Tra modernità e postmodernità. Cartografia di una cornice meta-teorica chiave per la politica contemporanea

Proceeding from the awareness of a widespread and increasing sense of uncertainty among citizens (especially) in Western societies, the essay attempts to trace the reasons why intellectuals generally appear to be failing to produce far-sighted and reassuring interpretations of current events and potential happenings. The crucial source of analytical confusion is identified in the choice of a distorted or obsolete interpretative frame, leading to misperceptions and unjustified expectations. In particular the author concentrates on portraying three meta-theorical contexts: radical postmodernism; «moderate» postmodernism and classical modernity. Subsequently, once proved the inadequacy of each of them to serve as a neat lens to comprehend recent life-world changes, an original, amended model is conceived. A humanistic reasonable, rather than strictly rational version of modernity could indeed be an appropriate frame in which to locate and read today’s many challenges.