This article addresses the complexities and challenges present in discourses on the sciences, both in relativist (critical) and illuminist (modernist) visions. A central problem is the inflationary diagnosis of modern science as the ‘disenchantment of the world’, based on the Weberian idea that modernity stands out for its instrumental rationality and the progressive mastering of everything. Critical counter-hegemonic movements often adopt an opposite stance to ‘scientific values’, defending subjectification, corporeity and emotion as non-modern values. However, this reaction is inadvertently reinforcing modern assumptions themselves by opposing Western rational methods. The critical approach is problematic for two other reasons: it is denuncist, denying the reality of modern sciences in favour of ideological or cultural conditions; and it is defeatist, portraying modernity as an inescapable dominant force. Furthermore, the relativist stance tends to simplify scientific practices and to be corrosive towards non-modern practices as well, reducing the agency of non-human entities to cultural and symbolic aspects. The aim of the article is to deny the thesis of the disenchantment of the world and propose an account of modern science that goes beyond domination, considering the effects of colonialism. I explore Bruno Latour s diagnosis of modernity in order to re-evaluate the role of the sciences, repositioning the debate in terms of practical ontologies - provided that the role of metaphysics is also understood in a different way. This allows us to avoid a series of problems with the relativist critique, while at the same time maintaining the reality of the erasure of knowledge promoted by modernity, making conditions of truth possible for both scientific and non-modern practices.