The concept of the European Enlightenment is often used in objectively poorly defined ways, particularly in popular-scientific, social, political and journalistic discussions - and it is often even distorted or disfigured by cliches. This volume therefore presents the philosophical content of the epoch in an easily comprehensible form and brings its broad lines into focus. The aim is to achieve a philosophical assimilation of the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment from a historical distance, taking into account the events and developments that have intervened since that time in order to achieve an acceptable reception of it in today=s society.