Simone Pollo's book "La morale della natura, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2008", represents an absolute newsness in the italian philosophy landscape, and, even if it belongs to a small-size editorial publishing series, it performs a micro-monographic work about this specific topic: the problem of natural(istic) grounds of ethics and morality. This work is a contribution which is tending, with a very clever fluency of the principal questions and with very high mastery of exposition, to unite critical knowledge of analyzed themes and philosophical (and political, in the classical, ancient greek meaning of polites attitudes) militancy. As a result we can find in La morale della natura a clear, rich reading about problems like «Is it possible to defend the foundations of a system of ethics upon the natural basis of human behaviour and it biological ground? How can we do it?» with their (negative, but not simplistic) response, indispensable for every scientific or not-academic reader who wants to deal with or to examine in depth the very hard dominion of the nature-ethics interconnection. The aim of Simone Pollo's book is to reach this aims from a laical, secular and aconfessional point of view and from an perspective quite liberal, free and exempt from a certain simpleton nihilism, very a la page today. Of course, from this angle, the most virtue of Pollo's work is its efficacious way to present the deep root and the embedding of "naturalistic fallacy" – in the G. E. Moore' sense – in a panoply of laical and confessional approach (first of all in these latter), and in its attempt of debunking of the same mistaking setting. ; Il libro di Simone Pollo "La morale della natura, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2008", rappresenta una novità assoluta in lingua italiana, e può essere considerato a pieno titolo una micromonografia su questo, specifico, argomento. Cosa non meno importante, trattasi di un contributo che è teso, con egregia padronanza delle questioni trattate e con ottima capacità espositiva, ad unire conoscenza critica ed approfondita delle tematiche sottese ad una militanza critica, filosofica e, per taluni aspetti, politica (nel senso più classico e neutrale del termine, vale a dire come frutto dell'impegno intellettuale di un polites), del tutto limpidamente (e perciò lealmente) esposte e messe a nudo dagli intenti stessi dell'autore. Il risultato è una lettura chiara, ricca e indispensabile per chiunque intenda non solo conoscere o approfondire un problema-dibattito ("come possiamo parlare di fondamenti naturali dell'etica?"), ma anche per chiunque intenda affrontare questo argomento senza tema alcuna di un approccio da una prospettiva sicuramente più marcata da una sensibilità laica e liberale, anziché da un'angolatura già schierata confessionalmente o, peggio ancora, non schierata per nulla, in nome di un certo nichilismo buonista, oggi assai di moda.
In this thesis the science and technology subjects as developed by Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition are discussed. The underlying theme is the phenomenon of worldlessness, which refers to the existential condition of modern man, and manifests itself in the rejection of the world, conceived as Lebenswelt. The current technological advances and contemporary society are key in Arendt's thought as they developed from worldlessness. Such topics give the measure of alienation, being the activities through which processes and actions are enfranchised, and whose consequences appear to be highly dangerous to mankind and its proximity. Arendt's methodological approach can be described as 'humanist', therefore it focuses on humans and those implications due to the modern technological advances. Arendt's point of view is that of the common man: she urges each individual to question their actions by investigating his naïves questions, and wondering if people are really aware of what they are doing in the name of scientific progress. Therefore, the ambivalent nature of scientific development – both creative and destructive – is criticised. Such criticism focuses on the interactive networks through which technicians and scientists contribute in constantly changing the world of life. This is in line with the main task of the aforementioned work, which is to develop the discussion within a semantic and decisional collective framework, politically responsible and democratically sustainable. Hence the need of a socio-anthropological investigation of a world that looks entirely determined by science and technology arises. These ensure that 'objective' truth and operational ability are given by universal, rather than natural and terrestrial laws. Consequently this kind of knowledge - acquired from a extra-terrestrial point of view, the Archimedean point – imposes itself on nature an human life, shading the differences between human and artificial.
