Mark Lilla (born 1956) is an American political scientist, historian of ideas, journalist, and professor of humanities at Columbia University in New York City.

Ranging from the Book of Genesis and Plato’s dialogues to Sufi parables and Sigmund Freud, he explores the many paradoxes of hiding truth from ourselves, as well as the fantasies this impulse lead human beings to entertain―the illusion that the ecstasies of prophets, mystics, and holy fools offer access to esoteric truths; the illusion of children’s lamb-like innocence; and the nostalgic illusion of recapturing the glories of vanished and allegedly purer civilizations.

Lilla sees this work as the fruit of his lifelong engagement with the contested heritage of the modern Enlightenment.

His first book, G. B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern examines an early figure in the European Counter-Enlightenment, and has an affinity with the works of Isaiah Berlin; with Ronald Dworkin and Robert B. Silvers, he edited the memorial volume, The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin in 2001.

In 2015, he received the Overseas Press Club of America's award for Best Commentary on International News for a series of articles in The New York Review of Books on the French response to the terrorist attacks of that year.