Skip to main content

Inratio

INCLUSIVE RATIONALITY. Rearticulating Philosophy’s Social Role Through a Dialogue Among Dialectic Hegelian Conceptual Tools, Contemporary Metaphilosophy, and Gender Perspectives (InRatio)

The InRatio project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101025620.
                                                                      

Questions

Does philosophy play a role in society? What is its action? Can it contribute to creating more inclusive, imaginative and reflective communities? These questions are at the heart of InRatio.

The situation

To answer these questions, we need to consider (at least) three interrelated trends:

  • the consolidation of three prejudices against philosophy (which also influence national financial policies): its alleged lack of objective knowledge and scientificity, its uselessness, and its abstractness;
  • the social demand for philosophy; and 
  • contemporary philosophy’s attempt to elaborate an adequate self-image, also considering the gender gap within academic philosophy, and philosophy’s difficulty conveying its results to society.

The investigation starts precisely from the complex intertwining of these factors.

General aim

InRatio aims to transform this situation by turning those prejudices upside down and emphasizing philosophy’s contribution to societal challenges.

Objectives

The project has three main objectives:

1) the elaboration of a metaphilosophical account that (a) redefines the kind of knowledge and scientificity belonging to philosophy, (b) reconsiders philosophy’s impact on education and democratic life; (c) recasts the notion of concreteness in terms of concept networks capable of explanatory power;

2) the ideation of philosophical-educational programmes aimed at fostering inclusive, critical and creative thinking;

3) the implementation of a strategy to improve philosophy’s dialogue with society.

How?

InRatio brings together different approaches: contemporary metaphilosophical reflection, classical German philosophy, feminist philosophies, and philosophical educational methods.

Where?

InRatio mainly unites two universities: the University of Padua (Italy), promoting interdisciplinary research by connecting philosophy and social-educational sciences, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires, which highlights the university’s third mission by focusing on development projects. InRatio also involves close collaboration with the University of Buenos Aires and the Diego Portales University based in Santiago de Chile.