Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism (or agrarianism) toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance (Barker 2005, 444). Conceptually, modernity relates to the modern era and to modernism, but forms a distinct concept. Whereas the Enlightenment invokes a specific movement in Western philosophy, modernity tends to refer only to the social relations associated with the rise of capitalism. Modernity may also refer to tendencies in intellectual culture, particularly the movements intertwined with secularisation and post-industrial life, such as Marxism, existentialism, and the formal establishment of social science. In context, modernity has been associated with cultural and intellectual movements of 1436–1789 and extending to the 1970s or later (Toulmin 1992, 3–5).

The term "modern" (Latin modernus from modo, "just now") dates from the 5th century, originally distinguishing the Christian era from the Pagan era, yet the word entered general usage only in the 17th-century quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns — debating: "Is Modern culture superior to Classical (Græco–Roman) culture?" — a literary and artistic quarrel within the Académie française in the early 1690s.