Salvaging Modernity: A Social Contract for the Age of Permacrisis - (Social and Critical Theory) by Domonkos Sik (Hardcover)

About the Book

How can critical and emancipatory practices be revitalized in the era of permacrisis marked by structural paradoxes and persistent social suffering? This book combines contemporary critical theory, existential phenomenology and social contract theory to develop new horizons for critical-emancipatory praxis.

Book Synopsis

Modernity is stuck on an unsustainable course, which poses a challenge to both critical theory and praxis. My book develops a comprehensive diagnosis of the times by reviewing the rapidly growing field of critical theories that focus on structural paradoxes and social suffering. To address the complex challenges of the era of permacrisis, various emancipatory praxes are elaborated from the perspective of intersubjective (e.g., mimetic violence), technological (e.g., algorithmic reification), and discursive (e.g., cynical justification) distortions. In order to provide a synthetic framework, a new social contract is proposed, based on responsibility towards the particularistic other instead of universal justice.