Laicità e conflitti identitari. Laicità via toleration

This paper analyses the role of the principle of secularism with respect to the consolidation of the democratic 'host' nations which confront themselves with other cultural and religious identities. The aim is pursued by a revisitation of the concept, in the light of the philosophy of ideas. The core of the argumentation is the following: both liberal and liberal-democratic western states are grounded on what contemporary scholars, proving true John Locke, call the subtle art of distinction among spheres and dimensions of individual and collective life. This must be reconsidered nowadays in order to tackle properly the struggle among groups whose specific symbolic internal cohesion is based on forms of religious identity.