Obscurantism

The humanist scholarJohannes Reuchlin(1455–1522) actively opposed religious obscurantism.

In the fields of philosophy, the termsobscurantismandobscurationismidentify and describe theanti-intellectualpractices of deliberately presenting information in anabstruseand imprecise manner that limits further inquiry and understanding of a subject.The two historical and intellectual denotations ofobscurantismare: (1) the deliberate restriction of knowledge — opposition to the dissemination ofknowledge;and (2) deliberate obscurity — areconditestyle of writing characterized by deliberate vagueness.

In the 18th century,Enlightenmentphilosophers applied the termobscurantistto any enemy of intellectual enlightenment and the liberal diffusion of knowledge.In the 19th century, in distinguishing the varieties of obscurantism found inmetaphysicsandtheology,from the "more subtle" obscurantism of thecritical philosophyofImmanuel Kantand of modernphilosophical skepticism,Friedrich Nietzschesaid that: "The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence."

Restricting knowledge

In the 18th century, theMarquis de Condorcetwas a political scientist who correctly perceived obscurantism as a contributing cause of the French Revolution in 1789.

In restricting education and knowledge to a ruling class, obscurantism isanti-democraticin its components ofanti-intellectualismand socialelitism,which exclude the majority of the people, deemed unworthy of knowing the facts about their government and the political and economic affairs of theircity-state.

In 18th century monarchic France, the political scientistMarquis de Condorcetdocumented the obscurantism of thearistocracyand theirindifferenceto the social problems that provoked theFrench Revolution(1789–1799), which violently overthrew the aristocracy and deposed the monarch, KingLouis XVI of France(r. 1774–1792).

In the 19th century, the mathematicianWilliam Kingdon Clifford,who was an early proponent ofDarwinism,worked to eliminate obscurantism in England after hearing clerics — who privately agreed with him aboutevolution— publicly denounce evolution as un-Christian heresy. Moreover, in the realm of organized religion, obscurantism is a distinct strain of anti-intellectualism that is independent of theologic allegiance, by which distinction,religious fundamentalismpresupposes sincere religious belief in the person, whereascensorshipis obscurantism that is based upon the élite power-group manipulating the religious faith of the majority of the population of believers.

Leo Strauss

Political philosophy

In the 20th century, the American conservativepolitical philosopherLeo Straussand hisneo-conservativeadherents adopted the notion of government by the enlightened few as political strategy. He noted thatintellectuals,dating fromPlato,confronted the dilemma of either an informed populace "interfering" with government, or whether it were possible forgoodpoliticians to be truthful and still govern to maintain a stable society—hence thenoble lienecessary in securing public acquiescence. InThe City and Man(1964), he discusses the myths inThe Republicthat Plato proposes effective governing requires, among them, the belief that the country (land) ruled by the state belongs to it (despite some having been conquered from others), and that citizenship derives from more than theaccident of birthin the city-state. Thus, in theNew Yorkermagazine article "Selective Intelligence",Seymour Hershobserves that Strauss endorsed the "noble lie"concept: the myths politicians use in maintaining a cohesive society.

Shadia Drurycriticized Strauss's acceptance of dissembling and deception of the populace as "the peculiar justice of the wise", whereas Plato proposed the noble lie as based uponmoralgood. In criticizingNatural Right and History(1953), she said that "Strauss thinks that the superiority of the ruling philosophers is an intellectualsuperiorityand not a moral one... [he] is the only interpreter who gives a sinister reading to Plato, and then celebrates him. "

Esoteric texts

Leo Strauss also was criticized for proposing the notion of "esoteric" meanings to ancient texts, obscure knowledge inaccessible to the "ordinary" intellect. InPersecution and the Art of Writing(1952), he proposes that some philosophers write esoterically to avert persecution by the political or religious authorities, and, per his knowledge ofMaimonides,Al Farabi,andPlato,proposed that an esoteric writing style is proper for the philosophic text. Rather than explicitly presenting his thoughts, the philosopher's esoteric writing compels the reader to think independently of the text, and so learn. In thePhædrus,Socrates notes that writing does not reply to questions, but invites dialogue with the reader, thereby minimizing the problems of grasping the written word. Strauss noted that one of writing's political dangers is students' too-readily accepting dangerous ideas—as in the trial ofSocrates,wherein the relationship withAlcibiadeswas used to prosecute him.

For Leo Strauss, philosophers' texts offered the reader lucid "exoteric" (salutary) and obscure "esoteric" (true) teachings, which are concealed to the reader of ordinary intellect; emphasizing that writers often left contradictions and other errors to encourage the reader's more scrupulous (re-)reading of the text. In observing and maintaining the "exoteric—esoteric"dichotomy, Strauss was accused of obscurantism, and for writing esoterically.

Bill Joy

The computer scientistBill Joyproposed controlling the public's access to certain data, information, and knowledge, because the public cannot handle the truth.

In the article "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us"(April 2000), the computer scientistBill Joy,then chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, in the sub-title of the article proposed that: "Our most powerful twenty-first-century technologies—robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech—are threatening to make humans an endangered species", and said that:

The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as they did, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions.

