e-Pedagogium 2003, 3(89):14-23

The Enlightenment - a crisis, but also a challenge

Imrich Sklenka

Přírodovědecká fakulta Univerzity Komenského v Bratislavě

The paper titled "The Enlightenment - a crisis, but also a challenge" is a remarkable contribution in which its author points out the recomprehension of the idea representing the Enlightenment that emphasizes the man's emancipation from the firmly stated structures and traditions. At the same time the author searches for a dignified solution of the crisis caused partly by a one-sided fixation on the scientific and technological rationality as well as by the descent of the civil society based on the freedom and the cognition of spirit.
The solution of this crisis is outlined in the realization of the possibility of understanding of self by the means of the process of thinking what is at the same time a challenge to a birth of real thinkers who will have a real courage not only to study what has been already thought and discussed, but also will contribute to hurdling this crisis with their own work what will certainly be a good and right step towards the further development of themselves as well as of the society that will survive only in this way and will be able to realize the real freedom as a factual definition of truth.

Keywords: the Enlightenment, crisis, cognition of spirit, definition of truth

Published: December 1, 2003  Show citation