A socioanthropological debate in the 17th Century. The Myth of the Good Savage. The myth of the Good Savage was born and developed especially in the17th century, but it already had its ethnological bases in the geographical discoveries of the 15th century and in the colonial conquests. The French Enlightenment questions about the Occidental civilization and the moral principles that were the bases of the colonial expansions of the European powers. The cultural debate, extended by the anthropological science, was directed to the attempt to knowledge the submissive populations who became the colonial populations. Any kind of reduction of the social debate to the superiority of the Occidental human being is progressively surpassed by the comparison of two worlds, initially opposed and than more and more close to one another: the civilization world and the primitive one. In Voltaire’s stories the moment of the overtaking of the natural state, specific to the savage, is more important, through one necessary acculturation, while in the autobiographic and traveling stories, under the impulse of the ethnical similarities reminded by Rousseau and by the anthropological philosophers, is asserted the equality of people’s rights. In this way the natural condition is „sweetened” by the knowledge of the nature and of its laws, which is inspired from the recognition of the equality between social condition and birth. To fallow the laws of nature means to surpass the social conventions and to give back to the civilized man the naturalness of his own feelings, the innocence and the purity of his customs. In the rational way, to fallow the laws of the nature means the reconciliation between Rousseau’s principles and Voltaire’s ones. In this way the paradoxes of the civilized world and the ones of the primitive world are eliminated through the integration of the two in one united concept.

The paper discusses the main arguments and conclusions from the debate “Moral and prepolitical foundations of the liberal state,” which took place on 19 January 2004 in Munich between Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger. It situates in a circle of topics present for some time in the public discourse of the West, while today returning with particular force, on the foundations of the liberal state, the question of positive law—whether it is to depend only on the will of the parliamentary majority or should derive from deeper sources—the presence of religion in public space in the era of post-Enlightenment privatization in post-saecular society, the correlation between faith and reason. They also condition the delicate issues that have emerged in recent decades: Europe and its roots, Christianity and political space, the objectives of civil law, the issues of life, family, and human embryo.

I have been a friend of Norberto Bobbio for 20 years, and our greatest common interest was Benedetto Croce.Croce has been the main Italian intellectual of the first half of the 20th century; Bobbio was the one of the second half.Both were champions of political liberalism, in a cultural environment such as the Italian one that has never loved liberalism and where three other cultures have dominated and still dominate: Marxism, fascism and Catholic traditionalism.This essay shows with great evidence that Croce was the greatest moral mentor and intellectual teacher of Bobbio. By far, the most influential philosopher. Throughout all Bobbio’s long life!The present essay is the only existing one that deals with this topic and furnishes proof of it.In fact, for 65 years the anti-Croce line launched by Togliatti and the Italian Communist Party prevailed and still prevails in Italian culture. And a crucial point of this anti-Croce line is to deny that Bobbio was an admirer and a disciple of Croce.According to the Italian Marxist intellectuals, Bobbio had to be a student of Marx, Hegel, Cattaneo, Weber, Kelsen, Labriola, Salvemini, Gobetti, but absolutely not of Croce. For example, a few years ago, when a Marxist historian published a book called "Il Mondo di Bobbio" (“Bobbio’s World”) , Croce has never been mentioned once.Why? If it had been admitted that Bobbio had been the greatest faithful disciple of Croce, the whole Marxist and neo-Marxist line of Italian culture after World War II would have to be disavowed. And in particular the 1968 movement and his legacy.This is the central point of this article.But other themes are also treated: the role of philosophers, philosophy as absolute historicism, laicity, attitude towards the academia and the cultural fashions, commitment to friendship, attitude towards tradition, the idea of liberalism and the critique of totalitarianism.

