Style, mode, and manner

Edited by Alessandro Bertinetto, Andrea F. de Donato and Christian Frigerio

Style, mode and manner are three concepts that characterize a considerable part of contemporary philosophy and whose proliferation seems to suggest that in at least three different fields – epistemology, ontology and aesthetics – a study of “form”, understood as a notion that is at least partially autonomous from any “content”, has become possible. In this sense, then, the style of reasoning developed by an epoch would not derive directly from the theories produced in it; the mode of existence of an entity would not be deducible from what was once defined as its “essential” characteristics; the manner of an artistic expression would not force the work into such narrow confines as to prevent the content from determining itself to some extent. At the same time, however, these concepts suggest that the form can only be conceived as a variation of the content, as a dynamic rendering of the content, since it is precisely from the content that it is possible to trace the modality of variation of the form, which, from a modal point of view, exceed any given content. In this sense, Style, Mode and Manner can be seen as three different names for a “formal content”, for a creative and genetic articulation of the classical form-content binomial, but also as three key notions for several lines of research. From an epistemological point of view, is it possible that the style of thought can trigger a new meaningfulness of entities, whereas the classical logical canon has always considered it a spurious and harmful element for the norms of reasoning? From an ontological point of view, is it possible that modes of existence overturn classical essentialism in favor of a new creative representation of entities? Finally, from an aesthetic point of view, is it possible that a study of the ways of expressiveness and expression can show how the work of art reveals itself as a “poietic” rendering of an ontological generativity? All these levels of investigation would do nothing more than focus on the notion of difference through targeted studies: under what conditions is it possible to constitute a pure concept of the difference of entities? The conceivability of the difference as such perhaps depends on the possibility of a study of Style, Modes and Manners.

The areas of investigation include, but are not limited to:

• The logical and ontological problem of style, thus its very epistemological foundation. The notion of style has been the target, in philosophy, of remarkable modulations, especially in the last century. Beyond the technical stylistic investigations carried out by linguists, among which it is necessary to mention at least the debate in cultural linguistics (Sarfraz 2022) or that in science of translation (Marupova 2023) or, again, that between developmental stylistic cognitive stylistics, pedagogical stylistics and stylistic literalism (Rimalova 2022), philosophy has developed at least three major ways of understanding the problem of style from an epistemological point of view. First, there is the attempt of historical epistemology, whereby the style of thought, or style of scientific reasoning, becomes indispensable to grasp the relationship between the sensibility of the individual and the sensibility of an epoch in the production of scientific theories (Hacking 2009); then there is the attempt to singularize this epistemological tool, so that the hermeneutics of an individual entity is possible (Frank 1999); finally, there is the plane in which style becomes an investigation into the genesis of a concept, a prose of the concept, and textual stylistics no longer suffices as the logic of the fact of style (Granger 1988; de Donato 2024).
• In ontology, the notion of “mode of existence” points to the need to return to an ancient theme, that expressed by Aristotle when he wrote that being is said in many ways. At present, the opposition between the thesis of the univocity of being and the pluralism of modes of existence is probably the most relevant side of the clash between monism and pluralism, and the latter position has received new impetus thanks to the rediscovery of Étienne Souriau’s existential pluralism (1943), to Gilbert Simondon’s material ontology of the technical object and encyclopaedic humanism, and thanks to Bruno Latour’s (2012) inquiry into modes of existence. But also on the analytical side, where the univocity established by Quine has long constituted a kind of dogma, several thinkers are probing the possibility of applying ontological commitment in a framework in which being is said (or quantified) in many ways (Turner 2010, McDaniel 2017, Rettler 2020). All these investigations point to the need for a study of the very concept of “mode of existence”, about which many authors tend to be unclear (Frigerio 2024), and which instead seems necessary if existential pluralism is to be defended.
• The possibility of opposing a “mannerist” style of thought to the classical substantialist style has been probed in various ways by contemporary philosophy (Jankélévitch 1957, Agamben 2014), but it has also allowed the specificity of mannerism as an artistic style to be generalised in order to turn manner into the main object of aesthetics. The project of a “mannerist aesthetics” has recently been formulated by Sjoerd van Tuinen (2022) starting from the Deleuzian reading of Leibniz (Deleuze 1980). A mannerist aesthetic makes artistic style its pivot, and allows the supposed “content” of the work to be seen as pure variation, as identity proceeding from difference. The concept of manner acts as the glue between ontology and aesthetics, making it possible to conceive of being as an art form that produces itself, as a spontaneous variation that coincides with the differentiation of entities.

Therefore, the authors may dwell on the following topics:

• The concept of style, mode and manner in the history of philosophy
• Style as epistemological practice and as a modulation of the transcendental
• The relationship between style and writing (philosophical, mathematical, literary...)
• The relationship between narrative subjectivity and cultural stylistics
• The relationship between style and habit
• The relationship between style and taste
• The clash between the pluralism of modes of existence and the univocity of being
• The logical and ontological status of modes of existence in contemporary authors and their relationship with modalities
• The mode of existence of works of art and mathematical entities
• The specificity of mannerism as a philosophical style
• Mannerism as a tool for investigation in philosophy of art and aesthetics
• The relationship between mannerism and modal logic, or between manner and the transcendental
• Mannerism as a bridge between aesthetics and ontology

Bibliography
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Jankélévitch V., Le Je-ne-sais-quoi et le Presque-rien, 1.  La  Manière  et  l’Occasion, Seuil,  Paris 1957.
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Rimalova L. S., Developmental Stylistics, in: “Journal of Linguistics”, 73, 2022, pp. 65-77.
Sarfraz M., Stylistic Analysis of Coelho’s novel The Alchemist, “International Journal of Linguistic Literature and Translation”, 5, 2022, pp. 58-66.
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van Tuinen S., The philosophy of mannerism. from aesthetics to modal metaphysics, Bloomsbury, London 2022.

Deadline for submitting proposals: July 13, 2025 (christian.frigerio1@unimi.it & annddreadedo@gmail.com)
Notification of acceptance or refusal of the proposal after the peer review process: october 12, 2025.
Deadline for submitting the final article (after the potential revisions required by the reviewers): October 31, 2025.