The Institute of Arts of the Slovak Academy of Sciences invites you to a conference entitled “Rethinking European Modernity in a Global Context: A Conversation with Hans Schelkshorn“, which will take place on 26 and 27 September 2025 at the University of Vienna in Vienna.
The Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences will be represented at the conference by our researcher Ľubomír Dunaj (Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences), who will present a paper entitled “Between Árnason and Habermas: Some remarks on Hans Schelkshorn’s theory of modernity“.
The conference will focus on the book “Rethinking European Modernity. Reason, Power and Coloniality” (Bloomsbury 2024), in which Hans Schelkshorn laid the foundations for a new philosophical interpretation of European modernity, which responds critically to intra-European debates (critical theory, Heidegger, Blumenberg, Frankfurt discursive theory, theory of civilization) on the one hand, and to the critique of modernity by postcolonial philosophies in Latin America on the other. In the light of the metatheory of “de-limitation”, the cultural upheavals brought about by the astronomical revolution and the transoceanic expansion of Europe are reinterpreted in detailed studies of the philosophies of the Renaissance and rationalist thought of the 17th century. From this point of view, European modernity appears as a mixture of rational achievements, power syndromes and specific cultural dimensions. The aim of this conference is the “Zwischenbetrachtung”, not only in the reception of Schelkshorn’s theory of modernity, but also in current research in the field of intercultural philosophy.
The organizers of the event are the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and the University of Vienna in Vienna.