Was Parmenides a distinguished ‘astronomer’ and ‘biologist’ other than the great ‘philosopher’ he has been unanimously considered from the times of Plato onwards? Many admirers of the ‘philosopher’ are not just refractory to consider this possibility: they simply ignore what Parmenides was able to discover in the additional domains I have just mentioned. But he was great as an ‘astronomer’ and a ‘biologist’ too, probably not less great than as a ‘philosopher’.The aim of this paper is to supply the basic information about Parmenides' achievements in these domains (thus about the discovery of the sphericity of earth as well as the physiological bases of homosexuality, plus a number of further areas of investigation), that were of the highest order, I presume.Presocratic Philosophy and ‟Natural Theology”

Merleau-Ponty. Une conception de l’empathie non centrée sur le sujet?Cet article étudie l’émergence du terme « empathie » dans les textes de Merleau-Ponty. Il souligne que le concept n’est pas avant tout présenté comme une catégorie épistémologique, remettant en question si et comment nous pouvons éventuellement connaître les autres. Au contraire, il est conçu comme une catégorie ontologique, pour dire notre appartenance à une nature commune. De ce point de vue, il propose une façon sensible pour comprendre les autres, basée sur une proximité et un partage physiques.Mais, avec des références à l’actuel débat, le texte suggère que, dans les réflexions du phénoménologue français, il est possible de trouver un paradigme qui n’est pas centré sur une conception subjective de l’empathie – c’est a dire qu’il s’agit d’un paradigme qui ne suppose pas toujours une projection subjective de ma sensibilité sur celle des autres. Plutôt, il peut à la fois consister en un sentiment commun, prépersonnel, qui constitue l’arrière-plan de nos sensibilités conscientes, et aussi proceder de l’autre être humain à moi, alors que souvent je sens et comprendre moi-même par differentiation des autres personnes, qui s’imposent sur mes sentiments et sur mes mots.Merleau-Ponty. A Conception of Empathy not centered on the Subject?This paper investigates the emergence of the term “empathy” in Merleau-Ponty’s texts. It points out that the concept is not primarly introduced as an epistemological category, questioning if and how eventually we can know the others. On the contrary it is meant as an ontological category, in order to say our belonging to a common nature. From this point of view he proposes a sensible way to understanding the others, based on a bodily closeness and sharing.But, with references to the current debate, the text suggests that in the reflections of the French phenomenologist it is possible to find a not subjectively centered paradigm for understandig empathy – that is a paradigm which does not always presuppose a subjective projection of my sensibility on that of the other ones. It can rather both consist in a common, prepersonal feeling, costituting the background of our conscious sensitivities, and proceed from the other human being to me, so that I often feel and understand myself by differing from the other individuals, who impose themselves on my senses and on my words.

«Weizsäcker et les autres »Merleau-Ponty lecteur du GestaltkreisConçu comme un élément de l’essai « Percezione, corpo e movimento. L’estetica antropologia dell’espressione nell’inedito Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression di Maurice Merleau-Ponty » (publié dans le n° 12 de Chiasmi international), le texte « Weizsäcker et les autres » examine la plus importante – et la moins reconnue – des dettes théoriques merleau-pontiennes. Cette source « occultée » recouvre le rôle important dans l’encadrement des questions de l’expression et du mouvement dans la philosophie merleau-pontienne. En approfondissant les consonances théoriques entre certains chapitres centraux de la Phénoménologie de la perception, Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression et Der Gestaltkreis de Viktor von Weizsäcker, nous avancerons l’hypothèse d’une connaissance approfondie de la part de Merleau-Ponty du texte cardinal de l’anthropologie médicale des années quarante.“Weizsäcker et les autres”Merleau-Ponty reads the GestaltkreisConceived as a part of the essay “Percezione, corpo e movimento. L’estetica antropologia dell’espressione nell’inedito Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression di Maurice Merleau-Ponty” (published in Chiasmi International, no. 12), the text of “Weizsäcker and the Others” examines the most important – least recognized – of Merleau-Ponty’s theoretical debts. This “concealed” source covers Weizsäcker’s important role in the framing of questions of expression and movement in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. By treating in depth the theoretical resonances between certain central chapters of The Phenomenology of Perception, Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression (The Sensible World and the World of Expression), and Viktor von Weizsäcker’s Der Gestaltkreis, we will advance the hypothesis that Merleau-Ponty had a profound knowledge of the cardinal text of medical anthropology of the 1940s.

