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Vol. XIX, No. 1
39
Individuation is a category we are using in identifying the Subject-hood of a civilisation. In the course of the Humanism and Enlightenment on the wake of the European Renaissance, we find the Ego of the European civilisation asserting itself and expanding the world over as History's authentic Subject.
In the course of twentieth century and its two major wars, Europe withdrew from that position. The nonEuropean superpowers emerged to the Subjecthood for a while. And after the coldewar History's steering wheel seems to be without a driver. The atomised, narcissistic, individualistic Western civilisation is not able to throw up a self-renewed Subject for the time being,
Man found his sense direction in history from familiar and institutionalised established Conceptions of History. For long centuries, until the beginning of the Modern Period, St. Augustine's conception of history held sway over the Western civilisation. Thereafter came different important historical conceptions of Hegel, Darwin, Marx. With the passage of the cold war all these conceptions have gone with the wind. The present of humanity is at a very critical juncture of human destiny. But man is today without a valid conception or conceptions of his history to take stock of his situation and to find where he is going to ; WHITHER MANKIND ?
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