The Pandemic, the Crisis of Modernity, and the Need for a New Semantic Project of Civilization

Article
Open Access
by Vadim Rozin1
1 Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russia)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29202/phil-cosm/25/3
Received: 15 May 2020 / Accepted: 28 June 2020 / Published: 3 October 2020

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Abstract

In the article, the modern pandemic is considered as one of the signs of deep crisis of our civilization, as the answer of the first and second nature to the character of its development. The author believes that the pandemic stands in line with technogenic disasters, but that it is unlikely that after the pandemic, the world will change, as mankind has not realized the reasons for what is happening. In a modern situation, it is possible to look differently: optimistically and pessimistically, as on the civilizational crisis caused by the end of the semantic project of a modernist style. The basis of this project is analyzed: the idea of nature acquirement, the creation of natural science and engineering, the task of building the state, law and society. It is affirmed that the project of modernity was implemented, giving rise not only to modern life and sociality, but also to the Mont Blanc problem. In order to demonstrate the transformation of reality as a result of the project of modernity, the author discusses what happened to the concepts and concepts of nature, technology, personality, economy, state and society. This analysis allows him to argue that the mainstays (principles, pictures and scenarios) on which modern was built, have changed dramatically. They can no longer perform the function of a semantic project of civilization and, therefore, a new project is needed that corresponds to the existing reality, new challenges of the time, new forms of sociality, and development trends. The main trends of social development are characterized: formation of new technologies, the crisis of coherent concepts of modern, the formation of Webcieties and matacultures, convergence of capitalism and socialism systems, formation of new morality and vision of reality. At the end, the author discusses the features of the new semantic project of civilization: the need to recognize the completion of the project of modernity, to formulate on three levels of ideas that could capture our contemporaries (the corresponding hypotheses are expressed), to discuss the conditions of such a project.

Keywords: civilization, culture, nature, society, personality, project, implementation, sociality, crisis, law

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Rozin, Vadim (2020) The Pandemic, the Crisis of Modernity, and the Need for a New Semantic Project of Civilization. Philosophy and Cosmology, Volume 25, 32-42. https://doi.org/10.29202/phil-cosm/25/3
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