Rethinking the Question of Otherness and Democracy in European Philosophy

Dr. Bogdana Koljević Griffith

Abstract

In this paper the author questions how European philosophy from the Greeks to Modernity and postmodernity encountered the problem of Otherness as the problem of the stranger. Morover, otherness and alterity were for the most part understood as opposed and threatening to the European “selfhood”. In the second part of the article the author addresses the theory of Costas Douzinas, both its originality and shortcomings as a response to the issue of rethinking new cosmopolitism. In conclusion, democracy, pluralism and identity are analysed in the light of ongoing debates surrounding the dilemma and accomplishments of the multicultural approach. The author argues that alternative cosmopolitism includes not only critical but normative theory as well.

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