Definition of "Enlightment"

The Enlightment worldview, which considered the order of "Nature" as a basis and, at the same time, the subject of explorations of scientific natural sciences, has, at the same time, considered this order as a criterion of the artistically-aesthetic qualities of art. From an "ideological" point of view, it liberated art from its feudal religious and courtly servitude.

1986, Piotr Buczkowski, Andrzej Klawiter, editors, Theories of Ideology and Ideology of Theories‎, Rodopi, page 57

[…] with a mentality anchored in a profoundly influential and persistent hostility to central features of the Enlightment faith in the theoretical and practical autonomy of the human subject.

1999, Nicholas Walker, “The Reorientation of Critical Theory: Habermas”, in Simon Glemdinning, editor, The Edinburgh Encyclopedia of Continental Philosophy‎, Routledge, page 489

As a matter of fact the Enlightment culture was based on a philosophy inspired to an ethical laicism whose aim was to create a better society based on principles such as solidarity, equality of rights and duties, and full freedom.

2012, Francesca Valensise, From Building Fabric to City Form: Reconstruction in Calabria at end of Eighteenth Century‎, Gangemi Editore spa, page 8