From this prevailing of the political character of the Sicilian question and from the ambiguous mix of purported scientific analysis and ideological instrumentalization, between militant research and moral denunciation, the sacrifice of the history of Sicily was consumed for the benefit of history of ideas and imagery about Sicily. This certainly does not want to delegitimize the wealth of knowledge accumulated by a long intellectual tradition, which sometimes expressed important civil and political concerns, as much as recovering and giving historical depth to a history that has been more a subject of controversy than a field of investigation
Current concepts of biopoetics deal with the analogy between evolution theory and literature as well as with the mutual challenges of evolution and aesthetics. These approaches do not take into account the fact that the relationship between bios and the scientific, anthropological and cultural knowledge is not given, i.e. it is not necessary in the metaphysical sense of being unavoidable. Bios is life in itself. Through the concept of "bio-poetics" I thus intend to deny the homology of the domains of bios and poetics, in order to find a method that does not capture life through the aprioris of conceptual frameworks. The affirmative biopolitics by Roberto Esposito, referring to the power and politics of life itself, opens up methodological perspectives for conceiving an "aesthetics of living" which, analogously, is not modelled according to exterior rules based on moral, political, social, scientific or poetological frameworks. Thus, the dynamics of living exceeds such schemes revealing itself as exceeding the operations which produce knowledge. Aesthetics means therefore the activity of material techniques that make visible the traces of life inscribed in the materiality of writings or of pictures. From these premises, I reconceive the bond between knowledge and literature referring to contemporary literary theories and analysing poetical processes and figures such as indeterminacy in literary texts of the 19th and 20th century written in Germany, France and Italy. Eventually, this reading of literary texts demonstrates the fictional production of an "other" knowledge about the dynamics of bios, evolving from the aesthetics of literature.
Benedetto Varchi and Averroism. The article examines the role played by Averroes and the Averroist tradition in Benedetto Varchi's philosophical works. The first part clarifies why Varchi defines Dante as an "Averroist" and reconstructs his original reading of the first verse in Paradise (Paradiso). The second part argues that Varchi's plan to vernacularize philosophy, often interpreted as an attempt to "democratize" knowledge, should not prevent us from recognizing that he emphasizes the moral and intellectual differences existing among human beings. Though following Aristotle in saying that "all men by nature desire to know", Varchi shows no qualms in acknowledging that most of them cannot fulfil this desire and, referring to Averroes and Galen, claims that because of their complexio most people cannot understand philosophy.
In questo nostro intervento avremo modo di soffermarci sulla possibilità di tenere assieme sia la scienza medica sia la libertà di scelta della persona, avendo come tramite il giudizio riflettente kantiano ripreso da autori come Hannah Arendt e Paul Ricœur. Ci pare, infatti, che sia davvero necessario porre al centro del dibattito la possibilità di far crescere questa sinergia fra le diverse discipline, elaborando un approccio che si collochi nell'etica del rispetto, la quale sottende un'epistemologia che accredita come valida la conoscenza del particolare, cominciando ad introdurre il tema della libertà in relazione allo statuto epistemologico delle scienze. ; In the contemporary age there are many different types of approach, but we can reduce them to these two opposite poles: science and its objective knowledge against the existential dimension of the human subject. In addition to this, hyper-specialisation produces a strong separation in the same branch of knowledge and dialogue from one field of research to another is greatly lacking, because everyone only concentrates on his study area without applying a more open vision. Luckily, bioethics adopts an interdisciplinary view and in this way we can have a link through the different areas of the knowledge. In this article, we start to explain the importance of Kant's Reflective Judgment with its political, juridical and medical retakes, which were formulated by Hannah Arendt and Paul Ricœur. Finally, through the concepts of common law and exemplarity, we introduce an argument about the possibility of making an epistemological and scientific debate starting from the singular level and with an approach which considers both the aspects of freedom of choice and the respect for a person's life, but without descending into a relativism perspective.
In Italy sport plays an important role in social and cultural life. Its educational function and that of sport associations are not obvious for different schools of thought. This paper assumes functional and operational definition of education, as transmission of knowledge and the opportunity of favoring social interactions. With the purpose of interpreting the ongoing situation, the paper treats the evolution of relationship between sport associations and political institutions in a historical perspective, and describes the current situation of Sport Promotion Agencies and not for profit Associations, and their asymmetrical distribution between North and South Italy. The educational purpose of Sports Associations actually shows lights and shadows. The lights regard the strong capability to bring people together during the practice of amateur or agonistic sport even though many shadows affect the possibility to express a fair judgment on actual capability to transmit high sport moral values.
