GRICE ITALO A-Z M MO

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Moderato: la ragione conversazionale -- da Crotone a Roma – filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza.  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Scuole Pitagoriche. Attivo in epoca neroniana.  Scrisse Lezioni pitagoriche, un'opera articolata in dieci libri, in cui l'autore, rappresentante di quella scuola di pensiero che assommava nel sincretismo ellenistico temi platonici, pitagorici, greci e orientali, pone in antitesi la «Triade» spirituale, rappresentata dall'Uno, l'Intelletto, l'Anima, alla «Diade» rappresentata dalla materia. Di tale opera ci restano solo alcuni frammenti tramandatici da Stobeo. Sembra che le sue Lezioni ebbero una certa influenza sul Neoplatonismo. Calle, Un pitágorico en Gades (Philostr., VA). Uso, abuso y comentario de una tradición, Gallaecia. Collegamenti esterni Moderato di Gades, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Calogero, M, Enciclopedia; M. Dizionario di filosofia, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia M., su Enciclopedia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Categorie: Filosofi romani Persone legate a Cadice Neopitagorici. Moderato.

 

Luigi Speranza – GRICE ITALO!; ossia, Grice e Modio: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del disonore sessuale -- la filosofia del Tevere – filosofia calabrese -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Santa Severina). Filosofo italiano. Santa Severina, Crotone, Calabria.  Grice: “Only in Italy a philosopher writes a treatise on a river – although the Isis would not be out of place for some Magdalenite!” – Grice: “His convito is a jewel!” – Seguace di Neri. Originario di Santa Severina, borgo collinare della Calabria Ulteriore, fu avviato agli studi di filosofia presso l'Archiginnasio di Napoli; in seguito passò a Roma, dove si avviò agli studi in medicina divenendo allievo di Fusconi.  Modio frequenta gli ambienti accademici, dove entrò in contatto con alcuni dei maggiori esponenti di spicco di quell'epoca come Molza e Tolomei.  Pubblica la sua prima opera letteraria più famosa dal titolo I”l convito; overo, del peso della moglie: un dialogo diegetico” (Roma, Bressani) -- ambientato a Roma durante il carnevale della città capitolina, in cui viene trattato il tema delle corna durante un convivio presieduto dall'allora vescovo di Piacenza Trivulzio e a cui parteciparono anche Gambara, Marmitta, Benci, Selvago, Raineri e Cesario. E altresì grande estimatore degli saggi di Piccolomini.  Durante la stesura in lingua volgare di un Operetta de’ Sogni, si ammala di febbre altissima. Si spense dopo qualche giorno a Roma, nella tenuta di palazzo Ricci in via Giulia.  Altri saggi: “Il Tevere, dove si ragiona in generale della natura di tutte le acque, et in particolare di quella del fiume di Roma” (Roma, Luchini) “Origine del proverbio che si suol dire "anzi corna che croci" (Roma, A. degli Antonii,” Jacopone da Todi, I Cantici del beato Iacopone da Todi, con diligenza ristampati, con la gionta di alcuni discorsi sopra di essi e con la vita sua nuovamente posta in luce” (Roma, Salviano). Prospetto autore, su edit16.iccu.. Modio, Il Tevere, cit., c. 45r  Anno di pubblicazione della medesima opera. G. Cassiani, Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.Sex, Gender and Sexuality in Renaissance Italy explores the new directions being taken in the study of sex and gender in Italy from 1300 to 1700 and highlights the impact that recent scholarship has had in revealing innovative ways of approaching this subject.In this interdisciplinary volume, twelve scholars of history, literature, art history, and philosophy use a variety of both textual and visual sources to examine themes such as gender identities and dynamics, sexual transgression and sexual identities in leading Renaissance cities. It is divided into three sections, which work together to provide an overview of the influence of sex and gender in all aspects of Renaissance society from politics and religion to literature and art. Part I: Sex, Order, and Disorder deals with issues of law, religion, and violence in marital relationships; Part II: Sense and Sensuality in Sex and Gender considers gender in relation to the senses and emotions; and Part III: Visualizing Sexuality in Word and Image investigates gender, sexuality, and erotica in art and literature.Bringing to life this increasingly prominent area of historical study, Sex, Gender and Sexuality in Renaissance Italy is ideal for students of Renaissance Italy and early modern gender and sexuality. Sex, Gender and Sexuality in Renaissance Italy explores the new directions being taken in the study of sex and gender in Italy from 1300 to 1700 and highlights the impact that recent scholarship has had in revealing innovative ways of approaching this subject. In this interdisciplinary volume, twelve scholars of history, literature, art history, and philosophy use a variety of both textual and visual sources to examine themes such as gender identities and dynamics, sexual transgression and sexual identities in leading Renaissance cities. It is divided into three sections, which work together to provide an overview of the inf luence of sex and gender in all aspects of Renaissance society from politics and religion to literature and art. Part I: Sex, Order, and Disorder deals with issues of law, religion, and violence in marital relationships; Part II: Sense and Sensuality in Sex and Gender considers gender in relation to the senses and emotions; and Part III: Visualizing Sexuality in Word and Image investigates gender, sexuality, and erotica in art and literature. Bringing to life this increasingly prominent area of historical study, Sex, Gender and Sexuality in Renaissance Italy is ideal for students of Renaissance Italy and early modern gender and sexuality. Dedication This collection is dedicated to Konrad Eisenbichler, a true Renaissance man who produces bold and prodigious scholarship in multiple research areas with grace, ease, and erudition. For Konrad, sociability is correlated with scholarship. He has spent his career creating communities and networks of scholars around the world. These networks have been brought together through his tireless work for learned societies, publication series, and journals. Konrad not only produces scholarship but is also heavily invested in disseminating the scholarship of others. Scholarly interests often have unusual and serendipitous origins. In a certain sense, this collection began with a codpiece. Konrad’s first scholarly contribution to the field of sex, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance Italy developed out of a casual conversation with a colleague who provided enthusiastic encouragement. What resulted was a presentation playfully entitled “The Dynastic Codpiece” to the Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies in 1987. He revised and published it as “Agnolo Bronzino’s Portrait of Guidobaldo II della Rovere” (Renaissance and Reformation, 1988), an article still cited thirty years later. In this truly groundbreaking interdisciplinary piece, Konrad examined the overly large codpieces worn by Renaissance men for the social and familial messages they conveyed, showing how the messages passed between the generations in competing dynastic portraits. The article established Konrad as a new and powerful voice in the study of sex, gender, and sexuality in the Italian Renaissance. It also illustrated beautifully how his scholarship is inherently interdisciplinary, bridging and incorporating history and literature with artistic representations. Konrad greets friends, colleagues, and students with warmth, good humor, and generosity. A significant manifestation of his academic hospitality is revealed in the multitude of conferences he has organized: forty between 1983 and 2018. These are special events, international in nature, and ref lecting the hostorganizer’s generosity. They are venues conducive to the exchange of ideas and the formation of friendships. It is most appropriate that the most recent of these focused on “Early Modern Cultures of Hospitality.” The themes generally ref lect Konrad’s sense of the discipline and where it is going; these conferences most often culminate in a significant collection of essays, including Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West (1996; co-edited with Jacqueline Murray) which helped to promote the study of sex, gender, and sexuality in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Konrad has made myriad contributions to individuals and institutions. His contributions to Renaissance scholarship span social history, women’s history, religious history, and literature. He publishes equally in Italian and English,moving easily between scholarly cultures. A scholar with a global reach, he interacts with colleagues spread across North America, to Italy and Europe more broadly, as well as Australia and South Africa. The heart of his many contributions to the study of Italian Renaissance society lies in his research on sex, gender, and sexuality. In recognition of that, some of his friends and colleagues joined to celebrate Konrad’s creativity, scholarship, and friendship with essays that demonstrate the creative developments in the field since that fateful codpiece three decades ago. We are honored to dedicate this volume to Konrad Eisenbichler in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to Renaissance society and culture. Sex, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance Italy: themes and approaches in recent scholarship Jacqueline Murray and Nicholas Terpstraix xi xii1PART ISex, order, and disorder192 The lord who rejected love, or the Griselda story (X, 10) reconsidered yet again Guido Ruggiero213 Sexual violence in the Sienese state before and after the fall of the republic Elena Brizio354 In the neighborhood: residence, community, and the sex trade in early modern Bologna Vanessa McCarthy and Nicholas Terpstra535 Though popes said don’t, some people did: adulteresses in Catholic Reformation Rome Elizabeth S. Cohen Sense and sensuality in sex and gender 6 “Bodily things” and brides of Christ: the case of the early seventeenth-century “lesbian nun” Benedetta Carlini Patricia Simons 7 In bed with Ludovico Santa Croce Thomas V. Cohen 8 Aesthetics, dress, and militant masculinity in Castiglione’s Courtier Gerry Milligan9 The sausage wars: or how the sausage and carne battled for gastronomic and social prestige in Renaissance literature and culture Laura Giannetti Visualizing sexuality in word and image Gianantonio Bazzi, called “Il Sodoma”: homosexuality in art, life, and history James M. Saslow18311 Vagina dialogues: Piccolomini’s Raffaella and Aretino’s Ragionamenti Ian Frederick Moulton21112 Giovan Battista della Porta’s erotomanic art of recollection Sergius Kodera22713 “O mie arti fallaci”: Tasso’s saintly women in the Liberata and Conquistata Jane Tylus247Bibliography of Konrad Eisenbichler’s publications on sex and gender  The editors would like to thank Vanessa McCarthy who donned two hats for this project, that of an author and that of editorial associate. Her scholarly knowledge and administrative expertise contributed significantly to the preparation of this volume, and we’re grateful for her dedication and expertise. We would like to thank the editorial team at Routledge for their support and guidance over the course of this project. Laura Pilsworth guided it through its inception and commissioning, while Lydia de Cruz shepherded it through the final stages of preparation and production, assisted by Morwenna Scott. The University of Guelph and the University of Toronto provide generous support for the research activities of Jacqueline Murray and Nicholas Terpstra respectively. Thanks as well to the congenial group of scholars whose work is collected here. While editing collections is sometimes likened to herding cats, these colleagues were responsive, generous, and patient. Above all, they were enthusiastic about the opportunity to contribute to a collection which could serve as a gift to a friend and colleague, Konrad Eisenbichler, who has himself been the soul of generosity. We are honored to have worked with you all. Themes and approaches in recent scholarship. From the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries, the Italian Renaissance was approached almost exclusively as a period of learning, elegance, and manners as ref lected by the arts and letters of the time. In The Book of the Courtier Castiglione’s perfect courtier embodied virtù and sprezzatura, the two qualities that epitomized Renaissance masculinity. Elite men were celebrated for their bravado, skill, and insouciant nonchalance, whether these were exercised on the fields of battle, the production of art or poetry, or the seduction of women. Castiglione also details the qualities of the ideal court lady, a woman valued for her beauty and affability along with her manners, intellect, and ability to please men. These qualities were appreciated equally in another group of notable women, the courtesans whose beauty and literary accomplishments were acclaimed by poets and artists alike. Thanks in part to the enduring inf luence of Jackob Burckhardt’s Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (1860; English translation 1878), this idealized portrayal of sixteenth-century Italian men and women dominated twentieth-century historiography and shaped how a number of generations understood sex, gender, and sexuality in the Renaissance. The idealized creations of Castiglione and Burckhardt, their princes and poets, court ladies and courtesans, appeared as the bright stars in the Renaissance firmament, and contributed to the lure of the field. Yet all along they were chimeras, stereotypes created by Renaissance elites and perpetuated by modern scholars of Renaissance culture. Even when individuals appeared to embody these ideal qualities, they were the exceptions, standing apart from thousands of their contemporaries, urban and rural, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, respectable and disreputable. The idealized courtier, court lady, and courtesan obscure everyday life in Renaissance Italy. In the 1970s, scholars began to ask new questions that ultimately led to a recalibration of research on the history of sex, gender, and sexuality in the2Jacqueline Murray and Nicholas TerpstraRenaissance. One of the earliest collections was Human Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (edited by Douglas Radcliff-Umstead, 1978), which includes topics that are wide ranging and represent a variety of disciplinary perspectives. They include sexuality within marriage, sexual sins and eroticism, celibacy, hermaphrodites, homosexuality, and how the human body was understood. These essays from the 1970s foreground important questions about sex, gender, and sexuality in the past. Yet their scope and insights are constrained. Most essays are based on close, summative readings of literary texts from Dante and Chaucer to Shakespeare and other imaginative authors, but these close readings of texts lack the contextualization or critical perspective to enhance their insights. While the occasional essay engages with multiple sources and genres, the absence of critical theoretical and interdisciplinary analysis inhibits the development of a more comprehensive picture of how issues of human sexuality were actually addressed at this time. Significantly, however, the authors did identify emerging themes that would become central to the study of sex, gender, and sexuality. This collection opened the way to the study of topics such as the nature of the sexed human body, the complexities of celibacy as a sexuality, and the f luidity of sexualities and genders. While prescient in research subjects, the authors did not employ the theoretical and methodological tools that developed soon after publication, tools that were necessary for deeper and more complex analyses of sex, gender, and sexuality. These tools were being forged with the new theories and methodologies of the 1970s that were opening new research subjects and that led to innovations and new definitions of the individual and the self. A series of studies in that decade revolutionized scholarship and have continued to have a transformative inf luence on the understanding of the history of sex, gender, and sexuality into the twenty-first century. The most inf luential authors behind this work perceived the Renaissance to be more complex both in the quotidian aspects of daily life and also in extraordinary behaviors. In 1978, the first volume of Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality occasioned both excitement and consternation among historians of sex. Foucault, a philosopher and leading post-structuralist scholar, wrote extensively on social construction and social control in European society, including studies of prisons, madness, and surveillance. These perspectives informed his ref lections about the construction and control of sexuality in the European past. Indeed, Foucault’s intervention challenged scholars to reexamine their approaches to sex and sexuality. Another major contribution to the recalibrating of historical studies of sex, gender, and sexuality was John Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980). Boswell demonstrated that in the premodern world there were men who engaged in homosocial and/or homosexual relationships, although traditional history had obscured them behind the ecclesiastical rhetoric of homophobia. Boswell argued that there were gay men throughout premodern Europe but his methodology and conclusions were criticized as essentialist and lacking the appropriate consideration of context and cultural inf luences such as Foucault had urged. Nevertheless, despite criticismsSex, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance Italy 3about essentialism, Boswell did uncover homosexual (sodomitical) and homoaffective men across society, integrated into both clerical and secular societies. In this way, Boswell forged a path for scholars to search for and analyze multiple sexualities that had been overlooked by traditional history or were obscured by the absence of explicit evidence. One of the most telling criticisms levelled at both Foucault and Boswell was their neglect of gender as a category of historical analysis. Arguably, men and women experience the world differently according to how society evaluates and constructs women. This applies equally in the realm of sex and sexuality, which is neither natural nor essential. Foucault paid scarce attention to women’s alternative experience of social construction and surveillance of sex and sexuality. Similarly, while lauded for opening the past for research on homosexuality, Boswell was criticized for eliding lesbians and other non-normative women under the category “gay,” thus perpetuating their invisibility. A more refined and incisive analytical framework emerged out of these debates. What began as women’s history in the 1970s, with the goal of recuperating women in the past, transformed into the critical lens of feminist studies, which analyzed the institutions and structures that restricted or shaped their lives, or contributed to their invisibility in historical scholarship. The other significant theoretical contribution to the new study of sex, gender, and sexuality falls under the rubric of cultural studies. This is a multifaceted approach emerging from literary studies, postmodernism, discourse analysis, and other theoretical perspectives that provided scholars with new linguistic and analytical tools. This versatile and complex perspective also encouraged explicitly interdisciplinary research which suits the intricate nature of sex, gender, and sexuality. As a result, there is a richer sense of the possibilities that were available for the lived reality of sex, gender, and sexuality and an expanded ability to study and evaluate the values, beliefs, and experiences of people in the past. These innovations emerged at a time when the traditional Burckhardtian narratives were being widely criticized by political, social, and intellectual historians, and by the mid-1980s new scholarship was appearing that brought new insights to sex and gender in the Italian Renaissance. They applied methodologies that bridged differences in social and economic status, sex, sexuality, and gender, geography, and religion. While the traditional sources of high culture—art and literature in particular—continued to provide a valuable foundation for understanding the rich cultural life and artefacts of the Renaissance, new analytical approaches yielded new insights. Diverse sources of evidence—court records, letters, chronicles, and Inquisitorial documents, among others—provided access to new populations including servants and prostitutes and the inhabitants of the streets and taverns of myriad Italian towns and cities. These new critical studies were a prelude to the research that would appear in the next two decades. Guido Ruggiero’s The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice (1985) early on demonstrated how new methodologies and new sources were able to reveal hitherto unexplored worlds of Renaissance sex, gender, and4Jacqueline Murray and Nicholas Terpstrasexuality. Ruggiero examines the wide variety of sex crimes that were committed in Venice and he analyzes the various courts and disciplinary councils which enforced the laws, including those pertaining to sexual transgressions. The records reveal an intricate and contradictory approach to regulating sexuality that extended from conventional acts such as adultery and fornication to more egregious behaviors including rape and sodomy. Ruggiero’s essays meet the challenges and opportunities posed by Foucault and Boswell, by feminist history and gender studies. His interdisciplinary reading of the evidence, ranging from the many cases discussed by the criminal courts, along with careful analysis of individual testimony, widened the scope of enquiry. Ruggiero’s discussion reveals the rich detail about individuals, as they negotiated the social norms of sexuality and gender. He brings readers to an understanding of the social context and how individuals were integrated into their local communities and that of wider Venetian society. The movement towards more sophisticated, nuanced, and focused considerations is also ref lected in Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence by Rocke. In many ways, Rocke took on the challenge presented by John Boswell to identify men who had sex with men in their social contexts. Rather than othering them or pulling these men out of their community, Rocke engages with homosexuality as an integral part of Florentine society and culture. He examines seventy years of documentation from the “Office of the Night,” which was established to oversee denunciations of homosexual (sodomitical) activity. This allowed Rocke to trace the nature of relationships between men, how they were treated by society, how and why they were denounced to the court, and the penalties levied. His scholarship reveals that, despite the harsh evaluation of sodomy in ecclesiastical law and in various secular jurisdictions, Florence displayed remarkable tolerance. Where Boswell’s research had scanned 1000 years of European history, seeking to identify men who were possibly homosexual, Rocke analyzes deep and focused sources to identify a specific group of men, applying sophisticated theoretical and methodological tools to reveal new understandings of non-normative sexuality in the Italian Renaissance. Judith Brown’s Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (1986) similarly contributed to the new approaches to sexuality and identity. She focused on non-normative sexuality, although in a unique context. Here the background is not the streets, homes, and markets of the large, cosmopolitan cities of Renaissance Italy. Rather, Brown’s subjects lived within the walls of a convent, separated from the worldly temptations of secular life. Yet, even in a community of women vowed to chastity, Brown finds convoluted self-identities and a sexual relationship between two women that was transgressive and multivalent. The case of the “lesbian nun” Benedetta Carlini was instantly controversial. Could two nuns possibly have a conscious lesbian sexual identity, given the social norms and religious context in which they lived? This is the same criticism that greeted John Boswell’s assertions about “gay” men in premodern Europe.Sex, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance Italy 5There was widespread agreement that categories such as gay or lesbian were products of late twentieth-century Western society and to impose them back in time was anachronistic and misleading. Moreover, in this case, the individuals evoked far more questions than those of sexual identity or sexual activity, with a relationship complicated by angelic possession and mystical visions. The debate surrounding Carlini’s activities and identities continues, as Patricia Simon’s essay in this collection demonstrates. Yet one of the most enduring contributions of Brown’s study, for the history of sexuality and gender, is her ability to cross 600 years and engage intimately with individuals of the past. This is a history of two nuns, in an out-of-the-way convent, who experienced rich and problematic inner lives, beyond what might be expected. Whether the women can be categorized as “lesbians” does not dispel the impact of recuperating lost women and a lost past, the meaning and implications of which continue to attract scholarly analysis. The profound transformation that occurred between 1978 and 1996 in the study of sex, gender, and sexuality in premodern Europe began with the recognition of new topics and moved to a more rigorous application of the intervening theoretical and methodological insights of Foucault and Boswell, of feminism and cultural studies. If the former approach is exemplified by essays collected in Human Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (1978), the latter is evident in the essays in Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West (edited by Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler, 1996). This volume stresses that human behavior manifests both continuities and transitions that can be independently evaluated and separated from arbitrary and obsolete periodization. Many essays integrate traditional periods moving seamlessly into a premodern world. Some essays rely on traditional Renaissance evidence but deploy law, art, and literature to examine new research questions. Rona Goffen examines Titian’s frescoes to explore misogyny. Other authors address innovative, even bold or cheeky themes. Feminism and critical theory are deployed throughout the collection. The usefulness of interdisciplinarity to reveal new aspects of society and cultural experience is equally evident. Dyan Elliott’s reexamination of the reciprocity of the conjugal debt, the notion that a husband and wife have equal call on their spouse for sexual access jostles the foundations of premodern marriage. Rather than accepting the idea that a married couple’s sex life was balanced and equitable, Elliott concludes that wives were subordinate even in bed and had no right to refuse sexual intercourse. Ivana Elbl examines the doubly transgressive sexual liaisons among Portuguese sailors to Africa. Sailors, who were often already married with families in Europe, frequently formed enduring relationships with African “wives,” transgressing both Christian monogamy and establishing irregular relationships with non-Christian women. Significantly, in Africa these unions were ignored or tolerated by Portuguese leaders, ecclesiastical as much as secular. More theoretically adventuresome is Nancy Partner’s exploration of the psychological dimensions of sexuality. She applies contemporary psychological theory, in particular Freud, to assess the sexual dimensions6Jacqueline Murray and Nicholas Terpstraof mystics and their ecstatic visions. Even the realm of masturbatory pornography is probed through Andrew Taylor’s critical reading of marginalia and other physical marks and stains on manuscript pages which could ref lect the sexual responses of readers to the texts. The essays in Desire and Discipline reveal the richness, diversity, and intellectually invigorating research that in just two decades had made the new field of sex, gender, and sexuality one of the most exciting areas in Renaissance studies. While ref lecting new research areas, the roots of which can be found in the theoretical and methodological innovations in the late twentieth century, the essays in Desire and Discipline build upon traditional topics and themes and frequently employ conventional Renaissance sources, to stimulate a metamorphosis of old research perspectives into new and innovative ones. Thus, the ideal courtier has become a man subject to gender-based analysis while the lens of feminist analysis reveals the court lady to be not so much an equal but rather a pale, subordinate shadow to the courtier. Similarly, freed from her artificial manners and learning, the courtesan is revealed as a masculine fiction sanitized from the precarious and harsh life of Renaissance prostitutes. The last quarter of the twentieth century, then, was a watershed for the historiography of sex, gender, and sexuality. Pioneering scholarship foreshadowed issues that would preoccupy later scholars and set the trajectory for subsequent research. This scaffolding of new research questions, theories, and methodologies has resulted in creative approaches that are rapidly transforming the field. While monographs have been, and continue to be, written about sex, gender, and sexuality in the Renaissance, it seems that these topics, at this point in the evolution of scholarship, lend themselves more readily to the genres of essays or journal articles. The essay form allows scholars to analyze focused bodies of evidence and arrive at conclusions that are precise and demonstrable. Presumably, at some point these focused studies will coalesce into broader discussions leading to more generalized conclusions. For the moment, however, the essay collection remains the most significant means for the dissemination of research. Two essay collections in particular demonstrate the very promising new approaches to research into sex, gender, and sexuality in the twenty-first century. In A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Renaissance (2010), Katherine Crawford provides a chapter that offers redirection from the perspectives of Foucault. She points back to the important role of classical literature, mediated by Christian values, in the formation of beliefs about sexuality and marriage, and classical medical literature which defined the sexed body. In A Cultural History of Sexuality edited by Bette Talvacchia, some essays address a wide variety of questions about Renaissance sexuality as they emerge from diverse sources. Essays focus on the troubled categories of heterosexuality and homosexuality, and sex with respect to religion, medicine, popular beliefs, prostitution, and erotica. Collectively, this collection opens wide the possibilities in the study of sex, gender, and sexuality.Sex, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance Italy 7In order best to demonstrate how recent work has reshaped and advanced the field of sex, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance Italy, we have organized the essays of this collection into three sections. The first, “Sex, Order, and Disorder,” deals primarily with issues relating to legal and political themes, and particularly with efforts by authorities both political and ecclesiastical to channel or control sexuality. The second section, “Sense and Sensuality in Sex and Gender,” highlights recent work that has taken some of the turns that are rewriting historical narratives generally, above all histories of the senses, of the emotions, and of food. The third section, “Visualizing Sexuality in Word and Image,” considers how we work with early modern f luidity around identities and boundaries, and whether we might now be more restrictive than they were in categories that we bring to our analysis.Sex, Order, and Disorder One of the most obvious sites of sex and disorder in Renaissance Italy surely lies with the buying and selling of women’s bodies. Burckhardt’s perspective that courtesans were elegant, intellectual companions, surviving more on sexual titillation than selling their bodies, has endured, despite the inf luence of feminist research. In particular, Veronica Franco was seen as an elegant, ideal, and appropriate companion for Renaissance princes.1 Much research on courtesans has focused on Franco and her courtesan sisters. It highlights the courtesan’s learning, ability to write poetry and sing pleasing songs, and, most importantly, to entertain men while avoiding becoming common sexual property and losing their allure and their living. Tessa Storey adheres to the older view, assessing the social status of courtesans, suggesting that they were linked to “elite manhood and male honor,” idealizing the relationships between clients and courtesans who were certain that proximity to powerful men would protect them.2 However, the other side of courtesan life was a precarious one of dependence and fear of falling into common prostitution. Social and criminal vulnerability highlights the lives of all prostitutes, include high status courtesans. Even Franco was called before the courts to account for her behavior. More vulnerable courtesans and prostitutes lived precariously, prey to men of all sorts, accosted in the streets, and struggling to support themselves and maintain their dignity. The records of their appearances before the courts reveals they often managed without protectors or financial security. 3 Early on Elizabeth Cohen examined the rough and ready life of prostitutes on the streets of Rome, revealing a form of sociability and social integration.4 Diane Yvonne Ghirardo brings an innovative approach to the role and experience of urban prostitutes. She examines urban planning in Ferrara, revealing the city’s ongoing attempts over decades to maintain prostitutes in the same locales. Focusing on the economics of prostitution in Venice, Paula Clarke finds that regulation of prostitution became less rigorous over time, with women experiencing more freedom and the concomitant growth of the sex trade.68Jacqueline Murray and Nicholas TerpstraGuido Ruggiero opens the section “Sex, Order, and Disorder” in this collection with a broader approach to order and disorder in sexuality. He offers a rereading of Boccaccio’s often-studied story from the Decameron of Griselda, a woman who patiently endures the series of humiliations that her husband Gualtieri devises in order to test her faithfulness. The critics and creative artists who have puzzled over the tale and its meaning for centuries have focused mainly on Griselda and on issues of class and gender. Ruggiero moves a step further to ask how those who heard it in the fourteenth century might have received it as a political message. Gualtieri is not only a cruel husband. His willingness to be cruel and unjust to his spouse Griselda highlights the dangers that all may encounter when societies fall under the control of rulers who are narcissistic, vain, and insecure. Florentines could look around to other cities where lords treated citizens as Gualtieri treated Griselda; sexual and political violence were interchangeable and marriages were contracted for money rather than love. There was no reason to suppose that Florence would be exempted from that kind of cruelty and exploitation. The Griselda story offered the lessons of a Mirror for Princes, but it was also a Mirror for Merchants, warning them of what would happen when love did not animate their closest personal relationships. What Boccaccio warned the Florentines about in the fourteenth century was precisely what the Sienese were experiencing in the sixteenth. Elena Brizio observes that sexual violence remained common across Italy. Men used it as a tool to control girls, boys, married women, and widows. In the context of the wars of the 1550s, when Florence annexed Siena, its political “use” expanded greatly. Sexual violence was a means of imposing or confirming power over subordinates, and men across the political, ecclesiastical, mercantile, and professional spheres considered sexual violence a legitimate mode of operating in their social sphere, and so exercised it freely. In contrast to what Boccaccio described, the absolute ruler who came to dominate mid-sixteenth-century Siena positioned himself on the opposite side of the dynamic. Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici proclaimed strict punishments for sexual violence against both men and women in a law of 1558, threatening either death or galley servitude for those convicted. Brizio describes this setting and moves from metaphor to practice as she reviews archival sources, judicial records, and public reports to see how sexual violence was perceived before and after the law issued in 1558. Duke Cosimo I was dealing with more than just a different political milieu, and Brizio also explores whether the changes in the normative codes brought about by the Council of Trent had an impact on social attitudes to sexual violence in Siena and its locale. Normative codes were becoming more explicit and restrictive across Italy in the sixteenth century, but did they have much actual effect? Like Cohen, Ghirardo, and Clarke, Vanessa McCarthy and Nicholas Terpstra document and analyze the sex trade in a particular city. Their focus is on working-poor prostitutes’ residential patterns in early modern Bologna, and they find that on the whole these women were integrated into, rather than pushed to the margins of, their local neighborhoods and the wider city. Bologna’s activist and ambitiousSex, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance Italy 9archbishop Gabriele Paleotti was rebuffed when he attempted to impose Tridentine norms for public sexuality. The Bolognese instead approached regulation as a matter of market rather than morals, allowing those prostitutes registered with a civic magistracy to practice prostitution almost anywhere within the city walls. While about half of the 300–400 women registered clustered in specific, unofficial red-light neighborhoods, the other half lived on streets with only one or two other registered prostitutes, where their neighbors were more often workingpoor men and women. In spite of the strict normative codes that continued to be preached and publicly posted by ecclesiastical authorities, prostitutes were seldom actually shunned or marginalized because of their sex work. They were more often incorporated into the working-poor neighborhoods and the larger social fabric of early modern Bologna. These tensions between norms and practice certainly intensified as Tridentine rules became more specific, and as ecclesiastical and public regimes worked to determine whether and how to implement them. In Rome, these authorities came together in particularly complicated ways. Elizabeth Cohen explores how they attempted to address and adjudicate the various forms of sexual impropriety that their normative codes were describing in ever more precise detail. Sexual misconduct came under the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts, but the records of these courts do not survive in Rome. Criminal court records do survive, however, and since these took charge of some sex offenses we can see how people responded to the new rules. Cohen looks in particular at cases of adultery, which was often defined by the married status of the woman and which, like sodomy, could actually cover a broader range of actions than might be grouped today under the term. Reviewing some trials of real or imagined adulterous relationships, Cohen finds that it is impossible to determine how effective the “reforms” actually were. There was simply more driving these relationships forward than any narrow definition allows: romance, exploitation, assault, and sheer comedy all shape the court testimonies, and show that the parties in many so-called adulterous relationships were thinking less often of sex—or the pope—than authorities thought.Sense and Sensuality in Sex and Gender The possibilities for research on sense and sensuality in the Italian Renaissance are myriad. The richness and abundance of voices, producing or employing sensual outcomes, and the voices of desire and of sex and of pleasure combine into a garden of delights. Here again, recent essay collections prove particularly valuable for the variety of forms, voices, and experiences that they are able to convey. In The Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy Matthews-Grieco gathers eight essays that ref lect upon the various ways in which visions of sensuality could circulate, including on painted furniture, decorated bedroom ceilings, or musical instruments, erotic language, or pornographic engravings. So, too, cultural practices are explored such as sensuality within marriage, music in domesticcontexts, and sexual innuendos in writing or in doodles in a book. This collection, then, reveals how creative Renaissance people could be in demonstrating desire and articulating their sensual pleasures. Sexual orientation and sexual desire have also come under scrutiny. A significant collection of essays edited by Melanie L. Marshall, Linda L. Carroll, and Katherine A. McIver, Sexualities, Textualities, Art and Music in Early Modern Italy, brings together nine essays that explore sexual desire and sexual orientation through multilayered and intersecting interpretations of art, music, and texts. The result is an intriguing collection of scholarship that maximizes opportunities for interdisciplinary, collaborative research across the disciplines, as an outgrowth of work on critical theory and intertextuality. In a more literary context, marriage orations have revealed some writers not only praised marriage in conventional terms for political ends, social expediency, and the delights of family. Alongside extolling the pleasures of the marriage bed for a husband, some extend that vision of sensuality and sexual pleasure to the wife as well, challenging conventional notions that only prostitutes took pleasure in sex, and not respectable matrons.7 The sensual possibilities of homosexual activities, especially related to male prostitution, were part of Michael Rocke’s study Forbidden Friendships. He argues that male prostitution was harshly condemned, especially anal penetration, as something no adult man should permit. Nevertheless, an examination of some contemporary writers reveals an appreciation of homosexual sensuality along with defenses of sodomy and male prostitution which harkened back to the superior evaluation of homosexuality in classical literature.8 The role of pedagogical pederasty and its celebration within Renaissance mentoring systems has equally been explored in literary sources by Ian Moulton who demonstrates the currency of such studies to both a popular and educated audience.9 These studies show that while male sexuality has been visualized, both in the Renaissance, and by scholars of the Renaissance, as virile and active, it was also vulnerable and contingent. For example, castration was always a possibility in war, for medical reasons, as a consequence of vendetta, or for social or aesthetic reasons.10 Impotence also was part of male sexuality, with extensive social, economic, and political ramifications. Some of these issues are explored in Sara F. Matthews-Grieco’s edited volume Cuckoldry, Impotence and Adultery in Europe (15th–17th century) Impotence could be implicated in social unrest among urban dwellers or occasion political turmoil among the elites. It could be physiological, subject to medical intervention, or magical leading towards the Inquisition and the Renaissance’s fear of witchcraft. Six essays focus on various aspects of the social, cultural, political, medicinal, and literary discussions of impotence in Italian courts and cities, together providing an integrated and provocative view of male sexuality and sensuality. The essays in this collection’s second section, “Sense and Sensuality in Sex and Gender,” traverse back and forth between literature and the lives of men and women. Our literary accounts span what was formerly cast as the division ofhigh and low, including both Castiglione’s serious prescriptions on when a sleeve is more than just a sleeve, and also some more comic accounts by lesser-known poets of when a sausage is more than a sausage. We pair these with two microhistorical accounts of sexual pairings, one grown notorious in recent decades by the controversies that erupted when it was first published, and the other more obscurely quotidian. We aim in bringing them together to revisit what scholars may bring to such accounts, and how that shapes our readings in ways we may want now to rethink. In the first of these microhistorical studies, Patricia Simons re-examines the case of Benedetta Carlini, the early seventeenth-century