After Enlightenment: Hamann as Post-Secular Visionary. By John R. Betz. Illuminations: Theory and Religion. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. xv + 355 pp. $99.95 cloth.

摘要

In After Enlightenment, John R. Betz undertakes two projects: first, he hasnproduced the best and fullest survey of the life and writings of JohannnGeorg Hamann in a generation, helpfully including many passages fromnHamann’s letters and publications and commenting intelligently on the style,ntheology, philosophy, and (to a lesser extent) historical context of Haman’snnotoriously obscure oeuvre; second, he has written an intellectual historyncovering Hamann’s relation to the major figures of his time as well as hisnsubsequent influence on and reception by philosophers and theologians downnto our own day. This history, Betz believes, points the way to an alternativento the failed enterprises of both modernity and postmodernity, as Hamannnhas already “anticipated” thinkers like Barth (288), Buber (158), Derridan(175, 227), Hegel (75, 258), Nietzsche (191, 313), Heidegger (175, 227,327), Kierkegaard (59, 86, 95, 282, 288), Saussure (145, 332), andnWittgenstein (313).