Early on, Kant’s notion associated critique with the disestablishment of false, unprovable, or dogmatic philosophical, social, and political beliefs, because Kant’s critique of reason involved the critique of dogmatic theological and metaphysical ideas and was intertwined with the enhancement of ethical autonomy and the Enlightenment critique of superstition and irrational authority, or, at least, this has been the ahistorical interpretation of his intentions commonly embraced in contemporary ‘critical theory’ circles.
“Early on, Kant’s notion associated critique with the disestablishment of false, unprovable, or dogmatic philosophical, social, and political beliefs, because Kant’s critique of reason involved the critique of dogmatic theological and metaphysical ideas and was intertwined with the enhancement of ethical autonomy and the Enlightenment critique of superstition and irrational authority, or, at least, this has been the ahistorical interpretation of his intentions commonly embraced in contemporary ‘critical theory’ circles,” someone claimed.
It’s also pretty bad writing. Only after reading the rest of the paragraph did I figure out what they were trying to say. The last clause is supposed to apply to the entire sentence, completely categorizing everything before it as false, which is not something I would expect.
It also appears that the first part was written first, and someone who disagreed came along, but only added to it rather than rewriting it. Without any sources, I’m not sure which POV to believe. so I’m not sure how to fix it.
When Guizot made his famous statement observing that, ’ “Early on, Kant’s notion associated critique with the disestablishment of false, unprovable, or dogmatic philosophical, social, and political beliefs, because Kant’s critique of reason involved the critique of dogmatic theological and metaphysical ideas and was intertwined with the enhancement of ethical autonomy and the Enlightenment critique of superstition and irrational authority, or, at least, this has been the ahistorical interpretation of his intentions commonly embraced in contemporary ‘critical theory’ circles,” someone claimed.', he ushered in a new age of philosophical criticism.
In case anyone suspected that long sentence composition was a dying art, having faded since its heyday in previous centuries, here’s a modern example by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein from her 2010 novel 36 Arguments for the Existence of God:
That’s the wife of Steven Pinker for you, in case anyone needed more proof that the English language permits an arbitrary degree of recursion in expressing a complex thought. Any typos in the transcription are my own fault; I’m posting from a public library with a keyboard layout that doesn’t feel natural.