nun and abbess described above and made famous in Judith Brown’s Immodest Acts (1986). When Brown identified Carlini as a lesbian, on the basis of documents that showed her as having regular orgasmic sex with a younger nun under her supervision, her work stirred controversy. Historians like Rudolph Bell firmly rejected the description of Carlini as “lesbian” on the basis that sexual activities did not imply sexual identities. Simons takes the discussion a step further, arguing that the question of identity is less important now than one related to sense and emotion. Did they—and should we—see their sex as mainly physical? Or were there registers of erotic mysticism that would have led both Benedetta and Mea to frame their contact together as expressions of a spiritual relationship? While some of their contemporaries, like some of ours, may see their religious language as pretext, what happens when we take it seriously and take them sincerely? As the example of their congregation’s patron saint St. Catherine of Siena showed, medieval mysticism provided enough of a language and model for the erotic potential of religious imagery. Thomas V. Cohen then explores another example of when we need to ask whether a transgression is always a transgression, by looking at the case of Ludovico Santa Croce, and the gang he gathered around him to prowl the streets of Rome. The life lived well needed witnesses for validation, and Ludovico’s ego amplified his other drives as he led a group of young conversi to visit the statuesque courtesan Betta la Magra. They shared food, drink, and more, and Ludovico’s boundary crossing brought him to court. But what were his transgressions? Was it just proper and improper sexual practices, was it individual intimacy moving to group sex, was it about commoners and nobles, or about Christians and those who, despite having been “made Christian” were still considered in some way ebrei ? If transgression lies in in the eyes or voices of the witness, we have here a complicated intersection of identities and codes, values and practices. The questions here, as in Benedetta Carlini’s convent, lie with what those in the bed and those around it thought about norms and deviances. Gerry Milligan brings us to what many consider the uber code of the early modern male, Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, the canonical text that we noted at the beginning of this essay. Milligan looks in particular at the relation Castiglione draws between clothing and masculinity. Clothing was fundamental to Renaissance discourses of gender and sexuality. While it wascommon to read that what men wore was critical to discussions of violence, military preparedness, and virtue, it’s not at all clear just how clothing was supposed to do what it did. Was it cause or effect, or sign and symbol of masculinity or effeminacy? Castiglione saw clothing choice as potentially one of life or death, and that not just for reputation alone. As Italy suffered through the invasions of French, Spanish, and Germans, it was common, albeit perhaps too easy, to correlate a soldier’s effectiveness to what he had worn. As Milligan asks, might a focus on clothing show us how aesthetics and militarism functioned in Renaissance projects of social control? Laura Giannetti then takes us from dead seriousness to dietary satire with approaches to a question that Freud might well have faced: is it ever the case that a sausage is just a sausage? Italians valued word play as much as sexual play, and found the convergence of the two absolutely compelling. Carne was meat, f lesh, and inevitably the male organ, and while mendicant preachers may have condemned all of them together, most Italians appreciated them individually for each of their meanings. Religious authorities never managed to expand the imaginative forms of their dismay at the gluttony and carnality that sausages represented; the most they could do was draw on Galen’s counsel of moderation to reinforce their message of self-denial. Yet Gianetti shows that authors and artists who were more aesthetically than ascetically driven began to explore the imaginative potential of sausages as symbols of vitality, fertility, and prowess. Their poems and stories disseminated messages of a humble meat that grew into a powerful cultural symbol.Visualizing sexuality in word and image As early as 1978, Thomas G. Benedek’s article “Beliefs about Human Sexual Function” examined ideas about the sexed body, noting in particular the persistence of the one-sex theory that women and men had parallel sex organs, with the male organs externalized and female organs internalized. Moreover, the balance of the humors—hot, cold, moist, dry—also impacted the nature of any individual’s sexual makeup. Thomas Laqueur, like previous scholars, based much of his argument on medical texts. It was not only the words, but also the images that seemed to portray inverted genitals. Laqueur’s analysis went further, however, to the conclusion that the one-sex body and the humors meant that both women and men needed to ejaculate semen for conception to occur.11 Laqueur’s suggestion that Renaissance doctors and others believed in the two-seed theory was controversial and stimulated a great deal of scholarship on both science and medicine and gender and the body. Interest in the sexed body and the physicality of sex and sexuality has continued to expand, embedding medical perspectives of the sexed body into a cultural context. In her study The Sex of Men (2011), Patricia Simons extended the critical study of men’s history to focus on the physiological construction of men. Her analysis is based upon exhaustive, interdisciplinary research includingtheoretical, textual, and visual evidence. Simons re-focuses attention on the centrality of semen to masculinity and fertility, thus rebalancing the dominant phallocentric evaluation of premodern gender. Sexual acts and sexual pleasure have embraced topics and methodologies that would have been unthinkable by earlier scholars. The collection Sex Acts in Early Modern Italy (2010), edited by Allison Levy, includes an amazing array of topics that illuminate sexual activities in new detail. Renaissance images and objects portray an imaginative array of sexual positions in sources, both textual and physical, ranging from Aretino’s writing on sexual positions to their portrayal on medicinal drug jars. Patricia Simons pushes the cultural history of sex and sexuality further in her essay about the dildo. An analysis of the physical objects is set against descriptions of their imagined use. Renaissance books were sufficiently explicit, however, that the need for visualization was unnecessary. In Machiavelli in Love (2007), Guido Ruggiero challenges some of the fundamental ideas about the history of sex and sexuality proposed by Foucault and which have subsequently dominated research. Rejecting Foucault’s assertion that sex and sexual identity were modern inventions, Ruggiero demonstrates that in fact there was Renaissance sex and Renaissance sexual identity, dismissing earlier theoretical obstructions. Using a combination of court documents and imaginative literature, he highlights the complexities of mind, body, and desire, and the formation of masculine identity. In many ways, this book moves the historical study of premodern sexuality onto a new and more sophisticated plane, one that reveals individuals in their uniqueness. In The Manly Masquerade, Finucci presents one of the earliest analyses of Renaissance men as an inf lected category deploying not only feminist theory but also psychoanalytic theory to understand the constructions of masculinity from both a psychological and cultural perspective. One of the most violent and sexually problematic figures of Renaissance Italy was the brilliant goldsmith/artist Benvenuto Cellini. Margaret Gallucci presents a new twist to traditional biography by integrating a multidisciplinary analysis of Cellini, his artistic brilliance, his penchant for violence and disorderliness, and his transgressive homosexuality that was sufficiently public to result in criminal proceedings and house arrest. Following new literary criticism and sexuality and gender studies, Gallucci tries to move beyond simplistic evaluations of homosexuality and misogyny to make sense of Cellini’s complex artistic life and disorderly behaviors.12 The third section of this collection, “Visualizing Sexuality in Word and Image,” takes up these questions of sex acts, the body, and identity by focusing on four cases of creative artists who employ sexuality and gender in ways that challenge social norms and expectations, and that raise questions both then and now about identity and voice. James M. Saslow returns to the questions around sexual acts and sexual identities that emerged in disputes around the “lesbian” nun Benedetta Carlini, and to which Castiglione’s sartorial strictures allude. He argues that the case of Italian painter Bazzi contributes to the larger ongoing controversy in queer studies over whether we can locate an embryonic homosexual self-consciousness in Renaissance culture. Bazzi’s fondness for young men gave him the nickname “Il Sodoma” and he never shied away from making this a central part of a very public persona. We have little documentary evidence for his private feelings, yet his art embodied and transmitted homosexual desires, and it is clear from the series of commissions that he attracted an audience which read and sympathized with those clues. Saslow reviews Sodoma’s artworks, patrons, and reputation over a few centuries and ref lects on what the larger stakes are both methodologically and ideologically as we weigh whether these do indeed provide sufficient evidence for a homosexual self-consciousness. Sexual agency and identity are complex enough when we are aiming to interpret what an individual says in a court room or inquisitorial investigation, or conveys in a painting or poem. What do we do when men pretend to adopt the voice of women and project desire, intent, and agency? Ian Frederick Moulton compares two such works, Pietro Aretino’s Ragionamenti and Alessandro Piccolomini’s La Raffaella, both of them written in the 1530s, and both featuring an experienced woman mentoring a younger woman on the finer points of sex and sexuality. In both, the older woman assures her younger companion that her desires are legitimate and should be acted on to the fullest, even when transgressive. In both these desires are essentially projections of male fantasies. Moulton explores what we learn from male projections of female speech, identity, agency, and particularly how male visualization and ventriloquizing exposes larger issues around the place of women and the articulation of sex and gender in early modern society. While we often emphasize the transformative effects of printing, early modern culture continued to value the oral and visual, and it brought these together in the art of memory. Sergius Kodera reaches back to classical texts that recommended erotic images as particularly memorable, and to the early modern author Giovan Battista della Porta’s L’arte del ricordare (1566) which specifically advised stories of sex between humans and animals as aides memoires. Myths of Leda, Europe, Ganymede, and others were all drawn into this work, though more overtly in the vernacular than the Latin version. Kodera follows this visualization of intercourse between humans and animals beyond the arts of memory and on to texts on cross-breeding and to the paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian, seeing all of these as examples of a distinctively early modern embrace of variety, engagement, and hybridity in sexuality. In the final essay, Jane Tylus traces how Torquato Tasso depicted women in both the Gerusalemme liberata (1581) and the Gerusalemme conquistata (1593). While he felt that his powers as an epic poet were expanding, the later work reduces the role and influence of female characters. The shift underscores how the Liberata was more radical in its conception and execution. As he aimed to style himself more self-consciously as an epic poet in the classical tradition, Tasso moved from Virgil to Homer as his model, a move at once stylistic and also insome sense moralistic – he saw this as an answer to criticism of his language and of what he called the “fallacious artistries” that had marked the earlier poem. Gender become critical to his conception of what is true in art, though with ambivalent results – the woman who intervened with power was superseded by the woman who intervened with tears. These essays explore themes that were only emerging two decades ago. Their authors’ commitment to taking both an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach allows re-evaluation of interpretations which were in danger of becoming too rigid and which may have imposed too much on what the voices in stories, trials, letters, and images were aiming to express. Contradiction, ambivalence, and ambiguity abound. Recent work in all three areas that we have singled out has explored just how widely the gaps between prescription and reality yawn in the period, in part because of ambivalence on the part of those promoting normative regimes. Yet gaps more often emerged because these regimes aimed too far beyond what people expected and were willing to live with in their neighborhoods, their relationships, and expectations. As we move forward undoubtedly there will be new insights gleaned about the lives and loves of Renaissance people. The intellectual and evidential foundation outlined here in letters, court records, poems, pamphlets, and artworks will continue to support a rich and diverse research culture. And there are new questions on the horizon. The literary, philosophical, artistic, and existential implications of transgender are only in a nascent stage of investigation, despite the initial and hesitant foray made in Human Sexuality. Some topics and themes will percolate until new sources and new perspectives allow new insights and conclusions. As the study of sex, gender, and sexuality moves forward, the dialogue between past and present will continue, animated by sharp disagreements, punctuated by moments of clarity, and moving steadily towards a deeper understanding of lives lived in a period of creative foment. The voices gathered here, and the creative exchange they offer, advance that discourse on the lives of those who made the Renaissance a fascinating period of critical change.Rosenthal, The Honest Courtesan. Storey, “Courtesan Culture.” Cohen and Cohen, Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome. Cohen, “Seen and Known.” Ghirardo, “The Topography of Prostitution in Renaissance Ferrara.” Clarke, “The Business of Prostitution in Early Renaissance Venice.” D’Elia, “Marriage, Sexual Pleasure, and Learned Brides in the Wedding Orations of Fifteenth-Century Italy.” Rocke, “‘Whoorish boyes.’” Moulton, “Homoeroticism in La cazzaria (1525).” See Finucci, The Manly Masquerade. Laqueur, Making Sex. Gallucci, Benvenuto Cellini.Bibliography Benedek, Thomas G. “Beliefs about Human Sexual Function in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.” In Human Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Edited by Douglas Radcliff-Umstead, 97–119. Pittsburgh: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1978. Boswell, John. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Brown, Judith C. Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Burckhardt, Jackob. The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy. Translated by S.G.C. Middlemore. Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky et Konecky, 2003. Castiglione, Baldassarre. The Book of the Courtier. Translated by Charles S. Singleton. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1959. Clarke, Paula. “The Business of Prostitution in Early Renaissance Venice.” Renaissance Quarterly 68, no. 2 (2015): 419–64. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Seen and Known: Prostitutes in the Cityscape of Late-SixteenthCentury Rome.” Renaissance Studies Cohen, Thomas V. and Elizabeth S. Cohen. Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials Before the Papal Magistrates. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. D’Elia, Anthony F. “Marriage, Sexual Pleasure, and Learned Brides in the Wedding Orations of Fifteenth-Century Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly Finucci, Valeria. The Manly Masquerade: Masculinity, Paternity, and Castration in the Italian Renaissance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1978. Gallucci, Margaret A. Benvenuto Cellini: Sexuality, Masculinity, and Artistic Identity in Renaissance Italy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Ghirardo, Diane Yvonne. “The Topography of Prostitution in Renaissance Ferrara.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 60, no. 4 (2001): 402–31. Kalof, Linda and William Bynum, eds. A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Renaissance. Volume 3. New York: Berg, 2010. Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990. Levy, Allison M., ed. Sex Acts in Early Modern Italy: Practice, Performance, Perversion, Punishment. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Marshall, Melanie L., Linda L. Carroll, and Katherine A. McIver, eds. Sexualities, Textualities, Art and Music in Early Modern Italy: Playing with Boundaries. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014. Matthews-Grieco, Sara F., ed. Cuckoldry, Impotence, and Adultery in Europe (15th–17th century). Farnham: Ashgate, The Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Moulton, Ian Frederick. “Homoeroticism in La cazzaria The Gay et Lesbian Review Worldwide Murray, Jacqueline and Konrad Eisenbichler, eds. Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. Radcliff-Umstead, Douglas, ed. Human Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, Rocke, Michael. Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence. New York: Oxford University Press, ‘Whoorish boyes’: Male Prostitution in Early Modern Italy and the Spurious ‘second part’ of Antonio Vignali’s La cazzaria.” In Power, Gender, and Ritual in Europe and the Americas: Essays in Memory of Richard C. Trexler. Edited by Peter Arnade and Michael Rocke, 113–33. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2008. Rosenthal, Margaret F. The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Ruggiero, Guido. The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Machiavelli in Love: Sex, Self, and Society in the Italian Renaissance. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. Simons, Patricia. The Sex of Men in Premodern Europe: A Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Storey, Tessa. “Courtesan Culture: Manhood, Honour, and Sociability.” In The Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy. Edited by Sara F. Matthews Grieco, 247–73. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Talvacchia, Bette, ed. A Cultural History of Sexuality in the Renaissance. Oxford: Berg, 2011.PART ISex, Order, and Disorder. One of the last works that Francesco Petrarch wrote was a short story in Latin which he claimed to have translated from the Italian of the final tale of Boccaccio’s Decameron —the novella of the patient Griselda, who accepted every cruel test her husband, Gualtieri, tried her with to assure her worthiness as a wife. In Petrarch’s version Griselda was a humble peasant and Gualtieri the esteemed Marquis of Saluzzo, a prince loved by all for his wise rule. Tellingly, he claimed that he was translating the tale because it was so very useful as a lesson on how to treat a wife that it needed to be in Latin to gain the wider circulation that the universal language of learned men merited. And, in fact, Boccaccio’s original version has been long read in that light, almost as if Petrarch’s Latin retelling determined its meaning for future generations. Recently, moreover, with more sophisticated discussions of gender, his perspective has garnered even greater purchase, with Boccaccio’s tale being criticized for its misogynistic vision of matrimony and support for a husband’s absolute power over a wife. In turn, this perspective has even colored the way some read the Decameron itself, discovering behind its laughing stories and powerful, clever women a conservative defense of traditional patriarchy. But in this essay, I want to suggest with a historian’s eye that the story of Griselda’s ideal wifely qualities and her husband’s wisdom is in reality not there in the Decameron (X, 10). For while that tale has been often read as an account of Griselda, and her virtually biblical acceptance of her husband’s will, it may well have read at the time as a story much more about the many negative qualities of Gualtieri.1 For he is presented throughout as a dangerous tyrant moved by a misguided sense of honor and a rejection of the emotion of love, which meant that he was incapable of being either a good husband or a good ruler from the perspective of fourteenth-century Florentine readers. Thus, this tale is not just concerned with love and marriage, but also crucially with rule and the rule of princes, in this casenegatively portrayed as tyrants. In a way, then, I want to argue that it is Boccaccio’s “The Prince” a century and a half before Machiavelli. Even the language of the day nicely sets up this theme: for the term signore (lord) had multiple meanings that could span the gamut of power relationships from the everyday husband as signore/lord over his wife and household, to the local signore/lord/noble with power over those below him, on to the signore/lord/ ruler (either a prince or a tyrant depending on one’s perspective), and, of course, finally on to the ultimate signore, the Signore/God. As we shall see, all these meanings are at play in Boccaccio’s version of this tale. The teller of this story of multiple signori, the irrepressible Dioneo, suggests its negative tone right from the start, immediately warning that he finds Gualtieri’s behavior in general and towards his wife “beastly.”2 He states f latly, “I want to speak about a Marquis, not all that magnificent, but actually an idiotic beast. . . . In fact, I would not suggest that anyone follow his example. This, obviously, is hardly the wise prince Petrarch created in his supposed translation of the tale. Dioneo then more subtly attacks him as a ruler (signore), remarking that he was a young man who spent all his time “in hawking and hunting and in nothing else.”4 Here we have echoes of an earlier tale in the Decameron, the third tale of day two, about spendthrift Florentine youths who threw away the riches left them by their aristocratic father by living the thoughtless life of young nobles hunting, hawking, and living like signori.5 Significantly, those Florentine youths, after they lost their inherited fortune, regained it by going to England and loaning money at interest to the apparently even more foolish signori there, the English nobility, like many Florentine bankers.6 Yet quickly they squandered their riches again, because, as the story stresses, they returned to living like signori, eschewing the virtù that made their Florentine merchant/banker contemporaries so successful. What, one might well ask, was this virtù that had allowed them to remake their fortune and that repeatedly brings success to the denizens of Boccaccio’s tales? At one level the answer is simple. For Boccaccio’s contemporaries virtù was a term that identified the range of behaviors that allowed one to succeed and made one person superior to another. Simply put, it marked out the best. But the simplicity of that definition quickly dissolves before the fact that largely because it was such a telling term its meaning was highly contested and f luid, in fact changing considerably over time, place, and across social divides. Speaking very broadly, in an earlier warrior society many saw virtù in aggression, direct action, often violent; and in physical strength, blood line, and blood itself, even as at the same time moralists and philosophers often saw it in more Christian behavior that rejected violence and aggression. In the cities of northern Italy in the fourteenth century this traditional vision of virtù was first expanded, then increasingly overshadowed by a vision more suited to the urban life of the day and newer merchant/banker elites. For many at the time, virtù required the control of passions—in contrast to an earlier vision that privileged their moredirect expression—and included a strong lean towards peaceful, mannered conduct that required reasonable, calculating (at times sliding into cunning) behavior that controlled the present and significantly the future as well.7 In sum, virtù, even as it was contested and changed over time, was a word of power that helped to define an urban male citizen and a truly good man. In the end, however, these youths were saved from their un-virtù -ous behavior by a virtù -ous nephew, Alessandro, who first re-established their fortunes via once again astute money-lending, and then with his virtù won a bride who turned out to be the daughter of the king of England, effectively overcoming all their foolish misdeeds. From this perspective, it is clear that the signore Gualtieri, much like Alessandro’s uncles, was not a virtù -ous or good prince, ruling as he should. Rather, by not attending to anything but his own youthful pleasures, he was acting in a way that Florentines would have easily associated with their fears about contemporary signori/tyrants; for such rulers were seen by them as ruling all too often merely to serve their own whims and selfish pleasures at the expense of their subjects. And, in fact, proudly republican Florence had recently in 1342 experienced a brush with a signore/tyrant of its own, Walter of Brienne. He had been appointed to a one-year term as ruler of the city in the hope that he would be able to overcome an economic crisis caused by the failure of the major banking houses of the city. But, as was often the case, he quickly attempted to take power permanently as a signore and was just as quickly thrown out after only ten months of unpopular rule. Almost immediately afterwards, a popular government returned to power, and it remained wary of signori of any type.8 Significantly, however, most Anglophone critics have failed to note that the Italian for Walter is Gualtieri and thus that Florence had thrown out a tyrannical Gualtieri of their own just a decade before Boccaccio completed the Decameron. Tellingly the negative behaviors often associated with contemporary tyrants are immediately linked to the tale’s Gualtieri and his marriage by Dioneo, who notes that not only did he not pay attention to anything else but his own selfish pleasures, he “had no interest in either taking a wife or having children. This, then, had created problems with his subjects. As they, like all good subjects, wanted him to take on the responsibilities of a mature male and ruler by marrying; for marriage was seen at the time as perhaps the most important sign of reaching full maturity and taking on the sober responsibilities of an adult male.10 Moreover, with marriage, a prince began to produce the heirs that would secure an ordered passage of power at his death, something that for his subjects was crucial. With Gualtieri’s rejection of this, in essence Dioneo had presented his readers with a questionable signore/lord/ruler who refused to give up his youthful and irresponsible ways to rule as an adult prince with virtù.11 In the end, then, although he reluctantly gave in to his subjects’ demands, he decided to do so by taking a bride without consulting with anyone. And once again this would have troubled contemporaries. Arranged marriages were the  norm in fourteenth-century Florence and more widely and crucially theywere negotiated by parents or relatives to secure broader family goals or, in the case of rulers, meaningful alliances. The immature Gualtieri instead took his marriage personally in hand to secure his selfish desires with no concern for his family, his subjects, or even love. Moreover, his lack of love in selecting his bride also evoked the negative presentation in Decameron stories of many unhappy marriages where the lack of love had led to bad matches, especially for women. Repeatedly the tales advocated avoiding this ill-fated situation by marrying for true love, exactly what Gualtieri rejected. From his perspective marrying for love and loving his wife would have endangered his un-virtù -ous life, focused on his own personal pleasures. And at the same time, it would have also signaled the end of his freedom from his responsibilities as a ruler and declare that he had acquiesced in becoming the signore/prince that his subjects desired and that Petrarch had rewritten him as being in his misleading supposed Latin translation of the tale.12 Making his disgruntlement clear, Gualtieri finally did knuckle under to his subjects’ demands, but warned them that whoever he might chose, they must honor her as their lady or feel his anger.13 The reality behind that warning was soon dramatically revealed.14 For Gualtieri had for some time been observing a pretty, well-mannered peasant girl who lived nearby. Yet crucially what made her most attractive to Gualtieri was the fact that as a humble peasant he was confident that he could dominate her so that she did not interfere with his youthful lordly pleasures, the selfish key to his marital strategy again.15 Following Gualtieri’s misplaced desires, we are drawn ever deeper into the dark morass of unhappy marriages in the Decameron. Having selected his bride without disclosing her identity to anyone and without her even being aware of it, he insisted that his subjects come with him to celebrate the matrimony. And so it was that one day they followed him to an unlikely nearby village where the peasant girl, Griselda, lived in poverty with her father. The scene is nicely set by the narrator of the tale Dioneo, as he describes how the richly attired relatives of Gualtieri and his most important subjects arrived on horseback before Griselda’s humble hut. When she, dressed in rags, rushed onto the scene, anxious to see who their lord’s new bride would be, to everyone’s surprise Gualtieri called down to her by name to ask to speak with her father. She replied modestly that he was inside and accompanied him in to the peasant hut to talk with her father, Giannucole.16 Even her father’s name reeked of Griselda’s humble status, for Giannucole is the diminutive for Giovanni. Using the diminutive for an adult male, and a pater familias at that, essentially denied him any status or honor. Gualtieri underlined the point when he did not waste any time with niceties on a person who, given that lack of status, did not warrant them from his perspective. Thus, he did not ask Griselda’s father for her hand as simple politeness required; rather he announced that he had come to marry her. Then, continuing in his high-handed ways, he turned to her and demanded that if he took her for his wife, “will you always be committed to pleasing me and never do or say anything that would upset me.”17 Once again the absenceof love in Gualtieri’s approach to his future bride is stunning, especially for the tales of the Decameron; and moreover, his lack of regard for her father, and for her is deeply troubling. Turning to Florentine history and traditions once more it seemed almost as if his way of treating Griselda and her father echoed what the citizens of Florence most disliked in the high-handed ways of local nobles/lords that they had rejected in the 1290s when they passed their revered Ordinances of Justice. These laws were ostensibly designed to punish local nobles and their ilk (labeled magnates) for just such high-handed behavior and mistreatment of common folk. And these Ordinances had become a symbolic keystone of Florentine republican government and its civic vision and would remain so across the Rinascimento. In fact, one of the few times that the Ordinances were questioned was when they were cancelled almost immediately after Walter of Brienne, the other Gualtieri and would-be Signore of Florence, was driven out. After he was expelled in 1343, the Ordinances were momentarily cancelled by a short lived aristocratic government and then almost immediately reinstated by the popular government that replaced both Gualtieri and that unpopular aristocratic moment, as a strong reminder that the city would not allow signori of any type to mistreat Florentines. And although Gualtieri did not himself revoke the Ordinances, the black legends that grew up around his rule often made him responsible for their momentary elimination and an attack on popular republic government.18 All that this implies is underlined by the famous marriage scene that follows, for Gualtieri, with his demands met, takes Griselda by the hand and leads her from her home. There in front of the whole group of his elegantly dressed subjects to their surprise and dismay he ordered her stripped naked. He then had her re-dressed with the aristocratic clothing and the rich accoutrements that made up a noble’s wardrobe and only then consented to marry her. As often noted, this dramatic scene in its undressing and re-dressing of his bride essentially symbolized and perhaps contributed to the rebirth that Gualtieri believed he was engineering, transforming Griselda from a humble peasant to a noble wife, using clothing as both a symbol and a tool. And indeed, the tale goes on to point out how quickly and successfully she impressed the gathering, appearing to take up easily the manner and bearing of a princess in her new noble clothing. That impression was confirmed in the days following, when, as Gualtieri’s wife, she displayed to all impressive manners and wifely virtues. In sum, once redressed she was capable of being transformed from a humble peasant to a noble princess—the very stuff of fairy tales and popular fantasy. But it is also the very stuff of Florentine beliefs at the time—the elite of the city had shifted from old noble families to a newer merchant/banker group who dominated Florence both economically and socially. Thus, a humble peasant who gained the opportunity and the dress to move at the highest social levels was an attractive conceit, demonstrating that anyone with virtù could behave as well as the old nobility. From that perspective Griselda had that delicious quality of fulfilling contemporary fantasies, even if many rich Florentines would havebeen comforted perhaps by the fact that such a leap for someone of her status was highly unlikely. Yet there is a way in which the dramatic stripping of Griselda—a theme that would have great popularity in the future in literature and art—has masked a deeper honor dynamic involved in this troubling marriage. In fact, the tale’s Florentine audience would have been aware from the first that marriages were virtually always moments when issues of honor were central. That was why fathers usually played such a significant role in such affairs: they had, in theory at least, the mature judgment to evaluate the complex calculus of family honor involved in a marriage alliance between two families without letting youthful emotions interfere. Unfortunately, from this perspective the young, selfish, self-centered Gualtieri fell far short of this ideal, as the tale made abundantly clear. Nonetheless, Gualtieri was aware of the honor dimensions of his marriage and was anxious to resolve them in his own high-handed way. Anticipating the resistance of his subjects to his marriage of a peasant and its implications for the honor of all involved—a marriage that he saw as serving his interests and not theirs—from the first he insisted that they accept his choice and “honor” it and him as their ruler. And, of course, as long as his misguided honor was a driving force replacing love in his approach to marrying Griselda, it crippled the relationship and his ability to be a good husband and suggested a similar situation vis-à-vis his subjects as a ruler where love for his subjects was also lacking. Crucially in this way of seeing things, his behavior evoked strong echoes of other husbands and princes in the tales of the Decameron whose lives were destroyed by their misguided sense of honor. In turn, such behavior echoed Florentine fears about the dangers of a central/northern Italian world where it appeared—in many ways correctly—that the days of republics like theirs were a thing of the past. They were being rapidly replaced by the one-man rule of signori who claimed to be princes, but more often than not seemed to Florentines to be self-serving tyrants like Gualtieri, more concerned with their misguided honor and selfish pleasures than just rule. Yet in the short term things seemed to be looking up for Gualtieri’s honor and his marriage. Not only did Griselda win over his subjects, she soon became pregnant and produced a daughter. But not long after the happy birth, the f laws in his personality and his treatment of his wife began to reveal a deeper, darker truth. Almost as if he feared to succumb to the success of his marriage, he decided to test his wife to assure himself that she was ready to honor all his lordly wishes, no matter how cruel and tyrannical they might be. Significantly, however, he defended these tests to Griselda as a concern for his honor, complaining that his subjects were murmuring about her lowly peasant origins and the similar baseness of her daughter. In fact, his claim was presented as false by Dioneo. Gualtieri’s honor was never questioned by his subjects in this context; actually, they are portrayed as quite happy with his bride, even as they were surprised by her success as a lady. Griselda, however, accepted his false claims, and, as a result, unhappily understood the worries about his honor thatwere supposedly tormenting Gualtieri. Thus, she replied obediently as a subject to such a lord must: “My lord (Signor mio), do with me what you will as whatever is best for your honor or contentment I will accept. Once again one wonders how this would have played for Florentine republican readers, who saw in such one-man rule and unjust claims of honor the essence of tyranny—the greatest danger to their own republican values and way of life. And in the context of an unloving, unhappy marriage, we are faced with a man and a relationship definitely gone wrong and a poor wife whose suffering Florentines could feel.21 Things quickly go from bad to worse. Evermore the tyrant, Gualtieri deceitfully uses his honor to excuse his most outrageous demands on his wife/subject. First, he has a servant take her daughter away. And making it clear that he is acting on the lord’s orders, the servant implies that he has been instructed to kill the child. With great sadness Griselda hands over her baby. Although Gualtieri is impressed by her obedience and strength in the face of his horrible demand, nonetheless he allows her and his subjects to believe that the child has been killed, while he secretly sends it off to relatives in Bologna to be raised. Continuing his testing of her, when she gives birth to a male child and heir, he once more claims the child’s life, using again the excuse of fearing for his honor and his rule. Woman, because you have made this male child, I cannot find any peace with my subjects as they complain insistently that a grandson of Giannucole will after me become their Signore, so I have decided that if I do not want to be overthrown, I must do with him what I did to the other [child]. Moreover, given all this [I must sooner or later] leave you and take another wife.22 Dioneo, however, makes it clear to his listeners that once again this claim is false, noting that Gualtieri’s subjects were not complaining about the boy’s humble background or the loss of honor it implied. In fact, he points out that in the face of the apparent murder of both children, his subjects “strongly damned him and held him to be a cruel man, while having great compassion for Griselda.”23 Hardly the response of those anxious to see an unsuitable heir or wife eliminated or those enthusiastic about their exemplary prince, as Petrarch misleadingly portrayed him. Still, as her lord and their tyrant, both she and they had no option but to bow down before his cruel will, yet another lesson about the dangerous honor of lords and their potential for heavy-handed tyranny that would not have been lost on republican Florence. So, the second child joined the first in apparent death—while Griselda lived on sadly under the shadow of her husband’s warning that eventually he would end the whole problem of her humble birth besmirching his honor and threatening his rule by putting her aside  to take an honorable bride. And finally, after twelve years Gualtieri decided that his daughter had grown old enough to pass as his new bride; and it was time for the last tests of his wife. Thus, he acted onhis earlier promise, informing her that he was ready to dissolve their marriage in order to take a more suitable wife. Claiming that he had secured a dispensation from the pope to put her aside, he gathered his subjects together to make the announcement that he was sending her back to her father and her humble life as a peasant. Evidently, he was not content to continue his cruel testing of his wife in private; rather his cruel deeds had to be displayed before his subjects. The power to rule and the honor it required were at play and perhaps also a desire to warn his subjects that he was their signore as well and capable of similar deeds to defend his honor and assert his control over them. But considering what fourteenth-century Florentines would have made of this new outrage is again suggestive; for almost certainly they would have seen in this a cruel lord acting as a tyrant, mistreating his most loyal subject in a way that no right-thinking republican Florentine would ever accept—in sum Gualtieri was the model anti-prince. Gualtieri announced, then, before his troubled subjects and the abject Griselda, that he was renouncing her as his wife because in the past my ancestors were great nobles and lords of these lands, where your ancestors were always laborers (lavoratori ), I wish that you will no longer be my wife, but rather that you return to the house of Giannucole . . . and I will take another wife that I have found that pleases me and is befitting [to my status].24 In sum, his ancestors were nobles and rulers and Griselda’s were humble laborers; therefore, their marriage was unsuitable and he was literally suffering the dishonor of being a lord badly married. The term “lavoratori ” used to describe her ancestors, while it could be used as a synonym for a peasant, may well have suggested something more troubling yet. The more normal terminology for Griselda’s ancestors would have been contadini or villani,25 but by contrasting his nobility with her status as descended from lavoratori, Gualtieri once again was asserting status claims that would have ruff led Florentine feathers. For the people of Florence, who had fought so hard across the thirteenth century to drive out high-handed nobles like Gualtieri, had done so in the name of protecting the laborers of the city from just such high-handed behavior. In fact, the Ordinances of Justice labeled such behavior as typical of the nobility. And the Ordinances were celebrated as wise legislation designed to discipline and punish the nobility and protect lavoratori from their high-handed ways. Once again, the recent attempt to eliminate the Ordinances in 1342 and the threat that posed to the laborers of the city would have added weight to the negative valence of Gualtieri’s speech.26 All this cruel testing of Griselda calls up echoes of another person often associated with her and this tale, who had also suffered greatly under his lord, the biblical Job. In fact, commentators have often pointed to the parallels betweenGriselda’s patient suffering at the hands of her signore/lord/husband and Job’s suffering at the hands of his Signore/Lord/God as a reason for seeing her as an exemplary wife and loyal subject accepting her husband’s rightful dominance, just as Petrarch later recreated her.27 There is an immediate problem with this parallel, however, for Job’s Lord did not actually deal out the setbacks that deeply wounded him. He merely withdrew his protection and left the door open for Satan to attempt to destroy Job’s faith, ultimately without success. From that perspective Gualtieri seems more to parallel Satan than God. Despite that often-overlooked theological nicety, however, the God (Signore) of the Old Testament who allowed the testing of Job might seem to vaguely parallel at a higher level her lord (signore), Gualtieri’s, testing of Griselda. But tellingly in the Trinitarian view of time being preached aggressively in Florence when the Decameron was being written and as war loomed with the papacy, that Old Testament God and His troubling relationship with humanity following the original sin of Adam and Eve—often portrayed as dishonoring that Signore —was seen by many as no longer the order of the day. Christ’s love and his sacrificing of his honor to die as a common criminal to save humanity was seen as inaugurating a new order