1. This description can remind us of J.-P. Sartre’s ideas in his Being and Nothingness. For example his understanding of consciousness as a process of nihilation shows this similarity. This is very natural: in existential philosophies one can find many sensible characterizations of selfishness and the selfish methodologies
2. See for example the first chapters of E. Fromm: Escape from Freedom (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969).
3. A book such as e.g. J. G. Frazer: The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion (Macmillan, London, 1925) highlights this similarity. Both the magic and modern views oppose the religious one.
4. The characterization of modernity is impossible here. Many aspects of it are analyzed by Lyotard, Habermas, Rorty and others. The works of the members of the Budapest School (F. Fehér, t1. Heller, Gy. Markus and M. Vajda) were the most important source for me. My view was greatly influenced by the Hungarian book called `The Unsecretive Object of Desire’ by A Szilagyi ÇLiget, Budapest, 1992).
5. This aspect of modernity e. g. is described and analyzed in a very impressive version by t1. Szilagyi in the above mentioned book.