I argue for a novel answer to the question “What is hope?”. On my view, rather than aiming for a compound account, i.e. analysing hope in terms of desire and belief, we should understand hope as an irreducible concept. After criticizing influential compound accounts of hope, I discuss Segal and Textor's alternative of describing hope as a primitive mental state. While Segal and Textor argue that available developments of the standard definition do not offer sufficient conditions for hope, I question (...) the deep‐seated idea that desire and belief are even necessary conditions for hope. My suggestion is that we should take seriously the fact that we hope in a great variety of ways and should question the search for elements that are common to all cases. A promising alternative follows the Wittgensteinian idea that cases of hope are related in terms of family resemblance, i.e. are multiply realizable on the ontological level while falling under the non‐definable concept of hope. (shrink)

The language of hope is a ubiquitous part of political life, but its value is increasingly contested. While there is an emerging debate about hope in political philosophy, an assessment of the prevalent scepticism about its role in political practice is still outstanding. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of historical and recent treatments of hope in political philosophy and to indicate lines of further research. We argue that even though political philosophy can draw on recent (...) analyses of hope in analytic philosophy, there are distinct challenges for an account of hope in political contexts. Examples such as racial injustice or climate change show the need for a systematic normative account that is sensitive to the unavoidability of hope in politics as much as its characteristic dangers. (shrink)

This article contributes to the analysis of refusal to license cases as abuse of a dominant position pursuant Article 82 EC from an economic perspective. In the Microsoft case, the European Commission introduced an "Incentives Balance Test" to assess whether the refusal to give access to interface information can be justified by arguing that this information is protected by Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs): The Commission argued that if the overall innovative effects evoked by a compulsory license are significantly higher than (...) without this access, the IPR owner is obliged to license. This should be assessed through balancing the different incentives to innovate between the dominant firm and its competitors. In the paper we pursue two objectives: Firstly, we analyze to what extent the decision of the Court of First Instance, which confirmed the decision of the Commission, helps to clarify the criteria in refusal to license cases; in fact, it is disappointing in this regard. Secondly, we demonstrate that the basic idea of the Incentives Balance Test can be interpreted as a test whether the specific IPRs of the dominant firm can be defended from the perspective of the economics of IPRs. This implies that Article 82 allows competition law to correct economically not optimal IPRs through a specific economic analysis. This is followed by a broad overview on theoretical and empirical insights from economics of IPRs, innovation economics and competition and network economics that can help to develop a more general and sophisticated Innovation Effects Test that can be applied in Article 82 refusal to license cases. (shrink)

An applicant to our graduate program in philosophy, accepted as well by one (but only one) other graduate program, wrestles with his decision. Finally he decides to attend the other program, but he thanks me for our offer, telling me, "I'm glad that at least I had a choice." I want to focus a bit on these two stories, for while the central conclusion in each -- something turning on the importance of choice -- is initially compelling, it is also, (...) on reflection, philosophically puzzling. It is compelling, because many of us in similar positions would share this response; phenomenologically, it feels right to us. We want to believe that the central facts of our lives -- whether or not we have children, where we are educated, what career we follow, with 1 whom we join as partners -- contain in them some fundamental element of our own selection and decision. We will be exploring below exactly what will turn out to be important here, and why, but for now, in our pre-reflective grasp of this phenomenon, we can say that it seems to have something to do with the value we place on autonomy, self-governance, self-authorship. We want, metaphorically speaking, to write the story of our own lives. But let me now begin to draw out why I find this insistence on the importance of choice, which so many of us would share, to be so puzzling. Both individuals, in both stories, want to be offered a certain additional option in order to have -- or at least to feel that they have? -- a choice about what they are going to do next. But, on the one hand, we could argue that, even with this added option, they still don't have a "real" choice -- they don't have the choice of doing what they most want to do; and on the other hand, one could argue that even without the added option, they always had some choice. Let me explain. In the first story, my friend certainly doesn't have open to her the option that would have been her first choice (and, in our society, what we might call the standard choice, the most frequently chosen option): to produce a biological child with her partner in a happy marriage.. (shrink)

This article re-examines Vilém Flusser's philosophy of photography and its relation to what I will name the philosophical question of 'image-thinking'. It places his work on photography in the context of the much discussed 'pictorial' and 'iconic' turns in the study of visual culture and, through this, aims to reveal the depth of Flusser's approach to understanding media culture and to argue for the significance and continuing relevance of his philosophy of photography.