and dispensation, a view especially stressed by a powerful group of local preachers at the time. And the Godliness of that new age, Boccaccio’s present, was totally alien to Gualtieri and totally alien to his relationship with his wife and his subjects—for crucially, he explicitly rejected love in favor of jealously protecting his honor, much like the vengeful Lord of the Old Testament and nothing like the God of Love of the New. In a work that over and over again stresses the importance of love, love in marriage and in the best relationships between men and women, Gualtieri becomes the cruel husband, the anti-prince, the tyrant par excellence, and a ref lection of a relationship with the wrathful God of the Old Testament that no longer obtained. And, of course, this last tale of the Decameron is told by Dioneo—literally “Dio Neo,” the “new god” of love—who makes it clear that he finds Gualtieri unsuitable as a husband, ruler, and most certainly as any kind of a lover. But this was merely the prelude to his last cruel testing of poor Griselda. For Gualtieri then demanded that she return to prepare and oversee his wedding to his new bride. Once again Griselda accepted this command. But significantly Dioneo insists on making a critical clarification: Griselda accepted his cruel command not as a patient ex-wife or as a loyal subject, but out of love for Gualtieri. He explains that she accepted only because “she had not been able to put aside the love she felt for him.”28 Thus she returned to the palace as a servant, to prepare the new wedding for her beloved. Dioneo relates a number of humiliating moments in the preparations and underlines once again their injustice by noting the deeply troubled reactions of Gualtieri’s subjects to her abuse and their repeated calls for a more just treatment of her. The humiliation comes to a head when Gualtieri has his new bride brought to his palace for the wedding. Presenting her to Griselda, he cruellytwists the knife of her humiliation in public again, asking her opinion of his new lady. She answered, My lord . . . she seems to me very good and if she is as intelligent as she is beautiful, as I believe, I am certain that you ought to live with her as the most content signore in the world. But still I would pray that those wounds that you gave before to the earlier one [wife], you spare this one; because I doubt that she could resist them, for she has been raised with great gentleness, whereas the other was used to hardships from her childhood.29 Yes, Griselda has suffered and finally even she has complained. Subtly, and without ever referring to herself by name, she has pointed out finally the unjust nature of his rule over her and by implication over his subjects. It would be satisfying to claim that Griselda’s final faint demonstration of defiance caused Gualtieri to change his ways, but Dioneo has already informed us that Gualtieri was ready to act even before she spoke. Thus ignoring her comments, he declares: Griselda it is time that you finally hear the fruit of your long patience and that those who have held me to be cruel and unjust and bestial learn that it was all according to plan, wishing to teach you how to be a wife and teach others how to pick and keep a wife and [finally] to guarantee my peace as long as we would live together.30 In the end, then, even Gualtieri admits that his lordly ways have been cruel, unjust, and bestial, but he justifies them by claiming that he has taught Griselda how to be a good wife. And many commentators, following Petrarch, have taken this claim at face value, arguing that Gualtieri is the demanding but just hero of the tale and Griselda the ideal wife fashioned by his treatment of her. Yet, in fact, as the story makes clear over and over again, his cruelty did not teach her anything. She came to him, as she has just pointed out, already accustomed to suffering and accepting the hardships that life brought her as a peasant. She was born into hardship and suffering and she adapted quickly to her lord and his mistreatment because of her own inherent peasant ability to suffer and lack of a sense of honor. Indeed, one would be hard put to find a place where the tale or Dioneo suggest that she learned anything from Gualtieri. And while the fourteenth-century Florentine readers of this tale were more usually urban dwellers than peasants and thus theoretically not as inured to hardship and suffering, they were proudly not nobles either, and it is hard to imagine them accepting from local nobles the treatment that Gualtieri dished out. Moreover, it is hard to imagine that they would have felt sympathy for Gualtieri’s defense of his cruel ways, as they too would have been unlikely to feel any need for such lessons from nobles or signori to learn the patience necessary to survive as subjects (as they had recently demonstrated throwing out their own Gualtieri) or for that matter even to survive as wives.Actually, it might seem strange that finally after retaking Griselda as his wife and explaining his whole plan to his subjects and her, the couple are portrayed by Dioneo as living happily ever after. But providing an explanation for that improbable happy ending is a startling and significant admission by Gualtieri: for, as unlikely as it might seem, all his cruel tests have led him finally to a crucial transformation— the decisive often overlooked climax of the tale. He has finally discovered the emotion of love and has fallen in love with his victim, Griselda. He confesses at the last: “I am your husband who loves you more than anything and believe me when I say that there is no man more content than I in his wife.”31 Crucially with that admission, and Griselda’s ongoing love that survived his every cruelty, no longer is their marriage simply an unhappy mismatch with a wife subject to her lord/husband defending his misguided honor and selfish noble pleasures. Rather, now it is exactly the kind of marriage that the Decameron advocates over and over again. With love as its emotional base, the happy ending that the story, and the Decameron itself, requires is possible and Gualtieri, his wife, and perhaps even his subjects can live happily ever after—not a divine comedy perhaps but a human one. For in the end Griselda survived a cruel lord, and with her willingness to suffer and peasant patience, she, not he, for a moment at least became the true teacher, teaching a tyrant who rejected love to love and to become a true prince—in this she was perhaps more Christ-like than Job-like. Let me suggest that by contemporary Florentine standards or those of the imagined and real women listeners of Dioneo’s tale, Gualtieri’s mistreatment of his wife was anything but a model of an ideal marriage until everything changed with love at its conclusion, despite Petrarch’s claim to the contrary. In the end, then, she was a victim, but in ways that many critics have had trouble seeing. First, of course, at the hands of her cruel lord/husband. But also at the hands of the would-be aristocrat and anti-republican Petrarch. For despite his claims about what he saw as an ideal of marriage, he also retold her tale in Latin to celebrate the honor of the often cruel signori—tyrants and lords—that he cultivated for patronage and support far from the republican Florence that claimed him at times with difficulty as an honored son. Still, in the end she and love won out, a fitting conclusion to the new god of love, Dioneo, and his tale, as well as to Boccaccio’s Decameron.Notes 1 I have used for this tale and all citations from the Decameron the classic edition edited by Vittorio Branca: Boccaccio, Decameron. In this reading that looks more closely at the Marquis of Saluzzo, I am following the path breaking lead of Barolini in her article “The Marquis of Saluzzo.” But I emphasize more a Florentine perspective on the tale than Barolini and am less inclined to follow her strategy of using game theory to explain what she labels as the Marquis’ beffa. I discovered after I wrote an early draft of this essay Barsella’s excellent article “Tyranny and Obedience.” My account stresses more the marital as well as the political side of the tale and looks more closely at the Florentine political and social world of the day, while she offers a more complete analysis of the ancient and medieval theoretical literature on tyranny; but we both agree that the tale is more about Gualtieri as a tyrant than about Griselda as a model wife.2 Decameron, 1233. “Beastly” often seems to serve as code word or signal that the male so labelled has sexual appetites that are “unnatural” by Boccaccio’s standards and hence like those of a beast. If beastly is being used in that sense here, it would add another dimension to the Marquis’ rejection of marriage and the love of women, one that Boccaccio regularly paints in a negative light. Barolini provides an interesting discussion of the term drawing similar conclusions but emphasizes its echoes of Dante’s usage of the term, along with its classical and Aristotelian dimension—a perspective that would undoubtedly have had its weight for learned readers and listeners, but perhaps less for a broader audience at the time. Barolini, “Marquis of Saluzzo,” 25–26. 3 Ibid., 1233; italics mine. 4 Ibid., 1234. 5 The three are described as the young sons of a noble knight named Tebaldo from either the Lamberti or the Agolanti families—both Ghibelline families exiled from Florence in the late Middle Ages and thus suspect already in fourteenth-century Florence with its strong Guelf tradition. 6 Although it should be noted that the prospects of profits from loaning money to the English had become less appetizing after the recent failure of Florentine banks in 1342, in part caused by the King of England’s reneging on his debts to them. Actually, recent scholarship has argued that local bad loans in Tuscany and debts built up in the ongoing wars in the region were more responsible for the bank failures, but contemporary accounts tended to place a heavy emphasis on the King of England’s actions—perhaps as a way to divert attention from the more local issues involved. Barsella notes also this connection in “Tyranny and Obedience,” 74–75. 7 Ruggiero, Machiavelli, 163–211. This vision of virtù and its development across the Rinascimento in Italy is one of the central themes of my effort to reinterpret the period in my book The Renaissance in Italy. From this perspective, Boccaccio’s Decameron with its stress on virtù is a work that fits more in the world of fourteenth-century Italy than as a work of medieval literature as it is often characterized. Of course, many of his tales have medieval sources and echoes, but significantly they are rewritten with a very different set of values more characteristic of fourteenth-century Florence and the city-states of central and northern Italy. 8 Walter (Gualtieri) of Brienne actually makes an appearance in the Decameron in his own right as one of the nine “lovers” of the Sultan of Babylon’s daughter, and a quite bloody “lover” at that (II, 7). Boccaccio also wrote a quite uncomplimentary account of his life in his De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, Lib. IX, cap. 24. 9 Decameron, 1234. Dioneo, however, does follow this comment with what appears to be a compliment for this lack of desire to marry, “for which he was to be seen as very wise” (1234). Yet what follows undercuts the force of this apparently very traditional negative vision of marriage. And throughout the Decameron Boccaccio seems to provide an unusual number of tales that see well-matched marriages as positive and at least potentially happy. 10 For this see the discussion in Ruggiero, Machiavelli, 24–6, 172–73 and Giannetti, Lelia’s Kiss. While the character Gualtieri had the same name as the recent Florentine would-be tyrant, this is not to argue that he was the only tyrant being referred to in the tale. In actuality Florence was surrounded by dangerous and aggressive tyrants who were capable of instilling fear in the city even if they were not named Gualtieri. As often noted, the fourteenth century, following in the footsteps of the thirteenth, was a period where republics were losing out to tyrants everywhere and Florence found themselves surrounded by aggressive signori on virtually all sides. 12 This lack of love also played a significant role in his lack of a positive relationship with his subjects, once again the micro-level of life, in this case marriage, reflecting the macro-level of life, in this case Gualtieri’s rule. Both lacked love and that stood literally at the heart of his negative consensus reality for his subjects and for the Florentine readers of his tale. 13 Clearly with the repetition of “insisting” and Gualtieri’s will, the tale is playing on will as a dangerous source of sin when misplaced as it is in this case. Of course, will from a1415 16 17 181920 2133theological perspective is the basis of all sin, which in the end is merely willing to turn away from the good and ultimately God. In this case Gualtieri might be seen as willfully turning away from love, the good and God much like Satan turned away from love, the good and God in the greatest rejection of all. At this moment in the tale with his willing misdeed, it might be argued Gualtieri confirms his fallen state. Barolini suggests that in these demands Gualtieri, unhappy with his subjects’ calls for his marriage, is setting up a beffa at their expense—a very typical form of Florentine joke that in this case punishes them for forcing him to marry against his will—and the key to the beffa is forcing them in turn to accept the peasant wife that he will pick unbeknownst to them. Although there is a logic to this perspective, it seems more likely that contemporaries would have assumed the driving force in his decision to take a peasant as a wife was his belief that she would have to be totally subservient to him, something that Barolini stresses as well. Decameron, 1235. Although the text is clear that Gualtieri entered the house alone, the discussion between Gualtieri, the father, and Griselda requires that she had entered as well. Perhaps it is significant that she is so humble that her entering the house with Gualtieri does not require mention. Ibid., 1237. The Ordinances of Justice were first passed in Florence on January 18, 1293 and while their meaning at the time has been much debated, they became with time a kind of civic monument to the ideal of Florence as a republic ruled by the popolo without the interference of the traditional Tuscan rural nobility, labeled magnates, who had once dominated the city. For the debate and the more complex reality of the Ordinances and the magnates themselves see my Renaissance, 77–82 and 94–97 and the overview of Najemy in A History of Florence, 81–89, 92–95, 135–38, and for a more detailed study see Lansing, The Florentine Magnates. Suggestively, Petrarch in his rather different retelling of the tale, softens this act of prepotency and male power that once again here strongly underlines Gualtieri’s cruelty and lack of required manners. He adds the telling detail that Gualtieri had Griselda surrounded by women of honor before she was stripped. Here we see how the tale could be changed to make it a hymn to a wise and careful husband anxious to arrange the right kind of marriage that would assure a matrimony that functioned as it should with the husband in command and the woman subservient and obedient. But Dioneo’s careful scripting of Gualtieri’s boorish and self-centered behavior in line with his high-handed ways that evoke the psychological violence of the old nobility, strongly suggest a very different vision of Gualtieri and his marriage—a negative vision in line with many of the tales about the injustices of arranged marriages in the Decameron. Decameron, 1239. One might note here that although Griselda is clearly a victim, she is hardly a heroine as often claimed by critics. There are in fact any number of actual female heroines in the Decameron whose tales were constructed to show their virtù and ability to control their own lives and virtually always their goal of winning a meaningful love in life and often in marriage. Perhaps the best example of this, and a virtual anti-Griselda tale, that gives the lie to Petrarch’s and later critics’ vision of Griselda as a model wife is the tale of Gilette of Narbonne (III, 9), who empowered by love cures the king of France and overcoming a series of seemingly impossible trials (typical of medieval lover’s tales and more normally male knights) in the end thanks to her virtù wins the love of the man she loves, her husband, Bertrand of Roussillon. In this tale he is also portrayed as a cruel lord, but Gilette is anything but passive and takes her life in her own hands to win out in the end—a model of what a woman can accomplish with real virtù in the name of love. It is suggestive also that Gilette is an upper-class non-noble from an urban setting not unlike the Florentine readers of the Decameron and much more easily accepted as active and aggressive than the humble peasant Griselda. Similar virtù overcoming a husband both cruel and foolish is presented also in tale (II, 9) where a Genoese woman, who takes the name Sigurano da Finale, passes as a male and flourishes in a series of adventures thanks to her virtù and in the end recovers the love of the husband she loves despite his murderous misdeeds.Guido RuggieroDecameron,In fact, this is the only use of the term in the tale, usually she and her father are referred to as poor and it is noted that he is a swineherd not a laborer. The title of the tale refers to her as “una figliuola d’un villano” and later when referring to her unexpected virtù, her dress and by inference her status is referred to as “villesco”: “l’alta vertù di costei nascosa sotto i poveri panni e sotto l’abito villesco.” For this see Brucker, Florentine Politics, 114; Najemy, Florence, 135–37. On the Ordinances see note 18 above. Branca actually points out the textual parallels noting that in the story of Job I:20 he states “Nudus egressus sum . . . nudus revertar” in reference to Griselda’s “ignuda m’aveste . . . Io me n’andrò ignuda . . .” In the New Oxford Annotated Bible, the famous lament of Job is rendered “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job I:20 [614]). Decameron, Critics have from time to time referred to the Decameron as “The Human Comedy” playing on an apparent contrast with Dante’s Divine Comedy, but I would suggest that Boccaccio’s comedy was more divine than it might at first seem and Dante’s more human.Bibliography Barolini, Teodolinda. “The Marquis of Saluzzo, or the Griselda Story Before It Was Hijacked: Calculating Matrimonial Odds in the Decameron 10:10.” Mediaevalia Barsella, Susanna. “Tyranny and Obedience: A Political Reading of the Tale of Gualtieri (Dec., X, 10).” Italianistica Boccaccio, Giovanni. Decameron. Edited by Vittorio Branca. Turin: Einaudi, 1992. Brucker, Gene. Florentine Politics and Society Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962. Giannetti, Laura. Lelia’s Kiss: Imagining Gender, Sex, and Marriage in Italian Renaissance Comedy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Lansing, Carol. The Florentine Magnates: Lineage and Faction in a Medieval Commune. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. Najemy, John. A History of Florence,Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Ruggiero, Guido. Machiavelli in Love: Sex, Self, and Society in the Italian Renaissance. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento. New York: Cambridg. Sexual violence in Renaissance and early modern Siena was widespread, barely manageable, and apparently accepted, though not always legitimized, especially when it applied to particular social classes. Both the nobility and the clergy considered it their “right” to engage in behavior that underscored their social superiority.1 This included not only the use of weapons, but also brawls, thievery, private vendettas, and sexual violence. Such behavior did not, however, pertain only to them: commoners also forcefully imposed their brutality, sexuality, and violence on less powerful victims who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or whose only fault was their vulnerability. But not all victims, whether male or female, endured violence passively. For everyone whose voice was not heard, there were many others who, in spite of their age or sex, protested the violence they had endured and described it in detail. Unlike other Italian cities, medieval Siena did not have a single government office charged with the social control of the population and the suppression of behavior deemed to be unacceptable.2 This changed in 1460 when the government established the office of the Otto di custodia (Eight in charge of Protection) to oversee behavior and public health.3 After several changes to its name and tasks, the office was abolished in 1541 by the Spanish protectorate, and then reestablished in 1554 as the Ufficiali sopra la pace (Officers in charge of the Peace) in order to settle citizen disputes and prosecute both blasphemy and violence. Yet this incarnation was also short-lived, and the office was abolished at the fall of the Republic in 1555.4 The administration of justice was entrusted first to the Captain of the People (Capitano del popolo), and then to the Captain of Justice (Capitano di giustizia), before being abolished in 1481. Some of its tasks were entrusted to the Rota court in 1503, but in the event the 1481 suppression was not definitive, and the Captain of Justice seems to have recovered some functions in the first half ofthe sixteenth century. The office of the Captain of Justice was formally revived when Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici issued an edict on the “Reformation of the Government of the City and State of Siena.” in 1561, and it acquired criminal jurisdiction over the city and the podesterie (the administrative structures into which the countryside was organized).5 The Captain of Justice also gained those tasks previously entrusted to the Criminal Judge (Giudice dei malefizi ),6 and functioned under the supervision of the Governor (Governatore). The Governor was now the top official in the new administration. He enjoyed “broad political and administrative functions, supervised the public order, issued regulatory actions and had the control of all sentences of tribunals.”8 All other magistrates lost their jurisdiction over criminal lawsuits.9 These frequent changes to judicial offices in Siena help us understand why documentation on crime is scattered throughout many different archival collections and series. It is also incomplete, because much material has been lost. As a result, it is not possible to analyze the Sienese records in as thorough a social or statistical way as it has been done for Florence.10 The preliminary analysis presented in this essay—which uses Sienese documents for the years just before and after the fall of the Republic (1555)—will serve to illustrate at least some cases of violence at a time in Sienese history that, from the perspective of the history of crime, still awaits detailed analysis. A preliminary analysis reveals just the tip of the iceberg. One of the questions that arises from a first glance at the documentation is why so much of the surviving documentation refers to violence in the countryside and not in the city. Perhaps extra-judicial agreements between the parties, reached in order to avoid denunciation, were more common or widespread in the city. Or, perhaps, much of the documentation for urban violence has not survived to the present day. In Siena, and especially in the Sienese countryside already devastated by war, famine, and other problems, Medicean legislation over criminal activities took a long time to be applied and become the norm. One of the reasons for this was that the countryside suffered from a very slow reconstruction process. It took not only time, but a lot of effort, to erode and limit local authorities and personal powers that, for decades after the fall of the republic, continued to impose a social code that penalized those on the lower levels of the social scale.What the law said The rubric on sexual violence in the last republican Sienese statute (1545) followed medieval precedent and listed only adultery, rape, and abduction, in that order, as crimes of violence.11 Sexual intercourse with a married woman of whatever social rank or with an unmarried virgin was punishable by the imposition of a financial penalty; abduction for the purpose of sexual violence, on the other hand, was punishable by death. The definition of sexual violence required that the abductor (raptor) marry the victim, if the father or the senior male members of her family deemed it appropriate, or alternatively that he provide her withSexual violence in the Sienese state 37a dowry. If sexual violence was perpetrated against someone’s wife or daughter, it damaged the honor of the husband and the family, so the culprit had to, somehow, adequately restore that damaged honor.12 Sexual violence by men on men, described in the statute as “a dreadful kind of violence that is used against nature on men,” demanded that the rapist be jailed and pay a fine, but if the rapist was over forty years old, he was to be burned at the stake.13 The regulation in the Duchy of Florence was similar: in 1542 Duke Cosimo I revised the law against “the nefarious, detestable, and abominable vice of sodomy” and not only increased the fines but also imposed physical punishments and even the death penalty on repeat offenders.14 Once Siena had been ceded by King Philip II of Spain to the Medici in 1557 and incorporated into the duchy of Tuscany, the 1558 revision of the Florentine law on sexual violence also applied to the city. This revised law removed the fines and imposed only physical punishments for “those who will use force and violence to women and men to satisfy their sexual desire.”15 If the violence did not lead to an effusion of blood, the culprit was to be sent to the galleys for a certain number of years to serve as a chained rower; if, on the other hand, there had been an effusion of blood the culprit was to be executed. The only exception allowed, and this only for Florentine and Sienese citizens, was commuting the sentence to the galleys into a jail term, but this only at the discretion of Duke Cosimo I. Such discretion generally depended on the social rank, personal reputation, and family honor of the culprit.The rape of women and young girls The new law was tested almost immediately. “Since this case was of such manifest enormity, and the first since the publication of Your Excellency’s last pronouncement against violence on men and women”:16 so begins a letter by Orazio Camaiani (or Camaini),17 a diligent official and Captain of Justice in the “New State” (Stato Nuovo) of Siena, to Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici in the winter of 1559. Camaiani went on to relate a case of attempted sexual violence against “a poor widow of Belforte” who, on resisting her attacker, was hit by him so hard that she bled.18 Camaiani’s information came not from first-hand observation, but from letters he had received from the vicar of Belforte (fol. 13r), a small mountain-top hamlet about 45 km west of Siena. It included all the necessary negative requirements—night, loneliness, violence. The “poor widow,” who is never named in the letter,19 had been assaulted during the night in her own home by two men who entered on purpose in order to rape her; she resisted the attack, screamed loudly, and was wounded in the head and face. Her attackers ran away without succeeding in their intent. The widow did, however, recognize one of her attackers, “a certain Terenzio Usinini, Sienese” (fol. 13r) and reported him. The Captain of Justice thus knew for whom to look. The information was sent to Duke Cosimo I, but what has survived is scattered and incomplete. It does, however, point to the many cases of violence in a territory that was still sufferingfrom the aftermath of the raids and devastations brought about by the recent Florentine conquest of Siena and the republic’s difficult process of submission to its new Florentine lord. We know very little about Terenzio Usinini. There is no record of his having been baptized in Siena,20 so we can assume that he was born and baptized in the countryside. He also does not appear among the very few Usinini who held secondary appointments in Sienese offices.21 His family pedigree or that fact that the family belonged to one of the major political groups in Siena, the Monte of the Riformatori, were of no help to him—in referring to Terenzio, the Captain of Justice noted that “a worst name against a person cannot be heard in the entire town.”22 In fact, Terenzio did not have a good reputation—after hearing that he had been accused of attempted rape, other women in town went to the Captain of Justice to report that he had raped them, too, or had attempted to do so. Terenzio managed to escape arrest on this occasion, but his accomplice, a priest, was not as fortunate—he was captured thanks to a peasant who tricked him with the help of a woman who was priest’s former lover. The incomplete records do not tell us what happened to either Terenzio or the priest. We can, however, determine that Terenzio seems to have been a violent highborn individual who behaved as if he were above the law and thought he could force his sexual desires upon subordinate women. This may, in fact, be to a certain extent true because Terenzio seems to have managed somehow to escape justice. While highborn locals might have been able to get away with sexual violence and escape justice, the sexual misbehavior of state officials, who were to uphold the legal system, was more problematic, especially when such officials used their power to abuse women and girls. Already in 1378, Pietro Averani from Asti, a district judge was dismissed because he had used the power of his office (sub pretextu offitii ) to rape a young virgin girl living in Siena.23 In a case from 1554, a community in the countryside asked the government in Siena to “immediately” send another commissioner to replace the current one whose violence against some local women was such that it was about to cause serious disorders. One “young, respectable, and good” local woman even went to Siena herself and, in tears, described to the magistrates how the said commissioner had come into her house at night on the excuse of seeing how the soldiers had been billeted and had started to lay his hands on her, at which point she had begun to scream and he stopped.24 Though problematic, the sexual misbehavior of this representative of the legal system seems to have elicited little more than a request for removal from the post or relocation, and no actual physical punishment meted out on the guilty party. We do not know whether this was the limit of what plaintiffs could expect. In a different case, blasphemy was added to the charge of attempted violence. This rendered the accusation much more dangerous because blasphemy was considered an “open crime,” that is, clear and public. Angela reported that Bastiano, the servant of the Bargello (that is, of the chief of police), “on many occasions requested her honor from her.”25 After beating her several times because sherefused, he entered her house while her husband was away and tried to rape her, at which point she started screaming. After threatening her, “he pointed the dagger at her throat saying ‘whore of God, if you scream I will slaughter you,’” but she continued to scream and so he left. The examples given so far point to a somewhat spontaneous, even impulsive attempt on the part of the men to engage in sex with an unwilling woman. There are also cases of carefully planned attempts. Agnoletto the Corsican, for example, not knowing how other to seduce a young woman, did so by impersonating a priest; “because he did not know how else to rape a young girl, he took the clothes the archpriest wore during Lent and, dressed like him, started confessing her in church.” This particular record continues by pointing out that Agnoletto “raped many women and did other impudent things.”26 We have further examples of premeditated rape. A notary reports that Pompeo di Giovanni from Monticello, a 45-year-old man, married and with two daughters, had engaged in “robberies, rapes and, in general, all other sorts of abuses done and committed” including “raping, together with other men, Iacoma the daughter of Filippo, his relative,” and of “having prided himself for having entered through the roof into Antonia di Censio’s house only to have sex with her and perhaps he did so, and because there was no point in screaming she, for the sake of her honor, kept quiet about it.” The notary continues his report with the comment that he “will remain silent on what Pompeo did to certain poor young women who were walking by” and then concludes by recording that Pompeo was eventually found guilty of a long list of robberies and sentenced to the gallows.27 After the Council of Trent (1545–63), a new detail enters into notarial descriptions of sexual violence: some defendants now tried to justify themselves by explaining that they had been tempted by the devil. In 1571, Sandro was accused of raping five-year-old Santina in a wheat field and causing her to bleed from her vagina.28 In his defense, Sandro told the Captain of Justice that when he went in the field to “shout at some children doing some damage,” Santina and Elisabetta came by. Sandro was then tempted by the devil to sit down and grab the said Santina and put her on his lap, and having pulled out his tail [i.e. penis] through the opening of his trousers, he inserted the second finger of his right hand into Santina’s nature [i.e., vagina] and, having seen that it could enter easily, took out his finger and started pointing his tail towards her nature and, in so doing, he could have hurt her and she shouted one or two times. Hearing the little girl scream, her uncle Domenico rushed to help her and found her crying and “totally wrecked and bloody.” He hit Sandro with a bow he had in his hands and moved him away from the girl. Sandro later confessed that since he could not put his member inside Santina’s nature, he was about to finish [i.e. ejaculate] between her thighs or in some other way as best hecould because the devil grabbed him by the hair and he [Sandro] could not stop himself, but the said Domenico stopped him. Sandro’s deposition claims that when he was raping the girl he was not his own self, but was under the control of the devil to the point that he was not physically able to do otherwise until an external force, Domenico, interrupted him and stopped the devil’s control. Referring directly to the 1558 law mentioned above, the Captain of Justice pointed out that, in cases of violence with effusion of blood, the accused must incur the death penalty. Perhaps to elicit a more merciful sentence, the Captain of Justice described Sandro as “a bachelor, and more a fool than a scoundrel.” The plea was successful—Sandro was spared his life and received the lighter sentence of “two or three years in the galleys.”A matter of honor, but whose honor? In a letter of March 1524 to the government in Siena, Bartolomeo di Camillo, at that time podestà (chief magistrate) of Sarteano, reported a disturbing case of rape: A certain local man, Agnolo di Ipolito, entered into the house of a certain Giovanni Baptista Tucci, a citizen of Siena, and found a daughter whose name is Iuditta, who is around fourteen-years-old and not yet married, and violently took her and because she did not consent, he started hitting her and eventually he raped her by force so that he broke her nature. 29 Podestà Petrucci then went on to say that: It seemed to me that, since I am in this town, for the honor of your Excellencies first and for my own honor secondly, I had to bring this shameful case to your attention so that it will not go unpunished. Petrucci explained how he sent soldiers to Agnolo’s house to arrest him, but the accused was defended by one of his brothers and other relatives, as well as by the town’s priors. Because the victim’s father, Giovanni Baptista Tucci, was a Sienese citizen, Sienese statutes applied and overrode Sarteano’s local customs and statute (capitoli ). Petrucci thus assumed that he had the authority, as podestà of Sarteano, to deal with the case, so “In a friendly way, I let the Priori know that I did not want to bypass their local customs, but I wanted [to uphold] my honor.” The situation quickly deteriorated and one of Agnolo’s relatives fired “two rif le shots together with offensive words” against the podestà. Another relative, Petrucci reports, “told me, answering back, that if I would have gone to his house, he would have punched not only me, but Christ himself.”Two days later, Petrucci reported that news of the rape had reached one of the subordinate judges in his podestarial team, and that this judge, together with some soldiers, went once again at Agnolo’s house to arrest him. Agnolo’s uncle, Ser Giovanni di Gabriello, threatened them, saying that if the judge tried to get in, he would throw bricks or stones at him. In his report to Siena, Petrucci underlines the fact that “Your Excellencies know that these actions are done against you, that in this place I am your delegate, and that in order to preserve your honor I am ready to give my life.” Two days after this, Cardinal Giovanni Piccolomini, archbishop of Siena, wrote from Rome to the Sienese Concistoro (the lords and main officers) in support of Ser Giovanni; perhaps as a way to show that Ser Giovanni enjoyed important connections and patronage, or perhaps as an attempt to limit more severe outcomes. “Because they had some other enmities [in town]” cardinal Piccolomini informed the Concistoro, Ser Giovanni di Gabriello and his relatives did not recognize, in the darkness of the night, the podestà ’s soldiers and so they defended themselves. He added that Ser Giovanni “in a good-natured and simple way used some inappropriate words” without realizing that he was speaking to the podestà and his soldiers. Cardinal Piccolomini continued that he was certain that the lords of Siena would recognize “the good faith of this country town and in particular of the family and household of said Ser Giovanni who have always been good servants of our city” and suggested that the lords “might show all possible leniency.” A month later, podestà Petrucci happily wrote: Magnificent, excellent and powerful lords [. . .] in order to carry out what your Excellencies have ordered [. . .] I sent for Giovan Baptista Tucci, his wife, and his daughter on the matter of what Agnolo di Ipolito had done, and about the marriage that has to be contracted between them.30 Clearly, the legal solution reached in this case of rape was for the rapist to marry his victim. The records do not indicate what Iuditta, the victim, might have thought of such a solution, or even what she felt about the entire case. There is no trace of her in the reports or the letters. What is ever-present, instead, is the matter of honor—the honor of Siena, of its magistrates, and their delegate, of the town of Sarteano and its priors and local statutes; of Agnolo’s family; of Tucci’s family; and of Iuditta’s own self, which would now be restored through marriage with her assailant. In all of this, the discourse is male while the female voice of Iuditta is completely absent.The rape of young boys Rocco from Campiglia confessed under torture that, while he was at home eating, a certain Curtio, a little boy around eight years old, entered his house and asked him for something to eat; the said Rocco grabbed him and laid him over a table and, having lifted his clothes, put his tail [penis] between the boy’s butt cheeks with the intention of knowing him carnally.The boy’s screams stopped Rocco from proceeding any further in the attempted rape. Under questioning, Rocco admitted that “he did put [his penis] between the boy’s thighs but then finished the job with his hands.”31 In light of the accusation and confession, the Captain of Justice in 1571 asked not only that the usual fine for such sodomitical activities to be levied on Rocco, but also that he be given jail time on account of “the young age of the boy.” The request for jail time may point to the Captain of Justice’s understanding of the aggravating factor in the case (the boy’s tender age) and, perhaps, to his personal feelings about it, but the bureaucratic language of the report does not allow us to delve further into the case nor to understand more fully how Rocco himself might have justified his aggression of Curtio. It does, however, point to the risks and dangers that came with child poverty (Curtio entered the house to ask for food) and the opportunistic behavior of men in the grip of sexual impulses. The charges levelled a few years earlier in 1567 against Giovanni, a man from Sinalunga, “strong and well-shaped,” were many and varied.32 The records tell that that he was “in jail, indicted for having carnally known a she-ass and also for having used the nefarious sin [sic] vice of sodomy.” He was also accused of having sodomized Salvatore, a boy of “around four or five years of age and of having broken his ass [sic] sex.” Salvatore was not the only boy Giovanni had attempted to sodomize; he had done the same to “another little boy [also named Giovanni] of the same age [as Salvatore] or a little more”, but this boy managed to run away crying. Under “rather rigorous torture,” Giovanni explained that he had found a she-ass along the way, moved her off the public road and into a scrub where, he felt the need to mount her and so, approaching her from the back, he put his member into her nature, but because she did not stop moving and grazing, after having kept it there for a little while, he pulled it out and climaxed as he did so. Giovanni also confessed to having taken little Salvatore to a vineyard where, having lifted his clothes, he directed his natural member into the boy’s ass [sic] sex, but because the boy was small he could not insert it more than two fingers, and because this was hurting the little boy, the boy started to struggle and scream so Giovanni let him go and climaxed outside, and he did not notice that he had broken the boy’s sex or caused an effusion of blood. An aunt of the little boy declared, instead, that when little Salvatore came home “the blood was running down his thighs and his ass [sic] sex was chapped.” Giovanni justified himself saying that when they were in a barn he told the child “if you come here, I will fuck you” and then added that “it is not true that he wanted to sodomize him.” The records conclude that “in line with the statutesof this city, it does not look as if Giovanni is subject to capital punishment,” even though blood had been spilled, “but we could condemn him to the galleys, with the approval” of the Governor. Aside from the various crimes listed in this deposition (bestiality, sodomy, child abuse, physical violence causing bleeding), there is an interesting idiosyncrasy in the records. The notary seems to have had second thoughts about some of the words he was using and seems to have felt compelled to attenuate the language; he did so by striking out some words and substituting them with more neutral, though still very precise, terms. As a result, “ass” became “sex” and “sin” became “vice.” While the first correction suggests an attempt to use terminology that is less vulgar or vernacular in favor of a more technical term, the second suggests the presence of a moral consideration whereby the Christian concept of “sin” is replaced by the more secular concept of “vice.” All the previous cases deal with sexual violence in the countryside or smaller towns in the region. The only case of sexual violence I have found in the city of Siena itself involved a young apprentice working in a slaughterhouse in the district of Fontebranda.33 Ascanio accused the butcher Lando, an associate of his employer Orlando, of having sodomized him in the slaughterhouse and having beaten him for resisting. Ascanio explained that it happened “in the workshop when we were going to stretch the tallow in the workshop dais” (fol. 169v). When Ascanio turned down Lando’s sexual request, Lando “took me by the arms, tore the lace off my leggings and lowered them. Then he lowered my head, came into me from behind, and did his wicked things [ poltronerie] to me, and once he had done them, he punched me twice in the back.” Ascanio told the court that he informed his employer Orlando, who in turn informed the shop boys working with Lando as well as other people. Ascanio’s accusation was, however, undermined by his own admission that he had already, on several occasions, been the passive partner in same-sex intercourse with soldiers in Montalcino and with a soldier in Siena in the service of Cornelio Bentivoglio (fol. 170v). In other words, Ascanio had previously been sexually active with other men. Perhaps for this reason Lando did not suspect at first that he had been arrested for having sodomized Ascanio, but thought, instead, that he had been arrested for having beaten him (fol. 