On Enlightenment

"David Stove, in On Enlightenment, attacks the intellectual roots of enlightenment thought, to define the limitations of its successes and the areas of its likely failures. Stove is not insensitive to the many valuable aspects of enlightenment thought. He champions the use of reason and rationality, and recognizes the falsity of religious claims as well as the importance of individual liberty. What he rejects is the enlightenment's uncritical optimism regarding social progress and its willingness to embrace revolutionary change.". "He advocates a conservative "go slow" approach to change, pointing out that today's social structures are so large and complex that any widespread social reform will have innumerable unforeseen consequences. For example, the welfare state may diminish individual initiative. The use of pesticides may increase the food supply while polluting the water supply, the popularizing of university education, may lead to a decline in academic standards. Since government has a virtual monopoly on large-scale change. It follows, in Stove's view, that its powers must be limited in order to prevent large-scale damage, instead, he argues that reforms, when they are to be made at all, must be realistic, local, necessary and never coercive."--BOOK JACKET.