Introduction

tiques of modernity. Hegel proclaimed subjectivity as the principle of modernity and thus set the scene for later attempts to shift the focus towards a more concrete notion of subjectivity and a more activistic image of modernity. A later branch of the same tradition, exemplified above all by the Dialectic off Enlightenment, took the manifest antinomies and self-destructive tendencies of the modern subject as a starting point for a critique of modern civilization and its prehistory. Alternatively