The Failure of the Modern Project: Part 1 of 4

O what a world of profit and delight,
Of power, of honour, of omnipotence,
Is promis’d to the studious artizan!
All things that move between the quiet poles
Shall be at my command: Emperors and Kings
Are but obey’d i’ their sev’ral provinces,
Nor can they raise the wind or rend the clouds;
But his dominion that exceeds in this,

Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man;
A sound magician is a mighty god.
Here, Faustus, tire thy brains to gain a Deity.

Remi Brague is a French philosopher and historian of ideas, celebrated for his incisive critiques of modernity and his exploration of humanity’s relationship with the divine and the cosmos. In his earlier work, including The Law of God (2007) and The Wisdom of the World (2003) —which I will examine later—Brage traced the evolution of how human beings have understood moral law and their place in the universe. Yet, it is in his later masterpiece, The Kingdom of Man: Genesis and Failure of the Modern Project (2018), that Brague delivers his most profound and unsettling analysis of modernity’s trajectory.

In this work, Brague scrutinizes the philosophical underpinnings of the “modern project,” identifying its audacious attempt to center humanity as the sovereign arbiter of meaning and value. By illuminating the roots of this project in Renaissance and Enlightenment thought, and charting its subsequent unraveling in the face of ecological and moral crises, Brague offers both a critique and a call for reevaluation. His argument is as urgent as it is elegant, challenging us to consider whether the “kingdom of man” has led us not to freedom but to disorientation.

The Fragile Majesty of the Best of Beings

Brague begins by exploring the unique status humanity has claimed for itself within Western intellectual and religious traditions. These are the philosophical and theological frameworks that have shaped our understanding of human singularity, superiority, and dominion over other forms of life. Brague meticulously traces a progression in thought, from recognizing human distinctiveness to asserting human supremacy, and ultimately, to the belief in humanity’s right to mastery over the natural world. These stages, though seemingly seamless, each rest on fragile and historically contingent foundations.

Antiquity, of course, grappled with the question of what sets humanity apart. While early thinkers acknowledged human fragility, they also pointed to humanity’s unique connection to the divine. From Egyptian wisdom texts proclaiming humans as reflections of God, to the biblical declaration that humanity was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), an enduring tradition emerged that affirmed human exceptionalism. However, even within this tradition, voices like the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus (c. 279-206 BC) cautioned against the hubris of imagining that humanity had no superior, while Chinese philosopher Xunzi (c. 310-238 BC) attributed human preeminence to moral sensibility rather than innate dominance. Brague deftly weaves these strands together to reveal the diverse yet interconnected ways human superiority was justified.

Brague also examines how humanity’s self-valorization evolved in three key dimensions: dignity, nobility, and perfection. The concept of human dignity, he argues, found its clearest articulation in Christian thought, where it was linked to divine grace and the economy of salvation. Church fathers such as Aquinas emphasized the microcosmic nature of humanity, seeing humans as a synthesis of material and spiritual realms and as participants in a cosmic order prefiguring divine union with creation. Nobility, initially a social construct tied to lineage, transformed into a metaphysical idea accessible to anyone embodying virtuous conduct. Finally, the notion of human perfection, though marginally developed in Christian traditions, became central in Islamic and mystical thought, where figures like the Prophet Muhammad were regarded as archetypes of perfected humanity, reflecting divine attributes in their fullness.

Perhaps most fascinating is Brague’s exploration of the “primordial man” or archetype—a transcendent ideal that served as the model for human existence. Traditions as diverse as Jewish mysticism’s Adam Qadmon, Islamic thought’s “Perfect Man,” and the Hermetic writings converge on this idea of humanity as both divine reflection and cosmic intermediary. These archetypes underscore a profound harmony between humanity and the divine, positioning humans not merely as creatures but as co-creators, bearers of divine intention. However, this exalted vision carries an inherent tension: humanity’s aspiration to transcendence can veer into hubris, where the image of God is distorted into self-deification.

Brague’s opening establishes the philosophical and theological groundwork for his broader critique of modernity. By illuminating humanity’s long-standing self-perception as unique and central, he reveals both the cultural depth and the perilous instability of this view. The exploration of humanity’s dual nature—both fragile and divine—foreshadows Brague’s central argument that the modern “kingdom of man,” with its anthropocentric hubris, risks unraveling under the weight of its own contradictions. As humanity continues to enthrone itself at the center of the cosmos, it risks losing sight of the humility and harmony that once tempered its ambitions.

