Living Thought: The Origins and Actuality of Italian PhilosophyThe work of contemporary Italian thinkers, what Roberto Esposito refers to as Italian Theory, is attracting increasing attention around the world. This book explores the reasons for its growing popularity, its distinguishing traits, and why people are turning to these authors for answers to real-world issues and problems. The approach he takes, in line with the keen historical consciousness of Italian thinkers themselves, is a historical one. He offers insights into the great "unphilosophical" philosophers of life—poets, painters, politicians and revolutionaries, film-makers and literary critics—who have made Italian thought, from its beginnings, an "impure" thought. People like Machiavelli, Croce, Gentile, and Gramsci were all compelled to fulfill important political roles in the societies of their times. No wonder they felt that the abstract vocabulary and concepts of pure philosophy were inadequate to express themselves. Similarly, artists such as Dante, Leonardo Da Vinci, Leopardi, or Pasolini all had to turn to other disciplines outside philosophy in order to discuss and grapple with the messy, constantly changing realities of their lives. For this very reason, says Esposito, because Italian thinkers have always been deeply engaged with the concrete reality of life (rather than closed up in the introspective pursuits of traditional continental philosophy) and because they have looked for the answers of today in the origins of their own historical roots, Italian theory is a "living thought." Hence the relevance or actuality that it holds for us today. Continuing in this tradition, the work of Roberto Esposito is distinguished by its interdisciplinary breadth. In this book, he passes effortlessly from literary criticism to art history, through political history and philosophy, in an expository style that welcomes non-philosophers to engage in the most pressing problems of our times. As in all his works, Esposito is inclusive rather than exclusive; in being so, he celebrates the affirmative potency of life. |
From inside the book
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... Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze & Cie et les mutations de la vie intellectuelle aux États-Unis (Paris: La Découverte, 2005). 2. Giovanna Borradori, ed., Recoding Metaphysics: The New Italian Philosophy. I. The Italian Difference Italian Theory.
... Foucault, only at the end of the late 1990s did it achieve the broad currency that has made it one of the world's major themes in the philosophy of the new century. Why? Why, after twenty years of latency, during which it remained ...
... Foucault had set out to problematize the transcendental primacy of language. He began by identifying two other a priori notions making up the post-Classical episteme,. 10. I am thinking of the views expressed by Paolo Virno in his ...
... Foucault as a genuine oxymoron. Without pursuing the matter to the extent it deserves, and indeed, taking another tack altogether, it can be said that contemporary Italian philosophy pushes the dialectic of the “quasi-transcendentals ...
... Foucault, not only via the archeological route, but also via the genealogical one opened up before him by Nietzsche. From this point of view, not only are the conditions of possibility of the various disciplines of knowledge at stake ...
Contents
II The Power of the Origin | |
III PhilosophyLife | |
IV Thought in Action | |
V The Return of Italian Philosophy | |
Other editions - View all
Living Thought: The Origins and Actuality of Italian Philosophy Roberto Esposito No preview available - 2012 |
Living Thought: The Origins and Actuality of Italian Philosophy Roberto Esposito No preview available - 2012 |