The Enlightenment Vision

In the mail: The Enlightenment Vision: Science, Reason, and the Promise of a Better Future by Stuart Jordan.

"In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a major cultural shift took place in western Europe. Leading thinkers began to emphasize the use of reason to tackle the challenges of material and social life, and they questioned the tenets of Christianity concerning the existence of God, the purpose of life, and the needs of the individual. Instead of religion, intellectuals put their faith in science and humanistic ethics in the hope of improving the secular lives of people everywhere. Today we call this development the Enlightenment. Contemporary society is the principal beneficiary of Enlightenment discoveries. In this thought-provoking analysis, physicist Stuart Jordan evaluates the progress that global society has made since the Enlightenment."