7/30/2023 0 Comments William of ockham empiricism![]() Modernity in this sense is not a mere secularization of Christianity but something new and legitimate in its own right. In the wake of this failure, modernity attempted to establish a new ground in the notion of human self-assertion. A second overcoming is necessary because the first Christian attempt failed, leading to the destruction of Scholasticism by nominalism and the replacement of a God of reason by a God of will. Modernity in this sense is the second overcoming of gnosticism, the doctrine that the cosmos is the creation of an evil spirit rather than of the transcendent God of salvation. Rather, it is directed at answering the question posed by the collapse of the medieval world. The self-assertion that characterizes the modern world, however, is not in his view merely a random will to power. However, he rejects the Kantian and Hegelian equation of modernity with reason in favor of the more Nietzschean view that identifies modernity with self-assertion. The continuity thesis has been challenged in recent years by Hans Blumenberg (1996), who sees the modern age not as a secularized successor to the medieval world, but as something new and unique. Understood in this way, the traditional account of the emergence of modernity as the triumph of reason over superstition is seriously flawed, blinding us to the continued existence of premodern irrationalism in the modern world. For example, Löwith views the notion of progress, which is so essential to the modern self-understanding, as the secularization of Christian millenialism. In like vein, Karl Löwith argued in Reason in History that in many crucial respects modernity is the secularization of Christian ideals, and is thus not ultimately distinct from the Middle Ages. Indeed, when examined closely, these historians argue, there were many more similarities and continuities between the two epochs than the traditional view suggests (Funkenstein 1983). Contemporary historians, often focusing on social history and the history of science, have tried to show that the transition from the medieval to the modern world was much more gradual than was hitherto believed. Neither they nor the age they founded was thus as original as they and their successors had maintained. This vision of modernity was called into question in the earlier years of our century by scholars such as Etienne Gilson, who demonstrated that the supposed founders of the new age had in fact borrowed many of their essential ideas from their medieval predecessors (Gilson 1930 Koyré 1923). Modernity is thus pictured as a radical break with the past. This search for a founding father or fathers understands modernity as the product of human will that overthrew the medieval world. Seen in this way, modernity is the creation of Leonardo, Machiavelli, Columbus, Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Newton, and any number of other thinkers, acting individually or collectively. Perhaps the most widely held view today sees the modern era as the product of exceptional human beings, of brilliant scientists, philosophers, writers, and explorers who overcame the superstitions of their age and established a new world founded on reason. There have been many different explanations of this transformation, some emphasizing the distinctiveness of modernity, others its continuity with the preceding age. ![]() The emergence of modern age out of the medieval world has typically been understood as the triumph of light over darkness or reason over superstition. Humanism, Reformation Christianity, empiricsim, and rationalism are different responses to this question. This is the question of divine omnipotence that arises out of the nominalist destruction of Scholasticism. ![]() Modernity should be seen in terms of the question that guides modern thought. Most critiques of modernity rest on an inadequate understanding of its complexity. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |