Leading Italian philosophers engage issues in ethics, politics, and religion.
Italian philosophy provides a long-overdue and much-needed supplement to continental thinking. This book offers some living and lively examples, some for the first time in English, of original thought from the Italian philosophical scene. The contributors—seventeen leading Italian philosophers—offer perspectives from many areas, particularly ethics, politics, and religion. Contemporary Italian Philosophy includes a primarily historical introduction and is composed of three parts, corresponding with the unfolding of past, present, and futural thinking.
“Benso and Schroeder’s book is indispensable and a cause for celebration. There have lamentably been no collections that allow us entry into the Italian philosophical environment. This collection, in a way never done before in the English language, displays the majesty of the Italian philosophical scene. These philosophers are not epigones, but original and provocative thinkers. Contemporary Italian Philosophy single-handedly transforms one’s sense of the continental philosophical terrain.” — Jason M. Wirth, author of The Conspiracy of Life: Meditations on Schelling and His Time
Contributors include Silvia Benso, Remo Bodei, Massimo Cacciari, Giovanni Ferretti, Sergio Givone, Giacomo Marramao, Virgilio Melchiorre, Luisa Muraro, Salvatore Natoli, Marco Maria Olivetti, Maurizio Pagano, Pier Aldo Rovatti, Mario Ruggenini, Brian Schroeder, Emanuele Severino, Carlo Sini, Gianni Vattimo, Salvatore Veca, and Vincenzo Vitiello.
Silvia Benso is Professor of Philosophy at Siena College. She is the author of The Face of Things: A Different Side of Ethics, also published by SUNY Press. Brian Schroeder is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Religious Studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is coeditor (with Lissa McCullough) of Thinking through the Death of God: A Critical Companion to Thomas J. J. Altizer, also published by SUNY Press. Together they are coauthors of Pensare Ambientalista. Tra filosofia e ecologia.
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Contemporary Italian Philosophy:
The Confrontation between Religious and Secular Thought Maurizio Pagano
Part 1. Marking the Borders: Historical Legacies
1. The Desire for Eternal Life: The Platonic Roots of Western Political Science and Its Ethical and Theological Consequences Carlo Sini
2. Philosophy, Poetry, and Dreaming Sergio Givone
3. Christianity and Nihilism Vincenzo Vitiello
4. Philosophy and Christian Theology Today: A Hermeneutic Circularity as Fact and Task Giovanni Ferretti
5. Ontology of Actuality Gianni Vattimo
Part 2. Crossing the Borders: Current Thematizations
6. Metaphysics of Thinking, Metaphysics of Being Virgilio Melchiorre
7. The Truth of Existence and the Sacred (ethos anthropo daimon) Mario Ruggenini
8. Transcendental without Illusion: Or, The Absence of the Third Person Marco Maria Olivetti
9. Finitude and Responsibility: For an Ethics of the Finite in the Time of Risk Salvatore Natoli
10. Praise of Modesty Pier Aldo Rovatti
Part 3. Opening the Borders: The Appeal of the World
11. Logics of Delusion Remo Bodei
12. Toward a Symbolic of Sexual Difference Luisa Muraro
13. On Virtue Emanuele Severino
14. Two Concepts of Utopia and the Idea of Global Justice Salvatore Veca
15. The World and the West Today: The Problem of a Global Public Sphere Giacomo Marramao
16. Names of Place: Border Massimo Cacciari
Selected Bibliography
About the Editors
Contributors
Index
