Rooted in philosophy of education, the overall purpose of this dissertation is to renegotiate the relationship between education, religion, and democracy by placing the religious subject at the centre of this renegotiation. While education is the main focus, the study draws its energy from the fact that tensions around religious beliefs and practices seem to touch upon the very heart of liberal democracy. The study reads the tensions religious pluralism seems to be causing in contemporary education through a post-structural approach to difference and subjectivity. The purpose is accomplished in three movements. The first aims to show why the renegotiation is needed by examining how the relationship between education, democracy, and religion is currently being addressed in cosmopolitan education and deliberative education. The second movement introduces a model of democracy, radical democracy, that sees the process of defining the subject as a political process. It is argued that this model offers possibilities for seeing religion and the religious subject as part of the struggle for democracy. The third movement aims to develop how the relationship between education, democracy, and religion might change if we bring them together in a conversation whose conditions are not ‘owned’ by any one of them. To create this conversation, Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida, Søren Kierkegaard, and Emmanuel Levinas are brought together around three themes – love, freedom, and dialogue – referred to as ‘windows.’ The windows offer three examples in which religious subjectivity is made manifest but they also create a shift in perspective that invites other ways of seeing the tensions between religion and democracy. The aim of the study is to discuss how education might change when religion and democracy become questions for it through the perspectives offered in the windows and what this implies for the particular religious subject.

This thesis investigates the counter-hegemonic formation of Danish-based transnational feminist curatorial collective Kuratorisk Aktion in a single-case study. It serves as a unique example, presenting how the collective engages to overcome the existing gap between curatorial aims and the implementation through curating. Their work and approach is shaped highly by their political mindset, aiming to resist tendencies of depoliticisation, right-wing populism or neoliberalism with the means of curating. Chantal Mouffe’s theory of radical democracy and her deliberations and notions concerning agonisms, citizenship, feminism, counter-hegemonic interventions and activism through art are used in order to contextualise and discuss the possibilities and limitations of the political work by Kuratorisk Aktion. An interview with the collective conducted by scholar Angela Dimitrakaki in 2010 as well as their realised curatorial projects enhanced the argumentation. The analysis exemplified, that over the years Kuratorisk Aktion has developed their personal and exceptional curatorial paradigm, which is able to counteract hegemonic structures. This reveals their radical democratic potential and aspiration through curating and the curatorial.

Le jardinage urbain demeure un objet d'études récent en sciences sociales, mais déjà la littérature sur le sujet semble être divisée en deux positions distinctes : tandis que certain-e-s chercheur-e-s affirment que les initiatives de jardinage sont radicalement progressistes, mobilisant des notions telles que le droit à la ville ou les communs, d'autres ont moins confiance en ces projets, affirmant qu'ils ont tendance à servir un agenda néolibéral. J’affirme que ce débat bénéficie d’une théorisation plus approfondie de la manière dont le politique se déploie dans ces espaces gérés par des citoyen-ne-s. En m'appuyant sur une étude de cas de deux jardins collectifs situés dans l'espace public de Mexico, le Huerto Tlatelolco et le Huerto Roma Verde, je propose d'analyser le potentiel politique des jardins urbains à travers le prisme de la théorie de la démocratie radicale. En examinant à la fois les discours mis en avant par les jardinier-ère-s et leurs pratiques quotidiennes, j'évalue s'ils sont guidés par des principes de contre-hégémonie et de résistance aux structures de domination et s'ils aboutissent à l'établissement de nouvelles formes de relations sociales basées sur la communalité et la relationnalité. J’observe que la réalisation de ces principes de démocratie radicale dépend principalement des intentions des jardinier-ère-s qui ont initié ces projets, et des valeurs sur lesquelles ils et elles s'appuient pour donner forme à leurs initiatives. / Urban gardening remains an incipient object of study in social science, but already the early literature seems to suggest the existence of two distinct positions on the matter : while some researchers argue that gardening initiatives are radically progressive, mobilizing notions such as the right to the city or the commons, others have less faith in these projects, arguing that they tend to serve a neoliberal agenda. This debate, I argue, benefits from further theorizing the way the political unfolds in these citizen-managed spaces. Drawing from a case study of two collective gardens located in the public space of Mexico City, the Huerto Tlatelolco and the Huerto Roma Verde, I suggest analyzing the political potential of urban gardens through the lens of the theory of radical democracy. Looking at both the discourses put forth by the gardeners and their daily practices, I evaluate whether they are guided by principles of counter-hegemony and resistance towards structures of domination and whether they result in the establishment of new forms of social relations based on communality and relationality. I find that the achievement of these principles of radical democracy depends mainly on the intentions of the gardeners who initiated these projects, and on the values on which they rely to give shape to their initiatives.

