EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM FOR POLITICAL RESEARCH

Joint Sessions, Nicosia, Cyprus

25-30 April 2006

----------------------------

A paper prepared for Workshop 7: The Future of Political Community.

“RETHINKING POLITICAL COMMUNITY FROM

NEGLECTED PLACES”

By Giuseppe Ballacci

Department of Political Science and International Relations Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Facultad de Derecho Edificio Ciencias Jurídicas, Políticas y Económicas

1ª planta C/Marie Curie, nº 1

Ciudad Universitaria de Cantoblanco 28049 Cantoblanco (Madrid)

Tel. 0034914974912 Fax. 0034914974166

Email: giuseppe.ballacci@uam.es

DRAFT . PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION

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Introduction:

From a political point of view our epoch is a period of great contrast and opacity. But

not much in the sense of a lack of certainty and clarity that derives from the questioning

of the great enlightened political projects; than in the inconsistency of the dialectic

confrontation, although their common roots, between two of the main products of

modernity: we are talking about the liberal cosmopolitanism and the postmodern or

poststructuralist reaction to it. The somewhat inconsistent debate which we are referring

to develops around central questions for political philosophy, such as: the definition of

the political community, the relation between the individual and community, the nature

of ethical relations in politics, and the deep meaning of politics itself. In general terms,

the dispute has started to rebound monotonously between one of the two poles of a

serious of dichotomies – Universalism VS particularism, identity VS difference,

inclusion VS exclusion – without succeeding to exit this closed movement and follow

other paths. The two sides of the dichotomies refer to the main normative issues raised

by the two factions in the dispute. In this paper we will argue that, thinkers, who are

currently considering these questions, tend to fall in a sort of cul de sac between those

finally irreconcilable dichotomies, because of their incapacity to exit the dialectic game

that has grown between these positions. This dialectic game precludes the possibility to

walk through other paths, to recur to other topics about the issues in question. One of

the object of this paper is to show how the construction of these dichotomies, whose

roots lie at least partially in the predominance of dialectic and logical thinking in

modernity, prevents a deeper comprehension of both of their poles. This is so, because

of the common tendency, in scholars dealing with these themes, to try to overcome

dialectically – either by confutation or inclusion – the positions unfolded in the debate,

longing for a superior synthesis. Trying to escape from this cul de sac, we will maintain

the necessity to attend to other traditions, first of all the philosophies of Eric Voegelin

and Giambattista Vico. This would allow, at least partially, an opening of the horizon of

discussion. We will propose an interpretation of their thoughts that will suggest not a

dialectical but a complementary presentation of the transcendental dimension of our

existence, and in the same time, of its contingent facet. These are, in fact, two elements

that we retain fundamental to approach basic political issues, such as the definition of

political community.

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The perils of immanentism:

The importance of the intern realm of the individuals in the political life of the polis has

been recognized since the origins in our culture. An old English proverb says that “polis

is man written large”1. And the same idea was also one of the main convictions of Plato.

But if we want to talk about the internal realm of human beings and its meaning for

politics, it is fundamental from the beginning to specify that we must refer not only to

the executive and intentional part of the self, which is given the sovereignty on the life

of individuals by liberal theory, but also to that indefinite and extreme powerful realm

of the individual, which Thomas Hobbes once defined “the Kingdome of Darkness”2.

This realm has a great significance for public life because its activities and knowledge

have a deep impact in the public behaviour of the individual, although they escape from

our control and lack a direct voice for expressing themselves3. The relation between the

internal realm of individual – in its mix of rational and emotional, conscious and

unconscious parts - and the community is therefore a fundamental one. And this is still

more true, if we consider that between the two elements there is no a clear separation;

hence that, for example, the spiritual illness of the first could imply an essential disorder

for the second, and viceversa. According to Eric Voegelin:

“spiritual disease is not a man’s private affair, but has a public consequences”4

In the tradition of occidental thought, since the origins, there has been a tendency,

which has received a fundamental boost at the dawn of Modernity with the explosion of

rationalism, to disentangle logos and pathos in their original and fundamental unity.

This disunion has been carried out with the intention to create a hierarchy between the

two spheres, attributing only to the rational part of the individual the capacity to

produce knowledge and hence social progress. The emotional realm has consequently

been disregarded as “irrational”, in the meaning of not able to be controlled, and hence

1 J. ROIZ; “Editorial”, Foro Interno: Anuario de teoría política, Vol. 1, 2001. 2 Ibid., p. 9. 3 Javier Roiz explores with great keenness the political significance of the intern realm and the liberal castration of it in his: J. ROIZ, El experimento moderno: Política y psicología al final del siglo XX, Trotta, Madrid, 1992. J. ROIZ, La recuperación del buen juicio: Teoría política en el siglo XX, Foro Interno, Madrid, 2003, especially chapter 8. 4 E. VOEGELIN, “On Hegel: A Study in Sorcery” (1971), in E. SANDOZ (ed.), The Collected Works of

Eric Voegelin: Published Essays. 1966-1985, Vol. 12, 1990, p. 237.

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dangerous for the public sphere5. In the history of political philosophy some of the great

characters have, on the contrary, been able to fully penetrate in this domain, without a

precautionary and blocking fear of the disorder that it can generate, but understanding

its transcendental importance in the public life. Eric Voegelin has been one of these

great characters, as this quote can testify: “The field of history is the soul of the man”6.

