Enlightenment's Wake

About “Enlightenment's Wake”

John Gray argues that the Enlightenment project, through its extension of rational self-criticism and demystification to its own foundational commitments, has become self-undermining. He contends that contemporary political thought and practice face the central challenge of enabling peaceful co-existence among incommensurable world-views within a post-rational and post-traditional context, and that neither fundamentalist liberalism nor traditionalist or reactionary movements can provide a viable alternative.