In this paper, we argue that the normative concept of modernity as self-referentiality, self-subsistence, autonomy, endogeny and independence of reason is based on the correlation of anthropology and science in a double, however correlated, point: on the one hand, it is rooted on the idea of the natural world as a purely technical, physical, chemical and biological triad of structure, dynamics and object, which obeys to quantitative and definite-invariable material laws; on the other, it is grounded on the idea of human mind or human nature as a normative subject that is able to interpret in an objective way this purely technical nature and, more importantly, to construct the epistemological-moral-ontological objectivity from the modern self’s capability of creating its own axiology and rationalizing the epistemological-moral foundation and the anthropological-ontological place-belonging in the world and in society. As a consequence, the normative concept of modernity, associated to a technical view of nature and to a political-profane-historical notion of society-culture-consciousness, of socialization-subjectivation, enables the idea that modernity is a very singular anthropological-societal-cultural-cognitive process of evolution in human history, as its paradigmatic basis (reason between natural science and secular culture) represents directly universalism in itself, so as to construct a barrier and an opposition between modernity and the other of modernity, as well as to institute the process of modernity-modernization and its comprehension as a self-referential, self-subsisting, autonomous, closed and endogenous process, and as a principle of movement, dynamics and explanation. Here, modernity can be explained only by its internal processes, subjects, principles, values and multiple dynamics, as it signifies a self-constructive movement in itself and by itself, as an overcoming of traditionalism as a minority and a consolidation of modernity-modernization as a majority due to the intersection of reason, science and culture.
Antropologia e ciência no começo da filosofia moderna: sobre a formação normativa do conceito de modernidade como autorreferencialidade, auto-subsistência, autonomia, endogenia e independência da razão – um ensaio