My thesis is a comparative philosophical study of the crisis of meaning and legitimacy in modernity, taking as its starting point the polycrisis of neoliberal, late modernity. Four thinkers take centre stage: Semjon Frank (1877–1950), Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977), Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) and Charles Taylor (1931). They represent different philosophical, worldview and political traditions. I compare them across four themes: secularisation, social differentiation, (self-)reflexive modernisation and the transformation of modernity. The outcome of this systematic comparison amounts to an attempt to think beyond meaninglessness and nihilism; a problem that serves as a counterpoint for the four thinkers. The findings, including the shortcomings of the four thinkers, lead me to four lines of argument beyond meaninglessness and nihilism, namely a ‘common sense’ argument (core: the unliveability of meaninglessness and nihilism), an ontological argument (core: the responsive nature of humanity and reality), an ethical argument (core: a hermeneutics of love and receptivity) and a philosophical-historical argument (core: the question of the meaning of history). What they have in common is a breaking through of our immanent horizon of experience and expectation. My main conclusion is that, given the current apocalyptic crises, radical self-criticism and systemic criticism are required. This calls for an equally radical and integral transformation of (late) modernity.
Arthur Zijlstra studied physics in Leiden and subsequently philosophy at VU University Amsterdam. He then worked as a programme secretary at the Centre for Christian Philosophy (Utrecht); subsequently as a researcher at the Institute for Cultural Ethics (Amersfoort). In parallel with this, he was a lecturer in philosophy at the Christian University of Applied Sciences in Ede. He then became a lecturer in sociology and the philosophy of science on the Sociology programme at the VU. Finally, he joined the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences as a lecturer in sociology and the philosophy of science and as a researcher at an HRM research group. Since 1993, he has been a visiting lecturer at the Religious-Philosophical Institute of Open Christianity in St Petersburg and at the Faculty of Sociology of St Petersburg State University (since 2005). In 2017, he gave guest lectures on topics from his doctoral thesis at Lobachevsky University in Nizhny Novgorod. In addition, from 2005 until the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022), he was a board member of the cultural foundation ‘Friends of St Petersburg’. Since then, he has been a mentor in the University of New Europe’s mentoring programme, which focuses on refugee students and researchers from Ukraine and Russia.