Search results

Alessandro Ferrara is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata), and former President of the Italian Association for Political Philosophy. He is the founder and Director of the Colloquium Philosophy & Society in Rome and the Director of the Center for the Study of Religions and Political Institutions in Post-Secular Society at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Since 1991 Alessandro Ferrara has been a Director of the Yearly Conference on Philosophy and Social Science in Prague (formerly held at the Interuniversity Centre of Dubrovnik), and since 2007 he is on the Executive Committee of the Istanbul Seminars on Religion and Politics, held under the auspices of the Association Reset - Dialogues of Civilizations. He has lectured in a number of universities and institutions, including Harvard University, Columbia University, Yale University, New School for Social Research, University College London (UCL), Oxford University, the Chinese Academy of Social Science and many others. Alessandro Ferrara's work revolves around the formulation of an authenticity- and judgment-based account of normative validity, which by way of incorporating a post-metaphysically reconstructed version of the normativity of Kant's 'reflective judgment', could be immune to antifoundationalist objections and yet represent a viable alternative to the formalism of standard proceduralist accounts of normative validity. He is the author of Modernity and Authenticity. A Study of the Social and Ethical Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1993 (transl. into Italian); Reflective Authenticity. Rethinking the Project of Modernity, 1998 (transl. into Italian and Spanish); Justice and Judgment. The Rise and the Prospect of the Judgment Model in Contemporary Political Philosophy, 1999 (transl. into Italian); The Force of the Example. Explorations in the Paradigm of Judgment, 2008 (transl. into Italian and Spanish) and The Democratic Horizon. Hyperpluralism and the Renewal of Political Liberalism, 2014 (transl. into Spanish). The Democratic Horizon, Ferrara's latest work, presents his particular elaboration of the 'political liberalism' articulated in the later works of John Rawls, which Ferrara proposes as an 'adaptive countermeasure' to what he sees as the ever more inhospitable global conditions for contemporary democracy. This interview addresses some implications of Ferrara's insightful and multifaceted theoretical perspective. .

In this article the recent transformations of citizenship in the Netherlands are analysed in relation to a developing form of governmentality. We regard citizenship as a state regulated technique of in- and exclusion and a crucial instrument in the management of populations. Taking the Dutch contexts of immigration and integration as our case, we argue that cultural assimilationism and neo-liberalism appear in a double helix: they combine to form a new governmental strategy we call neo-liberal communitarianism. Neo-liberal communitarianism is the underlying rationale of a population management that operates both in an individualizing (citizenship as individual participation and responsibility) and a de-individualizing way ('community' at various aggregate and localized levels as frame of 'integration'). It thus combines a communitarian care of a Dutch culturally grounded national community - conceived as traditionally'enlightened' and 'liberal'- with a neo-liberal emphasis on the individual's responsibility to achieve membership of that community. 'Community' is thereby selectively seen as mobilized and present (when immigrant integration is concerned) or as latently present and still in need of mobilization (when indigenous Dutch are concerned). Concomitantly, a repressive responsibilization and a facilitative responsibilization are aimed at these two governmentally differentiated populations.

Reviving the Invisible Hand is an uncompromising call for a global return to a classical liberal economic order, free of interference from governments and international organizations. Arguing for a revival of the invisible hand of free international trade and global capital, eminent economist Deepak Lal vigorously defends the view that statist attempts to ameliorate the impact of markets threaten global economic progress and stability. And in an unusual move, he not only defends globalization economically, but also answers the cultural and moral objections of antiglobalizers. Taking a broad

Part I. Sizing Up The Urban Crisis -- Chapter 1. Modernizing Migrants -- Chapter 2. The Social Development Solution -- Part II. Transforming The Ghetto -- Chapter 3. Developmental Separatism and Community Control -- Chapter 4. Black Power and the End of Community Action -- Part III. Cultivating LEADERSHIP -- Chapter 5. Multiculturalism from Above -- Chapter 6. The Best and the Brightest -- Epilogue. The Diminishing Expectations of Racial Liberalism

This paper links different political liberal theories, considered from the perspective of their moral ontology, with federal democracies. After giving a brief description of these theories, I discuss their relationship with the theoretical and institutional models of federalism. As methodological tools, the paper introduces some Hegel's political concepts and deals with their potential application to the analysis of federalism, taken into account the case of minorities in multinational democracies. I postulate the need for a moral and institutional refinement of liberal-democratic patterns that is better able to accommodate national pluralism than has so far been achieved by traditional constitutionalism.

IN THIS ARTICLE I WILL DISCUSS A SENSITIVE AND POTENTIALLY CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECT-THE CRITICISMS OF JUDAISM TO BE FOUND WITHIN THE WORKS OF TWO NOTABLE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHERS OF JEWISH ANCESTRY, SPINOZA AND THE YOUNG MARX. IN ASSESSING THE THOUGHT OF THESE IMPORTANT FIGURES, CONTEMPORARY READERS GENERALLY IGNORE THEIR CRITIQUES OF JUDAISM: THEY ASSUME THAT THESE CRITIQUES ARE IRRELEVANT TO THE THINKER' SERIOUS POLITICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL CONCERNS, AND THAT THE CRITIQUES MIGHT AT MOST BE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL INTEREST, ENABLING US BETTER TO UNDERSTAND THE THINKERS AS "SELF-HATING JEWS." BUT THESE ASSUMPTIONS ARE, THE AUTHOR BELIEVE, INVALID. INSTEAD, A SERIOUS EXAMINATION OF SPINOZA'S AND THE YOUNG MARX'S RESPECTIVE ATTITUDES TOWARD JUDAISM CAN BE OF GREAT ASSISTANCE IN FACILITATING A PROPER ASSESSMENT OF THEIR POLITICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL POSITIONS. SPECIFICALLY, SUCH AN EXAMINATION IS USEFUL IN ELUCIDATING THE REASONS BEHIND SPINOZA'S ADVOCACY OF LIBERALISM AND THE YOUNG MARX'S REJECTION OF IT. SPINOZA'S AND THE YOUNG MARX'S CRITIQUES OF JUDAISM MAY WELL BE OF NO GREAT THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE; BECAUSE THEY ARE RELEVANT TO THE PHILOSOPHERS' RESPECTIVE ASSESSMENTS OF LIBERALISM, THEY ARE NEVERTHELESS OF GREAT POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE. THIS IS BECAUSE JUDAISM FUNCTIONED FOR BOTH AUTHORS AS A METAPHOR FOR LIBERALISM. WHATEVER THEIR OTHER DISPUTES, SPINOZA AND THE YOUNG MARX BOTH AGREED THAT LIBERALISM RESEMBLES JUDAISM IN THE FOLLOWING CRUCIAL RESPECTS.

This article focuses on a current of liberalism which remained distinct from the progressive politics of the 1930s, and whose identity as such emerged in its attack upon political extremism, principally although not exclusively of the left. It took as its starting-point the articulation and defence of a unique English identity. In this form, it was not confined to the channels and spokesmen of organised political liberalism, but instead cut across the main ideological divisions of liberalism, conservatism and socialism. The article aims to challenge interpretations of the 1930s as a decade of agreement in political thought constituted largely of progressive opinion, emphasising instead the existence of a significant polarity whose force was as much apparent after 1945 as before.