Calenda Advert 1 439 815 (excerpts)
Universality is one of the oldest, most fruitful and most controversial questions in the history of philosophy. Since antiquity, it has been intertwined with fundamental questions concerning truth, reason, justice, freedom, human dignity and the possibility of a community founded on shared principles. It expresses the ambition to conceive of what, beyond individual and collective differences, might hold true for all human beings. Yet this ambition faces a fundamental difficulty: how can one assert the universal validity of a principle without disregarding the diversity of historical, cultural and existential experiences?
Universality cannot be regarded as a conceptual given, nor as a definitively established reality. It remains an intellectual imperative whose foundations, applications and consequences must be constantly scrutinised. What presents itself as universal may reflect a legitimate aspiration towards justice and equality, but may also conceal the abusive generalisation of a particular experience. Consequently, the question is not merely to determine what is universal, but also to understand who possesses the legitimacy to define it, in the name of which principles and under what historical conditions.
Western, African, Asian, Arab and Latin American philosophical traditions offer crucial resources for rethinking universality, notably drawing on the works of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Martha Nussbaum and many others.
In a world characterised by migration, digital transformation, environmental crises, economic inequalities and demands for identity recognition, the question of universality has taken on renewed relevance.
This call for papers aims to create a space for critical, interdisciplinary and intercultural reflection on these issues, in order to examine the foundations, limitations, contradictions and possibilities for renewing a concept of universality that is attentive to the plurality of human experiences.
