ABSTRACT
Our civilization is characterized by the word ‘progress’. Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features.
THE REIGN OF FINITUDE
Towards the end of the period of Enlightenment, the sovereign subject is dethroned and there remains no one to do the work of the gods. The all-seeing, surrogate deity is subordinated in ‘the sciences of man and society’ to a reign of finitude. However, as we saw in chapter 2, the ‘man’ that emerges from this change is not just an object of knowledge, ‘a creature of finitude and limits’, but also a transcendent ‘source of order for the totality’ (Foucault 1970:313-14). The contradiction between these two states is mythically resolved in the perfection of progression. Progression no longer simply inhabits and confirms the object as an element in its achieved state: rather, the object enters into an encompassing progression. But progression, in all its promise, also remains in the object, even if no longer bound by its achieved state. The present condition of man as an object is a harbinger of boundless being yet to be fully discovered or constructed. However, for man as a ‘source of order for the totality’ there can be no deferral of the demand for pure transcendence. There are no fixed points on the path of future progress at which fateful shortcomings can be marked and allowed for. The transcendence of man operates immediately and completely, creating a modern subjectivity that is all-embracing and infinitely responsive.
