The overpopulation of the earth and the increasing consumption of its life ressources implies new risks and damages for mankind. The awareness of this facts has turned Ethics, formerly conceived of primarily as one among other philosophical disciplines, into a fundamental one. Ethics has become, in some sense, a “first philosophy”.This has opened new object fields for it. In the past Ethics was mainly concerned with the “good” life and the “good” behavior of the single subject. Now it aims to support behavior kinds making possible the survival of mankind under globalized life conditions. “Good” life presupposes surviving.Ethical reflections aimed formerly to guarantee that human beings keep able to live together even if they don’t share the same “values”. Now they have to face the problem of the living together of human beings belonging to different cultures and social forms. The main question is no more what ethical fundamentals would best enable human beings to live together, but what are the conditions for a coexistence of values which enables a good living together of human beings with diverse ethical orientations.Often it is said that Hegel did not develop an Ethics of his own. This paper would like to show that Hegel’s philosophy is, on the contrary, an excellent tool for facing such kinds of questions. His main ethical concept is “recognition”. But he is not concerned with the recognition or rejection of concrete ethical principles. His concept of recognition focuses on the individual in its absolute singularity, in his being absolutely unique in and through himself. His consciousness as self-consciousness gets thus particular in the sense of being definitely individual. Hegel calls the reciprocal recognition of individually conscious subjects the “absolute spirit”.This unusual terminology has made an adequate reception of Hegel’s thinking quite difficult. But there can be no doubt that his very rich and deep elaboration of the phenomenology of such recognition among factual subjects provides extremely productive tools to face eco-ethical reflections in our days. This paper tries to show in presently understandable terms Hegel’s reflections on the very nature of language as the place in which the subjects experience both their absolute individuality and their community, i. e. their singularity and the generality of their institutions, in a simultaneously paradox and coherent way. Recognition becomes in Hegel the inner structure of pardon and reconciliation. Its dependence on languages both diverse and shared makes this concept particularly productive for shaping the living together of human beings belonging to diverse cultures and following diverse ethical orientations.

The considerations formulated in this paper focus on the concept of reinforcement of that system of resources and values which assures the synchrony between individual behaviour and common good. In contemporary society, within an healthy environment, the right to development should be based both on an educational philosophical ground and on a teleological factor: the autonomy of judgement as well as the process of knowledge make the subject able of correlation, solidarity, capable to recognize her/his competence as a valid resource to compete in the configuration of a policy of social protection. [...] The hypothesis of sustainability of ethics is strengthened by an ethic of education, which can be identified through the production of new experiences of commitment, a sustainable practice where each change is perceived as an interior act, as an act of individual will that can be transformed in collective responsibility.

This article focuses on what I comprehend as the inherent dilemma in the tension between innovation and adaptation, as articulated in the policy documents of the emerging knowledge economy. In the first section, I delineate a horizon of understanding for my presentation by defining the societal transformations in the historical context in which the question of innovation has arisen. Then, in the second section, I elaborate on a diagnosis of the new and predominant flexible organization of knowledge.In the last two sections, I introduce hermeneutical perspectives into the discussion by a close reading of one of Paul Ricoeur’s major works from the mid 1970s, here interpreted as a profound investigation into the micro mechanisms of the epistemology of creativity. Thus, revealing the ontological implications of innovation as well as the anthropological prerequisites of a creativity with a “human face.”