Dawn of the New Enlightenment

Abstract

This paper concerns scientific cosmopolitanism and how it connects with the Enlightenment in the classical and new sense in an interesting way. The focus is on two educators who were affiliated with the University of Tartu (Dorpat) at different times and in different ways, Sven Dimberg in the late 17th century and Georges Frederic Parrot in the late 18th-early 19th century, the latter actually being responsible for the reopening of the university. It was actually Parrot who brought Enlightenment to Livonia, a province of the Russian Empire back then. Both men, a Swede and a Frenchman, are responsible for bringing the University of Tartu to the map of the academic world. The first of these remarkable men, Sven Dimberg, was one of the first, if not the very first, to teach Newton’s method at a university. The other one made some original discoveries in chemistry and founded a new type of university in the region. Above all, we are currently witnessing the need for a “New” Enlightenment, as advocated by Nich...