Conceptual metamorphoses of Enlightenment ideas in modern social philosophy

Abstract

On the basis of critical and comparative analysis, the methodological range of conceptual transformation of the Enlightenment project has been studied in the article in the context of leading approaches of the modern social philosophy. It is found out that the enlightening confidence in the Mind as a normative factor of social development is transformed, on the one hand, into the concept of communicative rationality developed in the conceptual framework of the communicative theory of J. Habermas, and, on the other hand, into the concept of system rationality in the conceptual framework of the system analysis theory of N. Luhmann. These universalist strategies of salvation (Habermas) and improvement (Luhmann) of the enlightenment project are denied by representatives of the radical con-textualism J.-F. Lyotard and R. Rorty, opposing them, accordingly, the concepts of “Pa-ralogy” and “redescription of dictionaries”. However, the conceptual-categorical structure of the communicative strategy makes it possible to take into account the complementary potential of both the theory of systems and that of radical contextualism. In particular, the methodological advantages of system analysis are taken into account in the communicative model of the two-stage structure of modern complex societies. As for radical contextualism, it is interpreted as “transcendental communitarianism”