Table Of ContentPHILOSOPHY
P The Possible Present
e
The Possible Present unfolds from within a freely reinterpreted hermeneutic perspective r
o
and provides an original theoretical proposal on the topic of time. In dialogue especially n
e
with the philosophies of Husserl and Heidegger, but resorting also to suggestions
coming from a theological background (Barth and Bonhoeffer), the work proposes a
personal and original theory of time centered on a conception of the present that does
not reduce temporality to a succession of mere instants. When one claims that time
is ungraspable, one refers neither to the past (which is rather irretrievable) nor to the
T
future (which is rather uncertain) but to the present. The present in which we are is in
h
fact what fades from our hands without break. The present is a decisive threshold for
e
finite existence. It is the threshold where past and future meet and can give birth to
a livable horizon of meaning. Dilating the present and giving it a meaningful chance P
o
to be is a task for philosophy. It is the attempt of giving time to time and also giving
it shape, place, and space. To succeed at this task while rediscovering the sources of S
S
a narrative way of thinking that in truth it has never abandoned, philosophy must
i
go back and turn time into the primary object of discourse, like in stories, which are B
l
precisely the attempt at disposing the temporal flow of events according to a meaning.
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Perone argues that in time, however, what passes is not simply decline, but rather
something irreducible, an exteriority that must be said. P
r
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Ugo Perone is Professor in the Department of Humanities at the Università Del
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Piemonte orientale in Vercelli, Italy. He is the author of several books, including The e
Truth of Feeling and Despite the Subject. SIlVIa BenSo is Professor of Philosophy n
at the rochester Institute of Technology. She is the author of The Face of Things: A
T
Different Side of Ethics; translator and coeditor (with Brian Schroeder) of Contemporary
Italian Philosophy: Crossing the Borders of Ethics, Politics, and Religion; coeditor (with
Brian Schroeder) of Between Nihilism and Politics: The Hermeneutics of Gianni Vattimo;
and cotranslator (with Brian Schroeder) of Carlo Sini’s Ethics of Writing, all published
by SUnY Press. BrIan SCHroeDer is Professor of Philosophy at the rochester
Institute of Technology. He is the coeditor (with lissa McCullough) of Thinking
through the Death of God: A Critical Companion to Thomas J. J. Altizer, also published
by SUnY Press.
Ugo Perone
a volume in SUnY Series in Contemporary Italian Philosophy
Silvia Benso and Brian Schroeder, editors
Silvia Benso
Translated by
Brian Schroeder
with
State UniverSity of new york PreSS
www.SunYPreSS.edu
The Possible Present
A volume in the SUNY series in Contemporary Italian Philosophy
Silvia Benso and Brian Schroeder, editors
The Possible Present
Ugo Perone
Silvia Benso
Translated by
Brian Schroeder
With
Silvia Benso
With an Introduction by
Il presente possibile di Ugo Perone © 2005, Alfredo Guida Editore, Napoli
Published by
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Albany
© 2011 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form
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For information, contact
State University of New York Press
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Production, Laurie Searl
Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perone, Ugo.
[Presente possibile. English]
The possible present / Ugo Perone ; translated by Silvia Benso with Brian Schroeder.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in contemporary Italian philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-3745-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Time. 2. Philosophy. I. Title.
BD638.P4513 2011
115—dc22 2011003714
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Introduction: Struggling with the Angel by Silvia Benso ix
Preface xix
chapter one
Dramaturgy of Thought 1
Warning for the Non-Philosopher 1
The Ice Sheet 2
Time under the Microscope 5
Finite Time 7
Present and Presence 10
chapter two
The Present as Threshold 13
The Present Is Not Presence but Divide, Condition of Temporality 14
The Features of the Threshold 16
Spatiality of the Threshold: Outside/Inside 18
Temporality of the Threshold: Past/Future 21
After Modernity: The Rediscovery of the Present 25
Complexity and Consistency of the Present 27
vi the possible present
chapter three
Ethics of the Present 31
Education as Accumulation of Present 31
The Present of the Institution 32
For an Ethics of the Present 35
Beyond Virtues: The Reasons of Tenderness 41
chapter four
Tale without Author 47
The Tale of Philosophy 47
Tales and Distensio Temporis 49
Tale without Author 51
The Ontological Proof: Existence That
Has Always Already Been There 53
chapter five
The Tale of the I 57
The Tale of the I 57
The I as a Me 61
The Vicissitudes of the I 63
The Coordinates of the I’s Journey 66
chapter six
The Tale of Finitude 71
The Tale of Finitude 71
Finite Existence 76
Infi nite Existence 79
Praise of Lingering 82
chapter seven
The Great Tale of Time 87
The Tale as Diction of the Present 87
The Beyond as the Already-Been, that is: Naiveté in Front of Us 90
Before the End and After the Beginning: Philosophy 94
Praise of Philosophy 97
Contents vii
chapter eight
Hermeneutics of the Positive 103
Almost a Conclusion 103
Positivity of Philosophy 103
Praise of Dangerous Mediation 107
Notes 113
Bibliography 121
Index 125
INTRODUCTION
Struggling with the Angel
Finitude, Time, and Metaphysical Sentiment
Ugo Perone is one of the most lively, productive, and original contem-
porary Italian philosophers. Born in Turin in 1945 and educated at the
University of Turin under the guidance of Italy’s greatest hermeneutician,
Luigi Pareyson, Perone was schooled in the study of Secrétan, Schiller,
Feuerbach, Benjamin, and Descartes in addition to other major philoso-
phers (especially Hegel, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger, and
Merleau-Ponty) whose names constellate his numerous books. A contin-
ual engagement with theology, most notably that of Barth, Bonhoeff er,
and Bultmann, is also integral to Perone’s philosophical research, which
in recent years has extended to a consideration of poetry (especially Celan)
and narrative as areas capable of crucial philosophical contributions. Fol-
lowing years spent in Germany (Munich, Freiburg, Berlin), since 1993
Perone has been Professor of Moral Philosophy at the Università del
Piemonte Orientale in Vercelli.
Perone’s philosophical activity has never been confi ned solely to the
world of academia; he has always been an ambassador and promoter of
culture and education within the wider public sphere. Founder and direc-
tor of the prestigious Scuola d’Alta Formazione Filosofi ca (School of
Higher Philosophical Education) in Turin, a postdoctoral institution that
has seen the presence of famous philosophers such as Jean-Luc Marion,
Dieter Henrich, John Searle, Charles Larmore, Agnes Heller, Emanuele
Severino, and Jean-Luc Nancy, Perone has also played a fundamental role
in the cultural life of Turin and the surrounding region. During most of
the 1990s Perone was involved in the administration of his hometown,
Turin, as assessore alla cultura; in 2001–2003 he was appointed clara
fama director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Berlin; and since 2008
ix
