Abstract：The American Enlightenment in the 18th Century both reflected the general features of the Enlightenment and had its unique contents and significance in view of the particular social and historical contexts. The American Enlightenment has generated certain ideological patterns and values persisting to constitute the leading principles of the political governance, social and cultural life of the United States today. A proper knowledge of the American Enlightenment is essential for understanding the characteristics and formation of American modernity and conducive to in-depth exploration of the variety and diversity of the Enlightenments as well as the relevant paths to modernization. The historical process of academic studies of the American Enlightenment can be roughly divided into three stages. The first stage from the early 19th Century to the 1960s was a period in which the proposition of an American Enlightenment became finally established. The second stage from the 1970s to the 1990s witnessed a growing number of influence studies and comparative studies across national borders. The third stage which covers the first two decades of the 21st Century is characterized by an increase in the multiplicity of dimensions featuring less generalized discourses and more specialized social and cultural aspects of the Enlightenment in America. Since the 19th Century, some shifts have taken place for the research on American Enlightenment from being peripheral to acquiring a prominent status in the academia, with this study not merely as an intellectual backcloth but a crucial topic in intellectual, social and cultural history, not focusing solely on a few philosophers and political elites but concerning the enlightened practices of the populace, not seen only as the fulfillment of European Enlightenment thoughts in America but treated as the product of intellectual and cultural interaction in global history, not limited to the effects of American Enlightenment in political and religious realms but involving various dimensions such as science and technology, education, communication and urban growth. Based on the retrospect of the research history, the special character of the American Enlightenment can be summarized to comprise at least the following three aspects: (1) the selective appropriation of the global (European in particular) intellectual resources in accord with the practical needs of the Americans, embodied in the Enlightenment spirit as the driving force in American social transformation, empirical reason, and the American national identity; (2) the American founding and the ratification of the US constitution under the influence of the Enlightenment thoughts, reflected in the design and construction of the republican and federal system of the United States; (3) the coexistence and synthesis of reason, science and religion in American society, exhibited as the blending of religious enthusiasm and secular knowledge in American culture. To further the research in this field, the author of this article deems it necessary to alter the simplified and homogenized conception of the Enlightenment and refer to the historical context for its appropriate definition so as to provide an accurate interpretation of the American Enlightenment. Moreover, research needs to be conducted not only in terms of the availability and communicative channels of the intellectual resources of the American Enlightenment but also into the concrete process regarding how these resources were selected, absorbed and integrated by the American philosophers and populace. The American Enlightenment, anything but an isolated event, occurred and evolved in the extended context of the global history. Therefore, a broader, more interactive and international perspective should be adopted in the study of the American Enlightenment by locating it in the context of the global interaction of the 18th Century for more effective work of comparison and analysis to be carried out with due attention to and better illustration of both the originality and uniqueness of the American Enlightenment and the significance of the enlightened experience of the American nation for the Enlightenment at large.
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