ABSTRACT

In modernity, on the hand, the rational universe which is open in principle to human endeavours to know it and act within it, is replaced by a kind of knowledge and art that is characterised by difficulty and reserve, one full of restrictions. In modernity, the authors have a representation of the world which excludes neither fissures nor lacunae, a form of action which is unsure of itself, or, at any rate, no longer blithely assumes it can obtain universal assent. Modern thought displays the dual characteristics of being unfinished and ambiguous: this allows us, should we be so inclined, to speak of decline and decadence. Yet if ambiguity and incompletion are indeed written into the very fabric of our collective existence rather than just the works of intellectuals, then to seek the restoration of reason (in the sense in which one speaks of restoration in the context of the regime of 1815), would be a derisory response.