Being-for. Purposes and Functions in Artefacts and Living beings

The paper argues for the need to think differently about the attribution of functions and purposes in artifacts and in living organisms. A unified notion of function for artefacts and organisms presupposes the assumption of an artefact model of nature. In order to defende a difference between natural teleology and the teleology of artifacts it is necessary to re-think the Kantian notion of internal purposiveness and the Heideggerian distinction between organ and instrument

L'oggettività del pensiero. La filosofia di Hegel tra idealismo, anti-idealismo e realismo: un'introduzione.

Thought, according to Hegel, is not only the product of a faculty of a subject, or a means by which a thinking subject tries to grasp a world that is alien to him. It is also the very structure of the world, that is disclosed to a subject through the thinking activity of a subject. The fundamental question that crosses the whole post-Kantian philosophy is that of the relation between thought and reality, i.e. the question of whether reality depends on the categorial requirements imposed by the thinking subject, or whether reality maintains some form of independence from the thinking subject. Seen from this standpoint, Hegel can be read both as an author who radicalizes Kant’s transcendental perspective, and also as a critic of that perspective. In other words, he can be seen as an idealist: according to Hegel, any philosophy is idealist if it claims that something finite, qua finite, is essentially connected with something other. He can also be seen as an anti-idealist: insofar as his philosophy aims to overcome a hyper-transcendentalist perspective, i.e. it is so since it rejects idealism as subjective idealism. Moreover, Hegel’s anti-idealism can be characterized as realism. This is because, if we admit that overcoming transcendentalism without falling back again on a pre-critical conception of thought and of reality involves an idea of thought which is not reducible to a "mentalistic" conception of it, we need to conceive of thought as something that is not alien to reality. Hegel conceives of thought as intimately connected with the world, as its own rational structure. This “realism” of thought is what makes Hegelian idealism, so to speak, anti-idealistic. Through this "realism" of thought Hegel pursues two goals. On the one hand, Hegel attempts to overcome a subjectivistic and instrumentalistic conception of thought, according to which a subject talks and relates to a reality that is always only a construction of him, and so it is necessarily the simulacrum of something that remains inaccessible in its truth. On the other hand, Hegel attempts to overcome a conception of reality characterized merely as alien and opposite to thought itself, and which is the counterpart of the subjectivistic and instrumentalistic conception of thought. By pursuing these two goals it should be gained a conception of reality which could warrant some form of objectivity, but which cannot be equated with the substantialistic conception of the pre-Kantian metaphysics

Il noto e il conosciuto. Ontologia ed epistemologia nella filosofia di Hegel

In this paper, I want to show that Hegel\u2019s philosophy is not reducible to a kind of subjective idealism according to which the reality of world (the ontological dimension) is merged into the structure of subjectivity (the epistemological dimension), or which think that the reality of world is a construction of the thinking subject. I want to show how Hegel\u2019s philosophy can be read as a radical attempt to save the world from its reduction to a mere projection, a simulacrum or a subjective construction. That of Hegel is a very radical attempt, because he wants to save the autonomy of the world recognizing at the same time the role of the epistemic structures of subjectivity to the constitution of reality. The subjective epistemic structure are not extraneous, according to Hegel, to the very concept of the world and this non-extraneity is the condition of possibility, in order to think the access to the world by the subject

The Concept of Organism in Hegel's Philosophy of Nature

I focus my attention on the conceptualization Hegel offers of the organism in his philosophy of nature. The aim of my paper is to show the naturalistic roots of the notions of subject

The Philosophy of the Future: The Relevance of Severino’s Metaphilosophy Today

In the article, we aim at understanding the metaphilosophical implications of Emanuele Severino's concept of philosophy, asking what contribution it can offer to solving the question concerning the scope, form and consequent legitimation of philosophy as a discipline, which occupied the philosophical discourse with more and more urgency over the last few years