In his political philosophy there has always been a fundamental attention towards the

epical component of human life and the significance of symbols in the social

representation of truth. Such preoccupations rest on a rich and in a certain sense anti-

Cartesian conception of the individual7. Objective deeds of history come to our attention

always filtered through the wefts of tales and interpretations, which accumulate along

the way. The social scientist has to work on a reality which is constructed by a self-

interpretation of society, which anticipates science. This self-interpretation represents a

cosmovision made of a system of symbols, elaborated in the form of myths, which

illuminates and confers meaning to human experience. Such symbolic system is

essential for the individual and society, because it endows with intelligible significance

the basic mysteries of existence. Hence that it is experienced by society as representing

in some way its essence. On this system of symbolization theoretical thinking works,

trying to clarify it and, in the meanwhile, producing itself a new set of symbols, which

enters social reality and mingle with the first set of symbols8. This activity of

clarification of the symbolic system is fundamental for the understanding of the political

reality. According to this belief, Eric Voegelin’s political theory has always been

5 The Italian philosopher Ernesto Grassi, who has been a pupil of Heidegger, has dedicated a great deal of his theoretical efforts to reconstruct and try to overcome the reasons of this separation. For accomplishing this enterprise he has recurred to the wisdom of a forgotten tradition, such as the Italian Humanism, which has its philosophical roots in the classical rhetoric of authors like Cicero, or Quintiliano. See, for instance: E. GRASSI, Vico e l’Umanesimo, Guerrini, Milano, 1992. E. GRASSI, Retorica come filosofia: la

tradizione umanista, Napoli, La città del sole, 1999. 6 E. VOEGELIN, quoted in G: WEISS, “Between Gnosis and Anamnesis: European Perspectives on Eric Voegelin”, Review of Politics, 2000, vol. 62 (4), pp. 753-776. 7 In the thought of Voegelin, the dividing line between the world and the foro interno of the individual is not an impermeable and definite barrier, but a permeable and fuzzy one. A really interesting example of the relations between these two realms, in the case of a spiritual disorder, which is social and at the same time individual, is given in a chapter that Voegelin dedicated to Hegel. E. VOEGELIN, “On Hegel”. See also: J. ROIZ, La recuperación del buen juicio: Teoría política en el siglo XX, Foro Interno, Madrid, 2003, pp. 93-94. 8 E. VOEGELIN, “The New Science of Politics”, in M. HENNINGSEN (ed.), The Collected Works of

Eric Voegelin: Modernity Without Restraints, Vol. 5, Columbia, University of Missouri Press, p. 109-110.

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concerned with the study of the mythic reality of social life, its cosmovision, being it

fundamental in the representation of order, which is a central issue in his work9.

In his rich philosophy one of the concept most important is surely that of

Gnosticism. In the interpretation of Voegelin it represents a spiritual movement born

during the empire in the ninth century A.C., which responds to a profound sense of

spiritual crisis10. Its main features are: 1) a discontent with one’s own situation; 2) the

belief that the drawbacks of this situation are caused by the intrinsically poor

organization of the world; 3) the conviction that a salvation from evil of this world is

possible; 4) the belief that the order of being will have to be change in history; 5) the

belief that this change in the order of being lies in the realm of human possibilities: that

salvation is possible through human action; 6) knowledge – gnosis – is the method of

accomplishing such a change11. The main feature of this movement could be

synthesized in this manner:

“all Gnostic movements are involved in the project of abolishing the constitution of being, with

its origin in divine, transcendent being, and replacing it with world-immanent order of being, the

perfection of which lies in the realm of human action”12

Along with Gnosticism another fundamental category in Voegelin’s thought is the

differentiation of consciousness. It is the realization of a radical difference, in the

personal experience of existence, between an immanent pole and a transcendent one

(which can be referred to as “God”, or “the Beyond”). These two poles stay in a mutual

tense relation, where the individual is captured in the in-between, longing for the

transcendent pole13. These two poles could slip into a “hypostatization” transforming

themselves from modes of experience of our conscience to concrete things: the

9 E. VOEGELIN, “Immortality: Experience and Symbol” (1967), in E. SANDOZ (ed.), The Collected

Works of Eric Voegelin: Published Essays. 1966-1985, Vol. 12, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1990, p. 53. 10 Eric Voegelin shaped his first account of the concept “Gnosticism” essentially on the Hans Jonas’s reconstruction of it. Successively he deepened his historical research on the subject and modified his idea. Anyway, many authors have doubted on the solidness of “Gnosticism” as a unique and precisely definable historical phenomenon. Along the years Voegelin himself started to doubt about the empirical validity of this concept, and tried to substitute with others. What really he never abandons was the spiritual problem that the concept Gnosticism describes. See, for example: S. ROSSBACH, ““Gnosis” in Eric Voegelin's Philosophy”, Political Science Reviewer, 2005, vol. 34, pp. 77-121. E. WEBB, “Voegelin's "Gnosticism" Reconsidered”, Political Science Reviewer, 2005, vol. 34, pp. 48-76. 11 E. VOEGELIN, “Science, Politics, and Gnosticism”, in M. HENNINGSEN (ed.), The Collected Works

of Eric Voegelin, p. 297-298. 12 E. VOEGELIN quoted in: E. WEBB, “Voegelin's “Gnosticism” Reconsidered”, p. 60. 13 E. WEBB, “Voegelin's “Gnosticism” Reconsidered”, p. 62.

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transcendent one becoming an entity called “God” and the immanent part, one called

“man”, being the two things completely separated. But the real problem surges when

occurs a derailment of this differentiation of consciousness into a Gnostic form. It

occurs for example through a process of immanentization of the Beyond, which

becomes an inframundane and knowable entity. Modernity, according to Voegelin, can

be characterized according to this tendency. Its rupture against the Christianity, which

had re-introduced the Beyond in the world, through the institution of the Church, is only

apparent, in the sense that it follows its immanentization in that it considers the truth to

be enclosed in the world. It can be reached by the human action, being this effort the

unfolding of history14. That truth, the Beyond, is represented in the world as the final

state of perfection that humanity can reach. The great philosophies of history, such that

of Hegel, or Marx, with their promises of a final state in human development, a final

revolution which allows the transfiguration of the world, are the best examples of this.

Another instance of modern derailment of differentiation of consciousness is positivism.

The consequences of this process of immanentization are for Voegelin serious: on

one hand, immanentization implies a deep spiritual crisis in denying the transcendental

pole of our existential structure, which is a fundamental aspect of human being. On the

other, it means a temptation of omnipotence, a libido dominandi¸ which could lead in

the most serious cases to totalitarianism15. One way of interpreting the Beyond in

Voegelin’s philosophy is, indeed, to consider it the locus of the maximum concentration

of power: the omnipotence. In the Jewish religion God is considered as an entity

completely outside our world. According to this interpretation of God, this means that

the human world has been freed from any temptation of omnipotence. It indeed lies

outside this; hence it is lived by men as an absence16. On the contrary, Modernity,

although its opposition against the obscurantist power of the religious institutions,

didn’t recover the full dimension of existence that was dried by the falling of

Christianity in a dogmatic form, and inevitably fell again in the world-immanent vision

of truth17. The transcendent truth – that is, the whole awareness of the mysteries of our

existences – can be discovered by men through the right knowledge. Once grasped it,

the unfolding of human experience through history will reveal its inevitable rational

necessity. Ideologies are the doctrines that synthesize the rationality of history, its “iron

14 J. ROIZ, La recuperación del buen juicio, p. 75. 15 E. VOEGELIN, “The New Science of Politics”, p. 195. 16 J. ROIZ, La recuperación del buen juicio, p. 71. 17 E. VOEGELIN, “Immortality”, p. 74.