Il Gruppo Lombardo dell'UCID fu costituito a Milano l'11 maggio 1945 per iniziativa di uomini provenienti dall'ambiente dell'Azione Cattolica, del SEDAS e dell'ICAS, nonché importanti esponenti dell'imprenditoria, del management e del mondo bancario lombardo e milanese del tempo. Scopo primo dell'Associazione era "formare gli aderenti ai principi della morale professionale e […] promuovere l'attuazione del pensiero sociale nel campo dell'industria e del lavoro". Il Gruppo Lombardo è stato studiato con riferimento al periodo compreso tra la sua costituzione e la fine degli anni Sessanta/primi Settanta. In particolare, data l'importanza attribuita già da Statuto all'attività di formazione, ci si è concentrati sulla sua proposta formativa, sia da un punto di vista religioso e morale che tecnico e con riferimento a tematiche economiche, politiche, sociali o connesse all'attualità del tempo. Infine, si è presa in esame anche l'esperienza del Segretariato UCID di Servizio sociale e delle assistenti sociali collocate tramite tale ufficio presso diverse sedi della Giovanni Bassetti S.p.A. ; The Gruppo Lombardo had been founded in Milan on 11th May 1945 by a group of people belonging to the Italian Catholic Action or to other Catholic bodies and that were, at the same time, important Lombard entrepreneurs, managers or bankers. The Association's main aim was to spread among its members the knowledge of the principles of the Catholic social doctrine and to encourage their use in everyday working life. The Gruppo Lombardo was studied from its foundation up to the late 1960s/early 1970s. More precisely, because of the importance given by the Association to training and education, we focused on its initiatives in these fields; moreover, we examined also the case of the Segretariato UCID di Servizio sociale and of social workers belonging to this office but working for Giovanni Bassetti S. p. A.
It is well known that among cultural anthropologists and philosophers there is always a historical gap and a difference of interests, language and method, which often causes a rivalry between the two disciplines that ends to stiffen anthropology in a collection of descriptions without universal principles and philosophy in a reflection of noble ambitions but unable to consider the individual human cases. The main aim of this thesis is to read the complete works of the philosopher and anthropologist Ernesto de Martino (Naples 1908 - Rome 1965) as a point of union, isolated and sui generis, between anthropology and philosophy. The goal is to obtain, from the reading of his works, a true anthropology of the person who somehow bring order to his unsystematic work, searching in it a common thread: the person, based on the overcoming of life in value , synthesis of necessity and freedom, of transcendental truths and cultural variety. Therefore our aim is not to reconstruct philologically the work and the figure of de Martino or investigate from a historical point of view on the originality of the sources present in it. De Martino is not here treated as an end but as an instrument of knowledge of the human person in its essential aspects, moral and ethical. Thus, the aim of this work is theoretical and moral, that is: with the attempt to restore unity to the work of de Martino, we consider the ultimate and overarching meaning of his anthropology, rather than those moments of dialogue between ethnology, politics and philosophy in his work certainly present; then we wonder not so much who was de Martino as a scholar (problem still treated in this work) but what kind of scientific-philosophical proposal is his and if this proposal, given its ethical and epistemological complexity, can become the foundation for an organic human study that so far neither ethnology nor philosophy can, independently of each other, to ensure.
Considered within the long process through which Milan has become a "city of exhibitions", the "Mostra nazionale delle Arti e dell'Industria" 1881 is of crucial relevance. On that occasion, twenty years after the country's unification, the roaring Excelsior Ball in the background, Milan displayed its self-portrait in the pavilions under the motto "Labor vincit omnia", standing as "moral capital of Italy". Such an ambitious project relied on a series of volumes – Mediolanum (Vallardi), Milano 1881 (Ottino), Milano e i suoi dintorni (Civelli), – offering the radiant image of a close and hard-working community. In this perspective, such a close collaboration between the ruling class and Milan-based intellectuals during the exhibition represented a model: promoted by a state-of-the-art publishing industry, the initiative fostered a synergy between the educated members of society, be them Milan-born or adoptive, who gathered in institutional venues as well as within the "repubblica della carta sporca". Writers and journalists, engineers and economists, technicians and scientists, engravers and artists were all committed to sketch the portrait of the "città più città d'Italia" (Verga). They all stood on the common ground provided by a sound value system, never giving way to bombastic statements, and by the shared interests of a modern civil society: a common ground made firmer by the Enlightenment and Romantic tradition and a Smilesian confidence in positivist culture. Milan's hard-working ethics is well summarized in the slogans of Milanese pride: initiative, inter-class solidarity, lay tolerance and charitable philanthropy; a strong tie to "cose serie, cose sode"; an idea of progress meant as cautious evolution; the promotion of a wide-ranging knowledge able to combine the humanities with "utili cognizioni", strongly suspicious of any kind of abstraction. Common sense, intended as the combination of balance and integrity, was considered as the rule of daily life, while the public sphere was governed by an efficient local government priding itself on being miles away from the idle talk of the political capital. Recovering Cattaneo's motto - "convertire il mondo moderno in mondo nostro" - the "moral capital" rose to the challenge of industrial progress within the European context, against any form of short-sighted and regressive entrenchment.
