Djia Voltaire

Almost all countries around the world face problems managing differences in their public sphere. Given the multiculturality of the majority of contemporary societies, this management takes two routes; either the differences are confined into the private sphere and there is an insistence on ways the society can be kept united, or the differences are brought into the public sphere, and the society is then made up of groups, each fighting for its recognition. Multiculturalism takes the second route and advances two arguments: the claim for authenticity and the claim for recognition. This paper evaluates the consistency of these arguments with the sustainability of the State. We argue that the arguments advanced by multiculturalism are not convincing and rather lead to the fragmentation of the state. Finally, we sketch the type of education that can help to handle the question of differences without turning individuals and groups into islands.

Von Wright’s philosophy is seldom seen as original when compared to that of his master, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Contrary to that orientation, this work seeks to establish the opposition of von Wright to Wittgenstein in relation to the question of whether ethics is an area where logic can legitimately extend. For Wittgenstein, logic deals with what is necessarily true. On the basis of this characterization of logic, Wittgenstein thinks that logic cannot legitimately help to capture ethics for the reason that the referents of ethical discourse are not in the world. Only the referents of scientific discourse are there. For Wittgenstein, therefore, we must adopt a mystical position in ethics both by giving it the greatest importance but also by applying the greatest silence. Von Wright admits, following Wittgenstein, the varieties of goodness. However, he stresses that the varieties of goodness do not leave room for absolute relativism. Norms have both a prescriptive dimension that can be relative to a culture, and a descriptive dimension that makes them assessable to logical standards.