171r). Questioned on the details of what happened in the slaughterhouse, Lando reported that perhaps Ascanio had misinterpreted his joking words “what do you think, come here I want to fuck you.” This led the judge to interrogate Ascanio once again, this time with his hands tied. The youth once again declared that “Lando started beating me and wanted to force me and he bent me over and sodomized me” (fol. 172r), but this time Ascanio added that he did not resent his having been beaten. Ascanio was then questioned a third time, this time in front of Lando, who maintained his defensive line saying: “I told him jokingly ‘come here, I want to fuck you’ because he did not want to come.” Interrogated again, Lando confirmed “I ordered him to bring the tallow and to stretch it up, but I did not do anything with him nor with anyone else” (fol. 172v). Ascanio, too, continued to affirm his own version of events pointingout that this happened not only at Lando’s slaughterhouse, but once also at Fontebranda (where Ascanio refused to go along with the attempted sodomy). When Lando kept saying that the accusation was levelled at him because of the beating he had given Ascanio, the latter asked the judge call other witnesses saying, “let the shop boys come here and they will tell you what I told you” (fol. 173r). In the end, Ascanio’s situation became quite complicated as he paradoxically changed from being the accuser to being the accused. He was jailed (allegedly on charges of sodomy), but on 25 December, in celebration of the Nativity, he was pardoned and released “by decree of the lords” (fol. 173r).34 Several factors worked against Ascanio. His position as an apprentice was perhaps too weak to sustain the charges he levelled against a master butcher such as Lando, or to raise doubts about the truth of Lando’s deposition. In a situation such as this, the court seems to have given credence to the more senior and more socially respectable individual. Similarly, the fact that Ascanio’s employer failed to support him in his case must have raised suspicions. Lastly, Ascanio’s admission of having previously engaged in same-sex intercourse with soldiers both in Siena and in Montalcino worked against him. Although Ascanio had the courage to denounce a superior for a sexual crime that was not uncommon, his social status and his previous sexual encounters with men not only placed his testimony in doubt, but actually served to find him guilty and put him in jail.The clergy and violence After Siena fell to Florentine forces the Sienese government and part of the Sienese population moved to Montalcino, a small town about 40 km due south of Siena, in a last attempt to resist the conquest and preserve the centuriesold republic. Among the volumes of deliberations that have survived from the “Republic of Siena retired in Montalcino” (Repubblica di Siena ritirata in Montalcino) there is the denunciation deposited by Mona Antilia di Andrea, a woman living in Castelnuovo dell’Abate, in which she asks for justice for her eight-yearold son who, she reports, has been “damaged” ( guasto) by the French friar Carlo who worked at the ospedale (hospital or hospice) attached to the Olivetan abbey of Sant’Antimo, in the plains just below Castelnuovo.35 The Sienese authorities summoned the friar to appear in court within three days to defend himself against the accusation that “he had had sodomitical intercourse with the said young boy and had broken his ass” (“di havere fatto culifragio”). Because the friar was French, the court decided to inform the French Marshal Blaise de Lasseran-Massencome, seigneur de Monluc, who had commanded the French troops during the defense of Siena and had then moved to Montalcino with the Sienese government and exiles. A week later, Monluc was informed that the friar had been arrested in Piancastagnaio where the podestà was told to keep the Frenchman in jail and under close surveillance until further notice. About a month later, the friar was transferred to the Franciscan convent in Montalcinowhere the friars were advised of his alleged crime, told to guard him well, and await further orders. At this point, the documents fall silent and we do not know what further ensued with Friar Carlo. We are thus left with no information on what he might have said in his defense, what further evidence the mother and the boy might have brought into consideration against him, or what the final verdict might have been. What we do have, however, is the record of a mother asking for justice against a foreign clergyman who was the subject of, and possibly defended by, a powerful foreign military figure in the region, this during a difficult moment in a war that had devastated the countryside and brought about the near-total collapse of the government and the republic. Civic and moral regulations were still in effect, but the silence of the incomplete records and the transfer of the accused friar to another convent, rather than to a city jail, seem to imply that such regulations had not been strictly applied and that the friar probably escaped justice. The Sienese government, whether in exile or not, was not the only jurisdiction to deal with sexual violence by the clergy. Ecclesiastical courts also dealt with sexual crimes, as we can see from the records in the fonds of Cause criminali housed at the Archiepiscopal Archive in Siena.36 The collection includes the precepts, that is the summons to appear in court, and some of the trial records, but once again many of the files are incomplete. In fact, in the majority of documents and final sentences issued by the archbishop’s vicar are missing, so this case can only be known in its general outlines.Menica and the priest Ser Mauro Criti One case for which we do have a complete set of documents deals with the charges levelled against the priest Ser Mauro Criti, rector of Campriano di Murlo, a hamlet 17 km south of Siena.37 According to the charges brought forth by the victim’s father, the priest used an excuse to enter the accuser’s house and, finding the man’s twelve- or thirteen-year-old daughter Menica alone at home, tried to sweet-talk her by asking her if she wanted him to buy her a pair of shoes. Aware of the priest’s intentions, Menica responded with “I want God to give you a misfortune.” Ser Mauro “then reached out for her neck and kissed her and tried to do something else, but she yelled.” Menica’s shouts were heard by Laura Pasquinetti, a nine-year-old girl who arrived just in time to see the priest leave. He pretended to throw some snow against the window, and said to Menica: “Be quiet, you little beast, I’ll buy you a pair of shoes.” Menica’s father asked that the priest be justly punished, having damaged both his and his daughter’s honor, even though he had to admit that “he could not prove the fact, except as he had told it, because when it happened there was no one else at home.” Although the evidence came from two under-age girls, Menica and Laura, the court was nonetheless obliged to pursue the case. A note signed by FilippoAndreoli, secretary of the Governor of Siena, Federico Barbolano di Montauto, laid out the guidelines the vicar was to follow: The very reverend vicar of the most reverend lord archbishop of Siena will make sure that in the states of His Highness [Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici] crimes committed by priests will not go unpunished and he will not fail to ensure that both public honesty and private interest are upheld. With this note, Andreoli was referring to the 1558 Florentine law on sexual violence and Cosimo’s determination that it be applied evenly and universally. The trial, which lasted almost a year, gathered testimonies not only from the two girls who had been ocular witnesses, but also from many other people, and brought to light the fact that the priest was no saint. At first, the interrogation of Ser Mauro revolved around what he did that day. His responses claimed that his conduct had not been socially improper—he said that when he called at the house and realized that no adult was present he simply went away (fol. 4v). He stubbornly denied having thrown snow at the window, but admitted to having thrown snow elsewhere that day, as confirmed by other witnesses. Brought in for questioning once again, this time with Menica in the room, Ser Mauro reacted with surprise and fear at seeing the girl (fol. 13r), who accused him without fear. From the examination of other witnesses, the vicar learned that Ser Mauro had also been physically and sexually violent with Caterina, a young girl about fourteen years old, unmarried, who had been brought up by a certain Bernardino. According to testimony, Ser Mauro had “misled and kidnaped Caterina [. . .] brought her to his house, where he kept her for several weeks, raping her and using her contrary to the law [contra forma iuris]” (fol. 23v). He also sought to take advantage of Hieronima, the servant of a priest who had previously been stationed in Campriano. Ser Mauro asked her to wash his clothes in exchange for his giving lessons to one of her sons and then added that he would “give her more affection than the other priest”, and this contrary to the law [contra forma iuris] (fol. 23v). Other witnesses reported that the priest was a confirmed card player and always had with him a deck of cards “that he says is a present from a beautiful girl” (fol. 30v). Ser Mauro denied everything, even under torture, but was found guilty nonetheless and fined 100 lire, removed from his church in Campriano, and confined in Siena for two years.Filippo and the presbyter Ser Cristofano Another case heard by the bishop’s court in Grosseto deals with a mother who brought charges against a priest who had raped her son. Monna Caterina, a thirty-year-old widow living in Campagnatico, in the outskirts of Grosseto, reported that the presbyter Ser Cristofano “has raped my little son Filippo.”38 The narrative she provides illustrates a mother’s care and a young victim’s shame. “For the past year I have sent my Filippo to his [Ser Cristofano’s] school andone evening when he came back one I noticed he was unhappy and very sad.” Caterina asked what was going on, but Filippo refused to answer. Later that evening, when she was “undressing him to put him in bed, I saw his shirt very bloody and I asked him what blood was this.” Filippo confessed that on that day, the priest had called him in his bedroom and had given him a book and he had approached him and while he pretended to teach him, he did that horrible thing on the back, and because the little boy yelled, he hit him few times. Ser Cristofano threatened the boy not to reveal anything to me nor to someone else and so, “looking carefully at the boy, I saw that he had hurt him and had broken his ass and so I decided he would not attend school anymore.” In her testimony, Caterina also reported that she heard that Ser Cristofano had raped “Monna Lena, a widow at that time” and that rumor went around the entire countryside that “he torn her behind.” But what troubled Caterina more was that she and Ser Cristofano were cousins39 —presumably, she did not understand the reason behind his “bad behavior” against his twelve-year-old nephew Filippo. When the bishop’s vicar interrogated young Filippo, the story matched closely with what his mother had reported. Both accounts pointed to a familiar closeness and confidence that the presbyter had showered on Filippo in order to sodomize him. Filippo recounted: I know Ser Cristofano of Ventura, the priest in Campagnatico and my kin, and I attended his school for a year or perhaps more and one evening, after the other pupils had left, I remained there to serve him at dinner and after he had dined he stood up and he went to sit on a chair in his bedroom and he called me. After I made the bed, we went back and he sat again on the same chair. Then he gave me an illustrated book and he put me between his legs: he untied my pants and lifted up my shirt and put his thing into my ass and caused me pain. I started to scream and asked him to let me go, but he was holding me and he was thrashing and kept telling me “be quiet, be quiet” and he closed my mouth so I could not scream and he put his thing into my ass and then he let me go. I went home and, along the way, I could not walk because he hurt me in the ass and I was bleeding and I went to bed and my mother saw my shirt and I think she believed it was scabies because at that time I had it, and then I told her: and she did not want me to go to school again and I did not go anymore. In response to a direct question, Filippo answered, “I never saw nor do I know whether Ser Cristofano did something like this to any other student.”40 Family relation was the justification Ser Cristofano used to keep Filippo back, have him serve dinner, and make the bed. Once there, he used the “illustrated book” to entice the boy enough to sodomize him, counting on the fact that Caterina, as a widow, did not have a husband to defend the family or take action against the presbyter, whose social and cultural position in town served, in part, to protect him.Reading the document with modern eyes, we note Caterina’s maternal sensitivity: she immediately realized that Filippo was unhappy and hiding something. Her understanding of her son and her emotional connection with him were strong and deep. She also had aspirations for her son, enough to send him to be educated by a learned relative who might open doors in life for the boy. In spite of this, Caterina was not about to accept her cousin’s violence against her son and reacted quickly and with determination: “I did not want him to go to his school anymore” she told the vicar’s notary, and then, perhaps to temper her rage, added “I consider him [Ser Cristofano]   wicked man [tristo]41 because he raped my little boy Filippo.” Although Filippo was about twelve years old at the time, Caterina referred to him as a citto (little boy), using a typically vague term for a child that could be adapted to the legal necessities of the moment—in her eyes, Filippo was an innocent child and not a possibly compliant youth. In fact, the records do point to Filippo’s physical weakness and to his inability to deal forcefully enough with the situation to avoid the rape—caught by surprise, he reacted strongly and screamed, but to no avail because the priest’s adult strength, his shutting Filippo’s mouth to prevent the boy from screaming, and his repeated command to the boy to “be quiet” while he raped him all contributed to overpower and subdue Filippo. The consequences of the priest’s violence were not only physical—lacerations, bleeding, pain—but also psychological—the boy’s depression and silence on his return home. While in cases of anal rape in Venice, the authorities, already in the fifteenth century, sought the help of surgeons and barbers to examine and report on the lesions and physical damage done to the victim’s body,42 this was not the case in Siena. There is no trace of such provisions in the surviving statutes of the Sienese barber surgeons’ guild.43 The only reference I have found to an obligation to report on wounded persons is a decree signed Governor Ferdinando Barbolani di Montauto, which refers to wounds in a general way, and not to wounds specifically caused by sexual violence or sodomy.44 In a case of some years later, a certain Arcangelo charged the chaplain Ser Andrea with having sodomized his eight-year-old son Sabbatino, who had been a boarding student in the chaplain’s school, and with having threatened him (Arcangelo) with a weapon.45 Arcangelo reported that “one night, while sleeping in bed with Sabbatino, Ser Andrea sodomized him forcibly and against Sabbatino’s will, so that he broke his ass and then abandoned him.” As he was being raped, the young boy screamed and was heard by a neighbor. The physical damage done to Sabbatino was such that he could not walk. Archangelo heard of this from a local miller who presumably heard the news through the small talk of the neighbors, and went to the chaplain’s house to get his son and take him home. A few days later, Arcangelo went to pick Sabbatino’s things, but the chaplain refused to return them. In front of other people, the chaplain threatened Arcangelo with a hatchet while “another man who is in his house took an harquebus.” Ser Andrea’s violent behavior was not limited to Sabbatino:Arcangelo reported that “he has sodomized four more little boys,” among them two of the miller’s sons.Conclusion The case studies presented in this essay point to a much larger corpus of documents dealing with legal cases against perpetrators of crimes of sexual violence. A first observation we might draw from the evidence presented is that, ten years after the publication and implementation of the 1558 Florentine law against sexual violence, cases were still being handled with leniency towards the accused—at least in Sienese territory. In spite of mounting evidence that included precise and detailed information from the victims, supporting evidence from eye-witnesses and other people, and in spite of the use of torture (in a few cases) to extract further information or confirm previously given information, alleged culprits seem generally to have received lenient sentences that spared their life. What is also striking is that all defendants denied the allegations raised against them, even under torture. In their defense, the accused used standard diversion tactics in order to have the case dismissed or the penalty reduced. This included suggesting that the children’s allegations were reliable because of their young age, or the fact that the children may have been prompted by others to say things that were not true, or that they had been instructed on what to say in order to build a case against the accused. Was this sexual violence against minors “normal” at the time? To modern eyes, the cases and evidence presented here may seem extreme and even unbelievable, and some contemporaries probably felt the same way. Yet, as Ottavia Niccoli reminds us, we must not imagine a constant in “human nature” that might allow us to apply our criteria, our sensibility, our perceptions to people who lived five or six hundred years ago, except in very general terms. The mental frame of our ancestors was, in fact, and at least under some aspects, very different from ours.46 We can observe that those mothers, fathers, and relatives who sought justice for their victimized children did so without fear of the court, or public opinion, or the bureaucratic lengths of time the process would entail. We can also note how local communities were not sympathetic towards people in positions of authority who behaved in improper ways towards the young people they were supposed to educate, defend, and protect. The Sienese evidence suggest that these cases, unlike those in Florence or Venice, were not about voluntary choices.47 These were not cases of same-sex consensual sodomy or prostitution for profit. These were violent acts perpetrated by men in power over young people who could not defend themselves. As Patricia Labalme aptly said, “although there is herein much to pity and much toprotest, this is a story without a moral.”48 The evidence from the Sienese records points to the same conclusion.Notes 1 Di Simplicio, “La criminalità.” For the later period, Di Simplicio, Peccato penitenza perdono. 2 For the case of violent behavior in Bologna see Niccoli, Il seme della violenza. 3 Archivio di Stato di Siena (hereafter ASSi), Guida Inventario, 105, 119–23. 4 Ibid., 105. 5 Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, vol. IV, 120. 6 ASSi, Guida Inventario, 121. 7 Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, vol. IV, 120. 8 ASSi, Guida Inventario, 123. 9 Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, vol. IV, 117. 10 For social aspects, see Rocke, Forbidden Friendships. For statistical aspects, see Zorzi, “The Judicial System.” 11 Ascheri, ed., L’ultimo statuto, III. 76 “De poena adulterii, stupri et raptus,” 315. 12 Brackett, Criminal Justice, 111. 13 Ascheri, ed., L’ultimo statuto, III. 79 “De poena sogdomitarum,” 316. 14 Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, Archivio di Stato di Firenze (hereafter ASFi), Mediceo del Principato (hereafter MdP) 1869, fol. 13r (February 16, 1559). 17 Giansante, “Camaiani Onofrio.” 18 ASFi, MdP 1869, fol. 27r. 19 It may be possible that she is “domina Francisca relicta quondam Michelagnoli Iacobi de Belforte” with whom Terenzio had disagreements for some quantities of wheat, ASSi, Curia del Placito 750, not foliated. He does not appear in ASSi, Ms A 33, fol. 305r (battezzati), a compilation of baptismal records from church registers in the Baptistery and civic records in the office of the Biccherna. 21 ASSi, Ms A 39, fol. 203r (riseduti). 22 ASFi, MdP 1869, fol. 21bisr. 23 ASSi, Notarile ante cosimiano 99, not foliated. Pietro was also legum doctor. 24 ASSi, Concistoro 2453 ad datam (April 18, 1554). 25 ASSi, Capitano di giustizia 645, fols. 17r–19r (August 1570). 26 ASSi, Repubblica di Siena ritirata in Montalcino 63, passim (1557). 27 ASSi, Biccherna 1127, fol. 24v (1544); ASSi, Capitano di giustizia 645, fol. 94r–v (July 1571). 28 ASSi, Governatore 436, fol. 86r–v (June 28, 1571). 29 ASSi, Concistoro 2081, not foliated (March 20–24 1524). 30 ASSi, Concistoro 2080, not foliated (April 26, 1524). 31 ASSi, Capitano di giustizia 645, fol. 78r–v (May 29, 1571). 32 ASSi, Capitano di giustizia 611, fols. 138v–139r (April 8, 1567). 33 ASSi, Capitano di giustizia 150, fols. 169v–173r (November 2, 1555). 34 It was common custom to free some prisoners during the most important religious celebrations. 35 ASSi, Repubblica di Siena ritirata in Montalcino 5, not numbered Archivio Arcivescovile di Siena (hereafter AASi), L’Archivio Arcivescovile di Siena, ed. G. Catoni and S. Fineschi (Rome: 1970). 37 AASi, Cause criminali 5509, insert 3 (January 23–December 6, 1569). 38 AASi, Cause criminali 5502, insert 4 (May 5–September 1, 1552). 39 “To me he is a cousin brother” (“a me è fratello consobrino”), that is, a cousin born to a sister of Caterina’s mother.40 “For a similar case, see Marcello, “Società maschile e sodomia.” 41 The Treccani Italian vocabulary defines as tristo a person who has a bad attitude. 42 In 1467 the Council of Ten issued a law that obliged doctors to report “anyone treated for damages resulting from anal intercourse”; see Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros, 117. 43 ASSi, Arti 37 (1593–1776). 44 ASSi, Statuti di Siena 64, fol. 72r. 45 AASi, Cause criminali 5504, insert 4 (February 19–March 5, 1559). 46 “Non dobbiamo immaginare una costanza della ‘natura umana’ che ci consenta di applicare i nostri criteri, la nostra sensibilità, la nostra attitudine percettiva a chi è vissuto cinque o seicento annifa, se non in termini generalissimi. L’attrezzatura mentale di quei nostri antenati era infatti, almeno sotto alcuni aspetti, molto differente dalla nostra.” Niccoli, Vedere, vii. 47 For Florence, see Rocke, “Il fanciullo” and Rocke, Forbidden Friendships. For Venice and the Veneto see Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros. 48 Labalme, “Sodomy,” 217.Bibliography Archival sources Archivio Arcivescovile di Siena (AASi) Cause criminali 5502 and 5509 L’Archivio Arcivescovile di Siena. Edited by G. Catoni and S. Fineschi. Rome: 1970. Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASFi) Mediceo del Principato (MdP) 1869 Archivio di Stato di Siena (ASSi) Arti 37 Biccherna 1127 Capitano di giustizia 150, 611, and 645 Cause criminali 5504 Concistoro 2080, 2081, and 2453 Curia del Placito 750 Governatore 436 Guida Inventario. Rome: 1994. Manuscript A 33 and 39 Notarile ante cosimiano 99 Repubblica di Siena ritirata in Montalcino 5 and 63 Statuti di Siena 64Published sources Ascheri, Mario, ed. L’ultimo statuto della Repubblica di Siena (1545). Siena: Accademia senese degli Intronati, 1993. Brackett, John K. Criminal Justice and Crime in Late Renaissance Florence, 1537–1609. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Cantini, Lorenzo. Legislazione Toscana. Volume 1, 3, and 4. Florence: nella stamperia Albizziniana, 1800. Di Simplicio, Oscar. “La criminalità a Siena (1561–1808): Problemi di ricerca.” Quaderni Storici Peccato penitenza perdono, Siena 1575–1800: La formazione della coscienza nell’Italia moderna. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1994.Giansante, Mirella. “Camaiani Onofrio.” In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 17, 1974. Labalme, Patricia. “Sodomy and Venetian Justice in the Renaissance.” Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis  Marcello, Luciano. “Società maschile e sodomia: Dal declino della ‘polis’ al Principato.” Archivio Storico Italiano 150 (1992), 115–38. Niccoli, Ottavia. Il seme della violenza: Putti, fanciulli e mammoli nell’Italia tra Cinque e Seicento. Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1995. ———. Vedere con gli occhi del cuore: Alle origini del potere delle immagini. Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2011. Rocke, Michael. Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. ———. “Il fanciullo e il sodomita: pederastia, cultura maschile e vita civile nella Firenze del Quattrocento.” In Infanzie: Funzioni di un gruppo liminale dal mondo classico all’Età moderna. Edited by Ottavia Niccoli, 210–30. Florence: Ponte alle Grazie, 1993. Ruggiero, Guido. The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crimes and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Zorzi, Andrea. “The Judicial System in Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.” In Crime, Society and the Law in Renaissance Italy. Edited by Trevor Dean and K.J.P. Lowe, 40–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Residence, community, and the sex trade in early modern Bologna Vanessa McCarthy and Nicholas TerpstraEarly seventeenth-century Bologna was unique for its relatively tolerant legislation on female prostitution. Rome, Florence, and Venice required meretrici (prostitutes) and donne inhoneste (dishonest women) to inhabit designated areas and streets. Romans settled on the large area of Campo Marzio for their residence, Venetians ordered women to reside in the old medieval civic brothel known as the Castelletto near the city’s commercial center, the Rialto, and Florentines designated a few streets located in the poorest areas of each city quarter.1 Segregation was motivated by concerns about morality as well as the more pragmatic issues of civic disorder, noise, an  policing. Containment protected sacred spaces and pious inhabitants from the immorality and disruption of prostitutes and their clients and made it easier for authorities to locate and arrest violators, thereby increasing order as well as the fees and fines collected.2 By contrast, Bologna permitted registered prostitutes to live across the city, and the records of its prostitution magistracy demonstrates that they did. The extant annual registers provide a rare opportunity to map where hundreds of registered prostitutes lived in the city, and to trace individual women’s movements. Only about half lived on streets with ten or more prostitutes, and very few dwelt on streets with twenty or more. Consequently, most Bolognese could count prostitutes and dishonest women as near neighbors, and for many laboring-poor, prostitution and prostitutes per se were not a serious problem.3 Regulation and enforcement in Bologna show that secular and religious civic authorities and the general populace approached prostitution primarily as an issue of economics and public order, and only secondarily as an issue of morality and public decorum. Due to the city’s economic reliance on university students, civic authorities had long regulated prostitution as a commercial issue and prostitutes as fee- and fine-paying workers governed by a civic magistracy known as the Ufficio delle Bollette (Office of Receipts). Established in 1376, theBollette registered “Foreigners, Jews, and Whores” (Forestiere, Hebrei, et Meretrici ). After having tried civic brothels and sumptuary regulations in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and residential zones in 1514 and 1525, Bolognese civic authorities of the later sixteenth century bucked prevailing trends with comparatively relaxed legislation that underscored the connections between prostitutes, Jews, and foreigners as coherent communities living and working in the local body social while remaining legally outside the body politic.4 The Bollette’s officials and functionaries negotiated between legislation, their own interests, and the needs of individual prostitutes when enforcing regulation. The hundreds of women who registered annually as prostitutes were integrated into local communities through residence and through familial, work, and affective relationships, and had greater opportunities for agency than broader cultural, religious, and social ideals would lead us to expect. There were bumps on the road to this more relaxed regime. In the late 1560s, the Tridentine reforming Bishop Gabriele Paleotti attempted to separate prostitutes and other dishonest women from most of Bolognese society through residential confinement. Citing the desire “to restrain their wickedness and uncontrolled freedoms of life” and to stop them from polluting others with their “filth,” Paleotti and the papal legate published three decrees that ordered all prostitutes, courtesans, and female procurers to live in a handful of specific city streets. Yet Paleotti was overstepping his jurisdiction. His ambitious reforms failed within eighteen months, and by 1571 the civic government had regained exclusive control over regulation.5 It returned to the more tolerant strategy employed before the bishop’s intervention: all prostitutes and dishonest women were required to register and purchase moderately priced licenses from the Bollette, but they were neither required to wear distinguishing signs nor to live in assigned streets or areas. They were free to live throughout the city. Scholars of Roman, Venetian, Milanese, and Florentine prostitution have tracked the contrasts between strict legislation and lax prosecution. Prostitutes regularly lived outside of designated streets and areas, sometimes thanks to exemptions sold by the magistrates.6 Yet these cities kept their stricter legal regimes on the books. What was distinct about a city that largely abandoned that regime? This essay examines the residential and social integration of prostitutes in Bologna’s neighborhoods. It first maps their distribution across the city in order to examine how far residential “freedom” extended in practice. While about half of registered prostitutes clustered on sixteen specific streets, the other half lived on eighty-five other streets with ten or fewer other prostitutes. It then reviews registrants’ sometimes complex and contested relationships with family, clients, lovers, friends, and neighbors using evidence recorded in the annual registers and testimonies given to the Bollette’s officials. Most were integrated into local networks through the familial, affective, and working relationships they had with other local men and women, and they gave and received support and companionship. Finally, it examines late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century proclamations forbidding prostitutes from residing in specific city streets. Thesedecrees ref lect the civic government’s pragmatism: they were issued in response to the specific complaints of powerful convents, churches, and schools located in areas with large prostitute populations. Trial records, cultural sources, and recent scholarship on gossip and visibility shows that most neighbors were aware of what these women did and that they were not troubled by it. What they did find troubling were the displays of wealth by individual women, the noise and disorder that some brought to their neighborhoods, and instances where neighbors lost control over their communities. The Bollette provided a vehicle for handling these complaints without criminalizing the prostitutes. Taken together, the residential and legal evidence demonstrates that prostitutes lived in most workingpoor neighborhoods of early modern Bologna and that they were largely tolerated as a fact of life.The geography of early modern Bolognese prostitution The majority of registered prostitutes lived in the area between the second and third sets of city walls (see Figure 4.1), the “inner suburbs” where the urban poor typically clustered in Italian cities.7 Only a handful of prostitutes lived near the city center, usually on short alleys hidden behind larger publicFIGURE 4.1Agostino Carracci, Bononia docet mater studiorum, 1581.56buildings that had been licensed for prostitution in earlier centuries.8 The civic brothel noted in the 1462 Bollette regulations had been immediately south-west of the Piazza Maggiore and civic basilica of San Petronio, and some prostitutes worked by particular gates and markets, but from the sixteenth century Bolognese meretrici moved to houses across the low-rent inner suburbs.9 Table 4.1 charts the number and percentage of registrants who lived in each quarter. The quarters differed in size and population as Figure 4.1 shows, and the larger quarters of Porta Procola and Porta Piera housed more prostitutes. Few lived by the north-western city wall in Porta Stiera, which appear on Agostino Carracci’s 1581 map (reproduced here) as dominated by fields.10 The sharp rise and fall in the number of women registering demonstrate the inconsistencies of early modern bureaucracy, with total numbers increasing by 327 from 1584 and 1604 (from 284 to 611) and then plummeting by 466 between 1604 and 1624 (from 611 to 165). Lucia Ferrante has argued that in 1604 the Bollette was operating with unusual efficiency, and perhaps even over-zealously.11 The f luctuations tell us more about where the Bollette concentrated its work than about where all the prostitutes and dishonest women actually lived. Charting residence by quarter demonstrates that prostitutes spread themselves fairly evenly throughout the outskirts of the city, and across each quarter. In 1604, registrants lived on at least 102 streets, yet only eight streets had twenty or more women, and only eight were home to ten to nineteen women (see Table 4.2). A few streets housed larger numbers, like Borgo Nuovo di San Felice, in the western quarter of Stiera by the city wall, and Campo di Bovi, located by the eastern city wall in the quarter of Porta Piera.12 Women also clustered in the ghetto after the Jews were expelled from the Papal States for a final time in 1592.TABLE 4.1 Residence of registered prostitutes in Bologna’s quarters1584Porta Piera Porta Procola Porta Ravennate Porta Stiera Total16041624Number of resident prostitutesPercent of total registrantsNumber of resident prostitutesPercent of total registrantsNumber of resident prostitutesPercent of total registrants. This table includes only those women with identifiable addresses. In 1584, this was 88% of all registrants (250 of 284 total registrants), in 1604 it was 91.8% (561 of 611), and in 1624 it was 92.7% (153 of 165). Sources: Campione delle Meretrici 1584, 1604, 1624.The sex trade in early modern Bologna 57 TABLE 4.2 Streets with ten or more resident prostitutes in 1604, by quarterQuarter of Porta PieraQuarter of Porta ProcolaQuarter of Porta StieraCampo di Bovi: 36Senzanome: 36Jewish Ghetto: 21Frassinago: 21Borgo Nuovo di Fondazza: 29 San Felice: 47 San Felice by the Broccaindosso: 10 gate: 13 Avesella: 10Borgo di S. Giacomo: 20 Borgo di Santa Caterina di Saragozza: 21 Torleone: 18 Borgo degli Arienti: 14 Borgo di San Marino: 17 Bràina di stra San Donato: 13 Gattamarza: 13Quarter of Porta RavennateSource: Campione delle Meretrici 1604.This was an ironic reversal of the situation in Florence, where the ghetto was deliberately located within the old brothel precinct in 1571.13 In 1604, twentyone women lived in this area. Most streets in Bologna’s inner suburbs numbered only a few prostitutes. In 1604, 84 percent (86 of 102) of the streets on which they registered housed nine or fewer prostitutes, and these women accounted for almost half of all registrants that year (44 percent). Further, 66 percent (68 of the 102 streets) housed five or fewer. Consequently, many of these women lived on streets that were not dominated by prostitutes. A typical example of this is the south-western corner of the city (see Figure 4.2). In 1604, three of the area’s streets were heavily populated by prostitutes: Senzanome housed 36, Frassinago housed 21, and Borgo di Santa Caterina di Saragozza housed twenty-one. However, the majority of the neighborhood’s streets had five or fewer resident prostitutes and dishonest women: five women lived on Altaseda, four on Nosadella, and three on Capramozza. The surrounding streets of Bocca di lupo, Belvedere di Saragozza, Borgo Riccio, and Malpertuso had two or fewer. On these streets prostitutes mixed with day-laborers, artisans, and merchants. They rented rooms from pork butchers and shoemakers, lived in inns, and resided next to potters.14 These were their immediate neighbors, separated only by the porous boundaries of walls, stairways, doorways, and windows where they had frequent day-to-day interactions.15 Like other working-poor women, they were not confined to the streets that they lived on, but could and did move through the surrounding area buying food, engaging in chores, finding work, visiting friends, and going to the Bollette to buy their licenses.16 As Elizabeth S. Cohen writes, prostitutes were both “seen and known” in their neighborhoods.FIGURE 4.2Agostino Carracci, Bononia docet mater studiorum, 1581.Networks, neighborhoods, and communities The Bollette’s records reveal prostitutes’ affective social and familial circles. Some women were registered as living in their mother’s, sister’s, and (more rarely) cousin’s homes, while other women’s female kin, housemates, lovers, and servants bought their licenses. Notaries did not consistently record such details, making quantitative analysis difficult.17 While men regularly appear in the registers paying for licenses, the specifics of their relationships with the women were almost never recorded. The Bollette’s records, particularly testimonies in cases of debt against clients and long-term partners, provide rich information aboutThe sex trade in early modern Bologna 59women’s familial, social, and work relationships. However, the tribunal devoted more effort to investigating unregistered women suspected of prostitution, than to the hundreds of women who had bought licenses. The Bolognese evidence can be placed in the context of evidence from other northern Italian cities demonstrating how prostitutes were surrounded by family, housemates, and allies. In early seventeenth century Venice, three-quarters of 213 prostitutes noted in a census lived with other people. Most headed their own households, but some were boarders or lived with their mothers. The majority of those who headed households sheltered dependent female kin, children, and a variety of unmarried women, including servants and other prostitutes. A few heads of households (6 percent) lived with men, who were either their intimates or boarders.18 Roman parish censuses from 1600 to 1621 show similar cohabitation patterns: 47 percent of prostitutes lived with at least one family member, mostly children but also siblings, nieces and nephews, and widowed mothers.19 Everyone within the household economy benefitted from the income and goods earned by these women. Bologna’s registers give examples of sisters as registered prostitutes, like Dorotea di Savi, called “Saltamingroppa” (literally “Jump on my behind”) and her sister Benedetta, who lived together with their servant Gentile on Broccaindosso.20 Similarly, Margareta and Francesca Trevisana, both nicknamed “La Solfanella” (“The Matchstick”), lived together on Borgo di Santa Caterina di Saragozza for eight years. While Francesca registered annually, Margareta did so only in 1602, 1604, and 1605.21 Before registering, Margareta likely enjoyed the income that her sister earned through prostitution and may have assisted in preparing for and entertaining clients. The Bollette suspected that she had, and so launched an investigation against her when she became pregnant in 1601.22 Mothers and daughters also lived and worked together, like Lucia di Spoloni and her daughter Francesca, who lived on San Mamolo by the old civic brothel area, and Anna Spisana and her mother Lucia, who lived together on Borgo degli Arienti.23 In 1604, Domenica di Loli bought licenses for her daughters Francesca and Margareta, and all three lived just south of the church and monastery of San Domenico on Borgo degli Arienti. Francesca had lived on the street since at least 1600, and while she was no longer registering in 1609, her sister still was. Margareta continued to live on Borgo degli Arienti until 1614, perhaps with her mother and sister.24 Prostitutes often lived together in rented rooms, small apartments, and inns. Residential clustering was not uncommon for unmarried women, who shared the costs of running a household through lace making, street-peddling, prostitution, and laundering.25 The largest could count as brothels, though there were relatively few of them. In 1583, twenty-one dishonest women lived in the house of Gradello on Bologna’s heavily populated Borgo Nuovo di San Felice, by the eastern wall. Yet while registrations climbed in the 1580s, the group at Gradello’s shrank to fourteen women in 1584, and eleven in 1588.26 Moreover no other large houses appeared through this period. In 1604, the street with mostregistrations was Borgo Nuovo di San Felice, with forty-seven women, and the largest single group was thirteen who gathered in the house of Lucrezia Basilia, while the rest had five or fewer.27 On the second and third most populated streets, Campo di Bovi and Senzanome, no house had more than six registered prostitutes living in it.28 These larger clusters were often inns, where prostitutes benefitted from the presence of other women and the protection of innkeepers. Inns popular with prostitutes included those of Matteo the innkeeper (“osto”) on Frassinago and of Angelo Senso on Pratello. Seven registered women lived at Matteo’s inn in 1589, and ten lived in Angelo’s inn in 1597.29 Few women stayed at inns for more than a year and most registered without surnames, but instead with reference to a town, city, or region, like Flaminia from Ancona (“Anconitana”), Francesca from Fano (“da Fano”), and Ludovica from Modena (“Modenesa”) who lived at Matteo’s place in 1598. These could have been recent migrants or women identifying by parents’ origins or using pseudonyms. The inns and brothels helped them build social networks as they secured places of their own. Yet, it was more common for women to live with one or two other prostitutes in rented rooms and small apartments. In 1597, Lucia Colieva lived with Elisabetta di Negri on Borgo di San Martino, and the following year she joined another registered prostitute, Vittoria Fiorentina, on Senzanome.30 Similarly, in 1601 Isabella Rosetti, Giulia Bignardina, and Cassandra di Campi all lived together in Isabella’s home on Frassinago. A year later Giulia had died and Cassandra was no longer registered.31 For just under ten years, Madonna Ginevra Caretta, who was unregistered, managed a small apartment where six to eight registered prostitutes lived.32 Unlike Bologna’s inns and taverns, Ginevra’s household was mobile, moving across town and back again over the years it operated. In 1588 it was located on Saragozza, in the south-western corner of the city, and the next year it moved to San Colombano in the northwest quarter of Stiera. At least one woman, Lena Fiorentina, followed Ginevra to the new street, where she remained for almost a decade before moving to Paglia.33 A few of the prostitutes lived with Ginevra for years, like Pelegrina di Tarozzi, who stayed for four years, and Chiara Mantuana, for three.34 Domenica Cavedagna, registered for thirteen years (1597–1609), ran a house on Centotrecento and then on Bràina di stra San Donato.35 Seven other prostitutes lived with her in 1604, and a year later three had left but six new women had moved in. A few stayed with her for four or five years.36 The Bollette’s registers explain why some of the women moved out of the homes run by women like Ginevra Caretta and Domenica Cavedagna. Some entered service (either domestic, sexual, or both) while others moved to different streets or left Bologna entirely to try their luck elsewhere.37 While living with other prostitutes could bring economic, professional, and even personal security, it could also bring personal rifts or increased attention from the police (sbirri ), who saw these homes as easy targets for making arrests. Men interacted with registered prostitutes as occasional clients, long-term amici, absentee husbands, jealous lovers, and as acquaintances, if not friends.Single women, whether unmarried or widowed, were financially and socially vulnerable, subject to sexual slander, to charges of magic and sorcery, and to general suspicion by neighbors and authorities alike.38 Relationships with men afforded them a degree of protection from the