Political Reflections on Modernity: An Anthropology, ed. by Yingwen Tsai and Fukien Chang

1

• Political Reflections on Modernity An
  Anthropology, ed. by Ying-wen Tsai and Fu-kien
  Chang
• Political Reflections on Modernity is a
  collective work
• assembling fifteen papers presented at
  international conference
• held by the Research Center of Political Thought
  at the
• Research Center for Humanities and Social
  Sciences (RCHSS)
• in December 2005. Concerning the complex problems
  of
• political modernity, this work makes an effort to
  explicate the
• theories of modern state, capitalist market
  economy, civil
• society and liberal democracy, as well as the
  ideas of human
• rights, the principle of justice, nationalism,
  the universal moral
• principle and cultural pluralism.

• Each article deals with these topics respectively
  from the perspective of the interpretation of
• the history of modern political thought, the
  polemics of modernism and post-modernism, and
• the predicaments of cultural encounters. At
  present, the theories of modernity are criticized
  
• by post-modernism, even though the modern
  institutions (for example, the modern state and
• capitalist market economy) constitute the basic
  structures of our social life, and various
• modern ideas (for example, the ideas of human
  rights, and liberal ideas) have become
• intellectual resources for our understanding of
  and critical reflections on contemporary
• political and social issues. So, it is
  significant to reinterpret the formation of
  modern politics in
• its various aspects.
• Each author in this book makes an effort to
  explicate what he or she thinks are the most
• important themes of modernity, and offers us very
  insightful interpretative viewpoint. For
• most of the authors, modernity inherited a binary
  tendencies that is contradicted with each
• other. Owing to this, modernity is constituted as
  a dynamic movement of change, self-
• revising, and open to the future.