Monographies by Francesco Ferrari
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Religione e religiosità. Germanicità, ebraismo, mistica nell’opera predialogica di Martin Buber; ... more Religione e religiosità. Germanicità, ebraismo, mistica nell’opera predialogica di Martin Buber; Series: Testi e ricerche del Centro Studi filosofico-religiosi Luigi Pareyson; Preface by Martin Leiner; Mimesis, Milano 2014, VI-378 pp. Reviews: Nunzio Bombaci: in: Giornale dell’Associazione Italiana di Filosofia della Religione, n. 9, Nuova serie, September/October 2015; Nunzio Bombaci: in: FilosoficaMente; Gabriele Guerra: in: FreeEbrei, 02/07/2015; Daniele Nuccilli: in: Discipline Filosofiche, 08/05/2015; Andrea Poma: in: Filosofia, 2015, pp. 153-155.
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Presenza e relazione nel pensiero di Martin Buber; Series: Etica ed Ermeneutica; Preface by Silva... more Presenza e relazione nel pensiero di Martin Buber; Series: Etica ed Ermeneutica; Preface by Silvano Zucal; Edizioni dell'Orso, Alessandria 2012, X-306 pp. Reviews: Marco Vannini: in: Rivista di Ascetica e di Mistica, XXXVIII, 2013, 1, pp. 330-331; Hans Joachim Werner: in: Im Gespräch. Hefte der Martin Buber-Gesellschaft (Heft 16/2015).
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Edited Volumes by Francesco Ferrari
Transdisciplinary Approaches on Reconciliation Research, 2024
Reconciliation studies are concerned with the processes of rebuilding and improving damaged relat... more Reconciliation studies are concerned with the processes of rebuilding and improving damaged relationships after major wrongdoings. They focus on factors such as law, economics, and international relations, as well as on elements such as emotions and ethics, culture and religion, media and education. Reconciliation research therefore requires a transdisciplinary approach, to analyse both the procedures leading to the recognition of truth as well as those in which justice is administered; both the impact of public apologies and cooperation agreements; both the implementation of memory policies and civil society initiatives; both the outcomes of trauma therapy and intergenerational encounter groups. While on the surface the relationships in question are those between states, groups, organisations, and individuals, at a deeper level reconciliation always addresses and involves many axes of damaged relationships: those with others (intergroup); those with one’s own group (intragroup); those with oneself; those with the environment; and those with transcendence. Reconciliation studies deal, therefore, with a much broader spectrum of relationships than that taken into consideration by neighbouring disciplines such as conflict resolution and peace studies. In this volume, Francesco Ferrari and Davide Tacchini brought together examples of Leiner’s approach to reconciliation studies as a cooperative project of different disciplines. The articles are divided into two sections: 1. A series of case studies about Japan-South Korea relations, German-Czech reconciliation, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict using the methods of Martin Leiner, Sayyid Qutb view of American society, and South Africans revisiting TRC. 2. A series of theoretical clarifications on reconciliation and moderation from a Palestinian point of view, evolutionary game theory looking at reconciliation processes by a team of economists, grace and reconciliation from a Catholic theological point of view, philosophical reflections on the concept of reconciliation after Auschwitz, cognitive and affective aspects in reconciliation from a Catholic theological point of view, ecology and spatiality of reconciliation seen by a social geographer, and political dimensions of reconciliation.
