Abstract :
This review points out the dangers of taking Jonathan Israel’s volumes on the
Enlightenment as a new framework for Enlightenment studies. Despite Israel’s claim in Enlightenment
contested to have historicized our understanding of the Enlightenment, his modus operandi is fundamentally
unhistorical, and the result is a presentist interpretation with an oversimplified classification of thinkers into
‘ radical ’ and ‘ moderate ’ camps. The review suggests more effective ways to make a truly historicized
Enlightenment present for us now, especially by devoting more attention to the literary and rhetorical
properties of Enlightenment texts.
