Modernity: from the Enlightenment to the present day of artificial intelligence

By Matthew Parish, Associate Editor

Saturday 18 April 2026

The idea of modernity has never been static. It has been rather a moving horizon—receding as one approaches it, reshaping itself in accordance with the technologies, philosophies and anxieties of each age. From the rational optimism of the Enlightenment to the algorithmic ambiguities of artificial intelligence, modernity has served as both a promise and a warning, a declaration of human mastery and an admission of human uncertainty.

Its origins are commonly traced to the intellectual ferment of the eighteenth century, when thinkers such as Immanuel Kant and Voltaire sought to liberate human reason from the strictures of tradition, superstition and arbitrary authority. Kant’s famous injunction—“Sapere aude”, or dare to know—encapsulated the Enlightenment’s central faith: that humanity, through reason alone, could organise society in accordance with universal principles of justice and truth. Modernity, in this early formulation, was synonymous with rational progress. It implied a decisive break from the past, a movement away from inherited hierarchies and towards a future governed by law, science and individual autonomy.

Yet even in its infancy, modernity bore within it the seeds of contradiction. The same Enlightenment rationality that inspired constitutional government also underpinned the bureaucratic machinery of empire. The universalism espoused by Enlightenment philosophers coexisted uneasily with the particularities of national identity and colonial domination. Modernity therefore was never purely emancipatory. It was always entangled with power.

The nineteenth century witnessed the acceleration of this dynamic. The Industrial Revolution transformed modernity from a philosophical ideal into a material condition. Cities expanded, railways stitched together continents and new forms of labour reshaped the social order. Thinkers such as Karl Marx interpreted these developments as evidence of a deeper historical logic—one in which economic forces drove societal transformation. For Marx, modernity was not merely an intellectual project but a stage in the evolution of human society, characterised by capitalism’s capacity to revolutionise production whilst simultaneously generating profound inequality.

At the same time, the nineteenth century gave rise to a countercurrent of scepticism. Writers and philosophers began to question whether the march of progress was as benign as the Enlightenment had promised. Friedrich Nietzsche famously declared the “death of God”, not as a triumph but as a crisis. Without a shared metaphysical foundation, he argued, modern society risked descending into nihilism. Modernity, in this sense, was not simply the triumph of reason but the erosion of meaning.

The catastrophes of the twentieth century—two world wars, totalitarian regimes and the spectre of nuclear annihilation—further destabilised the Enlightenment vision. The very tools of rational organisation and technological innovation that had been heralded as instruments of progress were revealed to be capable of unprecedented destruction. The Holocaust, in particular, forced a reckoning with the darker possibilities of modernity. Scholars such as Zygmunt Bauman argued that the genocide was not an aberration but a product of modern bureaucratic rationality—a chilling demonstration of how efficiency and obedience could be harnessed to lethal ends.

In the aftermath of these events, the notion of modernity underwent a profound transformation. The post-war period saw the emergence of what came to be known as postmodernism—a movement characterised by scepticism towards grand narratives and universal truths. Thinkers such as Jean-François Lyotard contended that the Enlightenment’s faith in progress had collapsed under the weight of historical experience. Modernity, once associated with certainty and coherence, now appeared fragmented and contingent.

And yet, even as postmodernism questioned the foundations of modernity, it did not abolish it. Instead, it revealed its adaptability. The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have witnessed the rise of globalisation, digital communication and networked economies—all of which have reconfigured the conditions of modern life. Modernity has become less a linear progression and more a complex, interconnected web.

It is within this context that artificial intelligence has emerged as the latest frontier of modernity. Systems developed by organisations such as OpenAI and Anthropic represent not merely new tools but new epistemological challenges. They call into question the very assumptions about knowledge, agency and creativity that have underpinned modern thought since the Enlightenment.

Artificial intelligence complicates the Enlightenment ideal of human reason in at least three significant ways. It introduces a form of cognition that is neither fully human nor entirely transparent. Machine learning models operate through statistical correlations rather than deductive logic, producing outputs that can be remarkably sophisticated yet difficult to interpret. This opacity challenges the Enlightenment’s emphasis on clarity and intelligibility.

Artificial intelligence also blurs the boundary between human and machine agency. When an algorithm generates a legal argument, composes a piece of music or predicts a military outcome, it raises questions about authorship and responsibility. Modernity, which once celebrated the autonomy of the individual, must now contend with distributed forms of intelligence in which agency is shared or even displaced.

Moreover artificial intelligence reintroduces a form of determinism that modernity had sought to overcome. Predictive algorithms, particularly when applied to areas such as criminal justice or financial markets, risk reinforcing existing patterns of behaviour and inequality. Hence the future may become less open, not more—shaped by probabilistic models that privilege continuity over change.

And yet to view artificial intelligence solely as a threat would be to misunderstand the nature of modernity herself. It has always been characterised by ambivalence—by the coexistence of possibility and peril. The same technologies that enable surveillance and control can also facilitate communication and innovation. The challenge, as ever, lies in governance: in determining how these tools are deployed and to whose benefit.

In the Ukrainian context this tension is particularly acute. The integration of artificial intelligence into military systems—ranging from drone targeting to battlefield logistics—illustrates both the potential and the danger of contemporary modernity. It offers the prospect of increased efficiency and reduced human risk, whilst simultaneously raising ethical questions about autonomy and accountability in warfare. The Enlightenment’s aspiration to rationalise conflict has therefore reached a paradoxical culmination: war rendered more precise, yet no less devastating.

What then becomes of modernity in the age of artificial intelligence? It cannot simply be abandoned, for it remains the framework through which we understand progress, innovation and governance. Nor can she be accepted uncritically, for its history is marked by contradiction and unintended consequence.

Perhaps the most accurate description is that modernity has entered a reflexive phase. It is no longer merely a project of transformation but an object of continuous scrutiny. The assumptions that once seemed self-evident—about reason, autonomy and progress—are now subject to interrogation. Artificial intelligence does not mark the end of modernity, but rather its latest evolution—a stage in which the boundaries of the human are renegotiated and the meaning of knowledge is redefined.

In this ongoing process the Enlightenment’s call to “dare to know” acquires a renewed significance. To engage with artificial intelligence responsibly requires not only technical expertise but philosophical reflection. It demands an awareness of history, an understanding of power and a willingness to confront uncertainty.

Modernity then endures—not as a fixed destination, but as a journey without a final endpoint. It continues to shape and be shaped by the forces of its time, inviting each generation to reconsider what it means to be modern.