Abstract

This paper has two main purposes, the first is to develop a criticism on the notion of modernity, or Western rationalism, presented in contemporary theories of modernity, characterized by the idea of autonomy and self-sufficiency of reason regarding the foundation of a binding notion of social normativity. The study criticizes the main perception of these theories of modernity, namely, the proposition that profane and secularized rationalism, marked by an impartial, neutral, formal and impersonal perspective in axiological-methodological terms, is enough to ensure this same epistemological-moral Universalism without religion and metaphysics. The second purpose consists in arguing in favor of a political and religious Universalism that points to the incapacity of this purist and independent notion of reason in generating and sustaining, without foundation and application based on metaphysics and religion, a universal content of Human Rights. The work is grounded on bibliographical analysis of contemporary theories of modernity, from a criticism to their central presumption, which is the autonomy, self-referentiality and self-subsistence of reason relatively to religion and metaphysics, proposing, as a conclusion, the correlation of reason and religion-metaphysics as the path and the content of epistemological-moral Universalism.