The author offers a "portrait" of Pietro Ferraro, founder of "Futuribili". The purpose is to describe the journal's leading light and to define the characterstics of a generation which, in the 1960s and '70s, felt the need to "invent" the future of society and take the responsibility of changing a world in crisis, a world which needed more democracy and a new relationship with an environment otherwise doomed to die. More than university professors, Pietro Ferraro, Aurelio Peccei, Alexander King and Bertrand de Jouvenel were entrepreneurs, directors of international organisations and intellectuals sensitive to the future. Born in Venice in 1908, Ferraro was the owner of dolomite mining companies, the San Giusto cotton mill in Trieste and the Timavo paper mill in Duino, but was also a leading figure in the Resistance to the Republic of Salò, an enthusiastic sportsman and a critic of Keynesian economics (on which he wrote a number of books from 1947 to 1970). Above all he believed in the idea of The construction of the future as a moral duty (his last book), which lay behind his foundation of the journal "Futuribili". Pietro Ferraro had a complex character, combining a projection towards the future, an almost aesthetic sense of adventure and intellectual curiosity, an absorption in the practice of knowledge, an infusion of deep moral values in the everyday conduct of his businesses, and the pleasure of building a utopian society in which utopia is more of a movement towards perfection than the achievement of perfection itself. ; L'autore presenta una "medaglia" di Pietro Ferraro, il fondatore di Futuribili. Ciò viene fatto sia per descrivere il primo protagonista della rivista, e sia anche per delineare i caratteri di una generazione, che a cavallo degli anni sessanta/settanta sente il bisogno di "inventare" il futuro di una società che si assume l'onere di cambiare un mondo in crisi, perché ha bisogno di maggiore democrazia e di un nuovo rapporto con l'ambiente perché altrimenti questo muore. Pietro Ferraro, ma anche Aurelio Peccei, Alexander King, Bertrand de Jouvenel, sono imprenditori, dirigenti di organizzazioni internazionali, intellettuali con sensibilità per il futuro, ma molto meno professori universitari. Ferraro nasce a Venezia nel 1908, è imprenditore di ditte per l'estrazione della dolomite, del cotonificio San Giusto (a Trieste), della cartiera del Timavo a Duino, ma è anche un avventuroso protagonista della Resistenza nella Repubblica Sociale di Salò, è un esteta dello sport (cui si dà con vero entusiasmo), è anche un critico delle concezioni keynesiane cui dedica alcuni libri (dal 1947 al 1970); ma è soprattutto convinto de "La costruzione del futuro come impegno morale" (l'ultimo libro), sta alla base dell'idea di fondare la rivista "Futuribili". Pietro Ferraro sviluppa una complessa personalità, che unisce in sé proiezione al futuro, senso quasi estetico dell'avventura e della curiosità intellettuale, riversamento nel pratico della conoscenza, infusione della propria azione quotidiana da imprenditore nei valori profondi e ultimi, piacere di costruire una società utopica in cui però l'utopia è più movimento verso la perfezione che stabilità della perfezione.