La perception à travers l’imaginationDans le présent travail, je mets en relation les lectures de Wittgensteil et de Gadamer avec les manuscrits de Merleau-Ponty avec l’intention de traverser la construction du « concept de représentation » et de réfléchir sur les questions suivantes : quel lieu occupe la dimension esthétique dans l’expérience humaine ? Dans l’expérience esthétique, faut-il retrouver autant le profil émotionnel que le profil cognitif ? Le point de départ est que l’esthétique ne doit pas être comprise comme une simple perception par les sens; ce qu’aucun discours sur l’esthétique ne peut occulter est sa nécessaire implication de l’horizon problématique de la perception, à partir de l’étymologie même du terme, dérivé du grec aisthesis.Un tel terme porte en lui autant le champ subjectif instable des sensation que le champ stable et tendanciellement structuré des discriminations perceptives.L’affirmation théorique est que l’expérience de la rencontre d’une oeuvre d’art dévoile un monde et à peine cessons-nous de voir une oeuvre d’art comme objet pour la voir comme un monde que nous nous rendons compte que l’art se révèle être l’expédient pour clarifier le sens de notre rapport perceptif avec le monde, cette syntonie perceptive entre l’essence du monde et le sentir des sujets, cette processualité expressive dans laquelle activité et passivité sont les horizons, qu’on peut certes distinguer dans la description, mais qui coopèrent à l’intérieur d’elle-même.Perception Through ImaginationIn the present work, I bring the lectures of Wittgenstein and Gadamer into contact with the manuscripts of Merleau-Ponty with the intention of going over the construction of the “concept of representation” and of reflecting on the following questions: what place does the aesthetic dimension occupy in human experience? In aesthetic experience, is just as necessary to recognize the emotional profile as the cognitive profile? The point of the departure is that aesthetics must not be understood as a simple perception by the senses. That which no discourse of aesthetics may conceal is its necessary implication of the problematic horizon of perception, following the actual etymology of the term, derived from the Greek aisthēsis.This term contains just as much the subjective and unstable field of sensation as it does the stable field of perceptual discriminations that tend to be structured. The theoretical affirmation is that the experience of the encounter with a work of art unveils a world. No sooner do we stop seeing the work of art as an object and start seeing as a world, then we realize that art reveals itself to be the expedient that clarifies the meaning of our perceptual relationship with the world, this perceptual syntony between the essence of the world and the sensing of subjects, this expressive processuality in which activity and passivity are horizons that can certainly be distinguished in description, but that cooperate internally.

Entre phénoménologie et neurologie. Merleau-Ponty, Goldstein, SacksLa phénoménologie de Merleau-Ponty a traité des matériaux et des éléments de réflexion importants de diverses études sur des pathologies psychiques et physiques. La confrontation et l’entrelacement entre la pensée du philosophe français et certaines recherches de neuropsychologie, comme Kurt Goldstein ou Oliver Sacks, font émerger la possibilité de nouvelles approches de la dimension de la maladie, entre narration, spéculation et recherche scientifique. Un dialogue fécond entre disciplines et champs de recherche différents met en lumière comment toute modalité perceptive, même quand elle se présente comme déficitaire ou déviante, constitue de fait une vraie recréation ou re-constitution du monde et non pas seulement un enregistrement. Ce processus de création continue est lié à une des questions de fond soulevée par l’expérience de la maladie: celle des modes et des conditions de la singularité, de l’identité d’un soi, à la recherche de reconnaissance et d’acceptation de la part d’un regard ou d’un geste que nous savons contribuer de manière inédite à la relation entre sujets humains.Between Phenomenology and Neurology. Merleau-Ponty, Goldstein, SacksMerleau-Ponty’s phenomenology deals with materials and elements of important reflections in diverse studies on psychological and physical pathologies. The confrontation and the connections between French philosophical thought and certain research in neuropsychology, such as that of Kurt Goldstein or Oliver Sacks, allow the possibility of new approaches to the dimension of sickness to emerge, approaches between narration, speculation, and scientific research. A fertile dialogue between disciplines and fields of different research brings to light how every perceptual modality, even when it presents itself as deficient or deviant, constitutes in fact a true re-creation or reconstitution of the world and not only a recording. This process of continuous creation is linked to one of the basic questions raised by the experience of sickness: the question of the modes and conditions of singularity, of the identity of a self in pursuit of recognition or acceptance from another’s gaze or gesture, a gaze or gesture that, in the relation between human subjects, we have the ability to contribute ever in a unique manner.

