Abstract

In his newest book, Stanley Rosen examines the relationship between postmodern thought and the heritage of the Enlightenment. He argues forcefully that the revolt against fixed forms and the mathematical-scientific rationality postmodernists are practicing goes back to the Age of Reason. A "self-perfecting history" and "individual self-expressiveness" are themes Rosen sees as uniting a certain kind of eighteenth-century rationalism and the social-intellectual revolt culminating in deconstructionism. Most significantly, Rosen finds a link between Kant's ethical and historical thinking and modern hermeneutics tinged by utopian thinking. These modern radicals--for example, Derrida, Lacan, and Kojéve--use textual interpretation to make political statements. Rosen surveys their work in this thin but densely written volume, and also treats of Plato, Rousseau, Leo Strauss, Martin Heidegger, and Emmanuel Levinas.