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The Criticism Of Modernity In The Perspective Of Technology Rationality

Posted on:2008-06-20Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:G J LiFull Text:PDF
GTID:1115360242459709Subject:Marxist philosophy
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The vicissitudes from tradition to modern times is an inevitable historical destiny to any race, nation and human beings involved in it. This would be "modernity", which is probed into."Modernity" is a theory dimension filled with theoretical conflicts and various understanding. Among them, the intertexture of various perplexities and comprehensions reflected a lot of different thinking-oriented view and theory objective to modernity problems in modern learning context. At the same time, modernity also mirrored different comprehension and experience of the time sense, existing ways and cultural value of the age we are living in.Modernity is undoubtedly one of the most important issues in our age. It is also one of the most outstanding issues of modern philosophy. Many problems of the modern society reflect inside antinomy and crisis of modernity in the deep level, whether in the perspective of theory introspection or the reality. Since modern age, particularly in 20 century, special attention has been paid in the area of modernity problem at different degree. Many famous thinkers elaborated modernity thought based on the observation of that age, Such as Marx, Husserl, weber, Simmel, Lefebver, Horkheimer, Adorno, Lukacs, Habermas, Lyotard, Derrida,Baudrillard, Bauman, Giddens, Benjamin, Bell, Foucault, etc., and examined the content of modernity from different point of view. The origin and alignment of modernity have been examined and the destiny of modernity has also brought special attention. Therefore, it is possible to see through the issue of the existence of human beings, and the attention to modernity since 20 century is highlighted. Among the discussion of many thinkers, problems such as the crisis of European science, enlightenment, rationality and reasonableness, tool rationality, technology rationality, ideology, the public culture, modern nation, freedom value and ideal etc. mirrored criticism of modernity to some different extent and dimension.The concept of "modernity" takes a very long time to develop in Europe. Generally thought, the period of the 16th-18th century is the first stage of the development of modernity. In a sense, the basic concept of modernity comes from the spirit, ideal, temperament of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is no doubt one of core factors which lead to modernity among several understandings to modernity. In the history environment of the Enlightenment, "modern" develops as a sign of period progressing. And it also turns to be a commentary word containing new change, new trend, progress, innovation, etc. Whether in the perspective of theory and practice, the arguments, reflection and criticism brought out by modernity and civilization crisis, nature crisis, conflict between value and culture of modern people have no any signs to come to an end. Oppositely, modernity is getting more and more attention all over the world. Although modernity problems are put forward in the western, now it turns out to be a problem which should be faced by all the human beings. It has lost the confine of nation and country, with the globalization developing faster and faster. From Marx to Horkheimer, Adorno, Nietzsche, Marcuse, Husserl, Heidegger, Giddens and so on, to ideologists of post-modernism, they are all worried about modernity. In this mean corroboration of modernity experiences a long procedure from the 17th century to the 18th century. Defending or stating modernity reasonably and legally is always one subject of western philosophy. It is likely that only in the 20th century can defending and thinking back to modernity be added to philosophy area, because any philosophy must be the philosophy of the age. It always reflects the meaning of that time. That is, since the 20th century, crisis and anxieties of modernity emerged, which expresses the pressure of reflection and criticism.In the dimension of criticism, various critical theories are mostly closely related with the rationality origin of modernity no matter what genres or points started with, which has to do with a fact that western thoughts always take rationalism as a foundation. Rationality is not only the main line of western modern philosophy, but also a cross point of modernity problem. On the one side, modernity is a complicated history and cultural course filled with contradictions, conflicts and all sorts of parameter. On the other side, modernity is also a kind of language context that interweaves all sorts of contradictions and potential mankind's crisis and age's predicament, or an attitude or a feeling. The rationality is a main line of modernity, commencing from the clues of rationality, so we can deeply scoop out the logical relation and function mechanism between rationality with main factors of modernity pedigree. Particularly since science revolution, technology revolution and Industrial revolution, the interaction of the rationality and science and technology revolution and society made the rationality acquire unprecedented strength. Technology rationality has thus been free from the original tradition and even become an independent, dominate, changeable power to push society forward. Technology rationality also had the characteristic of modern metaphysics. Therefore, it has theatrical and practical meanings to dissect the modernity from the micro view of technology rationality, to see through the root, mechanism and the development mode of modernity crisis, and to make the modernity understandable and held by the mankind, to introspect and reply better in thought, culture and the mode of social movement.Technology rationality is rooted in the rationality of mankind, and in the meanwhile it catalyses the abruption of modern rationality. The rationality indwelled human nature is a lasting issue of mankind claim and introspects. Since Enlightenment, the rationality highlights its subject principle. Along with fading rationality composition given by God and strengthening of technology rationality restricted by positivism, on the one hand, tool rationality and technology rationality rooted in human being's appeal to purposiveness derived; on the other hand, it doomed contradictions and dissociation between subjective rationality and the objective rationality, the humanity rationality and the technology rationality, the value rationality and the tool rationality.Contemporary properties are the inclusion of valuation of the modernity concept. It stipulates the objective and value instruction of modernization. Modern society and the modernization of society embody the basic features of modernity, indicate the soul of technology rationality, because the realization of the value of these features must rely on the technology, and its value direction is also technology rationality. In correspondence, the rationality of modernity is also expression of many rationality features, such as the technology rationality, economic rationality (market rationality), efficiency rationality, calculation rationality, control rationality, cultural diversity rationality etc. These rationality features implicate the inner logic of technology rationality. The priority of development and the modern economic rationality, the control of the politics, the nothingness of the modern democracy and the culture features of the popularity, medium and consumption are the projection and refraction of modern technology. Solving the modernity problems of technology rationality radically equals to technology rationality criticism of modernity. We should introspect and criticize technology rationality from some dimensionalities such as epistemology, surviving theory, culture, freedom value and modern ethics. Basically, it's an effective way to criticize technology rationality of modernity to explain the technology rationality by sticking to the tradition of Marxism, being conscious to theory for criticizing the technology rationality by Marxism, sticking to man studying tropism, using explaining principle of Marxism historical materialism. Marx affirms that sense does exist, but he looks down upon modern technology rationality without humanity, so he criticizes it deeply.The criticism of modernity in the perspective of technology rationality seems not to be a new issue. But it doesn't mean this discussion area should end and lose the significance. Just as modernity itself is not a temporary topic, the criticism of modernity in the perspective of technology rationality should be elaborated deeply and from several angles. So it's a significant attempt to discuss and solve the problem of modernity, considering many factors and tokens which are related to modernity, and some logic relationships which have connections with every dimension different aspect related to modernity, to uncover internal logic and theory connotation of modernity and technology rationality to a deeper level, through criticism in the perspective of technology rationality, to view the contradictions and antinomy crisis of modernity.
Keywords/Search Tags:modernity, rationality, technology rationality, Marx, post-modernism
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