Performing Enlightenment: Johann Burkhard Mencke and Academic Self-Critique

For many Enlightenment philosophers, to do philosophy was not only to think and write, but also to live and act in the world. This performative purpose changed the meaning of philosophical texts as well as which texts could be considered as philosophical. The essay illustrates this point through the example of Johann Burkhard Mencke’s famous lectures, De charlataneria eruditorum −on charlatanry of the learned− first delivered at the University of Leipzig in 1713 and 1715. Mencke not only discussed the significance and problems of performance, but also emphasized his points by his own performance as a lecturer and as an author. He was not only critical of the false authority of others, but also of his own authority as well as that of his Enlightenment colleagues and allies. The lectures, I argue, exemplify a genre of Enlightenment philosophy that placed self-critique at the center.