ABSTRACT
In the last few years there has been continuous debate about the crisis of meaning. We have celebrated the demise of meta-narratives and of coherent explanation. The collapse of the Communist regime appeared as a symbol of the useless and dangerous pretensions of systems which claimed to speak and act in the name of totality, of definitive answers, of meanings. The horrors of this century – genocide, the death camps – have brought a rude jolt to the idea of progress on the moral level and, by a sort of contamination, on an intellectual level as well. In contrast with these factors of scepticism, if not pessimism, it should be acknowledged of course that there has been a certain progression in the world of the idea of democracy, and of a recognition of human rights. As for progress in science, it is not only incontestable but spectacular.
