Louis Dupre suggests that modern thought is riven by a fundamental tension. On the one hand, the real is still conceived, as it classically has been, as an unchanging order, while on the other hand the subject determines meaning and value. Modern thought, to put it otherwise, is caught between the classic understanding of static being and its own emphasis on time and history. Whether one refused history or metaphysics, “an identical refusal to assign an ontological significance to historical change determined the argument. The weight of a history that remained unexplained and unjustified became an oppressive burden on the European mind. Nietzsche was right in seeing it as a cause of late modern nihilism.” Postmodernism is in part the exposure of these inner tensions of modern thought.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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