We share with the people of the Enlightenment the common experience of profound technical, social, and cultural upheavals. Even back then, many pressing questions of our time were being posed: about the claim to truth in science and politics, about the question of gender, about social and global justice, about sustainable economic practices, about peace in Europe and the world, and about how to deal with natural disasters. This book updates the insights of the Enlightenment and helps us use them to understand the crises of the present in a new way.

The people of the 18th and 21st centuries share the common experience of profound technological, social, and cultural upheavals. At the dawn of industrialization, thinkers of the European Enlightenment could only begin to sense the consequences of the Anthropocene. Today, we are experiencing a similarly pivotal epochal shift, which leads to both practical and mental uncertainties. We are faced with the task of addressing interconnected crises in the areas of environment, health, poverty, and war. The science and philosophy of the Enlightenment hold theoretical potential for responding rationally to the contingencies of late-modern civilization.

Johannes Rohbeck is Professor emeritus of Practical Philosophy and Didactics of Philosophy at the Technical University of Dresden.

The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.