Critics readily noted the obscurantism in Joy's elitist proposal for limiting the dissemination of "certain knowledge" in order to preserve society. A year later, in theScience and Technology Policy Yearbook 2001,theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Scienceanswered Joy's propositions with the article "A Response to Bill Joy and the Doom-and-Gloom Technofuturists", wherein the computer scientistsJohn Seely Brownand Paul Duguid said that Joy's proposal was a form of technological tunnel vision, and that the technologically derived problems are infeasible, for disregarding the influence of non-scientists upon such societal problems.

Appeal to emotion

The economistFriedrich August von Hayek

In the essay "Why I Am Not a Conservative" (1960), the economistFriedrich von Hayeksaid that politicalconservatismis ideologically unrealistic, because of the conservative person's inability to adapt to changing human realities and refusal to offer a positive political program that benefits everyone in a society. In that context, Hayek used the termobscurantismdifferently, to denote and describe thedenialof the empirical truth of scientific theory, because of the disagreeablemoralconsequences that might arise from acceptance of fact.

Deliberate obscurity

The second sense ofobscurantismdenotes making knowledge abstruse, that is, difficult to grasp. In the 19th and 20th centuries obscurantism became apolemicalterm for accusing an author of deliberately writing obscurely, in order to hide his or herintellectualvacuousness. Philosophers who are neitherempiricistsnorpositivistsoften are considered obscurantistswhen describing the abstract concepts of their disciplines. For philosophic reasons, such authors might modify or rejectverifiability,falsifiability,and logical non-contradiction. From that perspective, obscure (clouded, vague, abstruse) writing does not necessarily indicate that the writer has a poor grasp of the subject, because unintelligible writing sometimes is purposeful and philosophically considered.

Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle divided his own works into two classifications: "exoteric"and"esoteric".Most scholars have understood this as a distinction ofintended audience,where exoteric works were written for the public, and the esoteric works were more technical works intended for use within theLyceum.Modern scholars commonly assume these latter to be Aristotle's own (unpolished) lecture notes or, in some cases, possible notes by his students.However, the 5th-centuryneoplatonistAmmonius Hermiaewrites that Aristotle's writing style is deliberately obscurantist so that "good people may for that reason stretch their mind even more, whereas empty minds that are lost through carelessness will be put to flight by the obscurity when they encounter sentences like these".

In contemporary discussions ofvirtue ethics,Aristotle'sNicomachean Ethics(The Ethics) stands accused of ethical obscurantism, because of the technical, philosophic language and writing style, and their purpose being theeducationof a cultured governingelite.

Kant

Immanuel Kantemployed technical terms that were not commonly understood by the layman.Arthur Schopenhauercontended that post-Kantian philosophers such asJohann Gottlieb Fichte,Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling,andGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegeldeliberately imitated the abstruse style of writing practiced by Kant.

Hegel

G. W. F. Hegel

G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy, and the philosophies of those he influenced, especiallyKarl Marx,have been accused of obscurantism.Analyticandpositivisticphilosophers, such asA. J. Ayer,Bertrand Russell,and thecritical-rationalistKarl Popper,accused Hegel andHegelianismof being obscure. About Hegel's philosophy, Schopenhauer wrote that it is "a colossal piece of mystification, which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it is a pseudo-philosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage".

Nevertheless, biographerTerry Pinkardnotes: "Hegel has refused to go away, even in analytic philosophy, itself."Hegel was aware of his perceived obscurantism and perceived it as part of philosophical thinking: to accept and transcend the limitations of quotidian (everyday) thought and its concepts. In the essay "Who Thinks Abstractly?", he said that it is not the philosopher who thinks abstractly, but the layman, who uses concepts asgivensthat are immutable, without context. It is the philosopher who thinks concretely, because he transcends the limits of quotidianconcepts,in order to understand their broader context. This makes philosophical thought and language appear obscure, esoteric, and mysterious to the layman.

Marx

Karl Marxin 1861

In his early works,Karl Marx criticized German and French philosophy, especiallyGerman Idealism,for its traditions of German irrationalism and ideologically motivated obscurantism.Later thinkers whom he influenced, such as the philosopherGyörgy Lukácsand social theoristJürgen Habermas,followed with similar arguments of their own.However, philosophers such as Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek in turn criticized Marx andMarxistphilosophy as obscurantist (however, seeabovefor Hayek's particular interpretation of the term).

Heidegger

Martin Heidegger,and those influenced by him, such asJacques DerridaandEmmanuel Levinas,have been labeled obscurantists by critics from analytic philosophy and theFrankfurt School of critical theory.Of Heidegger,Bertrand Russellwrote: "his philosophy is extremely obscure. One cannot help suspecting that language is here running riot. An interesting point in his speculations is the insistence that nothingness is something positive. As with much else in Existentialism, this is a psychological observation made to pass for logic."That is Russell's complete entry on Heidegger, and it expresses the sentiments of many 20th-century analytic philosophers concerning Heidegger.

Derrida

In their obituaries "Jacques Derrida,Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74 "(10 October 2004) and" Obituary of Jacques Derrida, French intellectual "(21 October 2004),The New York TimesnewspaperandThe Economistmagazinedescribed Derrida as a deliberately obscure philosopher.

