Modern Postmodern: Society, Philosophy, Literature

Abstract

This is the reason why an attempt is made in the last chapter certainly not for the Rrst time in the history of philosophy and the social sciences to recon-cile the particular and the universal. A reconciliation of this kind is most likely to prove satisfactory in a situation where none of the parties concerned is obliged to give up vital interests. Therefore a dialogical theory is mapped out whose moments of truth come about in a lasting interaction with heteroge-neous theories: with otherness or alterity in the ideological and the epistemo-logical sense. Whenever two discourses originating in heterogeneous groups of scientists overlap, one can speak of an interdiscursive searchand an interdiscursive moment of truthtemporarily endorsed by scientists who otherwise disagree. (The intersubjective critique withinan ideologically and theoretically homogeneous group is notto be questioned or devalued although it has its limitations and drawbacks).