Enlightenment Aberrations

David W. Bates is Assistant Professor in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley.

Enlightenment Aberrations exposes an enduring French engagement with the epistemological and ontological problems of error. Bates's approach to the 'structure of error' is innovative and important.... Enlightenment Abberations stands as an ambitious and important study.... Bates powerfully argues that the portrait of the Enlightenment as the domain of totalizing, instrumental reason is flawed and ahistorical. This caricature can best be best transcended by recapturing the subtlety of Enlightenment error.(Canadian Journal of History) Bates makes an insightful argument for the nuances of Enlightenment thought, and he persuasively concludes that the alleged eighteenth-century penchant for universal truths was actually more prevalent among theorists in the nineteenth century.... Bates develops these themes in a carefully written narrative that addresses present concerns at the same time that it engages the text and ideas of the past. This kind of exchange with past writers is a distinctive contribution of good intellectual history; it provokes us to rethink errors in our own knowledge, eben as we challenge and rethink the errors of others.(American Historical Review) Professor Bates has produced a bold and stimulating book, one that will require and reward more than a single reading. In retracing eighteenth-century ground he has certainly found sufficient kindling to start a discussion. But, given the ultimately humane and generous spirit of his work, I am sure he also hopes to have found enough material to light a path for all those among us who so often lose our way.(H-France)