> Are you serious arguing that all of the characteristics of
> Enlightenment thinking and values can be explained by just-so
> stories like this?
Let's put values aside for the moment. I certainly think all aspects of Enlightenment thinking (aka the norms of proper reasoning and fecund naturalistic investigation) can be explained by such just-so stories.
> If so, how do you explain the fact that many human societies do not value
or heavily rely on
> Enlightenment style thinking?
What do you mean? Are there cultures in which no blinks when someone expresses a bare contradiction? Claims that 2 and 2 add up to 5? That the sun won't rise tomorrow?
> And if the Enlightenment just reflects how people think, why do historians
make a fuss about it? Nothing really
> changed?
No. We learned a lot of stuff we didn't know before, but we didn't need to adopt new norms of reasoning and investigation to get there--we just needed to come closer to obeying the old norms. And now we can pass Enlightenment discoveries (again, putting aside purported moral discoveries) on to pretty much anyone in the world. (I suppose I should regard the fact that many adults in the US claim not to believe in evolution as a disconcerting data point for my view.)
> (--Once again, old whisker's dead on: people treat the
> products of social relations as something that must
> preexist social relations!)
Well, if Marx actually disagreed with me on this one (would that we could put the question to him), he'd be wrong.
-- Luke