INNA NOWOCZESNOŚĆ?
A DIFFERENT MODERNITY?

Summary/Abstract: The mainstream of modernity has been unilaterally determined by an idea of reason that makes rationality coincide with the method of modern science, particularly that of modern physics. Modern science investigates the universe composed of pure objects and determines the relations among pure objects with a rigor that has enormously increased our control over the material world. The world, however, does not consist only of pure objects. It is made of both objects and subjects. Subjects cannot be understood with the method that is successfully applied to describing objects. If we ignore the subjective dimension of reality, we reduce other human beings to pure objects that can be freely exploited and do not possess inner dignity. we are also led to consider ourselves as pure objects and thus enter the world of total alienation described by Martin Heidegger in his discussion of technology. There is, however, another idea of modernity, conceived of by Pascal and leading to the teaching of St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis. Understood in such a way, modernity fully accepts the method of natural sciences but develops also a method for the understanding of the world of subjects and of the human world. Reason has two wings, and is unable to rise, using only one of them.

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