Abstract

There are different philosophical interpretations of what characterizes modern science in contrast with its Hellenic or Medieval counterpart. This paper revisits early debates, in Weimar Germany, on the epistemological origins of European consciousness and its scientific modernity, focusing on the notion of the “Bewusstsein Uberhaupt” and the first critical reception of the ‘new phenomenology’. Drawing on these currents of ideas, the paper moves on to a comparative reading of Alexandre Kojève’s concept of the “fourth subject” of modern physics with Angele Kremer-Marietti’s question of “symbolization” which she defined as the philosophical root of modern science. The proposed genealogy of ideas underscores alternative readings on the origins of modern science in conversation with oriental philosophy and aims to introduce less familiar voices in this debate.