ABSTRACT
Irrationality is ancient, but protests against reason are specifically modern. Self-conscious “irrationalism,” indeed, initially crystallized as the mirror image of the rationalism of the early modern era. In this century, irrationalism has risen to unprecedented heights, and it has often taken an anti-scientific form. The aim of this chapter is to explore in a preliminary fashion how and why this happened, with particular attention to several prominent currents of contemporary irrationalism. Such currents of thought repudiate reason in the name of “higher” principles: spirit and heart, life and blood, body and soul; wilderness, nature, the earth; experience and will, fate and fantasy, authenticity and existential resolve. Reason, irrationalists say, suppresses life rather than serving it.
