Carlo Chiurco

Of the seven recurrences of the term gypsy (Zigeuner) in Nietzsche’s works, only two possess deep philosophical implications: a short statement in RWB and the poem Yorick als Zigeuner. 􏰁􏰂In this article, I suggest that the gypsy figure in Nietzsche should be read in close inter-dependence with the problem of liberation, and that it shares three features in common with the figure of the "free spirit": i) the nomadic condition and the absolute freedom it entails; ii) the struggle for surviving, essential to everyone in order to "become who he is"; and iii) pure laughter, the surest sign of a fully enacted Dionysian condition that is capable to "dance on the abyss".

«Navigare nel tempo senza affanni, come si faceva nell’età dell’oro…»
(William Shakespeare, "Come vi piace", atto I).

Zampillata dal seno profondo del mito, fissata nei suoi tratti fondamentali dai racconti filosofici di Platone e Lucrezio, e collocata una volta per tutte tra la fine del ‘400 e l’inizio del ‘500 dalla pittura veneziana nel paesaggio dell’Arcadia come nel luogo che le è proprio, la figura dell’età dell’oro non cessa di incantare la civiltà occidentale con la sua promessa di perfezione, della quale, a ben vedere, non è in fondo che un altro nome. Scritti di Massimo Donà, Salvatore Lavecchia, Federico Leoni, Linda Napolitano, Fulvia De Luise, Jean-Louis Ska, Marco Zambon, Carlo Chiurco, Guido Giglioni, Paul Holberton, Alessandra Zamperini, Sandra Rossi, Davide Ambrosi.

Medieval conceptions of creaturality may be reduced to two distinct positions. The first, by far hegemonic within medieval history, can be tracked down to Paul (1 Cor, 13, 12) and especially Augustine. It states that creatures mantain a vestigium Dei, which must be actively researched – but this research eventually leads to discard creatures, which are seen as simple tools and not as something that can be sought in itself. Indeed, they are nothing in themselves, being pure outcomes of God’s will. The second position, essentially represented by Bonaventure, considers on the contrary creatures as essentially capable to be perfect theophanic places of God’s self-manifestation. Videre in speculo means to see God in creatures, which in turn leads to the admission of the possibility to reach the state of beatitudo already in this life – though it is a special privilege granted only to extremely selected chosen ones, such as Francis of Assisi.

Like many twelfth-century works, Bernardus Silvestris’ "Cosmographia" revolves around the problem of the restoration of the lost cosmical order, and tries to solve it by an innovative usage of the artes, or «techniques». By leaning on the cyclical nature of the cosmos and mirroring it, the artes become capable to renew the world. This in turn implies the existence of triadic analogies (between truth, nature and the techniques, and between God, the world, and man), which are the distinctive mark of cosmic perfection.

La "Cosmographia" di Bernardo Silvestre affronta il problema, centrale nel pensiero del XII secolo, del ristabilimento dell’ordine cosmico perduto, che cerca di risolvere attraverso il potere delle artes, ossia della tecnica: basandosi infatti sulla naturale ciclicità del cosmo, Bernardo riesce a trasformare la semplice capacità innovativa delle tecniche in un vero e proprio rinnovamento cosmico. Questo permette la costruzione di un edificio teorico di triadi analogiche tra loro (verità, natura, tecnica; Dio, mondo, uomo), nel quale consiste e insieme si rispecchia la perfetta armonia del cosmo.

This article discusses the possibility of successfully reintroducing a notion of subjectivity of transcendental sort in the context of contemporary philosophical reflection about caring. The notion of caring revolves around a new kind of subjectivity, far from the sovereign and ultimately totalitarian subject typical of modern philosophy. Yet, as this article tries to argument, also present-day fragmented and liquid subjectivity, non-violent as it might seem, is unfit to bear the burden of the effort of imagining a new subjectivity built around caring as its core. Transcendentality – far from being necessarily implicated with violence and philosophical, as well as political, totalitarianism – may instead be non-violent and respectful of human finiteness, and therefore free from the suspect of restoring old metaphysical views about a fully sovereign subject. All of the more, it makes the notion of caring achieve an iconic status as the very coronation of ethics, in the terms of what can actually substantiate an otherwise intellectualistic (or “too metaphysical”) notion of good.

