The fact that certain versions of multiculturalism conflict with basic democratic and liberal principles should no longer come as surprise. Rather, it may be taken to define multiculturalism in contradistinction to soft multiculturalism - such as Jens-Martin Eriksen and myself argue in the forthcoming The Democratic Contradictions of Multiculturalism} As an example, Charles Taylor seems willing to go some way in the direction of renouncing general liberal principles and may thus count as multiculturalist (even if one with scruples). A philosopher who has, to greater degree, attempted to involve core liberal ideas of individual rights and tolerance is the leading theoretician of multiculturalism in philosophy, the Canadian Will Kymlicka. With Multicultural Citizenship (1985) he produced new classic in the field, recently continued in Multicultural Odysseys (2007). Kymlicka is especially interesting because he directly addresses the question about the relation between multicultural norms and general principles of liberal democracy - such as is indicated by the subtitle of his chef-d'oeuvre: a liberal theory for multiculturalism. His explicit idea is that it is possible to articulate multiculturalism which constitutes further development of basic liberal ideas of democracy, human rights etc. and thus is not only compatible with liberalism but may even be seen as higher stage of liberalism. It might be expressed more problematically in way with which he may not himself be satisfied: Kymlicka seeks middle road between culturalism and liberalism.His project rests on an attempt to reconcile some of the ontological presuppositions of culturalism, according to which individuals are thoroughly determined by their and may only lead satisfying life within the confines of that culture,2 with basically liberal philosophy - by trying to develop the former out of the latter. His concept of is obviously culturalist: he delimits it from the broad and more indistinct use of the notion of comprising gay culture or Western culture (18) by focusing upon what he calls culture specifically: a which provides its members with meaningful ways of life across the full range of human activities, including social, educational, religious, recreational, and economic Ufe, encompassing both public and private spheres.3This forms relatively unmodified version of the all-embracing concept of in culturalism - even if we notice the conspicuous absence of adjectives like juridical and political in his list of the full range of human activities in such He emphasizes that such full necessarily exists in institutional incarnations. If should be able to survive and develop in the modern world, it must necessarily be such culture, he claims (80), and the intimate connection of such with the concept of liberty forms the basis of the central argument axis in the book. This goes as follows: freedom involves making choices amongst various options, and our societal not only provides these options, but also makes them meaningful to us ... . And to have belief about the value of practice is, in the first instance, matter of understanding the meanings attached to it by our culture. (83) As is evident, this is variant of basic culturalist ideas: the claim that thought and value systems originate exhaustively from Kymlicka even goes so far as to quote Margalit and Raz wim acclamation for their claim that familiarity with determines the boundaries of the imaginable (89) - the Wittgenstein-like idea that the limits of my form the limit of fantasy. This is really hard and conservative version of culturalism.To the same complex of ideas also belongs the radical idea that the self-esteem of persons is determined by what dignity their is ascribed. …