Criticism
 | Author and Magazine Editor, New Criterion 09/29/2005 When Otto von Bismarck warned that "We must never ook into the origin of laws or sausages," he articulated a principle diametrically opposed to the Enlightenment ideal of intellectual exposure, summed up in Kant's motto for the Enlightenment: "Sapere aude," Dare to Know! What we call "critical thinking" today is an heir—often a wayward heir--of the Enlightenment project of making man autonomous by elevating human reason at the expense of the customary and conventional. Learn more about Roger Kimball Read the text of the lecture Listen to the audio |