The language of constitutional government, scientific inquiry, freedom of conscience, religious toleration, and universal rights owes much to eighteenth-century philosophy. More than any other intellectual movement of the modern era, the Enlightenment claimed that reason could discover principles valid not merely for particular nations or religions but for humanity itself. Universalism became one of its defining aspirations. It has also become one of its greatest controversie

A Journey of Thought Beginning in a Bookstore It was a day in 1993. I was walking from Taksim Square towards Gümüşsuyu. At the top of the...