In questo testo vengono presentate per la prima volta in traduzione italiana due opere di Alano di Lilla (1123-1203), filosofo, teologo e poeta vissuto tra la Francia e l’Inghilterra del XII secolo; si tratta dell’Anticlaudianus, poema filosofico di 4300 versi e del Discorso sulla sfera intellegibile. Queste due opere trattano, in modo diverso, del percorso di elevazione della mente umana alla contemplazione di un archetipo intellettuale; all’ascesa corrisponde una successiva discesa nel mondo terreno per ripristinare l’ordine cosmico perduto. Nelle due opere il cosmo medievale si dispiega in tutta la sua inesauribile ricchezza simbolica, che abbraccia temi classici come le arti liberali, l’astrologia, la teologia, l’etica della poesia cortese, oltre naturalmente all’insegnamento morale-esortativo. Il curatore Carlo Chiurco, studioso di filosofia mediovale, che collabora con i Dipartimenti di filosofia delle Università di Verona e di Venezia, ha già pubblicato di Alano di Lilla la traduzione italiana delle Regole del diritto celeste.

During the last 20 years the works of Alan of Lille have attracted the interest of many scholars, especially from France and Germany. At first sight, Alan's great "opus" looks like the enigmatic work of a tireless polygrapher, ranging from poetry to strictly theoretical essays, and from homiletic to treatises in defence of Catholicism. But could it be that a carefully-drawn masterplan and an unitary view lurk behind this apparently chaotic fragmentation? This is precisely the conviction underlying this volume, in which the author shows that such unity should be sought where Alan himself - albeit sometimes in a very hermetic fashion - had put it, that is in the superiority of theology (in Alan's eyes, a byword for metaphysics) over nature and all of the other sciences. Clad in such royal garments, theology/metaphysics therefore starts a long voyage, whose scope - in accordance with the best exemples of medieval universalism - is the restoration of a lost cosmic harmony and the unity of the "ordo sapientiae", the sphere of knowledge. In the end, not only are metaphysics and praxis, theory and ethics (as well as politics) eventually brought together again, but it is made clear that their intertwining is as primal as indissoluble.

Oggetto di una recente riscoperta, soprattutto in ambito francese e tedesco, l'opera di Alano di Lilla si presenta a prima vista come l'enigmatico "opus" di un poligrafo inesauribile, il quale varie dalla poesia alla teoresi, dai sermoni all'apologetica del Cattolicesimo. E' possibile invece che, dietro a questa apparente frammentazione, si celino un progetto ben preciso e una visione unitaria? Tale è la convinzione espressa da Carlo Chiurco: in questo volume egli mostra come il fondamento di tale visione vada ricercato là dove Alano stesso, talvolta in modo volutamente ermetico, lo aveva posto, ovvero nella superiorità della teologia, cioè della metafisica, tanto rispetto al piano naturale quanto rispetto a tutti gli altri saperi. Investita di questo ruolo regale, la metafisica inizia così un lungo e faticoso percorso che la porta, in una visione grandiosa e degna del miglior universalismo medievale, a restaurare la perduta armonia del cosmo e l'unità dell'ordine della "sapientia". Un disegno in cui la metafisica e la prassi, la teoresi e l'etica appaiono compenetrate in modo originario e indissolubile."