Emanuele Severino:The Language that Testifies to Destiny

In this event, two of Italy’s most renowned contemporary philosophers, Ugo Perone and Luca Illetterati, will discuss the irreducible novelty and untimeliness of Emanuele Severino’s philosophical contribution. They will address both the way in which philosophy always constitutes a confrontation with untimeliness within contemporary discourse and the way in which Italian philosophy in general, and Severino’s work in particular, have through the years staged this confrontation. Perone and Illetterati will each give a lecture and then discuss the specificity of Italian philosophy, the timeliness and untimeliness of philosophical reflection, and Emanuele Severino’s singular contribution to these questions. Emanuele Severino (1929-2020) was professor of theoretical philosophy at the Catholic University of Milan from 1954 to 1969. In the late 1960s, the Holy Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (the body that in 1908 took over from the Office of the Inquisition the task of defending and promulgating Catholic doctrine) carried out an investigation into his work reminiscent of some most eminent precedents, as a result of which Severino left his professorship. (The report of the investigation reads: &#8220;Severino has criticised the very ground of the conception of God’s transcendence and the tenets of Christianity in a way that arguably no atheism or heresy has ever done before&#8221;). From 1970 to 2005, Severino was professor of theoretical philosophy at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Ugo Perone holds the Romano Guardini Chair for the Philosophy of Religion at the Humboldt University of Berlin. His work focusses on the question of the finite and the infinite. His best-known books are In lotta con l&#8217;angelo (1989), Il presente possibile (2005), and Ripensare il sentimento (2014). He has served as director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Berlino and as founder and director of the Scuola di Alta Formazione Filosofica. Luca Illetterati is professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Padua. His research focusses on German classical philosophy and in particular on Hegel. Among his monographs: Natura e Ragione. Sullo sviluppo dell&#8217;idea di natura in Hegel (1995), Fra tecnica e natura. Problemi di ontologia del vivente in Heidegger (2002), La filosofia come esperienza del pensiero e scienza della libertà. Un approccio a Hegel (2002). He is currently president of the Italian Society of Theoretical Philosophy and member of the Board of Directors of the International Hegel Society.Luca Illetterati and Ugo Perone, ‘Emanuele Severino: The Language that Testifies to Destiny’, discussion presented at the symposium The Other Side of Italian Thought: Emanuele Severino, ICI Berlin, 20 January 2022 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e220120-1

The System as aForm of Freedom in Hegel's Philosophy. (Rationality and Improvisation)

This paper is aimed at clarifying the connection between two notions that are inherently related in Hegel's philosophy, namely system and freedom. I will show how these two notions are mutually supportive, that is to say, they imply one another. I believe this dynamic can shed light on the relationship between rationality and improvisation. More specifically, through the discussion of the relationship between freedom and system, that is, the relationship between freedom and reason, I will investigate the peculiar form of rationality that is active in the practice of conscious improvisation. Moreover, I will explore the inherent necessity enlivening and constituting the experience of freedom that is embodied in this practice

Sujeto y libertad. A partir de la filosofía de la naturaleza de Hegel

The aim of the paper is to show in what sense and with what consequences the concepts that are mostly read like the key concepts of the realm of the spirit (precisely the concepts of Subject and of Freedom) find their first and decisive articulation in the philosophy of nature and how the basic structures of life of the spirit do not find their determination in opposition to the natural world. The basic structure of the life of the spirit constitutes a rather peculiar re-articulation and development of the life of nature. Displaying the naturalistic roots of the concepts of subject and freedom, and showing in what sense the notion of subjectivity finds its first articulation in the concrete world of nature and how this subjectivity is thus the underlying structure on which the world of spirit articulates itself (at the level of subjective spirit as well as at the level of social mediation in the objective spirit), It allows us to read the relationship between nature and spirit in Hegel not as a simple opposition in which the one is the non-being of the other. An anti-naturalistic and «spiritualistic» reading of the philosophy of Hegel is the result of a one-sided view of the very notion of spirit and of an inadequate consideration of the role of the philosophy of nature in the general provisional of the whole system.El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar en qué sentido y con qué consecuencias los conceptos que en su mayoría se leen como conceptos clave de la esfera del espíritu –que son, precisamente, los conceptos de sujeto y de libertad– encuentran su articulación primera y decisiva en la filosofía de la naturaleza y cómo las estructuras básicas de la vida del espíritu no encuentran su determinación por oposición al mundo natural. La estructura básica de la vida del espíritu constituye más bien una peculiar re-articulación y desarrollo de la vida de la naturaleza. Mostrar las raíces naturalistas de los conceptos de sujeto y de libertad, mostrando en qué sentido la noción de subjetividad encuentra su articulación primera en el mundo concreto de la naturaleza y cómo esta subjetividad es, pues, la estructura subyacente en la que el mundo del espíritu se articula a sí mismo –tanto a nivel del espíritu subjetivo, como a nivel de la mediación social en el espíritu objetivo– y permite leer la relación entre naturaleza y espíritu en Hegel, no como una simple oposición en la que el uno es el no-ser del otro. Una lectura anti-naturalista y «espiritualista» de la filosofía de Hegel es el resultado de una visión unilateral de la noción misma del espíritu y de una inadecuada consideración del papel de la filosofía de la naturaleza en la disposición general de todo el sistema