Acknowledgements

The general idea for this book started life with an invitation to speak at the Colloquium ‘Identities in conflict, conflict in identities’ at the Masaryk University in Brno, the Czech Republic, in 2010. My idea for this talk was, quite simply, to reflect on the elements that constitute the idea of ‘human’ identities. I have since been able to try out some of my arguments in various conferences, workshops and lectures in: Berlin (2014), Brno (2012) Buenos Aires (2011), Cambridge (2015, 2016), Jena (2011), Leeds (2012), Loughborough (2010), Paris (2015), Rome (2015), Santiago (2010, 2013, 2014, 2015), Temuco (2013), Trento (2012), Turin (2013), Valparaiso (2013) and Warwick (2010, 2014, 2015). I am grateful to the organisers and participants of these events; I hope that they will see that their suggestions and criticisms have been put to good use.

By name I would like to mention those friends and colleagues whose interest, comments and encouragement have greatly helped me complete this project: Omar Aguilar, Rafael Alvear, Nicolás Angelcos, Margaret Archer, Peter Baehr, David Baker, Jack Barbalet, Tom Brock, Brian Callan, Mark Carrigan, Vincenzo Cicchelli, Rodrigo Cordero, Kieran Durkin, Dave Elder-Vass, Robert Fine, Steve Fuller, Ana Gross, Peter Holley, Juan Jiménez, Karen Lumsden, Aldo Mascareño, Sabina Mihelj, Marcus Morgan, Jordi Mundó, Karen O’Reilly, William Outhwaite, Francisco Salinas, Martin Savransky, Csaba Szaló, Bryan S. Turner, Charles Turner, Frederic Vandenberghe and Frank Welz. I am particularly grateful to Rafael and Robert, who commented very generously on most individual chapters and the execution of the whole project. Responsibility for the mistakes, omissions and inaccuracies that remain is mine alone.

As with previous projects, the unconditional love and support of my family and friends – both here and there – have been essential. My deep thanks to Leonor Chernilo, Mara Chernilo, Raúl Chernilo, Rayén Gutiérrez, Paula Mena, Iván Mlynarz, Carla Moscoso, Jorge Moscoso, María José Reyes, Juanita Rojas, Jeannette Steiner, Andrea Valdivia and Andrés Velasco.

Some sections of the introduction have appeared in: ‘On the relationships between social theory and natural law: Lessons from Karl Löwith and Leo Strauss’ (History of the Human Sciences 23(5): 91–112, 2010); ‘The idea of philosophical sociology’ (British Journal of Sociology 65(2): 338–57, 2014); ‘Book review: Bruno Latour’s An enquiry into modes of existence: An anthropology of the moderns’ (European Journal of Social Theory 18(3): 343–48, 2015).

The last part of Chapter 3 builds on: ‘The theorisation of social co-ordinations in differentiated societies: The theory of generalised symbolic media in Parsons, Luhmann and Habermas’ (British Journal of Sociology 53(3): 431–49, 2002).