Social life and the enigma of the relationship: the paradox of relational goods

From Florence University Press Journal: SocietàMutamentoPolitica

Pierpaolo Donati, University of Bologna

Social relationships always contain enigmas, since they must relate the different, i.e. single persons or collective subjects, who are puzzles for each other.

Solving these puzzles means solving the relationship paradox, which consists in being able to unite the different ones while at the same time promoting their diversity.

This challenge is faced and won in the creation of relational goods, which are answers to paradoxes. So much so that the probability of having relational evils is much greater than that of having relational goods.

The latter consist of relationships created by subjects who realize that they can obtain certain goods only if they produce them and use them together with others.

The very enigma of the relationship helps us to understand why these goods cannot be produced in any other way and do not have functional equivalents.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13128/smp-11042

Read full text: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/smp/article/view/11042