Rethinking European Modernity

Hans Schelkshorn is Head of the Department of Intercultural Philosophy of Religion at the University of Vienna, Austria.

• List of FiguresPrefaceAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: A Self-Critical Reinterpretation of European Modernity in a Global ContextPart I. Reason, Power and Coloniality: Three Paradigmatic Interpretations of Modernity1. Modern Reason as Syndrome of Power? Martin Heidegger, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno2. The Enlightenment as an Unfinished Project: Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas3. The Challenge of Decolonial Philosophies: The Case of Latin America4. Summary and PreviewPart II. Transcending Boundaries of the Cosmos and the Ecumene: A Retrospect on the Thought of the Renaissance5. The De-Limitation of the Cosmos and the Revaluation of Insatiable Curiosity: Nicholas of Cusa6. Freedom as Self-Creation: Pico della Mirandola’s Oratio de hominis dignitate7. The Conquest of America and the Foundations of Global Cosmopolitanism: Francisco De Vitoria and Juan Ginés De Sepúlveda8. Experimental Self-Fashioning in an Unlimited World: Michel de Montaigne Part III. Foundations of Modern Science, Politics and Economy in the Philosophy of the Seventeenth Century9. Francis Bacon’s Vision of Modern Science and Limitless Technological Progress10. Thomas Hobbes: The Foundation of Modern Politics Amid Escalating Social Conflicts11. John Locke: The Justification of an Unlimited Market Economy12. Epilogue: The Future of Modernity and the New Search for Self-LimitationsNotes ReferencesIndex of Names

Both historically sophisticated and philosophically original, this is an extremely learned book, the product of decades of research, teaching, and engaging in what Schelkshorn calls intercultural philosophy. It weaves a fascinating story about what makes modern philosophy distinctly modern: from Bacon to Montaigne, it tracks the ways in which subjects, spaces, and time were un-bounded and humans were cast against their meagre resources: reason, will, and passion. The readings of writers are supremely elegant, but also focused. The book also brings into the fray the work of Latin American philosophers who have been both critics and defenders of the Enlightenment.