I suppose the postmodernists belong somewhere in the Counter-Enlightenment fold—although whether on the left or the right, philosophically, is difficult to say. ~Joseph Bottum
It is difficult, perhaps, because they aren’t Counter-Enlightenment people at all, but post-Enlightenment who have nothing in common with the Counter-Enlightenment except perhaps skepticism about the importance of the self and the power of reason.
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May 28th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Solent
There are important ways in which postmodernity is best understood as an extension of Enlightenment modernity rather than a rejection–undercutting the thrust of B.’s point–but there are certainly borad and readily observable parallels between C-E thought and postmodernism regarding the rejection of the autonomous/unitary/universal self.
As for suspicion of reason, I don’t know who exactly Bottum refers to here, but C-E hero Hamann’s views on language and reason also have interesting parallels in postmodern thought.