This text was prepared for presentation in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010. Its aim was to explore a dialogue with Asians toward a cosmopolitan sociology. Beginning from the idea of entangled modernities which threaten their own foundations, Ulrich Beck advocated a complete conceptual innovation of sociology in order to better comprehend the fundamental fragility and mutability of societal dynamics shaped by the globalization of capital and risks today. More specifically, he proposed a cosmopolitan turn of sociology: first, by criticizing methodological nationalism; (...) second, by introducing the concept of cosmopolitization; third, by re-mapping social inequalities; fourth, by discussing risk society in the context of East Asian development; and fifth and finally, by proposing a cosmopolitan vision. Along this line, Beck attempted an overview of the researches done on second modern transformation in East Asia and suggested that an active dialogue may be possible when Asians begin to see the West from their perspectives rather than being caught in the Euro-centric and West-hegemonic presuppositions. (shrink)

Naturalist aestetics, strictly speaking, is a move to establish naturalist explanation of aesthetic phenomena. It was nearly forgotten, at least in the history of aesthetics, where, if mentioned, it was put aside as something dead and despised. Its reappearance in recent years, among other occasions at the XIVIVth International Congress of Aesthetics (Rio de Janeiro, 2004), came as a surprise and a challenge. Its second modernity has predecessors in the first modernity, and Darwin is only one of (...) the many, and its background in contemporary naturalist proposals in social and human sciences (biosociology, evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, etc.). Contemporary proposals to explain some basic aesthetic preferences of taste, and aesthetic pleasure itself in terms of evolution, may be illuminated by historical background. We can also understand them (in Ulrich Beck's vocabulary) as second modernity, as a move to deal with uncertainties of aesthetics. What still makes contemporary naturalist aesthetics a continuation of aesthetic modernity, however, is its inability to take (contemporary) art seriously. (shrink)

For some years now, Jürgen Habermas, possibly the most influential European philosopher of today, has been producing a growing number of publications on world politics. In the historical context of the collapse of bipolarity and the advent of the triad, along with the punitive wars in the Gulf and Yugoslavia, he is very far from being alone: Jacques Derrida and Noberto Bobbio,Michael Walzer and John Rawls, to name only the most forceful, have also been thinking out loud about the new (...) political configurations beyond the nation-state. The characteristic feature of Habermas’s thought is to perceive a radically new historical configuration, which he calls a‘post-national constellation’ and which would justify the development of a new political project, as a transition to a new cosmopolitan law. In what follows, I examine the precise modalities that are supposed to transform his philosophical design into political and legal arrangements, attempting to dissect the Habermasian vision of a post-Cold War politics better adapted to the challenges of the new century, and to throw light on the ideology behind it, as a prolegomenon to the larger project Habermas invites us to undertake. (shrink)

From the historical roots of second-wave feminism to current debates about feminist theory and politics. This introduction to Anglo-American feminist thought provides a critical and panoramic survey of dominant trends in feminism since 1968. Feminism is too often considered a monolithic movement, consisting of an enormous range of women and ideologies, with both similar and different perspectives and approaches. The book is divided into two parts, the first of which takes a close look at the most influential strands of (...) feminism: liberal feminism, Marxist/socialist feminism, radical feminism, lesbian feminism, and black feminism. In later chapters, Whelehan ties these complexities of, and conflicts within, feminism. The role and relationship of men to feminism, and feminism's often thorny relationship to postmodernism, are also the subject of chapter length treatment. Concluding with a provocative discussion of the much-heralded advent of post-feminism and the rise of the new feminist superstars such as Camille Paglia, Naomi Wolf, Susan Faludi, and Katie Roiphe, Modern Feminist thought is an ideal text for students and a book no feminist teacher or activist should be without. (shrink)

