The Persistence Of Modernity: Essays On Aesthetics, Ethics, And Postmodernism (studies In Contemporary German Social Thought)

Essays on Adorno's aesthetics, the nature of a postmodern ethics, and the persistence of modernity in the so-called postmodern age. The Persistence of Modernity presents four essays by one of Germany's foremost philosophers that go to the heart of a number of contemporary issues: Adorno's aesthetics, the nature of a postmodern ethics, and the persistence of modernity in the so-called postmodern age. Albrecht Wellmer defends the general thesis that modernity contains its own critique and that what has been called postmodernism is in fact a further articulation of that critique. More specifically, his essays offer a reinterpretation of Adorno's aesthetics in the framework of a postutopian philosophy of communicative reason, an analysis of the postmodern critique of instrumental reason and its subject that becomes an argument for democratic pluralism and universalism, a discussion of the dialectics of modernism and postmodernism in the context of architecture and industrial design, and a dialogical ethics that is inspired by and yet takes issue with Habermas's discourse ethics. In this timely new book Wellmer intervenes in the highly topical debates on modernity and post-modernity. Discussing the work of Adorno, Habermas, Peter Burger and Jean-François Lyotard, among others, he offers a penetrating analysis of the aesthetic, ethical and philosophical dimensions of the modern era. In opposition to those who view post-modernity as a sign of post-enlightenment, Wellmer makes a reasoned plea for a re-examination of the goals of emancipatory Enlightenment and explores its implications for the appreciation of modern art forms