Three Critics of the Enlightenment

Infobox Book
name = Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of the 2000 hardback first edition
author = Isaiah Berlin
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country =
language =
series =
subject = Counter-Enlightenment
genre = History of philosophy
publisher = Pimlico
pub_date = 2000
english_pub_date =
media_type = Hardcover, paperback
pages =
isbn = 0712664920
oclc = 0691057265
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder" is a collection of essays in the history of philosophy by 20th century philosopher and historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin. Edited by Henry Hardy and released posthumously in 2000, the collection comprises the previously published works "Vico and Herder: Two Studies in the History of Ideas" (1976) – an essay on Counter-Enlightenment thinkers Giambattista Vico and Johann Gottfried Herder – and "The Magus of the North: J. G. Hamann and the Origins of Modern Irrationalism" (1993), concerning irrationalist Johann Georg Hamann. Berlin's initial interest in the critics of the Enlightenment arose through reading the works of Marxist historian of ideas Georgi Plekhanov.sep entry|berlin|Isaiah Berlin|Joshua Cherniss, Henry Hardy|2008-02-01]

Vico and Herder are portrayed by Berlin as alternatives to the rationalistic epistemology which characterized the Enlightenment.cite journal
author = Password, F.
year = 2006
title = Secularism, Criticism, and Religious Studies Pedagogy
journal = Teaching Theology & Religion
volume = 9
issue = 4
pages = 203-210
doi = 10.1111/j.1467-9647.2006.00285.x
quote= Suggesting in effect that it can be better to theorize boldly than to engage in circumscribed projects, Berlin characterizes the "creative imagination" and "imaginative reconstruction of forms of life" in Vico and Herder as legitimate criticisms of scientific rationalism and the Enlightenment…In theory as well as in art, imagination represents an alternative to arid rationality.] Berlin held that the agenda of the Enlightenment could be understood in a number of ways, and that to view it from the perspectives of its critics (i.e. Messrs Vico, Herder and Hamann) was to bring its distinctive and controversial aspects into sharp focus.cite book
author = McGrath, A.E.
year = 2001
title = A Scientific Theology: Nature. 1.
publisher = Edinburgh; New York: T&T Clark
isbn = 0567031225] "Three Critics" was one of Berlin's many publications on the Enlightenment and its enemies that did much to popularise the concept of a Counter-Enlightenment movement that he characterised as relativist, anti-rationalist, vitalist and organic, [Darrin M. McMahon, "The Counter-Enlightenment and the Low-Life of Literature in Pre-Revolutionary France" "Past and Present" No. 159 (May 1998:77-112) p. 79 note 7.] and which he associated most closely with German Romanticism.

Berlin identifies Hamann as one of the first thinkers to conceive of human cognition as language – the articulation and use of symbols. Berlin saw Hamann as having recognised as the rationalist's Cartesian fallacy the notion that there are "clear and distinct" ideas "which can be contemplated by a kind of inner eye", without the use of language.cite journal
author = Bleich, D.
year = 2006
title = The Materiality of Reading
journal = New Literary History
volume = 37
pages = 607-629
url = http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/new_literary_history/v037/37.3bleich.html
accessdate = 2008-06-19] Herder, coiner of the term "Nazionalismus" (nationalism) is portrayed by Berlin as conceiving of the nation as a "people's culture," the unique way of life of a particular folk, bound by ties of kinship and ties to land, defined by their unique history. [cite book | last = Cosgrove | first = Charles | title = Cross-Cultural Paul | publisher = W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co | location = Grand Rapids | year = 2005 | isbn = 0802828434 ]

Publication history

*
*

References

External links

*