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In this probing book, Redeeming the Enlightenment, Bruce K. Ward reexamines four of the moral imperatives or 'liberal virtues' associated with the Enlightenment - equality, authenticity, tolerance, and compassion - and argues that they are, in fact, based on Christian moral ideals. In the current debate surrounding post-Enlightenment secular humanism, Ward contends that we should seek not to reject or reclaim the Enlightenment but to redeem it.
Ward's study largely engages three key modern thinkers - Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky - yet also includes such other notables as Kant, Locke, Heidegger, Tolstoy, Kafka, Reni Girard, Charles Taylor, and Martha Nussbaum. The result is a lively and provocative forum for reconsidering and creatively retrieving what is most valuable in Enlightenment thought.
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