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laws”, which, however, in their unfolding towards progress always will manifest a

certain amount of necessary violence18. The omnipotence comes, in this way, into view

again, in the act of usurpation performed by man on God, and the libido dominandi over

nature is violently produced by the conviction to have the solution to the

“imperfections” of history; a conviction which serves to appease the absolute anxiety

caused by the loss of contact with the transcendent mystery of life19. In this situation, the

loss that human beings experiment as a spiritual state of disorder – “the boredom of the

world” lamented by Hegel - is supplemented with the construction of a “Second

reality”, and the consequent destruction of the real one. This “Second reality” turns to

be a fictitious and oppressive cage, where mankind is annihilated under the necessary

laws of history – the eschatological inheritance of Christianity20:

“Every single man is but a blind link in the chain of absolute necessity by which the world

builds itself forth. The single man can elevate himself to dominance over an appreciable length of

this chain only if he knows the direction in which the great necessity wants to move and if he

learns from this knowledge to pronounce the magic words that will evoke its shape”21

Philosophy loses in this manner its essence of “love of wisdom”, and becomes an

immanent and totalitarian religion where each human limitation disappears, all the

imperfections overtaken, and the perfect city, the platonic kallipolis, is proposed as

concrete possibility22.

The “Gnostic” derailment of contemporary cosmopolitanism:

As we noticed above, the category of Gnosticism is from an historical and empirical

point of view questionable; equally it is so Voegelin’s initial thesis that considers

Gnosticism, in its substantial continuity from antiquity to modernity, being the

fundamental process in order to explain the essential feature of the last one23. Still, he

always remained deeply convinced of the great importance of the existential question

18 The violent character of the human journey toward truth has been a constant feature in modern consciousness. H. BLUMENBERG, Paradigmas de una metaforología, Trotta, Madrid, 2003, p. 73. 19 Ibid., 72-76. One of the most interesting examples of this process could be found in the philosophy of history of Hegel. Voegelin proposes a great interpretation of it in his: E. VOEGELIN, “On Hegel”. 20 E. VOEGELIN, “On Hegel”, p. 216-221. 21 G. F. HEGEL, quoted in ibid., p. 221. 22 J. ROIZ, La recuperación del buen juicio, p. 78. 23 S. ROSSBACH, ““Gnosis” in Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy”, pp. 83-88.

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that this category underscored, and equally, of its relevance in understanding the

modern age. In this paper we indeed use the term “Gnosticism” in this sense: in order to

underline a tendency to transform truth in an immanent and reachable thing, which

could have as by-product a political and philosophical slip toward omnipotence. We are

convinced that in contemporary theoretical discussions about cosmopolitanism, it is still

possible to see a subterranean tendency to slide in the phenomenon denounced by

Voegelin. Although or maybe thanks to the violent upsurge of different kinds of

particularisms, universalism is once again at the centre of the debate. Indeed, current

political situation is characterized by an astonishing upsurge of different kinds of

particularism, which is causing an equally important increase in universalism, in a sort

of dialectical movement unable to find a theoretical and empirical way out. So the

Gnostic derailment of modern ideologies, which Voegelin denounced, is still, in our

opinion, of great actuality, although in this case it is more subterranean24.

In the last years we have testified the production of an increasing amount of works

addressing the issues of justice in international relations, the redefinition of political

community, or the universality of some norms such as human rights, or democratic

rules. This has occurred in the framework of the debate on globalization and the

questioning of the national context in whose limits political theory has uncritically

developed till the very last years. In this context a set of works have been published,

which propose the creation of something such a cosmopolitan community, or at least, a

society of states where a minimum set of norms like human rights, or democratic rules,

are to be universalized25. All these cosmopolitan works are quite different in their

proposals, draining from different sources and presenting different justification of their

argument: the famous veil of ignorance of John Rawls re-proposed on an international

scale; the discourse ethics of Jürgen Habermas; the hermeneutics of Hans Gadamer; and 24 Eugene Webb, in his analysis of the category of Gnosticism in Eric Voegelin’s works, underscore that its strong polemical component directed to the universalistic ideologies of modernity would decrease, if his author should re-formulate it now, after the end of the Cold War, where the peril seems to come much more from particularisms. Anyway, we suggest that universalism is still very important today, so it is the denounce of some of its negative consequences made by Voegelin. E. WEBB, “Voegelin’s “Gnosticism” Reconsidered”, p. 59. 25 See for example: D. ARCHIBUGI (ed.), Debating Cosmopolitics, Verso, London, 2003; C. BEITZ, Political Theory and International Relations, Princeton University Press, Princeton (New Jersey), 1979; M. FROST, Ethics in International Relations: A Constitutive Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996; D. HELD, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan

Governance, Polity, Cambridge, 1995; A. LINKLATER, The Transformation of Political Community, Polity, Cambridge, 1998; J. RAWLS, The Law of Peoples, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1999; R. SHAPCOTT, Justice, Community, and Dialogue in International Relations, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001; M. WALZER, Thick and Thin: Moral Arguments at Home and

Abroad, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1994.

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so on. Yet we suggest that they share a common tendency, although in different

measure, toward the immanentization of truth that Voegelin denounced with his

category of Gnosticism.

In order to prove our affirmation we will refer to one of the last and most

sophisticated intent to conceive a cosmopolitan community, where justice is based on

the recognition of difference. We are talking about Richard Shapcott’s “Justice,

Community, and Dialogue in International Relations”26. The work of this scholar is in

our perspective particularly interesting because, although maintaining itself in the

cosmopolitan and universalistic tradition, it tries to re-formulate it in such a way to

include the different criticisms formulated by different perspectives, such as

communitarism, poststructuralism, and feminism27. In this manner, it shows a lucid

awareness about the limits of liberal universalism in conciliating justice with difference.

