1. Practical Rationality in Political Contexts. Facing Diversity in Contemporary Multicultural Europe

Multicultural societies constitute a challenge for our institutions, for individual members of our communities, and for intermediate entities, such as families, schools, businesses, professional associations. Our present condition puts our practical reasons under considerable stress, so that we need to face this question: how can we best deploy our cognitive and volitional capacities, in order to overcome the challenges that we need to face? The original essays included in this volume tackle this question by relying on the authors’ joint research on practical reason. The essays focus on various kinds of cultural diversity in Europe, both within its borders and in its international relations, and consider the philosophical significance that different disciplines (ranging from linguistics, to sociology, to literary criticism) may have in understanding how disagreement and agreement can be managed in our societies.

Gabriele De Anna teaches Philosophy at the University of Bamberg (Germany) and is research fellow at the University of Udine (Italy) and at Centre for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh (USA). He was Marie Curie Fellow at Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge. He received two PhDs in Philosophy, one from the University of Padua (Italy) and one from the University of St. Andrews (UK). He wrote over eighty essays in scientific journals (including Philosophy, Review of Metaphysics, Philosophical Quarterly) and collective volumes. He edited seven volumes, including Evolutionary ethics and contemporary biology (Cambridge University Press 2006, with G. Boniolo), Willing the Good. Empirical Challenges to the Explanation of Human Behaviour (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) and Moral Realism and Political Decisions (Bamberg University Press 2015, with R. Martinelli). He authored six books, including Azione e rappresentanza. Un problema metafisico del liberalismo contemporaneo (ESI, 2012), Scienza, politica, normatività. La natura umana tra l’immagine scientifica e quella manifesta (FrancoAngeli, 2012), Causa, forma, rappresentazione. Una trattazione a partire da Tommaso d’Aquino (FrancoAngeli, 2010), Individuo e persona. Tre saggi su chi siamo (Bompiani, 2007, with G. Boniolo and U. Vincenti).

Riccardo Martinelli is Associate Professor and teaches History of Philosophy at the University of Trieste. He was a Humboldt-Fellow in 2004 and has been Visiting Fellow at the Universities of Konstanz, Berlin, and Mainz. In addition to many essays published in Italian and international journals, he has authored several monographs (Misurare l’anima, Quodlibet 1999, Musica e natura, Unicopli 2000, Uomo, natura, mondo, Il Mulino 2004; I filosofi e la musica, Il Mulino 2012) and edited numerous volumes, together with colleagues in Italy and abroad: Essays on Carl Stumpf, Brill 2015, with D. Fisette; Moral Realism and Political Decisions, Bamberg University Press 2015, with G. De Anna; Pragmatismo e pragmatica, EUT 2015; L’universo kantiano, Quodlibet 2011 with S. Besoli and C. La Rocca; Philosophical Anthropology: Historical Perspectives, EUT 2010; etc. He is also part of a number of International Associations and editorial boards.