E. Venneri

Starting from an analysis of the arguments advanced in support of social planning as a hermeneutic practice, this paper will attempt to question the reasons that assign a distinctive value to reflexivity. In particular, if the social planning is similar to a non-linear search of possible solutions to complex problems that, as such, transcends unique ways of defining, the reflexivity corresponds to a state of ‘suspended judgment’ that exorcises any attempt to pre-determine the full range of stable preferences and values that govern the legitimacy of consensual decisions. So, the reflexivity triggers mechanisms that shut down ‘monopolies’ of expertise and recognize to ‘secular consciousness’ an enormous potential for the advancement of knowledge; retrieves the policy-making a ‘creative fruitfulness’, essential to the contingency and contextual embeddedness of intervention measures.