Revisiting the Theory of Modernity: An Analysis from an Existentialist Metaphysical Framework

Dayang Nurhazieqa Hamzani

ABSTRACT

This article revisits the theory of the origin of modernity in the history of philosophy that focuses on Descartes’ skepticism and dualism which is said to have contributed to much of the destructive tendency in modernity, such as ecological destruction, racism, and colonialism, among others. This narrative of a Cartesian origin is then contrasted by bringing forth previous philosophers and historians of ideas’ theories which saw that Descartes was only continuing the modernizing tendency already present in the Scholastic period. An alternative theory on the origin of modernity is put forward using Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas’ careful analysis of the metaphysical positions of the Scholastics, which he elaborated to support his theory that the Thomistic effort to harmonize faith and reason instead led to secularization and opened the way to skepticism and dualism. An elaboration of essentialist and existentialist metaphysical position follows, and it is affirmed that the modernizing spirit which arises from an existentialist position, that of the School of the Transcendent Oneness of Existence (waḥdat al-wujūd), as elaborated by al-Attas, does not lead to the secularized modernity’s destructive tendencies in the understanding of the world and its ecosystem, in scientific advancements and in the study of history.