the emerging public sphere expanded, has organized a wide
range of institutions, including the most cited cafes and coffee shops,
beauty salons and the literary public sphere, figuratively located in
the Republic of Letters.
Dorinda Outram provides a more nuanced description of the rise in the
public sphere. The context of increased public sphere is the social and
economic development has changed grouped under the effects of the Industrial
Revolution, economic expansion, growing urbanization, population increase
and improve communications in the stagnation of the previous century .
Increased efficiency of production technology and communication have lowered
prices of consumer goods, even as it increased the number and variety
of products offered to consumers (including the documentation required
in the public sphere) . Meanwhile, the colonial experience (most European
countries had colonial empires of the eighteenth century) began to expose
the company to European cultures is very heterogeneous. Outram writes
that the end result was the elimination of "barriers between the
cultural, religious divides, the differences between genders and geographical
areas." In summary, the social context has been set in the public
sphere comes into existence .
Habermas's model has been criticized on all fronts by historians. That
citizen is contradicted by the many examples of noble class and low participation
in areas such as cafes and Masonic lodges. She was independent and critical
of the situation is inconsistent with the appearance of various government-sponsored
public and government participation in the discussion to the case of individuals
who used public places to promote the status quo.
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