Trying to overcome the traditional analytic nihilism of papers dealing with Czechoslovakia in 1968, which arises from the military occupation, the author puts the fact of freedom of speech into his work's central interest. In a comparative study this work studies the different interpretations of its role and meaning, including: the dogmatic point of view concerning the freedom of speech being a source of organized counterrevolution; the effort of the reformers to include the freedom of speech into their reform and meanwhile to make it an instrument of it and the way it instead became an autonomous control of their politics; the realistic criticism concentrated on the manifestations of irresponsibility in the press endangering the reform on the one side and not being able to exit the temporary system imagination on the other; it equally pays attention to the 'unnamed', non-members of the Party, who process their self- establishment as an opposing political current, who however rest being no less than a source of interesting subversion; and finally examines the radical democrat approach understanding the freedom of speech as an obligatory condition of their politics together projecting the reconstitution of the society as an autonomous political subject. The work uses contemporary documents and texts...

Questa tesi si occupa di analizzare il lavoro di Stanley Hauerwas, uno studioso di grande fama nel mondo accademico americano i cui testi sono molto letti in tutto il mondo. Tramite la lettura critica dell’intero corpus degli scritti di Hauerwas la tesi intende riflettere sul rapporto problematico tra Cristianesimo e liberalismo. A questo scopo, la tesi si concentra inizialmente sui presupposti filosofici che sono alla base delle argomentazioni di Hauerwas. In secondo luogo, riflette sulle idee ed istituzioni tipiche del liberalismo e sul loro rapporto con il Cristianesimo. Infine, descrive la proposta etica di Hauerwas e il modo con cui questa determina il tipo di politica che la chiesa e i cristiani dovrebbero avere. Seguendo l’ampiezza del lavoro di Hauerwas, la tesi si interessa di un gran numero di filosofi, teorici della politica e teologi, spaziando dagli scritti di Aristotele e Tommaso d’Aquino, alla filosofia del linguaggio di McCabe, Murdoch, e Wittgenstein, dalle riflessioni etiche di Kovesi, Anscombe, e MacIntyre, alle teorie politiche di Rawls, Stout e Coles. Grazie alla sottolineatura del ruolo delle virtù e della formazione morale, insieme all’enfasi posta sull’importanza che la tradizione della chiesa, le sue pratiche e il suo linguaggio hanno nel dare forma all’immaginazione e alle vite dei cristiani, Hauerwas descrive in maniera costruttiva e feconda una proposta politica genuinamente cristiana e ci aiuta a navigare le complessità del mondo contemporaneo. / The dissertation provides an in-depth analysis of the scholarship of Stanley Hauerwas, a very prominent figure in the American academy whose body of work is widely read in many countries. By providing a close reading of Hauerwas’ entire corpus, the dissertation aims at discussing the contested relationship between Christianity and liberalism. It does so first, by focusing on the philosophical presuppositions that shape Hauerwas’ overall argument. Second, it reflects on the main liberal commitments and institutions and their relationship with Christianity. Third, it describes Hauerwas’ ethical proposal and its bearings on the political commitments that the church and Christians ought to have. Following the breadth of Hauerwas’ work, the dissertation deals with a great number of philosophers, political theorists, and theologians, spanning from the writings of Aristotle and Aquinas, to the philosophy of language of McCabe, Murdoch, and Wittgenstein, to the ethical reflections of Kovesi, Anscombe and MacIntyre, and to the political theory of Rawls, Stout, and Coles. Through his stress on the role of virtues and moral formation, and by emphasizing the importance that the church’s tradition, language, and practices have in shaping the imagination and lives of Christians, Hauerwas gives a constructive and fruitful description of what a genuine Christian politics looks like and helps us navigate the complex world of today.

