Pour une histoire des Lumières d'un point de vue cosmopolite

Abstract

Guiseppe Ricuperati : For a history of the Enlightenment from a cosmopolitan point of view. This article asks if today it is possible to write a history of the Enlightenment from a cosmopolitan point of view, i.e. one which not only abandons ideas of domination (with the French, German or English Enlightenment as the centre and the others as the periphery), but also refuses the arrogance of the present, the modern idea of the Enlightenment. Instead we could look at the movement of different cultures and how they used the Enlightenment to build their own complex identity. The different is thus no longer between centre and periphery but between old nations and those which experienced the 18th Century while building a new national identity. The question is further complicated when one considers those countries which have experienced dictatorships, of the right and the left, if it is true that the very category of the Enlightenment was reinvented in opposition to European fascism, as it was an essential part of the culture of those in exile.