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Examines the defining characteristics of culture & morality regarding modernity. In the premodern era, institutions & culturally powerful individuals defined the standards & distinctions of healthy/unhealthy & refined/unrefined culture. However, cultural processing became more ambiguous in the early modern era, & early moderns (in the name of freedom) attempted to eliminate the boundary between healthy & unhealthy culture, while maintaining the distinction between high & low culture. However, it is argued that all distinctions have disappeared in recent decades, & modern culture is defined as omnivorous. Whereas culture was previously depicted as eternal & immortal, modernity defines culture as a collection of subjective, individual, & finite perspectives; modern culture is mortal & historically dependent. However, it is suggested that modern conceptions of morality are grounded in transcendent visions of goodness, & morality is thereby eternal & distinct from history. Therefore, modernity is characterized by the social negotiation of the eternal & finite, or cultural & moral. T. Sevier

The way in which history is understood through the juxtaposition premodern/modern is examined. It is argued that modernity need not be understood as an advance over the premodern, & that such conceptions unduly privilege the current historical moment. It is further argued that the main carrier of modernity's dynamic is dynamic justice, which enables people to criticize & question existing social arrangements. While premodern social arrangements were based on patterns of asymmetric reciprocity, modern ones are based on those of symmetric reciprocity, which entails the notion that "all men are created equal." It is concluded that in modernity the burden of ordering society rests solely on specialized institutions. W. Howard

It is contended that the modern world's fascination with things, particularly commodities, has eclipsed issues of meaning, as Hannah L. Arendt predicted in The Human Condition (1958 [see SA 9:4/58A0385]). Arendt's understanding of freedom in the world is compared to that of G. W. F. Hegel, & the way in which humans "have a world" is explored. Also discussed is the technological imagination & how it gives rise to the cult of labor rather than the cult of work. The state of liberal democracy in relation to consumer culture is also examined, along with aesthetics & the problem of indeterminacy in the world. It is maintained that liberal democracy is capable of embodying difference because it is embedded in a form of life anchored in the quotidian.

No presenta resumen

Different philosophical & theological perspectives on the nature of truth are examined to assess whether or not truth is historical. Among the several perspectives discussed are: the New Testament's notion of truth; Soren Kierkegaard's dictum that truth is subjective; Martin Heidegger's understanding of truth, which extols art as the highest form of truth because of its noncorrespondence with reality; & Michel Foucault's idea of truth as inextricably bound with power relations. Several real world examples are given to show how different kinds of truth are used to inform actions in everyday life. It is concluded that truth is indeed historical, but it is also a regulative idea that is anchored in whatever an individual wishes to consider true; in this respect, truth is idiosyncratic & subjective. W. Howard