so-called enlightened thinkers trying to find out the truth, there is obviously going to be an array of different answers. Some of them could be wrong, better yet, all of them could be wrong; but who’s to judge. Since we don’t know of the truth, there is absolutely no way to prove that someone has found it. Last but not least, according to the end of Rousseau’s quote, if it is found there is not one person who would know how to apply that truth to everyday life. This now brings us to bash number two on the Enlightenment thought.People go through all sorts of schooling to learn what, math, history, and science. That’s all good, but in the search of truth that type of knowledge will not get a person anywhere, “ Cultivating the sciences is very harmful to moral qualities. I see everywhere-immense institutions where young people are brought up at a great expense, learning everything except their duties. Your children will not know their own language, but will speak others that are nowhere in use; they will know how to write verses that they can barely understand; without knowing how to distinguish error from truth, they will possess the art of making them unrecognizable to others by specious arguments. But they will not know what the words magnanimity, equity, temperance, humanity, and courage are; that sweet name fatherland will never strike their ear; and if they here of God, it will be less to be awed by him than to be afraid of him. What then should they learn? Let them learn what they ought to do as men and not what they should forget.” (Rousseau, 56)If the Enlightenment is all about finding the truth through reason and human understanding only, the sciences themselves are sending this whole movement into the wrong direction. According to some of the greatest thinkers such as Socrates, and Plato, the real way to finding the truth is through virtue, or the good life. This schooling, accord...