Man the Master

Brague then examines humanity’s historical and philosophical quest for mastery over the natural world, skillfully tracing this concept across ancient civilizations, biblical traditions, and philosophical discourses, revealing how humanity’s dominion has been framed, justified, and challenged.

The concept of human domination over nature is far from universal. Ancient Eastern civilizations often emphasized harmony and adaptation to natural rhythms rather than asserting control. In these cultures, humanity was understood as part of an interconnected whole that included plants, animals, and celestial bodies. Exceptions, such as certain Chinese texts or the mythic exploits of heroes like Gilgamesh, hint at ideas of dominion but do not culminate in the comprehensive mastery envisioned in later Western thought. The shift toward domination, Brague suggests, begins with the invention of writing and the emergence of centralized states, where human ingenuity and organization began to reshape both societies and the environment.

Brague contrasts these ancient perspectives with the anthropomorphic vision of the Greeks and the dominion-driven narratives of biblical traditions. In Greece, human reworking of nature was sometimes viewed as an improvement, reflecting an inherent value in human creativity. Philosophers like Aristotle and Antiphon explored humanity’s capacity to overcome natural constraints through art and technology. Similarly, biblical traditions introduced the idea of human dominion over nature as a divine mandate. While Genesis 1:26-28 famously grants humanity dominion over animals and the earth, Brague notes that this command was not interpreted as carte blanche for exploitation. Early Christian thinkers like Augustine framed human mastery as stewardship rather than ownership, emphasizing respect for creation’s inherent order and limits.

Yet the idea of domination was not without critique. Brague highlights a tradition of skepticism regarding humanity’s presumed superiority, found in figures ranging from Diogenes and Montaigne to biblical texts like Ecclesiastes, which declares that “the advantage of man over the animal is nothing.” These challenges underline a recurring tension: humanity’s aspiration to dominate is tempered by its shared mortality and contingency with other living beings. Moreover, Islamic thinkers like Ibn Arabi reframed human dominion as participation in God’s sovereignty rather than independent mastery, while mystical traditions saw human superiority as grounded in divine grace rather than intrinsic merit.

Brague also explores the complex interplay between humanity and the angelic realm, where domination is reimagined as judgment. St. Paul’s assertion that humans will “judge the angels” (1 Cor. 6:3) exemplifies the belief that human beings, through history and moral growth, possess a dynamic potential exceeding the static perfection of angels. However, this superiority is symbolic rather than coercive, reflecting humanity’s capacity for development rather than a right to subjugate.

Brague concludes by examining the shift from cosmocentric to anthropocentric thinking, particularly in the Christian Middle Ages. Figures like Aquinas framed humanity as willed for its own sake, signaling a move toward the modern emphasis on human subjectivity. Brague critiques this anthropocentric turn, suggesting it laid the groundwork for the modern project of domination, where mastery over nature becomes an autonomous enterprise, disconnected from divine order or cosmic harmony.

The Seeds of Sovereignty

In the following chapter, Brague reveals how ancient and medieval visions of human supremacy were constrained by their rootedness in divine order, virtue ethics, and self-restraint. These frameworks acknowledge human potential but temper it with humility, recognizing the limits of human agency and the necessity of aligning with higher principles. Modernity’s break from these traditions—by making human dominion an autonomous project—is thus both unprecedented and precarious.

Brague identifies three key conceptual strands—messianism, divinization, and self-mastery—which each point toward humanity’s aspiration for supremacy, yet stop short of fully anticipating modernity’s vision of unbounded mastery. The first strand, messianism, centers on biblical and eschatological ideas of a coming kingdom. Brague traces the expression “kingdom of man” to the book of Daniel, where the “son of man” represents the Jewish people triumphing over oppressive empires through divine intervention. However, this triumph is moral and political, not technological or natural, and it is entirely dependent on God’s initiative rather than human action. Similarly, St. Paul’s vision of Christ’s victory over cosmic powers (Ephesians 1:20-21) places humanity’s redemption in an eschatological framework, removing it from the sphere of human effort. Gnostic interpretations, which emphasize escape from worldly corruption rather than control over it, further underscore the limitations of messianic thinking as a precursor to modernity’s ambitions.

