Counter-enlightenment

Counter-Enlightenment

"Counter-Enlightenment" is a term used to refer to a movement that arose in the late-18th and early-19th centuries in opposition to the 18th century Enlightenment. The term is usually associated with Isaiah Berlin, who is often credited with coining it, perhaps taking up a passing remark of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who used the term Gegenaufklärung at the end of the 19th century. It has not been widely used since. The first known use of the term 'counter-enlightenment' in English was in 1949. Berlin published widely about the Enlightenment and its enemies and did much to popularise the concept of a Counter-Enlightenment movement that he characterised as relativist, anti-rationalist, vitalist, and organic, and which he associated most closely with German Romanticism. Some recent scholarship has challenged this view for focusing too narrowly on Germany and stopping abruptly in the early 19th century, thereby ignoring the Enlightenment's many subsequent critics, particularly in the 20th century. Some scholars reject the use of the term 'the Counter-Enlightenment' on the grounds that there was no single Enlightenment for its alleged enemies to oppose.