No one, I trust, will at first think of these two as being connected.
Butterfield discusses the idea of progress as the final lynchpin in the Whig Interpretation becoming, finally, the English tradition in history, The Englishman and his History, p 80, 81.
I want to talk about their interconnection.
This discussion is intended to grate on all stripes of Enlightenment afficionados alike.
Here is a recent post quote, from the same book, p 120 discussing science, reason and skepticism, and connecting this development not with the intentions or the faith of scientists, but rather with the skepticism of 17th and early 18th century publicists, a skepticism going back to Fifth Century Enlightenment skepticism.
BUTTERFIELD RE THE AGE OF REASON
Here is a recent post quote, from the same book, p 120 discussing science, reason and skepticism, and connecting this development not with the intentions or the faith of scientists, but rather with the skepticism of 17th and early 18th century publicists, a skepticism going back to Fifth Century Enlightenment skepticism.
BUTTERFIELD RE THE AGE OF REASON
"The results of the scientific movement were often popularized and turned into a new world-view not by the scientists themselves but by literary men; some of whom--like their leader Fontenelle-- had caught their skeptical outlook not from the sciences at all but by contagion from some ancient philosophy."
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