Abstract

Precarity and uncertainty recur in numerous critical accounts of the present to stress the sense of social and personal insecurity resulting from global changes and increasing inequalities. This review discusses Precarity and Loss: On Certain and Uncertain Properties of Life and Work by Tadeusz Rachwał as an examination of the major philosophical and social uncertainties of the present and their indebtedness to the certainties of the past. The article situates Rachwał’s book in the context of Judith Butler’s reflections on precariousness, Guy Standing’s study on the precariat, and Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquidity in order to unravel some of the answers it offers to the overpowering sense of vulnerability.