Progress and modernity: the problem with autonomy

Abstract

The idea of modernity is inextricably tied up with the one of progress. One mainreason for this connection is that the late eighteenth century, often consideredto be the onset of modernity, was in Europe also seen as the dawn of a newsociety evolving according to a different logic than any preceding one, namelywith an open horizon of future possibilities. This article explores the meaning ofthis opening by first looking at the elaboration of what is called here a “strongconcept of progress”, based on the connection between autonomy and reason,and by subsequently confronting this concept with the historical experienceswith progress. This confrontation helps to understand the transformations in theexpectations of progress from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of thetwentieth century. As a result a more nuanced view of the relation betweenprogress and modernity will be proposed that can be fruitful for assessing ourcurrent expectations of progress in the context of contemporary modernity.