From cultural pluralism in the Middle Ages to the challenges of contemporary Law

Abstract

The Middle Ages are usually associated with an obscure time for which modernity has meant an evolution. Their repository of practices, ideas and experiences is despised Filoby Western culture, which comprises the entire world from the typical categories of modernity. The article intends to question this dogma, pointing on one hand to the richness of the multicultural medieval experience of dialogue between Arabs, Jews and Christians who together have managed to preserve their differences and propose universality. On the other hand, it aims to signalize the unilateral and monologic character of modernity, which interdicted intercultural dialogue and established the hegemony of the liberal-individualist cultural model. Consequently, a monistic legal paradigm arises and Law abandons the framework of plurality to become an instrument of regulation of a supposedly homogeneous society. The exhaustion of the modern project unveiled plural societies, whose claims the law is unable to attend to. The rehabilitation of the legacy of medieval philosophy can be an important way to approach the Law to contemporary issues of pluralism that modern ideas have obliterated.

Keywords: cultural pluralism, Middle Ages, modern Law.