The previous article “Scientific Cosmological Ontology” discussed that the “theoretical contradictions” between quantum mechanics and relativity may become a joke in the history of human existence. It is believed that human philosophical thinking, from Socrates, Plato, to Aristotle, was a turning point. For more than 2000 years, we have been developing in the direction of material philosophy and material science according to Aristotle, and we have reached the peak of human thinking. Modern physics is a great achievement at this peak. (...) According to the principles of dialectical materialism, this “theoretical contradiction” has opened the door to the original thinking of the universe. We have to go back 2500 years to pick up the great banner of cosmic origin that humanity has abandoned, and human thinking. This article continues to analyze the “theoretical contradictions” between quantum mechanics and relativity, and to design the philosophical framework of modern physics according to the thought of cosmic origin. (shrink)

How can one distinguish the concept of second modernity from the concept of postmodernity? Postmodernists are interested in deconstruction without reconstruction, second modernity is about deconstruction and reconstruction. Social sciences need to construct new concepts to understand the world dynamics at the beginning of the 21st century.Modernity has not vanished, we are not post it. Radical social change has always been part of modernity. What is new is that modernity has begun to modernize (...) its own foundations. This is what it means to say modernity has become reflexive. It has become directed at itself. This causes huge new problems both in reality and in theory. There has been a pluralization of the boundaries within and between societies, between society and nature, between Us and Other, between life and death. This pluralization also changes the inherent nature of boundaries. They become not so much boundaries as a variety of attempts to draw of boundaries. Border conflicts become transformed into conflicts over the drawing of boundaries. Where postmodernism simply celebrates this multiplication of boundaries, the theory of second modernity starts with the problem this new reality poses for individual and collective decisions, and with the problem that the continued existence of such decisions poses for theory. Institutions that are capable of such conscious boundary drawing are enabled in a way that those of the first modernity were not. But this process also generates qualitatively new kinds of trouble and crises. To investigate those troubles is to unveil the emergence of the second modernity. (shrink)

Cohousing is an increasingly popular form of tenure that combines elements of private and collective ownership and affords its occupants a combination of the advantages of individual proprietorship with some of the benefits of living in a community that shares some of its space and activities. People join cohousing groups because they believe that there is something wrong with life in most villages, towns, and cities and they want to develop a better alternative. Sometimes this has been seen to articulate (...) a utopian aspiration to secure a better way of living, of the kind more normally associated with self-consciously intentional communities. But many influential spokespeople in the contemporary cohousing movement, in North America particularly, deny this association and take an explicitly anti-utopian stance, distancing cohousing from the communal movement and intentional communities. This article undertakes an examination of cohousing in North America today and asks the following questions: What is the real character of people's lived experience with modern cohousing? Why do people choose cohousing? Is it a form of intentional community? Is it utopian? Or is it just an attractive form of housing tenure for people who want a nice place to live with good neighbors? (shrink)

The Confucian revival which manifests itself in the modern Confucian current belongs to the most important streams of thought in contemporary Chinese philosophy. This book introduces this stream of thought by focusing on the second generation modern Confucians--Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, Xu Fuguan and Fang Dongmei. They argue that traditional Confucianism, as a specifically Chinese social, political, and moral system of thought can, if adapted to the modern era, serve as the foundation for an ethically meaningful modern life.