Galen’s elemental mixture of fire, air, water and earth (and of the corresponding primary qualities, hot, cold, dry and wet) is primarily a physical process, in which primary elements mix and give rise to all compounded physical bodies, inanimate and animate. As such, the concrete, physical process of mixture is an essential basis for a thorough understanding of Galen’s physical system. In this article I pursued a twofold aim. First, I showed Galen’s syncretic approach while expounding his theory of mixture (...) (insofar as he attributes that theory equally to ‘Hippocrates’, Aristotle and the Stoics) and illustrated the reasons behind this approach. Second, and more importantly, I addressed Galen’s epistemological position concerning mixture’s constituents and answered the question of whether, according to Galen, are the qualities alone, conceived more Aristotelico as conceptually distinct from the body itself, to mix or if Galen viewed mixture, as the Stoics did, as a coextension of bodies. As we argue, Galen assigns the epistemological status of πιθανόν to the Aristotelian and Peripatetic doctrines. This indicates that, to a certain extent, he joins this historical debate and is more closely aligned with Aristotle and the Peripatetics than with the Stoics. By resorting to what is πιθανόν Galen obtains two results: (1) does not expose himself to accusations of dogmatism but, at the same time and in his method, enters the ongoing controversy about qualities and bodies without taking a definitive position, and (2) he preserves his syncretic theoretical structure which finds its linchpin in the defence of a medical-cum-philosophical continuism. (shrink)

An increasing number of studies indicate that virtues affect brain structure. These studies might shed new light on some neuroethical perspectives suggesting that our brain network activity determines the acquisition and permanence of virtues. According to these perspectives, virtuous behavior could be interpreted as the product of a brain mechanism supervised by genes and environment and not as the result of free choice. In this respect, the neural correlates of virtues would confirm the deterministic theory. In contrast, I maintain that (...) these findings do not undermine the role of willpower and freedom while reinforcing an interactionist view of free will. If virtues affect our neural system, then the predictability of the virtuous behavior follows. The likelihood of our future (moral) actions is primarily virtue-dependent; therefore, the acquired naturality of virtuous behavior is a source of predictable behavioral patterns outlining expected actions, which I propose to call Hypotheses of Action (HAs). However, the predictability of an action indicates its likeliness and not its certainty or necessity. The neural traces of virtues can be interpreted as major indicators of HAs. It is always possible for the agents to depart from their more likely, virtue-induced actions, but their deviations from the virtuous behavioral pattern are rare, as it is rare for the vicious/non-virtuous person to behave well systematically. This implies a reaffirmation of the notions of veto and consent as they provide a universal practical power affecting the subject’s use of moral virtues. (shrink)

Resumen Platón proyecta en la República un programa cultural que supone la redefinición del papel de la poesía tradicional en razón de su asociación con los regímenes democrático y tiránico. Esto, según pretendo mostrar, puede vincularse de manera legítima con la polémica anticirenaica de Platón contra Aristipo. Para ello, por un lado, exploraré los rasgos del biotipo tiránico y su régimen concomitante en la República VIII-IX y, por otro, analizaré sus vínculos con los planteamientos anticirenaicos en el Gorgias. Este examen (...) permitirá ofrecer claves de análisis para dos pasajes muy discutidos de la República IX: el símil del ascensor y el número del tirano, que cobran una nueva luz a partir de la consideración de esta polémica intrasocrática.Plato put forward in Republic a cultural program which implies the redefinition of the role of traditional poetry due to its association with the democratic and tyrannical regimes. I intend to show that this point is connected with the anti-cyrenaic arguments that Plato raises against Aristippus. On the one hand, I will study the features of the tyrannical biotype and its correspondent regime in Republic VIII-IX, and, on the other, I will analyze its links with the anti-cyrenaic arguments in Gorgias. This exam will allow us to offer some clues to better understand two widely debated passages in Republic IX: the analogy of the lift and the tyrant’s number. Both acquire a new perspective when this intra-socratic polemic is taken into account. (shrink)

El avance de los estudios sobre filosofías socráticas ha permitido una vuelta renovada al examen de pasajes intertextuales en el corpus platónico. El presente trabajo explora pasaje del sueño de Teeteto, 201c ss. y sus vínculos con la filosofía antisténica. En primer lugar, analiza las características de esta obra en el contexto del diálogo socrático. En segundo lugar, traza las coordenadas exegéticas del pasaje del sueño, y finalmente, ofrece una interpretación de la filosofía antisténica que revela contactos relevantes con el (...) planteo platónico. Por esta vía, se despliega una hipótesis sobre el sentido general del diálogo y su modo de comprender el fenómeno del conocimiento. (shrink)

