ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to explore a question that has recently become a topic of concern for sociologists, political scientists and philosophers, and for all of us as citizens; one wh ich has an immediate and pressing political relevance. It concerns, in fact, one ofthe very preconditions of civil coexistence, namely, the ability on the part of individuals and groups belonging to different cultures and traditions to tolerate and respect one another. I should like to address this question by focusing first on the debate between liberal and communitarian thinkers, a debate that could be characterized at first sight in terms of a contrast between the value of tolerance and that of community. From the standpoint of this debate, the question that I want to examine may be formulated as folIows: does an appeal to community negate the value of tolerance? Is community, in a strong and constitutive sense, inimical to pluralism and the acceptance of difference? The most common or intuitive reply to such questions would probably be affirmative: tolerance and community are inimical notions, which stand opposed on the spectrum of political values and represent what the language of symbolic logic would call a disjunction. According to this view, community is a term associated with strong identities, fixed by custom and tradition and rooted in history and/or collective memory. Tolerance, on the other hand, suggests more flexible identities, less rooted in history and collective memory and more open to the acceptance of difference, of plurality and of alternative lifestyles. The practice of tolerance seems to flourish best in a context characterized by modes of behaviour and culturallifestyles that do not require unconditional support or identification and that may be constantly modified by means of rational reflection and critical evaluation.