_Purpose._ The article aims, through a comparison of the modern identity as presented in Charles Taylor’s concept with the Postmodern era identities, to show the strengths and weaknesses of Charles Taylor’s position on preserving or prolonging the Modern era identity to our time, as well as to define the specifics of _liquid modernity_ compared to the New Age. _Theoretical basis._ Given the relevance of the topic of the human search for authentic existence in the modern world, the author analyzes Taylor’s (...) belief that the moral ideal of authentic identity emerged in the New Age. This ideal to contrast the idea of it in the previous periods is not set from the outside but is formed or created by a human himself. In addition, it is so powerful and productive that it must be fought for nowadays. After Taylor, since the existence of modern people tends to experience negative distortions associated with the focus on consumer individualism, instrumental thinking, and their loss of political freedom, the only possible way out is to turn to the ideal of authenticity of modern times. However, the article emphasizes that the modern studies of the Second Modernity (U. Beck) or liquid modernity (Z. Bauman) show a rather radical change in social reality, which, accordingly, requires new types of identity. _Originality._ The article argues that the identity formed in the New Age had signs of authenticity only owing to the socio-economic system of the time that formed a human as a self-acting being who determines his or her destiny. This person was characterized by such traits as individualism, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, victory, heroism, and so on. However, the article emphasizes that today the situation has changed radically, as the reality of the Postmodern era is characterized by the fact that instead of stable, clearly defined life forms and institutions we are dealing with changing, fluid, "liquid" (Z. Bauman) institutions and behaviours of people. Diversity, uncertainty, and pluralism are the hallmarks of this era that need to be taken into account in one way or another. Therefore, although Taylor’s arguments for defending the modern identity are logically invulnerable, they have the disadvantage of not taking into account the irreversibility of the changes that have taken place in modern reality. Therefore, the ideal of authenticity formed in the New Age may not be adequate in the times of pluralism and the development of other dimensions of identity. _Conclusions._ Taylor’s interpretation of modern authenticity was based on the idea of man as one who constantly constructs himself and is focused on the future, which we can imagine, plan and make some effort to achieve. This position of Taylor is criticized in the article. I substantiate the view that both the moral ideal and its components can change in the process of historical development. This becomes clear if we take into account the gap that manifested itself in the shift of value orientations during the transition from the Modern to the Postmodern era. Nowadays, we have a process of changing the basic conditions that determined the identity of a modern human, and the formation of new _basic conditions_ that are suggested as requiring identity redefinition in a post-industrial network society. (shrink)

In this volume well-known scholars from India and Latin America - Enrique Dussel, Madhu Dubey, Walter D. Mignolo, and Sudipta Sen, to name a few - discuss the concepts of modernity and colonialism and describe how the two relate to each other. This second edition to the volume comes with a new introduction which extends and critically supplements the discussion in the earlier introduction to the volume. It explores the vital impact of the colonial pasts of India, Mexico, (...) China, and even the Unites States, on the processes through which these countries have become modern. The collection is unique, as it brings together a range of disciplines and perspectives. The topics discussed include the Zapatista movement in Southern Mexico, the image of the South in recent African-American literature, the theories of Andre Gunder Frank about the early modernization of Asian countries, and the contradictions of the colonial state in India. (shrink)

The Second Enlightenment is a deep reflection and an immanent transcendence of the first Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries). Although the great achievements of the first Enlightenment cannot be denied, its limits are increasingly being exposed. Among the many limitations of the Enlightenment, the suppression of beauty in general and natural beauty in particular is one of its main drawbacks, caused by its blind worship of reason and the domination of a modern mechanistic worldview. The suppression of beauty and (...) natural beauty has produced destructive consequences which are responsible for the ecological, social, and spiritual crisis facing us today. In order to prevent ecological catastrophes and create an ecological civilization, a second Enlightenment whose core concept is beauty is needed. The Second Enlightenment challenges us to rethink the value and importance of beauty and natural beauty, and regards beauty as the aim of the universe, as well as of ecological civilization. In this sense, the Second Enlightenment can be seen as an aesthetic Enlightenment which not only helps us to resist consumerism, guard spiritual dignity, nurture our souls, find a sense of belonging, and lead a poetic life, but also helps Chinese society to overcome a defiant attitude toward rural civilization and farmers, and eventually to remove the Great Wall between city and country. (shrink)