In the last five years, gender violence has represented one of the main topics of the Italian public and political debate. Its importance is due to its mobilizing power, often related to the security emergency against strangers by the mass media and the institutional politics. At the same time, it has been exploited to impose a moral and social control on women's sexuality. In October 2007, the murder of Giovanna Reggiani in Rome by a man living in an illegal nomad camp, became the core of a political and media alarm that drifted towards racist instigation against the so-called "gipsy" communities and their camps. Several attacks to nomad camps also degenerated into pogroms. In this violent and moralistic background, a different discourse was elaborated by the Italian feminist movement which organized, a month later, a demonstration called "Not in my name" against gender violence and racism, for the anniversary of the UN global day against women violence. The demonstration denounced the preeminence of gender violence between intimates in Italy, highlighting the importance of a feminist perspective in order to understand and contrast gender violence. Indeed, the historical connection between feminist experience, practice and knowledge and the definition of gender violence as a social problem is definitely intrinsic. This study aims at analyzing the contemporary political feminist discourse about gender violence which involves, at the same time, the redefinition of concepts and cognitive tools such as gender, feminism, queer, sexuality, norm, equality and difference. The analysis of documents and interviews to feminist activists reveals a deep criticism towards the heteronormative speech of gender, seen as the context in which gender violence is produced and naturalized. In conclusion, gender violence can be defined as a social construction that changes with social and cultural transformations depending on the political and social processes of emancipation and self-determination undertaken by women in the last four decades.
Plato, in different dialogues such as Statesman, Protagoras, Republic, Timaeus-Critias and Laws, creates a number of myths that describe both the early condition of the human race and the efforts made by men to develop the first forms of social and political organisation. Myth - that ancient and unsurpassed mean of transmission of knowledge and moral precepts - seems indeed to be the only instrument able to reconstruct not only the anthropological characteristics and original state of man, but also the genesis of human aggregation and of the first technical and cultural realisations. Therefore, a determined group of dialogical characters – The Stranger of Elea, Protagoras, Socrates, Critias and the Athenian –, within the different platonic dialogues, presents a number of myths marked not only by their great literary fascination, but also by their independent philosophical value. Although each myth is linked to the others by many analogies both in structure and content, each one is an autonomous artistic and intellectual creation, but is however intrinsically bound to the dialogical context it is collocated in. As myths are introduced in order to give answers to precise questions and find solutions to certain problems (is the "golden age" lifestyle a desirable one? is it just an "animal paradise"? is man a selfish and aggressive being or is he a social and peace-loving one? is the political aggregation the product of an artificial and utilitarian contract or is it a natural result? is it possible to create a polis that guarantees collaboration and peace, without excluding cultural and aesthetical realisations?), it is essential not to sever the deep link between the mythical tale and the context in which it is collocated, but rather to examine carefully the function and meaning of the former in relationship to the latter and vice versa.
The aim of the present work is to provide an intellectual biography of the Soviet writer Lev Zinov'evič Kopelev (1912-1997). He grew up and studied during the period of the Stalinism and until the Sixties he can be considered as an "homo sovieticus", who devoted himself to the Communism and his leading figure, Stalin. Victim of the regime he believed into, Kopelev spent nine years in a šaraška, and, after events such as the Prague Spring, he permanently left his believes and his idol Stalin. As a child Kopelev learned German, since he lived in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Kiev of the beginning of the century, and the contact with the German world can be considered as a constant in his life: during the Second World War he worked as an interpreter with German prisoners and in the Sixties he became a germanist by profession. Thanks to different inputs he received as a young man and thanks to the continuous contact with the German world, he underwent a path of personal growth, enriched by the friendship with Heinrich Böll, whose ethical ideals influenced him and led him to develop a project of dialogue and openness towards the "other". This personal evolution converted him from being a convinced communist to becoming a dissident. Deprived of Soviet citizenship in the Eighties, he spent the rest of his life in the West Germany and he devoted his life to examine in depth the links between Russians and Germans towards the centuries. This research led to a great project: the "Wuppertaler Projekt zur Erforschung der Geschichte Deutsch-Russischer Fremdenbilder". In this work Kopelev firstly analysed the evolution of the relationship between the two nations from a literary, political, social and cultural point of view; secondly, he examined the genesis and the development of the prejudices of the ones towards the others and vice versa. This work can be considered as the final point of Kopelev's intellectual development: first of all as a scientist, since he condensed his knowledge in German and Russian literature, history and culture, but also as a man, because it was the result of the moral teaching he had learned from his own experience.
