I wrote the following essay for the competition “Fact or fiction: How to deal with scientific scepticism?” of the Austrian Academy of Sciences 2022. It did not win that one, and I did not manage to find any other outlet to publish it. Luckily, having a blog does allow me to share my thoughts with all of you. A few years later, I might not be completely happy with the writing style anymore, but my opinion on the topic is largely the same.
In the essay, I try to make a case for why we need to adapt Enlightenment thought to the modern world and what needs for that adaptation I think to be necessary. Some further editing has happened since the original submission.
Enlightenment++
Introduction
Humans have walked on the moon and dived
into ocean trenches, gazed into the microcosm as well as the macrocosm,
extended their lifespans through agriculture and medicine, yet there is no
broad consensus on the utility of the methods of sciences and reason, which have
led to all of those achievements and the current state of our civilisation. The
most prominent example has been the public discourse during the COVID19
pandemic. But many more such ongoing topics exist, ranging from the acceptance
of medical treatments that are in conflict with basic scientific facts, like
homeopathy and flat-earthers, to movements clinging to long-disproved conspiracy theories.
In my submission to the Austrian Academy
of Sciences prize questions 2022 “How to deal with scientific scepticism?” [1], I will try to focus only on what I view as a fundamental misconception,
because no single essay can adequately address this complex topic. From there, I
will formulate additional questions that require answers if we as a society
want to promote understanding of and trust in science. While I cannot offer
comprehensive answers, I can offer more questions. I will present ideas that could point us
towards a new framework to improve our current concepts for education and
communication. I am aware that my argumentation here is derived from an
incomplete viewpoint. Therefore, this essay is just a starting point for
future discussions. Yet I believe that we need to learn from the past in order
to shape a better tomorrow together.
From the Enlightenment to the present time
The basic misconception that also echoes
in the prize question’s full text (“To what extent are we dealing with
intellectual-historical tendencies that follow a general pattern, such as a new
irrationalism in the face of the challenges of globalisation or a
modernity-critical turning away from the Project of Enlightenment?” [1]) is the assumption that the Enlightenment as an active process has ever
penetrated the entirety of human society. Surely, contemporary humans
benefit from the fruits of Enlightenment endeavours, such as the enormous
supply of energy (both directly as food and indirectly for machines) and
information, but most of these benefits do not require an active understanding
and application of the Enlightenment’s messages.
The Age of Enlightenment, based on the fledgling scientific revolution around works by Francis Bacon, René
Descartes, Isaac Newton, and others in the 17th century, then culminated
in the 18th century in the European middle and upper classes connected
by the proliferated printing press [2]. Its emphasis on reason and scientific method can be summarised by Immanuel
Kant's use of Horace’s words “Sapere aude / Dare to know” [3]. Applying reason to our lives and institutions led not only to
the industrial revolution (by supplying the engineering knowledge to the
specific conditions of British coal mining in the 18th century) that
fulfilled many of its ambitions, but also led to modern states. These range
from liberal democracies committed to Enlightenment values to illiberal
oligarchies and dictatorships that draw from counter-Enlightenments,
nationalism, scientific racism, and other unintended consequences, in contrast
to earlier monarchies. Especially in Austria, citizens enjoy one of the highest
standards of living ever available in human history. Yet for the ordinary
citizen, no understanding of the Enlightenment’s principles of reason and
science is necessary to access these. Reason might help in utilising these
modern offerings better, for example to choose evidence-based medicine over
so-called alternative medicine, but it is not an absolute prerequisite. Science denialism is no barrier to the purchase of a new smartphone or car. Replicating technology and operating devices does not require any
understanding of history and ethics.
But why has a mindset so “reasonable” and
beneficent never reached the whole populace? In my opinion, the heterogeneous
success of the Enlightenment is two-fold. Firstly, in the Enlightenment’s founding
days, it was an elite movement. It might have been a foundation for later democracies, but it did neither originate in the general populace nor include significant groups
such as women, nor was the general application of reason politically encouraged.
Even to this day in Austria, the scientific method and reasoning might get minimal
coverage in middle school philosophy, if any at all, while students can graduate
up to a master’s degree without understanding how to conduct a scientific study.
Secondly, on a global scale, imperialism (by Western European nations, the USA,
Russia in all its incarnations, and even the Ottoman Empire alike), while
constructing narratives of inherent superiority, prioritised the extraction of
resources and creation of captive markets over the dissemination of the Enlightenment.
Of course, the consequences of the Enlightenment are more complicated, and our understanding of Enlightenment
ideas has changed over time. While scientific findings and new technologies are
generally beneficial, societal and political decisions, as well as unforeseen
side effects, can be detrimental. The horrors of both World Wars stand as prominent reminders that material progress alone is not enough, but must be accompanied by societal progress as well. Not only political
leaders and media personalities, but the broad citizenship must be on board if
we want the light of reason to illuminate all of mankind.
