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This essay is a review of Raymond Geuss's book, Seeing Double. The review discusses the seven essays that comprise the book, which is concerned with the implications of the fact that the world never makes complete sense to us and that there are only fragments of meaning without any higher order or authority to make sense of the world. The book explores the consequences of abandoning the idea of a unity view of the world. The review essay discusses some of the issues around an alternative perspective that prioritizes plurality.

This essay is a short reply to Richard Swedberg's review of my book, Senses of the Future: Conflicting Ideas of the Future in the World Today (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024). The main points are addressed. In addition I sum up the rationale and aims of the book.

There is a new sensibility to the concept of the future in recent writings in the human and social sciences. The modern idea of the future is undergoing a tremendous rupture today such that older or taken-for-granted assumptions about it can no longer be left unscrutinized. While much of the new interest in the future is about events yet to come – and the spectre of catastrophe looms large in such thinking – the challenge for social theory is to understand how the future should be conceptualized today and how it relates to other concepts, such as space, hope, possibility and utopia. Some of the major controverses about how the future should be conceptualized can be summed up around the following debates, which are explored in this introductory article: the question of the temporality of the future, the extent to which the future is open, whether utopia has been superseded by dystopia and the implications of posthumanism especially in the context of the emergence of new technologies that have far-reaching implications for the human condition.

The Russo-Ukrainian War marks a significant moment in the post-1945 history of Europe when a new European war has begun that will shape relations with Russia for a long time to come. This war is not a regional war but is a product of the divergent and seemingly irreconcilable paths of the Russian Federation and Ukraine that go back to the collapse of the USSR while the critical juncture was the Iraq war, which set the terms for the current collapse in normative internationalism. The question of military support – its extent and duration – for Ukraine has major implications for the future of Europe. The moral and political challenges for Europe should not be confused with the interests of US foreign policy, which is using Ukraine for purposes that have little to do with what Europe should be concerned with, namely justice and peace.

This commentary analyses the view that the resurgence of nationalism will lead to the return of the nation-state and an accentuated de-Europeanisation. I argue against this position. While neo-nationalism has become a major force in Europe and elsewhere, I claim it does not have a capacity to restore the nation-state. I discuss what I take to be the key features of neo-nationalism, central to which is authoritarianism, and outline four arguments why this kind of nationalism ultimately lacks a real capacity to bring about major structural change. These are: (1) it is a form of nationalism without the nation; (2) it is unable to solve the basic problem of societal polarisation; (3) it avails of divisions within the left and the centre ground rather than having any strength of its own; and (4) the global movement of which it is an expression lacks a global imaginary. Neo-nationalism has brought about a significant shift in political discourse but stops short of a major systemic transformation of European integration.

The article seeks to situate the notion of sustainability within the framework of critical theory. It shows that sustainability has normative significance for contemporary society and that contrary to many conceptions and practices of sustainability, it has latent and critical potential. The notion of critical sustainability is proposed as a post-corporate cultural model and as an alternative to the neo-liberal conception of sustainability as well as to definitions that see it only in terms of technical rationality. Critical sustainability is a challenge to what Adorno called 'deluded thinking' and as an alternative to the 'damaged life' that has come with the unsustainable societies of modernity. It is now increasingly apparent that one of the many contradictions of modernity is the contradiction between the belief in the infinity of growth and the finite resources of the earth to sustain it. An immanent critique of modernity from the perspective of critical theory seeks thus to disclose the antagonism and contradiction of a society predicated on infinite growth, prosperity and progress but with finite resources. ; Este artículo intenta situar la noción de sustentabilidad dentro del marco de la teoría crítica. En él se muestra que la sustentabilidad tiene importancia normativa para la sociedad contemporánea y que, al contrario de muchas concepciones y prácticas sustentables, ella cuenta con un potencial latente y crítico. Propongo la noción de sustentabilidad crítica como un modelo cultural poscorporativo que actúe como alternativa frente a la concepción de sustentabilidad neoliberal, así como también frente a definiciones que solo la consideran en términos de racionalidad técnica. La sustentabilidad crítica es un desafío a aquello que Adorno llamó 'pensamiento deludido'; es una alternativa a la 'vida dañada' que viene aparejada a las sociedades insustentables de la modernidad. Hoy se vuelve cada vez más evidente que una de las muchas contradicciones de la modernidad es aquella de la creencia en la infinitud del crecimiento versus la finitud de los recursos de la tierra para sostenerlo. Así, una crítica inmanente de la modernidad desde la perspectiva de la teoría crítica busca develar el antagonismo y la contradicción de una sociedad basada en el crecimiento infinito, la prosperidad y el progreso, pero con recursos finitos.

The paradox of nationalism today in Europe is that while there is ever more demand and opportunities for nationalism it has become more divisive than ever before. Nationalism now divides the nation rather than uniting it. For this reason, its capacity to offer an alternative to the status quo is severely limited. In the past collective self-determination was predicated on the presumption of a defined people who were resisting external domination and sought to bring about a new polity. The world today, especially in Europe, has made this more difficult, if not impossible. There is now an entirely new context for nationalism and the appeal to self-determination in the name of 'the people' is no longer able to achieve the same results. The politics of self-determination, as reflected in separatist movements, runs up against the problems of democracy and cultural pluralism, which tend to frustrate the capacity of nationalism to achieve its aims. The argument given in this paper is that the rise of nationalism is de-stabilising for Europeanisation but does not endanger it.

Resumo O trabalho destaca que o conceito de Antropoceno refere-se a uma dimensão temporal no tempo geológico: é a época em que os seres humanos provocaram uma grande transformação na estrutura física da Terra. Trata-se de uma forma de autocompreensão histórica. Representa, assim, uma grande transformação na natureza geofísica do sistema Terra que coincide com a transformação mundial provocada pelo capitalismo e pela ocidentalização. O Antropoceno está inextricavelmente relacionado a questões sociológicas que dizem respeito ao capitalismo, à guerra, ao poder e à desigualdade em escala global. O texto destaca que a noção de Antropoceno não é simplesmente uma condição objetiva da mudança planetária, ou outro termo para a mudança climática, mas é, acima de tudo, uma categoria interpretativa pela qual as sociedades contemporâneas refletem sobre si mesmas e sobre a própria vida e reinventam seu espaço e tempo.

AbstractDespite the on-set on new divisions, there is a strong case to be made for the view that ultimately Europe is more united than divided. There is still significant continuity with the post-war project of reconstruction and peace and that this common ground that constitutes the European heritage needs to be given greater recognition. One of the defining features of European self-understanding is opposition to war.