Obscurantism

In philosophy, obscurantism or obscurationism is the anti-intellectual practice of deliberately presenting information in an abstruse and imprecise manner that limits further inquiry and understanding of a subject. Obscurantism has been defined as opposition to the dissemination of knowledge and as writing characterized by deliberate vagueness.

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 that: "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."