Ragionevoli differenze. Scarto e diastema in François Jullien

This essay takes its cue from François Jullien’s thought and explores rationality understood as otherness through the categories used by the philosopher: difference, gap and between. Contrary to difference, which appears as a unitary concept, linked to identity, discard does not operate by classification but by questioning; discard is productive, whereas difference produces nothing; discard proposes a truth as openness. Jullien understands the between as an instrument derived from difference, and it is through the between that Jullien bases his approach to otherness. It is interesting to see how Jullien sees the gap as a way of thinking of society not vertically but horizontally. Not the gap between classes, ranks and fortunes, but the gap between languages, landscapes, activities and ways of life. The tension between these aspects, Jullien writes, gives strong meaning to the cultural, which is constantly changing and gives life to cultures themselves. Thinking and designing ways and forms of human coexistence. Therefore, instead of a systematic search for the needs and challenges of the contemporary world, a diastematic tension in which the dia-system opposes the system is more decisive.