Toward a New Common Sense

"Towards a New Common Sense" argues for a thorough and incisive critique of modernity. Incapable of renewal, deplete of emancipatory values and current only as a result of its historical inertia. Modernity, Boaventura de Sousa Santos argues, can no longer serve as the ground upon which values and ethics, progressive laws and emancipatory powers are generated. Considering three key concepts (law, power and science), Santos emphasizes the impotence of modernity to dramatically transform daily life and practice. He gestures towards a new common sense which he locates in the transition to postmodernity.