The second strand, divinization, explores the idea of humanity ascending to godlike status. In ancient pagan contexts, divinization often involved achieving virtue, intellectual excellence, or mystical union with a divine principle. Early Christianity redefined this concept, emphasizing that divinization is not a human achievement but a gift of divine grace, epitomized by the incarnation of Christ. Brague highlights Augustine’s critique of “perverse imitation,” where humanity corrupts the model of divine omnipotence by divorcing it from divine benevolence. This tension between divine grace and human hubris reveals the challenge of pursuing godlikeness without falling into destructive self-aggrandizement, a theme that prefigures modernity’s quest for self-sufficient mastery.

The final strand, self-mastery, focuses on the philosophical ideal of internal sovereignty. Ancient traditions, from the Stoics to Plato, prioritized mastery over one’s desires, emotions, and body as the pinnacle of human freedom. This internal dominion, reflected in metaphors of sculpting oneself into the image of the divine, was seen as an end in itself. Brague contrasts this ancient model with the modern project, where mastery over the self increasingly serves as a prelude to external domination over nature. The transition from internal to external mastery parallels the decline of slavery and the rise of mechanization, which redirected human efforts toward the subjugation of the natural world.

Creators in the Image of God

According to Brague, the modern project of dominion emerged through intellectual and metaphorical frameworks long before material domination over nature became possible. He identifies three domains—construction, fiction, and invention—where humanity began to assert creative sovereignty over ideas, structures, and representations. While these developments did not yet translate into the direct conquest of nature, they laid the groundwork for the paradigm of human mastery.

The first domain, construction, reveals a shift from ancient understandings of knowledge to a modern emphasis on creativity and control. Ancient geometers used construction to demonstrate preexisting properties of mathematical objects, moving them from potential to actuality. In contrast, early modern thinkers like Hobbes and Kant reimagined construction as a creative act, where humans, like divine creators, imposed order and meaning onto their subjects. This paradigm extended beyond mathematics to encompass intellectual and practical endeavors, culminating in the idea that true understanding requires the capacity to make. Figures like Vico and Marx reinforced this view, suggesting that human creativity was a defining characteristic, elevating humanity above other beings.

The second domain, fiction, illustrates humanity’s capacity to create entities and systems that, while not real in a physical sense, wielded tangible power. Legal fictions, for instance, transformed abstract groups into corporate entities capable of action, while Renaissance jurists and rulers explored sovereignty as a creative force akin to divine authority. Brague argues that this legal framework influenced artistic creation, where poets and artists began to see their work as analogous to divine acts of making. Over time, this concept of fiction expanded to include aesthetic and imaginative expressions, granting the artist a privileged position as a creator who reshaped the boundaries of reality.

The third domain, invention, focuses on the artistic assertion of mastery through representation. While classical art emphasized imitation of nature, the Renaissance and early modern periods introduced a conception of art as a creative act. Artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Dürer characterized their craft as a form of dominion over the visible world, where they could construct new realities in their imaginations before manifesting them. Brague highlights how this shift in artistic perception paralleled broader cultural movements that celebrated originality, individuality, and the power of human ingenuity. Romanticism, in particular, exalted the artist as a creator whose vision transcended natural and divine constraints.

These popular metaphorical dominations underscores how intellectual and cultural shifts redefined humanity’s relationship with creation. The transition from imitation to invention, from discovery to creativity, reveals a profound transformation in how humans conceived of their role in the cosmos. By claiming a divine-like authority over knowledge, representation, and systems of meaning, humanity set the stage for the modern project of domination. However, Brague’s analysis also reveals the dangers of conflating metaphorical creativity with material mastery, as this shift risks severing humanity’s creative endeavors from ethical and metaphysical foundations.

The Rise of Humanity as Lord of Creation

Soon, a transformative shift emerged in human self-understanding from a being with innate dignity to an active creator and master of nature. This shift, emerging from Renaissance humanism, reframes the relationship between humanity, nature, and divinity, placing human creativity and mastery at the center of the world.

Brague contrasts two views of what he calls “human singularity”: a static view, where dignity is intrinsic and rooted in nature or divine salvation, and a dynamic view, where dignity unfolds through historical progress and mastery over the non-human world. The Renaissance marked a pivotal moment when human dignity came to be associated with action and transformation, replacing the contemplative ideals of antiquity with the productive ideals of modernity. This shift redefined humanity’s place in the cosmos, emphasizing technical and creative endeavors as a means of fulfilling human potential.

