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to the Enlightenment as paradigmatically modern epoch, would find her observation
puzzling. It is a truism to say that we live in a thoroughly technocentric, secular era, as
opposed to the spirituality (predicated on a belief in eternity) that characterized the
theocentric Middle Ages, where a belief in ‘immortality’ was commonplace. More to
the point for my present purposes, however, Copjec (2002: 19-20) continues as fol-
lows:
Yet, although one might have expected the notion of immortality to perish com-
pletely, to become a casualty of the Enlightenment's secularisation of reason
and its dissolution of the links to its past, the truth turns out to be more com-
plex. For, while officially we moderns are committed to the notion of our own
mortality, we nevertheless harbor the secret, inarticulable conviction that we
are not mortal.
This is a surprising observation, to say the least. She goes on to point to Hans
Blumenberg and Claude Lefort, both of whom elaborate on this insight, albeit with
different conclusions. What they share, though, is the conviction - evident in the title
of Blumenberg's book, The legitimacy of the modern age - that the modern idea of im-
mortality is not merely a religious remnant from a bygone era, ‘... it is, rather, a new
product of the break from our religious past’ (Copjec 2002: 20). Copjec (2002: 21)
shows that Blumenberg's account of ‘modern’ immortality is encountered in relation to
his claim that, in the modern era, it is unintelligible for an individual to achieve ‘com-
plete’ knowledge, as the growth or accumulation of knowledge in this age is no longer
a function of individual insight or ‘intuition’, but is linked to ‘scientific method’ as re-
sponsible for the acquisition of ‘objective knowledge’. This, together with the sheer
rapidity of knowledge production, precludes the individual from being the ‘subject of
modern knowledge’, instead of which one has to turn to a generation of thinkers or
scientists to fulfil this function. Blumenberg utilizes Feuerbach's notion of immortality
to impart this dimension to his account: for Feuerbach, ‘modern’ immortality is a func-
tion of the difference between the ‘knowledge drive’ (alternatively, the ‘happiness
drive’) in the human species and its lack of fulfilment in individuals (Copjec 2002:
21). This means that he places the task of pursuing knowledge, which would satisfy
the material needs of humanity, on the shoulders of the collective, without alienating
individuals from the fruits of this cooperative effort: as individuals they will benefit
from the material results of scientific progress, which await them in the future of their
mortal lives (Copjec 2002: 22). In this way ‘immortality’ a la modernity is achieved,
for Blumenberg. In Copjec's words (2002: 21):
... once the rapid and conspicuous progress of modern knowledge makes the in-
dividual's limited share in this progress unbearable, the notion of immortality
arises as a way of healing the wound between the species and the individual, of
assuaging the structural dissatisfaction that emerges from their difference.
Lefort's argument is very different, and meets with considerably more approval on
Copjec's part than Blumenberg's. Instead of ‘replacing’ immortality with posterity, as
Blumenberg does, Lefort links a ‘sense of posterity’ with immortality (Copjec 2002:
20-21). With the disappearance of the ancient and medieval belief in eternity (in the
sense of timelessness) - according to which, in antiquity, one was thought to partici-
pate to some degree in ‘everlastingness’ through the ‘glory’ or ‘immortality’ bestowed
on individuals through ‘great deeds’ - a new sense of ‘immortality’ becomes possible,