Abstract
Autore:
Redini Alexia
Titolo:
"Civil Association e identià culturali: Michael Oakeshott e le relazioni internazionali"
The following paper aims to
analyse Michael Oakeshott’s “Civil Association”
as an original contribution to the issue
of coexistence between different cultural
identities inside national and international
contexts. The political philosophical question:
which are the premises that make possible
a “liberal” living together in a world that
is experiencing a huge ethical, religious and
cultural diversity, represents the starting point
through which Oakeshott’s thought is here
considered.
The principal features taken into account
are his criticism to rationalism, grounded on a
sceptical understanding of human reason, his
original conservatism, understood as a disposition
rather than a political doctrine, and his
concept of the “rule of law”, conceived as a
political order based on a set of “noninstrumental”
laws. All these aspects are the main
elements through which the liberal character
of the living together is conceived as the result
of an historical achievement, that is probably
worth defending, but whose preservation is after
all due to the choices of individuals. Civil
association, therefore, is a political model that
is different from either the liberal and the multicultural
one, and its difference provides an
interesting perspective through which understanding
some of the issues that concern the
European Union identity and its processes of
integration and enlargement
