“Unpredictability of society”, “loss of guidelines”, “crisis of the human sciences”, “end of intellectuals”, “collapse of the humanitarian community” - this is how leading Russian and French researchers - the heroes of this book - describe the modern intellectual situation. The social sciences have lost the ability to analyze the present and predict the future. The muteness of intellectuals is caused by a “strike of language”: basic concepts of social sciences, such as “reality” and “objectivity”, “democracy” and “nation” are rapidly losing their usual meaning. The growing crisis of scientific rationality threatens more than just the identity of intellectuals. It questions the foundations of our understanding of the world. What are the reasons for the intellectual revolution taking place before our eyes? How is it connected with the change in the perception of time in European culture that began in the 20th century? - these are the main problems discussed in this book.