Our Being on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this excerpt from his celebrated book From the Doctrine of Science to the Logic of Culture (1991), Bibler discusses a break in historical continuity due to fundamental changes in the social sphere. Dictatorships and wars are causing the resettlement of peoples and the need to understand foreign cultures in conjunction with one’s own while at the same time dwelling on the initial concepts of human life: human dignity, morality, and so forth. Interaction between different cultures (Europe, Asia, Africa) is taking place. Differences also exist between them and ancient, medieval, and modern-era European cultures. These interactions are visible in philosophy: We can take Aristotle or Nicholas of Cusa as our own interlocutors, though fundamentally different from us in terms of reasoning. Core changes are taking place in science, as well: Old theory is not being sublated by new theory, by Einstein and Bohr, but is becoming more well-rounded through it, while new theory is experiencing a combination of its ideas of the universal meaning of Galileo’s discoveries. Galileo is no less important than Einstein, and vice versa. The interconnection of various scientific explanations must be included in modern understanding. Reason proceeds from the beginnings of science, moves to the new, and returns to an understanding of reason itself. Science turns to its origins and arrives, oddly enough, in the future, at nonclassical and postclassical physics. Bibler also discusses cultural works that are closely intertwined with the personality of the creator and the audience. In this section, he touches on changes in the nature of labor, which shifts from joint labor to universal (as defined by Marx) when activities toward self-change (that is, creative activity) become decisive.