My paper deals with the double role played by history and memory in the civilization-building process outlined in §§ 56-58 of Der Antichrist, where they emerge as key forces in keeping alive the peculiar «good lie», in which noble civilizations, such as that based on the Law of Manu, consist. Contrarily to a basic metaphysical belief, things may in general gush forth from their supposedly inferior opposite – for instance, truth from false. This forces us to re-think the relation between faith (Glaube) and lie (Lüge): some lies may indeed be good – it depends whether they are built in order to empower or diminish life, and in accordance to its nature or against it. An example of such «good lie» is the society built on the aristocratic values of the Law of Manu, as opposed to Christianism’s revenge against life. Civilization-building happens in two steps. In the first, experimental phase, various Kulturformen and civilizational paths are actively created and put to test. At this stage, history and memory work in their “usual”, active way, the former as a continuative creative and critical activity that maintains values «fluid», as melted metal in a furnace before it is poured into stamps, the latter keeping a recorded track of the most successful Kulturfomen tested in the process, among which are those to be eventually chosen to form the backbone of the new civilization. At a given point in history, the elite of ancient Hindu society puts an end to this phase, crystallizing the best Kulturfomen in a given set of rules by means of a double «pious lie», «revelation» and «tradition». Here history and memory reverse their course, from active to passive. Such reversal does not mean they turn into their respective opposites. Memory, for instance, does not become oblivion, but shrinks to the perpetually passive remembrance of the established code, just as history brings forth no more changes, criticism, or events, but becomes the passive repetition and perennial summarization of a past turned into an eternal present indefinitely extending into the future. Such sterilization of history and memory into the perfectly natural, self-evident reality of the code is the “methodology” presiding over the foundation of aristocratic societies. This “naturalism” gives birth to the intelligent social machinism of the imperium, fostering a Weltanschauung where every part of society is perfectly integrated in the whole, with no room for destructive forces, such as envy or disgust for reality itself.
Nietzsche’s perspective is, on the one hand, remindful of 18th-century theories on the birth of civilizations, chiefly Vico’s remarks on how men become wise and capable to build societies by means of hyper-realistic narrations that are quintessentially myths, while on the other it displays distinctive features of the “sublimation” process typical of Apollynism (even human imperfection becomes so much part of the whole, to the extent it appears necessary for the eventual perfection of the imperium). Thus, history and memory act as the prehistory of, and the pre-condition for, the building of aristocratic civilizations.

This paper wishes to deal with the subject of painting in medieval philosophy. Painting (pictura) is a rather different term than image (imago): whereas the theological and philosophical implications of the latter are well-known, the relevance and significance of the first is still open to enquiry. A look at the usage of the two terms through the "Lexicon latinitatis Medii Aevi" shows that pictura is far less employed than imago and is definitely bound to fictio, in the sense that it signifies the process by which an image is practically made (sketched, painted, or sculpted). The first great practical usage of pictura in Middle Ages to possess deep theoretical implications is the writing of texts that are images in themselves, such as the famous "Liber sanctae Crucis" by Hrabanus Maurus. These 'painted texts' rejoin the practical creative process of image-making, which the term pictura designates, with the theoretical creative processes of poetry or philosophy, and seem to point to the inextricability of the two. Whereas Anselm of Canterbury seems to be the first great medieval thinker to employ the term pictura in his works, the palm of the golden age of pictura definitely goes to the Twelfth century, which not coincidentally saw a great reprise of philosophical fictio in form of poetry. Bernardus Sylvestris made in his "Cosmographia" a comprehensive reflection on the status of poetry (in his case, philosophical poetry) as a quasi-divine fictio: the philosopher-poet, in his creation, basically not just 'takes part' in God’s creation, but he actually re-creates it. But it is in the works of Alan of Lille-Tewkesbury that pictura reaches its highest standard. Not only Alan is the likely first great medieval thinker (and writer in general) to have described actual frescoes in his works, but pictura owns in his thought an extremely complex role and elevated status: pictura is less an imitation of truth (or reality) than the closest approximation to it. The term 'approximation' should be here taken quite literally, as 'coming closer', 'getting ever closer', since Alan envisages a 'voyage of Wisdom' in his most famous and important work, the philosophical poem (again, as in Bernardus) "Anticlaudianus".