A potential successor: Enlightenment++
Why do I see an urgent need to grow
beyond the Enlightenment and to spread reason wider and deeper? Thomas
Jefferson once wrote: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state
of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” [4]. Democracy intends that voting decisions derive from informed
opinions. Especially against populism, a “hack” that manipulates voters into
support of policies, a populace well-versed in reason should be more robust. Individual
responsibility based on conscious decisions instead of gut feelings will also
improve our conduct in the great forum of online discussion. Better accounting
for biases and tribalism can increase the openness to scientific findings as
well. Beyond better living conditions for individuals and more effective
institutions, even solutions to global problems such as climate change,
societal polarisation, and inter-state conflicts would be more feasible with
widespread rational worldviews.
To have any hope of achieving this, we must adapt the ways of the Enlightenment’s dissemination. The original one achieved a lot but came to its limits; expecting that repeating the same processes will lead to better outcomes this time is foolish. Instead, by applying reason and lessons from the past, I want to discuss the attributes a successor to the Enlightenment, which has the potential to reach all people, should possess. I tentatively call this the Enlightenment++ after the incremental operator used in programming to increase a value by one. This symbolises our steadily increasing knowledge as well as the need to reflect on and iterate our reasoning methods in the future. Yet, as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment were emergent phenomena without a master plan, I am well aware that intentionally replicating successes might not be trivial.
Ada Palmer describes in her essay on
progress [5] how we often project our present conceptions and goals onto historic
processes that had no such initial teleology. Francis Bacon saw reason as a
tool given by God to achieve better lives through the application of the
scientific method. Nowadays, this would not be the intellectual starting point
for most thinkers, including myself, as narratives change over time. During the
Age of Enlightenment, researchers tested everything from alchemy to astrology, but the Enlightenment’s strength was to separate what works from what does not. All of this shows
that the human understanding of ourselves, nature, and our history constantly
changes, hopefully for the better. I expect this to continue, so Enlightenment++
will need to adapt and will not remain the right toolset forever.
Let’s close in on what my proposed
project for humanity would need to accomplish to democratise our case
for reason. Firstly, it requires a message about the benefits and philosophy of
reason based on history and science. Secondly, we need a way to connect people,
share information, and facilitate dialogue. Thirdly, we must find a framework
for dissemination that inclusively addresses all humans in an egalitarian way
and is not just another dictum from above. As I promised, these requirements can
be reframed as additional questions.
How could the Enlightenment++ work?
1 – What messages could Enlightenment++ confer?
On a basic level, this question might be
the easiest one to answer. From the works of many great Enlightenment thinkers
up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there is ample material that
just needs a brush-up for our new endeavour. Yet the most compelling narrative
should be the achievements that reason brought to modern humans that make our
lives better, and where its absence causes suffering. Steven Pinker’s
“Enlightenment Now” [6] tried, but in my opinion, did not represent the
width of human history adequately and ultimately failed to offer a
compelling vision for the future. Yet, we could gain many insights from his
attempt. From my viewpoint, the case for Enlightenment++ must clearly address
where and why the previous partial Enlightenment failed as well, mostly on the
political level. In the end, we must make clear that improved well-being for
everyone, our communities, and planet Earth requires us to actively apply reason
on all levels.
In the short term, beyond the general message
of reason, we ought to focus on critical thinking in the face of the flood of misinformation,
disinformation, and malinformation that can easily drown out productive
discourse. Such immunisation strategies can be derived from modern psychology
research [7], with examples such as pre-bunking of disinformation [8] and a practice of bias and prejudice awareness. New research
suggests that addressing people’s perception of their own knowledge, especially
overconfidence in it, could be a different starting point than bludgeoning them
with facts [9]. Learning to handle and learn from
disagreements should be part of this as well.
2 – How could Enlightenment++ connect to individuals and
communities?
Again, at first glance, this seems like an
easy question. Never before have humans been as connected as in this day and
age. The internet, accessible by smartphones, was available to 60% of the
global population in 2020, having doubled from 30% within ten years [10]. This is obviously less than 100%, and more barriers like language,
censorship, and platform fragmentation remain. Other media, such as TV and radio, have not lost their relevance, but hardly allow near-instant two-way
communication. The number of communication channels supplied by the internet
available to the majority of humans today is far more than the founders of the Enlightenment,
who relied on letters and printed publications, could have foreseen.
While entry into the public discourse
during the Renaissance required fluidity in Greek and Latin in order to address
your peers, and during the Enlightenment, one needed access to a printing press to print leaflets, now the potential to quickly share a post on social
media has shown that just having a platform alone is not enough. It could be
that we as society already wasted our time window to frame productive
discourses in the 2010s when we let the algorithms of profit-oriented companies
polarise the online discourse. Everybody can scream at everyone else as well as
share insights on the net. On the other hand, authoritarian censorship or
community pressure on unwanted ideas can also exclude people from a budding
global dialogue.
