Pierpaolo Donati

University of Bologna | UNIBO · Dept. of Political and Social Sciences

The chapter traces an outline of the most significant developing moments of the theory elaborated by the Author, called “relational sociology”. It starts by remembering what was the initial “research track” chosen to confront the dominant theories of the 1960s and 1970s, i.e. Marxism, functionalism and critical sociology. Then it highlights the mai...

The volume collects the contributions presented at the conference organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in 2022 on the theme of the family. The conference scope was to analyze the situation and collectively suggest lines of action to understand how the family can humanize the person in today’s not always family-friendly society. Th...

It is common knowledge that social processes are changing the family, so much so that many wonder if it will survive. The thesis of this chapter is that the tendencies towards the dissolution of the family are due to processes of morphogenesis which require careful analysis and evaluation. The social morphogenesis of the family can have many meanin...

L’Autore spiega perché i diritti riferiti alla sfera della famiglia hanno un carattere relazionale che il diritto non ha ancora tematizzato a sufficienza. SOMMARIO: 1. Il diritto e le relazioni sociali: il tema e le tesi — 2. La famiglia come gruppo e come istituzione sociale — 3. Che cosa significa dire che la famiglia è un “bene comune”? — 4. Leg...

Nowadays there is a great debate surrounding the family and what qualifies it as such: 'what is' and 'what makes the family'. If it seems widely recognized that the family is a common good, on the other hand everyone interprets the family and the common good in his/her own way. It is in no way clear how the different types of family represent a com...

According to the author, epistemologies prevail in the social sciences which, on the one hand, tend to consider the terms of relations as opposites according to a binary code, or tend to merge them by canceling their distinctions or making their distinctions circular. These epistemologies remove the ontologically constitutive relationality of the s...

After the publication of The Relational Subject (Donati and Archer, The relational subject. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015), the issue of how to connect personal reflexivity (i.e. inner conversation) and relational reflexivity (i.e. how social relations affect the identity of the subject reflexively) has remained opened. In this contri...

How to make the research methodology corresponding to relational sociology operational? The Author proposes a general framework based on five rules that explain how to do «relational analysis». First: distinguish between descriptive and problematizing observation of the social fact Y to explain and understand, and connect them. Second: define the o...

The social theory of recent decades has been characterized, in large part, by the confrontation between constructivists and deconstructivists. It thus ended up in the shallows of anti-humanism and the paranoia of relationalism. This book sets out the reasons why it is worth considering the alternative of critical, analytical and relational realism....

Fraternity, understood as an interpersonal relationship between two or more subjects, is expressed and made concrete in a specific type of goods: relational goods. Relational goods are born on a micro level in the lifeworlds (primary relational goods), but then they can originate forms of civil associations and organizations at a meso level (second...

The paper deals with the theory of gesture from the point of view of relational sociology. On the one hand, the thesis of the ‘complete gesture’ developed by Giovanni Maddalena is appreciated as a significant step forward from classical pragmatism. On the other hand, since theories based essentially on phenomenology and semiotics are at risk of nom...

Much of the social sciences removes the ontologically constitutive relationality of the social in which the Third lies. Disconnecting the human from the social causes all the crises we experience in social life today. To get out of these crises, it is necessary to see that the social is human if and only if it operates on the basis of the supra-fun...

Il capitolo affronta il seguente problema: se sia necessaria – se no perché, e se sì quale sia – una matrice simbolica che ci consenta di affrontare l’enigma della relazione in modo tale che sia possibile vedere come e perché le relazioni umane e le relazioni divine siano ontologicamente connesse fra loro (non per similitudine o metafora). La socio...

Il capitolo parte da un assunto fondamentale: uomo e donna, dal punto di vista sociologico, sono realtà e concetti relazionali. Il problema è comprendere che cosa significhi ‘relazionali’. Certo significa che l’uomo è tale in relazione alla donna, e la donna è tale in relazione all’uomo. Ma cosa vuol dire questo in pratica, in tutte le dimensioni d...

From the Enlightenment onwards, modern western society has seen transcendental religion as an obstacle to democracy. In order to overcome this obstacle modernity has adopted two strategies. By the first, it has forced religion to adapt itself to the political symbolic code of democratisation (the "European model"). By the second, it has allowed rel...

