The author proposes a key of interpretation of the post — modern age not as a mere cultural attitude but as an effective philosophical horizon of our time. Two considerations are needed in order to define it: the proclaimed impossibility of a one-way description of reality, and the conviction of the existence of a plurality of conceptual schemes which can not be absolutely reduced one to the other. Therefore postmodernism severely limits the possibility of analysing notions such as liberty, justice and good, which are laden with universalism. After indicating the different possible solutions, the author presents his personal thesis of reflective authenticity: from the kantian notion of reflective judgement, the author traces in authenticity (intended not in a simple psychological or existential sense) the quality of "being measure for one-selves" or self-congruence typical of arts’ masterpieces. By disengaging this notion from its original aesthetic ambit it is possible, in Ferrara’s opinion, to refer to a pluralistic or exemplar universalism, applicable to ethics as to law, to the political judgement as to the theoretical one, completely different from that generic universalism which is on the contrary based on trans-contextual principles, typical of the modern age.
