A crise da razão no ocidente

Abstract

It is still very frequent to present scientific activities as "rational". In this sense, a trench that practically cannot be passed through would separate scientific rationality from the damned domain of the "irrational". In a society like ours, dominated by techno science, surrendered to the cult of profit and to technocracy, the worry in assuring the primacy of the rational is totally understandable. Contrary to intelligence, reason, however, is not naturally given, but it is a set of historically built procedures, rules and coercions. Although being bearer of an incontestable logical aspect, we can talk about a history of reason, in close relation to the occident history, that is to say, the history of the occidental culture. Lately it has been imposed a style of thought featured by a profound distrust in reason which, by completely ignoring its own evolutive feature, has turned to be profoundly intolerant to passions, emotions and mysteries. Reason has turned into an instrumental rationality, revering the means to the detriment of the ends. Hence the disenchantment with reason and the advent of nihilism. The aim of this paper is to seek to understand this phenomenon that has been named as "crisis of the occidental reason".