L'esperienza morale della città

The city will be studied as a crucial site for the exploration of democratic forms of life. Two models of analysis will be examined: the modern liberal one of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill presents it as a place of public conversation and open discussion, offering the basis for the moral and political qualities of justice and public interest, as well as the formation of one's individuality. The modernist analysis of Musil, Benjamin, and Foucault, among others, presents it as a meeting of strangers who nevertheless live in the same urban space, creating encounters of an exhilaratingly intimate character. This relational fabric has the power to challenge the individuality built on defined public roles. In Foucault's analysis, we do not experience ourselves meeting others out of our defined identities, professional, social, personal, economic, and so on - which is the model of Smith and Mill - but we experience ourselves on the surface of our identities.