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Versöhnung: Theologische Perspektiven. Festschrift für Martin Leiner (mit S. Baumert, G. Schmolz, C. Karpouchtsis). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2023., 2023
Martin Leiner hat die Versöhnungsforschung und -praxis in den vergangenen Jahren maßgeblich geprä... more Martin Leiner hat die Versöhnungsforschung und -praxis in den vergangenen Jahren maßgeblich geprägt und gefördert. Als Gründer und Leiter des 2013 ins Leben gerufenen Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies/Zentrum für Versöhnungsforschung (JCRS) an der Theologischen Fakultät der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena ist er ein unermüdlicher Brückenbauer und Netzwerker über die universitären Grenzen hinaus. Gerade die Schwerpunkte der vergleichenden Konflikterforschung und der Untersuchung von Versöhnungsprozessen weltweit verleihen dem Jenaer Forschungszentrum eine Sonderstellung, die sowohl durch zahlreiche akademische Impulse (Theoriebildung und praxisnahe Fallstudien) als auch durch den Einbezug internationaler Doktoranden und Gastdozenten unterstrichen wird. Die vorliegende Festschrift feiert nicht nur den 60. Geburtstag Martin Leiners, sondern versammelt auch die Beiträge von Theologen, Philosophen, Religionspädagogen und -wissenschaftlern sowie Versöhnungstheoretikern und -praktikern, die in einem transdisziplinären Dialog dem Thema der Versöhnung aus theologischer Perspektive nachgehen und dadurch die vielfältige Tätigkeit des Jubilars verdeutlichen und wiederspiegeln. Die Beiträge reichen von einem Erfahrungsbericht aus der Friedensarbeit über Themen wie religionspädagogische Erziehung zur Versöhnung, das Verständnis von Vergeben in Hannah Arendts politischer Theorie, die Sündevergebung in jüdisch-christlicher Tradition sowie die Untersuchung der erkenntnistheoretischen Toleranz als Grundlage heutiger Ökumene bis hin zur Untersuchung wertschätzender Wahrnehmung, Selbstliebe und politischer, philosophischer sowie theologischer Wertediskurse. Damit bietet der Sammelband zugleich einen Überblick über aktuelle Herausforderungen und Chancen der Versöhnungsforschung.
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Encountering the Suffering of the Other. Reconciliation Studies amid the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (mit M. Leiner, Z. Barakat, M. Sternberg, B. Hameiri). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2023., 2023
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of st... more “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 36:26). This biblical image, particularly significant for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, gives insight into the central issues of this book: how a greater readiness to reconcile can take place among individuals and groups who experience the "suffering of the other," even in the midst of a protracted conflict such as the Israeli-Palestinian one. This book offers a collection of essays written by the team members of a transdisciplinary DFG project between Jena University, Ben Gurion University, Tel Aviv University, and the Wasatia Academic Institute.
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Critical Editions by Francesco Ferrari
Martin Buber Werkausgabe 11. Schriften zur politischen Philosophie und zur Sozialphilosophie. Her... more Martin Buber Werkausgabe 11. Schriften zur politischen Philosophie und zur Sozialphilosophie. Herausgegeben und kommentiert von Stefano Franchini und Massimiliano De Villa, eingeleitet von Francesco Ferrari.
Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh, 2019.
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Martin Buber, Niccolò Cusano e Jakob Böhme. Per la storia del problema dell'individuazione; First... more Martin Buber, Niccolò Cusano e Jakob Böhme. Per la storia del problema dell'individuazione; First German edition of Buber’s disseration with Italian translation; Foreword: Il Rinascimento di Buber, pp. 7-38; Il Melangolo, Genova 2013, 132 pp. Reviews: Armando Torno: La laurea (revocata) in cui Buber cercava Dio (Corriere della Sera, 11/02/2013); Giulio Busi: Da Cusano a Böhme. Alla ricerca dell’individuo (Il Sole 24 Ore, 23/06/2013); Maurizio Crippa: La tesi di laurea di Martin Buber (Il Foglio, 13/03/2013).
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Papers by Francesco Ferrari
Philosophy After Auschwitz: Questioning Reconciliation, Addressing Damaged Relationships, Facing the Irrevocable, 2024
Martin Leiner’s (1) definition of reconciliation as a series of processes that are involved in ad... more Martin Leiner’s (1) definition of reconciliation as a series of processes that are involved in addressing and seeking to repair damaged relationships after a wrongdoing, particularly after massive human rights violations, provides the theoretical framework for this article. In this regard, (2) the author builds on the fundamental relevance of Auschwitz (3) in giving momentum to the development of transdisciplinary reconciliation studies, and (4) then engages in a dialogue with key texts by philosophers who placed Auschwitz at the center of their thinking, as an event that
imposed to reconsider the very concept of reconciliation as well. The concluding paragraph (5) finally introduces the “irrevocable” as a notion for reformulating the concept of reconciliation after Auschwitz in ethical-philosophical terms.
