Browsing by Author "Donati, Pierpaolo"

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    Más allá del multiculturalismo
    (2019) Donati, Pierpaolo
    The purpose of this book is to offer a critique of the ideology of multiculturalism and to propose an alternative that can respond to the request of Joseph Ratzinger about the need to widen the ray of reason. Recent sociological research ha shown that the ideology of multiculturalism, after having been adopted as official policy in many Countries, has generated more negative than positive effects (fragmentation of the society, separation of minorities, cultural relativism). This paper discusses on the possible alternatives to multiculturalism, asking itself whether the way of interculturality can be a solution or not. 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 lay 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.
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    Relational Sociology. A New Paradigm for the Social Sciences
    (2020) Donati, Pierpaolo
    "This book formulates a new paradigm for the social sciences appropriate to our age, based on the primacy of what Donati terms ‘social relations’ which, for him, are crucial in upholding the distinctiveness of humanity. The target is to sound the alarm about the unwelcome effects of many social theories that threaten to drive the human out of the social or else submerge the human within the social and so drown out its distinctive individuality. By placing social relations at the heart of society, the Author hopes to preserve the uniqueness of both humanity and individual personality. In defending the primacy of social relations, two concerns animate the book. The first is to rethink our conception of society which has become divorced from our humanity. And the second is an extended critique of some of the most prominent social theories that have led to this state of affairs. Social relations provide the key to understanding social reality, expressed as follows: ‘in the beginning there is the relation’ and society is understood as a net or web of relations. The relation does not eliminate the subjects or terms which it connects; instead, it reclaims, explores and expresses them. This book offers an alternative to both positivist and relativis paradigms widespread in the social sciences, so to respond to the request of Joseph Ratzinger about the need to widen the ray of reason"