The Politics of Enlightenment

Abstract

The political ideas of the philosophes have always had their critics. Opponents of the French Revolution, such as Edmund Burke and the Abbé Barruel, portrayed them as immature rationalists, whose a priori, abstract and irresponsible sloganising in favour of liberty, the general will and the rights of the people helped to topple the old order, only to produce first anarchy, and then a new despotism, in its place. Above all, critics complained, in politics the philosophes lacked the quality they pretended to value most: experience.