I want to go home.

From my paper for my minor project, designing a course on early modern Europe, in this case specifically on:

Philosophy and Governance in Western Europe: 1640-1800

—————————————————————————————-

As a whole, the course finds no singular narrative convincing – while the history of early modern Europe is not, as Hegel would have it, a history of conflicting ideas ultimately producing progress, neither is it, as Marx would have it, merely a story of materialistic determination in which ideas only play the part of window dressing. Rather politics, government, economy and philosophy all mutually shape and compel each other towards new realities. Yet the course is at heart sympathetic to the goals of the Enlightenment, and insistent upon the fact that reason remains the primary tool with which Western society attempts to determine what it will become. Ultimately we will return to Habermas, on a perhaps sad note, asking not what we regret losing from pre-modern Europe, (as the discussion is often cast), but what we regret losing from early modern Europe. Today, our contemporary Western culture hosts a public sphere that is a sad and shallow reflection of the critical debate once inspired by the Enlightenment.[1]

---

[1] Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Chapters 5-6