The ancient Greek philosophical discourse harbors an anthropology radically discontinuous with the framework of modernity. Rather than emphasizing the tension between the individual and community, and far from understanding the political on the ground of instinctual sacrifice, Greek thought illuminates the interdependence of ethics and politics, and situates the human being in a cosmos in which the human is neither central nor prominent. In particular the reflection of philia, most notably in Plato and Aristotle, calls for the exploration of human (...) potentiality with outstanding vigor and visionary audacity. (shrink)

Das Aufgreifen tradierter Motive, speziell des frühneuzeitlichen Vanitas-Topos, lässt sich in zeitgenössischer Literatur, Theater und bildender Kunst beobachten. Insbesondere die Videokunst weist dabei eine Affinität zum malerischen Genre des Stilllebens auf, welches im Kontext des Topos mit moralisch-religiösen und philo- sophischen Fragen verbunden ist und eine Integration unterschiedlicher Zeitmodi ermöglicht. In Anlehnung sowohl an frühneuzeitliche Zeitkonzepte als auch an aktuelle Theorieansätze werden Gestaltungsformen von Zeitlichkeit untersucht, die durch Film- und Videotechnik entstehen, dabei die innerbildlichen Tempora- litäten statischer Stillleben erweitern und (...) die Symbolik der Vanitas resemantisieren, verfremden oder negieren. Es wird nicht nur gezeigt, wie diese Symbole in der Gegenwartskunst eingesetzt werden, um über Vergänglichkeit und Tod zu reflek- tieren, sondern insbesondere, welche Möglichkeiten neue Technologien aufweisen, das Vergehen von Zeit ästhetisch zu gestalten. Der Beitrag präsentiert eine erste Systematisierung von Vanitas-Stillleben in der Videokunst und gibt einen Einblick in facettenreiche Auseinandersetzungen mit einem klassischen Genre. (shrink)

INTRODUCTIONPhilosophical investigations of the concept of responsibility, mirroring its most common function in ordinary language and thought, have been geared for the most part to clarifying intuitions concerning moral and legal accountability for actions. But the resurgence of interest in ethical theories concerned with human virtues has resurrected old questions about our responsibility for our character, attitudes, and emotions. The philosophical tradition that takes virtues as a central moral category has taught us to think of virtues not only as involving (...) dispositions to actions, but also dispositions to desires and emotions. It has also taught us to think of actions as only one of the proper objects of moral evaluation, alongside, for example, motives, intentions, beliefs, desires, and emotions. So it is natural that interest in ethical theories concerned with the virtues would yield interest in responsibility for our attitudes and emotions.Robert Adams has already done much to draw our attention to the different concept of responsibility we are forced to define if we focus on our intuitions about moral accountability for emotions, attitudes, and beliefs, rather than for actions. See R. Adams, “The Virtue of Faith,” in Adams, The Virtue of Faith (Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 9–24; and “Involuntary Sins,” Philosophical Review 94 (1985): 3–31. I disagree with his account of responsibility for such states, but I am indebted to his illuminating discussions of the topics. Thomas Aquinas, who of course is one of the most important architects of the tradition that takes virtues to be central moral categories, holds a very complex set of views about our responsibility for our emotions. My aim in this essay is to develop and explain Aquinas’s views about whether and when, why, and to what extent we can be responsible for our emotions. I hope to show, in so doing, that his view is plausible, and fits well with some of our own conflicting intuitions about the question. (shrink)

