Table Of ContentThe Bloomsbury
Italian
Philosophy
Reader
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The Bloomsbury
Italian
Philosophy
Reader
EDITED BY
MICHAEL LEWIS AND
DAVID EDWARD ROSE
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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CONTENTS
List of contributors viii
Acknowledgements xiii
Permissions xv
1 Introduction by Michael Lewis with David Rose 1
SECTION ONE The historical context
27
2 Dante (1256–1321) by Leone Gazziero 29
Excerpts: The Divine Comedy, Convivio, Monarchy and Four
Political Letters 32
3 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94) by Leone
Gazziero 43
Excerpts: Oration on the Dignity of Man, On the Conflict of
Philosophy and Rhetoric, Pico’s 900 Theses and On Being and the
One 45
4 Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) by Leone Gazziero 51
Excerpt: The Prince and Discourses on Livy 54
5 Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) by Joseph Farrell 59
Excerpts: On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds 62
6 Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) by David Rose 67
Excerpt: The First New Science 71
7 Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) by David Rose 76
Excerpt: The Aesthetic as the Science of Expression and the
Linguistic in General 82
8 Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944) by David Rose 84
Excerpt: The Theory of Mind as Pure Act 87
vi CONTENTS
9 Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) by Will Stronge
and Onur Acaroglu 92
Excerpts: The Prison Notebooks and Revolution against Capital 96
10 Phenomenology and Marxism in Milan by Francesco
Tava 105
Excerpt: Enzo Paci: From Existentialism to the Things Themselves
(by Carlo Sini), translated by Katherine Langley with Michael
Lewis 108
11 Luigi Pareyson (1918–91) by Andrea Bellocci 116
Excerpt: Existence, Interpretation, Freedom 119
SECTION TWO Contemporary thinkers
(Alphabetical order)
127
12 Giorgio Agamben (1942–) by German Primera 129
Excerpt: The Work of Man 135
13 Massimo Cacciari (1944–) by Marco Piasentier 143
Excerpt: Nietzsche and the Unpolitical 146
14 Adriana Cavarero (1947–) by Olivia Guaraldo 153
Excerpt: Storytelling and Selfhood 157
15 Roberto Esposito (1950–) by German Primera 164
Excerpt: Community, Immunity, Biopolitics 168
16 Silvia Federici (1942–) by Federica Castelli 177
Excerpts: Feminism and the Politics of the Common in an Era of
Primitive Accumulation 180
17 Maurizio Ferraris (1956–) by Iain Hamilton Grant 189
Excerpt: Transcendental Realism 192
18 Simona Forti (1958–) by Lorenzo Bernini 200
Excerpt: New Demons: Rethinking Power and Evil Today 203
19 Maurizio Lazzarato (1955–) by Jeremy Gilbert 209
Excerpt: Work, Welfare, and Creativity in the Neoliberal Age 211
20 Christian Marazzi (1951–) by Arianna Bove 219
Excerpt: The Linguistic Nature of Money 222
CONTENTS vii
21 Luisa Muraro (1940–) by Federica Castelli 232
Excerpt: The Symbolic Order of the Mother 235
22 Antonio Negri (1933–) by Arianna Bove 241
Excerpt: Materialism and Poetry 246
23 Massimo Recalcati (1959–) by Anna Cicogna 253
Excerpt: The Man Without Unconscious: Figures of the New
Psychoanalytic Clinic 257
24 Emanuele Severino (1929–) by Andrea Soardo 264
Excerpt: Nihilism and Destiny 267
25 Davide Tarizzo (1966–) by Marco Piasentier 275
Excerpt: Applause: The Empire of Assent 278
26 Mario Tronti (1931–) by Nicholas Thoburn 288
Excerpt: The Strategy of Refusal 293
27 Gianni Vattimo (1936–) by David Rose 303
Excerpt: The Transparent Society 309
28 Paolo Virno (1952–) by Michael Lewis
and Zoe Waters 315
Excerpt: Natural-Historical Diagrams: The ‘New Global’ Movement
and the Biological Invariant 319
29 Timeline by Zoe Waters 331
Index 351
CONTRIBUTORS
Onur Acaroglu is Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science
and International Politics at the University of Birmingham. His current
research concerns the theme of transition and its temporal complexity in
historical materialism. He has written on the Gramscian theory of hegemony
as a conceptual tool with which to address the question of state power and
Left political strategy.
