Development vs. progress

Internal contradictions in the concept of development in 17th–18th century thinking

Abstract

In this study, I seek to answer the question of why development has become such a controversial concept in our times. In my analysis, I primarily seek to explore the genesis of the concept of development in the 17th and 18th centuries. How did this concept emerge, how did it become intertwined with scientific progress, and what hopes were attached to it in early modernity? I argue that the thinkers who made development one of the central concepts of modernity did not precisely define the goal of development and did not reconcile the processes considered to be developmental with the goals hoped for from development. I see the main reason for the vagueness of development in the fact that its horizon was considered infinite, which prevents the direct correlation of development and its goal, and in the fact that affective content was mixed into the concept of development insofar as it was linked to desires and the will to power.