‘The Water Lilies’ of the Orangerie, Ricoeur and the ‘flâneur’

«Le flâneur – Nympheas Orangerie» is the title that Olivier Abel (president of the Scientific Council of the Fonds Ricoeur) gave to one of his Entretien with Ricoeur. We can read the two pages of this dialogue in the booklet (Paul Ricoeur. Le tragique et la promesse) that accompanies the double DVD about the life and work of the French thinker: Paul Ricoeur. Philosophe de tous les dialogues2. The film language configures and refigures – with images, clips of interviews (of Ricoeur and his friends/interpreters), photos and video fragments – Ricoeur‘s entire journey, a journey that is symbolically presented in a circular manner. We do not know if this was really the intent of the authors (C. Reussner, O. Abel, F. Dosse). But in our eyes, focused on the Water Lilies of the Orangerie, the symbolic ‗circle‘ (‗symbolic‘ more than ‗hermeneutical‘ circle) is evident

Nietzsche and ‘the Friend as a Cork’. Classical Sources and Hermeneutical Perspectives

In the section On the Friend of Thus spoke Zarathustra, we find some metaphors which are really rare in Nietzsche. One of these is the friend as ‘the cork’: an interesting expression (1) for the peculiarity of the image, which usually is associated with a negative meaning rather than a positive one, (2) for the ancient roots of this metaphor, (3) finally for the light that, once understood, it can shed on the Nietzschean idea of friendship. In line with this three-fold articulation, we will divide our paper into three parts. In the first, we will verify the contexts in which the term ‘Kork’ appears in Nietzsche’s work. In the second, we will try to understand which authors Nietzsche may have made reference to in coining this metaphor (Pindar, Aeschylus, Lucian of Samosata). Finally, we will try to demonstrate the light that the term ‘friend as cork’ can shed – in general – on the interpretation of the question of friendship in Nietzsche

«With Masts Sung Earthwards / the Sky-Wrecks Srive». And You are This Song

Paul Celan, a Jewish native speaker of German, comes to our rescue. By his existence and with the faint breathturn1 of his poetry, he tried to show that writing poetry after Auschwitz was not barbaric, but a necessary act. He returns to incite us today, asking us if ‘song’ and ‘languages’ (poetry, literature, philosophy, art, music, cinema) are only useless and fragile relicts, or the possibility to hold on, making pennants, and bridges toward a ‘you’. We will follow, on a first level, the philosophical interpretation of H. G. Gadamer3 and try to weave ‘onto’ it the questions that the current scenarios provoke and lay bare. «In the space of three short verses the scene of a shipwreck is described, but from the beginning it becomes an unreal image. It is a shipwreck that takes place in heaven» – writes Gadamer, who associates the poetic image to the pictorial one of the painter Caspar David Friedrich: The Sea of Ice

Paul Ricoeur and the Metaphor of the Symphony

The title recalls a passage from Paul Ricoeur, taken from "Arts, Language and Hermeneutic Aesthetics.", Interview conducted by Jean-Marie Brohm and Magali Uhl (September 20, 1996 in Paris). The expression used by Ricoeur is symphony of the arts. However, we preferred to broaden the term „arts‟: not only to embrace other „languages‟ which are not strictly artistic, but also because it seemed that Ricoeur himself calls for a broadening of the „symphony‟ in this direction. We know that he was defined by many, and at various times, «the philosopher of all dialogues

Dialogues with Ricoeur, on the Edge of Languages

There were three criteria for the 'collection' of the articles in this issue, linked to some particular intentions. The first criteria is linked to the desire to begin to fill a gap in the critical studies on Ricoeur. In fact, as central as the world of literature, of symbol, of metaphor (and, as we shall see, also of painting and music), were to Ricoeur, he never devoted a monograph to the arts (keeping this intimate dialogue almost like a hidden secret). Perhaps also for this reason there are still no books dedicated to this subject. Of course there are some essays and monographs, but books on this topic was, in our view, still missing. In any case, the relationship of Ricoeur with the arts is an area yet to be explored, much less examined than the other topics touched on by the French philosopher

Una ripetizione appropriante ‘filosofica’, più che una recensione. In dialogo con ‘The Foundations of Phenomenological Psychotherapy’ di G. Arciero, G. Bondolfi, V. Mazzola

The Foundations of Phenomenological Psychotherapy (Springer, 2018) by Giampiero Arciero, Guido Bondolfi and Viridiana Mazzola weaves, as the authors declare, three possible narratives: a philosophical one, a psychological-psychotherapeutic one, and one in dialogue with Sciences. These pages are only focused on the philosophical perspective, re-appropriating it through some questions. What kind of epistemological and ontological re-foundation can phenomenology offer to psychology? How can Heidegger’s and Ricoeur’s books be a new beginning for a different interpretation of the human being? Can philosophy ‘coherently’ use a phenomenological-practical method and transform the hermeneutics of the self into care of self?The Foundations of Phenomenological Psychotherapy (Springer, 2018; imminente la versione italiana per Bollati Boringhieri) è un testo di Giampiero Arciero, Guido Bondolfi e Viridiana Mazzola che intreccia, come dichiarano gli autori, tre possibili narrazioni: una filosofica, una psicologico-psicoterapeutica, una in dialogo con le scienze. Queste pagine si limitano a seguire la prospettiva filosofica, riappropriandosene in base ad alcune domande. Che tipo di rifondazione epistemologica e ontologica può offrire la fenomenologia alla psicologia? In che maniera i testi di Heidegger e Ricoeur possono essere un nuovo inizio per una differente lettura dell’essere umano? La filosofia è in grado di usare ‘coerentemente’ un metodo fenomenologico-pratico e trasformare l’ermeneutica del sé in cura di sé

Dialoghi con Ricoeur, sul filo dei linguaggi

Si analizza la letteratura secondaria su Ricoeur, per mostrare come, rispetto alla questione del rapporto con le arti, ci sia una sostanziale lacuna della letteratura critic

L’anima e il cristallo. Il percorso di Stefano Poggi 'alle radici dell’arte astratta'

La suggestione del titolo non è immediatamente spiegata nel libro. E anche noi, come l’Autore, non vogliamo appagare subito la curiosità di chi non dovesse ancora aver letto l’ultimo testo di Stefano Poggi: L’anima e il cristallo. Alle radici dell’arte astratta, Il mulino, Bologna, 2014. Ci sembra importante, invece, per presentare questo lavoro, sottolineare da subito che si tratta di un testo complesso (ma non per questo complicato), che può essere letto per lo meno su tre differenti livelli; un testo che – per dirla con un’espressione cara alla nostra Rivista – intreccia per lo meno tre diversi logoi: quello storico-filosofico, quello artistico, chiaramente evocato nel sottotitolo e, infine, quello dell’«afflato mistico» ad essi sottesi

L’urgenza dell’inattuale

Perché l’Inattuale è innanzitutto un tema teoretico. È un aggettivo teoretico. Prima ancora di dire qualcosa di Nietzsche o qualcosa di noi, ci dice qualcosa della filosofia. Inattuale è il modo d’essere della filosofia. Da sempre, ma forse oggi più che mai. In/attuale perché in/utile, fuori dalla logica ‘attuale’ dell’utilitarismo. Fuori dalla logica ‘corrente’, diceva Nietzsche, che rende gli uomini ‘correnti’, come monete corrent

Questo è il mio corpo (épandu). Una decostruzione filosofica de ‘Le nozze dell’agnello’ di Emmanuel Falque

Abstract: What does 'body' mean? To answer this question, we chose to cross Les noces de l'Agneau. Essai philosophique sur le corps et l'eucharistie (2011) by E. Falque. Our essay is divided into three parts. In the first one, we try to understand what 'corps épandu' means, and what relationship it has with the classic philosophical (and ontotheological) interpretation of the human body. After an 'Intermezzo' on The question of animality, between philosophy and art, in the second part we see what happens to bodies when eros comes into play. In the third part, we work on four elements, which emerge in this 'manifest of the flesh' (memory of the body; real presence of the bodies; the word-silence relationship in the body; the 'tangere' and/or 'non tangere' of bodies) and we use them to re-read some questions highlighted in this Covid-time