Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture

by Louis Dupré

An exploration of the origin and impact of modernity, and of its sustained influence on contemporary culture

Did modernity begin with the Renaissance and end with post-modernity? In this book a distinguished scholar challenges both these assumptions. Louis Dupré discusses the roots, development, and impact of modern thought, tracing the fundamental principles of modernity to the late fourteenth century and affirming that modernity is still an influential force in contemporary culture.
 
The combination of late medieval theology and early Italian humanism shattered the traditional synthesis that had united cosmic, human, and transcendent components in a comprehensive idea of nature. Early Italian humanism transformed the traditional worldview by its unprecedented emphasis on human creativity. The person emerged as the sole source of meaning while nature was reduced to an object and transcendence withdrew into a “supernatural” realm. Dupré analyzes this fragmentation as well as the writings of those who reacted against it—philosophers like Cusanus and Bruno, humanists like Ficino and Erasmus, theologians like Baius and Jansenius, mystics like Ignatius Loyola and Francis de Sales, and theosophists like Weigel and Boehme.
 
Baroque culture briefly reunited the human, cosmic, and transcendent components, but since that time the disintegrating forces have increased in strength. Despite post-modern criticism, the principles of early modernity continue to dominate the climate of our time. Passage to Modernity is not so much a critique as a search for the philosophical meaning of the epochal change achieved by those principles.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Theology, Religion

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Louis Dupre is a Catholic phenomenologist and religious philosopher. He was the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor in Yale University's religious studies department from 1973 to 1998, after which he became Professor Emeritus.[1] His work generally attempts to tie the modern age more closely to medieval and classical thought, finding precursors to Enlightenment and Reformation events that were naively viewed as revolutions. His well known works include "Passage to Modernity" and "The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture."

Reviews

[Jack Hayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really a pretty good, though dense, overview of humanity's relation to the real (nature/physis) and the emergence of the subject and its place and relatedness to the world. Nothing really new here, but a good articulation of modernity. However, some of his conclusions about Calvin and Luther were dubious.

Since the book is quite old, it is interesting to see how Dupre is wrong in a hopeful conclusion that the self and relatedness of the world will be reigned in because of scientific concerns. He also did not foresee radical subjectivism continuing, though he did see more diversification (because of subjectivity).

Two wonders:

I wonder if Dupre is correct that Modernity becomes the unifying culture of the world through technology.

I wonder if Taylor and Dupre disagree about the self, since Taylor views the self as buffered, while Dupre sees the self as absorbing more and more.

87% "The modern question—whether intelligibility is grounded in the structure of the real or imposed by the mind—could not occur in early Greek thinkers, since both mind and reality participated in the same intelligibility."-pg. 23

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

We experience the world the way a fish experiences the water - we move through it without often thinking about it.

I know, you’ve heard that analogy before.

One of my favorite subjects to read and learn about is the development of the modern world. There is a popular story out there that states that people simply learned science and jettisoned religion. This story, called the “subtraction story” by Charles Taylor, is as simplistic as it is wrong. The story is much deeper and many sided.

Louis Dupre’s book offers another side. Dupre begins his telling of the story way back with the Ancient Greek philosophers. Not only does he start further back then some who tell the story, he does not go as far into the modern world, ending his story around 1660. Thus, he does not really get into the Enlightenment. In this he demonstrates that the shift to the modern world was not a lightning bolt from the heavens into Descartes’ heart with no precedent. Instead, the shift was a long process that did not necessarily have to go the way it did, as if starting with Plato and Aristotle automatically puts us on a one-way road to modernity.

As I have read books similar to Dupres’ it has become more clear that those stuffy, boring medieval debates between Nominalists and Realists were vitally important for everything that came after. In these thinkers, specifically the Nominalists, we see the shift to God as unilateral power. God can do whatever God likes with no constraints, as opposed to God acting in accordance with God’s nature. Is God’s nature pure act and power (voluntarism) or does God exhibit the Good and Truth?

Dupres speaks about the shift from God at the center of the cosmos to humans at the center. With this, humans become actors who can shape the world; freedom is no longer acting towards an end (teleology) but is acting to make the world and end what we like (which flows from the voluntaristic picture of God). In the ancient world the cosmos encompassed both what we would call natural and supernatural (and the fact we cannot escape those words demonstrates the water we swim in). Nature and spirit are separated slowly; Dupres shows the roots of this are found in early Christian thinkers. By the end of the story, the two realms are completely separated.

Thus, religion is no longer participation in the divine but is a choice we make. Nature is not a divinely infused realm but is a piece of technology made by God. Living in accordance with nature does not put us on path towards the one who made nature, instead we need an infusion of super nature.

This last one shows how this modern separation is rooted in the ancient world for the Christian idea of sin meant we could not fully trust our nature. Throughout his book, I kept realizing that so much in this story could go either way. Within the ancient Greeks or early Christians or medieval philosophers are the tools to separate nature and spirit as well as to synthesize them.

Overall, a good book for any interested in the historical development of the modern world. I would say pastors and amateur fans of history would both enjoy and be able to read this book. It is not as long or difficult as works by Charles Taylor or John Milbank. It is worth the time and effort.

