A Multicultural Society Needs a Relational Reason

Abstract

Recent sociological research has shown that the ideology of multiculturalism has generated more negative than positive effects (fragmentation of the society, separation of minorities, cultural relativism). The idea of interculturality has the advantage to stress the ‘inter’, namely what lies in between different cultures. But it does not possess yet the conceptual and effective means to understand and handle the problems of the public sphere. To go over the failures of multiculturalism and the fragilities of interculturality, a new approach to the coexistence of cultures is required, being able to give strength back to Reason, through new semantics of the inter-human diversity. The Author suggests the development of the “relational reason”, beyond the forms already known of rationality. To make human reason relational might be the best way to imagine a social order being able to humanize the globalizing processes and the growing migrations.