This essay argues that modern sovereignty is not simply a legal or political concept that is coterminous with the modern nation-state. Rather, at the theoretical level modern sovereign power is inscribed into a wider theological dialectic between “the one” and “the many”. Modernity fuses juridical-constitutional models of supreme state authority with a new, “biopolitical” account of power whereby natural life and the living body of the individual are the object of politics and are subject to state control (section 1). (...) The origins of this dialectic go back to changes within Christian theology in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. In particular, these changes can be traced to Ockham's denial of the universal Good in things, Suárez's priority of the political community over the ecclesial body and Hobbes's “biopolitical” definition of power as state dominion over life (section 2). At the practical level, modern sovereignty has involved both the national state and the transnational market. The “revolutions in sovereignty” that gave rise to the modern state and the modern market were to some considerable extent shaped by theological concepts and changes in religious institutions and practices: first, the supremacy of the modern national state over the transnational papacy and national churches; second, the increasing priority of individuality over collectivity; third, a growing focus on contractual proprietary relations at the expense of covenantal ties and communal bonds (section 3). By subjecting both people and property to uniform standards of formal natural rights and abstract monetary value, financial capitalism and liberal secular democracy are part of the “biopolitical” logic that subordinates the sanctity of life and land to the secular sacrality of the state and the market. In Pope Benedict's theology, we can find the contours of a post-secular political economy that challenges the monopoly of modern sovereignty (sections 4–5). (shrink)

Originally published in 1921, this volume represents De Ruggiero's first appearance in English, being the first time his philosophical works were translated. Modern Philosophy presents a positive philosophical position of great interest, avowedly in continuation of Croce and in close agreement with Gentile, which sums up the progress of Italian idealism down to the writing of this book. It is a remarkable piece of historical work, focusing on the development of European philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth (...) century and the beginning of the twentieth, and was the first volume to comprehensively handle this time period. (shrink)

The Green Revolution in India which was heralded in the 1960‘s was a mixed blessing. Ambitious use of agro-chemicals boosted food production but also destroyed the agricultural ecosystem. Of late Indian farmers and agricultural scientists have realized this and are anxious to find alternatives – perhaps a non-chemical agriculture – and have even revived their age-old traditional techniques of natural farming. Scientists are working to find economically cheaper and ecologically safer alternatives to agro-chemicals. Blue-Green Algae Biofertilizers, Earthworm Vermicomposts, biological control (...) of pests and herbal biopesticides are showing promise. Saline agriculture and sewage farming are also being promoted in India to augment food production in the face of water scarcity. There is a move to search for alternative foods, which are more nutritious, cheaper and have shorter harvest cycles. Farm and food policy in India has to change its outlook before there can be a second green revolution. (shrink)

I want to do a couple of things in this essay. First, I want to articulate the central direction that postmodern thinking or philosophy takes. Second, I want to present a brief sketch of African philosophy, focusing mostly on some aspects of African ethics. Third, I want to gesture towards the view that while postmodern thinking seems to suggest that African philosophy is a legitimate narrative or “language game” it could be argued that given its central ideas and doctrines (...) African philosophy may be open to some of the worries facing modern thinking. (shrink)

On the face of it, there is no connection between the social theory developed by Ulrich Beck under the name of `second modernization' and the post-ethnomethodological argument developed by Bruno Latour and his colleagues under the name of actor-network theory. Yet they are both concerned with empirical evidence of a major shift in modernity. Hence the idea of elaborating an empirical test to probe the extent to which `second modernization' is a real phenomenon, or rather, as is (...) suggested here, a shift in our interpretation of what modernity has always been about. (shrink)

Modernity as historical process, and as source of an ensemble of conceptual tools, took an exceptional (and problematic) normative character as long as it was constituted as a reference to comparison, an ideal measure for value judgments and a hegemonic analytical model in social sciences. This has been accompanied at the same time by the establishment of a labor division in the social sciences. Europe and North America are meant to be theory producers while other regions are expected to (...) receive these theories and apply them. The awareness of these facts has led to a salient contemporary debate on which are the priority tasks for social theory and sociological research today in order to achieve its goals of accuracy, pertinence and coherence when faced with a diverse, global, world. Taking in account the former, the aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it intends to make a brief review of approaches that have considered the scrutiny and renewal of the notion of Modernity as one of the basic priority tasks for social theory and sociological research today. Thus, they have linked analytically both problems. Secondly, by discussing the limits of such an approach the article proposes that to undertake the construction of “difference sensitive” theories and conceptual tools entails, at least partially and from a methodological point of view, to strategically forget Modernity. (shrink)

