Europa frente a lo extraño

“Thinking Europe at its limits”, as proposed in 1992 by a group of philosophers from the University of Strasbourg —Denis Guénoun, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, Daniel Payot—, means considering what the “geo-philosophy of Europe” is as an essential question that encompasses all truthful reflection surrounding the idea of Europe. The debate, to which a diverse group of colleagues and friends from different nations were mvited, advanced the very possibility of an identification of Europe, together with the profoundness, in other words the very violence that this possibility (or impossibility) implies, as confirmed time and again since then by recent and highly topical events. The proposal was everything but futile. Indeed, as is well known and was confirmed by the group itself some months later in July 1993, what is certain is that a storm of terrible furores broke out and atrocious upheavals were expressed, both intra- and extra-European, that, if nothing else, urge us to consider whether the project of what deserves to be known as a “world” may or may not be confused with the exclusive exportation of what Europe has invented, produced and identified. The future appears to be in the grip of two morbid figures, two symmetrical nightmares: the myth of a homogeneous planet, like a gigantic Europe spreading everywhere; and a confined Europe, imprisoned in its imprecise and uncertain boundaries, a kind of isolating barricade or trenches enabling it to reclusively consume the illusion of its supposed welfare. This deplorable alternative incites part of our responsibilities, since the arenas of the future necessarily feed off the forms and propositions of thought, which are worthy of an attempt to weigh up and understand. Professor Bernhard Waldenfels responded to this challenge with a memorable intervention, a concise and summarised version of which was first published in French, the final version appearing in Chapter 6 of his book Topographie des Fremden, the first of four volumes that make up his great work Studien zur Phänomenologie des Fremden, published by Suhrkamp of Frankfurt del Meno in 1997. We wish to express our thanks to the author and the publishers for their kind permission to publish the Spanish translation of this essay.