Abstract

The article is methodological, since it explores the questions of rationality and irrationality - two central issues in the sociology of the arts that the discussion on the postmodern situation brought in the foreground once more. The article presents a review of the concepts on modernity and postmodernity based on the discussion about the notions of rationality, knowledge and subject. It argues that an important methodological limitation of several approaches (like F. Nietzsche's, O. Spengler's, A. Camus', M. Horkheimer's, T. W. Adorno's, J. Habermas', J.-F. Lyotard's, and others) is that they view these categories regardless of their particular and historical forms and manifestations. However, the article supports also the idea that these approaches focus on a series of important issues and questions related with the development of the western civilization.