Since its inception, the theory of modernization has undergone so many transformations that it makes sense to speak of a «modernization discourse» rather than a theory and to consider the concept itself from the point of view of social epistemology in conjunction with social imagination. This paper is devoted to substantiating this approach. The concept of modernization is interesting in this regard because it contains not only hermeneutic but also prescriptive elements: by placing society in a broader historical framework of (...) past, present and future, it creates a normative horizon for self-understanding and social transformation. It allows us to imagine our society as a historical whole, to imagine a social ideal and social development as a path towards it. At the same time, it appeals to the images of the social imagination - the social imaginary, depending on the context. A separate question, therefore, is what semantic load this concept receives when it is adopted by a different socio-cultural and political context. Such research could help to understand the internal logic of political processes in a society and its destiny. The paper consists of three subsections: the first is devoted to an overview of theories of modernization and their transformation under the influence of social epistemology; the second deals with the imagination as an anthropological a priori for considering social imagination; finally, the last subsection, which also serves as a conclusion, justifies why, given the purpose of the study, it is more appropriate to consider the concept of modernization in the context of the social imagination rather than as an ideology. The concept of ideology refers to political bias, to the question of truth and a critique of power discourse. In contrast, the concept of social imagination is politically neutral and refers to a cultural background of politics. It thus circumvents Man nheim’s paradox by being conceptualized as constitutive of a political order. (shrink)

Late modern existence is built around ambivalences: subjects experience the structural paradoxes of global capitalism or information society as social suffering; yet they follow behaviour patterns reinforcing the unsustainable trajectories. The article explores the discourses justifying such structural paradoxes, while normalizing the related suffering. First, the pragmatic theory of justification (Boltanski, Thévenot) is reinterpreted from a modernization theoretical perspective: a distinction is drawn between traditional, classic and late modern ‘tests’, ‘critique’ and ‘cités’. In the second and third sections, the (...) gradual emptying of critique is analysed: as disillusionment reaches the sphere of subjective experiences, not even personal suffering can ground critique any more (Berlant), thus the impossibility of critique is demonstrated in a cynical manner (Sloterdijk). In the fourth section, the various cynical modalities of justification fitting the ambivalent contemporary existence are overviewed. Finally, a way out from the naturalized, quotidian cynicism is sketched: by turning cynicism’s logic against itself, the dialectics of justification can move forward. (shrink)

The following essay is divided in three parts. First, while sharing in principle Harrison's hypothesis of an affinity between the sixteenth-century Reformation and early modern science, it questions the connection between the latter and the Weberian “disenchantment of the world.” Second, it suggests a broader group of possible actors than that envisaged by Harrison in referring to virtuoso collectors and their cabinets of curiosities who are rather marginalized in Harrison's narrative. And third, it highlights the physico-theology of the (...) class='Hi'>second half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century and beyond as an important temporary fusion of religion/theology and science at a time when the new science was still striving for social and religious respectability. (shrink)

This paper examines the ethics of the Australian business community’s responses to the phenomenon of modern slavery. Engaging a critical discourse approach, we draw upon a data set of submissions by businesses and business representatives to the Australian government’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade ‘Parliamentary Inquiry into Establishing a Modern Slavery Act in Australia’—which preceded the signing into law of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act 2018—to examine the business community’s discursive construction in their submissions of the ethical–political (...) concept of freedom. The paper shows how the concept of freedom was employed by Australian business in a manner that privileged their own subject status and advocated for legislation with minimal burden. Relating this contemporary case to a longer historical context, we show how Australian business responses towards modern slavery map onto liberal and neoliberal ethics in which the freedom of the propertied takes precedent over that of the property-less. Further, we show discursive similarities in the arguments presented by modern Australian businesses and certain historical efforts by members of the business community to privilege commercial freedoms in responses to 18th and 19th Century abolitionist movements. Overall, our research makes two important contributions: first, it highlights the value of a critical discourse lens in business ethics research to show how business and other stakeholders in the field construct and shape their own and other’s ethically-laden understanding of reality; and second, it presents a case for considerable scepticism about the motivation of business to employ the freedoms made available to it under neo/liberal discourse to confront a key human rights challenge. (shrink)