Il fiorire, o viceversa l'alienazione dell'identità dipende da una corretta comprensione e gestione della realtà delle relazioni sociali da cui l'identità dipende ed emerge in contesti specifici. Relazione e identità sono due concetti distinti, ma la loro distinzione non significa separazione, perché essi sono ontologicamente e fenomenologicamente...

Nelle ricerche sulla condizione femminile in Italia vi è un soggetto collettivo sino ad ora lasciato in ombra. È la donna della terza Italia, quella che vive in aree periferiche, non metropolitane, caratterizzate da una situazione socio-economica peculiare relativamente forte rispetto ad aree di estrema dipendenza, marginalità, proletarizzazione. L...

La famiglia è una rete di relazioni. Anzi, nella sua essenza sociale, la famiglia è un tipo specifico di relazione sociale. Questa realtà, per quanto in certo modo nota da tempo, assume una nuova e più ricca pienezza di senso in quella società che tematizza la relazione sociale in quanto tale, ovverossia che si autoconcepisce come «relazionalità»....

La sociologia, come scienza moderna, è caratterizzata da un dualismo di fondo che, mettendo in opposizione l'uomo come soggetto e l'uomo come oggetto della società, si traduce in due paradigmi conoscitivi praticamente alternativi e spesso incomunicabili: da un lato il paradigma dell'azione sociale, basato sulla soggettività, e dall'altro il paradig...

Πολλοί κοινωνιολόγοι αυτοαποκαλούνται πια «Σχεσιακοί Κοινωνιολόγοι», αλλά εννοούν εντελώς διαφορετικά πράγµατα. Στην πλειονότητά τους, αποδέχονται µια «επίπεδη οντολογία» η οποία ασχολείται αποκλειστικά µε δυαδικές σχέσεις. Συνεπώς, δεν µπορούν να εξηγήσουν το πλαίσιο εντός του οποίου συµβαίνουν οι σχέσεις ή οι συνέπειές τους, παρά µόνο ως αθροίσµα...

In the panorama of gesture theories, the contribution of relational sociology based on critical realism is underdeveloped. This contribution seeks to fill the deficit by considering Giovanni Maddalena's theory on the ‘complete gesture’. On the one hand, this theory is appreciated as a significant step forward from classical pragmatism. On the other...

Che cos'è il social housing (SH)? Chiariamo le caratteristiche generali. Social Housing (SH) è una catchword, una parola-contenitore dietro la quale si vogliono significare finalità molto diverse fra loro che tuttavia dovrebbero avere in comune una caratteristica, quella di promuovere una qualità "sociale" dell'abitare che deve essere specificata....

In the panorama of gesture theories, the contribution of relational sociology based on critical realism is underdeveloped. This contribution seeks to fill the deficit by considering Giovanni Maddalena's theory on the ‘complete gesture’. On the one hand, this theory is appreciated as a significant step forward from classical pragmatism. On the other...

La teoria relazionale affronta il problema di come sia possibile concettualizzare la persona umana dando priorità alla relazione, intersoggettiva e sociale. Il che significa: “all’inizio (cioè all’origine della persona) c’è la relazione”, ed è nella relazione che la persona esiste (ex-siste, cioè ha un proprio ubi consistam pur essendo connessa ad...

La identidad personal del niño reside en la relación entre quienes lo han generado. Los que generan no son los individuos como tales; los que generan son sus relaciones. Este es el punto que hay que entender. Lo que califica la generación de un niño como humana es la estructura hombre-mujer y la calidad intersubjetiva de esa relación.

La teoria sociale degli ultimi decenni è stata contraddistinta, in gran parte, dal confronto fra costruttivisti e decostruttivisti. È così finita nelle secche dell’anti-umanesimo e nelle paranoie del relazionismo. Questo libro espone le ragioni per cui vale la pena di considerare l’alternativa del realismo critico, analitico e relazionale. Una seri...

