The three enlightenments

Abstract

This essay argues that there have been learning processes in history, and that there can be further learning in the future. It describes the sort of argument that Plato puts in the mouth of Socrates in the *Euthyphro* as the first enlightenment. It depicts the eventual rejection of the meritocratic position advocated by Plato as a result not of mere contingency, but of human experience and of intelligent reflection on that experience, including the eighteenth century enlightenment. It depicts the great experiments in democracy which began in that century as a further learning process; and it describes Dewey's internal linking of democracy with fallibilistic inquiry, as well as his reconceptualization of ethics, as a model for the third enlightenment that we need today. © 2009 Springer Netherlands.