THE CHALLENGE OF MODERNITY TO PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

The article considers the Modernity first at all as the great transfor­mation in the configuration of the Western societies, today in process of universa­lization. These societies articulate a great utopia: a world completely produced by the human being in which it can find the satisfaction of its needs and happiness as a fully autonomous being. In all of this is implicit a vision of nature, the human being and, ultimately, of the being in its wholeness that is the proper subject of philosophy. Our interest here is to thematize the basic concepts implied, i.e. the metaphysics involved here, which is the most radical challenge. Our time is marked by a deep tension: on one side, a radical criticism to the hegemonic modernity in the last centuries and its perverse effects; on the other, a radical remake of a modernity that presents itself as the only desirable future for humanity. The article aims to thematize the major challenges of this conception of reality and human being currently pose to human life with serious consequences for religions and their theologies.