Elements of personalism - subjectivity and individuality - in postmodern philosophical discussion Cover Image

Elementy personalizmu – podmiotowość i indywidualność – w postmodernistycznej dyskusji filozoficznej
Elements of personalism - subjectivity and individuality - in postmodern philosophical discussion

Author(s): Ignacy Bokwa
Subject(s): Recent History (1900 till today), Contemporary Philosophy, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego

Summary/Abstract: Postmodernity has made a fundamental calculation of the Enlightenment and modern concepts of subjectivity and individuality. The Enlightenment was associated with hope of finding a fixed anchor of interpreting and shaping the world in an autonomous subject. It was to the Enlightenment and modernity not only a center of power capable to take over the world, but actually performing this work on the road to subjugate the natural world through science and its use in the technology. Although the postmodern subject is an individual, it no longer carries the strength of transcendental generality. It seems to be shaped only by speech and communication systems in which they live. Under the conditions of postmodernity, a man is not so much a man in the middle of a homogeneous history, focusing on self-determining identity, but he lives in a situation of patchwork made up of multi-faceted, heterogeneous stories. The social form of life seems to be primarily empty space, which opens up more and more differential community. The space of social existence of a subject is gradually filled by unable to mutual agreement elements of different traditions and the resulting side effects. The place of clear- to this moment- reality, starts to be filled by the incomprehensible shape remains of previous life. The result of these processes is the inability to build in conditions of postmodernity, a coherent identity of one’s own biography as an unbroken unity. Under the conditions of postmodernity, a man lives in a situation of increasing drama of his life story. Individualization of the worlds of life imposes on an individual an increasing obligation of interpretation and integration. It consists of daily necessity for determining, shaping your life, step by step. New grammar, which allows this life to be re-read and "invented" must stand by it.

  • Issue Year: 2012
  • Issue No: 19
  • Page Range: 15-24
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Polish