Vol. 34 (2019): THE OTHER, THE FOREIGNER, THE GUEST

If philosophical thought questioned the forms of otherness since its first emergence, the contemporary age saw a sort of haste where these forms intertwined with geo-philosophical challenges, the changing paradigms of social survey and the new areas of knowledge produced by human sciences.

The acceleration thereby generated also involved philosophy, which was questioned on two fronts: the theoretical formulation or review of the otherness paradigms on which western civilization has built itself, and the epistemological and methodological front where the thinking questions its own way of thinking the other. However, in relation to the social and political situation and to the intense public debate, the philosophical thought cannot avoid to reflect on its own infinite resource: the other, indeed, starting from the forms assumed, asserts itself as injunction and demand, especially when it asks for hospitality (even within theoretical elaboration) or when it manifests itself as a foreigner who, according to Michel de Certeau, is not reducible, without whom living is no longer living.

Therefore the issue involves thinking again all the theoretical and epistemological issues requested by the otherness, and everything was produced by the western philosophical tradition during its long history, every time it met (or collided with) the foreigner (expression of extraneousness) who requested for a theoretical advancement or a new path, without forgetting theology and the different religious traditions, where the otherness often intertwined with transcendence producing important considerations.

Calling for networks and bounds between philosophy and various methodological subjects within human sciences, Bollettino filosofico aims to go back over ancient and new issues about the other and its faces, beyond what is taken for assumed, even towards a reflection on the relation that, as Emmanuel Levinas wrote, “incommensurate with a power exercised, be it enjoyment or knowledge”.