Upon leaving the Ben Franklin Museum in Philadelphia about a month ago, my wife observed that Ben was a “Renaissance man.” I somewhat pedantically responded that, technically speaking, he was more of an “Enlightenment man.” The question for today is, what is the difference?
In a nutshell, it is the difference between art and science. The Renaissance was primarily a leap forward in the visual arts, prompted by the fortuitous rediscovery of classical artworks and fueled by growing Italian economic prosperity. Leonardo and Galileo notwithstanding, it was not a great time for science, and the reason is suggested by Galileo’s fate; the Catholic Church had already decided how the universe worked, and wasn’t open to second opinions. The Enlightenment, on the other hand, was born of the bloody failures of the subsequent religious wars. If you couldn’t impose a godly order on everyone, or even decide for all time what that meant, you could put metaphysical issues aside and use your senses to better understand the tangible world. That is what Franklin did, to the benefit of all of us.