The Crisis Of Modernity

In his native Italy Augusto Del Noce is regarded as one of the preeminent political thinkers and philosophers of the period after the Second World War. The Crisis of Modernity makes available for the first time in English a selection of Del Noce's essays and lectures on the cultural history of the twentieth century. Del Noce maintained that twentieth-century history must be understood specifically as a philosophical history, because Western culture was profoundly affected by the major philosophies of the previous century such as idealism, Marxism, and positivism. Such philosophies became the secular, neo-gnostic surrogate of Christianity for the European educated classes after the French Revolution, and the next century put them to the practical test, bringing to light their ultimate and necessary consequences. One of the first thinkers to recognize the failure of Marxism, Del Noce posited that this failure set the stage for a new secular, technocratic society that had taken up Marx’s historical materialism and atheism while rejecting his revolutionary doctrine. Displaying Del Noce's rare ability to reconstruct intellectual genealogies and to expose the deep metaphysical premises of social and political movements, The Crisis of Modernity presents an original reading of secularization, scientism, the sexual revolution, and the history of modern Western culture.

Drawing on historical sociology, transnational histories and Asian traditions, Duara seeks answers to the pressing global issue of environmental sustainability.

This book explores the role of intellectuals in politics and social change from traditional society to the present. Its theoretical structure is based upon six distinct types of intellectual activity. The rise and decline of specific types is analyzed in the historical context of industrialization, technological change, shifting social forces, and the emergence of popular movements.

Few studies of Foucault have examined his thought from a sustained interdisciplinary perspective. Through the interpretative prism of the concept of the ‘Totality of Reason’, this book suggests an original analytical reading of Foucault's thought. This book addresses Foucault’s characterizations of the Enlightenment, asking whether the developmental history of the modern conception of knowledge – from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment – warrants the conclusion he draws. From the perspective of a critical evaluation of Foucault's thesis on ‘the crisis of modernity’, the book examines whether Foucault, the philosophical and social critic, truly belongs to those intellectual trends known as a ‘deconstruction’ and ‘post-modernism’ that advocate a wholesale rejection of the project of modernity, demonstrating how a classification of this kind contributes to an impoverishment of our understanding of Foucault's thought. This book will attract the attention of readers interested in Foucault, and what is broadly perceived to be the ‘crisis of modernity’. It will appeal to scholars and advanced students of sociology, political philosophy and political science, psychology, philosophy, interdisciplinary studies and cultural studies.

Assaults on the dignity and rights of the human person have been central to the ongoing crisis of the modern era in the last hundred years. This book takes a searching look at the roots of this problem and the various approaches to it by the eight men who led the Catholic Church in the twentieth century, from Pope St. Pius X and his crusade against "Modernism" to Pope St. John Paul II and his appeal for a renewed rapprochement between faith and reason. Thus it offers a distinctive, illuminating interpretation of recent world events viewed through the lens of an ancient institution, the papacy, a key champion of human rights under attack in modern times. The fascinating story is told through short profiles of the eight popes combining crucial, often little known, facts about each by an author who is a veteran observer of Church affairs, a former top official of the conference of bishops of the USA, and consultant to the Vatican. It is written clearly and simply, but with carefully documented precision. A special feature are the substantial excerpts from the writ- ings of the popes that give important insights into their personalities and thinking. It also includes a useful overview of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and its pivotal role in reshaping the Catholic Church. Eight Popes and the Crisis of Modernity contains judgments that will be challenged by partisans of both liberal and conservative ideological persuasions. But serious and open-minded readers, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, will find it an informative, timely, and inspiring guide to understanding many central events and issues of our times, while students of Church history will find it indispensable.

The crisis of the "project of modernity" (Habermas) is, at the same time, a crisis of critical theories of society and culture that have radically questioned bourgeois culture and capitalist society and economy from the perspective of a utopia of enlightened rationality. A number of parallel recent social and political problems, developments, and

Explores the impact on Jews and Judaism of the crisis of modernity, analyzing modern Jewish dilemmas and providing a prescription for their resolution.

In the late 1960s a ‘crisis’ erupted in social psychology, with many social psychologists highly critical of the ‘old paradigm’, laboratory-experimental approach. Originally published in 1989, The Crisis in Modern Social Psychology was the first book to provide a clear account of the complex body of work that is critical of traditional social psychological approaches. Ian Parker insisted that the ‘crisis’ was not over, showing how attempts to improve social psychology had failed, and explaining why we need instead a political understanding of social interaction which links research with change. Modern social psychology reflects the impact of structuralist and post-structuralist conceptual crises in other academic disciplines, and Parker describes the work of Foucault and Derrida sympathetically and lucidly, making these important debates accessible to the student and discussing their influence. He assesses the responses from both mainstream social psychology and from avant-garde textual social psychology to the influx of these radical ideas, and discusses the promises and pitfalls of a post-modern view of social action.