Adorno Add-On

[Christophe]

I found this well-articulated post on the web which continues the topic of the former 'state of exception' thread over at the old Forum. It's about modernity as an unfinished project, the grand narrative of unstoppable progress, and Post-Metaphysical approaches to history.

Retrieving the idea of progress by Brian O'Connor

>>A distinctive characteristic of modernity is its belief in its special progressive trajectory. It was during the period of Enlightenment that
this belief gained its most confident and theoretical articulations.
The idea of progress was certainly no ancillary dimension of the
Enlightenment. As, for example, Kant’s essays on the philosophy of
history make clear, the essence of the self-understanding of the
Enlightenment was progress, a distinctive historical period consciously
reaching beyond what had gone before. What today might be considered
the lasting legacies of the Enlightenment, such as the critique of
superstition, the improvement of scientific method, or the rejection of
irrational authority, were contributions to rather than the core of
this process.

(Continue reading)

[Christophe]

Carrie Jenkins, Piano and vocals. Song by 'The Monads'


(lyrics)