Maybe the thing I love most about the Western intellectual tradition is the tension between intellectual daring and humility.

When I was studying loterature in college, I always thought it was a shame that The Englightenment and Romanticism were putted against each other as thought they were enemies.

From a wider perspective, these two intellectual movements are just our culture in conversation with itself, trying to find the right mixture of boldness (the enlightenment, for instance, insisting that objective knowledge can and will be found), and humility (romantic poetries focus on the unkowableness of the sublime).

Of course, to a hammer everything looks like a nail, but to a psychologist, this tension between intellectual boldness and humility looks like a manifestation of a deep tension/discussion within all of as as to the correct mixture of these two extremems.

Thought-provoking piece, as always, Maarten!