Itinerari

Premessa dei curatori

Adriano Ardovino, Guido Baggio, Luca Illetterati, Giusi Strummiello — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Hylarophilosophia. Filosofia e letteratura a partire da Giorgio Manganelli

Luigi — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The text discusses the relationship between philosophy and literature, starting with the observation that post-Kantian philosophy has embraced a narrativity that moves away from rational objectivism. Authors such as Manganelli highlight the contrast of literature as a subjective linguistic dimension in flux, while traditional philosophy is based on argumentative discourse. This vision of philosophy and literature is explored through a form of total satire, and pure mockery, leading to a transgressive vision of philosophy that emerges i.e. from the ‘encounter’ of Manganelli with the ‘autre’ philosophy of Bataille. Manganelli’s writing, through its experimental language and oxymorons, exactly reflects this search for a language that transcends conventional meaning and opens up to a more elusive and polysemic experience.

La letteratura e il linguaggio

Carola Barbero — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Analytic philosophy has mostly focused on language, meaning and reference when examining literature. Such an approach, however interesting, is not enough to understand the aesthetic value of literary works. We cannot simply use literature purely for our semantical and ontological analysis, since we should also be able to ask of books what they can give us. By distinguishing literary language from ordinary language, and by focusing on the ‘opacity’ and ‘transparency’ of language itself, the present essay aims to emphasise the specificity of literature.

Petite philosophie de la métaphore

Miguel de Beistegui — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The thesis put forward in this paper, which enables us to think of the movement and space between philosophy and literature, is that we enter literature through the device of metaphor, understood poetically, and that metaphor enables philosophy to radically rethink what it means by concept. In other words, if it is a matter of producing a concept of metaphor, this cannot be done from the position of classical metaphysics inherited from Plato and Aristotle. Rather, metaphor forces us to rethink the foundations and destiny of philosophy as the experience of the improper, the foreign, the strange, in short, of difference. Through the play of difference and metaphor, and their ability to see the world in an alternative way, a new proximity between philosophy and literature is made possible.

Il romanzo filosofico tedesco intorno al 1800. Appunti per una teoria

Francesco Campana — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This paper aims to investigate the status of the philosophical novel specifically through its development in the context of Germany around 1800. Consequently, I analyze the writings of authors from the period (e.g., Friedrich Schlegel, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi), focusing on programmatic and theoretical texts to extract elements to establish a theory of the philosophical novel. Accordingly, after a brief introduction to the contemporary debate over what a philosophical novel is, I emphasize the centrality of the genre in German aesthetics around 1800, reflecting on passages taken from novels of the period that can be considered philosophical (e.g., Hyperion, Allwill, and Woldemar). Ultimately, what emerges as a distinctive feature of the philosophical novel for these authors is the fact that it contains, in a paradoxically constitutive way, philosophy and literature as two distinct but simultaneously inseparable dimensions.

Filosofia ‘e’ letteratura: l’avvenire di una congiunzione

Carla Canullo — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

To analyse the lemma ‘philosophy of literature’, this paper proposes to separate philosophy and literature to understand the conjunction ‘and’ as a way of grasping what is ‘common’ between philosophy and literature. To do this, it will first consider the etymology of the term ‘common’ and the different meanings of the term munus. Secondly, it will look at the different ways in which literature and philosophy can stand together. Thirdly, it will propose to understand the meaning of ‘in common’, which is what literature and philosophy give each other because each has what the other ‘misses’. French philosophers and novelists Henry, Delecroix and Aubry provide examples of this possibility which will be analysed in the final section of the paper. Thus, the conjunction that can bond literature ‘and’ philosophy will be understood in terms of how they can both expose and reopen matters to which they continue to give a ‘future’ by narrating and understanding them – the future of a conjunction.

La questione della narrazione. Tra filosofia e letteratura. In dialogo con Paul Ricœur

Annalisa Caputo — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The essay intertwines, on the one hand, some Ricœurian reflections on narrative, storytelling, and narrative identity, and on the other hand, a particular image by Rembrandt: Aristotle with a Bust of Homer. After a more general introduction – emphasizing the difficulty (but also the necessity) of distinguishing words and themes such as ‘literature’, ‘story’, ‘narrative’, and ‘narrativity’, – two main issues are addressed: the relationship between literature and other human linguistic and artistic dimensions (within the common experience of mimesis); and the importance of stories for the structuring of the Self (narrative identity). The open conclusion shifts to the role that philosophy – and theoretical philosophy in particular – can (and perhaps must) have in relation to literature, and in relation to the choice of literary/narrative models that inevitably mark the fields of education and politics.

