Nature umane e critica sociale

This special issue is both the product and the birthplace of a research community. It is first and foremost the product of a line of research on the concepts of nature and human nature that Italo Testa, Rino Genovese, and I have been pursuing since 2022, beginning with the editorial project of editing the Italian translation of Axel Honneth and Hans Joas's work, Social Action and Human Nature (A. Honneth, H. Joas, Agire sociale e natura umana, Rosenberg & Sellier, Turin 2023); then through the organization of a series of seminars on contemporary philosophical, anthropological, and sociological theories that investigate the concept of nature in its plurality. Secondly, this issue is one of the physical places where the wider research community that developed through the seminars took concrete form, investingating the legitimacy, functionality, methodology, and aims of philosophical anthropology and critical naturalism.