was one of the more prominent altar-and-throne counter-revolutionaries who vehemently opposed Enlightenment ideas.
Early usage Despite criticism of the Enlightenment being a widely discussed topic in twentieth- and twenty-first century thought, the term "Counter-Enlightenment" was slow to enter general usage. It was first mentioned briefly in English in
William Barrett's 1949 article "Art, Aristocracy and Reason" in
Partisan Review. He used the term again in his 1958 book on existentialism,
Irrational Man; however, his comment on Enlightenment criticism was very limited.
Lewis White Beck used this term in his
Early German Philosophy (1969), a book about Counter-Enlightenment in Germany. Beck claims that there is a counter-movement arising in Germany in reaction to
Frederick II's secular authoritarian state. On the other hand,
Johann Georg Hamann and his fellow philosophers believe that a more organic conception of social and political life, a more vitalistic view of nature, and an appreciation for beauty and the spiritual life of man have been neglected by the eighteenth century. The term has been more widely used since. traces the Counter-Enlightenment back to
J. G. Hamann (shown). Berlin argues that, while there were opponents of the Enlightenment outside of Germany (e.g.
Joseph de Maistre) and before the 1770s (e.g.
Giambattista Vico), Counter-Enlightenment thought did not take hold until the Germans "rebelled against the dead hand of France in the realms of culture, art and philosophy, and avenged themselves by launching the great counter-attack against the Enlightenment." This German reaction to the imperialistic universalism of the French Enlightenment and Revolution, which had been forced on them first by the francophile
Frederick II of Prussia, then by the armies of Revolutionary France and finally by
Napoleon, was crucial to the shift of consciousness that occurred in Europe at this time, leading eventually to
Romanticism. The consequence of this revolt against the Enlightenment was
pluralism. The opponents to the Enlightenment played a more crucial role than its proponents, some of whom were
monists, whose political, intellectual and ideological offspring have been
terreur and
totalitarianism.
Darrin McMahon In his book
Enemies of the Enlightenment (2001), historian
Darrin McMahon extends the Counter-Enlightenment back to pre-Revolutionary France and down to the level of "
Grub Street". McMahon focuses on the early opponents to the Enlightenment in France, unearthing a long-forgotten "
Grub Street" literature in the late 18th and early 19th centuries aimed at the
philosophes. He delves into the obscure world of the "low Counter-Enlightenment" that attacked the
encyclopédistes and fought to prevent the dissemination of Enlightenment ideas in the second half of the century. Many people from earlier times attacked the Enlightenment for undermining religion and the social and political order. It later became a major theme of conservative criticism of the Enlightenment. After the French Revolution, it appeared to vindicate the warnings of the
anti-philosophes in the decades prior to 1789.
Graeme Garrard is identified by
Graeme Garrard as the originator of the Counter-Enlightenment.
Cardiff University professor
Graeme Garrard claims that historian
William R. Everdell was the first to situate
Jean-Jacques Rousseau as the "founder of the Counter-Enlightenment" in his 1971 dissertation and in his 1987 book,
Christian Apologetics in France, 1730–1790: The Roots of Romantic Religion. In his 1996 article "The Origin of the Counter-Enlightenment: Rousseau and the New Religion of Sincerity", Arthur M. Melzer traces the origin of the Counter-Enlightenment to Rousseau's religious writings, further showing Rousseau as the man who fired the first shot in the war between the Enlightenment and its opponents.
Graeme Garrard follows Melzer in his "Rousseau's Counter-Enlightenment" (2003). This contradicts Berlin's depiction of Rousseau as a
philosophe (albeit an erratic one) who shared the basic beliefs of his Enlightenment contemporaries. But similar to McMahon, Garrard traces the beginning of Counter-Enlightenment thought back to France and prior to the German
Sturm und Drang movement of the 1770s. Garrard's book
Counter-Enlightenments (2006) broadens the term even further, arguing against Berlin that there was no single "movement" called "The Counter-Enlightenment". Rather, there have been many Counter-Enlightenments, from the middle of the 18th century to the 20th century among critical theorists, postmodernists and feminists. The Enlightenment has opponents on all points of its ideological compass, from the far left to the far right, and all points in between. Each of the Enlightenment's challengers depicted it as they saw it or wanted others to see it, resulting in a vast range of portraits, many of which are not only different but incompatible.
James Schmidt The idea of Counter-Enlightenment has evolved in the following years. The historian James Schmidt questioned the idea of "Enlightenment" and therefore of the existence of a movement opposing it. As the conception of "Enlightenment" has become more complex and difficult to maintain, so has the idea of the "Counter-Enlightenment". Advances in Enlightenment scholarship in the last quarter-century have challenged the stereotypical view of the 18th century as an "
Age of Reason", leading Schmidt to speculate on whether the Enlightenment might not actually be a creation of its opponents, but the other way round. The fact that the term "Enlightenment" was first used in 1894 in English to refer to a historical period supports the argument that it was a late construction projected back onto the 18th century. ==The French Revolution==