Metanoia. La virtù democratica di cambiare idea

Abstract

The word μετάνοια deserves to be brought to our attention today, because it concerns very closely some fundamental questions concerning democracy, its principles and the attempts at radical questioning it is increasingly undergoing. Metanoia (and meta-deliberative situations in general) can be considered part of a broader homeostatic mechanism aimed at recovering the ‘health’ of the deliberative process through the correction of errors and the maintenance of of the political well-being considered desirable. By allowing for plurality of opinion and the possibility of metanoia, dissent actually protects the crucial element of democracy, deliberation itself.