Networks are not the only aspect to
consider. Traditional institutions for non-academic sharing of knowledge
already exist in the form of libraries. Local discussions around pub tables
offer a direct connection to people otherwise contained in their own media
bubble. So far, I have focused on rich and well-connected democracies. Sharing the
Enlightenment++ globally would also require solutions for poorer regions and
illiberal systems that can work around state structures if needed, for example, to reach girls in Afghanistan
or North Korean farmers.
We can summarise this using the following
questions: How can we build up a global system that can practically reach
nearly every human? How can we avoid tribalism and intellectual bubbles? How to
make the case for reason viral? How to meaningfully curate online dialogue?
3 – How could Enlightenment++ work on an egalitarian
level?
To me, this is the most difficult
question. Previously, the Enlightenment was concentrated in intellectual elites and
powered imperialism rather than spreading worldwide. But how can my proposed
successor go beyond these historical trends and the current rampant rejection
of science and reach all humans? I do not believe that top-down approaches
alone, such as “just” extending school curricula with more lessons or parading
scientists through the news, can lead to success. As long as millions of
children lack access to basic education so much that they cannot even obtain basic
reading skills [11], just putting a smartphone in everyone’s hand is not enough. We
must think of a framework accessible independently of classical education
structures or at least address their lack as well. Egalitarian access also
requires considerations for people with disabilities, and both could benefit
from technological assistance for the translation of information between
languages and media, such as text-to-speech as an obvious example.
Especially because a relevant number of
people do reject state authorities for good or bad reasons, we must avoid an
air of superiority and proselytising. This could be supported on the state level by
improved government transparency and open discourse on policy, and on a personal
level by establishing common ground for discussion. We need to reach and
inspire people, in contrast to previous approaches of teaching and prohibitions.
We should democratise our quest to explore reason and include as many as we
can. From the past, we can expect that even the best Enlightenment++ will not convince
everyone, but as long as it is a big step in the right direction, it is a
worthy endeavour.
How can we make the quest for reason into
a common goal? Can such a development even be steered, or would it need to emerge
by itself? How could we manage all of this as a global civilisation? I cannot
answer these as this all is just my limited viewpoint, but hopefully this essay
itself is already a part of such an emergence. Hopefully, readers can add more
pieces to the puzzle.
Conclusions
In
summary, I want to add to the original question a different perspective based
on the lack of penetration of Enlightenment thinking into the wider populace. Without the entrenched application of reason, the rejection of scientific achievements and other
political issues is inevitable. My approach suggests that we need new ideas to raise awareness that reason is a powerful
tool in the human arsenal for achieving better lives for everyone on Earth, as the
authority-driven concepts of the Enlightenment alone are evidently not good enough. We cannot
wait for random changes in public opinion. I call for our societies to
advertise the benefits of reason on a participatory level and to try shaping historical trends that were emergent phenomena in the past. We can learn from
our history, driven by the
same reason I argue for.
Is reaching everyone quickly realistic?
No. We just need a successor to the Enlightenment
to do better than before in order to see a positive impact, like strengthening
liberal democracy and the understanding of science. In the past, not dying of
plagues or speaking to someone on the other side of the planet was considered
inconceivable as well, but we have changed ourselves and our environment nonetheless. Who
can say now what we might be able to achieve? Only if we do not try to
enlighten each other further will we definitely fail. I want to invite all of
us to develop something new and better, the Enlightenment ++, together.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Stefan Kerbl, Magdalena
Hangel, Sascha Nikolodi, Georg Rauchenwald, and Evelyne Fröstl for our
stimulating discussions that helped me to better grasp this topical complex. I further
want to express gratitude to Prof. Ada Palmer from the University of Chicago
for the insights and inspiration I acquired during her 2022 course “Monks to
Voltaire: European Intellectual Transformations 1200-1750”. Finally, on behalf of all future readers of this essay, I want to thank Magdalena Hangel,
Stefan Kerbl, Georg Rauchenwald, and Evelyne Fröstl, my proofreaders who
helped me polish it into a better readable work.
References
[1] Fact or fiction: How to deal with
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https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/preisfrage/preisfrage-2022.
[2] Encyclopaedia Britannica: Enlightenment 2021.
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[3] Kant I. Answering the Question: What is
Enlightenment. Berl Monatsschrift 1784.
https://archive.org/details/essaysandtreati01kantgoog/page/n29/mode/1up.
[4] Jefferson T. Thomas Jefferson to Charles
Yancey, January 6, 1816 1816.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.048_0731_0734/?sp=4&st=text.
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