ABSTRACT
If one were forced to offer a general and formal characterization of the Enlightenment, it would not be too controversial to conceive of it as an effort to emancipate human beings from the dual tyranny of superstition and arbitrary power. Modernity in general can be characterized as the transition from authoritative sources of knowledge and moral dictates (the priest, the ruler, the philosopher) to legitimation through individual warrant (the individual him or herself must recognize the validity of the reasons offered independently of the source of who offers them). And the Enlightenment’s grounding value of equality implied the claim that all human beings had access to these reasons, whether it be through some immediate feeling of right or wrong, a special moral faculty or through some prior principle of reason, such as Kant’s categorical imperative. For Hegel, the Enlightenment’s understanding of freedom is an historical advance, yet simultaneously undermines its own achievements; his political and social writings are an attempt to rectify this theoretical tension.
