Critique of Enlightenment Reason: Romanticism and Freud
Critique of Enlightenment Reason
This criticism has two moments:
The Romantic Movement
The Romantic movement was a cultural, artistic, and political force, noted for its denial of science and its power over human concerns. This was because science was considered absolute and unchangeable, contrary to human desire. At this time, there was a revaluation of religion because it was seen as closer to the fundamental questions of human existence than science or capitalism.
Enlightenment Ideals vs. Romantic Values
- Enlightenment Ideal: The recovery of the universal over the particular.
- Enlightenment Ideal: Science as absolute truth.
If Enlightenment reason fought for pure reason, Romanticism fought for justice. National particularities appeared, valuing the particular over the universal. Romantics believed science did not have the final word, leading to a revaluation of religion because it was considered to deal with deeper human problems. Romanticism was an attempt to find an alternative to science and modern capitalism.
Romantic Camps
In the Romantic period, there were two camps:
- Conservative: Valued a return to pre-capitalist periods and opposed utopian socialism.
- Progressive: Opposed socialist capitalism that turned man and his becoming into a mere commodity product.
Rousseau’s Thought
Rousseau believed civilization perverted man. He proposed seeking a society as close to the state of nature as possible, suggesting that the state should be based on democracy. Rousseau saw nature as a balanced system. Currently, satisfaction is sought above all else, as it is considered imperative. This thought does not fully explain the violence and evil in our societies, despite them being ostensibly free societies. Education in today’s society revolves around formation to make the human being sociable.
Liberty and Freud’s Paradox
Duty involves sacrifice, and without society, it could not function because all depend on each other. Satisfaction has become the primary obligation for the subject. According to Freud, the most serious harm is not allowing space for desire. Only when there is the possibility to delay gratification is it possible to create space for desire. Desire involves a commitment to the future and the past; it is a concern for the subject that drives the search for future commitment.
Freud’s Thought
Freud is the intellectual son of both the Enlightenment and Romanticism. From Romanticism, he inherited a critique of reason and its ideals, which compromised the future of the human being. Thinkers and philosophers began to wonder about the path of human civilization, which seemed perilously close to physical and moral barbarism, marked by wars.
Critique of Reason in Freud
For Freud, the main problem was unraveling the human psyche. Freud was a doctor trained in a new specialty, neurosurgery, but he realized that medicine was failing the mentally ill in Europe. Motivated by his work as a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, he investigated the nature of the psychic in humans, seeking to discern between the brain and the psyche.
Freud questioned what differentiated humans from natural beings—a question traditionally answered by reason, manifesting as consciousness and reflection since the Greeks. To understand the human psyche, one must understand man. Freud argued that the psychic was reduced to consciousness and reason. This led him to believe that man is a distorted being, separated from nature by language and symbolism. Freud did not prove the origin of language but asserted that we cannot treat man simply as an animal possessing reason.
Reason in the Baroque and the Enlightenment
Baroque reason turned its greatest achievement toward science, identifying with mathematics and physics. In this age, reason appeared as an ideal extending to the entire cultural and social world. Scientists led the way toward modern science.
Political Implications
In the Baroque era, ideals of reason had not yet fully extended to the political arena. This situation evolved, showing the same idea as in the Baroque but also introducing the attempt to develop a universal policy independent of religion. This separation dramatically illustrated the account of faith. In this separation lie the ideals of today’s politics and a purely rational morality, whose motto is: Equality, Fraternity, and Liberty, registered in the Declaration of Human Rights.