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This 6 page paper discusses the idea of progress as expressed by Enlightenment figures, and whether or not that can be applied to human progress since that time. Bibliography lists 10 sources.
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6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVEnlPro.rtf
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instead to science and reason to explain the natural world. This paper considers the idea that the Enlightenment idea of progress was not frivolous but was instead an accurate prediction
of the 19th and 20th centuries. Discussion Before we can discuss this point, we need to consider what the Enlightenment thinkers considered to be progress, for it was indeed a
central tenet of the times. "Around that time, the belief arose that systematic improvements are made possible by the structural features of modern society and culture, improvements that will gradually
release humanity from much of the suffering characterizing its historical past" (Leet, 2002, p. 7). And this begs another question: what is suffering? Suffering seems to be "an in-built
feature of the human condition" (Leet, 2002, p. 7). It is always part of existence in some measure, since life itself includes both joy and happiness, triumph and tragedy, and
many of the things that happen cannot be avoided (Leet, 2002, p. 7). "In contemporary circumstances, political struggles at a number of different levels continue to proliferate in an attempt
to diminish or eliminate unnecessary pain and hardship," and these struggles involve "two basic categories of endeavour" (Leet, 2002, p. 7). The first struggle is "aimed at equalizing economic opportunities"
and the second seeks to "alter the self-understanding of groups which have been defined in negative ways by a dominant culture" (Leet, 2002, p. 7). In other words, everyone
should be able to provide a decent life for themselves and their families, and groups that have been systematically denigrated should not accept others valuation of their worth. Enlightenment philosophy
"can be understood as a particular kind of response to suffering. This response was conditioned by the rise of hopes that suffering could be put to an end through historical
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