InContingency, Irony, and Solidarity(1989),Richard Rortyproposed that inThe Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond(1978), Jacques Derrida purposefully used undefinable words (e.g.différance) and used defined words in contexts so diverse that they render the words unintelligible, hence, the reader is unable to establish a context for his literary self. In that way, the philosopher Derrida escapes metaphysical accounts of his work. Since the work ostensibly contains no metaphysics, Derrida has, consequently, escaped metaphysics.

Derrida's philosophic work is especially controversial among American and British academics, as when theUniversity of Cambridgeawarded him an honorary doctorate, despite opposition from among the Cambridge philosophy faculty and analytical philosophers worldwide. In opposing the decision, philosophers includingBarry Smith,W. V. O. Quine,David Armstrong,Ruth Barcan Marcus,René Thom,and twelve others, published a letter of protestation inThe Timesof London, arguing that "his works employ a written style that defies comprehension... [thus] Academic status based on what seems to us to be little more than semi-intelligible attacks upon the values of reason, truth, and scholarship is not, we submit, sufficient grounds for the awarding of an honorary degree in a distinguished university."

In theNew York Review of Booksarticle "An Exchange on Deconstruction" (February 1984),John Searlecomments onDeconstruction:"anyone who reads deconstructive texts with an open mind is likely to be struck by the same phenomena that initially surprised me: the low level of philosophical argumentation, the deliberate obscurantism of the prose, the wildly exaggerated claims, and the constant striving to give the appearance of profundity, by making claims that seem paradoxical, but under analysis often turn out to be silly or trivial".

Lacan

Jacques Lacanwas anintellectualwho defended obscurantism to a degree. To his students' complaint about the deliberate obscurity of his lectures, he replied: "The less you understand, the better you listen."In the 1973 seminarEncore,he said that hisÉcrits(Writings) were not to be understood, but would effect a meaning in the reader, like that induced by mystical texts. The obscurity is not in his writing style, but in the repeated allusions to Hegel, derived fromAlexandre Kojève's lectures on Hegel, and similar theoretic divergences.

Sokal affair

TheSokal affair(1996) was a publishinghoaxthat the professor of physicsAlan Sokalperpetrated on the editors and readers ofSocial Text,anacademic journalofpost-moderncultural studiesthat was not then apeer-reviewedpublication. In 1996, as an experiment testingeditorialintegrity (fact-checking,verification, peer review, etc.), Sokal submitted "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", apseudoscientificarticle proposing that physical reality is a social construct, in order to learn whetherSocial Textwould "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if: (a) it sounded good, and, (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions".Sokal's fake article was published in the spring/summer 1996 issue ofSocial Text,which was dedicated to thescience warsabout the conceptual validity ofscientific objectivityand the nature of scientific theory, amongscientific realistsand postmodern critics in American universities.

Sokal's reason for publication of a false article was that postmodernist critics questioned the objectivity of science, by criticising thescientific methodand the nature of knowledge, usually in the disciplines of cultural studies,cultural anthropology,feminist studies,comparative literature,media studies,andscience and technology studies.Whereas the scientific realists countered that objective scientific knowledge exists, riposting that postmodernist critics almost knew nothing of the science they criticized. In the event, editorial deference to "academic authority"(the author-professor) prompted the editors ofSocial Textnot to fact-check Sokal's manuscript by submitting it to peer review by a scientist.

Concerning the lack of editorial integrity shown by the publication of his fake article inSocial Textmagazine, Sokal addressed the matter in the May 1996 edition of theLingua Francajournal, in the article "A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies", in which he revealed that his transformative hermeneutics article was aparody,submitted "to test the prevailing intellectual standards", and concluded that, as an academic publication,Social Textignored the requisiteintellectual rigorof verification and "felt comfortable publishing an article onquantum physicswithout bothering to consult anyone knowledgeable in the subject ".

Moreover, as apublic intellectual,Sokal said that his hoax was an action protesting against the contemporary tendency towards obscurantism—abstruse, esoteric, and vague writing in thesocial sciences:

In short, my concern over the spread ofsubjectivistthinking is both intellectual and political. Intellectually, the problem with such doctrines is that they are false (when not simply meaningless). There is a real world; its properties are not merely social constructions; facts and evidence do matter. What sane person would contend otherwise? And yet, much contemporary academic theorizing consists precisely of attempts to blur these obvious truths—the utter absurdity of it all being concealed through obscure and pretentious language.

As a pseudoscientificopus,the article "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" is described as an exemplar "pasticheofleft-wingcant,fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense, centered on the claim that physical reality is merely a social construct ".

See also

• Anti-intellectualism
• Cover-up
• Cult
• Disinformation
• Doublespeak
• Dumbing down
• Fundamentalism
• Greenspeak
• Paternalism
• Paywall
• Perception management
• Philosopher king
• Politicization of science
• Pseudophilosophy
• Pseudointellectual
• Psychological manipulation
• Positivism
• Scientism
• Whataboutism

External links

• Media related toObscurantismat Wikimedia Commons
• Obscurantism in religion – Islamic Research Foundation International