financial and social marginalization they experienced because of their gender, economic status, and work, and so women turned to them not just for income and companionship but also for a measure of protection. The civic government had always prohibited married women from prostituting themselves, since by doing so they committed adultery. The 1462 statutes ordered whipping and expulsion for the women, and fines of 100 lire for officials who looked the other way.39 Women living with husbands could not register with the Bollette, though abandoned wives sometimes could. Francesca di Galianti claimed that her husband Bartolomeo di Grandi went to war three or four years previously, leaving her with a three-year-old daughter to feed. She had since given birth to a daughter with a cloth worker Giovanni, with whom she had been living for about a year “to make the expenses.”40 For the Bollette, the question of whether abandoned women like Francesca could and should register was a practical one since women who registered were women who paid fees. These women appealed to the sympathy of Bollette officials by claiming that they were married but had not seen their husbands in many years, leaving unanswered the question of whether their husbands were alive or dead. This ambiguity about the ultimate fate of their husbands would have freed them from charges of adultery at the archbishop’s tribunal (if the husband was alive) while at the same time freeing them from registration with the Bollette (if he were dead). Francesca did not state whether she thought her husband was dead or alive, and ultimately a kinsmen Vincenzo Dainesi swore that he would ensure she left her “wicked life” (“mala vita”) and take her into his home to live with him and his wife.41 The officials were satisfied with this, and so Francesca remained unfined and unregistered. In 1586, Vice Legate Domenico Toschi authorized police to seize “all married women who do not live with their husbands” caught at night in bed with their lovers (amatiis).42 Archbishop Gabriele Paleotti believed such women were clearly committing adultery, and Pope Sixtus V’s bull Ad compascendum (1586) ordered that any married person whose spouse was alive and had sex with another person—even if they had a separation from an ecclesiastical court —should be sentenced to death.43 Toschi’s decree was reconfirmed ten years later by the new vice legate, Annibale Rucellai, and a third time in 1614.44 If a woman returned to her husband, she was to be immediately deregistered and could not be allowed to practice prostitution. If she continued, she was no longer under the Bollette’s jurisdiction, but rather that of the archbishop. Stable relationships with men, referred to in Bologna as amici, “lovers,” or as amici fermi, “firm friends,” offered a measure of economic security for prostitutes by providing money, clothing, and food in varying amounts depending on the men’s own status.45 When Arsilia Zanetti sued Andrea di Pasulini, notary of thearchbishop’s tribunal, for compensation for their three-year sexual relationship (“amicitia carnale”), she noted he had given her three pairs of shoes, a pair of low-heeled dress slippers, and a few coins (a ducatone, half a scudo, and a piastra, a Spanish coin).46 Buying the woman’s licenses could also be part of the arrangement, as Pasulini had also done for Arsilia.47 Even though Bologna’s monthly rate of five soldi, and annual rate of three lire, was extraordinarily low—only onefifth of what Florentine prostitutes paid—this was another expense that women did not have to worry about and suggested commitment on the part of the men.48 Lovers and friends helped women in their interactions with the law. The cavalier Aloisio di Rossi had a three-year sexual relationship with Pantaselia Donina, alias di Salani, and when her landlord complained to the Bollette that she had not paid the rent, di Rossi acted as her procurator and ultimately paid the landlord.49 Other prostitutes maintained relationships with local, low-level arresting officers (sbirri); Elizabeth S. Cohen has uncovered many relationships between prostitutes and such men, noting that “the two disparaged professions often struck up alliances in which the women traded sex, companionship, and information for protection and money.”50 Such partnerships were not unusual in Bologna. In May 1583, the sbirro Pompilio registered Francesca Fiorentina as his “woman” (“femina”) and got her a six-month license for free.51 In 1624 three women registered as living in the “casa” of the Bollette’s esecutore, Pietro Benazzi, on Borgo di San Martino.52 Pietro registered Caterina Furlana on January 11, 1624 and paid for her one-month license. She was subsequently de-registered because “she went to stay in order to serve Pietro Benazzi.” When Caterina di Rossi moved out of her place on Borgo degli Arienti and into Pietro’s house, she paid for one month and never again.53 Though these Bollette functionaries could not keep these women’s names out of the registers, they could keep them from paying for licenses, even when they were most likely still living by prostitution, and may have protected them from harassment by other court officials. Male friends could also be rallied for support, particularly by women who had lived in one street or area for a substantial period of time, building reputations and financial and social ties with their neighbors. When Margareta Trevisana “The Matchstick” (Solfanella) was investigated by the Bollette in 1601, she had been living on Borgo di Santa Caterina di Strada Maggiore with her sister for at least eight years. She confessed that three years earlier she had given birth to the child of Messer Antonio Simio, a married man.54 The Bollette had investigated her then, allowing her to remain unregistered on the promise that she would reform her life and go to live with an honorable woman. She was pregnant with the child of another man and was living with her sister Francesca, a registered prostitute.55 Margareta produced statements signed by two male neighbors who described her as a good woman (“donna de bene”) the whole time they had known her, while her parish curate confirmed that she had confessed and taken communion the previous Easter.56 On further questioning by the Bollette, the priest claimed that he had known Margareta for about ten or twelve years, having first met herwhen he lived in the same house as she and her sister. He claimed not to know what kind of life Margareta led, but admitted that she appeared pregnant, and was, as far as he knew, not married. The priest’s testimony cleared her of charges of adultery, but could not save her from registration, a three-lire fine, and probation.57 In May 1602, Margareta produced statements about her “honest life and reputation” provided by two different neighbors and another curate at Santa Caterina di Saragozza, and her name was removed from the register.58 Margareta lived on the same street for ten or twelve years, had relationships with neighbors and housemates, had a sister with whom she lived, and was able to rally four male neighbors and two parish priests to support her. She and others moved amongst family, friends, long-term lovers, and occasional clients, building relationships on reciprocal, if uneven, bonds of financial, emotional, and legal support and protection. They were not just physically a part of Bologna’s working-poor neighborhoods, but also socially and affectively integrated into their communities.Bad neighbors While Bolognese civic law tolerated prostitution and permitted prostitutes to reside throughout the city, public disorder was always a concern. Decrees published by the Bolognese legate, at the request of convents, churches, confraternities, and schools, frequently lamented the dishonest words and daily and nightly reveling by prostitutes and other disreputable people.59 Men socialized in prostitutes’ homes, eating, making music, and talking.60 While some parties remained relatively quiet, others filled the neighborhood with winefueled singing, laughing, and the sounds of dancing and of fights over games of chance. The noise was intrusive, disruptive, and alarming: blasphemous words, violent acts, and sexual slander carried through windows, over walls, and into streets, squares, and other residences. Broadsheets illustrating prostitutes’ lifecycles usually included knife fights by men who discovered that “their” woman had another lover.61 Barking dogs, brawling men, and screaming women heard through f limsy walls and open windows added to the noise of crowded squares, laneways, and streets.62 Men also fought in doorways and on streets in full sight and hearing of neighbors. To reduce these disturbances, Papal Legate Bendedetto Giustiniani forbade prostitutes from throwing parties ( festini ) or “making merry” (trebbi ) in the homes of honest people, or even from eating or drinking in taverns and inns. Other decrees forbade games of chance and betting, like dice and cards.63 Lawmakers recognized that it was less the prostitutes than the men with them who were the problem. In 1602 prostitutes were forbidden from travelling through the city at night with more than three men, under fine of 100 scudi for the men and whipping for the women.64 Eight years later, Legate Giustiniani forbade prostitutes from going through the city at night with any men, under penalty of whipping for both the men and the prostitutes.65Enclosed communities of male and female religious frequently complained about the noise of prostitution. Bolognese authorities attempted general exclusionary zones around convents in the 1560s without success and so moved to proclamations expelling prostitutes and other disreputable people from specific streets; this was similar to Florence, where the streets designated for prostitution were de facto exclusionary zones around most convents.66 Between 1571 and 1630, at least fifty proclamations cleared twenty-five distinct streets in Bologna, about one-quarter of all the streets inhabited by prostitutes in 1604. Most proclamations concerned eight specific convents on the city’s outskirts, though a few male enclosures were also protected.67 All either had elite connections or were newly built, and most were near streets heavily populated by prostitutes. In 1603 Vice Legate Marsilio Landriani forbade all prostitutes, procurers, and other dishonest women from living on a cluster of streets bordering the Poor Clares’ house of Corpus Domini, established in 1456 by S. Caterina de’ Vigri, and the Dominican convent of Sant’Agnese (est. 1223), one of the city’s richest and most prestigious convents with over 100 nuns.68 Landriani’s proclamation stated that the nuns were greatly disturbed and scandalized by the daily and nightly reveling of prostitutes, procurers, and other disreputable people, the “dishonest” words that they spoke, and the wicked examples they posed.69 Prostitutes had just over a month to move out, and those found there after the deadline would be publicly whipped, while their landlords would be fined fifty gold scudi and lose their outstanding rents.70 Yet few prostitutes were actually registered on these streets.71 While registrations generally dropped dramatically in the 1610s and 1620s, these streets declined the most, with only two prostitutes remaining by 1614.72 In 1622, the expulsion was repeated almost verbatim with the addition of two neighboring streets that housed a handful of prostitutes; none remain. Concerns about pollution continued, particularly around shrines. The confraternal shrine of the Madonna della Neve was built in 1479 to shelter a miraculous image of the Virgin on the street Senzanome at the south-western corner of the city.74 Senzanome had twenty-three registered prostitutes in 1594, thirty-six in 1604, and thirty-five in 1609. Yelling, singing, mocking, and jesting disturbed the peace, interrupted the Mass and other divine offices, and forced young, unmarried girls and respectable residents to hide in their houses. Confraternal brothers repeatedly complained to the legate about the noise of Senzanome’s prostitutes and other “people who have little fear of God and his most holy mother.” 75 Between 1587 and 1621 four proclamations expelled dishonest people and prostitutes from Senzanome and around Santa Maria della Neve.76 One of 1608 threatened women caught residing or lingering in the street with a fine of ten scudi the first time, and expulsion the second time.77 Men could be fined ten scudi the first time, and another ten scudi and three lashes the second time. This proclamation even named three specific women, Giulia da Gesso, Doralice Moroni, and Ludovica Giudi, “as well as every other meretrice.” 78 A year later all three of these women were still living on Senzanome, with Doralice Moroni registeredin the house of the priest Campanino and Giulia da Gesso in the house of a priest of San Niccolo.79 Moreover, they shared the street with thirty-five other registered prostitutes. Yet the prostitutes gradually did move away, and in 1614 and 1624, only two women registered on Senzanome.80 The Legate’s 1621 decree ordered dishonorable people living on Senzanome to move to Frassinago, to Borgo Novo, or to “another street appointed to similar people” where there were no convents, churches, or oratories.81 Neighbors had direct, day-to-day contact with prostitutes and knew details about their lives. Gossip—the sharing of local and extra local information— typified neighborhoods and formed the basis of community self-regulation.82 People constantly watched and listened to their neighbors from the streets, in doorways, through windows, on balconies, and through f limsy walls.83 Early modern prostitution was public and visible. Michel de Montaigne remarked that prostitutes sat at their widows and leaned out of them, while others observed that the women promenaded proudly through the streets.84 In his Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo (1616), Tommaso Garzoni described how prostitutes worked to catch men’s eyes while sitting at their widows, gesturing and bantering with them.85 Some called attention to themselves by wearing brightly colored gowns with ostentatious decorations and jewels on their fingers and at their necks.86 Contemporary Italian broadsheets depict women sitting at their widows and in their doorways while older women act as go-betweens.87 Bollette testimonies show that Bolognese knew a great deal about the prostitutes who were their neighbors. Witnesses often claimed that they had seen women going through the streets or into buildings and apartments with men. In 1601, Caterina Marema told that when she lived in the same casa as Lucrezia Buonacasa, she frequently saw the tailor Gian Domenico Sesto come to stay and sleep with her.88 Others saw more intimate behavior, like Bartolomea, daughter of Antonio di Miani, who claimed that she knew her neighbors Margareta and Cornelia were “meretrici” because she saw them laughing, dancing, embracing, and kissing men. She also heard that they went to register with the Bollette.89 Still others testified more simply that “everyone in the neighborhood considers her to be a whore,” or, “everyone says that she is his whore.” Finally, some men talked with each other about their sexual relationships with women. Silvio, son of Rodrigo di Manedini, claimed that over the previous three years his friend Tarquino, a sbirro, told him repeatedly that he was “screwing” (chiavava) Lucrezia Buonacasa.90 In this case, Silvio claimed also to have first-hand knowledge of their relationship: he said that he had seen the two in bed together at Lucrezia’s house on via Paradiso and at the watch house of the sbirri. In a close knit, intensely local world like this, prostitutes and dishonest women would have been hard-pressed to keep their relationships and work a secret. In pragmatic terms, some women may not have wanted to keep their work a secret: gossip and visibility acted as advertisement and could attract better clients. Local knowledge of women’s attachments to men might also earn them a measure of respect, even if only while the relationship continued, especially ifthe man was honored locally because of his wealth or status. These relationships could bring a sort of social protection. Whether or not women or their clients and lovers made spectacles of themselves, prostitution was both seen and known. Most working-poor people were not overly scandalized by the fact that their neighbors lived by prostitution, or perhaps they had resigned themselves to living amongst them. No evidence has come to light that working-poor women and men made a concerted effort to drive prostitutes and dishonest women as a group out of their neighborhoods. Most streets on which registered prostitutes lived housed ten or fewer such women, and prostitutes may have been quieter and less given to overt public display, since they did not have to compete with each other for the attention of the men and youths who came in search of their services. With fewer women there was less of the serenading, violence, and harassment by rowdy students and drunken men that offended neighbors, and less attention from patrolling officers looking to fill their purses with rewards for arrests.91 Tessa Storey has argued that as long as Roman prostitutes maintained local order and the appearance of respectability, neighbors did not see them as an exceptional problem. A few written complaints requesting the eviction of specific prostitutes from their streets identified only the most scandalous and the loudest, on grounds that they posed bad examples by “touching men’s shameful parts and doing other extremely dishonest acts” in the streets.92 Those who were well behaved—and these were actually listed by name—were welcome to stay provided that they continued to behave. Working-poor neighbors who found the women’s work immoral or offensive or their noise and disorder overwhelming could move to one of the 100 or so other city streets that were not heavily populated by prostitutes. Even in 1604, the year when the highest number of prostitutes and dishonest women registered with the Bollette, only sixteen streets had ten or more registrants living on them, and only eight had more than twenty. At least half of all Bolognese prostitutes were more widely dispersed through the city, and this may explain why we see no concerted efforts to dispel them as a group. Beyond this, it became increasingly difficult to successfully prosecute violations like adultery or the lack of license. A 1586 order from the vice legate to the Bollette’s officials suggested that small-scale rivalries were behind too many frivolous denunciations. Henceforth, unless a woman was found in flagrante with a man, the testimonies of two neighbors of good repute and the local parish priest would be required in order to find her guilty.93Conclusion For many working-poor Bolognese men and women, living amongst prostitutes was a fact of life. Whether they respected these neighbors or not, they learned to live with them. Prostitutes and dishonest women had their places in the local kinship, social, and economic networks of their neighborhoodsand the larger city. This is not to say that they were not mocked, or that those who treated them with courtesy fully respected them. Yet while some prostitutes annoyed, overwhelmed, and frightened some neighbors with their noise, scandal, and violence, they were also the sisters, mothers, lovers, and friends of many others. Elizabeth S. Cohen has argued that “[prostitute’s] presence corresponded to an intricate engagement in the social networks of daily life. In practice, if not in theory, the prostitutes occupied an ambiguous centrality.”94 Tessa Storey suggests that restrictive legislation, especially residential confinement, elicited sympathy from Romans, who were not overly concerned about the immorality of prostitution. This was also true in Bologna, where prostitutes were far more widely distributed across the entire city. Religious authorities like Gabriele Paleotti found them immoral and disruptive, posing bad examples and needing to be separated and marginalized. Yet civic authorities and most lay people appear to have held more nuanced attitudes, engaging prostitutes in the body social and using bureaucratic registration to mediate their place in the body politic. The sources generated by the Ufficio delle Bollette in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries reveal these women operating within networks of sociability, work, and family. They demonstrate women who fit within their communities, more uneasily at sometimes than others, and who both gave and received the resources of support, companionship, and security that characterized the community-centered world of early modern Italy.Notes 1 Cohen, “Seen and Known,” 402. Hacke, Women, Sex, and Marriage, 179. Brackett, “The Florentine Onestà,” 291–92 and 296. Terpstra, “Locating the Sex Trade,” 108–24. 2 Brackett, “The Florentine Onestà,” 290–91 and 295; Cohen, “Seen and Known,” 404– 05; Storey, Carnal Commerce, 70–94; Ruggiero, Binding Passions, 48–49. 3 For expanded analysis and archival documentation, see: McCarthy, “Prostitution.” 4 Biblioteca Universitaria Bologna (hereafter BUB), ms. 373, n. 3C, 151v–152v. Terpstra, Cultures of Charity, 205–06, 329. McCarthy, “Prostitution, Community, and Civic Regulation,” 40, 54–61. 5 Archivio di Stato di Bologna (hereafter ASB), Boschi, b. 541, fol. 170v, “Bando sopra le meretrici et riforma de gli altri bandi sopra a cio fatti” (January 31 and February 1, 1568). For more on this episode and the gendered politics of social welfare reform in sixteenthcentury Bologna: Terpstra, Cultures of Charity, 19–54, 206–07. For the comparatively loose regime in the Convertite: Monson, Habitual Offenders. 6 Cohen, “Seen and Known,” 403 and 405–08; Ruggiero, Binding Passions, 49; Brackett, “The Florentine Onestà,” 292. Terpstra, “Locating the Sex Trade,” 116-21. 7 Miller, Renaissance Bologna, 16–17. Terpstra, “Sex and the Sacred.” 8 For example, Isotta Boninsegna and Giovanna di Martini. In 1604 Polonia, daughter or widow of Domenico Galina of Modena lived on Simia, while in 1614 Maria Roversi did, and Borgonzona lived there. ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549– 1796, Campione delle Meretrici (hereafter C de M) 1584, [np] “I” and “G” sections; 1604, [np] “P” section; 1614, 190; 1630, [np] “D” section. 9 This street was called variously the “via stufa della Scimmia,” the “postribolo,” or “lupanare Nuovo,” as well as the Corte dei Bulgari. Fanti, Le vie, vol. 2, 516–17. McCarthy, “Prostitution,” 20–67.10 Biblioteca Comunale di Bologna (hereafter BCB), Gabinetto disegni e stampe, “Raccolta piante e vedute della città di Bologna,” port. 1, n. 14.  mappe/14/library.html 11 Ferrante, “‘Pro mercede carnale,’” 48. 12 Borgo Nuovo di San Felice was one of the streets that Bishop Gabriele Paleotti had ordered prostitutes to live in. ASB, Boschi, b. 541, fols. 170r–171v, “Bando sopra le meretrici” (January 31 and February 1, 1568). Zanti, Nomi, 16. 13 Muzzarelli, “Ebrei a Bologna,” 862–70. 14 Francesca Ballerina rented from Giacomo the pork butcher (lardarolo) on Frassinago. Giacoma di Ferrari da Reggio, Ursina de Bertini, and Lucrezia di Grandi all lived in the house of Giovanni Pietro the shoemaker (calzolario) on Senzanome. Lucia Tagliarini lived on Frassinago in the inn of Zanino. Giovanna Querzola, alias Stuarola, lived on Nosadella between the potter (pignataro) and the shoemaker (calzolaro). C de M 1604, [np] “F”, “I”, “V”, “L”, “T”, and “G” sections, respectively. 15 Cohen and Cohen, “Open and Shut,” especially 64 and 68–69. 16 Chojnacka, Working Women; Cohen, “To Pray.” 17 For instance, in 1604, 611 women registered and only eleven mothers and four sisters were recorded as purchasing licenses for their kin. McCarthy, “Prostitution,” 220–21. 18 Of the 213 prostitutes who appeared in the censuses, one-third had children. Chojnacka, Working Women, 22–24. 19 Storey, Carnal Commerce, 128–29. On widowed mothers, 114. 20 Benedetta was listed as “sorella di Saltamingroppa.” C de M 1604, [np] “B” and “D” sections. 21 C de M 1605, 175. For Francesca, see C de M 1598, 56; 1599, 49; 1600, 68; 1601, 60; 1602, 72; 1603, 72; 1604, [np] “F” section; 1605, 86. For Margareta, see C de M 1602, 201; 1604, [np] “F” section; 1605, 175. In 1605, Margareta was deregistered when she began working as a wet nurse for the Ercolani, a senatorial family. As the register reads: “Sta per balia del 40 Hercolani.” 22 C de M 1601, 140. ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Inventionum 1601, [np] fol. 19v (June 28, 1601). 23 C de M 1584, [np] “L” section. Both were registered under Lucia’s name. C de M 1624, [np] “A” and “L” sections. 24 C de M 1600, 73; 1604, [np] “F” and “M” sections; 1609, 171; 1614, 172. Domenica was not registered. 25 Hufton, “Women without Men.” Chojnacka, Working Women, 18–19. Cohen, “Seen and Known,” 406. 26 C de M 1584 and 1588. 27 Of those who registered, almost all gave their street and residence (44 of 47). For names of co-habitants: McCarthy, “Prostitution, Community, and Civic Regulation,” 224–25. 28 A total of twenty-seven (75 percent) of the thirty-six women who lived on Campo di Bovi identified their homes: five lived in the “casa” of Messer Filippo Scranaro, and the rest lived with two or fewer other prostitutes. A total of thirty (87 percent) of the thirtyfive women who registered on Senzanome identified their homes: six lived in the “casa” of Giulia di Sarti, called l’Orba (the Blind), who was not registered, and four lived in the “casa” of Giovanni Pietro the shoemaker. Otherwise, all the rest lived with two or fewer other prostitutes. C de M 1604. 29 C de M 1589 and 1597. 30 C de M 1597, 61 and 86 respectively; C de M 1598, 95 and 142 respectively. 31 C de M 1601, 99, 78, and 176 respectively. 32 This was between 1588 and 1597. Ginevra registered once, in January 1588, when she paid for a one-month license. C de M 1588, [np] “G” section. In 1588, six registered prostitutes lived with her, in 1589 seven did, and in 1594 and 1597 eight did. C de M 1588; 1589; 1594; 1597. 33 C d M 1589, [np] “L” section; 1594, [np] “L” section. C de M 1599, 28. Ginevra was still there in 1601, when Margareta Tinarolla lived in her home. See C de M 1601, 130.34 C de M 1594, [np] “P” section; 1597, [np] “P” section. C de M 1597, [np] “C” section; C de M 1599, 28. 35 For her first registration, see C de M 1597, [np] “D” section. 36 Eg., Gentile di Sarti, C de M 1601, 79; 1605, 100, and Domenica Fioresa, C de M 1604, [np] “E” section; 1609, 66–67. 37 Lucia Fiorentina left Ginevra’s to serve in the house of a local scholar (“Signor Dottore”). C de M 1589, [np] “L” section. Diana di Sacchi Romana lived in Ginevra’s casa in January 1594, but moved twice more that year, to Borgo Polese and then to Altaseda. C de M 1594, [np] “D” section. C de M 1594, [np] “L” section, Lucia Fiorentina. It is unclear but possible that this was the same Lucia who entered service in 1589. 38 Chojnacka, “Early Modern Venice,” especially 217 and 225. McCarthy, “Prostitution,” 253–314. 39 See ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette e Presentazioni dei Forestieri, Scritture Diverse, busta 1, “Statuti,” [np] fol. 8r. 40 ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549-1796, Filza 1604, [np] “Die 21 May 1604,” fol. 1r. 41 Vincenzo is described as Francesca’s “cognatus.” Ibid., fol. 1r–v. 42 This permission was copied into the 1586 register and the 1462 illuminated statutes: C de M 1586, [np] “Z” section (28 June 1586); ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette e Presentazioni dei Forestieri, Statuti, sec. XV, codici miniati, ms. 64, 28. 43 For Paleotti’s reaction, see BUB, ms. 89, fasc. 2, Constitutiones conclilii provincialis Bonon. 1586, fol. 95v, cited in Ferrante, “La sessualità,” 993. 44 ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Filza 1601, [np] “Decreto d[e]lle bolette” (November 20, 1596); Filza 1614, [np] “Dalla letura delli statuti si cava che le Donne di vita inhonesta si possono descrivere nel campione in 4 modi” (undated). 45 John Florio defines “amico” as “a friend, also a lover.” Florio, Queen Anna’s, 24. See also Cohen, “Camilla la Magra.” 46 The suit was brought to the Bollette. ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Filza 1601, [np] “Arsilia Zanetti” (November 12, 1601). For a detailed study of Bolognese registered prostitutes who took clients to the Bollette’s tribunal for debt, see Ferrante, “‘Pro mercede carnale.’” 47 Pasulini bought her two six-month licenses in July 1598 and January 1601. Arsilia’s son, Giovanni Battista, paid for the other months. C de M 1598, 48; 1599, 3; 1600, 4; 1601, 4. 48 Archivio di Stato di Firenze (hereafter ASF), Onestà, ms 1, ff. 27r–31v. Terpstra, “Sex and the Sacred,” 77. 49 Ludovico Pizzoli, the Bollette’s esecutore, claimed that for three years Rossi had purchased her licenses because he was having a continuous sexual relationship with her even while she was having sex with other men: ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette, Filza 1606, “Cont[ra] Pantaselia Donina[m] al[ia]s de Salanis” (August 19, 1605), fol. 1r. John Florio defines “amicítia” as “amity, freindship [sic], good will.” Florio, Queen Anna’s¸ 24. The Bollette’s 1602 register confirms that Rossi paid for her licenses in person as well as giving money to Pizzoli to pay on his behalf. C de M 1601, 160; 1602, 154; 1603, 170. ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Filza 1601, “Molto Ill[ust]re et Ecc[ellen]te Sig[no] re” (May 14, 1601). 50 Cohen, “Balk Talk,” 101. 51 The record in the register does not say why it was given for free, only that Pomilio “solvet nihil.” C de M 1583, [np] “F” section. 52 These were Angelica Bellini, Caterina Furlana, and Caterina di Rossi. C de M, 1624, [np] “A” and “C” sections. 53 Both in Ibid., [np] “C” section. 54 This was according to the curate of her parish church. ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549– 1796, Inventionum 1601, [np] fols. 20v–21v (June 20, 1601; July 2, 1601). For her sister Francesca’s registrations: C de M 1598, 56; 1599, 49; 1600, 68; 1601, 60. 55 ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Inventionum 1601, [np] fol. 19v (June 28, 1601) and fol. 20r–v (June 30, 1601).56 ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Filza 1601, [np] “Malg[are]ta Sulfanela” (June 27, 1601). 57 ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Inventionum 1601, [np] fols. 20v–21v (July 2, 1601). 58 ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Filza 1603, [np] (26 June 1602). C de M 1602, 21. The Convertite confirmed this removal: ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Filza 1603, [np] untitled (October 12, 1602). 59 See, for instance, BCB, Bandi Merlani, V, fol. 106r, untitled, begins “Non essendo conveniente che presso li Monasteri j di Monache” (March 24, 1603). McCarthy, “Prostitution,” 131–97 60 Cohen, “‘Courtesans,’” 202. 61 “Vita et fine miserabile delle meretrici” (“Life and Miserable End of Prostitutes”), ca. 1600, in Kunzle, History of the Comic Strip, 275. Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, “La vita infelice della meretrice compartita ne dodeci mesi dell’anno lunario che non falla dato in luce da Veridico astrologo” (1692), Museo della Città di Bologna, 2470 (re 1/425). 62 Cohen, “Honor and Gender,” especially 600–01. Terpstra, “Sex and the Sacred,” 71, 79–80. 63 ASB, Assunteria di Sanità, Bandi (XVI–1792), Bandi Bolognesi sopra la peste, 45, “Bandi Generali del Ill[ustrissimo] et Reverendiss[i]mo Monsignor Fabio Mirto Arcivescovo di Nazarette Governatore di Bologna,” (February 17, 18, and 19, 1575), fol. 2v; BCB, Bandi Merlani, V, fol. 64r, “Bando Sopr’al gioco, et Biscazze, alli balli nell’Hosterie, et che le Donne meretrici non vadano vestite da huomo” (December 9, 1602). 64 Ibid. 65 Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (hereafter Fisher), B-11 04425, “Bando generale dell’Illustrissimo, et Reverendissimo Sig. Benedetto Card. Giustiniano Legato di Bologna” (June 23 and 24, 1610), “Delle Meretrici. Ca XXVIII,” 60–61. 66 In 1565, Governor Francesco de’Grassi set the exclusionary zone at 30 pertiche (approximately 114 meters), while in 1566 Francesco Bossi extended the zone to 50 pertiche (190 meters). See Martini, Manuale di metrologia, 92. ASB, Legato, Bandi speciali, vol. 3, fol. 16r (February 1, 1565); ASB, Boschi, b. 541 (February 1 and 8, 1566), fol. 115r. Florence reduced its exclusionary zone from 175 to 60 meters in this time (i.e., from 300 braccia to 100): ASF, Acquisti e Doni 291, “Onestà e Meretrici” (May 6, 1561). Terpstra, “Sex and the Sacred,” 78–79. 67 These convents were San Bernardino, Santa Caterina in Strada Maggiore, San Guglielmo, San Leonardo, San Ludovico, Santa Cristina, San Bernardo, Corpus Domini, and Sant’Agnese. Proclamations also protected the new monastery of San Giorgio, the Benedictine monastery of San Procolo, the college of the Hungarians, the Jesuits and their school, the new church of Santa Maria Mascarella, and the shrine of the Madonna della Neve. McCarthy, “Prostitution,” 131–97. 68 Zarri, “I monasteri femminili,” 166, 177. Johnson, Monastic Women, 235–37. Fini, Bologna sacra, 14. 69 BCB, Bandi Merlani, V, fol. 106r, untitled, begins “Non essendo conveniente che presso li Monasterij di Monache” (March 24, 1603). 70 One-third of each fine was to go to the accuser, one-third to the city treasury, and onethird to the esecutore. 71 In 1601, one woman registered on Bocca di lupo, two on Capramozza, and four on Belvedere di Saragozza. In 1604, one registered on Bocca di lupo, three on Capramozza, and one on Belvedere di Saragozza. C de M 1601 and 1604. One of the women who lived on Belvedere in 1601 continued to do so in 1604, while another had moved three blocks west to Senzanome, and a third had moved across town to Campo di Bovi by the north-eastern wall. These were Vittoria Pellizani, Gentile di Parigi, and Angela Amadesi, called “La Zoppina.” For Vittoria: C de M 1601, 204 and 1604, [np] “V” section. For Gentile: C de M 1601, 74 and 1604, [np] “G” section. For Angela: C de M 1601, 136 and 1604, [np] “A” section. 72 These were Camilla di Fiorentini, who lived in the house of Caterina the widow, and Cecilia Baliera. C de M 1614, 288 and 39 respectively.73 See BCB, Bandi Merlani, XI, fol. 28r, untitled, begins “Non essendo conveniente, che appresso li Monasterij di Monache” (January 18, 1622). In 1624, four women lived on Altaseta and none on Mussolina. 74 Guidicini, Cose notabili, vol. III, 179–80 and volume III, 346–50. 75 The proclamation clearly states that the order was made at the insistence of the “Huomini della Madonna dalla Neve, Confraternità di essa, e persone honeste di detta strada.” BCB, Bandi Merlani, X, fol. 128r (August 20, 1621). 76 These were published in 1587, 1602, 1608, and 1621. BCB, Bandi Merlani, I, fol. 449r, untitled, begins “Devieto di affitare a persone disoneste nella contrada di S. Maria della Neve” (April 26, 1587); ASB, Legato, Bandi speciali, vol. 15, fol. 198r, untitled, begins “Essendo la Contrada di Santa Maria dalla Neve sempre stata Contrada quieta” (January 31, 1602); ASB, Legato, Bandi speciali, vol. 17, fol. 225r, untitled, begins “Havendo l’Illustriss[im]e Reverendiss[ime] Sig[nor] Car[dinal] di Bologna pien notitia” (June 6, 1608); BCB, Bandi Merlani, X, fol. 128r, “Bando Contra le Meretrici, et Persone inhoneste, non possa, ne possano, ne debbano sotto qual si vogli pretesto, a quesito colore fermarsi, o star ferme per detta strada, sotto il portico, suso il lor’uscio, o d’altri, o suso l’uscio dell’ Hostarie.” ASB, Legato, Bandi speciali, vol. 17, fol. 225r (June 6, 1608). 78 “comanda espressamente all GIULIA da Gesso, all DORALICE Moroni, alla LUDOVICA Guidi, et ad ogn’altra MERETRICE [sic].” ASB, Legato, Bandi speciali, vol. 17, fol. 225r (June 6, 1608). 79 C de M 1609, 73, 121, and 151, respectively. 80 These were Agata Martelli, alias Bagni, from Castel San Pietro and Lena di Stefani who lived in the casa of Messer Domenico Bonhuomo. C de M 1614, 19 and 1624, [np] “L” section. 81 BCB, Bandi Merlani, X, fol. 128r, “Bando Contra le Meretrici, et Persone inhoneste” (August 20, 1621). Though Savelli did not specify which “Borgo Nuovo” they should move to, in all likelihood he meant Borgo Nuovo di stra Maggiore, which had no convents or churches on it. 82 Cohen and Cohen, “Open and Shut,” 67–68. 83 Cowan, “Gossip,” 314–16; Cohen and Cohen, “Open and Shut,” 68–69. 84 Cohen, “‘Courtesans,’” 204–05; Cohen, “Seen and Known,” 396–97. In a later article Cohen argues that “[t]hough typically noisier and more abrasive than feminine ideals would dictate, much of prostitutes’ street behavior was not radically distinct; rather it fell toward one end on a spectrum of working class practices.” Cohen, “To Pray,” 310. 85 Tommaso Garzoni, Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, nuovamente ristampata et posta in luce, da Thomaso Garzoni da Bagnacavallo (Venice: Appresso l’Herede di Gio. Battista Somasco, 1593), 598. Available online from the Università degli Studi di Torino OPAL Libri Antichi internet archive  GIII446MiscellaneaOpal, cited in Cohen, “Seen and Known,” 397, n. 18. 86 Ibid., especially 396–97 and 399; Storey, Carnal Commerce, 172–75. 87 “Mirror of the Harlot’s Fate,” ca. 1657, reproduced on 278–79 in Kunzle, History of the Comic Strip: Volume 1 and Storey Carnal Commerce, 37. Vita del lascivo (“The Life of the Rake”), ca. 1660s, Venice, reproduced on 39–44 of Storey, Carnal Commerce. 88 ASB, Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Inventionum 1601, [np] January 22, 1601. 89 Ibid., [np] July 23, 1601. 90 Ibid., [np] January 22, 1601. John Florio defines “chiavare” as “to locke with a key. Also to transome, but now a daies abusively used for Fottere.” He defines “fottere” as “to jape, to flucke, to sard, to swive,” and “fottente” as “fucking, swiving, sarding.” Florio, Queen Anna’s, 97 and 194, respectively. 91 On the attraction of lawmen to streets known for prostitution, gambling, and drinking: Cohen, “To Pray,” 303; Storey, Carnal Commerce, 99–100. 92 The complainants referred to themselves as honorati and gentilhuomini, curiali principali, and artegiani buoni e da bene. Storey, Carnal Commerce, 91, n. 103. She dates the two letters from 1601 and 1624.93 For the vice legate’s order, as transcribed into the 1586 register: C de M 1586, [np], untitled, begins “Ill[ustrissim]us et R[everendissi]mus D[ominus] Bononorum Vicelegatus in eius Camera” (June 28, 1586). 94 Cohen, “Seen and Known,” 409. 95 Storey, Carnal Commerce, 1–2.Bibliography Archival sources Archivio di Stato di Bologna (ASB) Assunteria di Sanità, Bandi (XVI–1792) Boschi, b. 541 Legato, Bandi speciali, vol. 3, 15, and 17 Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Campione delle Meretrici 1600, 1601, 1602, 1603, 1604, 1605, 1609, 1614, 1624, and 1630 Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Filze 1601, 1603, 1604, 1606, and 1614 Ufficio delle Bollette 1549–1796, Inventionum 1601 Ufficio delle Bollette e Presentazioni dei Forestieri, Scritture Diverse, busta 1 Ufficio delle Bollette e Presentazioni dei Forestieri, Statuti, sec. XV, codici miniati, ms. 64 Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF) Acquisti e Doni 291 Onestà, ms 1 Biblioteca Comunale di Bologna (BCB) Bandi Merlani, I, V, X, and XI. Gabinetto disegni e stampe, “Raccolta piante e vedute della città di Bologna,” port. 1, n. 14.  Biblioteca Universitaria Bologna (BUB) Manuscript 373, n. 3C Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (Fisher) B-11 04425 Museo della Città di Bologna (MCB) 2470 (re 1/425)Published sources Brackett, John K. “The Florentine Onestà and the Control of Prostitution, 1403–1680.” Sixteenth Century Journal 24, no. 2 (1993): 273–300. Chojnacka, Monica. “Early Modern Venice: Communities and Opportunities.” In Singlewomen in the European Past. Edited by Judith M. Bennett and Amy M. Froide, 217–35. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 1999. ———. Working Women in Early Modern Venice. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Balk Talk: Two Prostitutes’ Voices from Rome c. 1600.” Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal Camilla l  Magra, prostituta romana.” In Rinascimento al Femminile. Edited by Ottavia Niccoli, 163–96. Rome: Laterza, “Honor and Gender in the Streets of Early Modern Rome.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2“Seen and Known: Prostitutes in the Cityscape of Late-Sixteenth-Century Rome,” Renaissance Studies “To Pray, To Work, To Hear, To Speak: Women in Roman Streets c. 1600.” Journal of Early Modern History ‘Courtesans’ and ‘Whores’: Words and Behavior in Roman Streets,” Women’s Studies and Thomas V. Cohen, “Open and Shut: The Social Meanings of the Cinquecento Roman House.” Studies in the Decorative Arts (Fall/Winter 2001–02): 61–84. Cowan, Alexander. “Gossip and Street Culture in Early Modern Venice.” Journal of Early Modern History Fanti, Mario. Le vie di Bologna. Saggio di toponomastica storica, 2 volumes. Bologna: Istituto per la storia di Bologna, 2000. Ferrante, Lucia. “La sessualità come risorsa. Donne davanti al foro Archivescovile di Bologna (sec. XVII).” In Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome “‘Pro mercede carnale.’ Il giusto prezzo rivendicato in tribunale.” Memoria: Rivista di storia delle donne 2, no. 17 (1986): 42–58. Fini, Marcello. Bologna sacra: tutte le chiese in due millenni di storia. Bologna: Pendragon, 2007. Florio, John. Queen Anna’s new world of words, or, Dictionarie of the Italian and English tounges, collected and newly much augmented by John Florio. London: Melch. Bradwood for Edw. Blount and William Barrett, 1611. Guidicini, Giuseppe. Cose notabili della città di Bologna, ossia, storia cronologica de suoi stabili sacri, pubblici e privati. Volume 3. Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, 1982. Hacke, Daniela. Women, Sex, and Marriage in Early Modern Venice. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. Hufton, Olwen. “Women without Men: Widows and Spinsters in England and France in the Eighteenth Century.” Journal of Family History Johnson, Sheri F. Monastic Women and Religious Orders in Late Medieval Bologna. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Kunzle, David. History of the Comic Strip. Volume 1: The Early Comic Strip: Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheet from c. 1450–1825. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1973. Martini, Angelo. Manuale di metrologia, ossia misure, pesi e monete in uso attualmente e anticamente presso tutti i popoli. Torino: Loescher, 1883. McCarthy, Vanessa. “Prostitution, Community, and Civic Regulation in Early Modern Bologna.” Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 2015 Miller, Naomi. Renaissance Bologna: A Study in Architectural Form and Content. New York: Peter Lang, 1989. Monson, Craig. Habitual Offenders: A True Tale of Nuns, Prostitutes, and Murderers in Seventeenth-Century Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Muzzarelli, Maria Giuseppina. “Ebrei a Bologna nel XVI secolo.” In Bologna nell’età moderna Istituzioni, forme del potere, economia e società. Edited by Adriano Prosperi. Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2008. Ruggiero, Guido. Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power at the End of the Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Storey, Tessa. Carnal Commerce in Counter-Reformation Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.Terpstra, Nicholas. Cultures of Charity: Women, Politics, and the Reform of Poor Relief in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard  “Locating the Sex Trade in the Early Modern City: Space, Sense, and Regulation in Sixteenth-Century Florence.” In Mapping Space, Sense, and Movement in Florence: Historical GIS and the Early Modern City. Edited by Nicholas Terpstra and Colin Rose, 107–24. London: Routledge,“Sex and the Sacred: Negotiating Spatial and Sensory Boundaries in Renaissance Florence.” Radical History Review 121 ( January 2015): 71–90. Zanti, Giovanni de. Nomi, et cognomi di tuttle le strad et borghi d Bologna: Dicchiarando la origine del principii loro. Bologna: Pellegrino Bonardo, 1583. Zarri, Gabriella. “I monasteri femminili a Bologna tra il XIII e il XVII secolo.” Atti e Memorie della Deputazione di storia patria per le province di Romagna. Adulteresses in Catholic Reformation Rome Elizabeth S. CohenAdultery was no simple sexual lapse. Intricately bound to the fundamental institution of marriage, it threatened honor, family, and livelihood. Traditionally, this grave offense merited harsh punishments like stoning, although by the sixteenth century these had much softened. A sin, a crime, and a breach of contract, in early modern Italy it could be prosecuted under several kinds of law. Beyond canon law’s jeopardy for both spouses, under Roman law enshrining patria potestas, adultery was overwhelmingly a wife’s transgression, to which, furthermore, she was presumed to have consented.1 So, a vengefully passionate husband or kinsmen who killed a wife found f lagrantly abed with a lover could claim immunity from prosecution for murder.2 The adulteress herself figured ambiguously as a theme in Italian paintings, prints, and stories. Nevertheless, neither law nor broader cultural norms ref lected adultery’s complexities as social experience on the ground. To juxtapose prescriptive and lived understandings and to test the crime’s notoriety, we turn to judicial records. For contrast with our culturally framed expectations and to glimpse the everyday worlds of most early modern people, this essay reconstructs four stories from adultery prosecutions in the Roman Governor’s court circa 1600. The particular crimes of these non-elite women and men involved companionship and sex, but little else was directly at stake. My accounts seek to represent both social dynamics and a vernacular culture of sexuality accessible alike to the educated and the illiterate. I highlight a cluster of adulteresses who cultivated not primarily instrumental, but rather personal, alliances outside marriage. The lovers’ choices transgressed and had consequences both at home and in the public courts. Nevertheless, their misconduct was not radically out of step with an everyday culture of sexuality that endured even in Catholic Reformation Rome. Adultery had a lengthy history as a cultural, legal, and behavioral problem. From the twelfth century, an ambivalent medieval literature on humanlove—from Andreas Cappelanus to Gottfried von Strassburg—suggested that passion and marriage did not mix. Despite the Renaissance emergence of more positive takes on sex, the notion persisted that intense eroticism was seldom the business of husbands and wives.3 The church still taught that marriage was the only licit setting for sex, while discouraging the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. The iconography of love on domestic objects linked to betrothals and weddings promoted family policy as much as private spousal gratification.4 Although married people may not have behaved as they were told, they have left few words about sex. If conjugal relations did often tend to routine, adultery could be easily imagined by contemporaries, and by scholars since, as an agreeable alternative. Popular histories have repeatedly featured swaggering Renaissance noblemen, including prelates, who dallied sensuously with mistresses and fathered bastards. Their female partners, who ranged from servants to gentlewomen, were often married, and so adulteresses. A wife’s adultery posed problems for both her spousal household and her natal family, but sometimes brought them benefits as well. Under ancient Roman law still frequently cited in the Renaissance, uncertainty about paternity and corruption of the lineage was one major cost.6 Adultery also rattled the public honor of a patriarchal family that could not control its assets, including the chastity and fertility of its women. These concerns appear as conventional rhetoric, but it is far from clear how much they actually drove Renaissance husbands’ retribution. Certainly, charges of adultery were invoked to instigate violence against an inconvenient kinswoman and to cover other, less high-minded goals. On the other hand, where doctrines of sexual exclusivity could bend in practice, adulteresses might reap rewards rather than punishments for their liaisons, especially with powerful men. For example, Giulia Farnese, wife of the Roman baron Orsino Orsini and the mistress of Pope Alexander VI in the 1490s, arranged a cardinal’s hat for her brother, Alessandro, the future Pope Paul III.7 Even bastards could be absorbed and their mothers supported. In the 1460s Lucrezia Landriani, married conveniently to a Milanese courtier, bore four illegitimate children to the young Galeazzo Maria Sforza before he became Duke of Milan and took a bride. Bearing their father’s name and raised in his court, Lucrezia’s brood included Caterina Sforza, the future indomitable Countess of Forlí.8 The husbands of these high-f lying adulteresses managed their role, its perks and its costs, more and less deftly. In Florence, the husband of Bianca Cappello, the mistress and later wife of Grand Duke Francesco I, retaliated by intemperate womanizing of his own, and died at the hands of his paramour’s kinsmen.9 Husbands did not take adultery lightly, but there might be multiple stakes and more than just one bloody end. The dark emotions of adultery—jealousy and anger—struck men and women alike. Legends of aristocratic adulteresses killed in flagrante delictu by vengeful husbands arouse pity, horror, and titillation in later readers. Although the threat and the rhetoric surely circulated, documented historical examples are few.10 More modest women, too, had reason to fear even unmerited spousal violence.For example, in a miracle attested in 1522, the Madonna della Quercia of Viterbo saved a woman mortally assaulted by a suspicious husband, egged on by his mother.11 More peaceably, a Quattrocento necromantic recipe promised that to make a wife “persevere in honest alliance with her husband.”12 Moreover, although adulterers were rarely prosecuted, women deeply resented their husbands’ philandering. In the 1550s a pious Bolognese gentlewoman, Ginevra Gozzadini, asked her spiritual director if she owed the marital debt to her errant husband. Though reluctant to release his disciple from godly duties, Don Leone Bartolini allowed her to decline if her husband refused to forgo his “public adultery and also grazing on his wife like a pig and not a Christian.”13 Renaissance Italian visual and literary culture depicted four roles in adultery’s drama: the wife; the husband or cuckold; the lover; and the chorus of the public. Though shadowed by misogyny, views of women were mixed. Ancient and medieval texts widely posited female propensities to falling in love and to undisciplined and mercenary carnality. Beauty, coupled with fickle mind, made women at once temptresses and easy prey to seducers. These risky frailties in turn justified tightly constraining rules. In parallel, novelle, poetry, madrigals, and commedia dell’arte evoked both woe and delight with representations of love and romantic adventure. Magic, too, offered women and men ways to attract and bind a lover.14 Mainstream cultural norms often lumped non-conforming women together as sexual transgressors. Yet prestige and class, singled out some for celebration. Thus, as whores, prostitutes stood for the obverse of female virtue, but courtesans, especially those dubbed counterintuitively “honest,” earned renown among elite men for their manners and cultural finesse. Even Saint Mary Magdalene appeared in paintings as the brightly dressed, or undressed, playgirl who was the foil to her model penitent. The adulteress partook of this generic bad girl, at once attractive and corrupt, but her jeopardy under law invited ambivalence. For example, many early modern artists represented the Gospel story of the woman “taken in adultery.”15 Sixteenth-century Italian paintings usually depicted a beautiful, young woman, thrust by the Pharisees’ heavy legal hand to stand alone before a crowd to be judged. Although conventional language suggested that she was in some sense caught or trapped, she was still deemed to have consented to dire offense. Viewers would hear Jesus first chide her persecutors, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” and then tell her to go and sin no more. All were sinners, not least the adulteress, but law must not trump Christian mercy. Among the men’s roles, not the male adulterer nor the wife’s lover, but rather the husbandly cuckold claimed a share of cultural preoccupation. The aristocratic choice between familial vengeance or instrumental accommodation often came down on the latter side. Instead of destroying the adulteress, the cuckold had his reasons for complacency. In visual imagery, art historians have shown betrayed husbands responding as much with dismayed forbearance as with hot ire. Comparing paintings of Joseph, the helpmate of the Virgin Mary, and Vulcan, the spouse of Venus, Francesca Alberti explained how the aging husbands ofexceptional wives, though vulnerable to mockery by artists and viewers, served divine ends.16 Louise Rice tracked Italian depictions of the cuckold from a nasty late fifteenth-century allegorical engraving through sixteenth-century literary parodies from Aretino and Modio, and finally to Baccio del Bianco’s drawings. These last offered whimsically ironic scenes that normalized both the cuckold and the adulteress.17 Ambivalently allotting pleasure and agency to women and complicating the revenge narrative, novelle offered socially more varied cultural constructions of adultery. In the Decameron, Boccaccio exploited these possibilities in more than twenty-five stories featuring adultery that fancifully permuted its spousal roles.18 The married women of the novelle, again almost always beautiful, pursued love and reaped their adulterous pleasures with ambiguous culpability. At the expense of dull or aging husbands, some wives schemed cleverly both to achieve their desires and to elude discovery and punishment.19 Others, honest, virtuous, and alluring, had to be tricked by would-be lovers into learning that sex outside marriage was more fun.20 Lucrezia in Machiavelli’s Mandragola found similar fortune. Although female delight was only a means to an end in the Decameron’s elegantly ironic lessons, a more literal reading of the stories at least gave a space to imagine wives’ extra-domestic enjoyment. Boccaccio’s cuckolded husbands reacted variously to adultery’s challenges to honor and to its remedies in law. In Day 4, Story 9, a gentlewoman let herself fall to her death after her vindictive husband fed her the heart of her paramour. Explained the woman, since she had given her love freely, she was the guilty one and not the lover. In a lighter vein, Day 3, Story 2 parodied the narratives of murder in f lagrante and, less directly, of Christ forgiving the adulteress. A king, discovering his wife and a groom asleep together, cut the man’s hair to mark his guilt. When the lover woke, he scotched his jeopardy by similarly tonsuring other servants. In the end, the king, rejecting a petty vendetta that would broadcast his dishonor, announced cryptically to his assembled entourage: “He that did it, do it no more, and may you all go with God. A hapless husband, fearing penalty if he killed his adulterous wife himself, hauled her before the public court, where, by statute, she faced a sentence of death by fire. Unlike the Gospel’s submissive adulteress, the respected Madonna Filippa staunchly defended herself with two claims. First, as in the tragedy of Day 4, she did it for her “deep and perfect” love for Lazzarino. Secondly, having gotten her husband to agree that she had always satisfied his every bodily wish, she asked: “what am I to do with the surplus? Throw it to the dogs? Is it not far better that I should present it a gentleman who loves me more dearly than himself, rather than allow it to turn bad or go to waste?” The gathered populace of Prato greeted this charming riposte with approving laughter and, at the judge’s suggestion, altered the harsh statute to punish only adulteresses who did it for money.22 Christian rules as implemented through ecclesiastical courts also ref lected more everyday cultural norms. Although by medieval canon law both spouses owed the marital debt, in customary practice expectations differed for husbandand wife. As historian Cecilia Cristellon shows, the church courts of preTridentine Venice aimed less to police sex than to stabilize marriages and to minimize scandal.23 Many proceedings, often brought by women, sought to formalize separations or annulments of couples who had long since parted company. Adultery by wife or husband was a charge to blacken character but was seldom advanced as the source of a broken marriage.24 In fact, among the lower orders, adultery was a common product of widespread, informal serial monogamy. Finding themselves for various reasons without present spouses, people readily took up new heterosexual partnerships. Although adulterous, such concubinage, sometimes with a formal blessing that made it bigamy, was often marriage-like and, in the absence of contrary evidence, usually accepted by the lay community. In the face of these popular habits, fifteenth-century church courts worked to sharpen the boundaries of marriage, and the Council of Trent’s legislation assimilated concubinage more and more to prostitution.25 Even so, ecclesiastical judges continued less to punish adulterous sex by itself than to seek better moral and spiritual discipline around marriage as a whole. Let us turn now to Rome at the end of the sixteenth century to gauge the moral climate and social textures in which our everyday adulteries took place. For some decades Catholic reformers had worked to burnish Rome’s reputation as a fitting capital for a resurgent church. Issuing repeated regulations (bandi ) to suppress blasphemy and vice, local authorities particularly targeted gambling and adultery.26 Yet these official pronouncements better registered moralistic concern than they energized a thorough cleansing of the civic body. Parallel rules sought to constrain the practice of prostitution, although that trade and fornication by the unmarried were transgressive but not criminal. The magistrates’ concerns turned mostly on guarding sacred sites from taint and restraining violence and disorder by prostitutes’ clients. Yet enforcement of decrees around illicit sex remained sporadic. Pius V’s ghetto for prostitutes of the late 1560s at the Ortaccio did not last long as either structure or policy. That moment was the reformists’ exception rather than the trend. The early sixteenth-century celebrity of Rome’s honest courtesans had certainly waned, but in 1580 the gentleman traveler Montaigne was still keen to admire and visit their kind.27 More generally, the historian of crime Peter Blastenbrei concluded that, for two decades immediately post-Trent, Rome was de facto quite accommodating of heterosexual irregularities and sometimes attracted couples seeking to escape sharper discipline elsewhere.28 All told, by 1600, reform in the papal city had subdued the Renaissance culture of f leshly pleasures, but effective suppression of non-marital sex was scarcely true on the ground. The labyrinth of Rome’s institutions and, especially, the mobile demography of its residents consistently subverted the religious and moral aspirations of its leadership.29 The city’s population swelled, from 35,000, after the catastrophic Sack by Hapsburg imperial troops, to around 100,000 in 1600.30 Few people were native Romans. Visitors and migrants f lowed in—men and women, of all social ranks from ambassadors and nobildonne to pilgrims, cattledrivers,and servants. Many also left town. In a f luid residential geography, most people rented their accommodations and often moved house. Although many households had a nuclear core or its remnants, complete families were fewer than in many cities.31 Lodgers and informal clusters of housemates were common. People also changed jobs frequently, and some worked in one part of the city but, regularly or occasionally, ate and slept elsewhere. As a result, ordinary Romans had repeatedly to renegotiate the personnel and terms of daily life. Furthermore, Rome’s sharply skewed sex ratio yielded distinctive economic and marital dynamics. The urban population counted, roughly, only 70 women for every 100 men. Celibate clerics were not the primary culprits. Many of the surplus men came to the city to provide for the needs and comforts of a courtly society, by serving in great households of prelates or secular lords or by supplying goods.32 With males doing much of the domestic work and without a major textile industry, the market for female labor in turn was weak. Of the many men, some married in Rome to help establish themselves, but others had wives elsewhere, or were young and not ready to settle down.33 Although some, nubile, women found husbands readily, many others were left to improvise when fathers died or spouses left town for shorter or longer absences. Typically, they struggled to live piecemeal from laundry, spinning, and sewing. As in Venice, concubinage was common. Prostitution, too, though never as rampant as some hysterical reformers claimed, was another, potentally better paid recourse. Often informally and intermittently, younger, more presentable or gregarious women offered mixes of sexual, social, and domestic services to a shifting contingent of unpartnered men, and to some husbands as well. As a concubine or prostitute, a married woman faced legal jeopardy for adultery. When a husband did not, as obligated, support his wife, she had to find alternatives. Sometimes, he had wasted the dowry. Often, he had been long away, having intentionally or not abandoned his wife. A woman, in turn, unknowing if her spouse had died, often proceeded as if he had and set up new partnerships. In the absence of contrary information, neighbors tended to presume legitimacy for couples who lived appropriately, including taking the sacraments at church. Nevertheless, married women living as prostitutes, concubines, or even bigamist wives were liable, if denounced, to prosecution. The discipline and prosecution of adultery in early modern Rome has left only erratic traces. No trial records survive from the tribunal of the Vicario, who bore many of the city’s episcopal functions for the pope. 34 As an offense of “mixti fori,” however, adultery sometimes came before the criminal courts.35 Killing women for honor was rare, especially in the city, and the ferocity of the ancient law had attenuated. Going to law, though risking unwelcome publicity, became more common, even for noblemen.36 In the 1580 edition of Rome’s Statuta, carnal and associated crimes occupied a brief three pages and mostly specified due punishments.37 In practice, these penalties were often negotiated down, so the statutory guidelines are interesting mostly as a ref lection of judicial thinking and broader cultural values. This section began with sodomy and a tersepronouncement of death by burning. Next, a longer paragraph, De Adulterio e incestu, spoke first of “adultery with incest,” before turning to “simple adultery.” For this last, punishments were calibrated to the woman’s honesty and the man’s social rank. For sex with an “honest” wife, a plebian man faced a hefty fine of 200 scudi and three years of exile. A gentleman owed double the fine and the exile, and a baron triple. Notably, this scale of penalties targeted the common circumstance of high-status men making alliances with women of lower rank. On the other hand, the chance that even a middling family would successfully haul a nobleman into court was slim. Continuing, the statute declared that if the wife was poor and “inhonesta, but not a public prostitute,” the penalties were halved.38 Reputation ( fama) in the neighborhood legally determined a woman’s “honesty.”39 At the same time, where early modern criminal law recognized that virgins might resist forcible def loration (stupro), wives were still held complicit in adultery.40 Thus, every proven adulteress was, in principle, to be sequestered for correction in a casa pia for errant wives (malmaritate), where her husband or family paid her expenses. From the later sixteenth century, adultery came before the Governor’s court by two routes. By legal tradition, reiterated in the Statuta, sexual crimes involving respectable women received public intervention only when brought by a kinsman with honor at stake. Institutional justice, seeking to promote itself and to tame the violence of self-help vendetta, encouraged this recourse with some success. Thus, husbands initiated many of the Governor’s adultery trials, although typically with a keen eye to retaining spousal property.41 On occasion, angry women prosecuted their husbands for adultery. To note, the Governor’s criminal court in general took seriously women’s complaints, even without male backing. Their testimony as accused or witness, usually recorded under the same intimidating circumstances as men’s, bore analogous weight. Especially for offenders from the lower social ranks, adultery also came to the court’s attention by an investigation ex offitio, on the state’s initiative. Usually, a secret report by a mercenary spy or grouchy neighbor launched the case, followed by a police raid.43 Such arrests were often handled by summary justice that imposed a fine and issued an injunction against further misconduct.44 A few cases led to full trials, and my stories here of “simple adultery” are among them.45 Although these examples were not formally typical, they involved ordinary people getting into relatively routine kinds of trouble. Bodies and honor were at stake, but neither money nor property were central for either husbands or wives. All the women had engaged actually or potentially in sex with men of their own choosing outside the bonds of marriage. From the tales of these willing adulteresses who ended up in court, we can learn about a range of possibilities for extramarital adventures and about the narratives and discourses that explained them and hoped to extenuate culpability. These women, though several years married, were often young. In other Governor’s court trials around f lawed marriages the wives typically complained of mistreatment to justify their straying. In none of these four stories, however, did that rhetoric appear. The husbands, when theysuspected or learned what was afoot, were angry, but the trials were not about ending a marriage. The lovers, themselves unmarried, were among the many unattached men in Rome, and met the adulteresses through family and local connections. Also telling are the ways that neighbors and colleagues took part, both in the trysts and in their discovery and discipline. In my first two adultery stories, unhappy husbands tried, more and less cannily, to corral their wandering wives. For both, events transpired close to home. In the first case, the spouses spoke of Tridentine teachings to repair a troubled marriage. The pastoral discipline had failed to work, however, and the next time the irate husband resorted to self-help, seriously beating his incorrigible wife. The domestic violence brought the problem to public notice. In the second story, the husband confronted his wife with her misconduct reported by neighbors. When she faced down his efforts at proper spousal correction and still continued to roam, the husband turned for help to the ecclesiastical and public authorities. They, in time, intervened, but notably declined to rush into a private matter without good cause. The first tale provocatively mixed elements of Boccaccio with Catholic reform teaching to the laity. A very short trial from May 1593 recounted adultery trouble that exploded within the cramped premises of a fruit and vegetable seller in central Rome.46 After the beleaguered husband, Hieronimo, had resorted to self-help, the resulting domestic violence led an unnamed informant to alert the police. In this instance, probably because the wife, Caterina, lay injured, instead of collecting testimony at the prison, the notary first hurried to the respectable shopkeeper’s premises to interview both spouses. Husband and wife testified immediately in the heat of events and again, later, in jail. The would-be lover, the shop assistant Leonardo, nimbly decamped before the law arrived. As was common for many city dwellers, Hieronimo Ursini from Milan kept shop on the street f loor and lived upstairs with his wife, Caterina, but evidently had no children. Two garzoni (shop assistants) slept in an adjacent room. The fruitseller had good reason to suspect his young wife. By his account, Caterina, whom he spied often f lirting in the window “with this one and that one,” had repeatedly tried his patience. Worse, he once had caught her at her mother’s house, “almost in the act” of having sex with a tavern keeper. Nevertheless, Hieronimo averred piously, “I forgave her, and she promised to do no more wrong, and we confessed together to the parish priest and took communion, and I took her back and led her home, pardoning everything and keeping her always as well as possible” (ff. 1125r–v). Portraying himself as a pious and forgiving husband, Hieronimo sought to meliorate the court’s view of his later, less irenic, behavior. The testimony, which likely was approximately true, shows us a man of modest status deftly invoking good Catholic teaching. Caterina in turn confessed, “Truly, I did wrong (torto) to do what I did to my husband, because I once fell into error (errore) at my mother’s house, where I had sex with Giovanni Angelo the tavern keeper, and even so, my husband forgave me and took meback into the house” (ff. 1128r–v). Here she acknowledged not only Hieronimo’s forbearance, but also her own inclinations to illicit pleasure. Hieronimo’s jealousy thus primed, on a May morning he climbed early out of the bed that he shared with his f lirtatious wife. According to his testimony, he intended to go to a garden on the edge of the city to cut artichokes for the shop. He tried to rouse his two garzoni who were sleeping in another room. One got up, but Leonardo, also from Milan, claimed to be sick and would not rise. Suspecting the lay-a-bed of setting a “trap,” Hieronimo sent the other assistant out to collect the produce, but he himself slipped into the shop and hid behind a barrel. After a while, Leonardo entered the shop, “sighing,” according to the hidden Hieronimo, “an amorous sigh.” A few minutes later, Caterina appeared, asking where her husband was. “Gone to cut artichokes,” replied Leonardo. Immediately, said Hieronimo, Caterina began to adjust the garzone’s ruff ( fare le lattughe), and quickly the two became playful and kissed each other. The husband, seeing that “Leonardo wanted to lift her skirts and do his thing ( fare il fatto suo),” burst out of hiding shouting, “Oh traitor, oh traitor, you do this to me!” Seeing his master thus enraged, Leonardo, expediently, slipped out the shop door and disappeared from the story. Caterina retreated hastily up the stairs, and Hieronimo surged after, beating her with a broomhandle, a domestic weapon of choice for women as well as men, with his fists, and with his belt. So incensed was he that he pinned her down with his knees on her belly and then on her shoulders, while hauling on her braids, so that he left her “as if dead,” swollen, bloody, and with bruises “blacker that your Lordship’s hat”. Hieronimo volunteered all these details, and one suspects that he may have shocked even himself with his ferocity. Caterina’s tale of the putative adultery and its sorry aftermath provides another perspective. Not surprisingly, she presented herself as aggrieved and “mistreated.” Nevertheless, she reported a similar account leading to the f lirtatious exchange with Leonardo. Her husband, having left early without a word, she rose two hours later. Going into the next room, Caterina rousted Leonardo to get up and open the shop, while she swept. When she went down for a basket to hold the sweepings, she found Leonardo, wrestling with a pair of sleeves. He asked for help in attaching them, and the two began laughing as they struggled with the laces. Just then, Hieronimo sprang out and began to assault his wife. Confirming Hieronimo’s confessed details and adding blows with the head of a hatchet, Caterina claimed that he wanted to kill her. But, “please God,” he had not (f. 1125v). Later, pressured by the court at a second interrogation, the wife admitted to some greater provocation of her husband. In this version, as she came into the shop, Leonardo asked that she help lace his sleeves and moaned about not feeling well. She joked that he was not going to die, and they began to play so that, as in Hieronimo’s account, the garzone had kissed her “lustfully (lusuriosamente)” on the cheek and she responded in kind. Though more theatrical than some tales, this domestic drama had several points in common with other neighborhood adulteries. First, illicit relationssprouted very close to home. These were the settings—through work and domestic propinquity—in which wives were likely to meet other men. Perhaps surprisingly to us, these were also the spaces in which adultery—its initiations and often its consummations—took place. People understood the risks and costs of getting caught; at the same time, privacy, such as we imagine it, was simply not a reality for most people. While married, Caterina had practiced serious f lirtations first in her mother’s house and then in her husband’s, with one of their live-in employees. Even if no real sex had transpired with Leonardo, Caterina saw the wrongful pattern of her conduct. She evidently enjoyed the play and appreciation of her guilty encounters, but she gave little sign of personal feelings for her lovers. In contrast, there does seem to have been some commitment, however f lawed on both sides, between the spouses. While we may doubt that Caterina changed her ways, she did express a sense of responsibility and a belief that she should make peace with her husband. The brevity of the trial suggests that the magistrate was content to dispatch the matter quietly. Both spouses had to answer for their transgressions— Caterina’s sexual misconduct and Hieronimo’s excessive correction.47 The second story of adultery is the only one of the four where the husband himself brought his private troubles to the authorities.48 For more than six months, Bartolomeo from Genoa, alerted by friends, investigated suspicions and then sought to correct his errant wife, Isabetta from Rome. He had tried several times in previous months to enlist the help of the Vicario’s ecclesiastical tribunal, but in vain. Recently, however, he had procured a warrant, probably from the Governor’s court (ff. 832r–v, 834r). So, a police patrol met Bartolomeo outside the building where the lovers had been seen and at his direction made arrests that led to the trial.49 Events took place in a shared neighborhood and within a community of workers, several of whom testified. In this slightly larger, but still face-to-face social terrain, friends and neighbors, notably men this time, had a crucial role in managing their comrade’s disarray. On Saturday, October 22, 1604, right after the arrests, Bartolomeo, coachman to a Monsignor Dandini, complained formally against his wife and Francesco Cappelli from Florence (ff. 831r–v). Bartolomeo had married Isabetta six years earlier; although native Roman women were few, they often married men from outside who sought to establish themselves in the capital. It was a second marriage for Isabetta, who had a grown stepson and a son who lived together in another neighborhood (f. 840v). Bartolomeo lived with Isabetta and their young son near San Pantaleone in the city center. The accused lover, a twelve-year resident of Rome who served as coachman to another churchman, the Archbishop of Monreale, worked from a stable nearby. Bartolomeo’s complaint charged Isabetta with spending “unusually much ( piu dell’ordinario)” time with Francesco. According to reports from several men, including a third coachman, while Bartolomeo lay on his sick bed, Isabetta came and went late in the evening from the stables where Francesco worked. Once healthy again, Bartolomeo berated his wife for her visits and threatened her with arrest and public whipping (f. 831r). She, however, denied all charges and challenged her husband to do his worst(f. 831v). Nevertheless, Bartolomeo asked his friends to spy on her movements (ff. 833v–834r). One morning Bartolomeo’s nephew brought word that Isabetta had been spotted a few streets away going with Francesco into the Palazzo de Picchi. Bartolomeo sent a messenger to alert the city police. When they arrived, Bartolomeo told them to arrest Francesco, then descending the stairs. The husband entered the building, collected Isabetta, and sent her, too, off to jail (f. 831v). Note that the Governor’s police were willing to act, but left it to the respectable husband to hand over his wife. After the arrests, neighbors and colleagues testified to having seen Francesco and Isabetta often together over many months and hearing talk in the piazza of their being lovers. One man observed her three or four times in the last month taking advantage of walking her son to school to stop to talk with Francesco in the courtyard of the Massimi family palace (f. 837v). Another neighbor, Alfonso, intervened directly. Because, he said, Isabetta was his commare, his spiritual kinswoman, he had invited her a month earlier to his house. There, with his own wife present, Alfonso told the wayward Isabetta of the rumors that she was in love (inamorata) with Francesco and having sex with him. Alfonso urged to her to smarten up (stesse in cervello) and amend her ways, because her husband knew and had a warrant to send her to jail, and because it dishonored Alfonso himself, who had helped marry her so respectably. In their early testimonies, the lovers took different tacks. The unattached Francesco downplayed the whole business. He acknowledged, as did Isabetta, that they had known each other in the neighborhood for three or four years. Yet Francesco dismissed her presence in his room or any adulterous reasons for it, “I cannot know the heart of that woman or why she came up” (f. 835v). Isabetta, pressed hard through several interrogations, tried ineffectually to parry the court’s questions. She garbed herself conventionally as a dutiful housewife who minded her own business and seldom went out: “I have to keep working if I want to live” (f. 841r). Accordingly, she implausibly denied knowing local geography; then, insisting that she had never set foot in the stables, she fudged the meanings of being “inside” a place (f. 839r). She invoked her own good name, though in an elaborately conditional mode: “What do you imagine, your Lordship, if I had gone out while my husband was sick, that would have been a fine honor from me” (f. 839v). Blaming her neighbors for their spiteful testimony, she invoked the chronic enmities of local life: “what fine witnesses are these? this is how they repay the courtesies and good will that I have used with them” (f. 843r). Later, however, she backtracked on some of these claims with a pathetic tale of going out at night to fetch some greens to feed the ailing Bartolomeo. Passing by the stable’s open door, she said, Francesco had called out to her, “‘how is your husband?’ I, in tears, answered that the doctor offered little hope, and then Francesco responded, ‘look, if you need anything, be it money or anything else, just ask’” (ff. 843r–v). Spun this way, the errant wife’s visit to the stable got folded into a stirring picture of her desperate efforts to help her husband and of the fellow coachman’s sympathetic offer of aid.Near the end of the trial, the accused lovers, confronted with repeated testimony to their private meetings at the stable and in the palazzo, were pushed to address the presumption that they met for sex. As a judge said in another trial, “solus con sola, one does not presume they are saying the paternoster.”50 When pressed, Francesco exclaimed, “Your Lordship, I will take 100,000 oaths that I had no carnal doings with Isabetta!” He continued, “I can show your Lordship that only with great difficulty can I go with women, and when I do, it is rarely and to my great injury (danno), because four ribs got cut by a Turkish scimitar when I served as a soldier on the galleys of the Grand Duke” of Tuscany (f. 849v). Here we have detail so baroque that we may have to believe it. Francesco aimed to suggest, with timeless logic, that his encounters with Isabetta were not, actually, sex. Whatever it was, however, he feared culpability and had tried, with various moves, to def lect it. Interestingly, Isabetta’s final remarks also denied a sexual relationship by alluding to Francesco’s behavior. In her words, “if he were as proper (netto) with other women as he is with me, he would never have had sex with any woman.” Then, reaffirming her veracity, she concluded with a shift to a rhetoric of intention and sin, “If I had done wrong (errore) and if Francesco had sex with me, I would say so freely and ask for forgiveness, but because I did not do it, I cannot say I did” (ff. 850v–851r). Much more was at stake for Isabetta than for her lover. Knowing well that, in sneaking around while her husband was ill, she had erred in the eyes of her peers, she did not counter Bartolomeo’s charges with complaints of mistreatment. Yet she stood on her word that she could not confess a lie. There the trial record ended with the usual legal instruction that both accused parties be released into the jail’s public rooms (ad largam) with three days to prepare a defense. Accumulated circumstantial evidence, rather than catching lovers in the sexual act, was sufficient for neighbors and, in turn, their publica vox et fama attesting to the offense had weight in court. Nevertheless, perhaps fearing retaliation, people appear not to have turned each other in too quickly. Once an adulterous coupling became common, local knowledge, a friend or associate might assay an informal warning to wife, husband, or lover. Consensus likely deemed these matters family business, better handled privately and with minimal scandal. In this case, Bernardino not only chose official help, but had to persist to get it. In two other stories private adultery and its public prosecution unfolded in different circumstances. Here the adulteresses took advantage of wider urban terrains when pursuing their romantic yearnings. The husbands, although present in the city, were not principal players in bringing the cases to court. Neighbors, on the other hand, took active part, facilitating the alliances or tolerating them for some time, until a moment arrived when someone alerted the authorities. These times, when the police raided an illicit rendezvous, they acted ex offitio, on the newer legal premise that the court could intervene directly, without a kinsman’s request, to ensure order among the city’s lower-status residents. In a third episode of simple adultery, prosecuted in January 1605, the husband, Giovanni Domenico, was in fact the last to know. The short trial consists of apolice report and testimonies from several neighborhood witnesses.51 Neither wife nor lover spoke on record, but procedural annotations at the document’s end register their choice not to challenge any of the witnesses. Most likely, the adulterers accepted a summary decision that ordered them to pay fines and agree formally not to consort any more. Giovanni Domenico di Mattei from Lombardy and his wife, Madalena, lived on the Tiber Island with their two young children and an orphan boy whom they kept “for the love of God” (f. 145v). Husband and wife shared a business selling doughnuts from their home. Giovanni Domenico also commuted daily across the city to Piazza Capranica to work as an assistant to a doughnut-maker (ciambellaro) (f. 145r). The job required his being away overnight, but every morning he returned to his family quarters, evidently bringing pastries to sell. One Wednesday morning, Giovanni Domenico came home to find that Madalena had been arrested, along with Pietro Gallo from Parma, a twenty-five-year-old barber’s garzone who lived two doors down the street (ff. 144r, 145v). According to the official report, a neighbor’s denunciation had informed the authorities that “every night after four hours (10 p.m.) Pietro habitually goes to sleep with Madalena” (f. 143r). Receiving word again last night that the barber was there, the police raided the house late on a chilly January evening. With professional savvy, the lieutenant posted men to watch the exits before knocking on Madalena’s door, which she opened after a few minutes’ delay. While a search inside found no man, a loud noise overhead alerted the police to visit the roof, but in vain. They did soon discover the barber in his nightshirt in his own bed, where he protested that he had been checking the premises above on behalf of his absent landlord. Unconvinced, the police led the two lovers off to jail (ff. 143v–145r). When Giovanni Domenico came home to the unpleasant surprise of his wife’s arrest, he learned that Pietro the barber, carrying a sword (a further offense), had been in the house at night with Madalena. The cuckolded husband went immediately to make a formal complaint and to demand, according to the protocol, the severest punishments for Pietro, Madalena, and anyone with a part in “leading him to her” (ff. 145r–v). The young orphan, Giovanni Santi, nicknamed Scimiotto (Little Monkey), also testified then under his master’s auspices. The boy explained that, during the four months that he had lived in the household, Madalena had many times sent him to invite the barber to eat, and that, when Giovanni Domenico was away, Pietro stayed to sleep. He shared the bed with Madalena and the two children, while the young witness slept on the f loor in the same room. The lover usually entered through the door, but sometimes through a window belonging to a laundress (ff. 146r–v). During her husband’s nightly absences and in plain view of the neighbors, Madalena had carried on adulterously with, like the other women, a young, unmarried man who lived nearby. The affair (amicizia) had been going on for as much as two years, according to gossip in the local wineshop (f. 148v). A hatmaker who lived in the house between the two lovers had for six months heardlocal “murmuring” that Pietro was having sex (negotiava) with Madalena. In passing back and forth, the neighbor had many times seen the barber in her house, their “talking and laughing together publicly .  .  . sometimes in the morning, sometimes after eating, sometimes toward evening” (f. 147r). Often, said the hatmaker, other men also hung out convivially at the shop, eating doughnuts, or, in season, roasted chestnuts (f. 148v). Giovanni Domenico must have been around sometimes when such sociability, presumably good for business, took place. Yet, about a month before the arrests, the hatmaker saw fit one day in his shop to warn the young barber: “the people of Trastevere say you’re having sex with the doughnut-maker’s wife; if you don’t straighten up, you’ll go to jail.” When Pietro denied it, the hatmaker replied that it was not his business, but that the barber had better mind his (f. 147r). Cesare the tavern keeper had also challenged Pietro. Several weeks ago, Cesare had gone to Madalena’s to borrow matches and found her eating with the barber and another man. Seeing the tavern keeper, Pietro had slipped away to hide. Later that day, Madalena’s small son came to Cesare’s house to get a light. Jokingly, he asked the boy: “who was sleeping with your mother last night?” (f. 148r). Later still, Pietro stormed into the tavern and began to threaten the host, saying that he should take care of his own house and not speak of others, or that he would get his head stove in. Cesare, figuring out how his words had passed from the child to his mother and to Pietro, protested that he had only spoken in jest (f. 148r). Although propinquity and opportunity during Giovanni Domenico’s regular absences clearly favored the liaison, we must guess at what drew these two lovers together. The unmarried barber could readily have found sex and even a quasi-domestic companionship elsewhere among the city’s prostitutes. The illicit pair seemed to enjoy each other’s company, alone together and also in groups. In Rome where many men were on their own, taking meals in others’ houses, sometimes in return for a contribution in food or money, was not unusual. Pietro’s sleeping over, especially when he lived so close by, was less acceptable. Interestingly, though, no one called Madalena a whore or said that she was in it for money. This suggests that there was something companionable about the connection, and that may have colored local reactions, at least initially. Some shift of neighborhood opinion in recent weeks, however, had led the hatmaker to confront Pietro and the tavern keeper to make his tactless joke to Madalena’s son. How, then, did the cuckolded husband not suspect? Seemingly, none of the neighbors said anything to him. At least, when he came home to discover the arrests, he hastily adopted a posture of righteous ignorance and mustered shreds of domestic mastery by adding his complaint to the magistrate’s file. Nevertheless, given local practices, the marriage probably muddled on. The fourth case shows a different pattern of adulterous assignation.52 The lovers had been acquainted through family connections for several years. The older married woman, infatuated with a younger man, a cloth dealer, organized their sexual trysts. Completely absent from the trial, the cuckolded husband figured only as an angry specter in his wife’s mind. Here again, a neighbor’s denunciationlaunched the official investigation. Testimonies from the two lovers and from several women neighbors arrested with them confirmed and extended the police report. On Saturday, March 23, 1602, in mid-afternoon, a police patrol raided a modest upstairs room in the Vicolo Lancelotti near the Tiber river. According to their lieutenant, an unnamed local informant reported that a married woman had been meeting a lover there on Saturdays for some months. The lodging belonged to Filippa from Romagna, a weaver and the wife of Hieronimo Morini, though evidently alone in Rome (f. 1220r). Two other women on their own, including Filippa’s commare Marcella, also shared the staircase. On Saturday, hearing men barge into the building, the weaver was able to warn the lovers, so that the police arrived to find the pair, both fully clothed, the man sitting on the bed and the woman standing beside him. But when the man rose, lifting his cloak from the bed, the lieutenant spotted a “shape” ( forma) betraying the couple’s activity (f. 1219r). The woman, Livia, was known to all present as the wife of Pietropaolo Panicarolo, a carpenter from Milan (f. 1224v). Confronted by the police, she threw herself tearfully on her knees and begged not to be taken to prison, because “this is the time” that her husband would kill her. The man, Marino Marcutio from Gubbio, took an officer aside, saying “I am a merchant” and offering money or whatever he wanted in order to let them go, the woman in particular (ff. 1219r–v). But the righteous policeman refused the bribe, bound the pair, and sent them to jail. The adultery’s backstory emerged from the interrogations. Livia testified that she had been married for twenty-six years, although she likely included a brief first marriage contracted when she was very young (ff. 1225r–v). That husband had died before she was old enough to go live with him, and probably she had been wed soon again to Pietropaolo. In any case, in 1602 Livia must have been at least thirty-five and maybe older. She lived with her husband, but, like Caterina and Hieronimo in the first story, they had no children. Besides Livia’s fear of Pietropaolo’s violence should he discover the adultery, we know nothing of their relationship. As in the third case, the geography in this one spread out across the center of the city. Livia lived currently not far from the Trevi Fountain and was accustomed to moving good distances around the city on her own (f. 1221v). Marino, a younger man, kept shop across town on a corner where the street of the Chiavari met the Piazza Giudea (f. 1220v). Livia had come to know Marino eight years before in her own home, where she nursed his seriously ill cousin, who later died (ff. 1227r, 1229r). Marino had also shared recreation and games with her husband, Pietropaolo, and the merchant’s parents had more recently lodged in the carpenter’s quarters during the Holy Year of 1600 (f. 1229r). Through these domestic encounters, Livia had fallen in love with Marino and had long strategized to meet him discreetly for sex. Livia had known Filippa for two years, during which time the weaver, who worked on a loom in her room, had made three cloths for the more aff luent carpenter’s wife (f. 1221r). Filippa had visitedLivia’s house to collect yarn for the loom and to deliver finished cloth, and Livia had called in the Vicolo Lancelotti, although it was a good way from her home. So, bumping into Filippa at various spots around town, Livia importuned her repeatedly for the use of her room to meet Marino (f. 1221v). Though reluctant, Filippa eventually gave in to the woman who gave her work. At risk of being charged as a go-between, the weaver said she had refused any compensation, but Livia said that she had given Filippa five giulii for the two recent assignations (f. 1227v). In Livia’s own words, she had loved and been in love (inamorata) with Marino for years, and her infatuation had propelled her to arrange a series of private encounters “not having opportunity to enjoy him ( goderlo) in my house out of respect for my husband” (f. 1225r). Livia and Marino both acknowledged having met privately a number of times at Filippa’s room, and twice in the last week that was the focus of the investigation. On the Monday before the arrests, the pair had had a rendezvous at Filippa’s house. Duly chaperoned by a nephew, who left immediately, Livia arrived first after the midday meal and joined the weaver in her room. Marino appeared about a half hour later, bringing some collars for starching as a standard cover story for his presence. After chatting brief ly, Filippa withdrew and left the pair alone. Sometimes, the door was open during the couple’s visits, but on this, as on another, occasion they had been locked inside for about an hour (f. 1221r). When later the policeman asked Filippa what the couple had been doing, she replied, “you know very well that when a man and a woman are together, it is not licit to see what they are doing” (f. 1219v). Although all the women witnesses echoed the sentiment that Livia was in love, it was not clear whether, when the couple next met on Saturday, they had sex. Livia was angry with Marino, because she thought that he was chasing another woman, and they had had words. She also insisted with dubious piety, “on Saturday I don’t commit sin, not even with my husband (il sabbato non fo il peccato, ne anco con mio marito)” (ff.1221r, 1225r). Although during the arrests Marino had tried to protect Livia, under interrogation his story aimed first to exonerate himself. He acknowledged that he had met Livia once before Christmas, twice before Carnival, and another two times during Lent, but, he insisted, only to talk. Making the implausible claim that he only sought the carpenter’s wife’s help in order to secure a “simple benefice” for his brother who was a student, he denied sex altogether (f. 1229v). Describing their emotional bond, he notably cast the feelings in terms of Livia’s warmth toward him, “she is a friend to me and loving because she has helped me (mi e amica et amorevole perche mi ha fatto de servitii ),” referring to her nursing his mother and cousin (ff. 1231v–1232r).53 To dislodge the lovers’ conf licting testimony and to convict Marino, the court proceeded to torture the adulteress in front of the merchant (f. 1234r–v). Using the lighter instruments of the sibille that compressed the hands, this formal act of judicial stagecraft intended, as in Artemisia Gentileschi’s case, to authorize the claims of the sexually compromised woman.54 The tactic failed, nonetheless, to elicit a change in Marino’s testimony that denied any sex, or touch, or kisses,or even hearing that Livia was in love with him. The judge probably did not believe Marino, but legally his respectability and his adamancy held good weight. Livia’s unknown fate, on the other hand, would have lain in part with her invisible husband. If less dramatic than high culture’s renderings of adultery, adorned by the heft of law, familiar biblical tropes, and colorful narrative in paint and words, these everyday stories of wives seeking illicit moments of love and fun have their own art and pathos. For example, there is the coachman Francesco’s alleged sexual impairment due to a Turkish scimitar injury. Or the hardworking doughnut guy cuckolded by the young barber. Or Filippa the poor weaver, who got into trouble because her friend and employer Livia wore down her resistance to playing hostess to a sexual rendezvous. Paradoxically perhaps, the criminal court’s address to transgression here tells us more about what really happened, and what happened to most people some of the time than the great dramas of high art. Despite reformers’ efforts to discipline marriage and sex, a customary culture that tolerated various forms of heterosexual error persisted in Rome long after Trent. In these four cases, only one husband sought the court’s help. In the others, neighborhood informants alerted the authorities to a public disorder, but only after an adulterous liaison had been known in their midst for some time. While the Governor’s court prosecuted lovers as well as errant wives, the women usually had more to lose, but also perhaps to gain. Even if unwise, some married women broke the rules and went looking for love. What they found was usually close to home so that their adventures took place under the eyes of a local community. These neighbors knew often well before the law got involved and responded in diverse ways. Adultery posed a social problem that demanded a solution, sooner or later. Although the law had its own ambitions, in these sorts of everyday misdeeds justice did not intervene with a devastating external discipline.Notes 1 Cristellon, “Public Display,” 182–85, summarizes Italian legal and customary views of adultery. 2 Clarus, Opera omnia, 51b. 3 Besides essays in Matthews-Grieco, ed., Erotic Cultures, see Bayer, ed., Art and Love, including essays by Musacchio (29–41) and Grantham Turner (178–84). 4 Ajmer-Wollheim, “‘The Spirit is Ready’” 5 McClure, Parlour Games, 36–38. 6 Esposito, “Donna e fama,” 97–98, states this standard view. 7 Cussen, “Matters of Honour,” 61–67. 8 Lev, The Tigress of Forlì, 3–20. 9 Musacchio, “Adultery, Cuckoldry,” 11–34; on Piero’s death 17–18. 10 On wife-killing by nobleman Carlo Gesualdo in Naples, 1590, see Ober, “Murders, Madrigals”; on Vittoria Savelli in the Roman hinterland, 1563, see Cohen, Love and Death, 15–42. Killings of noble wives not caught in flagrante delictu often had motives linked to claims on property or power rather jealous rage. 11 Esposito, “Donne e fama,”  47 48 49Elizabeth S. CohenGal, Boudet, and Moulinier-Brogi, eds., Vedrai mirabilia, 241. Kaborycha, ed., A Corresponding Renaissance, 172 + n. 19. Gal, Boudet, and Moulinier-Brogi, Vedrai mirabilia, 251. Examples include: Titian (1510); Rocco Marconi (1525); Palma il Vecchio (1525–28); Lorenzo Lotto (1528); Tintoretto (1545–48); Alessandro Allori (1577). Alberti, “‘Divine Cuckolds.’” Rice, “The Cuckoldries.” Boccaccio, Decameron. For example, Day 3, Story 3; Day 7, Story 2. For example, Day 3, Story 2; Day 4, Story 2. Ibid., 241–46. My translation of the quote. Ibid., 500–01. Cristellon, Marriage, the Church, 14–19, 159–90. For French parallels, see Mazo Karras, Unmarriages, 165–208. Ferraro, Marriage Wars also includes cases in secular courts, where issues of property, often pursued by husbands, have greater visibility; yet women brought many more suits than men, 29–30. In the complaints, adultery was generally subordinate to other concerns, 71. Cristellon, “Public Display,” 175–76, 180–85, Scaduto, ed. Registi dei bandi, vol. 1 (anni 1234–1605), passim. Storey, Carnal Commerce, 108-14, 242–43. Blastenbrei, Kriminalität im Rom, 274–75. Cohen and Cohen, “Justice and Crime.” Sonnino, “Population,” 50–70. Da Molin, Famiglia, 93–95. Sonnino, “Population,” 62–64. See also, Nussdorfer, “Masculine Hierarchies.” Da Molin, Famiglia, 243. The unexplained disappearance of Vicariato tribunal records precludes Roman comparisons with Venice. Marchisello, “‘Alieni,’” 133–83. See also in the same volume, Esposito, “Adulterio.” Blastenbrei, Kriminalität im Rom, 273, n. 160. Statuta almae urbis Romae, 108–09, for what follows. Forcibly abducting prostitutes was a crime. Ibid., 109. Esposito, “Donna e fama,” 89–90. Marchisello, “Alieni,” 137, 166–68; Esposito, “Adulterio,” 26–27. Alternatively, the legal narrative for the charge of sviamento, leading astray, shifted more blame onto the lover. For example, Archivio di Stato di Roma, Governatore, Tribunale criminale (hereafter ASR GTC), Processi, xvi secolo, busta 256 (1592), ff. 540r–62; see also, Blastenbrei, Kriminalität im Rom, 272, 275. For example, ASR GTC, Processi, xvii secolo, busta 25, ff. 17r–26v; (1603); busta 91, ff. 1153r–1159r (1610). In parallel, the Statuta almae urbis Romae, 110, declared that men keeping concubines were liable for fines of 50 scudi. Counts based on small numbers of surviving records do not reflect behaviour or even patterns of prosecution. Nevertheless, it may be useful to note that this type of “simple adulteries” represent about a quarter of the adultery prosecutions between 1590 and 1610. ASR GTC, Processi, xvi secolo, busta 270, ff. 1124r–1128v. References to specific folios appear in parentheses in text. The trial record ended with the usual note that those charged had three days to prepare their formal defense. I have found no record of a judgment, but it is likely that the couple were fined. ASR GTC, Processi, xvii secolo, busta 37, ff. 830r–851r. The charge preteso adulterio (appearance of adultery) carried a lesser burden of proof.Adulteresses in Catholic Reformation Rome50 51 52 53ASR GTC, Processi, xvii secolo, busta 36, f. 63v. ASR GTC, Processi, xvii secolo, busta 44, ff. 142r–149r. ASR GTC, Processi, xvii secolo, busta 17, ff. 1218r–1238r. The range of colloquial meanings for “amica” and “amorevole” was broad. Here Marino used these words to indicate friendship and affiliation, rather than romantic or sexual alliance. 54 Cohen, “Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi,” Archival sources Archivio di Stato di Roma, Governatore, Tribunale Criminale Processi, xvi secolo, busta 256 (1592) Processi, xvi secolo, busta 270 (1593) Processi, xvii secolo, busta 17 (1602) Processi, xvii secolo, busta 25 (1603) Processi, xvii secolo, busta 36 (1604) Processi, xvii secolo, busta 37 (1604) Processi, xvii secolo, busta 44 (1605) Processi, xvii secolo, busta 91 (1610)Published sources Ajmer-Wollheim, Marta. “‘The Spirit is Ready, But the Flesh is Tired’: Erotic Objects and Marriage in Early Modern Italy.” In Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy. Edited by Sara Matthews-Grieco, 145–51. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Alberti, Francesca “‘Divine Cuckolds’: Joseph and Vulcan in Renaissance Art and Literature.” In Cuckoldry, Impotence and Adultery. Edited by Sara Matthews-Grieco, 149–82. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Bayer, Andrea, ed. Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Blastenbrei, Peter. Kriminalität im Rom, 1560–1585. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1995. Boccaccio, Giovanni. Decameron. Translated by G.H. McWilliam. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Clarus, Julius. Opera omnia sive pratica civilis atque criminalis. Vol. 5. Venice: 1614. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape as History.” Sixteenth Century Journal and Thomas V. Cohen. “Justice and Crime.” In Companion to Early Modern Rome. Edited by Pamela Jones, Simon Ditchfield, and Barbara Wisch. Leiden: Brill, 2018 Cohen, Thomas V. Love and Death in Renaissance Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Cristellon, Cecilia. Marriage, the Church, and Its Judges in Renaissance Venice, 1420–1545. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Originally published as La carità e l’eros. Bologna: Il Mulino, Public Display of Affection: The Making of Marriage in the Venetian Courts before the Council of Trent” In Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy. Edited by Sara Matthews-Grieco, 173–97. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Cussen, Bryan. “Matters of Honour: Pope Paul III and Church Reform (1534–49).” Ph.D. diss., Monash University, 2017.Da Molin, Giovanna. Famiglia e matrimonio nell’Italia del Seicento. Bari: Cacucci Editore, 2000. Esposito, Anna. “Adulterio, concubinato, bigamia: testimonianze dalla normativa statutaria dello Stato ponteficio In Trasgressioni: seduzione, concubinato, adulterio, bigamia, Edited by Silvana Seidel Menchi and Diego Quaglioni, 21–42. Bologna: Il Mulino, “Donna e fama tra normativa statuaria e realtà sociale.” In Fama e Publica Vox nel Medioevo. Edited by Isa Lori Sanfilippo and Antonio Rigon. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 2011. Ferraro, Joanne M. Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Gal, Florence, Jean-Patrice Boudet, and Laurence Moulinier-Brogi, eds. Vedrai mirabilia: Un libro di magia del Quattrocento. Rome: Viella, 2017. Grantham Turner, James. “Profane Love: The Challenge of Sexuality.” In Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. Edited by Andrea Bayer, 178–84. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Kaborycha, Lisa, ed. A Corresponding Renaissance: Letters Written by Italian Women, 1375– 1650. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Lev, Elizabeth. The Tigress of Forlì: Renaissance Italy’s Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de’ Medici. Boston: Houghton Miff lin, 2011. Marchisello, Andrea. “‘Alieni thori violatio’: L’Adulterio come delitto carnale in Prospero Farinacci.” In Trasgressioni: seduzione, concubinato, adulterio, bigamia (XIV-XVIII). Edited by Silvana Seidel Menchi and Diego Quaglioni, 133–83. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004. Matthews-Grieco, Sara, ed. Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Mazo Karras, Ruth. Unmarriages: Women, Men and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. McClure, George. Parlour Games and the Public Life of Women in Renaissance Italy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. Musacchio, Jacqueline Marie. “Adultery, Cuckoldry, and House-Scorning in Florence: The Case of Bianca Cappello.” In Cuckoldry, Impotence and Adultery in Europe (15th– 17th Century). Edited by Sara Matthews-Grieco, 11–34. Farnham: Ashgate,  “Wives, Lovers, and Art in Italian Renaissance Courts.” In Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. Edited by Andrea Bayer, 29-41. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Nussdorfer, Laurie. “Masculine Hierarchies in Roman Ecclesiastical Households.” European Review of History 22, no. 4 (2015): 620–42. Ober, William. “Murders, Madrigals, and Masochism.” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 49, no. 7 (1973): 634–45. Rice, Louise. “The Cuckoldries of Baccio del Bianco.” In Cuckoldry, Impotence and Adultery in Europe (15th–17th Century). Edited by Sara Matthews-Grieco, 215–48. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Scaduto, Francesco, ed. Registi dei bandi, editti, notificazioni e provvedimenti diversi relativo alla città di Roma ed allo Stato Pontificio, vol. 1 (anni 1234–1605). Rome: 1920. Sonnino, Eugenio. “The Population in Baroque Rome.” In Rome/Amsterdam: Two Growing Cities in Seventeenth-Century Europe. Edited by Peter van Kessel and Elisja Schulte, 50–70. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997. Statuta almae urbis Romae. Rome: 1580. Storey, Tessa. Carnal Commerce in Counter-Reformation Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge. Two Capuchin friars sent by a papal nuncio finished their investigation regarding whether abbess Benedetta Carlini was a valid mystic. An earlier, local study drawn up for Pescia’s provost in 1619 had been amenable to her claims. In July 1620, she became the first abbess of the newly enclosed convent, a prestigious appointment that suggests belief in her story. Yet Benedetta’s authority within the nunnery was not universally accepted and she lost the support of the civic establishment, leading to the new investigation by more distanced authorities. They decided that she had been deceived by the devil because, according to evidence from disaffected nuns, signs such as her stigmata were faked. New evidence also included the testimony of the abbess’ assistant, Bartolomea Crivelli (often called Mea), who unexpectedly told the men, in explicit detail, about sexual relations between the two women. Most scholars were similarly surprised when Judith Brown published the supposedly “unique” case in 1986, in Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun.1 Responses were varied, the lengthiest being Rudolph Bell’s evaluation in 1987, which argued that the nuncio was already determined to silence Benedetta and that her subsequent lengthy imprisonment in the convent was imposed by the nuns rather than external authorities, a claim refuted by Brown.2 The details of the internal, civic, and ecclesiastical power plays cannot be definitively known, but the sexual dynamics are clear. Over thirty years later, it is time to reconsider this case, neither adhering to a modernist notion of strict sexual identity nor relegating Benedetta and Mea to the margins. In keeping with Konrad Eisenbichler’s ability to draw out erotic implications from literary and archival evidence, this essay respects the reality of the women’s intimacy and examines textual and visual materials in order to situate them in their spiritual and sensual context. This case offers specific details and terminology for what might be called corporeal spirituality, the unequivocal coexistence of amorous language, sexual deeds, pious rhetoric, and religious faith.3Since Benedetta’s visions entailed visitations from Christ, whom she married in a public ceremony, and messages from angels such as Splenditello, in whose voice she often spoke, Brown claimed the two nuns were engaged in a heterosexualized affair: The only sexual relations she seemed to recognize were those between men and women. Her male identity consequently allowed her to have sexual and emotional relations that she could not conceive between women. . . . In this double role of male and of angel, Benedetta absolved herself from sin and accepted her society’s sexual definitions of gender.4 Brown’s judgment associates male sex with masculine gender, and in turn a presumed dichotomy between the two women is seamlessly laminated onto their sex acts. However, this does not accord with either the women’s physical actions, or with possibilities engendered by the sensual spirituality of premodern Catholicism. The souls and f lesh of nuns were not as neatly divided as a later, secular view imagines. Despite the Foucauldian point that discourses of repression can generate the very thing they seek to silence, the presumption of religious “purity” and feminized innocence has hardly disappeared. Benedetta’s case remains nearly ignored in studies of European religion or is cited brief ly with no new interpretation.5 It is seen as an aberration on two counts: she was a nun with a sex life—considered an oxymoron—and her sexual activity was with another woman—thought to be impossible in her time and setting. Documented cases of nuns having sex with clergy or secular men, as well as anti-clerical, fictional stories about such conjunctions, are taken as ordinary, natural, feminine acts by women who were supposedly frustrated in an entirely earthly way.6 But Benedetta, it seems, must be a “unique” case, even “bizarre,” who assumed a male guise and cannot be assimilated into religious history.7 My point here is to remove her from the interdependent frameworks of deviance and heterosexuality, and to reintegrate her into a religious context. Benedetta literally acted out what was usually a world of visual and imaginary culture. Here I try to reconstruct a premodern nun’s agency and the imagination of religious women, who were not necessarily repressed victims with no recoverable history of any import. Nunneries were loci of social and economic power, particular inhabitants inf luenced secular women and male authority figures ranging from fathers to confessors, and some women like Benedetta negotiated rich emotive lives for themselves. We tend to think of nuns as women restricted by institutional confines and discourses that denied them their bodies, but Benedetta’s story urges us to examine the materiality of passion, of art, and of past lives. Only the report of the Capuchins told of Benedetta’s sexual transgressions— f lirting with two male priests as well as “immodest acts” with a woman—and only at the end of its account.8 The inquiry concluded that her visions andecstasies were “demonic illusions.”9 Along with her disturbingly erotic behavior, the inquirers were concerned by their discovery that apparent signs of her special favor, the stigmata, nuptial ring, and a bleeding crucifix, were all forged. The friars integrated Carlini’s sexual behavior with her spiritual behavior—all were sinful and diabolically inspired. In an important sense, we need to take this contemporary contextualization seriously, understanding that Benedetta’s visions were not utterly divided from her corporeal acts. The aspiring mystic, then in her early thirties, had been having regular sex with Mea for at least two years. Neither investigation was sparked byrumors of sexual sin, nor is it clear how central that particular misconduct was to her lifelong imprisonment within the convent. Benedetta’s story most resembles cases of what Anne Jacobson Schutte has called “failed saints,” or what Inquisitors termed “pretended holiness” (affetata santità).11 Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century penance for a nun’s sexual sin ranged from expulsion or permanent incarceration in the convent to just two years of penance there.12 No witnesses or other evidence confirmed Mea’s testimony and if she had not made a voluntary confession, no one could have uncovered the information. The demoted abbess Carlini herself renounced her past and never acknowledged Mea’s claims. The unusually visible sexual aspects may not be unique. Recalling her secular life of the 1670s, and her enjoyment of men courting her, St. Veronica Giuliani later emphatically interrupted one of her autobiographies. A sentence written in capital letters alluded to imprecise errors, implicitly sexual: “I bore great tribulation for the sins I committed with those spinsters and I did not know how to confess them.”13 Cloistered women may have enjoyed undocumented but thoroughly physical relationships in secluded spaces. From at least the twelfth to the seventeenth century, incidents of same-sex eroticism within female convents are recorded. Around 1660, nuns at Auxonne accused their mother superior of bewitching them, of wearing a dildo, of kissing, and penetrating them with fingers.14 Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century women in Italian religious refuges for convertite (ex-prostitutes) and malmaritate (abused wives) became friends and in some cases nearly half the inhabitants formed couples sharing rooms, where “officials discovered women who were sexually involved with other women.”15 Close living and supportive conditions also obtained in non- or semi-cloistered communities of pious laywomen. Bell’s critique of Brown usefully corrected various errors, while nevertheless making new mistakes. His chief point was that the male investigators “had no lack of imagination or conceptual framework for describing love between two women” and that it was the nuns rather than the Church officials who condemned Benedetta to life-long imprisonment.16 Certainly, she seems to have been a demanding, imperious abbess who could not cope with the dissension her rule engendered, perhaps in part due to newly instigated clausura. Brown’s label of “lesbian,” despite her careful acknowledgment that it was anachronistic, provoked much criticism. One reviewer of the book, using yet more historically inappropriate terms, insisted that “Carlini is heterosexual or, more properly,bisexual in both her inclinations and conduct.”17 Disagreements over labels and details should not distract from the fundamental fact that physical, sexual contact took place between two nuns. Too often, a series of dichotomies misinform discussions of sexual practices. A binary between the mind and the body, the soul and its vessel, is often mapped onto other seemingly concomitant divides, not only between masculine and feminine but also the celestial and the mundane. The presumption is that religious ideologies constantly repress bodily desires and only secular, putatively modern, frameworks are capable of acknowledging material passion. In a similar vein, a contrast is regularly drawn between “real sex” (whatever that is) and “Romantic Friendships” amongst women. Both the abbess’s visions and her sexual deeds were informed by conventions shaping the lives of all nuns as brides of Christ at a time when dualism was not naturalized. Discussing the exegetical tradition regarding the biblical Song of Songs as an allegory about the soul’s union with the divine, E. Ann Matter noted that the text was “the epithalamium of a spiritual union which ultimately takes place between God and the resurrected Christian—both body and soul.”18 Benedetta’s mysticism links her to a tradition of female spirituality “that made the body itself a vehicle of transcendence. . . . Corporeal images were the stuff with which nuns described their experiences.”19 Heterosexualization of the story is too simplistic, too ignorant of complex issues related to gender dynamics as well as intersex and transgender bodies. What Brown calls Benedetta’s “double role of male and of angel” and “her male identity” was not a consistent performance of masculinity. Speaking on occasion as an angel named Splenditello or as Christ, the nun was a medium for the divine rather than for her “self ” in a modern sense of individual identity, and none of her contemporaries, including Mea, considered her male. During sex, neither seventeenth-century woman believed the other was transformed into a man, and their sex did not necessitate resort to “instruments” or dildos, devices that so obsessed confessors. For two or more years, “at least three times a week,” when the women shared a cell as mistress and servant, they had sex, in the day as well as at night or in the early morning.20 Although Mea sought to protect herself by claiming she was always forced, and a degree of intimidation or overbearing insistence may well have been involved, she implicitly admitted pleasure. “Embracing her,” the abbess “would put her under herself and kissing her as if she were a man, she would speak words of love to her. And she would stir on top of her so much that both of them corrupted themselves.” The women did much more than engage in what Brown and Bell describe, using the dismissive misnomer, as “mutual masturbation.”21 They touched each other until orgasm, in vigorous and multiple ways, including actions that were not possible for a single person, and had no need of a phallus. Rubbing or “stirring” their genitals together to the point of “corruption,” they also manually penetrated each other and actively used their mouths. Presenting herself as more passive, Mea recounted how even during the day the abbess grabbed her handand putting it under herself, she would have her put her finger into her genitals, and holding it there she stirred herself so much that she corrupted herself. And she would kiss her and also by force would put her own hand under her companion and her finger into her genitals and corrupted her.22 A slightly later expansion of the account accentuated Benedetta’s inventive pursuit of pleasure, saying that “to feel greater sensuality [she] stripped naked as a newborn babe,” and “as many as twenty times by force she had wanted to kiss [Mea’s] genitals. The document, although stressing the younger woman’s reluctance, also showed a comprehension of how satisfying the actions could be: “Benedetta, in order to have greater pleasure, put her face between the other’s breasts and kissed them, and wanted always to be thus on her.” During the day in her study, while teaching her companion to read and write, the abbess again enjoyed sensual contact, having Mea “sit down in front of her” or “be near her on her knees . . . kissing her and putting her hands on her breasts.” Despite the reticence Mea tried to convey in her statement, it was clear her lover sought mutual delight. When manually arousing Mea, Benedetta “wanted her companion to do the same to her, and while she was doing this she would kiss her.” The older woman was presented as active and insistent. If Mea tried to refuse, the abbess went to the cot “and, climbing on top, sinned with her by force,” or she would arouse herself (“with her own hands she would corrupt herself ”). Hence, in a phrase recorded only a few times in Mea’s testimony, the younger woman conceptualized her vigorous, forceful lover in standard terms, saying “she would force her into the bed and kissing her as if she were a man she would stir on top of her.” Mea probably had no sexual experience with men, so her comparison was not based on a Freudian model of the phallus or anatomical knowledge of a penis, but on a sense of gendered roles whereby the man took a physically dominant position. Benedetta and Mea enacted substantive, varied sex, in a range of modes, positions, times, and locations. Benedetta’s case spurs us to ask questions about the management of nunneries. How did seemingly “innocent” and “repressed” women learn about sexual details and inventively contravene prohibitions? A stock opposition between knowledgeable yet repressive male authorities, and ignorant nuns without any agency, cannot satisfactorily apply. Some inhabitants of nunneries shared a degree of sexual experience and innuendo with their companions. Dedicated to God after her mother survived difficult labor in 1590, Benedetta was a nine-year-old villager when she entered the religious life.24 Most other entrants (and boarders) were similarly prepubescent or in their early teens, but some were older, sexually experienced women, such as widows or former prostitutes. Heterogeneity was increased by the presence of converse, servants and lay sisters who entered at slightly older ages, did not profess, and sometimes frequented the outside world, although the growth of post-Tridentine enclosure made this less likely from the late sixteenth century onward. The popular and much reprinted Colloquies (1529) by Augustinian friar Erasmus suggested that nunneries were filled with “morewho copy Sappho’s behavior (mores) than share her talent,” and that “All the veiled aren’t virgins, believe me.”25 Through whatever means, cloistered women could have clear ideas about how to attain sexual pleasure. An anonymous nun, literate in Latin, wrote a love poem to another religious woman in the twelfth century, noting that “when I recall how you caressed / So joyously, my little breast / I want to die.”26 Confessors and canonists educated women in their obsessive sense of sexual sin. Due to the urging of questioners, or to a sense of guilt that welcomed the relief of voluntary confession, Venetian Inquisitors heard in the 1660s about how the “failed saint” Antonia Pesenti fought in the nighttime against diabolic temptations to masturbate.27 St. Catherine of Siena (1347–80) was tormented by sexual visions.28 Such a woman, who strenuously resisted association with secular men outside her family ever since she was a girl and refused to place herself on the marriage market, nevertheless had some comprehension of the conventions of sexual sin. Secular inspirations included farmyard sights, carnival songs, and oral jokes. Sermons, or the queries of a confessor, further embedded a degree of simple knowledge, horrifying yet fascinating. Nuns were governed by regulations suspicious of erotic activity in all-female environments, such as the provision since the early thirteenth century of night-lights to deter illicit entries into cells, regular checks on sleeping arrangements, supervision of female as well as male visitors, and careful control of the grille and other points of contact with the wider world. Yet those very rules made everyone aware of the possibility of contravention. Many penitentials and texts of canon law voiced a concern about nuns erotically touching or using “instruments” with each other, possibilities paradoxically furthered through inquiries in the confessional.29 Visual culture, including widely circulated prints and paintings of the damned, was another means whereby nuns were incorporated into a communal imagination regarding both sin and sensual piety. Explicit condemnations of same-sex activities led occasionally to illustrations in religious texts or on the walls of convents.30 Sensitive contact was also represented. Mutual tenderness and awe between the embracing Mary and Elizabeth at the Visitation, liturgically celebrated in the musical crescendo of the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55) sung every day at Vespers, was powerfully pictured by artists such as Domenico Ghirlandaio, Jacopo Pontormo, and Parmigianino. Saints’ lives contained legends like Catherine of Siena suckling at Mary’s breast or St. Catherine of Genoa tenderly kissing a dying woman on the mouth.32 A woman’s understanding of sex and sensuality might have been based more on discursive than experiential practices, but it could seem all the more real in its visionary presence. The chief focus of my study is legitimized, mystical eroticism in convents, leading to Benedetta’s mistaken, kinetic literalization of spiritual metaphors. Her pious and sexual performances intertwined on at least three levels of efficacy. Instrumentally, her access to the divine persuaded the younger, initially illiterate Mea to be a witness to the visionary experiences and to become a sex partner.Parmigianino, Visitation, pen and wash. Galleria Nazionale, Palazzo della Pilotta, Parma.FIGURE 6.1De Agostini Picture Library/A. DeGregorio/Bridgeman Images.Whether the ambitious nun was a self-aware manipulator throughout, or convinced by her own delusions, is neither knowable nor particularly pertinent. For some time Mea and the other nuns, the confessor, local officials, and the townspeople were all caught up in a visionary scenario they wanted to believe. At Benedetta’s funeral in 1661, the populace had to be kept away from a body they stillthought capable of miracles.33 The investigators eventually judged Benedetta a “poor creature” deceived by the devil, and she agreed that everything was “done without her consent or her will.”34 That defense of unconscious possession was already evident during the days of her acceptance by the community, but it shifted from being divine favor and spiritual rapture to becoming demonic deception. On the psychological level, the two women were provided with an effective way to cope with guilt. Until Mea “confessed with very great shame” about their sex, the angel Splenditello convinced her the women were not sinning. 35 Initially hesitating, in the presence of a host of saints led by Catherine of Siena, to obey Christ’s command to disrobe so he could place a new heart in her body, Benedetta was reassured by Jesus, who said “where I am, there is no shame.”36 The Capuchin investigators thought her putative ecstasy “partook more of the lascivious than of the divine” but the earlier inquiry, and the convent’s inhabitants like Mea, had not taken it amiss. After all, Saints Catherine of Siena, Catherine de’ Ricci (1522–90), and Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi (1566–1607) received hearts from Christ, and numerous images in printed or painted form continued to disseminate this aspect of female sanctity’s typology.37 Secular poetry and pictures also represented the gifting of manly hearts as a token of a courtly love that metaphorically elevated carnal desire into an idealized realm, without losing sight of erotic thrill.38 Nuns were increasingly devoted to Christ’s wounded heart, and imagined their own hearts as inner loci to be entered by their heavenly groom. The crucial difference was that Benedetta’s imagination was so inventive, and her belief system so literal, that representation of her participation in this mystic ritual included physical—“lascivious”—details. Thirdly, on the affective level, Benedetta’s mysticism heightened her sense of desire, not only for union with the divine, but for sex aided by angels. Equally, it could be said that her yearnings exacerbated her mysticism. Recourse to mystical fantasy endowed her passion with a structure and rhetoric. Rather than sublimation through piety, Benedetta’s case history indicates an intensifying of acts spiritual and sexual. Much of her complex psyche is summed up by the striking act of benediction she performed after sex: as Splenditello, “he made the sign of the cross all over his companion’s body after having committed many immodest acts with her.”39 Priest, angel, nun, lover, guilty and grateful, powerful and placatory, Benedetta moved her hand over a body she rendered simultaneously sacral and sensual. Alongside a renewed disciplinary zeal regulating cloistered life, CounterReformation culture witnessed a heightening of the emotive register of piety. In doing so, the Catholic Church accentuated a venerable, central heritage that used human bodies to imagine spiritual passions. So, in the Mystic Nativity of 1500–01 (National Gallery, London), Botticelli’s angels reenact the ritual of the kiss of peace, a regular liturgical moment, but potential eroticization is indicated by its conjunction with a nuptial kiss and by the exclusion of sinners from the ritual.40 Primarily same-sex pairs kiss and embrace in Giovanni di Paolo’s midfifteenth-century panels representing eternal paradise ( Figure 6.2).41 Angels andFIGURE 6.2 Giovanni di Paolo, Paradise, 1445, tempera and gold on canvas, transferred from wood, 44.5 × 38.4 cm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Open access.souls of the blessed greet each other, and the blissful unions are all manifested as moments of physical intimacy. Men in religious costume embrace, two secular women tenderly touch, near them two Dominican nuns entwine in one unit, and angels enfold men into the sweet realm of grace. Some female mystics were blessed with a miracle of lactation.42 Catherine of Siena’s experiences especially inf luenced Benedetta because her mother was devoted to Catherine and the convent was under her aegis as its patron saint.43 That role model’s mouth drained pus from a woman’s breast and the abnegation was rewarded by what her confessor termed an “indescribable and unfathomableliquid” f lowing from Christ’s side.44 Both scenes featured in one of the prints comprising a well-disseminated series illustrating Catherine’s life, designed by Francesco Vanni.45 Her confessor Raymond of Capua presented Christ as Catherine’s sensual lover: “putting His right hand on her virginal neck and drawing her towards the wound in His own side, He whispered to her, ‘Drink, daughter, the liquid from my side, and it will fill your soul with such sweetness that its wonderful effects will be felt even by the body.’” Raymond brief ly noted that an earlier confessor had written about how “the glorious Mother of God herself fills her [i.e. Catherine] with ineffable sweetness with milk from her most holy breast.”46 Nurtured at the breasts of Christ and Mary, and moaning that “I want the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ” in church before his body f luid miraculously satisfied her so that “she thought she must die of love,” Catherine’s inf luential model of sanctity encouraged women such as her follower Benedetta Carlini to believe in sensate relief of their spiritual desires.47FIGURE 6.3 Francesco Vanni, St. Catherine of Siena orally draining pus from an ill woman and being rewarded with liquid from Christ’s wound, 1597, engraving, 25.7 × 28.9 cm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum. Open access.Benedetta’s maleness supposedly derived from her role-playing as Jesus or an angel, yet neither Christ nor angels were unequivocally male. In a fundamental sense, of course, Christ was masculine, the son of God endowed with visible, male genitals to prove the infant’s assumption of Incarnational humanity.48 His adult manifestation was also primarily masculine and patriarchal. Imitative adoration of their heavenly spouse could lead to mortification and even stigmatization, but nuns were not masculinized through such actions and they did not automatically become lovers of men. Stigmatized like Christ or speaking at times as though Christ was delivering a message,Benedetta was not Jesus, but his bride and servant. Cloistered women were privileged followers of Mary’s role as sponsa, the heavenly bride reenacting the Song of Songs and enjoying sensual relations with an adult, loving Christ. But when a German cleric regretfully noted that “it properly is the prerogative of his [i.e. Christ’s] brides” alone to enjoy sensual union with a celestial bridegroom, he nevertheless vicariously enjoyed a homoerotic fantasy by instructing nuns to kiss Christ “for my sake.”49 As scholars have shown, in many ways the metaphorical body of Christ was “feminine” or homoerotic or, rather, polymorphous in its sensual charge.50 Nuns imagined themselves as suckled infants, nurtured adults, mothers, spouses, female friends, all sharing an affinity as “sisters and daughters in Jesus Christ,” as Catherine de’ Ricci addressed a group of nuns in October 1571 after the death of “your dearest mother,” their abbess.51 While Christ was their child and groom, and Mary their exemplar, nuns were also enfolded in a female genealogy of succession and a feminine household of multiple sisters, daughters and mothers. Fellow nuns tenderly support Catherine of Siena when she is so affected as to faint after receiving the stigmata, painted by Sodoma in the mid-1520s for the Sienese chapel dedicated to her within the Dominican headquarters of her cult (Figure 6.4).52 Catherine is shown with exemplary female acolytes whose intimate, gentle regard for her swooning body suggests a bodily care and unselfconsciousness that requires no masculine intervention. Nuns took on more than one persona in this labile community of affection. After Benedetta married Christ in a special ceremony on May 26, 1619, a brief investigation did not distrust her mysticism, and on July 28, 1620 her religious sisters elected her abbess, head of the new Congregation of the Mother of God.53 As such, “mother” abbess Benedetta embraced her “daughter” and fellow “sister” Mea. Brown conf lates being male with taking on an angelic guise, but Benedetta took on no such “double role of male and of angel.” When using the voice of an angel, she was not adapting a role assigned to unambiguously male figures. Since theologians such as Aquinas believed angels might assume f lesh but had no natural bodies or functions, the ethereal creatures were officially asexual. Names, pronouns, and visual representations implied a degree of masculinity about God’s messengers, but often of a childlike or pubescent and androgynous kind. At the very moment when Gabriel carried the message transmitting the Logos into the body of the Virgin Mary, that archangel was often depicted as especially androgynous. It was probably to a frescoed Gabriel that the orphan,Sodoma, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, Scenes from the Life of Saint Catherine of Siena: The swooning of the saint, 1526, fresco. Siena, S. Domenico. Scala/Art Resource, NY.FIGURE 6.4The “lesbian nun” Benedetta Carlinilater Beata, Vanna of Orvieto pointed on a church wall when she said “this angel is my mother.”54 Splenditello and Benedetta’s other angels empowered rather than masculinized her. Splenditello and company were celestial, barely gendered embodiments of winged eros or desire, rather than of a particular lover. Mea’s account moved directly from details of their sex to the statement that the mystic “always appeared to be in a trance (ecstasi ) . . . Her angel, Splenditello, did these things, appearing as a beautiful youth (bellisimo giovane) of fifteen years.”55 The attractive adolescent was endowed with the kind of homoerotic potential celebrated in contemporary paintings such as Caravaggio’s The Stigmatization of St. Francis produced in the first decade of the seventeenth century (Figure 6.5).56 Like the contemporaneous Splenditello, the seraphic spirit of celestial love who gently supports Francis is a creature ostensibly male but fundamentally symbolic of an eroticism which does not insist on singular identifications of gender or sex. The saint swoons in the arms of a lover whose pictorial form embodies the ineffable and polymorphous. Francis’s pious identification with the supreme exemplar Christ is physically and metaphorically consummated as he receives the stigmata in a mystical experience necessarily represented in erotic terms. A little more than twenty years after Mea’s confession, Gianlorenzo Bernini began work on a three-dimensional figuration of The Ecstasy of St. Teresa (Figure 6.6). With caressing gaze, divine light, a conventional arrow of Love, andFIGURE 6.5 Caravaggio, Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, ca. 1595–96, oil on canvas, 94 × 130 cm. