Habermas, Jürgen – The philosophical discourse of
modernity. Texto Editora, 2010.
The word "modernization" was introduced as a
"terminus" only in the 50.
The concept of modernization refers to a bundle of cumulative processes that
reinforce each other: capital formation and mobilization of resources, the
development of productive forces and the increase in labor productivity, the
establishment of centralized political power and the formation of national
identities, the expansion of rights of political participation, urban life
forms and formal school education refers to the secularization of values and
norms.
The first philosopher to develop the concept of
modernity was Hegel. We have to go back to Hegel to understand what the
internal relationship between modernity [Modernitat]
and rationality. Hegel began to use the concept of modernity in historical
contexts as epochal concept: the "new times" are the "modern
times". This corresponded to contemporary usage in English and French of
the terms "modern times" and "temps modernes"; designate by 1800 the previous three
centuries. The discovery of the "New World" as well as the
Renaissance and the Reformation – the three great events around 1500 – is the
epochal transition between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. While the
Christian West the "new times" appointed time yet to come to the man
that opened only after the Final Judgment, the profane concept of the modern
age expresses the conviction that the future has already begun, the mean epoch
headed for the living future, which opened the new things that are to come.
Thus, the caesura of the start of new shifts to the past, precisely to the
beginning of the modern age; was only in the XVIII century that historical
threshold to 1500 wheel was retrospectively recognized as being in reality this
beginning.
The new world, the modern world differs from the old
in that it is open to the future. Hegel also believes "our time" as
"the most recent season". Places the beginning of his present caesura
in the Enlightenment and the French Revolution represent for men with more
discernment living at the end of the XVIII century and beginning of the XIX century.
It is initially in the field of aesthetic criticism
that we are aware of the problem of a foundation of modernity from itself, and
this becomes clear when one traces the history of the concept of
"modern". The separation process paradigm of ancient art starts at
the beginning of the XVIII century famous by the Querelle des Anciens et
des Modernes. The modern call into
question, with arguments of critical historical sense of imitation of ancient
models, according to the standards of absolute beauty, seemingly disconnected
from time, draw up the criteria for a beautiful and conditioned by time and
thus articulate self-understanding of the French Enlightenment, as an epochal
beginning. While the modernist noun (along with the antithetical antiqui / moderni) were used in a chronological sense since late antiquity in
European languages of the modern age just too late, more or less, from the
midle of XIX century, the modern adjective noun was, and again for the first
time in the field of Fine Arts. This explains why the terms modernity, moderne, modernitat, modernity, even today retain a kernel of aesthetic
significance marked by self-understanding of avant-garde art.
For Baudelaire aesthetic experience blended with the
historical experience of modernity. In basic experience of aesthetic modernity
is becoming more acute the problem of self-justification, because here the
temporal horizon of experience is reduced to the decentered subjectivity, which
departs from the conventions of everyday life. That is why to Baudelaire the
modern work of art occupies a unique position at the intersection of the axes
of today and eternity. Modernity is the transitory, the fugitive, the
contingent, is one half of art the other half being the eternal and the
immutable. This understanding of time, radicalized again by the surrealism, based
affinity of modernity with fashion.
Baudelaire says that beauty is formed by an eternal
and immutable element and also a relative and circumstantial element, which is represented
by the season, the fashion, the spiritual life, the passion. Without this
second element, which is like the bright and attractive cover that opened the
appetite for divine cake, the first element would be indigestible to human
nature. Baudelaire, in his capacity as an art critic in modern painting
highlights the aspect of beauty fleeting, ephemeral gift of life, the nature of
what the reader allows us designate by modernity. Baudelaire wrote the word
modernity between quotes because it is fully aware that this word is new and is
a terminology used in a particular way thus the authentic work is radically
attached to the moment he is born; precisely because it consumes at present is
that it can stop the steady stream of trivia, disrupt normalcy and indulge for
a moment, the moment of ephemeral eternal fusion with the current, the immortal
longing for beauty.
The eternal beauty is revealed only in disguise
costume of the time; Walter Benjamin refers to this later using the expression
of the dialectical image. A modern masterpiece is marked by the union of
authentic with the ephemeral. This character of the current also underlies the
affinity between art and fashion, with what is new.
Hegel is the first to raise the category of
philosophical problem separation process of modernity normative cues from the
past that are external. While modernity awakens to a consciousness of itself it
comes a need for self-certification, which is understood by Hegel as the need
of philosophy. He sees confronted with the task of translating the thoughts in
your own time, for Hegel means modern day philosophy. Hegel is convinced that
somehow can’t grasp the concept that philosophy makes itself without regard to
the philosophical concept of modernity.
For Hegel modern times are characterized in general by
a structure of self-relation what he calls subjectivity: the principle of the
modern world in general is freedom of subjectivity. When Hegel characterizes
the physiognomy of modern times (or the modern world) explains subjectivity
through freedom and reflection. What gives grandeur
to our time is the recognition of freedom, ownership of the spirit, the
recognition that the spirit itself is being with you. In this context the term
subjectivity mainly involves four connotations: a) individualism in the modern
world infinitely particular peculiarity may assert their claims; b) right of
criticism, the principle of the modern world requires that it should be
recognized by every one if he presents himself as something legitimate; c)
autonomy of action, is characteristic of modern times that we want to blame us
for what we do; d) finally, the very idealist philosophy, Hegel considers task
of modern times which philosophy perceives the idea that knows itself.
Historical events key to the establishment of the principle of subjectivity are
the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. With Luther's
religious faith has become reflexive in the solitude of subjectivity the divine
world transformed into something postulated by us. Against the faith and
tradition of preaching Protestantism proclaims the sovereignty of the subject
that makes it worth its discretion. Soon after the Declaration of Human Rights
and the Napoleonic Code consecrate, to the detriment of the historic law, the
principle of free will as a substantial foundation of the state, it is
considered that the law and ethics were grounded in this land of the will of
man since previously only a divine commandment emanating from outside, written
in the Old and New Testament .
The principle of subjectivity determines moreover the
settings of modern culture. This is what happens in the first place, with
science objectively that undresses the Nature of magic and simultaneously
releases the knowing subject: then challenged – all miracles; because Nature is now a system
of laws known and recognized, the man feels good inside her and only tells what
he feels right; knowledge of Nature becomes free .
Modern art reveals its essence in romanticism; the
form and content of romantic art are determined by an absolute interiority. The
expressive self-realization becomes the principle of art that presents itself
as a way of life.
In modernity therefore religious moral life, state and
society as well as science, and art became so many incarnations of the
principle of subjectivity. Its structure is enclosed as such in philosophy,
namely as an abstract subjectivity in cogito
ergo sum of Descartes, in the form of absolute self-consciousness in Kant. It
is the structure of the self-respect of the knowing subject which focuses on
you as on an object to understand as precisely reflected in a mirror, a
speculative attitude picture.
To the extent that the theory of modernity is guided
by the basic concepts of the philosophy of reflection, knowledge of the
concepts of awareness and self-consciousness, it becomes evident the internal
connection of this theory with the concept of reason or rationality.
