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The 2025 Besterman Lecture of the Voltaire Foundation - The three languages of universalism: thinking globally in the Enlightenment
Universalism has become one of the most disputed aspects of the Enlightenment heritage. Some see in eighteenth-century thought a defence against relativism and particularism. Others, however, reproach the Enlightenment for having fostered thinking that is Eurocentric, colonialist, even racist. This lecture adopts a different starting-point. At the heart of the Enlightenment, we find no single theory of universalism but rather competing languages of the universal. There is a cosmopolitan universalism, based on the right of individuals; a progressive universalism, founded on the history of civilisation; and a critical universalism, that denounces the Europeans’ overweening pretentions. It is important to identify these multiple languages of universalism to properly understand the modern relevance of the Enlightenment.
Date:
13 November 2025, 17:00
Venue:
Magdalen College, High Street OX1 4AU
Venue Details:
Grove Auditorium
Speaker:
Antoine Lilti (Collège de France)
Organising department:
Voltaire Foundation
Part of:
The Annual Besterman Lecture of the Voltaire Foundation
Booking required?:
Required
Booking email:
email@voltaire.ox.ac.uk
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Belinda Clark
