Nowhere is this more evident than in Baruch Spinoza’s vision for philosophy and science done well. In his treatise On the Improvement of the Understanding, he explains that philosophy and science done well would enable him “to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.” Not a bad goal.
But the increasing knowledge characteristic of the rise of the “new science” and Cartesian philosophy did not culminate in continuous, supreme, and unending happiness. Instead, as postmodernists never tire of reminding us, it gave us Hiroshima. Of course, it gave us much that is good too. But to the postmodern mind, the rise of science and the accumulation of knowledge is now recognizable as being subject to the whims of human management and mismanagement. Increased knowledge is no guarantee of a better world. To live in a postmodern culture is to be alive to the failure of reason and knowledge to live up to their Enlightenment expectations.