A fé cega da razão

laicidade, universidade e exclusão epistêmica

Abstract

The tension between faith and reason constitutes one of the central dilemmas of modernity, with metaphysical, political and epistemic implications. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant states that human reason is driven by questions that exceed its capacity for knowledge, and that traditional metaphysics has therefore been led into illusions by attempting to know God, the soul and the world in a speculative manner. For Kant, theological discourses are not legitimate objects of theoretical knowledge, but can be accepted as postulates of practical reason, linked to morality and freedom as conditions for rational action. The existence of God, therefore, is not a demonstrable truth, but a functional requirement of moral judgment. This shift of religious discourse to the practical plane had repercussions on a broad philosophical tradition that began to interpret religion as a form of irrationality or symbolic domination. Against this reading, Jürgen Habermas, in his post-metaphysical proposal, defends a rehabilitation of the epistemic and ethical potential of religious traditions. In pluralist contexts, it is argued that religious citizens should not be silenced by secularism, since the neutrality of the State does not imply the exclusion of religious worldviews from the public sphere. On the contrary, it proposes an inclusive and dialogical rationality, capable of recognizing the religious genealogy of secular principles such as dignity, freedom and solidarity.
In view of this, this article investigates the limits of the “blind faith of reason” in promoting an effectively plural secularism. It starts from Kant’s critique of metaphysics and its conception of moral religion, contrasting it with Habermas’ proposal of mutual learning between secular rationality and religious tradition. It questions whether the modern model of rationality, in seeking to exclude dogmatism, does not end up closing itself off to what escapes its technical vocabulary, reproducing a form of exclusion disguised as neutrality.
Finally, it argues that a truly critical reason is one that recognizes its own limits and opens itself to listening to other forms of meaning. In this context, philosophy can find in religion not an obstacle, but a legitimate interlocutor, especially when it translates its contents into language accessible to public reason.