Alterity and conflict: democracy’s hermeneutical task

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Diego Fernando Silva Prada

Abstract

This work is an attempt to define democracy from a broad philosophical perspective with two dimensions. The first is the ontological condition in which the acceptance of others as different – alterity/otherness – takes place. The second is the acceptance of conflict as an essential component of socio-political phenomena, which must be channeled or regulated. The ways in which the conflictive nature of humans can be regulated non-violently are what we have called “democracy”. And this kind of reflection should be set – epistemologically speaking – in a hermeneutical idea of truth and regulation of social life, where the normative ideal is the negation of fundamentalisms and totalitarianisms.

Author Biography

Diego Fernando Silva Prada, Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios

Candidato a doctor en Ciencias Sociales de la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO-Argentina). Investigador de tiempo completo del Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Humanas y Sociales (CEIHS)-Universidad Minuto de Dios.