In our opinion, in fact, sensibility for the infinite variety of humanity, and the

contingency of its representations, is a quality that every political philosophy should

possess. Shapcott seeks in the interpretation of the acts of communication provided by

the hermeneutics of Gadamer his way out from the puzzle of reconciliating justice with

difference. Such perspective allows him to develop a sort of “thin” cosmopolitanism28,

where the broadening of the frontiers of community is reached through practices of

communication, whereby the other is recognized without anticipating anything of its

identity, but its will to be understood. In a gadamerian fashion, Shapcott theorizes an act

of conversation, moulded on the pattern of the Socratic dialogue, as the core of a

cosmopolitan community that could conciliate a thin moral universalism, with the

recognition of difference29. In this paper, anyway, we are not really interested in

analyzing in detail the philosophical argument proposed by the author. What we would

like to underline, instead, is the unspoken assumptions, which we believe to glimpse

lying behind this work and in general behind the cosmopolitan tradition. The essence of

the criticism on the issue of difference moved to cosmopolitanism consists in refusing

closed and relative definitions of truth about morality, the essence of human beings, and

26 R. SHAPCOTT, Justice, Community, and Dialogue in International Relations. See also: R. SHAPCOTT, “Conversation and Coexistence: Gadamer and the Interpretation of International Society”, Millennium, vol. 23, no. 1, 1994, pp. 57-83. R. SHAPCOTT, “Cosmopolitan Conversations: Justice Dialogue and the Cosmopolitan Project”, Global Society, vol. 16, no. 3, 2002, pp. 221-243. 27 Ibid., p. 12; also chapters 2, 3. 28 Shapcott refers here to the distinction between “thin” and “thick” cosmopolitanism introduced by Iris Marion Young. See: I. M. YOUNG, Justice and the Politics of Difference, Princeton University Press, Princeton (New Jersey), 1990. 29 R. SHAPCOTT, Justice, Community, and Dialogue in International Relations, pp.: 48-52; 142-150.

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the basic structure of politics, which are sold as universal ones by this. In front of a kind

of criticism so destabilizing, which has been proposed in many different manners, with

different accents and purposes, the more receptive cosmopolitan thinkers, such as

Shapcott, couldn’t remain impassable. Hence the intent to include in his

cosmopolitanism all the theoretical instruments proposed by the critics to make

universalism permeable to difference. In his work “Justice, Community, and Dialogue

in International Relations” we can find a progressive refining of the cosmopolitan

project to include, without betraying the cosmopolitan faith, firstly the communitarian

critic, then the poststructuralist and finally the feminist one, resulting in a new

interpretation of universalism, which could account for all these voices.

What is the problem with this kind of argument? In our opinion in a theoretical

stance like this it is possible to find hints of that tendency to immanentization of truth

that Voegelin condemned. It dwells in an undeclared conviction to be on the right way

to find the right formula, what Voegelin called an act of “sorcery”, for reaching the

perfection, in this case the perfect model of dialogue through which reconciliating

community and difference, universalism and particularism. Cosmopolitanism remains in

its “thin” version, as the Kantian precept of considering the others as ends in

themselves, and difference is allowed, even welcomed, through the theoretical

instruments of hermeneutics, poststructuralism, and so on. Actually, the author declares

explicitly the impossibility to find a definitive solution to the tense relation between

community and difference30; and also, through the defence of the classic concept of

phronesis offered by Gadamer, admits the human finitude in front of the ultimate

uncontrollability of our destiny31. So, there is certain recognition of the evasiveness of

truth, perfection, order, in this world. Still, the main assumption is that through the right

kind of dialogue is possible to solve in a practically definitive way the main problems of

existence and coexistence. It is possible, in other words, to see in the very background

of the scene, a faith in the possibility for philosophy to betrays itself, trying to surpass

its structure of “love of wisdom” and arrive at the final understanding32.In Shapcott’s

account we can still find that ancient equivalence between cosmos and logos, which

implies that through a dialogical effort, theoretically supported, we can totally master

30 Ibid., p. 3. 31 Ibid., p. 156. 32 E. VOEGELIN, “On Hegel”, p. 223.

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our destiny33. Hence, the cosmo-polis, thanks to that equivalence, will be the logos-

polis, the perfect city, the myth of the “total community” reached through consensus by

the way of Socratic dialogue. This kind of cosmovision leaves no room for a positive

recognition of the ultimate transcendental evasiveness of the existential truths. It, in a

certain sense, it fails to transmit the in-between of human existence, because it forgets

its divine or transcendent pole. The consequence is that the human cognitive core is

transfigured, because the transcendent pole is substituted by an immanent one: that is,

ultimate truth is immanentized. Therefore, search for truth will be no more considered

as the essence of humanity, but an historical imperfection that could be overcome once

for all; whereas this imperfection is exactly our manner to stay in the world34. For this

reason is also evident, of course, that Shapcott is not able either to acknowledge the

importance of mythical and poetic language in communicating the deepness of human

soul, where we experience the in-between of our existence. Rhetorical, poetic, mythical

language is fundamental considering the inseparable union in humans between logos

and pathos and particularly it is indispensable in order to communicate the our

transcendent condition. This lack implies that the theory of communication of Shapcott

is heavily mutilated. Anyway, on these fundamental questions we will return with

major extension shortly.

In the end, we would like to suggest that the kind of difficulties that we have

evidenced being at the foundations of a cosmopolitan perspective of Shapcott are still

more serious in other instances of contemporary cosmopolitanisms less open to critical

voices reclaiming the irreducible diversity and contingency of human conditions, such

for example the account of Andrew Linklater, David Held, or John Rawls. In these

authors, indeed, the omnipotence of reason over our destiny is still more explicit.

