How is Enlightenment Defined?

Though the, enlightenment philosophers defined the term in their own way, but the recent critics are also interested to define it. Enlightenment is used here not to define a strict historical period, but rather as a marker to signify a large, somewhat rough edged phase in European culture.

Webster's new collegiate dictionary defines it as, the movement is marked "by questioning of traditional doctrines and values, a tendency towards individualism and an emphasis on the idea of universal human progress, the empirical method in science, and the free use of reason.”

Peter Gay sees the period's thought as fundamentally defined by the informality of its social and literary forms, by its stress on utility, and by its confidence in critical method.

Hohendhal stresses institutions rather than individual, he also marks the enlightenment as the founding era of criticism; he argues that the whole institution of criticism has been built on enlightenment framework.

 Enlightenment developed a powerful convention: the convention that ideas are equally accessible for educating men and that, in the realm of public discussion, men are judged by the degree of their information and the quality of their ideas, not by bank, office, or wealth.

Recent critics are arguing that the students of each historical period defined the period either critically or creatively by adopting the "terms of reference" and the main features of the time period. Either in revising Renaissance or eighteenth century or romanticism, the recent students of history have analyzed the "terms of reference" but Hohendahl argues again that the whole institutions of criticism have been built on enlightenment foundations, so the period is marked by the institutionalization of criticism which had provided the opportunities for multiple critical analysis.