The COVID pandemic has caused social relations to emerge as the leading players in our lives. This translation of a chapter from the book “Dopo la pandemia. Rigenerare la società con le relazioni” [“After the pandemic: Regenerating society with relations”, Rome: Città Nuova 2021], explores the phenomenology of social relationships in generating the...

In the human and social sciences that address the dilemmas of the relationships between what is human subjectivity and what is required by society, today two tendencies prevail: on the one hand, the human and the social are considered as opposites according to a dualistic or binary code, and, on the other hand, they are fused together so that their...

L’unità del sapere non è un oggetto o un sistema definito, ma una complessità relazionale e dinamica. Come lo è la conoscenza quando si configura come un bene comune relazionale. Per comprendere che cosa ciò significhi occorre uno ‘sguardo relazionale’ sulla realtà. Tale sguardo ci mostra che la conoscenza non è un fatto individuale, ma un bene com...

In questo capitolo, viene argomentata la tesi che la famiglia sia un bene relazionale in sé, il quale, quando è veramente tale, produce tanti e diversi beni relazionali specifici che non possono essere generati da altre forme sociali. Questa realtà distintiva sui generis della famiglia è dovuta al suo specifico genoma sociale, che è il complesso re...

Il libro parte da un paradosso: la constatazione che gran parte delle scienze sociali non sono veramente ’sociali’. Non lo sono allorché spiegano i fenomeni e propongono interventi affidandosi agli individui e/o ai sistemi organizzativi, mentre lasciano sullo sfondo o nel buio le relazioni sociali in quanto tali. Nelle relazioni c’è il punto cieco...

All forms of humanism that consider the human as a yardstick of society are marginalized by a Digital Technological Matrix that dominates the human, minimizes its role, and transforms it, to the point of dissolving its boundaries with the non-human. Speaking of essence and human dignity still make sense? The thesis of this contribution is that the...

Il volontariato, spiega il sociologo, «è un bene relazionale in sé da cui scaturiscono altri beni relazionali, come l'inclusione sociale, la solidarietà, la pace, per il fatto che consiste di una rete sociale che genera e fruisce assieme di un bene comune che non potrebbe venire all'esistenza senza questa rete relazionale, la quale non ha sostituti...

Pierpaolo Donati’s chapter opens the second part of the volume, where he tries to overcome the dialectical opposition highlighted by the first contributions and explores the possibility of working at the cultural matrix level to explore the possibilities of future development of liberalism. Donati, in his careful analysis of the welfare state, show...

La prima edizione di quest’opera (1993) ha messo a fuoco la crisi della cittadinanza statale, tipicamente moderna, che, da allora, si è effettivamente accentuata e dilatata. I processi di globalizzazione continuano ad erodere la sovranità degli Stati nazionali e lo Stato sociale non ce la fa più ad assicurare i diritti di welfare dal centro. Questa...

Le società contemporanee non hanno una rappresentazione adeguata di se stesse. Le immagini e le forme simboliche e cognitive che esse hanno ereditato dal passato, in generale come interpretazioni organiche, dialettiche o funzionali, non riescono più a comprendere e spiegare quanto accade: emerge una socialità che si frammenta e implode allo stesso...

e-book: https://puz.unizar.es/2494-sociologia-relacional-una-lectura-de-la-sociedad-emergente.html La sociedad está hecha de relaciones sociales. Pero ¿qué es una «relación social»? ¿Qué significa «estar en relación» con otras personas? ¿Qué quiere decir que los hechos sociales son «realidades relacionales»? Este libro responde a estos interrogante...

This book explores the ways in which social relations are profoundly changing modern society, arguing that, constituting a reality of their own, social relations will ultimately lead to a new form of society: an aftermodern or relational society. Drawing on the thought of Simmel, it extends the idea that society consists essentially of social relat...

This chapter examines how the processes of human enhancement that have been brought about by the digital revolution (including AI and robotics, besides ICTs) have given rise to new social identities and relationships. The central question consists in asking how the Digital Technological Matrix, understood as a cultural code that supports artificial...

(English) The book explains how to deal with the welfare crisis by abandoning the compromise between the state (lab) and the market (lib) to configure society as a relational complex of four sectors: state, market, third sector (non-profit and private social), families and informal networks. It was the first formulation of an alternative way both t...