The postmodern sceptical hollowness:

Before passing to the last and conclusive part of this paper, where the role of rhetoric in

society will be analyzed through the vision of Giambattista Vico, we would like to

dwell briefly on a kind of argument quite different to the cosmopolitan one, which could

be listened from authors broadly definable as “postmodern”. One of the main topics

which is risen by these thinkers is the denunciation of the usual tendency in modern

33 H. BLUMENBERG, Paradigmas de una metaforología, p. 43. 34 E. VOEGELIN, “On Hegel”, pp.: 232-239.

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political philosophy toward what Roberto Esposito called the construction of the myth

of “total community”35, or the totalitarian resolution of what William Connolly has

labelled the political paradox of the relation between identity and difference36.

This is the idea that a community should aspire to represent in its final stage a

whole without break where is performed the absolute Good. The community will be

therefore the One, which is the perfect solution to the problem of coexistence between

different individuals. In a pretension like this underlies an intrinsic totalitarian desire to

reduce the irreducible difference of the other to the same, to what is supposedly

common, in order to appease the anxiety for stability and steadiness in front of

contingency of life. Hence the call for a community to celebrate its incompleteness,

interrupt its own myth37, which means recognizing its transcendence to itself, or the lack

of complete transparency to the idea of good life38. At the same time is fundamental to

recognize the violent and political nature of the process of constructing an identity,

which creates and maintains itself excluding the other – the “constitutive other” of

Jacques Derrida –, and once having recognized this, is necessary to combat against the

unnecessary suffering caused by this exclusion. So, what is called for is the

renunciation of any invitation to constitute the One, the perfect community, although

this community would represent the whole humanity, around notions as a universal

human essence, a foundational myth, and so on, which pretends the identification of the

individual with the common essence and the exclusion of the other who doesn’t fit in

this essence39. And to substitute this with the opening, suggested by Derrida, to the

difference understood as the radical otherness of the excluded, the singularity of the

encounter with the other, who is not identified with anything a priori, but only with the

call to wait for what hasn’t still come40.

35 R. ESPOSITO, Confines de lo político: Nueve pensamientos sobre política, Trotta, Madrid, 1996, chapter 2. 36 W. CONNOLLY, Identiy/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1991. 37 M. TÉLLEZ, “Reinventar la comunidad, interrumpir su mito”, Foro Interno, vol. 1, 2001, pp. 13-37. 38 R. ESPOSITO, Confines de lo político, pp. 42-43. William Connolly refers to something very similar, when he speaks of a “politics of becoming”. W. CONNOLLY, “Suffering, Justice, and the Politics of Becoming”, in D. CAMPBELL and M. J. SHAPIRO (eds.), Moral Spaces: Rethinking Ethics and World

Politics, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1999. 39 A good example of this stance is expressed in the collective volume edited by David Cambpell and Michael J. Shapiro, which tries to deal with the theme of ethics in international relations from a postmodern, or deconstructive, perspective. The inspiration drawn from the work of Derrida and Levinas is a continuous thread along all the chapters of this book. D. CAMPBELL and M. J. SHAPIRO (eds.), Moral Spaces. 40 M. TÉLLEZ, “Reinventar la comunidad, interrumpir su mito”, p. 23-24.

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A kind a posture like this, which celebrates the contingency and difference of the

world, entails commonly a rejection of the myth in its foundational function for the

community, in its representing once for all the end that makes it meaningful, the

universal which includes and annuls all particularities41. So, for example, it refuses the

myth of “the universal human drama”, because it reveals an underlying closed

metaphysics, an ideological and arrogant conception of Truth, and a complicity in a

system of hegemonic and oppressive power relations42.

According to what we have said, it is evident that, in the case of postmodern

thinkers, the assumption about the omnipotence of reason in discovering the immanent

truth by rationality alone is eschewed. However another serious question in our opinion

arises. The postmodern suspicious toward any account of the universal, of the

everlasting dimension of humanity, is derived by its character of a metanarritve in

Lyotard’s sense: that is, a narrative of the essence of humanity that, considering itself

valid in all time and space, forgets or conceals its historical, contingent nature, and its

relationship with power relations. Each kind of metaphysical or religious answer to the

search for ultimate meaning in human existence, or each foundational reference to

something like the essence of humanity43, is a harmful attack to the pluralism of

cultures, the contingency of human life; it is a totalitarian attempt to reduce the plurality

of the world. It is, therefore, necessary to abandon universalistic conception of human

nature, notions of privileged access to ultimate meanings, and to celebrate, as Nietzsche

did, the richness of the constant flowing of the life, the Dionysian vitalistic interplay of

human vitality and difference44. This kind of perspective can be shared in great length,

but we are afraid that this suspicious refusal of metaphysical accounts risks going too

further, forgetting an important aspect of human life. It could prevent any kind of taking

into account the fundamental experience of consciousness to be part of a reality which

transcends the finitude of space and time. It could avert the questioner attitude towards

the ultimate meanings of our existence which is a basic characteristic of human being. It

41 In the case of Esposito, anyway, the myth is not rejected. What the author asks for is to continuously interrupt the myth, to live it always in its limit, in order to not allow it to implement itself completely, becoming a totalitarian source of oppression. R. ESPOSITO, Confines de lo político, p. 42. 42 G. HUGHES, Transcendence and History: The Search for Ultimacy from Ancient Societies to

Postmodernity, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, 2003, p. 11. 43 Richard Rorty’s celebration of contingency of human condition, which subordinates everything to the flux of time and space, is a very good example of this posture. Equally, his invitation to divert attention from such questions as those on the essence of humanity. R. RORTY, Contingencia, ironía y

solidariedad, Paidós, Barcelona, 1991, chapter 2. R. RORTY, “Derechos humanos, racionalidad y sentimentalidad”, in S. Shute and S. Hurley (eds.), De los derechos humanos, Trotta, Madrid, 1998. 44 G. HUGHES, Transcendence and History, pp.: 29-34.

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could stop any attempt to plunge into the deepness of the soul, where there are those

obscure and silent zones of the individual that escape from the tyranny of time and

space, and play a fundamental role in driving the individual in the public arena45. This

longing for the universal, for the eternal, has always showed to be important, maybe

fundamental, for sustaining a cosmopolitan moral concern. The consciousness of being

a part of a “universal human drama”, called history, is a basic component for binding

the meaning of an individual life to that of all. And in order to conceive such kind of

eternal history, of common enterprise, is necessary to imagine a universal participation

in a timeless reality that transcends the finite dimension46.