The 'Second Sophistic' is arguably the fastest-growing area in contemporary classical scholarship. This short, accessible account explores the various ways in which modern scholarship has approached one of the most extraordinary literary phenomena of antiquity, the dazzling oratorical culture of the Early Imperial period. Successive chapters deal with historical and cultural background, sophistic performance, technical treatises (including the issue of Atticism and Asianism), the concept of identity, and the wider impact of sophistic performance on major authors of the time, (...) including Plutarch, Lucian and the Greek novelists. (shrink)

Modern Jainism: A Historical Approach (Springer, 2023) presents a substantive yet accessible introduction to the modern thought of Jainism. It examines the life and thought of some of the most influential 19th- and 20th-century Jain ascetic leaders that remain little known in the Western world. The book's first part provides a detailed philosophical overview of Jain thought based on the translation of a seminal Hindi text, Jain Darshan. The second part introduces eight Jain saints from the major Jain sects, (...) including their biographies, philosophical perspectives, and related contemporary movements flourishing in various places across India and beyond. (shrink)

The following essay is divided in three parts. First, while sharing in principle Harrison's hypothesis of an affinity between the sixteenth‐century Reformation and early modern science, it questions the connection between the latter and the Weberian “disenchantment of the world.” Second, it suggests a broader group of possible actors than that envisaged by Harrison in referring to virtuoso collectors and their cabinets of curiosities who are rather marginalized in Harrison's narrative. And third, it highlights (in agreement with Harrison) the (...) physico‐theology of the second half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century and beyond as an important temporary fusion of religion/theology and science at a time when the new science was still striving for social and religious respectability. (shrink)

While there are good reasons to think that Hegel would not engage with modern scepticism in the Science of Logic, this article argues that he nevertheless does so in a way that informs the text's conception of logic as the latter pertains to metaphysics. Hegel engages with modern scepticism's general concerns that philosophy should begin without unexamined presuppositions and should come to attain not only knowledge of truth, but corresponding second-order knowledge: knowledge of knowing truth. These concerns inform two (...) needs that Hegel formulates for first philosophy, which logic—by unifying with metaphysics, which is traditionally synonymous with first philosophy—is to satisfy. However, logic, for the Logic, is unified with metaphysics as a science of absolute knowing, the form of thinking involved in traditional metaphysics. As such, logic, for the Logic, is neither anti-metaphysical nor reducible to metaphysics, but is rather a science of metaphysical thinking, which, for Hegel, includes metaphysics. The article emphasizes how Hegel's construal of logic as a science of absolute knowing avoids running into the ‘swimming problem’ that Hegel raises against, broadly, epistemological forms of first philosophy. (shrink)

Hegel’s assertion that, for us moderns, art is a matter of the past has obscured his genuine interest in the art of his time and modern art in general. This article attempts to correct this situation. First, it contextualizes the claim in its historical and conceptual aspects; second, it returns to Hegel’s approaches to modern art, neglected hitherto by interpreters. This revision implies clarifying what for Hegel is the modern, whose concept comes from the freedom and autonomy of thought, (...) and does not conform to what, in developments of Aesthetics, after Hegel, represent tendencies and prescriptions such as the avant-garde or turns such as aesthetic modernity and postmodernity. Modern art is the product of an artist who freely disposes of the means and content of art since he places himself above them. (shrink)