Those of us living today generally think of ourselves as modern, that we live in modern times, and that we are very different from the people of the past. But there is an important thing that we share with all humans who have come before—we ask ourselves big, hard questions about life, questions like how we should live and why the world is so full of suffering. Each era comes up with answers to these questions. And although sometimes the answers last a long time, they are never permanent. As times change, people demand new answers. In his 1966 book The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, German philosopher Hans Blumenberg explores the evolution of humanity's answers to our perennial questions.
Martin Jay is the Ehrman Professor of European History Emeritus at UC Berkeley. He is the author of Discussing Modernity: A Dialogue with Martin Jay.
See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm.
Follow us on Twitter @WritLargePod.
Being and Time
Waiting for Godot
Hamlet
Don Quixote
In Search of Lost Time
Candide
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Ulysses
Mrs Dalloway
Genesis
1001 Nights
The Fire Next Time
Jane Eyre
A Theory of Justice
Divine Comedy
The Wretched of the Earth
1984
Middlemarch
The Mahābhārata
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
50 Tastes Of Gray
Dear Alice | Interior Design
Spider-Man Crawlspace Podcast
Just So Stories
Anne of Avonlea
The Magnus Archives
Fresh Air