Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Dedication -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Foreword -- 1: The Withering Away of Progress -- Something Happened Between 1979 and 1989 -- A Look Back: The Invention of Progress -- The Experience with Progress: A Note on Method -- Dimensions of Progress -- A Look Forward: Embarking on the Work of Reconstruction -- Notes -- 2: Progress as Mechanism: The Epistemic-Economic Complex -- Progress of Knowledge: Science, the Endless Frontier? -- Economic Growth as Progress in the Satisfaction of Needs -- The Transformation of the Earth: The Emerging Great Divergence of Interpretations -- Progress Without End -- Notes -- 3: Progress as Struggle under Conditions of Ambivalence -- The Imaginary of Social and Political Progress: Equal Freedom -- Social Progress: Inclusion and Individualization -- Political Progress: Individual Rights and Collective Self-Determination -- The Ambivalence of Social and Political Progress and the Place of Critical Theory -- Notes -- 4: The Idea of Progress Revisited -- The Enlightenment Connection: Autonomy and Progress -- Critiques: Autonomy Undermining Progress -- Rereading the European Experience of Progress: Autonomy and Domination -- Progress between Personal Autonomy and Collective Autonomy -- Notes -- 5: The Past Half Century -- The Short-lived Return of Progress -- Progress within Borders: Organized Modernity and Its Discontents -- Protest and Progress at the End of Formal Domination -- The Trap of Hegemonic Discourse: the Erasure of Space and Time -- Preparing a Reality Test -- 6: Possible Progress Today -- The Issues at Stake -- The Reconstitution of Historical Temporality -- The Reconstitution of Meaningful Spatiality -- Progress Under Conditions of Autonomy: Agency and Critique -- Possible Progress (1): Building Democratic Agency -- Possible Progress (2): Overcoming New Kinds of Domination.

Rezension: Anders als Bronnie Ware, die in "5 Dinge, die Sterbende am meisten bereuen" Menschen kurz vor ihrem Tod zu Wort kommen lässt, fragt Wagner Personen, die mitten im Leben stehen, nach den Lehren des Lebens. Er lässt ganz unterschiedliche Menschen zu Wort kommen: Aussenseiter und Verweigerer, den im Beruf Zufriedenen, die Ehrgeizige, den Motivierten sowie auch an ihrer Krankheit Verzweifelnde. Am Schluss fasst er seine Interviews, Gespräche und Umfragen nach dem Wesentlichen zusammen. Die 1. grosse Lehre ist: fragen, zuhören und erzählen, die 2.: machen und nicht aufgeben, die 3.: zulassen und loslassen und die 4.: lieben, Vertrauen aufbauen und Freundschaften pflegen. Ein authentisches und grundlegende Denkanstösse vermittelndes Lesebuch; für jeden Interessierten anregend und mit Gewinn zu lesen. (2)

We live in a modern age, but what does 'modern' mean and how can a reflection on 'modernity' help us to understand the world today? These are the questions that Peter Wagner sets out to answer in this concise and accessible book. Wagner begins by returning to the question of modernity's Western origins and its claims to open up a new and better era in the history of humanity. Modernity's claims and expectations have become more prevalent and widely shared, but in the course of their realization and diffusion they have also been radically transformed. In an acute and engaging analysis, Wagner examines the following key issues among others: - Modernity was based on the hope for freedom and reason, but it created the institutions of contemporary capitalism and democracy. How does the freedom of the citizen relate to the freedom of the buyer and seller today? And what does disaffection with capitalism and democracy entail for the sustainability of modernity? - Rather than a single model of modernity, there is now a plurality of forms of modern socio-political organisation. What does this entail for our idea of progress and our hope that the future world can be better than the present one? - All nuance and broadening notwithstanding, our concept of modernity is in some way inextricably tied to the history of Europe and the West. How can we compare different forms of modernity in a 'symmetric', non-biased or non-Eurocentric way? How can we develop a world-sociology of modernity?

"We live in a modern age, but what does 'modern' mean and how can a reflection on 'modernity' help us to understand the world today? These are the questions that Peter Wagner sets out to answer in this concise and accessible book. Wagner begins by returning to the question of modernity's western origins and its claims to open up a new and better era in the history of humanity. Modernity's claims and expectations have become more prevalent and widely shared, but in the course of their realization and diffusion they have also been radically transformed. In an acute and engaging analysis, Wagner examines, among others, the following key issues: -- Modernity was based on the hope for freedom and reason, but it created the institutions of contemporary capitalism and democracy. How does the freedom of the citizen relate to the freedom of the buyer and seller today? And what does disaffection with capitalism and democracy entail for the sustainability of modernity? -- Rather than a single model of modernity, there is now a plurality of forms of modern socio-political organization. What does this entail for our idea of progress and our hope that the future world can be better than the present one? -- All nuance and broadening notwithstanding, our concept of modernity is in some way inextricably tied to the history of Europe and the West. How can we compare different forms of modernity in a 'symmetric', non-biased or non-Eurocentric way? How can we develop a world sociology of modernity?"--P. [4] of cover

This book argues that sociology has lost its ability to provide critical diagnoses of the present human condition because sociology has stopped considering the philosophical requirements of social enquiry. The book attempts to restore that ability by retrieving some of the key questions that sociologists tend to gloss over, inescapability and attainability

Soziologische Betrachtungen der gegenwärtigen Lage der Moderne sind von Verwirrung gekennzeichnet. Die Deutungen reichen vom "Ende des Subjekts" bis zum "neuen Individualismus", von der "Auflösung der Gesellschaft" zur Wiedererstehung der "Zivilgesellschaft", vom "Ende der Moderne" über die "andere Moderne" bis zur "Neomodernisierung". Peter Wagner rückt diese verschiedenen Befunde im Rahmen einer historischen Soziologie der sogenannten modernen Gesellschaften während der letzten zwei Jahrhunderte in ein rechtes Licht und macht dabei deutlich, warum bestimmte normative Orientierungen der Aufklärungstradition heute nur schwer zu realisieren sind. Dazu gehören vor allem die Schaffung von sozialen Identitäten als Bindungen zwischen Menschen, die auch eine sinnhafte Verwirklichung individueller Autonomie erlauben, sowie die Möglichkeit von Politik im Sinne kommunikativer und kooperativer Regelung der Angelegenheiten, die Menschen teilen und gemeinsam haben.