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Diagnosing Cultural Progress and Decline

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The Normativity of the Natural

Part of the book series: Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture ((PSCC,volume 16))

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Some critics of postmodern philosophy claim that the waning of classical culture and its metaphysical tradition has resulted in the “death of culture.” Has there been such a death? Has the rejection of traditional metaphysics meant the deculturation of the West? Rather than focus on questions of morbidity, I think it more productive to focus on questions of genesis. For example, what were the origins of classical culture and what comes after it? Borrowing from the work of Eric Voegelin, I assume there is a primordial experience out of which arise all cultures and from which, much later, may arise explicit metaphysical theories (Voegelin, 1974, pp. 74–75).

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Zanardi, W.J. (2009). Diagnosing Cultural Progress and Decline. In: Cherry, M.J. (eds) The Normativity of the Natural. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2301-8_8

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