RIVISTA DI FILOSOFIA NEO-SCOLASTICA - 2021 - 2

This article offers a key to understanding of Gadamer’s thesis about «number» (arithmos – Zahl) as the paradigm of noeticity, drawing from both his platonic and his hermeneutical writings. After a brief understanding of ‘number’ as  Gadamer sees it, and a historical context regarding the authors surrounding Gadamer’s thought on the subject, the article examines more closely the philosophical underpinnings of ‘number’ under three perspectives: its relation to  language, how ‘differences’ exist in a numeric unity, and how its two limit points – totality and atoms – are to be thought of.

The aim of this essay is to point out the fact that the contribution of Campanella in founding Aesthetics as science of sensible knowledge, was so important that he should be considered the father of this science, instead of Baumgarten or Vico. Campanella was the first to see the connection between sensible knowledge as infare (interaction between the mankind and the world) and language as its expression, whose ground is the imagination, as a  faculty both of the sense and the mind. Imagination is the moulding power which makes the words imitate things, in such a way that the language, whose highest manifestation is poetry, is the expression of the essence of things and mankind, according to his own nature, the same as God, the Word. With his conception of language and poetry, whose aim is to raise mankind to the Divinity, Campanella anticipates Vico’s theory and approaches Longino’s metaphysic point of view.

The Greek word exaiphnes is a temporal adverb, and is usually translated in Italian with the adjectives istantaneo (instantaneous), improvviso (sudden), or with the substantives attimo (moment or instant). D’improvviso (suddenly)  conserves in adverbial form the reference to the adjective, thus emphasizing the ambiguous nature of the reference, which is not per se (kath’hautó). Starting with Plato, this article proposes an investigation of the use of the adverb  exaiphnes. The subtitle of the article: the way of negation, wishes to show how negation leads to a moment when the truth suddenly opens up: freed from the chains that bound the prisoner at the bottom of the cave, as soon as he  sees things in the sun’s light he recognizes that they are not as he had seen them in the dark, when they were mere images on the cave walls. The not thus, spells out the negation and integrates it.

Two data at first glance in contrast open new research paths. On the one hand, Rita Charon’s Narrative Medicine indicates in Gabriel Marcel (with E. Lévinas), above all, the philosopher who develops with «strength and clarity some  of the most useful concepts» for care, referring however to works where the disease and the medical/patient relationship intervene by way of example, albeit paradigmatic and decisive. On the other hand, Marcel opens parentheses  on medical therapies which are however spies of a very early and constant interest, shared with K. Jaspers, both in the main works and in texts, so to speak, more occasional, but very meaningful and little observed, such as  collective volumes on suffering and medical/scientific editorial contexts. From the tensions, unprecedented research paths open up both on the level of recovery and translation (two previews are attached, edited by P. Scolari), and  on that of the reconstruction of an all-out phenomenology of the doctor/patient encounter in the age of technology, from a neo-Hippocratic, neo-humanistic and ultimately existential, dialogic and narrative perspective.

This paper examines Ricoeur’s writings on translation which was the main focus of his research during the 1990s. Ricoeur established a close link between translation and understanding, considering the latter as a pattern for hermeneutics. This itinerary through Ricoeur’s hermeneutics will emphasize the close connections between his interpretation of the practice of translation and the poetics of narration developed in Time and narrative. In fact, this  poetics and the notion of triple mimesis are the basis of every text construction. In the practice of translation, however, the ethical aspects already contained in Time and narrative, acquired a paramount importance. Moreover, this  paper highlights the role played by imagination in the poetical praxis and in the narrative construction. In this way, the ethical principle that is at the basis of the practice of translation can be seen as an aspect of the work of the  imagination which functions always according to narrative schemes.

Paragraphs four and five of the book Lambda are undoubtedly those where Aristotle exposes in the clearest and general way the unity of what he calls his first philosophy, namely an analogical unity. It is also the place where Aristotle’s project (set out in Book A) of a science of the principles and the first causes of what is, or of being, appears most clearly. There, in fact, Aristotle clearly states the fruit of his research and states the causes and principles  that it discovers.

Thanks to this contribution we will provide an account of Neoplatonic epistemology. We will take the case of Hermias’ Commentary on Plato’ Phaedrus (V A.D.) to demonstrate how Neoplatonists could conceive of a coherent  gnoseological system by integrating into Plato’s διδασκαλία Stoic stance on articulation (διάρθρωσις) and Aristotelian doctrine of universals. We will notably show how a Neoplatonist could take Plato’s words as hints to these non-Platonic theories so as to lay claim to them. It was not necessary for Plato to plainly explain the articulation process or the role played in it by post res universals. He just hinted at them with fugacious words, whilst his exegete brought their deep meaning to the surface. This way, Neoplatonists managed to forge an organic epistemological system comprehensive of innate and latent knowledge, maieutic, articulation, and induction.

