From Enlightenment to Romanticism

How the Enlightenment Became a Philosophical Movement

The Enlightenment traces its roots to a transformative shift in the attitude toward sensation and feeling, a change that began in Cartesian thought. Take, for instance, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729—1781), who, observing the stifled cry of Laocoön—the famous ancient statue—saw not the stoic valor that a classicist might highlight, appealing to the visual clarity of the "three unities" that portray the hero's civic virtue and readiness to sacrifice, but rather the necessity of capturing not a mere moment in the heroes' lives, but the idea of humanity in its sensory specificity; he emerged as an ideologue of the Enlightenment.

Unlike his predecessors, who taught at universities and believed that signs, which allowed the mind to think rather than merely perceive, were fundamental to understanding—signs that could take any form—Descartes asserted that sensations are primary for the mind. These sensations evoke ideas in the brain that are fundamentally distinct from the objects of the external world (the object being substantial and tangible, while the idea is abstract and instantaneous) but are habitually associated with those objects. Thus arises the notion of consciousness as a mechanism for controlling these habits, enabling a reliable connection between our representations and the objects of our experience. This reliable connection, from the perspective of rhetoric and other traditional "arts," may seem tautological—"this is this"—but in Descartes' system, consciousness is always dynamic, constantly drawing conclusions about what occurs: the affection caused by the sensory perception of an object necessitates the ongoing reconstruction of the perceiving consciousness, which can only understand what it has experienced and from which object it has endured what. A critique of texts as "merely words" gives rise to a new culture of the European novel, which develops its narrative not from other exemplary texts but from the affections of its characters and readers.

In the Russian language, the term "affect" denotes a powerful emotional state in which an individual loses all control: "an act done in a state of affect." In Western languages, however, the meaning is broader: it encompasses any emotion that we recognize as having been provoked from outside ourselves, rather than emerging from our subjective experiences. For instance, when admiring an object, we may feel emotions, but if we cannot comprehend how such a thing could have been created, we experience an affect. In our culture, we sometimes conflate emotions and affects, for example, refusing to discuss a film because it left a profound impression on us, although it is clear that we were simply overwhelmed by emotions rather than paralyzed by an affect.

Kant defined sensibility as the capacity to discern which specific object is currently affecting us, whereas affect is understood as the direct impact of that object. For example, "I feel unwell" constitutes an affect, while "I find this person unpleasant" reflects sensibility. This distinguishes Kant's teachings from ancient and medieval philosophy, where affect (pathos) was understood as a disturbance of the soul, contrary to the clarity of divine or perfect human understanding, and, if acknowledged, was viewed as an event (such as the Passion of Christ) rather than an emotion.

Medieval philosophy divided entities into "mental" and "sensory." The intellect apprehended God and angels, numbers, ideas, and proportions; the senses grasped material objects, historical contexts, actions, and emotions. Any sensory object could serve as a sign for a mental one, hence the diversity of natural life pointed to divine grace, and musical harmony indicated the order of divine design.

In the Age of Reason, the term "feeling" came to signify essential social practices such as friendship and love. "Cultivating feelings" implies nurturing such social skills, while "having feelings" denotes the ability to form friendships and fall in love; "and feelings hasten" indicates a desire to connect with various people and engage in different situations; "justified feelings" means having proven oneself as a true friend, whereas "offended feelings" indicates having revealed oneself to be a false friend.

A fitting illustration comes from a poem by E. A. Boratynsky:

The fortunate are poorer than us: the all-seeing gods
Gave them sensation, while feeling was given to us.

The poem's meaning lies in the notion that while we may be impoverished, we possess the ability to connect and communicate, whereas the wealthy can merely seek pleasures that ultimately bore them. Similarly, in Russian literature, one encounters the phrase "to feel with one's entire being," meaning to grasp that the laws of life—social or psychological—exceed the capabilities of reason, that the beauty of nature or love signifies something comprehensible, rather than merely a further instance of the sensory. Such a feeling may threaten one with psychological automatism (Kandinsky-Clérambault syndrome), the sensation that one is not acting but rather that one's organism is acting while one observes its actions. Yet, it is also the essence of life, and cannot be termed an "affect," for the concept of affect in contemporary philosophy typically connotes attachment—an emotionally rich life achieved through constant engagement with someone or something. For instance, an actor elicits affects when they have previously earned the audience's affection; an audience that does not trust the actor cannot fully appreciate their performance. Similarly, the statement "I feel unwell" involves not only a disturbance of the organism but also my attachment to that organism, my desire to restore its well-being.

The Enlightenment fostered a unique economy of philosophy, indicating that philosophy became not merely a subject of heightened social interest but also an area of investment. The apotheosis of this economy is the renowned "Encyclopedia" (1751—1780) by D. Diderot and J. L. d'Alembert, the volumes of which were quite expensive yet widely purchased throughout Europe, as they offered the opportunity to assimilate and systematize knowledge independently, learning to apply the latest insights in various trades. Essentially, this was the first book organizing investments in the "innovations" declared within its pages.

