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ACCEPT Pluralism Project, UCD School of Politics and International Relations and UCD School of Philosophy

Thursday 9 May 2013

Rainer Forst

Toleration and Democracy

Newman House

7pm

There will be a reception preceding the event from 6.15pm.

Rainer Forst is Professor of Political Theory at the Department for Social Sciences, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt.  He was named the ‘most important political philosopher of his generation’ when awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2012. His publications include Contexts of Justice: Political Philosophy beyond Liberalism and Communitarianism, 2002; The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice, 2012, and Toleration in Conflict, just published in English by Cambridge University Press (2013)

This lecture is supported by the project ACCEPT PLURALISM: Tolerance, Pluralism and Social Cohesion: Responding to the Challenges of the 21st Century in Europe (European Commission, DG Research Seventh Framework Programme Social Sciences and Humanities) (http://www.accept-pluralism.eu/), in which UCD SPIRe is a partner. This project examines the treatment of indigenous and immigrant cultural and religious diversity in fifteen EU states (and one applicant country, Turkey), the current state of tolerance and the policies that need to be developed to respect diversity, with particular reference to education and civic and political life. It also includes a volume, Tolerance, Intolerance and Respect: Hard to Accept? (Dobbernack and Modood (eds), forthcoming, June 2013), which addresses debates about the types of ‘acceptance’ appropriate in increased cultural and religious diversity, where greater openness and respect for some may rest upon a reinforced intolerance towards others. This complicates and challenges our understanding of what it means for societies to be accepting, tolerant or respectful of cultural diversity in its various forms.

We are also grateful for support for this event from the UCD School of Philosophy.