Modernity and its Futures Past

The work reimagines emancipatory possibilities in the face of reified capitalist modernity. The enlightenment resulted in a ‘disenchanted’ world, stripped of ‘anthropomorphised’ meaning and purpose. This world, in its capitalistic figuration, alienates us from others, and from nature. To rearticulate emancipatory possibilities requires a non-alienated relation to society and nature. Yet, modernist disenchantment cannot be undone by returning to pre-modern ‘enchantment’. Rather, such rearticulation calls for the recovery of ‘unalienated life’ from within non-reified modernity, by renewing its universalist dimension.

“In our time there have been political philosophers who embrace ‘modernity’ (and the political ‘Enlightenment’) and those who oppose it, sometimes seeking alternative versions of it. It is revealing that among the embracers, there are those who embrace it with merely a sense of congratulation and others who do so with a complacent sense of self-congratulation. In this remarkably ambitious and penetrating work, Nishad Patnaik provides a sustained and powerful argument for the former point of view by demonstrating how the latter conceives of modernity in reified terms that are quite uncompulsory. Invoking a wide range of ideas from Hegel, Marx, Husserl, and Heidegger, he undertakes a deeply thoughtful critical engagement with prominent contemporary thinkers on the Left and offers, by the end, a fresh and attractive conception of modernity that is given to an inner dynamism and possessed, therefore, of resources for its own radical transformation from an era defined by a seemingly entrenched capitalist economic formation to an unalienated society and humanity.” (Akeel Bilgrami, Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy, Professor, Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University, NY, USA) 

​“In his book Modernity and its Futures Past: Recovering Unalienated Life, Nishad Patnaik makes a remarkable attempt to apply Marxism – the whole range of it, from political economy to psychology (the thesis of ‘alienation’) — to the conditions of the contemporary world. In the post-colonial era, the formal political bondage, has gone, but the inequality between the metropolitan and ex-colonial worlds persists, so then in the current economic fabric, the advanced capitalist countries continue to exploit what was once called the Third World, by obtaining products at low cost for the purposes of both production and consumption Nishad Patnaik builds upon an extensive reading of Marxist and ‘post-Marxist’ writing to suggest how a systematic and comprehensive perception of today’s world is to be obtained. For all those who are interested in how the current unequities and inequalities have come into being, and how they are to be identified and resisted, this is a most relevant work.” (Irfan Habib Professor Emeritus Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India)

​“Among recent contributions to philosophy, Nishad Patnaik’s study stands out as a serious attempt to seek a route via Heidegger out of the impasse between athropocentric and biocentric approaches in our current environmental debates. Nishad Patnaik’s study includes exegeses of Hegel and Husserl among others. In the process of his argument Patnaik’s study presents a convincing analysis of the distinction between description and understanding. This is an extremely convincing and stimulating study and anybody interested in a philosophical penetration of the current environmental debates will find the present study a further advance in the attempt by philosophers to go beyond conventional positions in the environmental discussions. This elegantly written book is a landmark and a significant contribution by a philosopher from India. I recommend it highly to all interested in a philosophical approach to this question.” ( Anil Bhatti, Professor Emeritus Centre of German Studies School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India)

​“This is an urgent and vital work exploring the possibility of a unalienated and sustainable post-capitalist world order. In a book of deep patience, generosity, and engagement that demonstrates a remarkable command over a wide and urgent set of sources, Nishad Patnaik explores the political and economic origins and structures that have created our broken modernity, and that, in their continuance, are directly responsible for the crises that now score every portion of the living earth. If the tradition of Hegelian-Marxism, the very idea of a ‘universal in perpetual becoming,’ is to matterto our future, it will begin here. A must read for radical theory.” ( Jay Bernstein, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, The New School for Social Research, NY, U.S.A)

Nishad Patnaik is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi, India.