The Contemporaneity of ‘Counter-Enlightenment’. From the French Revolution to German Post-War Sociology

Abstract

While resistance to Enlightenment thought occurring in the eighteenth century is often framed by the concept of ‘Counter-Enlightenment’, the term itself was not introduced before the twentieth century. The article first reconstructs the anti-Enlightenment polemic before and after the French Revolution to highlight that while the notion of Counter- Enlightenment is appropriate for the identification of hitherto unexplored strands of thought, in view of a broader and more differentiated approach to the intellectual history of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it does not allow for a substantial definition. Subsequently, the article examines the history of the concept in French, English and German linguistic contexts, the German sociology of the interwar period and discussions about the legacy of the Enlightenment after World War II, to retrace how the different iterations have to be understood as a key for the self-reflection of modern societies throughout the twentieth century.