Professor Antonio Elorza
Professor of History
Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Introduction

Questions of the self and the other are at the root of many crucial issues in European thought. For Aristotle, the other was a mirror of the soul, necessary to complete individual flourishing within a pattern of civic friendship in the polis. For Hobbes, the other carried the threat of domination and annihilation that could be countered only by an all-powerful Leviathan providing social order and security. Kant enjoined each of us to act as though in a Kingdom of Ends, with other individuals conceived as being ends in themselves rather than merely as means for one’s own ends. Sartre portrayed Hell as other people.

Contrasting visions of identity and difference operate at the level of groups as well as individuals, and in the context of the great cultural complexity of Europe, there are many different ways in which concerns with identity and difference have been realised in changing local or regional patterns of solidarity, peace and murderous conflict.

Under the auspices of the Europaeum, we are holding a series of Colloquia on Cultural Difference in Europe with philosophers, social scientists and historians organised around the following questions:

• How do issues of cultural difference arise in different parts of Europe?
• How are the forms of presenting and describing cultural difference embedded in traditions of distinguishing among groups in different European societies?
• In what contexts, and intertwined with what political agendas, are issues of cultural difference brought into play?
• By what processes and procedures, and through which institutions, are issues of cultural difference translated into policies?