ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book outlines Postmodernism and explains that Postmodernist thinkers and Enlightenment scholars ought to be in close communication, but in reality they have little to do with each other. On the one hand, postmodernist academics whose knowledge of the Enlightenment is limited to a series of derogatory cliches: the Enlightenment glorified instrumental reason; the Enlightenment set out to eliminate cultural diversity; the Enlightenment naively idealized history as infinite progress. On the other hand, the Enlightenment has often attracted scholars who regard it with admiration as a new and fortunate beginning. Since the wide appeal of postmodernism began in the 1970s, when the great wave of pro-Enlightenment scholarship was coming to an end, the two conceptions of the Enlightenment, critical and ideal, did not directly confront each other.
