Lumières et Enlightenment. Faux parallèle ou vraie dynamique du mouvement philosophique ?

Michel Baridon : Lumières and enlightenment : an artificial parallel or the true driving force of the philosophical movement ? Was the Enlightenment an international movement or a conglomerate of philosophes determined by national issues ? This article tries to demonstrate that it was from the start an international movement inspired by intellectuals whose audience had been shaped by the Reformation. Its coherence resulted from its opposition to divine right absolutism. This explains why it was founded in Holland among refugees from France and England in the early 1680s. The attack against the Catholic church generated a new vision of the past and a complete reappraisal of the function of history ; the attack against divine right revived two types of political ideologies : limited monarchy (Macchiavelli, Harrington and Montesquieu) and Calvinistic contractualism (de Bèze, Locke and Rousseau). The very names show that the Enlightenment, true to its origins, assumed an international character.Baridon Michel. Lumières et Enlightenment. Faux parallèle ou vraie dynamique du mouvement philosophique ?. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°10, 1978. Qu'est-ce que les Lumières ? pp. 45-69