Europejska nowoczesność i jej wyparte konstytuujące „zewnętrze”

• Authors: Andrzej W. Nowak

Title variants

EN

European Modernity and its Denied Constitutive „External”

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The main thesis of the paper is a statement that European modernity is founded largely on a symbiotic relationship with its denied and constitutive “external”. It was this relationship that has enabled Europe to undergo radical economic, political and cultural development. However, the dependency of the European modernity on its “external” have been erased, forgotten, repressed during the process of creation of the European identity. Bruno Latour says that modernists have “forked tongues”. This illustrates the most distinctive feature of modernity which is a separation between founding practices of modernity and the level of narration (justification) of these practices. In an attractive but ambiguous phrase Bruno Latour claims that “we have never been modern”. It means that European modernity has never even approached the level which was presented as a normatively expected description of reality. Bruno Latour refers primarily to the area of science and technology studies. The aim of this paper is to show usefulness of his approach for studying the issues raised by postcolonial studies, theories of dependency and modern world-system.

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii, Uniwersytet Szczeciński
• Journal: Nowa Krytyka
• Year: 2011
• Issue: 26-27
• Pages: 261–289

Contributors

author

Andrzej W. Nowak

• Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu