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
Results 1-5 of 68
... sense, despite the glaring differences, unifies these currents into the same transcendental horizon that, for reasons we will now examine, is foreign to much of Italian philosophy. I am referring to the dominant role the sphere of ...
... sense, in an epistemological sense, or in a textual sense, the primacy oflanguage is presumed in all these perspectives. Even the most recent shift to- ward cognitive psychology and the neurosciences that analytic philosophy has been ...
... sense and a technical sense: contemporary philosophy affirms itself only by negating itself. Because any hold on its object is elusive in principle, contemporary philosophy can only grasp it through a reverse approach, through its ...
... sense the inadequacy of the linguistic horizon with respect to something irreducibly corporeal that protrudes outside its confines, whether viewed as metaphorical or metonymic in nature.12 It is as if at some point it began to occur to ...
... sense of the term at least, into something slightly different because of their deep implication in the historical dimension. Of course life, labor, and language were the conditions of possibility for the formation of the nascent ...
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 |