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Introduction Transdisciplinary Approaches on Reconciliation Research, 2024
At the Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies (JCRS) we define the aim of reconciliation
research... more At the Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies (JCRS) we define the aim of reconciliation
research as the scholarly description, interpretation, and evaluation of
processes of creating “normal” and if possible, “good” relationships between states,
groups, organizations, and individuals reacting against past, present, or preventing
future grave incidents such as wars, civil wars, genocides, atrocities, forced displacement,
enslavement, dictatorship, oppression, colonialism, Apartheid, and other
human rights violations and injustices. While on the surface the good relationships
are between States, groups, organizations, and individuals, on a deeper level, we
always deal with five dimensions of reconciliation:
With oneself
With the other(s)
With the own group
With environment
With transcendence
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Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies: A Report on Ten Years of Activity, 2024
Since the 1990s, reconciliatory processes have been taking place in many countries.
Particularly ... more Since the 1990s, reconciliatory processes have been taking place in many countries.
Particularly well known is South Africa with its Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, Rwanda with its policy of national reconciliation after the genocide in 1994, and Northern Ireland with its reconciliation activities around the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Under the influence of those developments, the German reconciliation policy since 1949 with countries such as Israel, France, and Poland found increasing interest. Since 2017, Colombia has arguably become the country with the most reconciliation-related initiatives.
When a series of summer schools dedicated to analyzing these processes began in Jena in 2005, it was astonishing to realize their importance and how comparative studies were lacking to capture the experiences of reconciliatory processes and draw conclusions. This was the birth of reconciliation research in Jena. Since then, we have aimed to find out more about reconciliatory processes through highly-quality scientific methodologies from various disciplines. For a long time, the JCRS was the
only university center in continental Europe dedicated to reconciliation research and has been able to shape the beginnings of this field of research.
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Between Conflict and Reconciliation: Martin Buber on the Jewish Settlement of Palestine. With the Unpublished Manuscript “Fragen und Antworten. Die jüdische Besiedlung Palästinas” (1947), 2024
This paper presents Martin Buber's unpublished manuscript 'Fragen und Antworten. Die jüdische Bes... more This paper presents Martin Buber's unpublished manuscript 'Fragen und Antworten. Die jüdische Besiedlung Palästinas' in the original German with English translation and contextualizes it within the main stations of Buber's Zionist thinking: cultural Zionism, religious Zionism, and Zionism of realization. It problematizes Buber's reflection on Jewish settlements in Palestine with reference to the significance of Zionism for humanity as well as the possibility of reconciliation between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. It also addresses the problem of Jewish terror, framing it in correlation with the restrictions on Jewish migration to Palestine and the catastrophe of the Shoah.
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“Mistica divenuta Ethos” e riconciliazione di sacro e profano: il chassidismo nell’interpretazione di Martin Buber, in: Nuovo Giornale di Filosofia della Religione 2, 2022, S. 343-359. , 2022
Il messaggio del chassidismo consiste, secondo il filosofo della religione Martin Buber, nella “c... more Il messaggio del chassidismo consiste, secondo il filosofo della religione Martin Buber, nella “cabbalà divenuta ethos”, ovvero: in una peculiare torsione della mistica in etica. Questo articolo si propone di mostrare come l’ermeneutica della mistica chassidica di Buber rivolga il suo messaggio all’uomo occidentale alle prese con la crisi del sacro (e delle religioni storiche che se ne fanno custodi). A tal fine, si ricostruirà come Buber coniughi l’affermazione di una radicale libertà di coscienza in ambito religioso (“anarchismo religioso”) con la fede chassidica in una presenza divina che si rivela attraverso ogni incontro Io-Tu, il che si traduce, in termini etici, nell’imperativo del legame con la creazione (“esistenza sacramentale”). Il presente articolo offre pertanto una articolazione di come, secondo Buber, sia possibile superare la crisi del sacro (e delle religioni storiche) attraverso la prospettiva chassidica di riconciliazione tra sacro e profano.