Artefatti, reperti e mondo di natura. Realismo e teoria dei simulacri in Philip K. Dick

Gianluca Cuozzo — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Starting from the 1950s, Philip Dick, while dissimulating his criticism of the mainstream genre, analyzed American society with a perspective that was ahead of its time as well as being alienating. In the midst of the post-war economic boom, he obsessively searched for cracks in that opulent society which had caused the severe degradation of the landscape and the profound alienation of inter-human relationships. This alienation was produced by the technological progress and by its strategies, which were aimed at the (non-negotiable) achievement of material well-being. The theme of waste, analyzed with an aim that is both critical and theological, eventually became a true leitmotif of Dick’s literary production. The aim of the present paper is to analyze the philosophical significance of terms such as kipple and gubble, and to identify their metaphysical facets.

Una parola muta tra filosofia e letteratura. Considerazioni su un paradosso

Claudio D’Aurizio — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In his Mute Speech (1998), Rancière states that literature could be seen as a practice to produce a ‘mute speech’ that has risen from the ashes of classical representation thanks to an epistemological and methodological shift inaugurated by Romanticism. Thus, the paper proposes to consider other philosophical theories to highlight the constancy of this idea of a ‘silent speech’ in the relationship between philosophy, literature, and art. Firstly, the article considers Benjamin’s metaphysics of language and his declaration about silence as a goal for the writer. Secondly, the article addresses Adorno and his conception of a mute language of works of art. Finally, the article investigates the ‘absence of work’ and the ‘thought of the outside’ in Foucault’s thought, also mentioning Deleuze and Blanchot’s considerations, to show the presence of this mute speech in the French philosophical production of the second half of the 20th century.

Modulazioni di un’endiadi. Note su filosofia e letteratura

Silvano Facioni — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

There is one trait that is common to what are usually called “literature” and philosophy: writing. Writing responds both to the properly philosophical need and to the literary need, and it is therefore a question of interrogating this dual capacity of writing to respond to needs that are not only different from, but sometimes in opposition to or in conflict, with each other. Is it possible to hypothesize a performativity of writing whose functioning dictates the rules for both philosophical and literary discourse? Jacques Derrida has highlighted how the very idea of “text”, and the many ways in which philosophy offers resistance to literature and vice versa are an indication that in both fields there is always an excess (or a remainder) at work, of which writing is both a symptom and an attempt to dominate or control.

Strutture poetologiche nel Woyzeck di Georg Büchner

Simone Furlani — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Georg Büchner’s polemic against Romanticism, against what he calls “ideal art”, fits perfectly into the perspective of the “end of art” proclaimed by Hegel. This is not, of course, to affirm the impossibility of art, but rather the need for art to reflect on itself and deconstruct its abstractness. This essay, focusing on Woyzeck (1836-37), highlights the structures that enable Büchner to articulate his realism. These are reflexive (poetological) structures that involve a demystification of art (of theater, literature, etc.) and a self-subtraction to let reality emerge, a deconstruction of self that also concerns language, and the text that structures the drama. It is at the level of this reflexivity of art that the problem and a particular rendering of the relationship between philosophy and literature, between thought and artistic language, opens up. The tension between reality and immanence in the real, to which Büchner’s work gives substance, thus moves forward within the perspective opened by Hegel, to the point of prefiguring some philosophical elements that will later be found institutionalized in Nietzsche’s thought.

La filosofia della come metafilosofia

Danilo Manca — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The aim of this essay is to show how three possible meanings in which the philosophy of literature can be understood help to reflect on the nature, genesis, methods and purposes of philosophy. Firstly, I will consider the philosophy of literature as a line of inquiry that makes literature the object of investigation. Secondly, I will focus on the instrumental use of literature in philosophy when it is considered as a source of exemplary cases. Finally, I will delve into the so-called “philosophy in literature”, that is, the ability to pose philosophical and metaphilosophical questions in literary form.

Stanislaw Lem, tra scienza ‘dura’ e letteratura

Giampiero Moretti — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In his article, the Author takes inspiration from Stanislaw Lem’s initial studies on natural sciences, and in particular cybernetics, in order to reflect on the role that they have played in his literary journey. Consideration is given to the stochastic process whose role Lem believed to be critical in the development of the notion of “chance” and “probability”. In his novel Solaris, as well as in others, such notion does not morph into a generic exaltation of Chaos, but rather into the examination of the modality in which a chain of events occurs. Particular attention is given to the dispute between Lem and the Noveau Roman.

La lettre et le style. Expérimentations littéraires et philosophiques (Deleuze)

Isabelle Ost — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The affinities between philosophy and literature have, over time, linked almost the entire range of possible loves, even the most contradictory. The ambiguities of the genitive in the phrase ‘philosophy of literature’ sum up these affective ambivalences in a condensed form, as well as summing up all attempts to determine a topology of relations between these two discourses (i.e. literature as limit, reverse, exteriority, edge of philosophy, etc.). To explore these questions I have chosen to start with a specific case: the difficult one of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy (or Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy), which is faithful to literature but ambiguously so. For instance, how can we understand his injunction to take texts literally when he seems to be the champion of metaphor in his work as a creator of concepts? What appears to be a contradiction has often been pointed out, by Jacques Rancière in particular. It is this ambivalence that I will focus on to try to characterize the relationship between philosophy and literature, by examining the meaning of this appeal to the literary, and by bringing into play the term experimentation, highlighted by Deleuze and Guattari at the beginning of Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. This term will not only work against that of interpretation, but also against that of experience, used today by a certain ‘ethical turn’ in the philosophy of literature.