Perception et action : la pluralité des styles perceptifs selon M. Merleau-Ponty et I. MurdochAutant M. Merleau-Ponty que I. Murdoch ont souligné la pluralité des styles perceptifs comme un aspect structurel de l’expérience, rigoureusement lié à la configuration morale du percevant. La compréhension de l’agir humain s’insère dans l’optique d’une ampleur perceptive plus ou moins grande, sans ignorer que les évaluations morales entrent comme facteurs d’orientation dans les descriptions du monde. Les deux auteurs posent la compréhension de l’activité pratique en connexion stricte avec la structuration perceptive, réfutant la mythification de pseudofacultés psychologiques comme le désir, le choix, la volonté. Leurs propositions les plus intéressantes pour leurs conséquences implicites dans le champ éthique concernent la confi guration plurielle du perçu et ses possibilités de remodulation qui permettent une réorganisation continue de l’expérience. L’article relève quelques différences de développement dans cette position commune et identifie certains noeuds problématiques irrésolus qui sont l’objet de débats éthiques actuels.Perception and Action: The Plurality of Perceptual Styles according to M. Merleau-Ponty and I. MurdochM. Merleau-Ponty, just as much as I. Murdoch, has emphasized the plurality of perceptual styles as a structural aspect of experience, rigorously linked tothe moral configuration of the perceiver. The understanding of human action fits into the optics of a more or less large perceptual range, without ignoringthat moral evaluations enter as orienting factors into descriptions of the world. The two authors posit the understanding of practical activity in strictconnection with perceptual structuration, refuting the mythification of such pseudo-faculties as desire, choice, and will. Those propositions of theirs whoseimplied consequences are the most interesting for the field of ethics concern the plural configuration of the perceived and its possibilities of remodulationthat permit a continuous reorganization of experience. The article takes up several differences in the development of this common position and identifiescertain problematic and unresolved knots that are the object of current ethical debates.

Mouvement et corporéité chez Patočka.Les origines aristotéliciennes du concept de mouvement ontologiquePatočka reconnaît dans le mouvement vital de l’existence humaine le fondement ontolotique de l’ouverture-au-monde et à l’Être entier comme totalité de ce qui est: par rapport à Heidegger par contre, Patočka entrevoit dans la corporéité une dimension ontologique fondamentale pour la donation même de l’existence actuelle. C’est dans ce sens que le mouvement de l’existence prend chez Patočka une dimension ontologique fondamentale: il représente, en dernière instance, un facteur déterminant pour l’apparaître et la donation et le devenir actuel de l’existence, qui trouve précisément dans la corporéité le fondement ultime de sa manifestation.Le phénoménologue aveugle aperçoit chez Aristote la découverte très innovante (par rapport à la tradition philosophique qui l’avait précédé) d’un rapport dynamique et coessentiel entre l’Être et le mouvement: au cours du développement, je chercherai à montrer de quelle manière cette découverte assume pour Patočka une pertinence philosophique fondamentale, contribuant à la théorisation de l’idée de mouvement au sens ontologique. Il s’agira donc de montrer comment, à partir de l’analyse de la conception aristotélicienne du mouvement de sa relation avec la notion de substance,Patočka a élaboré sa propre idée de mouvement ontologique et de corporéité.Movement and Corporeality in Patočka.The Aristotelian Origins of the Concept of Ontological MovementPatočka recognized in the vital movement of human existence the ontological ground of the openness-to-the-world and to Being as a whole as the totality of thatwhich is. Unlike Heidegger, however, Patočka caught a glimpse in corporeality of a ontological dimension fundamental for the givenness of actual existence. It is in this sense that the movement of existence takes on a fundamental ontological dimension in Patočka: it represents, in a final analysis, a determining factor for the appearing and the givenness and the actual becoming of existence, which finds precisely in corporeality the ultimate ground of its manifestation.The blind phenomenologist glimpsed in Aristotle the very innovative discovery (with respect to the philosophical tradition that had preceded him) of a dynamic and coessential relationship between Being and movement. In the course of my argument, I will seek to show in what way this discovery assumes a fundamental philosophical pertinence for Patočka, contributing to the theorization of the idea of movement in an ontological sense. I will show how, following from the analysis of the Aristotelian conception of movement and of its relation with the notion of substance, Patočka elaborated his own idea of ontological movement and corporeality.