民主原則之規範性困境，今日已於所有民主國家的政治生活中，展現為層出不窮的民主危機。尤其因為民粹威權主義於成熟民主國家的大行其道，民主危機的解決已成為當代民主迫在眉睫的問題。為求取釜底抽薪的解決之道，則必須從理論層面出發，對民主之概念進行徹底的反省。然而，法學本身顯然難以克服此一困境，而必須將道德哲學與政治哲學的理論資源與方法納入視野之內，以便從規範性證立民主的基本內涵開始，循序漸進地獲致其反映於制度層面應有的具體內容。 　　過往的民主理論證立民主之所以具有無法克服的困難，是因為其終須依賴當代多元社會下有爭議的道德信念。對此，本文以Jürgen Habermas的「論辯倫理學」為基礎，從而對民主的基本精神提出無爭議的規範性證立。透過論辯倫理學的進一步推演，Habermas亦導出「法律論辯理論」，以說明法律作為施展強制力的工具是如何被證立的。藉由結合論辯倫理學與法律論辯理論，便能將民主強制付諸於日常生活的實踐之中，據此呈現出民主作為憲法原則的應有樣貌。植基於此一的路徑，本文拓展了Habermas的理念，從而證立並闡發民主的核心精神。 　　此一依循論辯倫理學及法律論辯理論所獲致的民主原則內容，即為審議民主理論。依據前述的理論奠基，本文認為審議民主理論蘊含的內容可歸結為「論辯之基本權」以及「政治平等諸規則」兩大理念，並能透過基進民主理論的批判以深化對後者的理解，從而闡發審議民主理論的基進意涵。「基進審議民主」明確而豐富的內容不僅宣告著民主原則規範性困境之解決，也同時於實踐上提出了化解民主危機的制度建議。 / In the political life of all democracies, the normative dilemma of principle of democracy has appeared as endless crises of democracy. Accrodingly, to solve the crisis of democracy thus becomes an urgent issue for the contemporary democracy. As populist authoritarianism propagated on a upsetting scale around developed democracies, finding a resolution also grows more significant. To solve this problems once and for all, we must proceed forward from a theoretical perspective that indicate a profound reflection on the concept of democracy. Because jurisprudence becomes manifest in lack of proper paths to overcome this dilemma by itself, incorporating the theoretical resources and methods of ethics and political philosophy into the field of vision may be imperative and necessary. With the foundation that justifies fundamental connotations of democracy in a normative approch, we will obtain the specific contents that democracy reflects at the institutional level progressively. 　　Previous works on democratic theory are so difficult to justify democracy per se because their justifications depending on controversial moral beliefs in contemporary plural society drift into failure. In this regard, Jürgen Habermas advanced the “Discourse Ethics” which suggests a non-controversial normative justification of democratic essences as the most promising theory at present. Through employing Discourse Ethics, Habermas deduced “Discourse Theory of Law” to explain how to justify law as a compulsory instrument. In this manner, democracy can be forced into daily life, via combining Discourse Ethics and Discourse Theory of Law, to draw a ideal form as a a constitutional principle. Through the illustration of Habermas's doctrine, this thesis tries to broaden the ways to understand and describe the democracy. 　　“Deliberative Democracy” is the very idea derived from Discourse Ethics and Discourse Theory of Law. Based on the foundations of the above, this thesis suggests that the contents of Deliberative Democracy can be attributed to the two basic concepts including “fundamental rights of discourse” and “rules of political equality”, which, through criticisms of radical democracy, shall be further deepen the understanding of the latter to elucidate what radical meanings do Deliberative Democracy have. With specific and profuse contents, radical deliberative democracy not only invents a solution to the normative dilemma of principle of democracy, but puts forward institutional proposals to resolving crises of democracy in practice simultaneously.