The Enlightenment and Its Enemies

The first part of this article addresses some of the semantic and conceptual problems that plague the terms the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment to tidy up their use and clarify their meaning. The second part assesses some of the most common and important criticisms that have been made of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American behavioral scientist (Beverly Hills) 2006-01, Vol.49 (5), p.664-680
Main Author: Garrard, Graeme
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
18th century
Age of Enlightenment
Berlin, Isaiah
Conceptual semantics
Criticism
Cultural history
Dialectics
Enlightenment
Epic literature
History
History of philosophy
Individuality
Liberation
Meaning
Philosophers
Philosophy
Political reform
Rationality
Reason
Religion
Science
Semantics
Social change
Studies
Theoretical Problems
Western civilization
World War II
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The first part of this article addresses some of the semantic and conceptual problems that plague the terms the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment to tidy up their use and clarify their meaning. The second part assesses some of the most common and important criticisms that have been made of the Enlightenment by its enemies since the 18th century. It concludes that although the portraits of the Enlightenment that have been sketched by its enemies during the course of the centuries are often crude caricatures or grotesque distortions, they have scored some palpable hits against it, making it very hard for us to swallow the Enlightenment whole now.
ISSN:0002-7642
1552-3381
DOI:10.1177/0002764205282216