ABSTRACT
In contemporary society and culture–postindustrial society, postmodern culture–the question of the legitimation of knowledge is formulated in different terms. The classical dividing lines between the various fields of science are thus called into question–disciplines disappear, overlappings occur at the borders between sciences, and from these new territories are born. The potential for erosion intrinsic to the other legitimation procedure, the emancipation apparatus flowing from the Aufklärung [Enlightenment], is no less extensive than the one at work within speculative discourse. In the ideal liberal society, the intellectuals would still be ironists, although the nonintellectuals would not. The latter would, however, be commonsensically nominalist and historicist. The social subject itself seems to dissolve in this dissemination of language games. The social bond is linguistic, but is not woven with a single thread. New languages are added to the old ones, forming suburbs of the old town: "the symbolism of chemistry and the notation of the infinitesimal calculus".