The Enlightenment was already engaged with a new understanding of consciousness and a fresh perspective on sensibility. Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715—1780) sharply distinguished knowledge from sensation, positing that we can experience something unconsciously—such as feeling unwell—but we only recognize it when we understand that it affects us, rather than simply being felt somewhere. We are always aware of the air around us, yet we seldom contemplate its omnipresence; we feel the ground beneath our feet, but we walk without making any deductions about how to walk. Condillac regarded olfaction as the simplest sensation: it can be ignored when we encounter an unpleasant smell, and we need not remember it, whereas sounds and, particularly, images tend to be retained in memory.

Condillac further differentiated between recollection and memory. Recollection involves merely reconstructing what has been seen, reimagining the object in the same contours as when it was first perceived. In contrast, memory entails the creation of an idea that resurrects the feelings associated with the seen or otherwise experienced object. For example, recollection of bread involves its round and crusty appearance, while the memory of bread encompasses its softness and satisfying quality.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712—1778) established a distinctive form of individualism, no longer merely a reference to individual destiny, but a recognition that even close friends cannot fully shield him from the blows of fate. Rousseau often lamented that even the most intimate companions, whether knowingly or unknowingly, inflict suffering upon him. Thus, the philosopher distinguished between the notions of proximity and attention: proximity does not grant freedom; rather, it threatens new suffering, while only attention can bestow true freedom upon an individual. Indeed, a prisoner, too, is not devoid of proximity—he is continually close to himself in solitary confinement or in the closeness of memories, possessing the freedom to dream or to plan; yet we would not call this freedom. From the connection between attention and freedom, Rousseau crafted his version of the "social contract." He reasoned that to truly attend to another, one must possess common sense—or, literally, "a shared understanding"—to comprehend events as one's neighbor does. However, the neighbor may prove to be a rival in this understanding and, moreover, may exploit it for his own advantage, preempting the common good. Thus, a contract becomes necessary, preemptively addressing such rivalries, allowing individuals to refrain from hastening to outpace one another in their desires.

According to Rousseau, internal life, too, is predicated on such preemptive measures, the ability to monitor oneself without leaving traces within. To be free means to exercise exceptional care toward oneself. In social life, where, for Rousseau, one man is a liberator for another, in relation to oneself, one is a summons to oneself, capable of preservation, calling out to avoid calamity. This is the essence of Rousseau's "Confessions"—to demonstrate how numerous vices can be overcome if they are initially perceived not merely as alluring and deceitful, but as exposing the very bearer to shame. This sets Rousseau's "Confessions" apart from Augustine's: Augustine illustrated how a deficiency in love for God rendered any love in his life false, how passion became a destructive force, so that one could only regain oneself through a special kind of self-denial. Although Rousseau may harbor immense hatred for his former self, he never renounces himself; instead, he reveals that past misconceptions in love acted as intrigues against himself, tarnishing not only his reputation but also the possibility of impeccable action. Herein lies the root of Rousseau's anti-clericalism—for him, the Church, as an institution attempting to convert all good deeds to its own reputation, renders any noble act in a world of tarnished reputations impossible and inherently suspect. Therefore, one must perform good outside the church, such that the reputation of good deeds aligns with their vigor, while the social contract enables the formulation of the best proposals for collectively achieving the most virtuous acts.

Thus, while politicians typically perceive intrigues only in the external world, attributing, say, their electoral defeats to such machinations, Rousseau identifies intrigues within the internal realm. It is no coincidence that Rousseau quarreled with his patron David Hume, suspecting him of attempting to use political defeats as a part of the intrigue in his theoretical constructs by conceding that failures may occur in politics. For Rousseau, what mattered was solely the victory over his own shortcomings and the suspicions of others, which allowed him to be candid with himself.

The eminent cultural theorist of the twentieth century, French scholar Michel Foucault, noted in his article "On Rousseau's Dialogues" that Rousseau could employ any literary clichés without developing them, unlike other writers, instead surrounding them with silence. Rousseau believed that injustice arises when everyone becomes overly engrossed in clichés and ready-made behavioral models, and he overcame injustice merely through the organization of text. Thus, Rousseau was beloved by twentieth-century theorists such as Paul de Man and Jacques Derrida, who made text the principal subject of intellectual inquiry.

For Rousseau, feeling is the foundation of goodness precisely because rational control over all episodes of social relationships is impossible, as the "hero" (be it Rousseau himself or the heroine of "Émile") is inherently problematic. In classicism, it is the hero, endowed with an inner world, who dictates fate; his "biography" serves as the oracle. From the reliance on the inner world in Baroque art to the reliance on exemplary morality in classicism, the issue of feeling emerges as the most imagined yet intellectually least problematic justification of human existence: to become sensitive in order to become virtuous, rather than to submit to the vanity of social vice. Hence, Rousseauism is dual: it pertains to the nascent individual, the personal memory of an untainted childhood, while also addressing the social individual, who alone can articulate something of this memory.