Studi lockiani. Ricerche sull'età moderna. Vol. 3

«"Locke and the Enlightenment" allows of a twofold reading: the first has a strong historico-philosophical commitment and interprets this title as the investigation of the reception of Locke's thought in 18th-century philosophy and science; the second interprets it instead in the sense of a less historically committed debate on the intrinsic relevance of Locke's ideas to the Enlightenment. The two readings are by no means mutually exclusive but should coexist in order to find an answer to the question concerning the stili extremely vague and stereotyped relation-ship between Locke's philosophy and the Enlightenment. On a closer examination the ambiguity of the title reflects the ambiguity of the notion of Enlightenment itself, which can be understood on the one hand as the historical Enlightenment, and on the other hand as a broader historiographical category that moves beyond the chronological boundaries of the "Age of Enlightenment" [...] ». (From the introduction by Brunello Lotti and Paola Rumore).