Abstract
A critical relation to the past is very different from a critical relation to tradition, despite the correlation that is established intuitively. Were we to seek to explicit it, it might very well be that we are dealing in essence with two reflexive relations characteristic of modern societies. 1. The question of the relation to tradition can never be anything else than already post-traditional. Tradition, for itself, is authority, not tradition. When, has happened in Western societies, this authority is questioned, then all relations to truth become suspicious and only legitimated authority is recognized. The universal which underlies such a process does not therefore necessarily pre-empt this questioning but is induced from the very procedure. 2. On the other hand, the question of a critical relation to the past can be described the biography of a modern society only able, by law, to establish its relation to the future by presenting the future as a revolutionary opportunity in the struggle for the oppressed past. Now only a non-substantial universal can subsume the virtual totality of crushed past aspirations.
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