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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... never understand the true German without a thorough and extremely laborious study of the German language, and there is no doubt that he will leave what is genuinely German untranslated.23 Contrary to this regressive and exclusive circle ...
... never complete and residue-free: the triple circuit described by the birth, loss, and reconquest ofItalian philosophy never reached its conclusion due to a congenital inability on the part of Italians to translate their cultural traits ...
... never resolved, difference between knowledge and power, between cultural production and institutional solidity, has been a decisive hindrance to the overall growth of Italy, even beyond more specific contingencies.29 But it has also led ...
... never severed this tie, it seeks the form and sense ofits own actuality by looking to the origin.31 We need only consider the attitude with which Descartes and Hobbes founded their discourses on the most clear-cut separation possible ...
... never cuts off the relationship with the vital substratum—both bodily and animal—that underlies human ac- tion, but rather binds the possibility of human success, although always contingent and reversible, to its enhanced maintenance in ...
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 |