The Logic of the West’s History: Three Ages

Abstract

The postmodern turn of the last quarter of the twentieth century, which consisted in a fi - nal rejection of metanarratives, makes great philosophical systems one of the areas of mythological narratives. However, this fact does not mean we do not have to comprehend the modern situation, which has become an inalienable attribute of modern identity. In this way, generalized metaphors, generalizing our knowledge at the intuitive level of aesthetic perception, become more and more important. From this philosophical and metaphorical instrumentation’s point of view, the history of the West can be schematically described in the form of three ages, symbolized, respectively, by the Mind (intelligence), the Reason, and the Sensuality, each of them having their own unique system-forming meanings that suggest relevant cultural practices. The Mind, or the age of Antiquity, affi rms the identity of the unconcealed in reality with the ontological basis of the existing — the cosmic mind. The Christian Middle Ages raise the line between the world of divine archetypes and sinful empirism. The Reason becomes human’s symbol and destiny. The new age or Modernity focuses on what is happening here and right now, brings reality to the momentary and pragmatic, and therefore can be described as the age of Sensuality. Thus, the logic of the West’s history, understood in this way, allows us to look at the whole historical process from a new perspective, at the same time opposing it (the logic) to the classical view, which became classical in the times of M. Weber, on history as on an ongoing process of disenchantment, the result of which is the mankind teleologically moving towards the incarnation of formal rationality.