Projects / Programmes
The End of History: Twenty Years After. Philosophy – Politics – Economy
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 7.00.00 |
Interdisciplinary research |
|
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H120 |
Humanities |
Systematic philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, ideology |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.03 |
Humanities |
Philosophy, Ethics and Religion |
history, ideology, teleology, fetishism, cynical reason, institutions, economy, capitalism, neoliberalism, twentieth century, twenty-first century
Researchers (8)
Organisations (3)
Abstract
The proposed interdisciplinary basic project will critically confront the announcement of “the end of history,” which Francis Fukuyama made two decades ago to declare the triumph of liberal-democratic capitalism as an unsurpassable horizon, with the increasingly common thesis about the “return of history,” which emerged together with the current economic recession. Taken together, the announcement of “the end of history” and the thesis about “the return of history” delineate the external limit of the paradoxical “historical period of the end of history,” as this time is referred to by the proposed project. This “historical period of the end of history” is determined by two basic self-perceptions: it is said to be, first and foremost, (1) the time of the end of ideologies, and (2) the time of homogenous capitalist development free of any ideological metanarrative and hence any economic heterogeneity.
The project team will formulate two basic research problems: (1) the problem of the persistent operativeness of ideology in the time of its nominal decline, and (2) the problem of the irreducible heterogeneity of the various types of capitalism. On this basis, the team will critically analyze the two above-mentioned assumptions of the period of “the end of history,” as they outline the horizon of this intrinsically interdisciplinary problematic. From this starting point, and bearing in mind these research problems, the team will examine the history of “the end of history,” determine its key ideological and economic elements, and develop and critically evaluate the arguments in favor of the two basic research problems.
Significance for science
The research has lead to new discoveries in the field of understanding the role of economic science in modern society, as well as to the opening of new possibilities for interpreting ideology in our contemporary sociopolitical world. Project has been tied to international research (research ties with The Franke Institute for the Humanities of University of Chicago) and thus contributed to the acquiring of foreign knowledge, while the use of stateoftheart methodologies has lead to conceptual innovations and to the development of new practices in the fields of humanities and social sciences.
Significance for the country
The recent empirical studies indicate the great importance of institutions in economic and social development, but these studies are mostly descriptive and insufficiently emphasize the importance of the causal connection between the environment, institutions, and economic development. The project fills this void, offering to the social and economic environment a firm empirical foundation for acknowledging the importance of institutional patterns in assessing the economic performance and development. The project was one of the first experimental and empirical attempts to evaluate the importance of institutional factors and broader institutional patterns for the country’s long-term economic performance. The empirical methodology enables the determination of broader sociocultural factors, defining–over longer timeseries–the course of economic growth and development. The project will enable the carriers of economic policies to acknowledge the importance of establishing a suitable institutional environment, which is the key to innovation, both from the standpoint of new knowledge and from the standpoint of processes and institutional forms.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2014,
2015,
final report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2014,
2015,
final report
