Un intervento di João Carlos Graça sulla Controstoria e la recensione del Times Literary Supplement

João Carlos Graça è Assistant professor al Departamento de Ciências Sociais dell'Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa [SGA].

Dear Professor Losurdo
First of all, the very existence of this review is good news, so let me congratulate you for it. As to substantive questions, the thing that strikes me more is that, of course, we can go on and on indefinitely talking about issues when it is mostly matters of definition that are involved. And so, apparently Jennifer Pitts didn’t like very much your definition of Liberalism, hence she suggests instead a… lack of any exact definition, so that all that is retrospectively considered “good” is susceptible of being taken as an expression of Liberalism, whereas “bad” things tend to be illiberal ex definitio. This way, of course, “Liberalism” gets identified with endless, indefinable “meliorism”, with improvability itself. That is to say, that which others would
identify with Humankind, or “human condition”, she associates with Liberalism. And so, of course, facing logomachies like this one, game over, let us congratulate the winner, Ave Jennifer, etc...

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João Carlos Graça
Lisboa, 25 de Setembro de 2011