What is at stake

Abstract

Recent events involving two symbols of ancient and modern philosophy, and two capitals of the Idea of Europe – Athens and Paris – suggest the timeliness of this issue of “Phenomenology and Mind” on Philosophy and the future of Europe. In the spirit of the Manifesto di Ventotene philosophy should be conceived of as the very foundation of the European Utopia, and the Charter of Rights of the European Union as the legally binding incarnation of Ancient and Modern Practical Reason. Dignity and Justice are in fact the alpha and omega of this Charter: two values being respectively the source of what is due to the individual person and what is necessary for the good order of society. The core of the Charter hosts the three central values of Modernity and its battles, liberté, égalité, fraternité (Solidarity), plus a fourth one, not yet explicitly referred to in the preceding Declarations and Constitutions: Citizenship, the value hosting all the virtues of Public Ethics, without which no Republic could survive for long under the rule of law.