The Ethos of the Enlightenment and the Discontents of Modernity: (Routledge Advances in Sociology)

This book probes the sources and nature of the ‘discontents of modernity’. It proposes a new approach to the philosophic-critical discourse on modernity. The Enlightenment is widely understood to be the foundational moment of modernity. Yet despite its appeal to reason as the ultimate ground of its authority and legitimacy, the Enlightenment has had multiple historical manifestations and, therefore, can hardly be said to be a homogenous phenomenon. The present work seeks to identify a unitive element that allows us to speak of the Enlightenment. To do so, it enjoins the concept of ‘ethos’ and its relation to the ‘discontents of modernity’. This book proposes a new theoretical framework for the examination of the interrelationships between ‘critical thought’ and ‘modernity’, based on a fundamental distinction between criticism and negation. It will appeal to scholars and students of critical theory, the history of ideas, philosophy, the sociology of knowledge, and political science.

Table of Contents:
Introduction PART I: The Philosophical Beginnings of Critical Thought 1. The production of Knowledge, Rationality and the Critical Spirit 2. The Enlightenment's Horizon of Progress PART II: Modernity and its Discontents 3. The Human Condition: Nietzsche's Psycho-critical Discourse 4. Being and Crisis: Husserl's Phenomenological Concept of the Lifeworld 5. Modernity as Culture: A Contextual Reading of Freud's Concept of Discontents PART III: Knowledge and Totality 6. The Open-Society and the Enemies of the Enlightenment: Popper's Critical-analysis of Scientific Theory – Historicism and Totalitarianism 7. Pathologies of Anti-Enlightenment: The Frankfurt School 8. The Moral Horizon of the Enlightenment: Habermas' Rational Reconstruction PART IV: The Changing of the Consciousness of Modernity 9. Two Critical Readings: Between Foucault and Habermas 10. Toward a Reconstructive Concept of Progress 11. Deciphering the Enigma: The Prefix 'Post' Conclusion

About the Author :
Matan Oram is a Professor of Political Science at The Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo; his lectures and research focus on political philosophy, political theory, and the history of ideas. His publications address a wide range of topics of the philosophical discourse on modernity, and contemporary socio-political thought. His most recent book is Modernity and Crisis in the Thought of Michel Foucault ( 2017).