Resumo: Este artigo busca dizer da multiplicidade que povoa a escola: de corpos, de acontecimentos, de vida. Busca com base na leitura Deleuze-Guattariana de instrumentos conceituais de Spinoza, na afirmação da multiplicidade que habita a docência, dar-lhes novos sentidos, nas redes de conversações nas veredas de afetos que atravessam o cotidiano escolar. Utiliza, como metodologia, redes de conversações, modos de dizer das experiências vividas, estabelecidas com professoras em encontros quinzenais realizados em escolas públicas situadas em bairros periféricos. A noção spinozana (...) de afeto nos remete à noção de encontro. Assim, conclui que as conversações apontam para a necessária composição de um corpo múltiplo escolar, onde a criação se faça pela abertura à liberdade; pela superação do dogmatismo, normatização e hierarquização; pelos tempos livres para que os encontros sejam possíveis; enfim, pelo encontro nos entremeios de uma educação que una o inteligível ao sensível e o conhecimento se teça pelos afetos e afecções experimentados. Palavras-chave: Spinoza; Afetos; Docência; Corpos Múltiplos; Cotidiano Escolar. Spinoza and the paths of affection in teaching as multiple bodies in school daily life Abstract: This article seeks to talk about the multiplicity that populates the school: of bodies, of events, of life. Based on Deleuze-Guattarian's reading of Spinoza's conceptual instruments, in the affirmation of multiplicity that inhabits teaching, to give them new meanings, in the networks of conversations in the paths of affections that cross everyday school life. It uses, as a methodology, conversation networks, ways of talking about lived experiences, established with teachers in fortnightly meetings held in public schools located in peripheral neighborhoods. Spinoza’s notion of affection takes us to the notion of encounter. Thus, he concludes that the conversations point to the necessary composition of a multiple school body, where creation takes place through openness to freedom; by overcoming dogmatism, normalization and hierarchization; for free time so that meetings are possible; finally, through the encounter during an education that unites the intelligible with the sensitive and knowledge is woven through the affections and affections experienced. Keywords: Spinoza; Affections; Teaching; Multiple Bodies; School Daily Life. Spinoza y los caminos del afecto em la enseñanza como cuerpos múltiples em la vida escolar cotidiana Résumé: Este artículo busca hablar de la multiplicidad que puebla la escuela: de cuerpos, de acontecimientos, de vida. A partir de la lectura de Deleuze-Guattariana de los instrumentos conceptuales de Spinoza, en la afirmación de la multiplicidad que habita la enseñanza, darles nuevos significados, en las redes de conversaciones en los caminos de afectos que atraviesan la vida escolar cotidiana. Utiliza, como metodología, redes de conversación, formas de contar experiencias vividas, establecidas con docentes en reuniones quincenales realizadas en escuelas públicas ubicadas en barrios periféricos. La noción de afecto de Spinoz nos lleva a la noción de encuentro. Así, concluye que las conversaciones apuntan a la necesaria composición de un cuerpo escolar múltiple, donde la creación se dé a través de la apertura a la libertad; superando el dogmatismo, la normalización y la jerarquización; tiempo libre para que sean posibles los encuentros; finalmente, a través del encuentro en medio de una educación que une lo inteligible con lo sensible y el conocimiento se teje a través de los afectos y afectos vividos. Palabras-clave: Spinoza; Afectos; Enseñanza; Múltiples Cuerpos; Vida Diaria Escolar. Data de registro: 21/04/2024 Data de aceite: 30/10/2024. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to address the complex relationships within the geography of virtues. Based on the recent prototypical theories of concepts as idealized cognitive models arising from abstraction, the article argues that the relations between virtues are asymmetrical, with a prototypical virtue characterizing the whole category and specific virtues being character traits or skills derived from the prototypical virtue. It also argues that the most promising candidates for the role of prototypical virtue are phronesis (practical wisdom) and (...) the virtue of care, for their ability to represent and elicit any virtuous behavior when the situation calls for them. It therefore confronts the two options, which embody competing perspectives. In the concluding section, it proposes two possible directions for further research to settle in favor of one of the candidates. The article can be taken as an illustration of the potential of prototype theory for analyzing ethical concepts. (shrink)

Arising in the study of Quantum Logics, PBZ \(^{*}\) -_lattices_ are the paraorthomodular Brouwer–Zadeh lattices in which the pairs of elements with their Kleene complements satisfy the Strong De Morgan condition with respect to the Brouwer complement. They form a variety \(\mathbb {PBZL}^{*}\) which includes that of orthomodular lattices considered with an extended signature (by endowing them with a Brouwer complement coinciding with their Kleene complement), as well as antiortholattices (whose Brouwer complements are trivial). The former turn out to have (...) directly irreducible lattice reducts and, under distributivity, no nontrivial elements with bounded lattice complements, since the elements with bounded lattice complements coincide to the sharp elements in distributive PBZ \(^{*}\) -lattices. The variety \(\mathbb {DIST}\) of distributive PBZ \(^{*}\) -lattices has an infinite ascending chain of subvarieties, and the variety generated by orthomodular lattices and antiortholattices has an infinity of pairwise disjoint infinite ascending chains of subvarieties. (shrink)