A conclusione dell'intenso percorso formativo sullo human caring in regione, è possibile porsi alcune domande e soprattutto cercare di elaborare alcuni spunti che possano essere sfruttati a livello pratico-operativo. Si deve anzitutto partire dal riconoscimento del particolare momento che stiamo vivendo: da un lato, l'attenzione verso lo human caring mai è stata così alta da parte di tutti gli attori del panorama sanitario, pazienti, operatori e dirigenza/politici; dall'altro, la riflessione filosofica è finalmente uscita dalla proverbiale torre d'avorio e ha preso consapevolezza che specialmente l'etica ha un futuro solo come etica applicata ai casi concreti della vita. Uno dei problemi evidenziati sin dall'inizio nello human caring è che esso per definizione necessita di una formazione permanente. Occorre dunque pensare ad un approccio articolato su più fronti. Anzitutto occorrerebbe iniziare a fare una prima sintesi delle varie riflessioni fatte in ambito etico finora. Dato per acquisito che il fondamento dello HC è l'etica, si tratta di capire quale sia il modello etico migliore. Inoltre nell'elaborarlo si deve tenere conto delle specificità della situazione italiana. Dall'altro lato, si deve iniziare ad affrontare la questione dell'inserimento dello HC nei curricula di studio e formazione (o rendere questi ultimi permanenti) e magari pensare a creare occasioni di formazione post-laurea e post-diploma sul modello di alcuni esempi esteri. Articolo di Claudio Magris sul Corriere del 6 novembre: In questi anni ho avuto occasione di frequentare, per me e soprattutto per persone a me care, medici delle più svariate specialità ed è stata una delle forti e liberatrici esperienze della mia esistenza. Nelle più varie discipline che si confrontano con i mali che assalgono l'uomo — dall'oncologia all'oculistica, dalla dermatologia alla pediatria, dalla cardiologia alla neurologia, alla chirurgia — ho avuto modo di toccare con mano una radicale trasformazione del rapporto fra medico e paziente, che significa un vero passo in avanti dell'umanità. Ho visto clinici di diverse specialità — e ne ho anche scritto, citando nomi e cognomi — capaci di dare serenità dicendo la verità, una verità spesso tutt'altro che allegra. Ho accompagnato di recente una persona a me carissima dalla sua oncologa, tanto inesorabilmente precisa nella sua descrizione dello stato delle cose quanto incredibilmente capace di comunicare queste nozioni neutralizzando il loro potenziale d'ansia, sicché siamo usciti dal colloquio non ossessionati dalla malattia, bensì pervasi da un profondo senso della vita e della sua creatività, che comprende il meglio e il peggio, entrambi guardati chiaramente in faccia. Certo, quando il numero dei pazienti che giustamente fanno ansiose e ripetute domande si fa alto, la necessaria fretta e lo stress a essa legato possono rendere più difficile questo momento di creatività non solo professionale ma umana.

Text read at the symposium "The Poesis of Peace", Slovenia, May 2014.

Art history has long identified what is most striking in the masterpieces of the Golden Age of Italian painting: harmony, the exactness of proportions, the perfect calibration of gestures. Yet the mystery lying at their core remains, and the task to define it rests perhaps on philosophy, rather than art history. After all, philosophy, in the extremely refined fashion of the over-synchretistic Platonism of the time, exerted an enormous influence both on Quattrocento and Renaissance painting. This paper will try to describe, rather than determine, such mystery in terms of a “metaphysical peace”, focusing in particular on the element that lies in the background of these artworks: the landscape, whose realization Venetian painting took to unprecedented heights. Such background acts in fact as the actual foundation of the metaphysical visions manifested by these artworks – which should rather be considered as philosophical treaties in themselves rather than pure “works of art”. It is only by the presence and the role of the landscape that these paintings achieve a dimension of pure, metaphysical peace that reunites poetry and wisdom, and restitutes a notion of the Human as a Whole.

Text read at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, June 2014.

Unlike most medieval conceptions of monarchy, Alan of Lille’s was not founded on theology – if we take the meaning of this term literally. What indeed he meant for it was, in fact, basically a sort of translation of the Aristotelian doctrine about intellect. This view had a conspicuous practical side: since truth is attainable, the whole of the practical sphere of human life should be organized and entirely built around this unshakable core, especially with regard to politics. Hence the necessity of a ruler that has to be, platonically enough, also a true philosopher. Dante, who very likely knew Alan’s work, also shaped his views on monarchy from a philosophical point of view. Both authors, in the end, draw their conceptions of monarchy and its necessity as the practical side of a metaphysical view of the world rooted in fully rational, soundly-founded axioms and principles.