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Ermeneutica del tempo vissuto e fenomenologia dei sentimenti morali in V. Jankélévitch, in: Per la Filosofia, XXXIX/116, 2023, S. 49-64., 2023
Poiché i processi di riconciliazione mirano alla ricostruzione di relazioni danneggiate in seguit... more Poiché i processi di riconciliazione mirano alla ricostruzione di relazioni danneggiate in seguito a gravi misfatti, la loro comprensione richiede un’esplorazione fenomenologico-ermeneutica della nozione di tempo. Una possibilità a tal riguardo è offerta dagli scritti di Vladimir Jankélévitch. In particolare, questo articolo si concentra: (1.) sul riconoscimento di un istante come «irrevocabile», ovvero, come l’indistruttibilità di ciò-che-è-stato nel suo aver-avuto-luogo, quale evento che rompe il continuum temporale del fino ad ora, e che diventa normativo attraverso l’imperativo «mai più»; (2.) sull’oscillazione tra le virtù dell’istante e dell’intervallo, e l’impossibilità per la memoria di riattingere il passato nella sua «passeità»; (3.) su quei sentimenti morali che caratterizzano in maniera «patica» il tempo vissuto, le cosiddette «sofferenze della temporalità» (risentimento; nostalgia; rimpianto; rimorso); (4.) sulla contrapposizione giustizia-amore, che emerge paradigmaticamente nella facoltà del perdono, e prelude all’antitesi tra due ordini nei processi di riconciliazione: quello «lineare» della legge e quello «iperbolico» della grazia.
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Between Quest for a Heimat and Alienation. Jean Améry’s Journey after Auschwitz, in: Remembering the Holocaust in Germany, Austria, Italy and Israel: "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" as a Historical Quest, ed. V. Pinto, Brill, Leiden 2022, S. 89-98. Also in: Reconciliation and Refugees, eds. Tacchini,..., 2022
Between Quest for a Heimat and Alienation. Jean Améry’s Journey after Auschwitz, in: Remembering ... more Between Quest for a Heimat and Alienation. Jean Améry’s Journey after Auschwitz, in: Remembering the Holocaust in Germany, Austria, Italy and Israel: "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" as a Historical Quest, ed. V. Pinto, Brill, Leiden 2022, S. 89-98. Also in: Reconciliation and Refugees, eds. Tacchini, Z. M. Barakat, I. Aldajani, M. Leiner. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2021, S. 51-60.
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Vladimir Jankélévitch’s “Diseases of Temporality” and Their Impact on Reconciliatory Processes, in: Contemporary Perspectives on Vladimir Jankélévitch, eds. M. La Caze, M. Zolkos. Rowman & Littlefield, London 2019, S. 95-116., 2019
Aiming at the “creation of normal and, if possible, good relationships after
grave violent incide... more Aiming at the “creation of normal and, if possible, good relationships after
grave violent incidents,” reconciliatory processes are constitutively temporal processes. A philosophical exploration of time is therefore required in their understanding, and a possibility in this direction is offered by the writings of Vladimir Jankélévitch. As a scholar of Henri Bergson, Jankélévitch inherited his conception of durée, formulating an original moral philosophy, which is presented in this paper as a phenomenology of reconciliatory processes according to their temporal connotation. To reach its goal, the essay focuses on a still little-known aspect of Jankélévitch’s thought: the role played in reconciliatory processes by those moral feelings which he calls “diseases of temporality” (malheurs de la temporalité).
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Resistance and Reconciliation. Martin Buber’s Stance towards Nazi and Post-War Germany, in: Literarische Interventionen im deutsch-jüdischen Versöhnungsdiskurs seit 1945, eds. R. Forkel, B. P. Pick. Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2023, S. 83-104., 2023
This paper reconstructs Martin Buber's stance towards Nazi and PostWar Germany, presenting it as ... more This paper reconstructs Martin Buber's stance towards Nazi and PostWar Germany, presenting it as a complex dynamic of resistance and reconciliation. 1 During Hitler's dictatorship, Buber, a Vienna-born Jew, was exposed to an increasingly violent and dreadful conflict, through which he suffered systematic human rights violations. Yet, he faced it with steadfast, tireless agency, without ceasing to recognize his German opponents as members of a shared moral and human community. After the end of World War II, Buber became one of the first Jewish intellectuals who actively engaged in reconciliatory processes, i.e. in the "creation of 'normal' and, if possible, good relationships after grave violent incidents" 2 with the German Federal Republic. Buber was a charismatic and well-known figure already during the Weimar Republic, whose influence was considerable not only on younger generations of German Jews 3 , but also on many Christian theologians. 4 In several confer
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The Concept of Reconciliation after Auschwitz. Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Irrevocable, in: Encountering the Suffering of the Other. Reconciliation Studies amid the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, eds. F. Ferrari, M. Leiner, Z. Barakat, M. Sternberg, B. Hameiri. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Götting..., 2023
Francesco Ferrari's paper raises his research question-the concept of reconciliation after Auschw... more Francesco Ferrari's paper raises his research question-the concept of reconciliation after Auschwitz-primarily in the domain of philosophy. He proceeds systematically, in dialogue with authors from the mid-twentieth century, particularly with the most important texts of the Jewish philosophy of that time. Given the many layers of the topic, his research adopts a transdisciplinary approach that benefits from the contributions of reconciliation studies, Jewish studies, intellectual history, psychology, and sociology. Its methodology can be defined as a hermeneutic phenomenology in the philosophical sense formulated by Ricoeur 1974 [1969]. On the one hand, his work is structured as a phenomenological exploration, through which the concept of reconciliation faces that of irrevocable. From the other one, it is shaped through a hermeneutical stance, given the existential relevance of the topic, i. e., it concerns the world of the lived human experience. This paper introduces and summarizes Ferrari's studies on the philosophical debate regarding the concept of reconciliation after Auschwitz he carried out in the course of the project "Hearts of Flesh-not Stone" and presents some of the post-doctoral research hypotheses he is currently working on.
