In Plato’s metaphor of the cave, a philosopher leaves the cave and brings back news from the world outside. A single fugitive can bring one truth, but several fugitive-philosophers would bring back diverse accounts. None of them can be proven the one unquestionably true account of what is outside the cave. That authority in the cave rules legitimately when confined to the area of overlapping of these accounts: that is what John Rawls calls “public reason”. This way of justifying a pluralistic stance, says political philosopher Alessandro Ferrara, avoids the trap of turning the defense of pluralism into a non-plural truth and understands it as “most reasonable for us”.

Text Editing and Production: Nina zu Fürstenberg
Interview: Nina zu Fürstenberg
Video: Andrea Martella – Salvatore Caruso
Video Editing: Andrea Martella

Venice 2018