L'ermeneutica filosofica di Hans-Georg Gadamer – indubbiamente uno dei capisaldi del pensiero novecentesco – rappresenta una filosofia molto composita, sfaccettata e articolata, per così dire formata da una molteplicità di dimensioni diverse che si intrecciano l'una con l'altra. Ciò risulta evidente già da un semplice sguardo alla composizione interna della sua opera principale, Wahrheit und Methode (1960), nella quale si presenta una teoria del comprendere che prende in esame tre differenti dimensioni dell'esperienza umana – arte, storia e linguaggio – ovviamente concepite come fondamentalmente correlate tra loro. Ma questo quadro d'insieme si complica notevolmente non appena si prendano in esame perlomeno alcuni dei numerosi contributi che Gadamer ha scritto e pubblicato prima e dopo il suo opus magnum: contributi che testimoniano l'importante presenza nel suo pensiero di altre tematiche. Di tale complessità, però, non sempre gli interpreti di Gadamer hanno tenuto pienamente conto, visto che una gran parte dei contributi esegetici sul suo pensiero risultano essenzialmente incentrati sul capolavoro del 1960 (ed in particolare sui problemi della legittimazione delle Geisteswissenschaften), dedicando invece minore attenzione agli altri percorsi che egli ha seguito e, in particolare, alla dimensione propriamente etica e politica della sua filosofia ermeneutica. Inoltre, mi sembra che non sempre si sia prestata la giusta attenzione alla fondamentale unitarietà – da non confondere con una presunta "sistematicità", da Gadamer esplicitamente respinta – che a dispetto dell'indubbia molteplicità ed eterogeneità del pensiero gadameriano comunque vige al suo interno. La mia tesi, dunque, è che estetica e scienze umane, filosofia del linguaggio e filosofia morale, dialogo con i Greci e confronto critico col pensiero moderno, considerazioni su problematiche antropologiche e riflessioni sulla nostra attualità sociopolitica e tecnoscientifica, rappresentino le diverse dimensioni di un solo pensiero, le quali in qualche modo vengono a convergere verso un unico centro. Un centro "unificante" che, a mio avviso, va individuato in quello che potremmo chiamare il disagio della modernità. In altre parole, mi sembra cioè che tutta la riflessione filosofica di Gadamer, in fondo, scaturisca dalla presa d'atto di una situazione di crisi o disagio nella quale si troverebbero oggi il nostro mondo e la nostra civiltà. Una crisi che, data la sua profondità e complessità, si è per così dire "ramificata" in molteplici direzioni, andando ad investire svariati ambiti dell'esistenza umana. Ambiti che pertanto vengono analizzati e indagati da Gadamer con occhio critico, cercando di far emergere i principali nodi problematici e, alla luce di ciò, di avanzare proposte alternative, rimedi, "correttivi" e possibili soluzioni. A partire da una tale comprensione di fondo, la mia ricerca si articola allora in tre grandi sezioni dedicate rispettivamente alla pars destruens dell'ermeneutica gadameriana (prima e seconda sezione) ed alla sua pars costruens (terza sezione). Nella prima sezione – intitolata Una fenomenologia della modernità: i molteplici sintomi della crisi – dopo aver evidenziato come buona parte della filosofia del Novecento sia stata dominata dall'idea di una crisi in cui verserebbe attualmente la civiltà occidentale, e come anche l'ermeneutica di Gadamer possa essere fatta rientrare in questo discorso filosofico di fondo, cerco di illustrare uno per volta quelli che, agli occhi del filosofo di Verità e metodo, rappresentano i principali sintomi della crisi attuale. Tali sintomi includono: le patologie socioeconomiche del nostro mondo "amministrato" e burocratizzato; l'indiscriminata espansione planetaria dello stile di vita occidentale a danno di altre culture; la crisi dei valori e delle certezze, con la concomitante diffusione di relativismo, scetticismo e nichilismo; la crescente incapacità a relazionarsi in maniera adeguata e significativa all'arte, alla poesia e alla cultura, sempre più degradate a mero entertainment; infine, le problematiche legate alla diffusione di armi di distruzione di massa, alla concreta possibilità di una catastrofe ecologica ed alle inquietanti prospettive dischiuse da alcune recenti scoperte scientifiche (soprattutto nell'ambito della genetica). Una volta delineato il profilo generale che Gadamer fornisce della nostra epoca, nella seconda sezione – intitolata Una diagnosi del disagio della modernità: il dilagare della razionalità strumentale tecnico-scientifica – cerco di mostrare come alla base di tutti questi fenomeni egli scorga fondamentalmente un'unica radice, coincidente peraltro a suo giudizio con l'origine stessa della modernità. Ossia, la nascita della scienza moderna ed il suo intrinseco legame con la tecnica e con una