The Twin Images Of The Crisis Of Modernity

This thesis will deal with two problems. The first one involves the quarrel between Isaiah Berlin and Leo Strauss. According to Strauss, Berlin equates the crisis of modernity on the ground that Berlin is a relativist, and that the crisis of modernity could be derived from relativism. Contrary to Strauss, Berlin described Strauss as a absolutist and even monism, based on which he would conclude that Strauss equates the crisis of modernity in terms of Berlin's potential claim that the logical consequence of monism is the crisis of modernity. By carefully examining the texts of Berlin, I conclude that Berlin is not a relativist, while Strauss could still be a absolutist or monist. The approach in which I would disprove that Berlin is not a relativist includes two parts. In the first place, that Berlin is not a relativist rests on his refutation of relativism by pointing out that some values are objective, and one could understand different values from different cultures, which, in turn, on his understanding of the central characteristics of relativism as subjectivity and unintelligibility. In the second place, I will provide a more cogent argumentation than the first one, which I abstract from the texts of Berlin. I will argue that, because of the dominating understanding of the key features of relativism as particularity and inability to make value judgments, the evidence that Berlin is not a relativist would be that there are some universal values, and that value judgments are possible.The second problem I would treat here is that there are twin images of the crisis of modernity rather than one image as the prevailing views understood. The first version called "the positive version" is from Berlin's critique of monism (including absolutism), whereas the second one entitled "the negative version" is from Strauss's critique of relativism. If so, there comes a fundamental paradox between the two versions of the crisis of modernity:to cure relativism by absolutism (monism), the logical consequence would be totalitarianism, while to cure absolutism (monism) by relativism, the logical consequence would also be totalitarianism. Then how could we cure the disease of the crisis of modernity? Strauss attempted to solve it by returning to the classical political philosophy, whereas Berlin's solution was pluralism. In my view, the solution of Straus failed for the reason that the classical political philosophy is a specific version of monism, which would lead to totalitarianism. Because of the fact that pluralism attempts to solve both relativism and monism, I draw my conclusion that Berlin's pluralism would be the genuine possible solution to the two versions of the crisis of modernity.