Noto al grande pubblico soprattutto per la sua storia d'amore con Eloisa, Abelardo fu in realt\ue0 un pensatore di prima grandezza del XII secolo. Uno dei pi\uf9 celebri e dotati logici d'Europa, consider\uf2 la logica come l'essenza stessa della filosofia, arrivando spesso a confondere l'ambito razionalistico e quello teologico. Fu per questo processato e scomunicato. Altra sua innovazione fondamentale fu l'uso della semantica e dell'analisi del linguaggio, ci\uf2 che ne fa il precursore dell'empirismo e della logica analitica

Agostino, nato e cresciuto pagano, scopr\uec il cristianesimo non a causa di uno smarrimento esistenziale, come di solito avviene, ma attraverso una ricerca intellettuale, perch\ue9 trov\uf2 in questa religione le risposte sul senso della vita che non riusciva a reperire nella filosofia greca. Cos\uec oper\uf2 una mirabile sintesi tra queste due dottrine, creando una filosofia che avrebbe influito sul mondo per oltre un millennio e che ancora oggi, nonostante le critiche anche aspre incontrate nei secoli, \ue8 un riferimento per molti di quanti vanno in cerca di risposte su Dio, il bene, il male, il senso della vita

The need of \u2013 and the quest for \u2013 sincerity and transparence may be considered the most distinctive feature of our time. The final outcome of such obsession with transparence has eventually brought about our present-day society of hyper-appearance. Sexuality is one of the main battlefields, where the imperative of transparency fights in order to establish its rule \u2013 as well as one of its most powerful weapons. Hyper-appearance, cast by absolute transparency as its inevitable consequence, should not be deemed just as a form of mass-narcissism: it is rather perceived as the last veritable source of authenticity of the I. Such structure, however, fatally clashes with the essentially symbolic nature of sexuality, which definitely requires nudity, but also mystery, silence, defeat, and the impossibility for desire to become the Other whilst desiring it. If the imperative of transparency presupposes reality as purely positive, entirely opened out, and thus controllable, sex...

Saint Bonaventure a developpe dans son œuvre theologique un symbolisme aux ramifications multiples. L'A. en etudie ici toutes les facettes qui se rattachent a la notion de theophanie. Il s'agit de mettre en evidence les problemes lies a l'usage bonaventurien du symbole : il est essence meme du sens alors que dans le meme temps il voile le sens. C'est la metaphore paulinienne su miroir qui, le mieux, rend compte de l'ecriture utilisee par Bonaventure en theologie. Ecriture tout a fait adaptee a reveler ce qu'est Dieu tout en le masquant...

Imagining a Caring Self in the Age of Post-Subjectivity. A modest ProposalThis article discusses the possibility of successfully reintroducing a notion of subjectivity of transcendental sort in the context of contemporary philosophical reflection about caring. The notion of caring revolves around a new kind of subjectivity, far from the sovereign and ultimately totalitarian subject typical of modern philosophy. Yet, as this article tries to argument, also present-day fragmented and liquid subjectivity, non-violent as it might seem, is unfit to bear the burden of the effort of imagining a new subjectivity built around caring as its core. Transcendentality – far from being necessarily implicated with violence and philosophical, as well as political, totalitarianism – may instead be non-violent and respectful of human finiteness, and therefore free from the suspect of restoring old metaphysical views about a fully sovereign subject. All of the more, it makes the notion of caring achiev...

Anselmo d'Aosta, vescovo di Canterbury, \ue8 ricordato come l'ingegno filosofico pi\uf9 interessante oltre che originale del secolo XI. Nella sua meditazione sulle ragioni della fede stessa e sulla fede che cerca l'intelligenza, fu autore di una delle "prove" pi\uf9 note per dimostrare con la ragione l'esistenza di Dio, il cosiddetto "argomento ontologico", che attraverser\ue0 i secoli fino a giungere alla filosofia analitica contemporanea. Consider\uf2 anche la filosofia come pratica di vita, sorretta da un estremo rigore etico e razionale, perfetto specchio del rigore argomentato e intellettuale della sua opera. La sua "prova ontologica" - \ue8 stato detto - fu una delle pi\uf9 grandi esperienze metafisiche della storia della filosofia, che "arriva al limite massimo della via dove allo spirito umano \ue8 consentito entrare"

Short description of contents: L'articolo mostra il contrasto tra la nozione cristiana di Amore e quella di Eros platonico, mettendo in evidenza come al fondo della seconda vi sia una concezione che pensala violenza come elemento originario e ineludibile della realtà. La ...

