I saggi che la rivista ospita nella parte monografica di questo numero (a destra) sono frutto dello sviluppo di un’iniziativa che nelle intenzioni degli organizzatori avrebbe dovuto trovare in se stessa il suo fine e il suo limite. Il convegno dallo stesso titolo di questo saggio tenutosi a Narni il 26 novembre 2015 – tra le iniziative promosse dalla sezione AIS Teorie sociologiche e trasformazioni sociali e col patrocinio del Centro di Ricerca in Sicurezza Umana – nasceva come provocazione ed esperimento, contro una forma anchilosata, che privilegia l’esposizione variamente brillante di alcune riflessioni a scapito del confronto vivo e stimolante.
Abstract
This essay is both an introduction and a proposition. It presents the proceedings of the conference “Paradigmatic Transition and Uncertainty” that took place in Narni in November 2015 and at the same time discusses and develops its theoretical basis. Both essay and conference were meant to show the heuristic strength of an inclusive paradigm and its growing need in the paradigmatic shift phase we are living in. Western culture is utterly focused on the contents of knowledge – instrumental, marketable contents – and pays no attention to knowledge itself: its dynamics, its flaws, its limits. This results in selective blindness, bias towards divisive logic and unidimensional stress on rationality, characteristics issued from the imaginal and symbolic depths of humanity, which the modern paradigm is bent on denying. A new world vision should instead balance all the elements that form human complexity and strive for a renewed skill to “make sense”, a crucial resource to face the sense of disillusionment and uncertainty that threatens to overwhelm Western societies. Even now it is at the root of shocking political movements and international policies and it can only get worse if no innovative, imaginative steps are taken. This paper and all the others in this monographic section aim at being the first, tentative step in that direction.