The influence of the Patristic philosophy on Picus’s work and thought is already known by the critics, together with the revival of the Fathers in the XVth century, due especially to the political role played and the huge amount of  translations done by Traversari. The goal of this paper, as a consequence, is to focus on two specific sources, like Eusebius of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianz, who represent a veiled but very important means to the ideal of  Concord. Despite their bitterness towards Greek philosophy, accused to have stolen their doctrines and their wisdom from Moses and the Old Testament, they are exploited to corroborate the trust in a visible continuity which  intertwines Judaism, Greek civilization and Christendom. In this way, Picus gets on his side two authorities whom even his theologian opponents, in the battle of 1486, cannot challenge.

The basic principle of all realist theories of truth developed in the 13th and 14th centuries was that a proposition is true if and only if it tells us how things are in reality. Walter Burley (1275-1344) interpreted this principle in a more radical way than 13th-century realists did. He proposed a correspondence theory in which there is a strict biunique correspondence between linguistic and extra-linguistic elements. If the principle of correspondence can be  applied unconditionally to all affirmative utterances about present entities, it cannot apply in the case of utterances concerning past entities, which no longer exist. In order to maintain the principle of correspondence, Burley argues that  such utterances, in order to be true, must not correspond to an extra-mental object, but to a complex mental object or objective entity, a mental proposition with the verb in the present tense which was true in a past moment.

From early XIVth century, the opposition between argumentative and poetic method in theology was one of the main points of contention between scholastic theologians and humanists. The cultural value of poetry, the role of poets  in academic fields, the relation between poetry and theology were widely discussed. The first part of this article focuses on two threshold moments of this dispute: the defense of poetry by Albertino Mussatto in his correspondence  with Giovannino da Mantova, in the second decade of XIVth century, and the controversy between the Dominican Giovanni Dominici and Coluccio Salutati, in the Lucula noctis (1405). The second part is dedicated to the humanistic  approach to linguistic issues, such as the rhetoric of Lorenzo Valla and his critique of the scholastic language in Repastinatio.

Schelling’s assiduous reflection on Plato’s Philebus runs throughout all his work. It is imprinted in its essential theoretical articulations. The notion of «noûs basilikós», in particular, deeply marks Schelling’s positive conception of a «true Cause of all real being». This essay focuses on that conception, considered in its first branching from the Platonic root. In particular, the Author will investigate 1) the ontological connection of finite beings with the freedom of  the Cause (in this context, the concept of «mḕ ón» will prove to be of fundamental significance); 2) the metaphysical possibility – conceived as inherent in the Cause itself – of a differentiated multiplicity of beings.

The reconstruction of the Leitmotivs going along the twenty-two essays of Conte’s book Viandante nel Novecento. Thomas Mann e la storia (2019) gives the opportunity for debating Thomas Mann’s comprehension of history, and his relationship to what is not history, yet connected to it: the myth, the time, the origin, the irrational, the dark, and rchaic side of life. What ensues is an investigation documenting Mann’s capacity of interpreting the cultural and political phenomena of the twentieth century.

The article aims to place Giuseppe Cantillo’s studies collected in his latest two books, focused respectively on Hegel and dialectics and Jaspers and existence, in the overall research itinerary of the Italian philosopher. The paper seeks to highlight the coherence and conceptual openness of Cantillo’s investigation of history, the human being’s existential conditions, as well as of its theological implications. This meditation is characterized, on the one hand, by the anchorage to the transcendental dimension of thought and, on the other hand, by the adherence to the concreteness of history. These two aspects are linked by the sphere of values, which shed light on the finalistic and personalistic character of historical becoming.

Manni’s book is the first comprehensive study on Herbert McCabe (1926-2001), whose interests concerned both philosophy and revealed theology. His main philosophical items are philosophical theology, anthropology, and ethics. In  his explication and interpretation of Thomas Aquinas, ubiquitously present in his thought, McCabe is deeply influenced by the philosophy of L. Wittgenstein. Hence some problematical turns, concerning namely the relation language-
reason, and the very strong insistence on apofaticism, perhaps to the detriment of the doctrine of analogy. Totally shareable the criticism of the cartesian anthropological dualism, while doubtful the lack of any philosophical inquiry  concerning the immortality of the soul. Worth noting Manni’s several references to the thought of Sofia Vanni Rovighi, his ‘Italian neo-thomist Mentor’, particularly within the domain of the philosophical theology.

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