Rethinking Progress Today

Yearbook for Eastern and Western Philosophy 2019 (4):221-240 (2019)
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Abstract

Historical progress is a core belief of the Enlightenment and modernity, also a spiritual catalyst of human emancipation in the past centuries. However, due to the naive understanding of scholars and its misuse by political power, the idea of progress has fallen from a realistic political belief in the pursuit of liberty and democracy to a metaphysical faith and a one-sided ideology. Instead of abandoning the concept itself, this paper will provide a new version for progress. In this version, supported theoretically with ideas from a Marxian critique of the paradox of progress in capitalist society and a Habermasian reconstruction of social evolution and progress, progress shall not be understood as an intrinsic trend of history itself, but a “historical-practical project” of humanity. The intent of rewriting progress is to transcend the dilemma between progressivism and catastrophism while at the same time preserving its positive meaning.

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Xingfu Wang
Fudan University

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References found in this work

History and Evolution.Jürgen Habermas - 1979 - Telos: Critical Theory of the Contemporary 39:5.
Universalisms: Procedural, contextualist and prudential.Alessandro Ferrara - 1988 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 14 (3-4):243-269.

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