Now available in paperback, this book provides an elegant analysis of the philosophical background to the post-modernity debate. Vattimo focuses on the work of Nietzsche and Heidegger and shows how their bitter criticisms of modern European thought prepared the way for more recent proclamations of the end of the modern era. Vattimo pursues questions central to aesthetics and hermeneutic philosophy and sides with contemporary philosophers such as Gadamer and Rorty in rejecting the search for stable and transcendent foundations for knowledge. Going beyond their work he introduces the notions of 'weak thought' and 'weak ontology' which, he argues, offer a way of 'going beyond' metaphysics by curing philosophy of the modernist disease and by resituating questions of truth and being within the realm of human experience.
We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.
With a Foreword by Fergus Kerr and an Afterword by Rowan WilliamsIn an age when theology appears fragmented as never before, this volume intends to show how von Balthasar is one of the very few contemporary theologians to have demonstrated how the patterns and resources of the Christian tradition have extraordinary pertinence today.The authors represent a new generation of Anglican theologians sympathetic to von Balthasar's thought, exploring it both in order to discover its fundamental dynamics and to see how it may be brought into new dialogues.The authors represent the 'Radical Orthodoxy' movement in Anglican theology, and are sympathetic to von Balthasar's thought, exploring it both in order to discover its fundamental dynamics and to see how it may be brought into new dialogues.
The late 16th century and the first half of the 17th century saw a final resurgence of the concept of Fortuna. Shortly thereafter, this goddess of chance and luck, who had survived for millennia, rapidly lost her cultural and intellectual relevance. This volume explores the late heyday and subsequent erasure of Fortuna. It examines vernacular traditions and confessional differences, analyses how the iconography and semantics of Fortuna motifs transformed, and traces the rise of complementary concepts such as those of probability, risk, fate and contingency. Thus, a multidisciplinary team of contributors sheds light on the surprising ways in which the end of Fortuna intersected with the rise of modernity.
Challenging both the bureaucratic one-party regime and the Western neoliberal paradigm, this title shatters the myth of progress and reflects upon the inheritance of a revolutionary past. This title examines the roots of China's social and political problems, and traces the reforms and struggles that have led to the state of mass depoliticization
A common theme of this set of thirteen essays by one of the major figures in contemporary German philosophy is the idea of a postmetaphysical modernity. In his preface Wellmer relates the title of his book, Endgames, to this common theme: The historical utopias of the Marxist tradition and the programs of ultimate justification in the Kantian tradition are both endgames within metaphysics, the deconstruction of those utopias and programs of ultimate justification are endgames played with metaphysics, and the game with an end as ultimate telos--the end(s) of history, the end(s) of knowledge, the end(s) of human life--is metaphysics. The title, Endgames, finally also refers polemically to postmodernist games with an end of modernity; as opposed to these, Wellmer defends the fragile moral and political substance of the modernity that postmodernists attempt to overcome--and that sense of what needs to be preserved of the modern tradition for a postmetaphysical modernity is what makes his writings unique. In the first of the book's three parts, "Negative and Communicative Freedom," Wellmer focuses on political philosophy, examining in particular the links and tensions between liberal basic rights and modern ideas of democracy. In Part II, "Postmetaphysical Perspectives," he attempts to develop a postmetaphysical perspective on aesthetics and metaphysics (with and against Adorno), on the problem of truth (with and against Richard Rorty, Jürgen Habermas, and Karl-Otto Apel), and on hermeneutics (with and against Hans-Georg Gadamer and Karl-Otto Apel). Part III, "Images of the Times," contains occasional pieces on Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Frankfurt School, Hans Jonas, and architecture. The book closes with an appended critical essay on Hannah Arendt, reflecting the importance of Arendt's political philosophy to Wellmer's work.