Secondly, we believe that the recognition of the contingency of our lives, should

not blind us or impede to plunge and give expression to the immortal component of

human existence. We consider that in order to try to deeply understand the role of man

in history, it’s indispensable to continuously and openly ask for his essence and his

ultimate meaning. That is, we should not fall in a sort of trepidation in dealing these

issues, because of the fear to fall in essentialism, or totalitarian account, but we should

maintain the lucid awareness that this essence is in part a transcendent reality, a mystery

without solution, which can be experienced but not dominated. We can only have

glimpses of it, and the poetic and rhetoric language, as we will see, is fundamental in

this task.

Recovering the deepness of human condition through Giambattista Vico:

What should have emerged at this point is the great difficulty to conciliate the

relationship between the eternal and the contingent, and at the same time the

significance of this relationship in the human existence and therefore in the political

realm. Human condition is inextricably related to this double dimension; it dwells in its

interstice, in what Thomas Eliot called the “point of intersection of timeless / With

time”47; and when whatever of these two spheres is forgotten, it is not possible to give

an accurate account of human experience. We want to suggest in this final section that 45 J. ROIZ, El experimento moderno, pp.: 64-71. J. ROIZ, La recuperación del buen juicio, pp.: 321-323. 46 This is what has been showed by historical records, says Hughes: “the idea of a God who is “a light to all the nations”, appeared only with the Hebrew prophetic clarifications of transcendent divinity, and the philosophical notions of universal standards of justice and reason arose only in the wake of the Greek revelation of a transcendent Nous”: G. HUGHES, Transcendence and History, p. 216. It is also unquestionable the fundamental role of Christianity, through the idea of universal equality in front of God, in shaping liberal cosmopolitanism. 47 T. ELIOT, quoted in E. VOEGELIN, “Immortality”, p. 71.

15

in the work of Giambattista Vico, who embodies the philosophical climax of the

traditions of classical rhetoric and Italian Humanism, is possible to find a deep and wise

insight into this kind of questions. Once recovered, it would be possible in our opinion

to enrich our vocabulary and to exit the cul de sac of the debate between universal

liberalists and postmoderns about that relationship.

Giambattista Vico is a philosopher who has never entered wholly in the

mainstream of European philosophical traditions. Even so he has impressed lots of great

authors along the centuries for his wisdom and sagacity48. Many have seen in him a sort

of obscure spiritual mentor who can evoke with his hermetic language and quick

acuteness the deepness of human soul. Anyway, this interpretation has risked obscuring

the great philosophical scope of his thought. A good point of departure to approach it

is analyzing the dispute that, during the initial years of his career as author, Vico carried

forward with Rene Descartes (a quarrel quite unilateral, inasmuch as Descartes never

engaged with Vico). According to the philosophy of the French author all scientific

kinds of knowledge should be based on a rational method derived from mathematical

sciences. Each scientific affirmation should be derived logically from an axiomatic

truths postulated a priori49. Hence, that all the humanistic disciplines, such as poetry or

rhetoric, lost their status as scientific discipline, being relegated in the field of doxai.

The relevance of these disciplines to the public realm was denied by the rationalism of

Descartes, who considered that only a solid and scientific knowledge was useful to the

cause of human progress. Vico in all his writings never stopped to criticize a view like

this. He considered that the rigidness of the Cartesian method wasn’t able to conform to

the sinuosity of human affairs and the deepness of the soul of the individual. These

realms, as Aristotle knew, belong to the category of the plausible and not to that of

verity or falsity50. Moreover the Cartesian method was in a certain sense contrary to

human nature in that it disparaged fundamental human faculties as ingenium and

fantasy, which lead the capacity of mankind to invent and construct its world. Contrary

to the rationalist vision that Descartes was theorizing, Vico recuperated and re-

interpreted the rich classical tradition of rhetoric of Cicero and Quintiliano and the

humanistic disciplines that it cultivated, in order to re-establish the proper role of

48 G. MAZZOTTA quotes, for instance: Manzoni, Foscolo, Hamann, Herder, Goethe, Marx, Michelet, Joyce, Beckett, Ungaretti, Pavese, and Carpentier. G. MAZZOTTA, The New Map of the World: The

Poetic Philosophy of Giambattista Vico, Princeton University Press, Princeton (New Jersey), 1999, p. 3. 49 E. GRASSI, Retorica come filosofia, p. 82. 50 G. VICO, Obras: Retórica (Instituciones de Oratoria), Anthropos, Barcelona, 2004, p. 15.

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rhetoric in the society. This attitude towards the wisdom of the past was common during

the whole Italian Humanism, but in Vico it encountered its maximum expression.

But, what does mean to recover the just role in society of rhetoric? According to

Ernesto Grassi, a great part of the western philosophical tradition has operated a drastic

scission between rhetoric and philosophy, pathos and logos¸ passions and rationality,

form and content, which broke their original and basic union. This scission has been

performed in order to constitute a hierarchy between the two spheres, which ascribes the

theoretical supremacy to rationality and denies each cognitive value to imagination,

fantasy, and emotions51. According to this separation there is a logic-rational discourse,

and a rhetorical or pathetic one. The first is based on the rational-deductive method and

develops itself relating conclusions to premises through a logic demonstration. It is

produces an anonymous, and a-historical knowledge. The second, instead, is based on

the changing emotions of the listener, which depends on the “here y now” of each

situation. It is subjective and passional, it changes in time and space. Grassi, recovering

the history of this scission in ancient philosophy, underlines that in its original

formulation rhetoric and philosophy, pathos and logos (and ethos) were merged under

the unifying power of archai (the ultimate principles)52. This is because in the human

the rational and passional elements are deeply intermingled and it’s quite impossible to

disentangle them. But, if this disunion is to be operated on a theoretical level, we can

see how every rational discourse depends on indemonstrable principles to develop its

deductions. These principles are the archai, which are basic principles that fundament

each rational discourse53. They have an indicative (the confer meaning to something

instantaneously) character and can not be demonstrated:

“Evidently the use of such expressions, which belong to the original, the no-deductible, cannot

have an apodictic and demonstrative structure, but only an indicative one. It is only the indicative

nature of archai that makes really possible demonstration.. This discourse is immediately an

<<exposition>> - and hence it is <<figurative>> <<fantastic>>… It is metaphorical, that is, it

shows something to have a connotation, and this means that this discourse transfers a meaning

(metapherein) to the figure to which it is showed. In this way the discourse that realizes such

exposition <<puts before eyes>> a meaning… If the image and metaphor belong to rhetorical

51 E. GRASSI, Vico e l’Umanesimo, chapters 1, 4. E. GRASSI, Retorica come filosofia, chapter 2. 52 E. GRASSI, Retorica come filosofia, p. 64. Quintiliano maintained that rhetoric and philosophy were like a fist (closed hand) and an open hand, the both necessary. Aristotle considered rhetoric and philosophy to be like sisters. 53 “It is necessary to remember the original meaning of arché and of the verb archomai: to lead, to drive, to govern”. Ibidem.