Most of us spend much of our time trying to get other people to act as we would like them to act, trying to influence them in some way to further our purposes or advance our ends. In this enterprise, we make use of a wide array of motivational levers; we take advantage of various sources of others’ susceptibility to influence. Much of this, I submit, is morally unproblematic. There is no moral reason why we should eschew all attempts at (...) influence and pursue our projects unassisted or why we should in turn resent others’ efforts to shape our own beliefs, desires, and ends. To maintain otherwise is to insist on a peculiar kind of individualistic isolationism. Nonetheless, the details of exactly how we influence others matter morally— what motivational levers we pull and the ways in which we pull them. I maintain—although I cannot defend this claim here—that it is difficult to offer general guidelines for assessing various motivational strategies, beyond saying, of course, that one should try to motivate others toward good ends and in ways that are not proscribed by our other moral rules. For the rest, we shall need to look at each kind of motivational strategy individually, with close attention to the details of its own particularity, to appraise whether it can survive moral scrutiny. (shrink)

This article reflects on the place of language in the writing of history. The first part recalls the recent influence of linguistics on historians, and critically evokes the main works inspired by it. The second part defines the specific project of “logopolitics”, which proposes three combined approaches: formalist, which consists in working on the initial concept of a notion; discursive, which, by bringing to light the conflicts of a “moment”, analyses the construction of a dominant discourse; praxeological, which studies the (...) relationships between words and the political practices of the different players. In the third part, the author recalls some of the conclusions reached, using this method, in her book on res publica: in particular, she shows how the definition of this originally indeterminate notion was a key issue in the political conflicts of the late Roman Republic, and how res publica served as a principle of legitimacy for emperors, particularly against any internal threat, before being used as a civilizational concept from the 3rd century AD onwards. (shrink)

The testimonies of Stilpo of Megara show an anti-Platonic position within the megaric program against fundationists attempts. This paper studies a particular point of this deployment. We will review the origin of the views that locate thruth on the onomastic or on the predicative level. This initial survey will provide the basis for the study of the paradoxes of the nomination, an element Stilpo used as a tool to challenge the theory of Forms, and the analysis of the aporias of (...) predication, through which he rejects the combination of parts of the sentence in order to represent reality. The figure of Stilpo reveals the dialogical context in which ancient philosophies developed and, at the same time, displays ways of thinking the relationship between language and reality often forgotten. (shrink)

O sintoma como acontecimento de corpo é uma proposição de Jacques Lacan que se remete aos seus últimos anos de ensino e trata sobre os efeitos do trauma da língua sobre o corpo. Esses efeitos se apresentam como padecimentos ou adoecimentos corporais e são nomeados como afetos ou paixões. A ressonância do pensamento de René Descartes é evidente no contexto da elaboração lacaniana do sintoma como acontecimento de corpo, tendo em vista que se fundamenta na distinção entre ter e ser (...) um corpo. Trata-se de uma questão onto-génetica sobre a ambiguidade do corpo em Descartes e Lacan: o corpo objeto – “ter um corpo” – e o corpo como re-significação da presença do ser no mundo. Para elucidação da proposta, o texto literário de Daniel Pennac, “Jornal de um corpo” é analisado. (shrink)

Refutaciones Sofísticas ha sido usualmente interpretado como un intento de clasificación de sofismas. Este acercamiento, sin embargo, corre el riesgo de oscurecer la dimensión de sus propias intenciones confrontativas. El presente trabajo se propone enfatizar la importancia de las Refutaciones Sofísticas como parte de un programa antierístico que tiene por objetivo prioritario la filosofía megárica, en las antípodas de Aristóteles en el terreno epistemológico. Bajo esta luz, la resolución de argumentos erísticos excede el estudio lógico así como también la denuncia (...) sobre sus efectos prácticos y se erige como parte de una discusión entre líneas de inspiración socrática sobre los alcances y fines de la dialéctica y la filosofía en general. (shrink)

The new book of Francesca Pentassuglio on Aeschines has come to fill an essential vacuum. The studies on Socratic philosophies have an interesting history that combines moments of great recognition with others of almost total disrepair. They were prominent in Antiquity and constituted a space where many lines were connected and enhanced the quantity and quality of the philosophical dialogue. Nothing at that time could make us suspect their subsequent fate and the development of an enormous di...

Exploring the ethical questions posed by, in, and about children’s literature, this collection examines the way texts intended for children raise questions of value, depict the moral development of their characters, and call into attention shared moral presuppositions. Even as children’s literature has evolved in opposition to its origins in didactic Sunday school tracts and moralizing fables, authors, parents, librarians, and scholars remain sensitive to the values conveyed to children through the texts they choose to share with them.