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The Impact of Hannah Arendt’s “Ambiguities of Agency” on Reconciliatory Processes, in: Versöhnung. Theorie und Empirie, eds. E. Gardei, H.G. Soeffner, M. Schulz. Bonn University Press, Bonn 2023, S. 269-286., 2023
This paper aims to show, as a philosophical inquiry, the relevance of Hannah Arendt’s oeuvre for ... more This paper aims to show, as a philosophical inquiry, the relevance of Hannah Arendt’s oeuvre for reconciliation studies. It is based on the concept of the “ambiguities of agency”, according to which
(I.) agency expresses both the beginning, novelty and spontaneity of action – but also its unexpected, unprecedented and unpredictable character; (II.) agency lies at the core of power with others – but can also be violently misused as power over others; (III.) agency is systematically disempowered by totalitarian regimes, in their victims – but also in their perpetrators. This paper explores the impact of the ambiguities of agency on reconciliatory processes. To this end, agency is investigated here as (1.) the ability to do unprecedented deeds, which, in moralphilosophical terms, cannot be undone, i. e., that are recognized as “irrevocable”.
The ambiguities of agency are thus articulated through a phenomenological account of the extremes of their spectrum: namely, (2.) the commission of radically evil crimes against humanity and (3.) the granting of unconditional forgiveness. Both make evident how human agency constitutes at the same time a “promise” and a “menace” to the common world, which, as such, profoundly impacts reconciliatory processes. (4) Despite the ambiguities that characterize agency, this paper finally supports the thesis that reconciliation requires empowering agency, both as natality and plurality, both for victims and perpetrators, and that its processes can only be successful by addressing the irreducibly different needs of both.
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Relation as Presence: On Martin Buber’s Lectures “Religion als Gegenwart”, Journal of the Interdisciplinary Study of Monotheistic Religions, 18, 2022, S. 3-15., 2022
Buber's dialogical principle can be understood as an effort to realize how and why being present ... more Buber's dialogical principle can be understood as an effort to realize how and why being present (in a given "here") concretely means being in the presence (of someone or something), and hence being in the present (in a given "now"). Being there, being present and in the present is not so immediate as it seems. It is rather a journey, which requires encountering the other by the disclosure of what Buber names the I-Thou relation. This paper is devoted to this issue, with a special focus on Buber's lectures Religion als Gegenwart he delivered few months before he completed his major work Ich und Du.
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Monographies by Francesco Ferrari
Edited Volumes by Francesco Ferrari
Critical Editions by Francesco Ferrari
Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh, 2019.
Papers by Francesco Ferrari
imposed to reconsider the very concept of reconciliation as well. The concluding paragraph (5) finally introduces the “irrevocable” as a notion for reformulating the concept of reconciliation after Auschwitz in ethical-philosophical terms.
research as the scholarly description, interpretation, and evaluation of
processes of creating “normal” and if possible, “good” relationships between states,
groups, organizations, and individuals reacting against past, present, or preventing
future grave incidents such as wars, civil wars, genocides, atrocities, forced displacement,
enslavement, dictatorship, oppression, colonialism, Apartheid, and other
human rights violations and injustices. While on the surface the good relationships
are between States, groups, organizations, and individuals, on a deeper level, we
always deal with five dimensions of reconciliation:
With oneself
With the other(s)
With the own group
With environment
With transcendence
Particularly well known is South Africa with its Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, Rwanda with its policy of national reconciliation after the genocide in 1994, and Northern Ireland with its reconciliation activities around the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Under the influence of those developments, the German reconciliation policy since 1949 with countries such as Israel, France, and Poland found increasing interest. Since 2017, Colombia has arguably become the country with the most reconciliation-related initiatives.
