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I’ll more or less join the pro-@Soriek dogpile.
I’d say the root of the Enlightenment is epistemological. “What do I know, and why do I think I know it?” Descartes gets obvious credit, as do the many contributors to subsequent debates. Rationalists and Empiricists.
In a Church-dominated environment, the single source of truth is obvious. Stepping back from that to a more general theory of truth is the hallmark of the Enlightenment. It’s also materially useful, both for its influence on the scientific method, and for giving us the most practical developments in sociology. We don’t know how to solve all our problems, but we can insulate against the most obvious failures, and iterate towards a better solution.
Mistake not the implementors for the architects, though. I think you could write a flipped version of your narrative where it’s the Americans tearing down Chesterton’s fence while the French stick to high-minded Liberté, égalité, fraternité. It turns out violent Revolution selects for decisive ideologues. Dogmatism is adaptive. Just not as adaptive, in the mid to long run, as skepticism.
You phrase it as a question, but by the time the French Revolution arrives, they've very clearly arrived at answers, at single sources of truth, at dogma and crystalized belief-systems.
What contributions precisely are we thanking sociology for? How confident are you that those contributions are net-positive?
That's not the lesson Enlightenment ideologues drew, though, which is why the centuries from then till now have been defined by subsequent Enlightenment revolutions and their disastrous consequences. They continued to insist that they do know how to solve all our problems, and any remaining problems are the result of bad people who need to be removed, right down to the present day. I agree with you that insulating against obvious failures and iteration toward solutions is a much superior option! The Enlightenment observably argues otherwise, though.
I'm not sure I follow. How would this flipped narrative work? The results are still there, and it seems to me that they defy reinterpretation.
On that, at least, we agree.
I’m thanking Enlightenment sociology for developments in democracy, especially consent of the governed and the idea of social contracts. Those are more valuable than pretty much any social or political theory from the subsequent centuries.
I think the bloody revolutions are what you get when you combine Enlightenment thought with a giant selection effect for violence. Rationalism and skepticism are really good at generating and propagating ideas. They’re pretty bad at getting people to kill for one. Dogmatism is much better at that. So by the time you can call it Revolution, most followers will have crystallized on the idea, rather than abstractly reasoned into it.
The Enlightenment provides fuel, but it’s awfully tricky to make fire without heat.
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