Enlightenment Essay Conclusion

Marx’s starting point in his analysis of modern industrial societies is a criticism of what he terms ‘bougeois reality’ which is characterised by the self-alienation of human beings: Man, who has found in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he sought a supernatural being, only his own reflection, will no longer be tempted to find only the semblance of himself-a non-human being-where he seeks and must seek his true reality (Lowith, 19).Marx’s work gives a precise analysis of capitalist industrial society, this was a moral critique, as well as a political one, and stemmed from a basic morality.

Marx’s starting point in his analysis of modern industrial societies is a criticism of what he terms ‘bougeois reality’ which is characterised by the self-alienation of human beings: Man, who has found in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he sought a supernatural being, only his own reflection, will no longer be tempted to find only the semblance of himself-a non-human being-where he seeks and must seek his true reality (Lowith, 19).Marx’s work gives a precise analysis of capitalist industrial society, this was a moral critique, as well as a political one, and stemmed from a basic morality.refers to an historical period dating from the end of the seventeenth century to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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This influenced thinkers all over Europe who already nurtured ideals of equality and progress.

Hegel viewed the individual as a subject within history and history as developmental and thus liberative.

Reader (1997) has defined the Enlightenment in the following way: An emphasis on the primacy of reason as the correct way of organising knowledge, a concentration on empirical data accessible to all and a belief that human progress was to be achieved by the application of science and reason (1997:4).

At the same time there emerged huge technological and social changes that led to a break with what had gone before.

Marx was convinced that capitalist society was dominated by class conflict.

Marx’s endeavours were motivated by man’s alienation from himself in modern capitalist society and his investigations were directed towards the understanding and critique of capitalism.

This was the first time that history and humanity’s role within it had been recognised as an ongoing and changing process.

Hegel’s work was very important, but his critics were at pains to point out that Hegel’s work was all in the realm of ideas.

Religious doctrine and teachings that had been upheld as objective truths and thus decided the way most people lived their lives were called into question.

These advances resulted in a new way of thinking and speaking about the world.