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discourse (and therefore they have a pathetic character), we are obliged to recognize that each

original, primitive, <<archaic>>, discourse cannot have a rational character but only a rhetorical

one. So the term <<rhetoric>> assumes an essentially new sense; <<rhetoric>> is not, and it cannot

be, the art and technique of an extrinsic persuasion; but it is the discourse that constitutes the

foundation of rational thought”54

This means that the rhetorical discourse, which is based on the use of tropoi, first of all

the metaphor, is fundamental not only for the rational one, but in general for

philosophy. It is intrinsically related to the ultimate principles, which underpin our

language, through an essentially metaphorical structure.

In Vico this thesis encountered a great expression in his theory about the poetic

origin of society. According to it, the first peoples living in the earth, because of the

poverty of their language, were like “dumb” in front of the great spectacle of the

mystery of nature. They could only make the world intelligible, transfer meaning to

things, through a poetic, mythical language. The different phenomena perceived by the

senses were conferred a connotation through the metaphorical activity governed by the

faculties of ingenium and fantasy55, which consists in finding a common nature in

different things in an instantaneous way, when the rational language is unable to work.

In this way, mankind starts to construct its world, ordering into universal categories of

meaning – which Vico called the “fantastic universals”- the profuse and chaotic richness

of natural phenomena, and classifying them according to their utility or useless56. The

first peoples were, accordingly, poets, and through a poetic kind of wisdom, they put the

foundations of society escaping their alienation from nature and opening the space for

the development of history57. These founders were, according to Vico, not only poets,

but also theologians. Their first poetic activity was to name the thunder that terrified

them with the term “God”, and to construct therefore the category of sacred. From this

original interpellation it started the opening of space where Heidegger’s Dasein can

54 E. GRASSI, Vico e L’Umanesimo, p. 97. 55 G. VICO, “Dell’antichissima sapienza italica”, in F. NICOLINI (ed.), Giambattista Vico. Opere, Milano-Napoli, 1953, pp. 294-295. 56 G. VICO, “Principj di Scienza Nuova”, in F. NICOLINI (ed.), Giambattista Vico. Opere, p. 518. E. GRASSI, Vico e l’Umanesimo, pp. 88-91. 57 Ibid., p. 390. The themes of “fantastic universals”, and the poetic wisdom, are two of the main topics in the Vico’s work, being that it occupied a central role in his foremost theory about the poetic origin of society. They are dealt in particular in the II book of his New Science. See also: E. GRASSI, Vico e

l’Umanesimo, pp. 53-55; 146-150. J. SEVILLA, “Universales poéticos, fantasía y racionalidad”, Cuadernos sobre Vico, vol. 3, 1993, pp. 67-113

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manifest, where the human world begins58. In a certain sense, we can find in these

founding poets the best instance of men living in that condition of being in-between the

divinity and the human, neither perfectly divine, nor perfectly finite, which is the

fundamental existential condition for Voegelin. As he underlines, Plato, who had called

it metaxy, was perfectly aware of the necessity to refer to it only in mythical terms59. So,

we have in Vico a fascinating exposition of the human necessity to transcend finite

reality and to plumb into the obscurities of the meaning of cosmos. Their unique

instrument for accomplishing this is poetry, the mythical language:

“Metaphors represent a simply imaginative beginning of thought under the form of signals that

are groundless and impossible to be grounded, into a darkness that man cannot penetrate”60

But it is fundamental to understand that relation of rhetoric (in the conception

mentioned above) with the ultimate principles is not only something true at the origins

of history, but it is always so. Rhetoric is indissolubly connected with our deepest

truths, which transcend a rational explanation. As Quintiliano maintained, it is present

in each kind of discourse, philosophical or not: nothing in language could be alien to

rhetoric. This has to be understood in the sense that each affirmation is based on the

union of logos and pathos, content and form: because the individual is composed of

rational and emotional elements, indissolubly intermingled, is necessary that in any act

of communication language enters in contact also with these passional spheres, through

tropoi able to plumb in the deepness of human soul and to carry flashes of it into the

public square. The ultimate meaning of human experience escapes the finitude of the

clear and defined concept of rational discourse; it is therefore evident that a symbolic

and mythical language, able to evocate, although not to definitely grasp, this

transcendence, is a necessity for human beings61.

Giambattista Vico shares with Eric Voegelin a lucid recognition of the

importance of transcendence in human life and the relative mythical and symbolic

language. And both are perfectly aware that this eternal aspect of our existence cohabits

with an historical and finite component. Or, rather, that the transcendence of human

condition encounters its declination in the historical development of mankind. So, in

58 J. SEVILLA, “Universales poéticos, fantasía y racionalidad”, p. 84. 59 E. VOEGELIN, “On Hegel”, p. 233. 60 E. GRASSI, Retorica come filosofia , p. 148. 61 M. MOONEY, Vico e la tradizione della retorica, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1991, pp.: 114-115.

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Giambattista Vico the ultimate principles are not simply presupposed once for all; and

they cannot be separated from the symbolic forms through which they are expressed.

They must be mediated in the historical developments of mankind, finding their

declination through the rhetorical language, which must play attention to the “here and

now” of each situation in order to touch the souls of different auditoriums62.

