Abstract

The prevailing notion of tradition in modern political thought has been that of a mere repository of beliefs about the good life, a repertoire of narratives and practical articulations of social bonds that is transmitted through history in a static condition. In spite of this prolonged diminished role, we are now seeing relevant attempts of theoretical and practical reprise. In particular, the accounts about the historical evolution of practical rationality and about the transformations of the public sphere have been recently a favorable place for a return of theoretical consideration about the concept of tradition. Such a comeback took different forms, from Neo- communitarianism, to Neo-pragmatism and sociological inquiry.The very notion of a tradition has been widely re-explored by some authors as an evolving rational moral research , as a place for mediation between the dimension of communicative action and the plurality of practices , as the epistemic condition for the exercise of democratic practices . Tradition is then placed at the crossroads between the evolution of forms of rational public deliberation about the common goods and the historical construction of norms, institutions and procedures which are typical of public life.The redefinition of a concept of tradition which shifts the attention from the conservation of tokens of past knowledge to the evolution of the forms of cooperative exercise of practical reason allows for a fruitful development of some related notions, like those of exemplarity, symbol and shared imaginary. Moreover, a renewed conception of tradition is a favorable condition to think differently about the ethical and political meaning of religions in the public sphere