When a series of summer schools dedicated to analyzing these processes began in Jena in 2005, it was astonishing to realize their importance and how comparative studies were lacking to capture the experiences of reconciliatory processes and draw conclusions. This was the birth of reconciliation research in Jena. Since then, we have aimed to find out more about reconciliatory processes through highly-quality scientific methodologies from various disciplines. For a long time, the JCRS was the
only university center in continental Europe dedicated to reconciliation research and has been able to shape the beginnings of this field of research.
grave violent incidents,” reconciliatory processes are constitutively temporal processes. A philosophical exploration of time is therefore required in their understanding, and a possibility in this direction is offered by the writings of Vladimir Jankélévitch. As a scholar of Henri Bergson, Jankélévitch inherited his conception of durée, formulating an original moral philosophy, which is presented in this paper as a phenomenology of reconciliatory processes according to their temporal connotation. To reach its goal, the essay focuses on a still little-known aspect of Jankélévitch’s thought: the role played in reconciliatory processes by those moral feelings which he calls “diseases of temporality” (malheurs de la temporalité).
(I.) agency expresses both the beginning, novelty and spontaneity of action – but also its unexpected, unprecedented and unpredictable character; (II.) agency lies at the core of power with others – but can also be violently misused as power over others; (III.) agency is systematically disempowered by totalitarian regimes, in their victims – but also in their perpetrators. This paper explores the impact of the ambiguities of agency on reconciliatory processes. To this end, agency is investigated here as (1.) the ability to do unprecedented deeds, which, in moralphilosophical terms, cannot be undone, i. e., that are recognized as “irrevocable”.
The ambiguities of agency are thus articulated through a phenomenological account of the extremes of their spectrum: namely, (2.) the commission of radically evil crimes against humanity and (3.) the granting of unconditional forgiveness. Both make evident how human agency constitutes at the same time a “promise” and a “menace” to the common world, which, as such, profoundly impacts reconciliatory processes. (4) Despite the ambiguities that characterize agency, this paper finally supports the thesis that reconciliation requires empowering agency, both as natality and plurality, both for victims and perpetrators, and that its processes can only be successful by addressing the irreducibly different needs of both.
Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh, 2019.
imposed to reconsider the very concept of reconciliation as well. The concluding paragraph (5) finally introduces the “irrevocable” as a notion for reformulating the concept of reconciliation after Auschwitz in ethical-philosophical terms.
research as the scholarly description, interpretation, and evaluation of
processes of creating “normal” and if possible, “good” relationships between states,
groups, organizations, and individuals reacting against past, present, or preventing
future grave incidents such as wars, civil wars, genocides, atrocities, forced displacement,
enslavement, dictatorship, oppression, colonialism, Apartheid, and other
human rights violations and injustices. While on the surface the good relationships
are between States, groups, organizations, and individuals, on a deeper level, we
always deal with five dimensions of reconciliation:
With oneself
With the other(s)
With the own group
With environment
With transcendence
Particularly well known is South Africa with its Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, Rwanda with its policy of national reconciliation after the genocide in 1994, and Northern Ireland with its reconciliation activities around the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Under the influence of those developments, the German reconciliation policy since 1949 with countries such as Israel, France, and Poland found increasing interest. Since 2017, Colombia has arguably become the country with the most reconciliation-related initiatives.
