Por uma filosofia da tolerância: diferença, pluralidade, diálogo

Abstract

This research proposes an interpretation of the role of philosophical hermeneutics in contemporary culture and the possibility of, from its proceeding, based on understanding, historicity and its practical vocation, be characterized as a “philosophy of tolerance”. In a searching for a universal theory that considered humanity as a whole, the tradition wanted to give ground to ethical models as norms of a goal to which men should achieve, ignoring or neglecting the particularities of the various manifestations of the human. However, before the cultural pluralism that marked the contemporary world it no longer seems possible to ignore the contingencies and ephemera that constitute our experiences. Thus, taking as reference some of the most relevant thinkers of the philosophical hermeneutics of the twentieth century, to think of an objective philosophy of tolerance, first and foremost, is to understand that humanity no longer appears as a single, homogeneous group. ‘Ethical’ value takes place precisely to the extent that it considers the difference as a base, including not being able to defend another ‘must-be’ as classic ethics did. Theme of modern authors like Locke and Voltaire, the concept of tolerance is still poorly developed between the philosophical lines. Tolerance means acceptance of different ways of life as complementary or at least as different ‘versions’ of the same humanity. However, it implies a relation between the different, or, in extreme cases, conflicting: is in the dialogue that we find the possibility of opening that allows us to imagine and understand what exceeds the horizon of experiences to which we enclose ourselves through our practices and values. The possibility of living, even in imagination, other ways of life, allows us to a kind of ‘uprooting’, as a process of getting rid of our most rooted and profound values in order to conceive that other worldviews are possible and as valid and holders of rights and guarantees as ourselves.