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Between past and future:
the politics of possible worlds

Fedorova M.M.,

Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, mf57@yandex.ru

elibrary_id: 72757 | ORCID: 0000-0002-1181-5219 | RESEARCHER_ID: K-3996-2018

Article received: 2025.04.09 21:37. Accepted: 2025.06.30 21:38


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2025.05.06
EDN: SRFENV

Rubric: Theme of the issue: Contours of the future in the optics of political science

For citation:

Fedorova M.M. Between past and future: the politics of possible worlds. – Polis. Political Studies. 2025. No. 5. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2025.05.06. EDN: SRFENV

Abstract

The article is devoted to understanding the transformations that the idea of the “historical and political synthesis” (Foucault) of the Modern era underwent in the political philosophy of the second half of the XX – early XXI centuries. The author concludes that, despite the criticism of the concept of the historical process and the rejection of the political strategies of progressivism, the very link of history/ politics does not lose its heuristic potential for modern political thought. However, largely under the influence of the tragic experience of the twentieth century, the concepts of history and politics are being filled with new meanings designed to more adequately answer the question of how an alternative to the existing order of things arises and what role politics plays in these processes. Criticism of deterministic and teleological schemes in historiosophy leads to the deconstruction of the idea of the end of history, which arose back in the 30s of the twentieth century (which was further developed in its neoliberal version) and requires a revision of the concept of politics and its role in society. If history cannot be reduced to pure duration, linear and homogeneous evolution of communities, if it is an interweaving of various nonlinear processes and events in which randomness, contingency, unpredictability and discontinuities play a large role, then the political project of alternative development cannot be presented as a rationally justified program of consistent actions by an enlightened subject who comprehends the patterns of historical development. The rejection of historicist methodology led to the development of new conceptual and methodological tools for analyzing the socio-political reality, which primarily include the category of difference, designed to replace the categories of contradiction and identity underlying the idea of the “end of history.” The article presents an analysis of one of the variants of such an understanding in the political philosophy of postmodernism (in particular, Jacques Derrida’s concept of difference and Gilles Deleuze’s idea of the history/formation relationship), which had a significant impact on left-wing political thought and a new understanding of politics as a creative possibility. However, as the author shows, this option presents us with new challenges, both theoretical and practical, the problems of decentralizing politics and the subject of political action. 

Keywords

history, alternatives to socio-political development, postmodernism, decentralization of politics, subject of political action.

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