Barbara Krauz-Mozer

“The issue of Identity” is an indeterminate and difficult subject to exhaust; full of contradictions expressed and discussed in vague language, evoking emotions and ideological disputes, especially in the context of conflicting identities. The author does not exhaustively discuss, but only just points to some threads of reflection on various forms of identity, functioning in a specific cultural and social entanglement. From semantic doubts, through the reservations of historians asking about time with regard to identity and the important remarks of sociologists resembling the unresolved dispute between nominalists and realists – the author tries to point out only some of the complications besetting a researcher seeking for “identity”.

Theoretical approach to politics is the domain of emotional disputes, antinomies connected with the interpretation of the phenomenon of science, or the reason for insoluble controversies, concerning the foundations of recognized worldviews. Both social sciences and humanities participate in this discussion, in their own specific way; political science and the theories developed within this domain can be positioned between them. This discussion, however, bears no signs of a matter of fact debate, it is conducted in breach of the principles of scientific rationality. Many a time it has a confessional character: the arguing parties, instead of presenting their own positions in a discursive way, and quoting appropriate arguments, oft en resort to presenting their own “confession of faith” and use it as a starting point to denigrate the opponent. It is the author’s opinion that social theory and the theories of politics investigated within its frame would help to find and understand the origins of opposing worldviews.