La figura dell’esule. Bernhard Waldenfels e la «differenza responsiva»

After identifying the different ways in which we can feel exiled, the paper reconstructs the path that leads from exile to asylum. The exile – emblem of the refugee and of the stranger in general – is perceived now as a threatening and subversive difference. Recognizing the primacy of internal difference at the heart of the human being and of the law – the original inappropriateness on which subjects, society and law are based – Bernhard Waldenfels rehabilitates the figure of the stranger, who becomes, in fact, the symbol of an original ontological difference that forces us into a “creative response”. Keywords: Waldenfels; Responsive Difference; Asylum; Exile; Stranger; Alien.