A great irrationalist
I have almost finished a small book about Georg Hamann, a German writer, philosopher and visionary born in 1730. The book, Magus of the North, by Isaiah Berlin, is subtitled The origins of modern irrationalism.
Hamann insisted that the world is what it is and all theories are but shadows… everything is a particular case and the world is nothing but a continous conversation with others.
Hamann is rather unknown today - but he inspired Goethe, Kant and many others. Writing in a deliberately obscure, unsystematic but very powerful style, he was perhaps the first great critic of the Enlightenment.
Isaiah Berlin seems, almost against his will, to like Hamann as a person and find value in his criticism - but of course, Berlin is completely unwilling to substitue childlike faith in God for rational thought. So am I - and yet, something about Hamann feels strangely relevant right now.