[Scott Barber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good -- Reading Dupre's essay is like watching an artisan lay the cornerstone to a vast structure yet to be built. Written in a clear, introductory manner, the essay offers the best "how the modern world was born" story that I have yet read. Though every page demands book-length exposition, the essay introduces enough angles that the reader is left with a good sense of the overall picture. My only regret is that I didn't read this earlier, and that now I have to be more nuanced in my opinion.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Piercey’s review summarises well:

“Passage to Modernity is an extremely important book. A seminal study of the origins and philosophical significance of the modern age, it challenges theses advanced by Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and many others. Dupré's highly original claim is that modernity did not begin with either the Renaissance or the Enlightenment. Nor was it an inevitable outgrowth of ancient thought, as Nietzsche's followers would have it. Rather, modernity should be traced back to an intellectual revolution that occurred late in the fourteenth century. Before then, Western philosophers shared a common 'ontotheological' (3) vision: that meaning and value inhere in the cosmos, because a transcendent principle is directly present in the world. For the Greeks, this principle was form, and in it consisted 'both the essence of the real and our knowledge of it' (18). In early medieval thought, this principle mutated into the divine ideas transferred to the world through God's creative act. But by the late fourteenth century, Western philosophy no longer had the conceptual resources to support this ontotheological vision. Nominalist theology had banished universal forms from creation and given priority to the individual. Italian humanism, with its emphasis on earthly creativity, rushed in to fill the void. Together, these two movements led the West to see meaning and value as imposed on the cosmos by humanity, not features of the real itself. The result was the modern view of the subject. Radically detached from nature, this subject is less a part of the cosmos than its meaning-bestowing centre. Its appearance ushers in wholly new ways of relating to the real. Freedom becomes unrestrained voluntarism; nature becomes an object for human exploitation; an ethics of virtue gives rise to one of obligations and rights. While Dupré does not see the shift to modernity as entirely negative, he does think it is 'difficult to avoid the conclusion that modern culture failed in morally justifying itself' (143). Whatever one makes of this claim, Dupré's defense of it is beautifully written, immensely learned, and convincingly argued.”

[Adam Carnehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not overstating things to call this a paradigm-shifting book. Originally published in the early nineties, it's part of the on-going theological-philosophical 'corrective' to late-modern assumptions about progress, modernity, atheism, and secularism. Included in this corrective wave of scholarship would be the earlier work Karl Löwith just after World War II, and the more recent work of Charles Taylor, John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, Cyril O'Regan, Michael Allen Gillespie, and Conor Cunningham. All these scholars seek to correct our modern and post-modern assumptions and prejudices about the Western world, specifically how we came to be the way we are and where we're headed.

Dupré's work argues that if we stop at the Enlightenment to explain our 'passage to modernity' we've not gone nearly far enough. He roots the explosion of scientific research, the age of discovery, the emergence of the consciousness of the 'individual,' and contemporary concerns with 'human rights' to the Nominalist revolution in the fourteenth century, though there were earlier nominalist precursors (such as Abelard) and influential Islamic philosophers (who share many of the nominalists' views on God's omnipotence). But it's in the revolutionary thought of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham that the old philosophical realism begins to be overshadowed and the old Neo-platonic syntheses start to break down.

Nominalism essentially asserted God's utter omnipotence above all else, including His love, beauty, or goodness, which led to an overturning of the classic, hierarchical views of God and the cosmos where all is interconnected in harmony, mutuality, and mediation. The Nominalist God can reverse a decree and declare evil to now be good; He is not beholden to any of His former actions; and it is principally His power that holds together the universe.

We can detect, therefore, traces of nominalist philosophy in Descartes and Hobbes and in virtually all future philosophers and scientists. Unless we understand why this happened, we will settle for over-generalizations and inaccurate appraisals of what modernity is and what place theology has in it.

[AC Atienza · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine dive into what feels like a "forgotten past" of ontology. This book provides a refreshing alternative to modernity and a surprisingly concise description of humanity's relationship to nature and the divine and how that relationship has shifted over time. It actually reads like a very good story, which sounds like it's beside the point, but in my opinion is important to how it conveys itself.

If you're feeling a sense of malaise with the rigidity and worship of obsolescence that we see in our day-to-day culture you may want to see a bit of history on how things are a few years in our past. It's particularly interesting for rhetoricians with any interest in how language shapes our reality... though slightly frustrating to realize how our speech conventions are so biased towards perpetuating a kind of narrow view of truth. Whoops!

Anyway, I hated this book until I finished it and understood what was going on. Give it a shot if you cared about anything I was talking about above.

[Meghan Voll · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve seen a couple reviews on here praising Dupre for this piece of work. I was asked to read Dupre’s essay for a class specializing in medieval rhetoric. I was very disappointed with what I was given. Above all, I as well as others who read this found that Dupre participates too much in his own ontology, focusing on having that aspect play out in the structure of this work. Additionally, this was quite difficult to read, albeit not impossible. Having said that, the argument relies for too much on a theological basis, which, for an argument that tries to convince the reader of what went wrong during the medieval period through to modernity, is, in itself unreliable.

[ἄμβροτος · Rating 3 out of 5]

full of pithy formulations clarifying the shifts occurring in european thought from the greeks to early modernity, and quite useful in that respect. when the authors priors come out, especially in the third section i began to loose interest

[Tyler]

Serious and thought-provoking.

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

This exploration of Modernity's intellectual roots is an interesting and compelling case. The author's erudition is astonishing and, at times, overwhelming, but the book remains surprisingly readable. Dupré discusses the loss of the unified kosmos of Greek thought, the Christian baptism of neoplatonic thought, and the slow disintegration that followed. The chapters are freedom and history are especially good as are Dupré's insights into the Reformation.

If, like me, you didn't realize that this book was the first in a trilogy, you will be disappointed at the end when instead of offering his solution to the massive philosophical rupture he's been describing the reader is told to look at his next book.