Humanistic interpretation of urban space in postmodernism

The article is a review of Richard Sennett’s The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities (Moscow: New Literary Observer, 2024. 328 p.), which aims at identifying the place of Sennett’s book in the intellectual context of urban sociology in the late 20th century and showing how Sennett develops the humanistic line of urban studies by rethinking this line through the visual approach. The author emphasizes the significance of the book due to its original central idea - a shift from the analysis of structures and institutions to the study of visual practices, forms of visibility, and moral aspects of perception. At the same time, the author notes the metaphorical nature of Sennett’s argumentation and the limited empirical basis of his research as close to philosophy of culture. However, the book is presented in the article as an important stage in the evolution of a postmodernist approach to the study of urban everyday life and a sociological reflection on visuality as a form of social interaction.