Voltaire became famous for challenging the Cartesian French orthodoxy, traveling to England for a celebrated visit and bringing home "enlightened" ideas about philosophy, politics, and much else besides in an attempt to foment the emergence and development of a French Newtonian program.
Think: Oprah's endorsements of spiritually enlightened ideas a la Geneen Roth, or Julia Roberts' cinematic translation of "Eat Pray Love".
As a journalist he spread enlightened ideas in the Royal Audiencia, and as a hygienist he composed an important treatise about sanitary conditions in colonial Ecuador that included interesting remarks about microorganisms and the spreading of disease.
Perhaps it's time to craft a similarly enlightened idea at the international level -- to show appreciation of the truly promethean things that our species has done, and to safely bequeath them to those who follow.
Although his ideas enlightened educational thought throughout the country, only one of Jefferson's dreams reached actuality in his lifetime: the University of Virginia, which opened in 1825 and was the most up-to-date institution of its sort, the first frankly secular university in America, and the closest to a modern-day conception of a state university.
Colt conceived of himself as a man of science and thought if he could enlighten people about a new idea like nitrous oxide, he could in turn make people more receptive to his new idea concerning a revolver.
The explanations are enlightening, but the ideas that underpin Dawkins's central argument – that the world is fundamentally physical and knowable, that religion and scientific understanding cannot coexist – are more controversial.
Chae states Stanton's work is "absolutely stunning because it motivates, changes and enlightens people's ideas in a way that the city of New York becomes a stronger community through the organization as a whole".
What matters as well for our purposes is that whereas the examples given by Sidgwick properly illustrate the logic of his argument, those provided by Kant do not really enlighten us further, for the idea of purpose frustration (or "self-frustration") mobilized in the rebellion and secession cases is certainly not applicable once we shift to an ideal public.
