What does obscurantist mean?

Definitions for obscurantist
ob·scu·ran·tist

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word obscurantist.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. obscurantistnoun

    a person who is deliberately vague

Wiktionary

  1. obscurantistnoun

    A practitioner of obscurantism; an obscurant

Wikipedia

  1. obscurantist

    In philosophy, the terms obscurantism and obscurationism describe the anti-intellectual practices of deliberately presenting information in an abstruse and imprecise manner that limits further inquiry and understanding of a subject. There are two historical and intellectual denotations of obscurantism: (1) the deliberate restriction of knowledge—opposition to the dissemination of knowledge; and (2) deliberate obscurity—a recondite style of writing characterized by deliberate vagueness.The term obscurantism derives from the title of the 16th-century satire Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum (Letters of Obscure Men, 1515–1519), which was based upon the intellectual dispute between the German Catholic humanist Johann Reuchlin and the monk Johannes Pfefferkorn of the Dominican Order, about whether or not all Jewish books should be burned as un-Christian heresy. Earlier, in 1509, the monk Pfefferkorn had obtained permission from Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (1486–1519), to burn all copies of the Talmud (Jewish law and Jewish ethics) known to be in the Holy Roman Empire (AD 926–1806); the Letters of Obscure Men satirized the Dominican arguments for burning un-Christian works. In the 18th century, Enlightenment philosophers applied the term obscurantist to any enemy of intellectual enlightenment and the liberal diffusion of knowledge. In the 19th century, in distinguishing the varieties of obscurantism found in metaphysics and theology from the "more subtle" obscurantism of the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and of modern philosophical skepticism, Friedrich Nietzsche said: "The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence."

ChatGPT

  1. obscurantist

    An obscurantist is a person or a doctrine that is deliberately intended to be vague, mysterious, or obscure in order to confuse, bewilder, or limit understanding. The goal is often to prevent enlightenment or to maintain the status quo. It can also refer to someone who actively opposes intellectual, social or cultural progress and enlightenment.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Obscurantistnoun

    same as Obscurant

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

  1. Obscurantist

    name given to an opponent to modern enlightenment as professed by the devotees of modern science and philosophy.

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of obscurantist in Chaldean Numerology is: 5

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of obscurantist in Pythagorean Numerology is: 8

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"obscurantist." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/obscurantist>.

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