Although motherhood is the female destiny par excellence in the biblical narrative, it is an experience only accessible through a male point of view. In order to reflect on the problems of representation of the maternal body in the Hebrew Bible, I propose an analysis of different maternal characters present in the books of Samuel and Kings. My reading aims, on the one hand, to identify the features that define the maternal in the biblical text and, on the other hand, (...) to offer an approach that allows to point to the implications that the crisis context the texts reflect have on the picture of the actions and the destinies of these female characters. (shrink)

In this article, I draw on Theodor W. Adorno’s works on (neo-)fascism and psychoanalytic theory to outline the threat of castration in contemporary capitalist societies on economic, interpersonal, and bodily levels. I then explain how the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened people’s castration anxieties on all three levels in a class- and gender-specific way. Finally, I expose how the right extremist president of the United States, Donald Trump, and the right extremist leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, Norbert Hofer, utilized castration (...) anxieties in their psychologically oriented tricks to strengthen their base and capture new followers. (shrink)

Aun cuando se plantea que Arendt y Benjamin sostienen posiciones filosófico políticas irreconciliables, nosotros consideramos que existen líneas de confluencia que parten de una crítica a la Modernidad y los llevan a explorar temas como la narración, la narratividad, la autoridad y la legitimidad. En este trabajo me centraré en la visión que cada uno de ellos tiene sobre el Marxismo, sus apropiaciones, así como las derivaciones a las que llegan. Intentaré mostrar que, mientras en Arendt sobresale una crítica al (...) marxismo como parte de la tradición de pensamiento Occidental, en Benjamin derivará en un giro al idealismo y la teología que pasará a ser redención. (shrink)

This chapter provides a general introduction to the theoretical frameworks the contributors to the volume Feminists Contest Politics and Philosophy draw on to address wide-ranging topics and critical questions in feminist politics, theory, and philosophy. In particular, this chapter outlines the four major topics – aesthetics and female representation, love and psychoanalysis, care and ethics, and the different understandings of ‘women,’ which are core in the volume.

This paper reports a case study on a family of American English constructions that will be called the family of approximate comparison constructions. This family has three members, all of which follow the syntactic pattern about as X as Y with X being an adjective, but which allow three related functions: literal comparison, simile and irony. Two cognitive frameworks concern themselves with irony, the cognitive modelling approach and viewpoint approach, and the paper will show that, while the ironic approximate comparison (...) construction calls central assumptions of the cognitive modelling approach to question, the viewpoint account can be refined to handle these cases. In doing so, it furthers our understanding of the cognitive underpinning of irony. The paper provides a corpus-based analysis on the Y slot as well as collostructional analyses on the adjectival X slot in the family of approximate comparison constructions. The results thereof suggest that the ironic approximate comparison construction, in comparison to its literal counterpart, prefers adjectives that convey positively connotated, nuanced attitudes and is formally less variable in the Y slot. The preference for particular adjectives lends further support to the assumption that hearers understand the construction as ironic or literal before speakers complete their utterance. Given that, it is argued that the ironic approximate comparison construction communicates an inherent viewpoint. (shrink)

In an age of postmodern suspicion of master narratives, the egalitarianism and universality inherent in a normative system of rights defended by liberalism is countered by disbelief in the idealized conceptions of a ‘public subject’, divorced from the particularity of both individual and historical communal narratives, as well as an impartial collective good. Simultaneously, the excessive fragmentation of opposed and contradictory aspirations of counterpublics, privileged by a communitarian approach, runs the risk of giving priority to individual rights over social well-being. (...) This article explores the liberal and communitarian approaches to rights, inquiring into whether freedom or equality offer the best criteria of judgement to preserve the space of cultural plurality within the public sphere. While Habermasian discourse ethics subordinates the particularistic to the general will, the communitarian perspective on justice, represented by Paul Piccone and Charles Taylor, argues that the law is not universal in scope and cannot be separated from particularistic conceptions of the ‘good life’. The article ultimately claims that freedom is the criterion that allows cultural pluralities to both stand on their own, resisting assimilation within any master discourse, and establish dialogue among themselves. In this perspective, the public sphere promotes complex modes of interaction, among modernity’s differentiated spheres. This view of the public sphere is in tune with Jencks’ description of postmodernism as preserving the ‘fragmental holism’ (1996: 478) of plural lifeworlds. (shrink)