The Enlightenment Account of Fanaticism

Abstract

This chapter examines individual fanaticism. Several philosophers in the early modern period, including Shaftesbury, Locke, and Kant, argue that fanaticism consists in a certain type of dogmatism. A person takes herself to have an incontrovertible justification for some ideal, and she insists that this justification—being based on personal experiences of divine communication, insight into the nature of reality, or some such—outstrips ordinary rational standards. The chapter explores this Enlightenment account of fanaticism and argues that it is inadequate. While the Enlightenment account does identify one type of epistemic failing, this failing is not correlated with fanaticism. Therefore, we need a new account of fanaticism.