specifica forma di razionalità che Gadamer – facendo evidentemente riferimento a categorie interpretative elaborate da Max Weber, Martin Heidegger e dalla Scuola di Francoforte – definisce anche «razionalità strumentale» o «pensiero calcolante». A partire da una tale visione di fondo, cerco quindi di fornire un'analisi della concezione gadameriana della tecnoscienza, evidenziando al contempo alcuni aspetti, e cioè: primo, come l'ermeneutica filosofica di Gadamer non vada interpretata come una filosofia unilateralmente antiscientifica, bensì piuttosto come una filosofia antiscientista (il che naturalmente è qualcosa di ben diverso); secondo, come la sua ricostruzione della crisi della modernità non sfoci mai in una critica "totalizzante" della ragione, né in una filosofia della storia pessimistico-negativa incentrata sull'idea di un corso ineluttabile degli eventi guidato da una razionalità "irrazionale" e contaminata dalla brama di potere e di dominio; terzo, infine, come la filosofia di Gadamer – a dispetto delle inveterate interpretazioni che sono solite scorgervi un pensiero tradizionalista, autoritario e radicalmente anti-illuminista – non intenda affatto respingere l'illuminismo scientifico moderno tout court, né rinnegarne le più importanti conquiste, ma più semplicemente "correggerne" alcune tendenze e recuperare una nozione più ampia e comprensiva di ragione, in grado di render conto anche di quegli aspetti dell'esperienza umana che, agli occhi di una razionalità "limitata" come quella scientista, non possono che apparire come meri residui di irrazionalità. Dopo aver così esaminato nelle prime due sezioni quella che possiamo definire la pars destruens della filosofia di Gadamer, nella terza ed ultima sezione – intitolata Una terapia per la crisi della modernità: la riscoperta dell'esperienza e del sapere pratico – passo quindi ad esaminare la sua pars costruens, consistente a mio giudizio in un recupero critico di quello che egli chiama «un altro tipo di sapere». Ossia, in un tentativo di riabilitazione di tutte quelle forme pre- ed extra-scientifiche di sapere e di esperienza che Gadamer considera costitutive della «dimensione ermeneutica» dell'esistenza umana. La mia analisi della concezione gadameriana del Verstehen e dell'Erfahrung – in quanto forme di un «sapere pratico (praktisches Wissen)» differente in linea di principio da quello teorico e tecnico – conduce quindi ad un'interpretazione complessiva dell'ermeneutica filosofica come vera e propria filosofia pratica. Cioè, come uno sforzo di chiarificazione filosofica di quel sapere prescientifico, intersoggettivo e "di senso comune" effettivamente vigente nella sfera della nostra Lebenswelt e della nostra esistenza pratica. Ciò, infine, conduce anche inevitabilmente ad un'accentuazione dei risvolti etico-politici dell'ermeneutica di Gadamer. In particolare, cerco di esaminare la concezione gadameriana dell'etica – tenendo conto dei suoi rapporti con le dottrine morali di Platone, Aristotele, Kant e Hegel – e di delineare alla fine un profilo della sua ermeneutica filosofica come filosofia del dialogo, della solidarietà e della libertà. ; The philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer – one of the cornerstones in the 20th century philosophy – certainly represents a compound, prismatic and articulated thought, i.e. a philosophy made up of several different dimensions entwined with each other. A simple look at Gadamer's major work Wahrheit und Methode (1960) can already clarify this point, since the book displays a theory of understanding which takes account of three different dimensions of human experience – art, history and language – obviously conceived as mutually related. But this picture gets a lot more complicated if one takes into consideration the many books and articles Gadamer wrote before and after his magnum opus which testify the presence of other interests and topics in his thought. Nevertheless the complexity of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics has not always been recognized by his interpreters, who often concentrated only upon Wahrheit und Methode (in particular upon the problems of the Geisteswissenschaften) and gave no attention to other subjects (in particular the ethical and political dimension of his hermeneutical philosophy). Moreover it seems to me that many interpreters didn't pay enough attention to the fundamental unity – which of course doesn't mean "sistematicity" – that reigns in Gadamer's philosophy despite its pluralist and heterogeneous character. My point is that the many dimensions of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics – aesthetics and human sciences, language philosophy and moral philosophy, dialogue with the Greeks and critical confrontation with modern thought, reflections upon