Fiction et vérité

Philippe Sabot — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The concept of fiction is frequently associated with the notion of truth. This association can be observed in two distinct approaches: firstly, fiction is often seen as a means of challenging the very notion of truth, particularly in instances where it is perceived to deceive or prove untrue in its essence. Secondly, fiction is frequently regarded as a system of verisimilitude, characterised by a specific order of illusion or fiction. This approach emphasises the appeal of fiction and attempts to explain, if not justify, its allure. This article will examine whether this complex relationship with the concept of truth enables us to define fiction in a meaningful way. Furthermore, it will investigate whether, when considering this criterion of truth, it is beneficial, or even essential, to make a more detailed distinction between the various forms of fiction, of which literary fiction is only one example. We will then inquire whether it is still feasible to imbue this particular area of fiction with an intrinsic capacity for truth, one that transcends the epistemological concerns surrounding the acquisition of knowledge through controlled and verifiable means. In this sense, we will consider the ethical implications of learning about the world and the relationships that shape our understanding of it, including our relationship with ourselves and with others.

Langage, écriture, experience. L’interrogation de/sur la litterature à travers Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir et Sartre

Chiara Scarlato — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

By adopting a theoretical perspective, the present paper aims to show that the establishment of a philosophical research on literature has been a consequence of the increasing attention that literature progressively has acquired in the French philosophical context since the 1940s. In this general view, the paper intends to articulate a synthesis of the first phase of French philosophical interest in literature through a critical focus on selected contributions by Simone De Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre. The fundamental aim of this paper is to clarify that the relationship between philosophy and literature transcends any attempt to define or simplify it. Instead, it is continually renewed in the form of an inquiry that calls upon us to reflect upon it.

Ontologia, verità e poesia

Paolo Valore — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In De Rerum Natura, Lucretius opts to convey the Epicurean philosophy’s harsh outlook on the nature of Reality, including the forms of life and death, and the movement of atoms in the void, through a seemingly incongruent medium: poetry. One may wonder why poetry was chosen as the best way to present such definitive and concrete truths about the ontology of the Universe. My interpretation will examine the connection between literary expression and philosophical truth, and how this relationship reflects a multi-level concept of truth, with ramifications supporting each other holistically, like a tree whose roots are deeply entrenched in its fruits, thus linking the Latin poem to some of the most cutting-edge theories in contemporary ontology.

Tempo, mente e racconto. La fenomenologia della narrazione come integrazione di mindreading e coerenza globale in una ‘totalità intellegibile’

Andrea Velardi — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The aim of the present paper is to investigate the narrative object suitable for the purpose of ‘thinking (with) literature’. Firstly, we analyze the distinction between popular fiction (PF), which is more based on plot and character’s stereotypization, and literary fiction (LF), where the deepening of psychological aspects prevails in correlation with the improvement of readers’ mentalization skills. Secondly, we analyze the dichotomy between mind-reading and global coherence, as crucial variables in structuring narration, in order to propose an integration and to rediscover the temporal reconfiguration theory of Paul Ricœur and a phenomenology of narration as ‘intelligible totality’ emerging from that integration. Thirdly we propose a comparison with phenomenology of autobiographical memory in order to strengthen our perspective.

“Fort. Ort. Wort.” Letteratura di ‘adozione’: sul caso di Tawada Yōko

Simona Venezia — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The paper proposes the new category of ‘literature of adoption’, i.e. a literature that takes account of the unique situation of those contemporary writers who do not believe that the choice of the language with which they express their work is a necessarily passive or automatic process. Rather, they claim to consciously choose the language in which they convey their art. Starting from the innovative concept of Sprachmutter/Language Mother as formulated by the Japanese-German writer Tawada Yōko, the established certainties of the concept of Muttersprache/Mother Tongue understood as an incontrovertible foundation will be challenged in comparison with some of the most relevant philosophical investigations. The paper will discuss the perspective of the exophony, in the name of inhabiting the In-Between [Zwischenraum] among languages that define new directions of relationship with the world. Expressing oneself in one’s Muttersprache is, in fact, a choice generated by one’s belonging to a given nation and culture, while choosing a Sprachmutter is the result of an orientation and not a determination, an openness and not a closure.

Daniele Del Giudice, Del narrare, a cura di E. Rammairone, Einaudi, Torino 2023 [Camilla De Simone]

Camilla De Simone — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Alessandro Sarti, Giovanna Citti (a cura di), Dynamiques post-structurelles. Essais sur le devenir des forms, Spartacus Idh, 2024 [Alessandro Montefameglio]

Alessandro Montefameglio — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Shannon Vallor, The AI Mirror. How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2024 [Francesco Terenzio]

Francesco Terenzio — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Autori / Authors

Autori — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000