(English) The book presents for the first time the theory of the 'social-private' spheres of society (pp. 112-114). This theory was subsequently taken up by Achille Ardigò and was used in the Italian social legislation on welfare state interventions. (Italiano) Il libro presenta per la prima volta la teoria delle sfere di 'privato- sociale' della...

(English) In recent years, a widespread tendency to treat the family as pure communication has emerged in sociology and other social disciplines. Transferred to that floor, the family seems to be able to be understood and modified according to all "possible arrangements". Even the socialization of childhood no longer seems a task that the family mu...

What will social life be like when the Covid-19 pandemic has been eradicated? Will we return to 'normal' life as before, in continuity with the modern myths of well-being and progress, or will we have to adopt another modus vivendi? The book intends to show that the pandemic has revealed to us something that modernity has removed: the reality of so...

Quando parliamo di virtù umane, per esempio di onestà, sincerità, fiducia, compassione, responsabilità, empatia, riconoscimento, lealtà, rispetto, amicizia, umanità (humanness) e così via, generalmente riferiamo l’agire virtuoso agli individui. Usiamo l’aggettivo “virtuoso” per riferirci ad un individuo o ad un atto. Quasi mai sentiamo parlare di “...

1. Capitale sociale e reti associazionali: qualcosa di nuovo dopo Tocqueville? - 2. Due modi paradigmatici sinora prevalenti nel leggere il capitale sociale: le loro varianti e i loro mix, pregi e difetti - 3. Un nuovo approccio al capitale sociale: la prospettiva relazionale - 4. Capitale sociale associazionale e beni relazionali - 5. Chi genera i...

The basic argument is that a good society is one that is organized according to a logic of life opportunities that is capable of producing relational goods. But what are relational goods? Some years ago, the social sciences ‘discovered’ a type of goods that are neither material things nor ideas nor services, but consist of social relations and, for...

All forms of humanism that consider the human as a yardstick of society are marginalized by a Digital Technological Matrix that dominates the human, minimizes its role, and transforms it, to the point of dissolving its boundaries with the non‐human. Speaking of essence and human dignity still make sense? The thesis of this contribution is that the...

Max Weber's sociology is attractive because it enhances individual action in a society that is inspired by the polytheism of values. Undoubtedly it captures the characteristics of our society, dominated by individualism, in which everybody serves his/her own idols on the basis of a supposed (Weberian) ‘subjective rationality’. Donati argues, instea...

Da alcuni anni le scienze sociali hanno "scoperto" un tipo di beni che non sono né cose materiali, né idee, né prestazioni, ma consistono di relazioni sociali, e per tale ragione sono chiamati "beni relazionali". Riguardano tutte quelle relazioni che fanno fiorire le persone. Realizzano una "vita buona" e una "società buona", e in particolare una d...

Many scholars today share a view of relational sociology as a processual-transactional approach whose basic tenet is the fluid, relativistic, contingent, transactional character of social relations. They invite sociologists to see our so-called objects (societies, institutions, social patterns, conflicts, social movements, social classes, etc.) in...

Data concerning the books published by Pierpaolo Donati (1975-2022)

Sociology 'observes' reality, but how does it do it? Donati proposes to distinguish the different ways of observing social phenomena in three types: the objectifying ones, the subjectivizing ones, and the relational ones. The former are positivistic, the latter believe that knowledge depends entirely on the knowing subject. These are opposite forms...

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 fac...

The enhancement of human beings through digital technologies (ICT, AI, robots) compels us to evaluate whether, how, and when these technologies feed the flourishing or, vice versa, the alienation of humanity. Social identities, relations and organizations are forced to take shape in the environment of a Digital Matrix (DM) that is a symbolic code w...

The advent of the digital era brings with it the dream of ‘transcending the human’ through the most sophisticated AI / robot technologies. The Author argues that the concept and practices of ‘transcendence’ are deeply ambiguous, since on the one hand they simply aim to overcome the weaknesses, limits and fragility of the human, while on the other h...

The paper presents a general outline of the author’s relational sociology, showing it to be different from other relational sociologies, which are, in fact, figurational, transactional, or purely communicative. Relational sociology is conceived as a way of observing and thinking that starts from the assumption that the problems of society are gener...

