The idea
The text acknowledges that European modernity achieved scientific and political progress, but rejects treating this progress as sufficient to justify its negative effects. Wars, totalitarian regimes, and colonialism reveal that the modern project did not fulfill all of its promises. For this reason, the critique here is not presented as a denial of modernity, but as a reminder of its limits and the crises it left behind.
Concise formulation
European modernity: achieved scientific and political progress
Its place in the book’s argument
This claim occupies a balancing position within the book’s argument, because it prevents the reader from understanding Arkoun as an opponent of modernity in principle. The book constructs a complex critique: neither an absolute glorification of the West nor a total rejection of it. Through this balance, it becomes clear that the question is not whether modernity is good or bad, but which modernity is meant, and at what cost it was achieved.
Why it matters
The importance of this claim is that it places Arkoun in a critical position that reduces modernity neither to its achievements nor to its catastrophes alone. This helps us understand his thought as an attempt to revise the modern project from within, not to flee from it. It also opens the way to a broader view of the relationship between material progress and human justice.
Brief evidence passage
The text acknowledges that European modernity achieved scientific and political progress, but rejects treating this progress as sufficient to justify its negative effects. Wars, totalitarian regimes, and colonialism reveal that the modern project did not fulfill all of its promises. For this reason, the critique here is not a denial of modernity, but a reminder of its limits and the crises it left behind.
Reading questions
- How does the text combine recognition of achievement with criticism of outcomes?
- Why does criticizing modernity not mean rejecting it entirely?
Degree of documentation
High: the claim appears in a clear location in the book’s material.