Pluralism beyond reason and power - The "trans-reasonable" grounding of liberal reason

Is it possible, starting from Rawls but refraining from a wholesale accepta nce of his theory, to construct a philosophy of authentic liberal pluralism ? This would be a pluralism both grounded within the reasonable political r eason inherited from the Enlightenment and "immune" to the twofold weakness of reason: its alleged inability to oppose abusive powers, and its alleged incapacity to provide itself with a foundation. In the search for such a p hilosophy, the A. suggests that we explore the anchoring of liberal reason in what he calls the "trans-reasonable" domain, which is both internal to r eason and other than it. He attempts to circumscribe this domain using post modern approaches to subjectivity and ontology - and mainly those of Levina s and Vattimo. This makes it possible to develop a philosophy of pluralism in which reason, while remaining crucial, is nevertheless conscious of the need to appeal to something beyond itself. This beyond is "charity", a recu rrent theme in postmodern attempts to offer a non-foundationalist metaphysi cs. This theme of charity appears not as a merely poetic choice, but as the historical destiny of ontology: therefore, the trans-reasonable grounding of reason makes it possible to think of pluralism both beyond reason and be yond power.