‚Reise der Aufklärung’︁: Selbstverortung, Empirie und epistemischer Diskurs bei Herder, Lessing, Lichtenberg und anderen

The »journey of enlightenment« (Lea Ritter Santini) should denote an ideal type of explorative events that produced the twin effect of shedding new light on any given topic and, simultaneously, of representing a modern scientific, yet humane outlook to the world. This outlook depended on a higly reflective approach of viewing the world, granting the self an original, even pivotal position (Herder is a case in point). It could involve self‐delusion and could have melancholy or pathological results. The successive phases of a journey, (a) the discovery of unfamiliar surroundings and (b) its legitimatory aftermath, should therefore be linked to the biographical setting of the travellers involved. The journey often left a lifelong impact on their lives; Lichtenberg is exemplary in this respect. Recent research into eminent figures of the Enlightenment period, e. g. into Lessing, have enabled us to follow quite closely the learning and filtering process, by which the gradual acquisition of knowledge and judgement took place. A lively face‐to‐face and/or epistolary intercourse in most cases accompanied the interpretation of data culled from observation. Furthermore, discussion ( vis‐à‐vis mere registration or sketching) proved essential for reaching an understanding of a fairly intersubjective standing. Lichtenberg's two visits to England provide a minute protocol of a variety of steps that ‐ more in a zigzag than in a direct fashion ‐ eventually form the growth and the style of our (preliminary) knowledge ‐ by taking journeys.