Dr. Pierpaolo Donati (2017)

Pierpaolo Donati (Budrio, 30 September 1946) is an Italian sociologist, philosopher and professor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Bologna, where he is also director of the Centre of Studies in Social Policy and the Sociology of Health (CEPOSS).

His writings, which focus on epistemological issues, deal largely with the social sciences, reinterpreted in light of the relational “turning point” in modern philosophy and sociology. On that basis, he analyses forms of citizenship, associative phenomena within civil society and welfare state policies in highly different societies, as well as the role of social institutions, etc.

In this regard, he is a proponent of what he calls “relational sociology”, which is closely linked to the philosophical birth of a new and more general “relational paradigm” in social sciences, as a counterpoint between realism and constructivism, between methodological individualism and holism.

Relational sociology has spurred the creation of new concepts such as “relational reason” and “relational goods”, both of which are solutions to the inherent problems of multiculturalism and the merchandising of wellness in today’s society.

His recent publications include:

• Il paradigma relazionale nelle scienze sociali: le prospettive sociologiche (2006)
• Repensar la sociedad. El enfoque relacional (2006)
• Família no século XXI: abordagem relacional (2008)
• Oltre il multiculturalismo. La ragione relazionale per un mondo comune (2008)
• Il capitale sociale degli italiani. Le radici familiari, comunitarie e associative del civismo (2008)
• Laicità: la ricerca dell’universale nelle differenze (2008)
• Relational Sociology: A New Paradigm for the Social Sciences (2011)
• Sociologia della relazione (2013)
• La familia como raíz de la sociedad (2013)
• The Relational Subject (2015)