The reimagining of human dignity during the Renaissance was fueled by two major developments: the rehabilitation of work and a new representation of the divine. In Christian thought, work had traditionally been a means of personal discipline and spiritual growth. Renaissance thinkers, however, began to view work as a reflection of human ingenuity and as a way to assert mastery over nature. This revaluation found support in theological, Islamic, and Hermetic traditions, which increasingly celebrated human creativity as an imitation of divine activity. For instance, texts like the Corpus Hermeticum framed humanity as God’s co-creator, tasked with shaping and perfecting the world (a central theme in the work of Frances Yates and her student Allison Coudert—incidentally, the latter was my undergraduate mentor).

This fusion of dignity and domination gave rise to a paradigm where humanity’s ability to transform nature became both the proof and the means of its self-realization. The technical and artistic achievements of the Renaissance, from architecture to navigation, symbolized humanity’s growing dominion over the material world. Brague highlights figures such as Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, and Giordano Bruno, who celebrated humanity’s capacity to alter nature and even surpass its limits. For Bruno, this power elevated humans to the status of “gods of the earth,” capable of forming “other natures.”

Brague also notes a new conception of fortuna, particularly in Machiavelli’s writings, where fortune becomes an object of human mastery rather than submission. This reconceptualization prefigured the broader modern ambition to dominate not only nature but also contingency itself. The Renaissance thus planted the seeds for modernity’s technological and theoretical revolutions, where tools like the telescope extended humanity’s dominion into previously unreachable realms, embodying the shift from passive observation to active control.

In short, by linking human dignity to creativity and control, Renaissance thinkers laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution and the anthropocentric worldview that followed. Brague’s analysis reveals both the transformative power and the hubris of this shift, as humanity’s newfound freedom often came at the cost of severing its connection to traditional ethical and metaphysical anchors.

Man the Magician

Brague expands on this linkage by examining how humanity’s aspirations to dominate nature found expression in theories of miracles, magic, and alchemy long before the technological means to achieve such control existed. He reveals how these attempts were not merely practical but deeply symbolic, embodying humanity’s desire to transcend limits and rival divine power. Essentially, the intellectual and cultural precursors to modernity’s technological mastery are based on the psychological and philosophical shifts that reoriented humanity toward action and control.

Brague dwells on the concept of “Thaumaturgic Man,” where domination over nature is demonstrated through miraculous acts. In classical and religious traditions, miracles were understood as signs of divine intervention or salvation, not human achievement. Yet, philosophers like Avicenna and Marsilio Ficino speculated that extraordinary human souls might possess the power to influence nature directly, blurring the line between divine and human capacities. Figures such as Roger Bacon and Albert the Great further theorized about the imagination’s ability to affect the material world, suggesting that certain individuals could command external things through superior intellect and faith.

The transition from miracles to magic marked a significant shift in how humanity conceptualized its role in the cosmos. Unlike miracles, which depended on divine will, magic sought to harness and control natural forces directly, often through esoteric knowledge and rituals (the influence of E. B. Tylor is important here, but Brague offers a much more nuanced view). Brague notes how Renaissance thinkers, influenced by Neoplatonism, revived the ancient belief in theurgy—the practice of invoking higher powers to manipulate the material world. This revival gave magic a newfound dignity, transforming it from a relic of folk superstition into a serious philosophical pursuit. Yet, as Brague observes, the ultimate goal of magic was not harmony with nature but domination over it, foreshadowing the ambitions of modern technology (although Brague does not cite them, the work of Yates, D. P. Walker, Charles Burnett, Antonie Faivre, Charles Schmidt, Wouter J. Hanegraaff are essential for understanding these developments).

Brague also highlights alchemy as a precursor to the modern conquest of nature. While ancient technology aimed to optimize natural processes within their limits, alchemy sought to transmute one substance into another, breaking the boundaries of natural kinds. This ambition to modify and even rival nature mirrored the broader human aspiration to imitate divine creativity. However, critics like Avicenna and theologians of the Middle Ages challenged alchemy’s claims, accusing its practitioners of hubris and impiety. The alchemist’s desire to transgress nature’s fixed order was seen as both a philosophical and theological threat, embodying humanity’s dangerous tendency to rival God.

The final section concludes with the figure of “Man the Magician,” embodied in literary and cultural archetypes such as Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus. Brague interprets Faustus’s ambition to “gain a deity” as emblematic of modernity’s drive for omnipotence through knowledge and control. Faustus’s declaration that “a sound magician is a mighty god” encapsulates the psychological shift toward viewing mastery over nature as humanity’s highest aspiration. Brague argues that this ambition predated the technological capabilities to achieve it, revealing a deep-seated desire to redefine humanity’s place in the cosmos.