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The first part of this article addresses some of the semantic and conceptual problems that plague the terms the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment to tidy up their use and clarify their meaning. The second part assesses some of the most common and important criticisms that have been made of the Enlightenment by its enemies since the 18th century. It concludes that although the portraits of the Enlightenment that have been sketched by its enemies during the course of the centuries are often crude caricatures or grotesque distortions, they have scored some palpable hits against it, making it very hard for us to swallow the Enlightenment whole now.
Keywords: the Enlightenment; the Counter-Enlightenment; Isaiah Berlin; Voltaire; science
Like it or not, the West today (and not only the West) is a legacy of what has come to be known in English as the Enlightenment. Many of the values, practices, and institutions of our present civilization are rooted in the 18th century, which helped to liberate a vast human potential that determined much of the shape and direction of the world we now inhabit. Michel Foucault's (1984) claim that the Enlightenment "has determined, at least in part, what we are, what we think, and what we do today" (p. 32) is beyond serious dispute.
Assessing this legacy is much more difficult than merely acknowledging its scale and significance. On one hand, the Enlightenment was a "great leap forward" in many ways, leading to an unprecedented expansion of scientific discovery and application, political reform, social liberation, and individual empowerment. Its legacy of religious toleration has been a precious gift for reasons made obvious by the long history of religious persecutions and crusades in the pre-Enlightenment West and the fundamentalist excesses so common in our time. Its faith in the potential of modern science to enhance human knowledge-and thereby power-has been vindicated to a degree far exceeding the wildest dreams of the most optimistic philosophes. On the other hand, the experience of the 20th century has revealed the dark side of knowledge to a degree that may have startled many of the Enlightenment's 18th-century proponents. With increased freedom and mobility, the spread of literacy, the decline in infant mortality, the prolongation of human life, and the alleviation of...