anthropological problems and observations concerning our actual sociopolitical, scientific and technological condition – actually represent the different sides of one thought centered on what we could define the malaise of modernity. In other words, it seems to me that the whole of Gadamer's philosophy originates from the consciousness raising of the critical situation in which our world finds itself today: a deep crisis which, according to Gadamer, branches out into manifold directions and various dimensions of human life. My interpretation tries then to give an account of both the pars destruens and pars costruens of Gadamer's philosophy, namely of his attempt to investigate and take a hard look at this critical dimensions of human existence in order to let out the point at issue and propose remedies, alternatives and possible solutions. In the first section – entitled Phenomenology of modernity: the various symptoms of the crisis – I explain how a great part of the 20th century philosophy has been concerned with the idea and the feeling of a crisis of our culture and our civilization. In my view Gadamer's hermeneutics too takes part in this global philosophical discourse. I try then to show and illustrate the various symptoms of this crisis analyzed by Gadamer, such as: socioeconomic pathologies of our bureaucratic societies; world-wide growth of the Western way of life to the detriment of other cultures; crisis of our values and beliefs (and consequent spread of relativism, skepticism and nihilism); growing inability to have meaningful relations with art, poetry and culture; finally, problems concerning the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the risk of an ecological crisis, and the disturbing, unpredictable consequences of some recent scientific discoveries (above all in the field of genetics). Once outlined Gadamer's critical view of our age, in the second section – entitled Diagnosis of the malaise of modernity: the spread of instrumental and techno-scientific reason – I try to show how, according to Gadamer, a common root lies at the base of the many symptoms of the crisis, namely the birth of modern science and its close, intrinsic relationship with technique and with a specific form of rationality that Gadamer – with reference to the analysis developed by such thinkers as Max Weber, Martin Heidegger and the so-called Frankfurt School – calls «instrumental reason» or «calculating thinking». I try then to give an account of the gadamerian conception of techno-science, meanwhile highlighting some aspects: first, how Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics should not be interpreted as an antiscientific thought but rather as an antiscientistic thought (which of course is something quite different); second, how Gadamer's reconstruction of the malaise of modernity never ends up in a "totalizing" critique of reason, nor in some sort of negativistic and pessimistic philosophy of history centered on the idea of an inescapable course of the events guided by a polluted, "irrational" rationality; third, how Gadamer – despite all the inveterate interpretations that read his philosophy as a form of authoritarian, traditionalist and antienlightenment thought – never aimed to reject the modern scientific Enlightenment tout court but rather to "correct" some of its tendencies and so to regain a wider and more comprehensive concept of reason. After having analyzed in the first two sections the pars destruens of Gadamer's philosophy, in the third and last section of my work – entitled Therapy of the crisis of modernity: the rediscovery of experience and practical knowledge – I take into consideration the pars costruens of his thought, which according to my interpretation consists of a rediscovery of what he calls «a different kind of knowledge», i.e. of a rehabilitation of the all those forms of pre- and extra-scientific experience that constitute the «hermeneutical dimension» of human life. My analysis of Gadamer's conception of understanding and experience – seen as forms of «practical knowledge» different in principle from theoretical and technical knowledge – leads then to a global interpretation of philosophical hermeneutics as practical philosophy, i.e. as a philosophical elucidation of the prescientific, intersubjective and "of commonsense" reasoning which characterizes our «life-world» and our practical life. But obviously this analysis also implies a special consideration of the ethical and political implications of Gadamer's thought. In particular, I try to examine Gadamer's conception of ethics – taking account of his relation with Plato's, Aristotle's, Kant's and Hegel's moral theories – and finally I sketch an outline of his philosophical hermeneutics as a philosophy of freedom, dialogue and solidarity.