Andrea Bellocci (Rome, 1980–) graduated with a degree in philosophy and
the history of philosophy in 2005 at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’,
with a dissertation entitled Towards a Dialectic of the Tragic. An Essay on
Luigi Pareyson, under the supervision of Professors Paolo Vinci and Marco
M. Olivetti. In 2006 he began a PhD in philosophy at the University of
Siena (Arezzo) which he completed in 2010. The thesis was entitled Luigi
Pareyson and the Question of the Barthian Dialectic.
His first monograph, Implication of Opposites, Aporia of the Identical,
on Luigi Pareyson, appeared in 2012.
After teaching Philosophy at the Istituto Filosofico-Teologico, Viterbo,
he took up his current position as professor of theoretical philosophy at
the Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, Rome. He is currently working on the
philosophical thought of Gennaro Sasso. He has composed numerous essays
involving the works of Pareyson, Sasso, Barth and Marco Vannini, among
others.
E-mail: andreabellocci @yahoo .it
Lorenzo Bernini is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy at the University
of Verona, where he founded the Research Centre PoliTeSse (Politics and
Theories of Sexuality, www .politesse .it) which he now directs. His interests
range from classical political philosophy (especially Thomas Hobbes) and
French thought of the twentieth century (especially Michel Foucault) to
contemporary theories of radical democracy, critical race theories and queer
theories. Among his books are Queer Apocalypses: Elements of Antisocial
Theory (2017), previously published in Italian (2013) and Spanish (2015);
and Le teorie queer: Un'introduzione (2017), translated into Spanish (2018).
Arianna Bove is a political theorist and translator of political and
philosophical texts from Italian and French into English, including works
CONTRIBUTORS ix
by Elettra Stimilli, Manfredo Tafuri, Maurizio Lazzarato, Antonio Negri,
Luca Basso and Franco Berardi. She taught Politics and Ethics at Queen
Mary, University of London.
Federica Castelli received her PhD from the University of Modena
and Reggio Emilia and has been a post-doctoral researcher in Political
Philosophy at the University of Roma Tre. She is the editor of the feminist
journal DWF and governing council member of Iaph Italia, Italian section
for the International Association of Women Philosophers. She is supervisor
and scientific coordinator for the master’s degree in Studi e Politiche di
Genere at Roma Tre. She is the author of Corpi in Rivolta. Spazi urbani,
conflitti e nuove forme della politica (2015) and co-editor of Città. Politiche
dello spazio urbano (2016).
Anna Cicogna is a Lacanian psychologist who lives and works in
Trieste. She attended Irpa and became a member of Jonas and Telemaco,
Trieste, a clinical psychoanalytic centre for childhood and adolescence.
Outside of clinical practice, she researches art and literature from a
psychoanalytical perspective.
Joseph Farrell is Professor Emeritus in Italian at the University of Strathclyde.
He studied philosophy in Rome and has authored, edited and translated
several books on Italian society and literature, including Leonardo Sciascia,
Sicily: A Cultural History and History of Italian Theatre, co-edited with
Paolo Puppa. His most recent book is Dario Fo and Franca Rame: Theatre,
Politics and Life (2019).
Leone Gazziero (1971–) is a CNRS research fellow at the University of Lille.
He has published a book on Plato and Aristotle (2008) and a score of papers
(in French and English) on Ancient metaphysics and mediaeval logic.
Jeremy Gilbert is Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University
of East London. His most recent publications include the translation of
Maurizio Lazzarato’s Experimental Politics and the book Common Ground:
Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism. He is currently
working on three books: Twenty-First Century Socialism (2019), Hegemony
Now: Power in the Twenty-First Century (2020, co-authored with Alex
Williams) and The Last Days of Neoliberalism: Politics, Culture and Society
Since 2008 (2020).
In the spring of 2020 he will be Visiting Professor in the Humanities at
the Cogut Center for the Humanities, Brown University, Rhode Island.
Jeremy is the current editor of the journal New Formations and has
written and spoken widely on politics, music and cultural theory, having
given keynotes at numerous international conferences on these topics and
on the politics and practice of cultural studies.
