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An attempt is made to define the notions of modernism & postmodernism, providing an outline of the relevant concepts & perspectives, where the notion of "dialectic" is not to be understood as a self-completing truth. Several characterizations of postmodernism are offered, & the neo-Marxist ethic of Adorno & the "affirmative" aesthetic of J.-F. Lyotard are examined. The basic theme of postmodernism is seen to be the "critique of totalizing reason." This critique has three forms: the psychological critique of the subject & his/her reason; the philosophical-psychological-sociological critique of instrumental reason & its subject; & the language-philosophical critique of self-transparent reason & its subject. Postmodernism is summarized as "a search, $... an attempt to register the traces of change & to allow the contours of that project to emerge more sharply.". B. Annesser Murray

Notions of reason, rationality, utopia, & the possibility of social liberation are traced in the thought of Karl Marx, Max Weber, Theodor W. Adorno, & Max Horkheimer, & Jurgen Habermas, focusing on the last's reformulation of Adorno's & Horkheimer's critical theory & on his distinction between communicative & systemic rationality (Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns [Theory of Communicative Action] Vols I & II, Frankfurt, 1981). Habermas is seen to have reconceptualized Weber's thesis that the rise of modern, "disenchanted" social structures amounts to a process of rationalization leading to a bureaucratic, reified state (the process Habermas refers to as "systemic rationalization"), identifying a parallel development of a liberatory "communicative rationality," in which social action is increasingly coordinated & rationalized in order to inhibit the reification of the "life world" & force economic & political structures to allow greater degrees of human freedom. Thus the process of communicative rationality is embodied by contemporary radical democratic social movements & signifies a utopian potential emerging from the historical process of rationalization, a potential unrecognized by Weber & interpreted by Adorno & Horkheimer as necessitating a break with rationalization in favor of reason. Habermas's conceptual strategy is outlined & clarified, & some possible objections to it are refuted. 1 Reference. J. Weber.

The German Arts & Craft Society, founded in 1907, played a major role in developing the functionalist & constructivist approaches of modern architecture & industrial design, while embodying protest against capitalistic mass production. Its functionalism, however, was too easily degraded into acceptance of technocratic definitions of function, in which even the memory of urbane lifestyles formerly embodied in facades had been lost. Postmodern architecture combines recognition that modern society no longer has its own language of form, but must draw on those of past societies, with liberation from technocratic rationalism & achievement of participatory forms of practice, understandable in terms of the concept of communicative rationality. The belief that industrial progress inherently tended toward humanization & aesthetic enlightenment has been revealed as naive, but new opportunities for aesthetic fantasy have arisen. W. H. Stoddard.

En este magnífico ensayo, Albrecht Wellmer —sin duda uno de los filósofos más importantes de la actualidad— se enfrenta al problema de la universalidad de las normas de convivencia interpersonal. Su posición se aleja tanto del universalismo de Habermas como del decisionismo de Carl Schmitt. Con el primero, considera que los derechos y deberes ciudadanos exigen justificaciones democráticas rigurosas. Contra él admite la tesis schmittiana —que analiza con detalle— según la cual hay un momento no reglable inherente a la génesis de toda legalidad, un «poder soberano» ineludible que depende del acto performativo de decisión y que no puede ser eliminado del campo de juego de la política, de la justificación misma de las reglas políticas. Rebasando a Schmitt (que consideraba que una sociedad civil mundial significaría el fin de la política), intenta mostrar que la universalidad normativa, en un mundo globalizado, es, a pesar de todo, posible. Wellmer afirma, como cauce de ésta uno quizás infinito: un círculo práctico-hermenéutico entre instancias universales y particulares, como la norma y la aplicación o los derechos universales y los derechos civiles. Dicho círculo no es vacío, sino productivo, pero nos obliga a aceptar la finitud de la democracia y la idea de una justicia que siempre está en germen.