“Dialectics had given way to life”: Rethinking Public Space Beyond the Ethics of Control

This contribution intends to put forward some critical reflections aimed towards the rethinking of public space as a space of encounter and reasonable dialogue, contrary to the tendency propogated by the debates that stimulate many western democracies, in which – in order to guarantee a peaceful coexistence between the people who foster different cultural and religious perspectives among themselves – an ethics of control as well as that which Charles Taylor defines as “code fetishism” are appealed to. The cultural challenge that we are up against is recognizing the centrality of the search for fulfillment in the public sphere: this is at the base of a new form of being, which is likewise capable of regenerating sociopolitical community.