Intercultural Communication: Challenges of Global Transformation of Lifeworld

A call for a “New Enlightenment” sounds in the last report of the Club of Rome named “Come On!” It claimed that “New Enlightenment” should not be the continuation of rationalism and Eurocentrism of “Voltaire’s Enlightenment”. The article discusses two issues. Firstly, what challenges the “New Enlightenment” should answer on. Ecological and socioecological challenges are at the top of the agenda. The last one comes from large-scale socio-technical and anthropotechnical experiments with unpredictable consequences. The so-called epoch of “reassembly of the social” is expressed in the deculturation and dehumanisation of social reality. It has adverse consequences for humanity, including the lifeworld destruction and human existence. An alternative to these trends may be hermeneutics, phenomenology and understanding sociology. Second discussed question is science willingness for the “New Enlightenment”. The dominant scientific discourses continue the traditions of “Voltaire’s Enlightenment” and do not respond to time challenges.