Hamann on the wisdom of the world

“As Hamann puts it as early as 1764 (seventeen years before the appearance of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason), ‘the wisdom of the world has begun to transform itself from a universal science of the possible into a universal ignorance of the real.’ Similarly, to Jacobi, he describes the rationality of the age in terms of an ‘underworld that shadow-boxes with ideas and speculations in the face of data and facts, with theatrical deceptions in the face of historical truths, with plausible probabilities in the face of testimonies and documents.’”

John R. Betz, “Hamann before Kierkegaard: a systematic theological oversight,” Pro ecclesia 16, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 323.