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Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations Giancarlo Bosetti The Truth of Others The Discovery of Pluralism in Ten Tales Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations Volume 25 Series Editors David M. Rasmussen, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Alessandro Ferrara, Dipartimento di Storia, University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’, Rome, Italy Editorial Board Members Abdullah An-Na’im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, Emory University, Atlanta, USA Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA Robert Audi, O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA Seyla Benhabib, Eugene Meyer Professor for Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA Samuel Freeman, Avalon Professor in the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA Jürgen Habermas, Professor Emeritus, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Bayern, Germany Axel Honneth, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany and Columbia University, New York, USA Erin Kelly, Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA Charles Larmore, W. Duncan MacMillan Family Professor in the Humanities, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA Frank Michelman, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Tong Shijun, Professor of Philosophy, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA The purpose of Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations is to publish high quality volumes that reflect original research pursued at the juncture of philosophy and politics. Over the past 20 years new important areas of inquiry at the crossroads of philosophy and politics have undergone impressive developments or have emerged anew. Among these, new approaches to human rights, transitional justice, religion and politics and especially the challenges of a post-secular society, global justice, public reason, global constitutionalism, multiple democracies, political liberalism and deliberative democracy can be included. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations addresses each and any of these interrelated yet distinct fields as valuable manuscripts and proposal become available, with the aim of both being the forum where single breakthrough studies in one specific subject can be published and at the same time the areas of overlap and the intersecting themes across the various areas can be composed in the coherent image of a highly dynamic disciplinary continent. Some of the studies published are bold theoretical explorations of one specific theme, and thus primarily addressed to specialists, whereas others are suitable for a broader readership and possibly for wide adoption in graduate courses. The series includes monographs focusing on a specific topic, as well as collections of articles covering a theme or collections of articles by one author. Contributions to this series come from scholars on every continent and from a variety of scholarly orientations. Giancarlo Bosetti The Truth of Others The Discovery of Pluralism in Ten Tales Giancarlo Bosetti Chair of Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations Milano, Italy ISSN 2352-8370 ISSN 2352-8389 (electronic) Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations ISBN 978-3-031-25522-9 ISBN 978-3-031-25523-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25523-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To monists and the Tree of the Truth in custody in their larder, may they come to realize that others have it too Preface Sternstunden der Menschheit–“Great moments” or literally “Stellar Moments of Humanity” is the title of Stefan Zweig’s book narrating 14 “fatal” events (from Waterloo to the fall of Constantinople, from Lenin’s sealed train to Wilson’s fail- ure). The shooting stars in Giancarlo Bosetti’s book are instead “magic moments” in the history of thought, moments at which a flash of insight occurs when observing that our own truth wavers when faced with the truth of “others”. From a status of absoluteness and certainty in given times and thanks to extraordinarily enlightened thinkers, one consciously falls into relativity, just as happens when the natives of one tribe move beyond their own borders and discover that another tribe has a different totem, a different taboo. What is law on this side of the Pyrenees is a crime on the other side (Pascal). This can be a painful discovery, but it soon reveals a benign and gratifying dimension that is also joyful, because it carries one’s mind to a higher level, making it able to acknowledge our previous naïve ignorance. It shows the mind that the shared status of human knowledge is fallible, partial and unable to obtain absolute truth. It opens the mind to dialogue. There is a treasure at the end of this intellectual chase in the journey through the flashing of the truth of the others, the god of the others, in the opening of the best brains in human history to the “learned ignorance” (from Nicholas of Cues to Kant) that tames our primitive, instinctive knowledge of everything, be it a revealed knowledge of the Holy Texts or gained by the daring of philosophical knowledge such in Parmenides and his suc- cessors. And this treasure has a name: “pluralism”, a word that speaks of the mul- tiplicity of cultures and perspectives of the world that are manifested as equally truthful or equally almost true. With this we do not fall into perspectivism or relativ- ism according to which anything goes but are enriched by an awareness of our limi- tations in the way we observe the matters of the world, something that could make us far wiser and more tolerant. Along the way, we discover the opponents of this perspective, who in turn deserve a name, that of “Monists”, who see as decadent or even worse (when they are religious authorities) as a sin or heresy all concessions to the truths of others. vii viii Preface But we are not addressing all the philosophical consequences of cultural and moral pluralism on this occasion. With the exception of a brief introduction, the adventurous substance of this book lies in its journey through 10 “magic moments”. Milano, Italy Giancarlo Bosetti Contents 1 Introduction: The Golden Moments of Pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 ASHOKA: Ancient Rocks Teaching the Art of Discussion . . . . . . . . . 11 3 ORIGEN: Redemption Is for All, Not for Us Alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3.1 Antioch, 218 A.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 4 NICHOLAS OF CUSA: A Vision—From Verity to Variety . . . . . . . . 35 4.1 Constantinople, September 1437 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 4.2 An Aegean Island, February 1438 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 4.3 Constantinople, 2 June 1453 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 4.4 Mediterranean Sea, Europe, Summer 1453 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 5 LAS CASAS: Duel of a Lifetime in Valladolid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 6 MONTAIGNE, Cannibals and Us: Who are the Barbarians? . . . . . . 71 7 LESSING: Answer Coded in the Parable of the Three Rings . . . . . . 81 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 The Parable of the Three Rings (pp.36–38) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 8 KALLEN: America, the Diversity to Orchestrate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 9 DUPUIS: The Alexandrian Spark Lights Up Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 10 MARGARET MEAD: Samoan Adventure with Much Ado . . . . . . . . 117 11 Isaiah Berlin: Monists and the Concoction of the Tragic Omelet . . . 131 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 ix About the Author Giancarlo Bosettiis the head of Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations, the association he founded in 2004 with Nina zu Fürstenberg, and Reset, a cultural magazine, he founded in 1993 with Norberto Bobbio and a group of liberal-socialist intellectuals. He was vice-editor-in-chief of the Italian daily L’Unità. He is also columnist for the Italian daily La Repubblica. With a degree in philosophy, he has been adjunct professor at the University La Sapienza and University Roma Tre. Among his books Il legno storto, Cinque idee per ripensare la sinistra, Marsilio 1991, La lezione di questo secolo, with Karl Popper, Marsilio 1992. (The Lesson of This Century, Routledge 1997), Cattiva maestra. La rabbia di Oriana Fallaci e il suo contagio, Marsilio 2005, Spin. Trucchi e tele-imbrogli della politica, Marsilio 2007. Il falli- mento dei laici furiosi. Come stanno perdendo la scommessa contro Dio, Rizzoli 2009. Latest book: La verità degli altri, La scoperta del pluralismo in dieci storie, Bollati-Boringhieri 2019. xi