... and validity of modernity as a western project, it will then focus on the ideas and arguments put across by Habermas and Foucault because they are representative of the modernist and postmodernist arguments in the current debate about the normative content of modernity, a debate that dominates contemporary social theory. While Habermas calls for a return to the Enlightenment project (the unfinished project of modernity) in which society progresses by and through the principles of reason and rationality, Foucault argues that the Enlightenment paved the way for the sciences of modernity or the sciences of man; that is the sciences of discipline, of govermentality, of surveillance, of domination. Evidence used to support arguments in the essay is mainly grounded in critical philosophical theory and therefore in-depth analysis is not possible. The Enlightenment began in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe out of the desire to assert and foster individual freedom. It ...

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