\ua7\ua756\u201358 of Der Antichrist are known for Nietzsche\u2019s controversial endorsement of Aryan morality, socially sanctioned by the Law of Manu. In fact, they also contain a theory of civilization centered around two main elements: history\u2019s transfiguration into memory, and memory\u2019s dislocation in history. This theory is valid for all legislations and societies built upon a \u201choly lie\u201d, i. e. a fictional narrative that refers to a divine origin social and cultural structures that are essentially human. This is why such social models are far from ideal in Nietzsche\u2019s eyes, even though he recognizes their worthiness. His preference goes to a society founded on a different concept of philosophy, one that sees reality as it is, and allows history to regain its full experimental nature, projecting itself into the future

This article discusses the possibility of successfully reintroducing a notion of subjectivity of transcendental sort in the context of contemporary philosophical reflection about caring. The notion of caring revolves around a new kind of subjectivity, far from the sovereign and ultimately totalitarian subject typical of modern philosophy. Yet, as this article tries to argument, also present-day fragmented and liquid subjectivity, non-violent as it might seem, is unfit to bear the burden of the effort of imagining a new subjectivity built around caring as its core. Transcendentality – far from being necessarily implicated with violence and philosophical, as well as political, totalitarianism – may instead be non-violent and respectful of human finiteness, and therefore free from the suspect of restoring old metaphysical views about a fully sovereign subject. All of the more, it makes the notion of caring achieve an iconic status as the very coronation of ethics, in the terms of what ...

In questo lavoro si esamina la solidità dell'opera di fondazione della teologia, o''supercelestis scientia, operata nelle opere di Alano di Lilla (sec XII). Nella prima parte, iniziando dall'analisi del rapporto tra la scienza teologica e le scienze empirico-tecniche, ...

Medieval conceptions of creaturality may be reduced to two distinct positions. The first, by far hegemonic within medieval history, can be tracked down to Paul (1 Cor, 13, 12) and especially Augustine. It states that creatures mantain a vestigium Dei, which must be actively researched – but this research eventually leads to discard creatures, which are seen as simple tools and not as something that can be sought in itself. Indeed, they are nothing in themselves, being pure outcomes of God’s will. The second position, essentially represented by Bonaventure, considers on the contrary creatures as essentially capable to be perfect theophanic places of God’s self-manifestation. Videre in speculo means to see God in creatures, which in turn leads to the admission of the possibility to reach the state of beatitudo already in this life – though it is a special privilege granted only to extremely selected chosen ones, such as Francis of Assisi.

«Navigare nel tempo senza affanni, come si faceva nell’età dell’oro…» (William Shakespeare, "Come vi piace", atto I). Zampillata dal seno profondo del mito, fissata nei suoi tratti fondamentali dai racconti filosofici di Platone e Lucrezio, e collocata una volta per tutte tra la fine del ‘400 e l’inizio del ‘500 dalla pittura veneziana nel paesaggio dell’Arcadia come nel luogo che le è proprio, la figura dell’età dell’oro non cessa di incantare la civiltà occidentale con la sua promessa di perfezione, della quale, a ben vedere, non è in fondo che un altro nome. Scritti di Massimo Donà, Salvatore Lavecchia, Federico Leoni, Linda Napolitano, Fulvia De Luise, Jean-Louis Ska, Marco Zambon, Carlo Chiurco, Guido Giglioni, Paul Holberton, Alessandra Zamperini, Sandra Rossi, Davide Ambrosi.

This paper deals with the possibility to outline some ethical notions that may be consistent with the main tenets of the philosophy of Emanuele Severino. By exploring the notion of “plural transcendental” that lays at the core of Carmelo Vigna’s “ethics of recognition”, the argument infers that, if the structure of transcendental reality implies the original presence of a relationship of mutual recognition between at least two transcendental consciousnesses, then to violate the other-ness of the Other becomes impossible, otherwise no transcendental consciousness would self-disclose ever. Yet relationships cannot be “good” or “evil”, otherwise relationships where mutual recognition is actually denied would actually exist. The original plurality of transcendental consciousnesses perfectly mirrors the actual meaning of «the true spectacle of Being» as «the irruption of differences».

In questo lavoro si esamina la solidità dell'opera di fondazione della teologia, o''supercelestis scientia, operata nelle opere di Alano di Lilla (sec XII). Nella prima parte, iniziando dall'analisi del rapporto tra la scienza teologica e le scienze empirico-tecniche, ...