Metaphorical activity and work, through which mankind constructs its world, change

according to the evolution of human needs. From this posture Vico can formulate a

defence of cultural pluralism, an authenticity of each historical epoch, just because our

inventive capacities respond differently depending on the context63. So, there is not a

unique Truth, nor an Absolute Reason, but only different adaptations of human mind in

time and space. Even though, we don’t fall in relativism, because there is a human

essence, although changing, and indefinite, which is possible to reconstruct through the

study of the historical development of language and institutions64. What we will find is

that in the human there is a fundamental capacity of invention, based on the faculties of

ingenium and fantasy, which flees the finitude of preconceived schemas. This capacity

lies at the roots of our historical development and its infinite diversity, because it

transcends every possible predetermined or rational path: it functions establishing

analogies to different phenomena and our changing needs through a metaphorical logic

which depend on the context and on an enigmatic logic. Common sense is the way in

which, by ingenium and fantasy, mankind connects its interdependent needs with what

its senses perceive, and, through work, transforms nature to satisfy positively these

needs65. Common sense is therefore a sort of judgment without reflection, a no

rationalistic wisdom accumulated along the epochs, which is the common structure of

human world: it is based on the necessity to satisfy human needs generating, through the

inventio, analogies between the natural phenomena and these, and realizes itself in the

work which humanizes nature, and develops society. Hence that, through an

imaginative effort of interpretation, is possible – as Isaiah Berlin understood - to

penetrate in the mentalities of different cultures, or different epochs, understanding their

62 M. MARASSI, “Introduzione”, in E. GRASSI, Retorica come filosofia, p. 27. 63 The interpretation of Vico as a pluralist thinker is been proposed for the first time by Isaiah Berlin. 64 J. SEVILLA, “Universales poéticos, fantasía y racionalidad”, pp. 78-80. G. VICO, “Principj di Scienza Nuova”, p. 727. It is important to remember that for Vico, humans can know completely only the product of their own efforts. This axiom, expressed in the formula verum-factum, is central in the thought of the Italian philosopher. See: G. VICO, “Il metodo degli studi del tempo nostro”, in F. NICOLINI (ed.), Giambattista Vico. Opere, pp.: 248-250. 65 E. GRASSI, Vico e l’Umanesimo, p. 51-53.

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necessities, ideals, aspirations, via the analysis of its social institutions, myths, and

language66.

Like in Vico’s thought, we can find in Eric Voegelin’s philosophy a recognition of

the finite component of the human being not contrasting, but complementing its

transcendent part. In fact, according to his vision of mankind, we are essentially

questioners, who live in a constant desire, which is both emotional and intellectual, to

understand the ultimate causes of our existence. This impulse has a strong moral

significance, because in the unfolding of our questioning we find the answers to how to

live67. Therefore, as it happens in Vico, we see in the questioner attitude of Voegelin

that impulse to confer meaning to the world, which is at the roots of our historical

development. Anyway, it is fundamental to underscore that this search is a continuous

process without an end. What we find in our search is in fact:

“the discovery of a mystery of ultimate meanings; therefore, it is a discover that leaver our

deepest questions fully alive as questions, indeed more intensely alive than ever, resonant as they

now are with awareness of the Mystery. In other words, the experience of transcendence is a

validation of questioning openness itself as the means of being responsibly related to ultimate

reality”68

This being open-ended is an indispensable characteristic for the authentic experience of

the transcendent inside the self. It must be sustained by a kind of love for the search

itself, and acceptance of the ultimate impossibility to solve the mystery. Myths – as in

Vico rhetorical language - are the best way humans have to transmit their experience of

the ultimate inaccessibility of truth, just because their inherently ambiguity is a

guarantee of a “pluralistic” and “democratic” interpretation of this experience of

transcendence69. But the particular nature of myths, which are conveyors of a

nonexistent reality, and of a state of consciousness (the consciousness of participating in

transcendent truth), is also an intrinsic problem for their health: because symbols are the

source of order in a society; a strong pressure to restate their exegetic account

discursively exists. In this passage, the myths could assume a dogmatic form and to

loose almost completely their relation with the original meaning. They could become in

Voegelin’s terms “opaque” respect to the originating experience and produce the 66 J. SEVILLA, “Universales poéticos, fantasía y racionalidad”, p. 77. 67 G. HUGHES, Transcendence and History, pp. 17-18. 68 Ibid., p. 23. 69 G. HUGHES, Mystery and Myth in Eric Voegelin, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, 1993, p. 9.

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reaction of scepticism70. This process crucially shows the historical character of myths

and the necessity to recover periodically their original connection with transcendental

experience, once that dogmatization and institutionalization has closed its opening to

the mystery of life.

Conclusion:

In this paper we have dealt with a very spinous issue such as the relation between the

contingent and transcendent of human life and its meaning for politics. This is indeed a

fundamental question that, in our opinion, political philosophy has to recuperate in all

its density, trying to exit the modern aberrance towards the mythical and poetic aspect

of life, and the postmodern suspicious towards the search for ultimate meanings. We

openly recognize that these are themes, which have been powerful catalysts of

oppression and dogmatism in history. And that the perils of dogmatism and essentialism

are always present. Notwithstanding we consider that if we want to exit the current stall

in political theory about fundamental issues, like the definition of the political

community, the reach of morality, the fundaments of politics, and so on, is

indispensable to open it in the direction we have suggested. So, we should be able to

think about our aspiration for transcendence, universalism, immortality, without falling

in the immanent closure of modern cosmopolitanism, that is, maintaining always in

evidence the openness and pluralistic nature of this longing. Hence, once having

cautioned against the totalitarian peril of this orientation, we also should be able to

overcome the postmodern scepticism about any account of the eternal in mankind and to

look into its condition of coexistence with contingency. This would imply a

fundamental shift in the way we theorize about politics, which recognizes the passional

and obscure components of our being, and the role of rhetoric (in its broaden sense) in

communicating them. Each individual has a foro interno, where there are entire obscure

zones of the being deeply interconnected with our transcendental meanings and ultimate

principles. These zones and the worlds they are in touch with are fundamental in the

configuration of our societies. Their relevance for public life has been denied by a great

deal of our political philosophy and must be recuperated. Reestablishing the just

philosophical significance of rhetoric is essential for this effort to be successful.

70 E. VOEGELIN, “Immortality”, pp. 52-54.