I’m open to being corrected, by evidence, but it would help if you could at least identify which claim or claims of mine you think is or are false.

Take Kant, for example. He held appalling views about women and non-whites. But neo-Kantians reject those views and endorse the core of his ideas in support of, for example, fundamental human rights. I think we can celebrate that without denying that Kant’s thought was tainted by racism and sexism.

The enlightenment ideals of which I speak are the ideals we’ve inherited from the culturally conditioned, racist, sexist, nominal progenitors of those ideals. But we have filtered out the worst of their prejudices to retain something valuable. Those residual ideas were a step forward, I believe.

So the enlightenment ideals that (it is claimed) originate with the Hurons, are ideals that we should endorse and celebrate? If you think so, then we might be in some measure of agreement. …

I’m encouraged by your comment to (try to) read Foucault’s essay on Kant/Enlightenment. Can you be specific? Cheers.

I would suggest that to think at all we must submit to rules. At best, we might swap one “episteme” for another. If someone rejects the constraint of reason itself, I have nothing further to say, for they have, as it were, “left the building". (The trouble is, some who do so are running for office.)

I think Foucault (I’ve read more about him than by him) likely deserves some respect as an historian of ideas. But I disagree with his postmodern relativistic excesses. I’m very aware that people like Adorno say such things. One can think of reason itself as “totalitarian”, if one wishes.

Nice. Well there are philosophers and then there are philosophers. Not all philosophers have fallen under the spell of post-structuralism, postmodernism, deconstructionism, etc. I’m not a “continental” philosopher, though every year I strive anew to wade through the quagmire of their thought.

A fascinating idea. Then would we not have something to thank them for?

I don’t have any disagreement with that, Dinodoode. In the 60s I believe that Soviet economic growth was, by some measures, greater than in the US.