ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to contrast Jurgen Habermas' sociological discourse of modernity and his underlying theory of evolutionary learning processes with an alternative theory of modernity as tension-ridden, dynamic and multiple. Whilst it may appear that Habermas' work is tied and oriented to a European project and a European modernity, and can thus be charged with Eurocentrism, he avoids this charge by grounding his sociological discourse of modernity in a postmetaphysical philosophy that appeals to universal quasi-transcendental and linguistically-constituted competences that develop at the social level through culturally-situated evolutionary learning processes. The creation of specific social imaginary significations is no less the case for modernity than for any other society or history. Modernity is a unique historical creation, as are other societies and histories. Since modernity is multiple, plural and heterodox, it is filled by the questions and perspectives of each interlocutor, of each interpreter who creates his or her modernity.