The book has a twofold scope. 1) To present a panorama of the sociological theories (classic and contemporary) on the social relation. 2) To explain Donati's relational sociology or, better, relational theory of society.

This article aims to show how relational sociology, in synergy with critical realism, sees social change, understood as social morphogenesis, in advanced societies. The concept of morphogenesis (MG) in the social sciences can be traced back to organic system theory. This theory became problematic once research showed that social networks cannot be...

Lo social de hoy parece ser cada vez menos humano. Lo humano se hibrida con el no humano. Esto sucede, por ejemplo, en el uso de tecno-logías digitales, en las interacciones entre humanos y robots, y en general en la difusión de relaciones virtuales. Es cada vez más difícil ver qué hay de propriamente humano en la vida social. Uno se pregunta enton...

Two sociological mainstreams, one based on rational choice theory and one on relational sociology, converge in affirming that relational goods are those that can be enjoyed only if shared with some others. Both agree that it is a kind of goods different from strictly private goods, which are enjoyed alone, and from standard public goods, which are...

Издание содержит переводы статей Пьерпаоло Донати, выдающегося современного итальянского социолога, который разрабатывает собственную версию так называемой реляционной теории общества. В первой части сборника излагаются теоретические основания этой теории, во второй — представленыее практические следствия и возможные приложения, в частности для реш...

This volume explores the potential of employing a relational paradigm for the purposes of interdisciplinary exchange. Bringing together scholars from the social sciences, philosophy and theology, it seeks to bridge the gap between subject areas by focusing on real phenomena. As an experimental collection that highlights the potential that exists fo...

The purpose of this book is to offer a critique of the ideology of multiculturalism and to propose an alternative that can widen the ray of reason. The original contribution concerns precisely the elaboration of an extended concept of 'reason', that of 'relational reason', from which we can draw innovative implications for a new configuration of cu...

The book is a treatise on reflexivity in the perspective of relational sociology. Reflexivity is defined at three levels: as an inner conversation, as a relational reflexivity (with and on social relations), and as a reflexivity of social networks. Its originality lies in proposing a relational conception of reflexivity against individualist versio...

A theory of subsidiarity applied to European countries.

The advent of the digital era brings with it the dream of ‘transcending the human’ through the most sophisticated AI / robot technologies. The Author argues that the concept and practices of ‘transcendence’ are deeply ambiguous, since on the one hand they simply aim to overcome the weaknesses, limits and fragility of the human, while on the other h...

Chinese translation and edition of Pierpaolo Donati (2011). Relational Sociology. A New Paradigm for the Social Sciences, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 254.

Esposizione della teoria relazionale della società e dei recenti sviluppi di questa teoria con riferimento anche alle ricerche empiriche.

The world system based of the financialisation not only of economy but, we may well say, of all social relations, experiences a chronic crisis and has to be reconverted. But how? The Author argues that we do not have to resort to an abstract welfare ‘model’, but rather to facilitate some ways of life (forms of a modus vivendi), i.e. ways of operati...

Our societies are becoming more and more multiethnic and multicultural. How can we approach the growing cultural differences and diversity that can be seen in our societies as a result of increasing migrations and the processes of globalization? The political doctrine of multiculturalism – as it was institutionalized and practiced in many countries...

Although empirical research reveals that social capital is an essential factor to produce and preserve public assets, theories differ as to the role that social relations play. Some believe that public assets do not require social networks, while others argue that social capital without social networks cannot be created and, therefore, public asset...

The paper was given on 26 october 2001 at the international congress on “unprotected time of young people in the EU”, held at the University of Bologna (Italy). It discusses the social problems connected to the time in which young people (10-15 years) are unprotected by the socialising agencies in everyday life. The policies designed so far in eu c...

Nuevas políticas sociales y Estado social relacional Según el autor, las sociedades europeas siguen inspirando las políticas sociales en un código (estatal) de in-clusión-al que aquí se denomina lib/lab (mezcla de liberalismo y laborismo)-que en el pasado ha constitui-do un factor de progreso, pero que actualmente resulta cada vez más débil y obsol...