When a series of summer schools dedicated to analyzing these processes began in Jena in 2005, it was astonishing to realize their importance and how comparative studies were lacking to capture the experiences of reconciliatory processes and draw conclusions. This was the birth of reconciliation research in Jena. Since then, we have aimed to find out more about reconciliatory processes through highly-quality scientific methodologies from various disciplines. For a long time, the JCRS was the
only university center in continental Europe dedicated to reconciliation research and has been able to shape the beginnings of this field of research.
grave violent incidents,” reconciliatory processes are constitutively temporal processes. A philosophical exploration of time is therefore required in their understanding, and a possibility in this direction is offered by the writings of Vladimir Jankélévitch. As a scholar of Henri Bergson, Jankélévitch inherited his conception of durée, formulating an original moral philosophy, which is presented in this paper as a phenomenology of reconciliatory processes according to their temporal connotation. To reach its goal, the essay focuses on a still little-known aspect of Jankélévitch’s thought: the role played in reconciliatory processes by those moral feelings which he calls “diseases of temporality” (malheurs de la temporalité).
(I.) agency expresses both the beginning, novelty and spontaneity of action – but also its unexpected, unprecedented and unpredictable character; (II.) agency lies at the core of power with others – but can also be violently misused as power over others; (III.) agency is systematically disempowered by totalitarian regimes, in their victims – but also in their perpetrators. This paper explores the impact of the ambiguities of agency on reconciliatory processes. To this end, agency is investigated here as (1.) the ability to do unprecedented deeds, which, in moralphilosophical terms, cannot be undone, i. e., that are recognized as “irrevocable”.
The ambiguities of agency are thus articulated through a phenomenological account of the extremes of their spectrum: namely, (2.) the commission of radically evil crimes against humanity and (3.) the granting of unconditional forgiveness. Both make evident how human agency constitutes at the same time a “promise” and a “menace” to the common world, which, as such, profoundly impacts reconciliatory processes. (4) Despite the ambiguities that characterize agency, this paper finally supports the thesis that reconciliation requires empowering agency, both as natality and plurality, both for victims and perpetrators, and that its processes can only be successful by addressing the irreducibly different needs of both.
of agency that is grounded in Hannah Arendt’s understanding of Auschwitz. Building conceptually on her writings such as The Origins of
Totalitarianism and The Human Condition, agency is defined here
based on two fundamental conditions: (1.) as »natality,« it is the faculty
for beginning new, spontaneous and unprecedented actions, accompanied
by unpredictable and uncertain outcomes; (2.) as »plurality,« it is the capacity of dealing with diversity, to insert oneself within
a common world, shaped as a political agon. This paper is hence structured in dialogue with Arendt’s account of the NS concentration and
extermination camps. It retraces the series of processes through which
the aim of achieving total domination of the human being requires
the disempowerent and destruction of agency, both in terms (3.) of
natality – as we can learn from the Auschwitz inmates, particularly in
the reduction of the human being to »superfluousness« – and of (4.)
plurality – as we can learn from their NS perpetrators, particularly
in the »thoughtlessness« of the Spießer-Eichmann. Paradigmatically,
systematically disempowered, destroyed and misused by totalitarian
regimes, agency attests to a constitutive »ambiguity,« whose spectrum
extremes – of undeniable relevance, nonetheless, to reconciliatory
processes – will be thematized throughout this paper.
in: Martin Buber Studien 3, pp. 263-274.
The paper shows how a merely archaeological dimension of memory necessarily faces a host of contradictions and how this may even lead to an intolerant identity. From the other side, itshows how a teleological dimension of memory can establish a juste mémoire [just memory], that configures our identity as an identité narrative [narrative identity], which can lead towards reconciliation with oneself and with the Other. Finally, the paper culminates by examining Ricoeur’s reflection on forgiveness. Although directed to the past, forgiveness is as an act occurring in a real, present moment, with consequences capable of shaping the future, potentially moving on a path toward reconciliation.
In: Polylog, XXXIV, p. 151-167.
secondo Landauer, «la rivoluzione non è ciò che credono i
rivoluzionari». Il suo scritto non è infatti, come il titolo potrebbe
suggerire, un pamphlet agitatorio: al contrario, come annota
F. Andolfi, è un saggio di analisi storica condotto con
molta lucidità e disincanto, una vera e propria teoria della
storia che si ascrive a pieni titoli nella coeva Stimmung della
Lebensphilosophie.
L'idea di fondo è stata quella di aprire un tavolo di discussione, al fine di sollecitare l'attenzione della comunità di studiosi, ricercatori e docenti vicini agli studi ebraici sulla correlazione che sussiste tra religione e politica all'interno dell'ebraismo e della sua storia, proprio a partire dal cambio di paradigma che la secolarizzazione del moderno di fatto ha comportato.