Leben in der Matrix. Zur Vielfalt und Einheit der Moderne

Eisenstadts conception of multiple modernities focuses on a primarily cultural interpretation of modernity. In view of increasing structural interdependences during the ongoing process of globalisation this seems no longer sufficient. Our proposal of a dialectic mediation of diversity and unity intends to dissolve that problem by merging the cultural, structural and institutional dimensions of modernity. For this purpose we pick up Foucault’s idea of the dispositive to introduce the figure of a ‘matrix of modernity’. An adequate instrument for its description is an also Foucauldian analysis of dispositives, allowing a theoretical as well as empirical observation of modernity.