Reason and Modernity

The seminar will focus on “Reason and Modernity”. Ratio is a fundamental notion of philosophy which was interpreted and re-elaborated in different ways by thinkers. It plays a central role in the definition of critical theory within the Institut für Sozialforschung. In summary, it would be interesting to analyse a key concept of modern philosophy (from Montaigne to Kant), its nuances and variations (reason, rationality, rationalization) and its critical reelaboration in the 20th century (the passage from “reason” to “rationalization”) by thematizing the link between the image of modernity shaped by philosophers, historians of philosophy, sociologists, and anthropologists, and the conceptual constellation around the notion of ratio.