Idea
Western modernity in this context is presented not merely as technical or economic progress, but as a transformation in the ordering of values. The central idea is that ethics and religion no longer guide the economy and politics as they were thought to do in older structures; instead, both fields opened onto a different logic. Modernity here thus becomes a change in the social center of gravity before it becomes a change in tools.
Concise formulation
Western modernity: it separated ethics and religion from the economy and politics
Its place in the book’s argument
This claim belongs to a broader argument that sees the Western experience as having redistributed the relationship between the spiritual and the worldly spheres. The book does not merely describe modernization; it links it to a shift in the references that govern public life. From this standpoint, the claim serves the idea that the modern world can only be understood if it is studied as a transformation in the meaning of authority and values, not as material advancement alone.
Why it matters
The importance of this claim becomes clear because it places the reader before a question: what happens to society when ethics and religion are no longer the organizing framework of the economy and politics? In this sense, it helps explain Arkoun’s critique of modernity as an experience that reshaped the relations between human beings, institutions, and meaning, not merely as a stage of scientific triumph.
Brief evidence passage
Western modernity in this context is presented not merely as technical or economic progress, but as a transformation in the ordering of values. The central idea is that ethics and religion no longer guide the economy and politics as they were thought to do in older structures. Modernity here therefore becomes a change in the social center of gravity.
Reading questions
- Does the text describe this separation between spheres as an achievement or as a social cost?
- How does this transformation affect the book’s understanding of the relationship between religion and public life?
Degree of documentation
High: the claim appears in a clear location in the book’s material.