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.Photo credit: Nimatallah/Art Resource, NY.FIGURE 6.6Bernini, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, marble, 1645–52. Rome, S. Maria dellaVittoria. Photo credit: Alinari/Art Resource, NY.delicate gestures, Bernini’s embodiment of celestial spirit visits upon Teresa an experience of divine transport. A childlike member of the ranks of the cherubim gently strips Teresa of her worldly garments, lifting the robe so that blissful fire will sear her soul with what she called “a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails.”57 As Teresa described her rapture in the early 1560s, “this is not a physical, but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it—even a considerable share.” Corporeal sensation was certainly perceived by an anonymous critic who, around 1670, accused Bernini of having “dragged that most pure Virgin not only into the Third Heaven, but into the dirt, to make a Venus not only prostrate but prostituted.”58 Contemporaries, in other words, were quite aware of the fine line between sensuality and spirituality, a boundary crossed not only by Benedetta but by the renowned artist Bernini. Benedetta’s staging of such favors as her stigmatization and her nuptials with Christ were eroticized events akin to those depicted by artists. She involved an entire community of nuns and a local populace in earthly manifestations of the divine, just as Caravaggio did in oil paint, Bernini in marble, or preachers with words. Miracles were understood to be physically manifest, and visions subtly brought the divine into the corporeal realm. The late thirteenth-century mystic Gertrude of Helfta wondered why God “had instructed her with so corporeal a vision.” Her question was rhetorical, as any acceptable mystic knew: spiritual and invisible things can only be explained to the human intellect by means of similitudes of things perceived by the mind. And that is why no one ought to despise what is revealed by means of bodily things, but ought to study anything that would make the mind worthy of tasting the sweetness of spiritual delights by means of the likeness of bodily things (corporalium rerum).59 As the seamstress and “failed saint” Angela Mellini knew about her visions, “one never sees things with the eyes of the body, but everything is seen intellectually.”60 On the other hand, this reassuring statement was delivered to an Inquisitor, whereas a note written by her halting hand understood that emotional passion had very real effects. Thinking of such things as the pains she suffered in her heart, in imitation of Christ’s passion, she observed that “love makes me experience the truth of sufferings through the senses, now it beats, now it purges, now it hurts and now all sorts of torments are felt.” In order to truly convey the exactitude and reality of her sensate love, in September 1697 she sketched a diagram of her wounded heart, complete with lance, nails, hammer, cross, and crown of thorns. That drawing was produced for her confessor, a man she desired so much that she felt “great heat in all the parts of my body and particularly of movements in my genitals.”61 Like a courtier offering a heart to the beloved, and like the related love-imagery for the soul’s yearning after the divine, Angela availed herself of religious rhetoric and resorted to physical signs when lovingChrist and wooing her priest. Similarly, on Caravaggio’s canvas and in Bernini’s chapel, light is divine and natural, the ecstasy spiritual and embodied. So, too, Benedetta’s sensate and emotive life was a continuous blend of illusion and reality, spirit, and similitude. Echoing her model, Catherine of Siena, Benedetta experienced visions, stigmatization, the exchange of hearts, and a marriage with Christ. Catherine’s reception into heaven after her death, disseminated in Francesco Vanni’s engravings and various paintings, entailed a tender, intercessory greeting by Mary.62 Catherine’s charitable nursing brought her mouth into contact with one dying woman’s breast (Figure 6.3), and on another occasion she transformed an ill woman into her spouse.63 “Full of burning charity,” Catherine rushed to the hospital to tend a bereft woman, “embraced her, and offered to help her and look after her for as long as she liked.” She motivated herself by “looking upon this leper woman, in fact, as her Heavenly Bridegroom.” Benedetta took the actions of her exemplar further, embracing another woman in a relationship where each was a spouse, each a bride. At some level, she perhaps believed the words God spoke to Catherine, that “In my eyes there is neither male nor female.”64 To have an impact, mysticism had to present a degree of spectacle, and thus cross into the physical realm. The special favors bestowed on some mystics were invisible, but then other signs had to appear, especially as the Church grew more cautious about legitimizing local cults, feminine excesses, fakery, and piety which might turn out to be diabolical in origin. Lucia Broccadelli’s stigmata arrived during Lent in 1496 but only becoming visible at Easter, after Catherine of Siena’s supplication in heaven persuaded Christ “that the stigmata should be visible and palpable in me.”65 For several years, the Dominican visionary was highly favored by the lord of Ferrara, Ercole d’Este, and officials, including the Pope’s physician, examined her wounds to their satisfaction. But the fortunes of this “living saint” suffered a reversal when her ducal patron died in 1505. The sisters, chafing under her strict rule, were able to mount a counter-offensive because the stigmata had disappeared. Lucia was imprisoned for fraud within the convent for nearly forty years, until she died in 1544. A potential mystic impressing only a relatively small town and without a powerful supporter, Carlini also encountered a backlash from her fellow religious and was investigated in an even more stringent climate. Once the Counter-Reformation took hold, especially after the Council of Trent (1545–63), there was an increase in cases of women ultimately judged “failed saints” or diabolically possessed. Concomitantly, the number of female canonizations decreased, with a suspicion of women deemed credulous and excessive further abetted by Urban VIII’s more strict procedures for canonization.66 Two hundred years earlier, Catherine of Siena’s confessor, Raymond of Capua, later Master General of the Dominican Order, was persuaded of the veracity of her mystical experiences, despite the invisibility of her marriage ring and stigmata, by “watching the movements of her body when she was in ecstasy.”67 Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi begged Christ that her mystical ring andThe “lesbian nun” Benedetta Carlini113stigmata be invisible, but the impulse for humility was neatly balanced by kinetic and audible theatre similar to Catherine’s. Her very wish not to be singled out became itself part of the record collected by her community. In May 1619, Benedetta staged an elaborate wedding witnessed by the secular elite of Pescia. The first inquiry into her holiness began the very next day. But her renewal of the ring (with saffron) and stigmata (with a large pin) only emerged in the course of the later investigation.68 Judged fraudulent by Bell, Benedetta may nevertheless have been acting in good faith, marking her body artificially only when doubts grew, trying to persuade the sceptics by secondary, external signs that she truly believed were there on her soul.69 When a Capuchin nun, the blessed Maria Maddalena Martinengo (1687–1737), piously took a needle to her own body, it was not counted diabolical. She embroidered the instruments of the Passion “with the needle threaded with silk . . . into her own f lesh, nice and big, as chalice-covers are embroidered, nor without bleeding.” To retain her status and stem the tide of opposition in an increasingly fractious convent, Benedetta may have inscribed her body without thinking that the act was forgery. Self-mutilation recurs in the lives of mystics, including Angela of Foligno’s searing of her genitals, Margaret of Cortona’s desire to cut her face, and Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi’s gouging of her f lesh.71 Benedetta’s piercing, documented by a hostile witness who came forth only after the convent turned against their imperious abbess, may have been motivated in part by a genuine element of imitatio Christi. Rather than judge her by later standards of verisimilitude and honesty, it would be more appropriate to understand her actions, and subsequent downfall, as a naïve, over-literal, and undisguised performance of spiritual conventions that found no meaningful political support amongst higher authorities or in a discordant convent. Like other aspirants to mysticism, Benedetta displayed her celestial vision through mime, “motioning with her hands as if she were taking” souls out of purgatory, for instance, but her choreography went so far as to publicly process in a prearranged mystic marriage, and to act out her erotic drive with Mea.72 Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi also kinetically staged her exceptionality. She mimed her wedding with Christ, or in pantomime indicated to the novices under her care that she was being stigmatized. Her charges reported that “she held her hands open, staring at a figure of Jesus that she had on top of her bedstead; she looked like St. Catherine of Siena. So, we thought that at that point Jesus gave her his holy stigmata.” 73 Eroticizing a dormitory, looking at one image and mimicking another, Maria Maddalena involved her young female audience in a highly visual fantasy that drew on widely familiar iconography of female mysticism. Those visualizations were further instilled through skills of internalized sight. Trained, like all Catholics, in contemplative techniques merging the inner and outer eye, Maria Maddalena and her faithful novices witnessed the material reality of a vision. Meditative practices imagined narratives set in contemporary settings, with familiar faces, placing a premium on immediacy and recognition that was also highly valued in visual culture. Visions were regularly made tangible,when nuns cared for and dressed dolls of the Christ Child, acted out the stigmatization, wrote and performed religious plays, or, in Catherine of Bologna’s case, painted and drew images inspired by her raptures.74 To make fantasy real, to don the mantle of holy figures, was orthodox rather than perverse. Benedetta’s concrete sexualization of her religious scenario was not unique. In the early sixteenth century, a Spanish canon lawyer had justified his inordinate lust for some nuns in Rome by arguing that since, as a cleric “he was the bridegroom of the Church and the nuns were brides of the Church,” they could have “carnal relations without sin.” 75 Imprisoned until he renounced these beliefs, the educated man had muddled certain doctrines, but his conf lation of spiritual allegory and physical desire was present in the writings of many a mystic and it was visualized in numerous visions or works of art. By making her desires earthly as well as divine, Benedetta misunderstood conventions, but she did not invent outside a context. While she cannot be posited as a mainstream example of premodern religiosity, there was a logic to Benedetta’s actions that does not rely on a reading of her as a skeptical, manipulative fraud. Angelic disguise transformed the mystic aspirant Benedetta into a forceful seductress, whose tenderness and ecstatic passion was not rigidly fixed along differently sexed lines. Mea reported: This Splenditello called her his beloved; . . . [and said] I assure you that there is no sin in it; and while we did these things he said many times: give yourself to me with all your heart and soul and then let me do as I wish.76 Like the facilitating angel in the mystic encounters represented by Caravaggio and Bernini, Benedetta’s guardian angel was imagined as a beautiful, curlyhaired youth dressed in gold and white.77 The young angel was an instrument of persuasion, the abbess a figure of command and intimidation. Splenditello’s power derived from a patriarchal hierarchy in heaven, but he sounded like a youth rather than a god. His counterpart in Caravaggio’s painting does not heterosexualize that encounter; and in Bernini’s ensemble the young angel eroticizes a spiritual ecstasy that cannot be crudely reduced to phallic penetration by an adult man. Nor does Splenditello’s presence amidst the couplings of Benedetta and Mea reduce them to a differently sexed twosome. There was a third, disembodied protagonist in each of these raptures. The divine was elemental light in Caravaggio’s painting and Bernini’s sculpture. In Benedetta’s visions, as in her sex with Mea, the divine was literally articulated, through voice. Christ or Splenditello was a pivot in a triangulation of desire in which one of the results was frequent, very real sex between two women. The interpretation of Benedetta’s acts within the framework of a heterosexualized bride of Christ points to the need to reconsider in quite what ways Jesus was a spouse. Three kinds of marital imagery informed the regulation of female religious: liturgical, allegorical, and mystical. While all nuns were incorporated liturgically and could picture their souls as allegorical spouses of the heavenlybridegroom, only mystics experienced additional nuptials. In 1619, Benedetta’s mystic marriage was an overt, preplanned, public festival, as was her first marriage to Christ in 1599 at the age of nine, taking the veil, ring, and crown at a ceremony celebrated by a bishop, though occasionally the celebrant was an abbess.79 In a drawing by an anonymous German nun around 1500, enthroned Virgin Mary/Ecclesia replaces the priest (Figure 6.7).80 Strikingly, the figure of Christ, particularly as an adult, is absent from many such images. When he does appear, as in an illuminated manuscript of the rule of St. Benedict produced for Venetian nuns, he can bestow the nuptial crown on two Brides at once.81 Describing the ritual as one involving “the giving of a woman to a man” and using the term “heavenly husband” mistakenly suggests a scenario akin to a modern, secular, nuclear family.82 Analogy should not be confused with actuality. The acculturation entailed complex, multiple interchanges, evident in the drawing (Figure 6.7). Its scroll carries the inscription “Take this boy and take care of [i.e. suckle] me (nutri michi). I will give you your reward.”83 Like a priest offering the veil, ring, and crown, and then the eucharist, the Virgin begins to speak, licensing the earthly virgin to embrace the baby. But the infant takes over, urging the young nun to suckle him and promising her eternal reward. Her spouse is an infant, not a dominant patriarch, nor an earthly “husband.” Christ was a communal groom, and a commonly nurtured babe. He was more visible, and more often adult, in images of the allegorical and mystical levels of marriage.84 Mystic marriages of saints show the adult, or often infant, Christ as the pivotal locus of mediation, yet the rhetoric and ritual of marriage also visually and symbolically bonds two or more female characters Anonymous German nun, Consecration of Virgins, ca. 1500.Photo credit: Jeffrey Hamburger. Used with permissionwho are devoted to God’s son. Catherine of Siena imitated St. Catherine of Alexandria’s mystic marriage with Christ, and thereafter the subject of union became popular.85 Female saints, especially the earlier Catherine, are usually depicted in the act of espousal to an infant Christ offered by his mother Mary, just as the German nun remembered (Figure 6.7). Thereby, two holy women engineer a mystical union over the body of a small child. To say that Christ becomes “the object of exalted maternal instincts rather than sublimated sexual desire,” however, is to assume that a nurturing woman’s affection has no component of passion, and that all female desire must be focused on a male object.86 The child-groom can be shown as a young, unknowing instrument guided by his mother, as in a painting by Correggio, where the interplay of hands is particularly sensitive.87 Courtly decorum amongst adults becomes in Correggio’s visualization an intimate, gentle affair in which the child is too young to grant seigneurial permission. Held close so that his body is subsumed in his mother’s, at other times he is a virtual extension of her body, helping to connect through compositional line and symbolic gesture a succession of two or more female figures. His small arms and shoulder stand in for Mary’s left arm in a later painting by Ludovico Carracci, so that his torso becomes especially symbolic of a presence that almost need not be there.88 Guercino’s painting of 1620 depicts a gentle touch between the two women, and tender glances link the three characters, but Christ is relegated to the opposite side.89 Visual management of nuns’ fantasies could imagine them in very physical, explicit actions. A cycle on the Song of Songs painted in the mid-fourteenth century on the walls of a nun’s gallery at Chelmno in eastern Prussia imagined Sponsa eagerly pulling her spouse into her bedchamber.90 It literalizes the Canticle: “I will seize you and lead you / into the house of my mother” (8:2). Such pictures made manifest an emotive intensity that the all-female audience knew they were meant to share with other women.91 In Northern Europe, the instructional habit of elaborating the amorous interchange between Christ and the soul produced a sequential narrative version illustrated in comic-strip fashion, Christus und die minnende Seele (Christ and the loving soul), written in German in the late fourteenth century, later disseminated in printed sheets and books.92 The divine lover embraced the soul, wooed her with music, and crowned her in a ritual reminiscent of a wedding ceremony. She obeyed Christ’s command to divest herself of worldly garments when he said “If you wish to serve me, you must be stripped bare.” It is unlikely that Italian nuns like Benedetta knew this particular text or its imagery, but the practice of encouraging a religious woman’s fantasy through narrative, whether in sermons, sung words, wall paintings, prints, books, or paintings, fostered a widespread, eroticized imagination. The soul’s rapturous reach toward its divine lover from a supine position on a bed, as represented in the Rothschild Canticles, was echoed in Bernini’s marble display of Ludovica Albertoni arching up from a bed where the disarranged sheets are even more telling a sign of the soul’s ecstasy.93 Within this ideological structure, BenedettaCarlini could imagine herself as a privileged soul experiencing ecstatic union with the actual body of Mea. On one of the three occasions when she addressed Mea in Christ’s voice, “he said he wanted her to be his bride, and he was content that she give him her hand; and she did this thinking it was Jesus.” Even if the abbess was a manipulative faker, as a crude and cynical reading might have it, Mea believed the illusion, according to her self-protective testimony. If neither woman was skeptical at the time of the conversation, then the words and gesture performed a tangible, if unconventional, enactment of bridal mysticism. Christ was manifest in a human—and female—body rather than only present to the mind’s eye, yet the two believers went on with the corporeal pantomime. If one or both of the earthly players did think that Christ was not speaking, then at least one of them heard a marriage proposal being offered by one woman to another yet did not rebuff or denounce it at the time. Benedetta utilized the traditional metaphors and scenarios of erotic mysticism, but at certain moments she took the logic beyond doctrinal limits. She only assumed Jesus’ voice during three conversations with Mea.95 Twice she spoke “before doing these dishonest things,” first when Jesus took Mea’s hand and suggested marriage. The second time was in the choir, “holding [Mea’s] hands together and telling her that he forgave her all her sins.” “The third time it was after [Mea] was disturbed by these goings on,” and was reassured that there was no sinfulness, and that Benedetta “while doing these things had no awareness of them.” All three occasions offered comfort and framed sex, occurring either before or after their “immodest acts,” but Benedetta did not present herself as a sexually active Christ. However much bridal mysticism structured Benedetta’s actions, she never took on the persona of Christ during sex with Mea, instead acting through an angel when she used any guise at all. Perhaps she is best described as a mystic playwright, someone who wrote scripts during visionary or ecstatic experiences but who acted out rather than wrote down the dramas, for an audience that included not only Mea but also on occasion the other nuns and the local populace. Plays by nuns were performed by inmates who cross-dressed for the male roles.96 In 1553 Caterina de’ Ricci played the part of twelve-year-old Jesus speaking, with “signs of particular love,” lines from the Song of Songs to a fellow nun who was acting as St. Agnese.97 Taking multiple roles, such as Christ or angels with a variety of dialects and ages, as well as sponsa and anima, Benedetta was a consummate performer whose voice and appearance fitted the occasion.98 The mutual gestures of Benedetta and Mea literally followed the Song of Songs: “My beloved put forth his hand through the hole / and my belly trembled at his touch / I rose to open to my beloved / my hands dripped myrrh / . . . / I opened the bolt of the door to my love” (5:4–6). Mea’s account of how Benedetta “put her face between the other’s breasts and kissed them, and wanted always to be thus on her” recalls the Canticle’s enjoyment too. In the adaptation of the biblical Song in the Rothschild manuscript compiled for a nun, Sponsus delightsin breasts: “between my breasts he will abide . . . Behold my beloved speaketh to me: How beautiful are thy breasts, thy breasts are more beautiful than wine.”99 The phrase “sister my bride (soror mea sponsa)” was particularly apt. It occurs four times in the Song (4:9, 10, 12; 5:1), along with “open to me, my sister my friend” (sor mea amica mea) (5:2). Imitating the soul’s statement in Christus und die minnende Seele that “I must go completely naked,” Benedetta “stripped naked as a newborn babe.” Each recalled the Song’s bride: “I have taken off my garment” (5:3). The sequential narrative of the romance between Christ and the soul also had the womanly soul say “I cannot read a book unless you are my master” and “I will tell no-one, love, what I have heard from you,” each lines Mea could have uttered to her abbess.100 Benedetta spoke another line, taking on the voice of Christ to offer the symbolic emblem of mystical marriage: “Since you delight me, love, I set a crown upon you.” She lay on top of Mea, “kissing her as if she were a man [and] she would stir on top of her so much that both of them corrupted themselves,” an arrangement, and finale, which bears comparison with the miraculous levitation experienced by the Capuchin nun Maria Domitilla in Pavia at the very same time, 1622. She recorded that Christ united his most blessed head to my unworthy one, his most holy face to mine, his most holy breast (petto) to mine, his most holy hands to mine, and his most holy feet to mine, and thus all united to me so very tightly, he took me with him onto the cross . . . I felt myself totally af lame with the most sweet love of this most sweet Lord.101 Benedetta’s models, such as the sponsa, the anima, and Catherine of Siena, were feminine, metaphorical, or legendary, and her mistake in dogma was to take the symbolic literally. Benedetta acted as though the material was the spiritual: stripping for Christ or Mea like an obedient and pleasured soul in the Northern sequential romance; kissing a woman or suckling at a breast as did certain female mystics or saints; engaging in mutual, manual penetration of an orifice in line with the Song of Songs; proposing and performing marriage as though she could take both roles in a mystical drama. Her sex partner, Mea, was always a female figure, assigned a feminine part. Benedetta enjoyed repeated sex with a woman, not because that was the only body available to her, but because their religious beliefs were not predicated upon some exclusionary, modern notion of heterosexual identity. Through the vicissitudes of confession and documentary survival, we happen to know that in the early 1620s two under-educated women in a provincial Tuscan convent took religiously legitimized and visualized passion to a literal level. Brides of Christ, nurtured on the notion that their cells were bedchambers for nuptial union with a shared, metaphorical spouse, became in those very spaces lovers on an earthly plane. In seventeenth-century Pescia a patriarchal logic led to an alternative rite of passion. This does not mean that the women’s sexual arousal was incidentalor insignificant, but that their sensual and spiritual inspirations were neither entirely insincere nor irreligious. Benedetta Carlini was a nun, abbess, articulate angel, feminized soul, female mystic, and woman’s lover.Notes 1 Brown, Immodest Acts, 4; Bell, “Renaissance Sexuality,” with “virtually unique” on 487, Brown’s response, 503–09, and Bell’s reply. I am grateful to Professor Bell for sharing his microfilms of the documents. The Italian of two missing frames, his figs. 1 and 2, was partly published in the Italian edition of Brown’s book, Atti impuri, esp. 184– 86. I will endeavor to place digital copies of the documents in the Deep Blue repository of the University of Michigan. Ideas here were first explored in a talk at the University of Michigan (January 2000). I am grateful for everyone’s attention in numerous audiences since then, but for conversations I especially thank Louise Marshall and Vanessa Lyon. 2 Bell, “Renaissance Sexuality,” 501–2, Brown’s response, Immodest Acts, 507. 3 Partner, “Did Mystics Have Sex?” 296–311; Salih, “When is a Bosom,” 14–32. 4 Brown, Immodest Acts, 127. 5 An exception is Matter, “Discourses of Desire,” 119–31. 6 Documented cases include Brucker, ed., The Society of Renaissance Florence, 206–12; Chambers and Pullan, with Fletcher, eds., Venice. A Documentary History, 204–05, 208. 7 Matter, “Discourses of Desire”, 122–23: “the nature of Benedetta Carlini’s sexual encounters with her sister nun is so bizarre as to defy our modern categories of ‘sexual identity.’” 8 Brown, Immodest Acts, 161–64. 9 Ibid., 110–14, 160–64; Bell, “Renaissance Sexuality,” 491. 10 Carlini’s imprisonment “in penitence” ended when she died in August 1661: ibid., 132. Upon Mea’s death in September 1660, the recorder referred to Benedetta’s fraud rather than sexual deeds: when Benedetta “was engaged in those deceits” Mea “was her companion and was always with her.” But Mea was not imprisoned: ibid., 135. 11 Jacobson Schutte, “Per Speculum in Enigmate, 187, 195 n. 11. For another case see Ciammitti, “One Saint Less.” 12 Brown, Immodest Acts, 7–8, 136; Rosa, “The Nun,” 221; Velasco, Lesbians in Early Modern Spain, 92. 13 Bell, Holy Anorexia, 70. 14 Barstow, Witchcraze, 72, and further cases, 139–41. Others include Velasco, Lesbians in Early Modern Spain, 113–24. 15 Cohen, The Evolution of Women’s Asylums, 92–93, 208–09 n. 65. 16 Bell, “Renaissance Sexuality,” 498. 17 Cervigni, “Immodest Acts,” 286. 18 Matter, The Voice of My Beloved, 142. 19 Hamburger, The Rothschild Canticles, 4. 20 Unless otherwise indicated, quotations are from Brown, Immodest Acts, 117–18, 120– 22, 162–64 passim (with emphases added). 21 Brown, Immodest Acts, 120; Bell, “Renaissance Sexuality,” 486, 495, 497, 499. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., 498 (“le ha voluto baciare le parti pudente”); Brown, Immodest Acts, 120. 24 Ibid., 21–22, 27–28. 25 Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 39: Colloquies, 290. 26 Coote, ed., The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse, 118–21 for this and another example. 27 Schutte, “Per Speculum in Enigmate,” 192. 28 Raymond of Capua, Life of St Catherine of Siena, 91–93. 29 Payer, Sex and the Penitentials, 43, 61, 99, 102, 138–39, 149–50, 172 n. 136.30 For a female couple sinning sexually in a Bible Moralisée of c. 1220, see Camille, The Medieval Art of Love, 138–39, fig. 125. For the 1468 fresco of the Inferno situated in an upper room of the convent founded by St. Francesca Romana, with a couple of indeterminate sex, but probably male, lying side by side on the lowest (and most easily seen) register, see Bartolomei Romagnoli, Santa Francesca Romana, Pl. 27. 31 Ghirlandaio’s panel is in the Louvre, Pontormo’s remains in Carmignano. 32 See n. 43 below; Jorgensen, “‘Love Conquers All,’” 102–03. 33 Brown, Immodest Acts Bell, “Renaissance Sexuality,” 502. 34 Brown, Immodest Acts, 108, 129, 130. 35 Ibid., 163–64. 36 Ibid., 63, 158, with subsequent quotations from 107, 117, 164. 37 Raymond of Capua, Life of St Catherine, 165–67; Kaftal, St Catherine in Tuscan Painting, 72–77; Bianchi and Giunta, Iconografia di Santa Caterina da Siena, 112–14 and passim; Maggi, Uttering the Word, 176 n. 15; Vandenbroeck, et al., Le Jardin clos de l’ame, nos. 147, 169; Brown, Immodest Acts, 63–64. 38 Camille, Medieval Art of Love, 111–19, and passim, including figs. 19, 55, 80. 39 Brown, Immodest Acts, 163. 40 Payer, Sex and the Penitentials, 105; McNeill and Gamer, eds., Medieval Handbooks of Penance, 81, 152. When Ercole d’Este married Renée of France in Paris in June 1528, at the Pax they kissed each other: Gardner, The King of Court Poets, 194. 41 The quotation is from Rosa, “Nun,” 222. A detail of embracing Dominican women from the panel in Siena’s Pinacoteca appears on the cover of Brown’s book. 42 Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 101, 126, 131–32, 157, 165–80, 270–73, and passim. 43 Brown, Immodest Acts, 26, 41. 44 Raymond of Capua, Life of St Catherine, 141, 147–48 (hereafter quoted from 148). 45 Marciari and Boorsch, Francesco Vanni, 118–27. 46 Raymond of Capua, Life of St Catherine, 179. 47 Ibid., 170–71. 48 Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ. 49 Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary, 390. 50 Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother; Rambuss, Closet Devotions. 51 St. Catherine de’ Ricci, Selected Letters, 39 (no. 47). Subsequent quotations come from Letters 19, 46. 52 For the frescoes by Sodoma and an earlier one by Andrea Vanni in the same church see Riedl and Seidel, Die Kirchen von Siena, II, pt. 2, pls. VII, 596, 627–28 (and pl. 276 for Rutilio Manetti’s canvas of 1630). 53 Brown, Immodest Acts, 41. 54 Frugoni, “Female Mystics, Visions, and Iconography,” 139. 55 Brown, Immodest Acts, 163, a translation here adjusted according to the cropped photograph of the passage in Bell, “Renaissance Sexuality,” 501 (fig. 2), because Brown conflates the information on Splenditello and on another angel Radicello (a fanciullo) aged eight or nine. The common misperception is thus that Splenditello was a boy. 56 Gregori, “Caravaggio Today,” no. 68. 57 Teresa of Ávila, The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila, 210 (ch. 29). 58 Bauer, ed., Bernini in Perspective, 53. 59 Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 165–66; Hamburger, Visual and the Visionary, 147. 60 Ciammitti, “One Saint Less,” Bianchi and Giunta, Iconografia, nos. 43, 438, p. 126. 63 Raymond of Capua, Life of St Catherine, 131, 133. 64 Ibid., 108–09. During her visionary union with God, the medieval mystic Hadewijch noted that God “lost that manly beauty” so that he dissolved and “then it was to me as if we were one without difference”: Bynum, Holy Feast, 156. 65 Gardner, Dukes and Poets in Ferrara, 366–81, 401–05, 431-32, 464–67, 562.The “lesbian nun” Benedetta Carlini66 Weinstein and Bell, Saints and Society, 141–42, 220–38; Bell, Holy Anorexia, 151, 170–71. Raymond of Capua, Life of St Catherine, 100, 175–6. Brown, Immodest Acts, 160. Bell, “Renaissance Sexuality,” 493. Rosa, “Nun,” 201–02. Bell, Holy Anorexia, with other cases passim; Tibbetts Schulenburg, “The Heroics of Virginity,” 29–72. Brown, Immodest Acts, 159. Maggi, Uttering the Word, 34 (my emphasis). On Catherine of Bologna see Wood, Women, Art and Spirituality. Weyer, De praestiis daemonum, 184–85. Brown, Immodest Acts, 163; Bell, “Renaissance Sexuality,” fig. 2. Brown, Immodest Acts, 64–65, 122. On erotic triangulation, see the classic study Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men, esp. Ch. 1. Hamburger, Nuns as Artists, 56–61, 240 nn. 125–26; Lowe, “Secular Brides and Convent Brides,” esp. 43; Vandenbroeck, et al., Le Jardin clos de l’ame, nos. 168, 172. Hamburger, Nuns as Artists, Pl. 7. Lowe, “Secular Brides and Convent Brides,” fig. 3. The phrases are in ibid., which often uses “heavenly husband” and has the other phrase on 44. But at 56ff she points out how often Christ is absent from images, although the essay’s point is to suggest parallels between the secular and religious ceremonies. Hamburger, Nuns as Artists, 56–58. Vandenbroeck, et al., Le Jardin clos de l’ame, nos. 148, 178 and fig. 106a; Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 113–15. Raymond of Capua, Life of St Catherine, 99–101, explicitly noting the antecedent with “another Catherine, a martyr and queen.” Hamburger, Nuns as Artists, 57, 239 n. 118. Ekserdjian, Correggio, 137–38. Emiliani and Feigenbaum, Ludovico Carracci, no. 1. In Parmigianino’s red chalk drawing of the subject for an altarpiece, c. 1523–24, the Child does not appear at all: Franklin, The Art of Parmigianino, 104–06. Stone, Guercino, 84 n. 62. Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 85–87, fig. 156 (and see fig. 159); Hamburger, Visual and the Visionary, 409–10, fig. 8.5. Wood, Women, Art and Spirituality, 128ff, 252 n. 31, 253 n. 37. Gebauer, “Christus und Die Minnende Seele. Both nuns and secular women were readers. Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 106–10, 155–62, f. 66r (Pl. 7); Perlove, Bernini and the Idealization. Bernini’s motives included wanting to atone for his brother Luigi sodomizing a boy in St. Peter’s (13–14). Brown, Immodest Acts, Weaver, “Spiritual Fun,” 177, 181–83. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, 194–96. Splenditello spoke in three dialects: Brown, Immodest Acts, 160. Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 82, 179, cf. Song of Songs Kunzle, History of the Comic Strip, vol. 1, 23. Brown, Immodest Acts, 162; Matter, “Interior Maps,” 64–65.Bibliography Barstow, Anne. Witchcraze. San Francisco: Pandora, 1994. Bartolomei Romagnoli, Alessandra. Santa Francesca Romana. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994.Bauer, George, ed. Bernini in Perspective. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976. Bell, Rudolph. Holy Anorexia. Chicago: “Renaissance Sexuality and the Florentine Archives: An Exchange.” Renaissance Quarterly 40 (1987): 485–503. Bianchi, Lidia and Diega Giunta. Iconografia di Santa Caterina da Siena. Rome: Città Nuova Editrice, 1988. Brown, Judith. 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New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Kunzle, David. History of the Comic Strip. Volume 1. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1973. Lowe, Kate. “Secular Brides and Convent Brides: Wedding Ceremonies in Italy During the Renaissance and Counter-Reformation.” In Marriage in Italy, 1300–1650. Edited by Trevor Dean and K. Lowe, 41–66. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Maggi, Armando. Uttering the Word: The Mystical Performances of Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1998. Marciari, John and Suzanne Boorsch. Francesco Vanni. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013. Matter, E. Ann. “Discourses of Desire: Sexuality and Christian Women’s Visionary Narratives.” In Homosexuality and Religion. Edited by Richard Hasbany, 119–31. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1989. . “Interior Maps of an Eternal External: The Spiritual Rhetoric of Maria Domitilla Galluzzi d’Acqui.” In Maps of Flesh and Light: The Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics. Edited by Ulrike Wiethaus, 60–73. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1993. . The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. McNeill, John and Helena Gamer, eds. Medieval Handbooks of Penance. New York: Columbia University Press, 1938. Partner, Nancy. “Did Mystics Have Sex?” In Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West. Edited by Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler, 296–311. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. Payer, Pierre. Sex and the Penitentials. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. Perlove, Shelley. Bernini and the Idealization of Death: The Blessed Ludovica Albertoni and the Altieri Chapel. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990. Rambuss, Richard. Closet Devotions. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998. Raymond of Capua. Life of St Catherine of Siena. Translated by George Lamb. London: Harvill Press, 1960. Riedl, Peter Anselm and Max Seidel. Die Kirchen von Siena: II. Oratorio della Carità-S. Domenico. Munich: Bruckman, 1992. Rosa, Mario. “The Nun.” In Baroque Personae. Edited by Rosario Villari, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane, 195–238. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Salih, Sarah. “When is a Bosom Not a Bosom? Problems with ‘Erotic Mysticism.’” In Medieval Virginities. Edited by Anke Bernau, Sarah Salih, and Ruth Evans, 14–32. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Schutte, Anne Jacobson. “Per Speculum in Enigmate: Failed Saints, Artists, and SelfConstruction of the Female Body in Early Modern Italy.” In Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy. Edited by E. Ann Matter and John Coakley, 185–200. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994. Steinberg, Leo. The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion. 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Stone, David. Guercino: catalogo complete dei dipinti. Florence: Cantini, 1991. St. Teresa of Ávila. The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by herself. Translated by J.M. Cohen. London: Penguin, 1957. Thompson, Craig, trans. Collected Works of Erasmus. Volume 39: Colloquies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Tibbetts Schulenburg, Jane. “The Heroics of Virginity: Brides of Christ and Sacrificial Mutilation.” In Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Edited by Mary Beth Rose, 29–72. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986. Trexler, Richard. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. New York: Academic Press, 1980. Vandenbroeck, Paul and Luce Irigaray. Le Jardin clos de l’ame. L’imaginaire des religieuses dans les Pays-Bas du Sud, depuis le 13e siècle. Brussels: Martial et Snoeck, 1994. Velasco, Sherry. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2011. Walker Bynum, Caroline. Holy Feast and Holy Fast. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987. ———. Jesus as Mother. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982. Weaver, Elissa. “Spiritual Fun: A Study of Sixteenth-Century Tuscan Convent Theater.” In Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Mary Beth Rose, 173–205. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986. Weinstein, Donald and Rudolph Bell. Saints and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Weyer, Johann. De praestiis daemonum (1583 edition). Translated as Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the Renaissance. Edited by George Mora and Benjamin Kohl, translated by John Shea. Binghamton, NY: MRTS, 1991. Wood, Jeryldene. Women, Art and Spirituality: The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy. New York: Cambridge University Press, Thomas V. CohenLet us take two tawdry events, male affronts to women, with social history’s eye to assets, both cultural and material, and to the subtle exchanges that bound men to men, women to women, and one gender to the other. This is social history in nearly-literary mode, keen to read texts closely. We have text of two kinds—first the words on paper provided by a small tangle of criminal trials. If not the actual words spoken before and by the court or in the streets, taverns, and brothels, still these records do come close. The conventions and imperatives of the court itself, and the imperfect scribal hand have, as always, refracted actual speech, but the Roman-legal habits of verbatim transcription still offer material for close, thoughtful reading. Second comes the fabric of the city itself, for our scoundrel and his allies prowled and enjoyed their small corner of Rome, with its streets, squares, and assorted monuments, an urban backdrop and firm anchorage for memories. The urbanscape, so prominent both in what happened and in the telling, in itself invites a reading no less close than the one we accord words on paper. So, before turning to the deeds, note the spaces where they took place. We are in Rome’s Rione Regola, or Arenula, a zone sometimes little changed from the 1550s and 1560s of our stories. Nevertheless, the urbanism of first united Italy and then the Duce made drastic alterations. In the later 1880s, the wide Via Arenula ripped inwards from the Tiber, obliterating a web of streets and squares, and demolishing the church and convent of Santa Anna, right under the grand 1890 apartment where I once lived and wrote. The church survives only in the names of Via Santa Anna, and of a pleasant trattoria whose menu depicts my own abode. A second nineteenth-century destruction obliterated the ghetto, replacing it with a grand synagogue and some lumpish buildings. And then, under Mussolini, nostalgia for the Caesars erased the medieval fabric around the fish market at Pescheria, reducing tight neighborhoods to sterile archeology.So, to trace our scoundrel and his entourage, we must fall back on the old maps, especially the splendidly accurate Nolli Plan, and read street plans, the surviving urban fabric, and words in court, together. The Nolli plan shows how, from 1555, once the ghetto gates went up, a street our witnesses call the strada dritta became crucial for mobility, especially at night. It is hard today to recapture that very ancient urban street, today the Via del Portico d’Ottavia. Down by the old ghetto, it is now so wide that restaurants sprawl into it to hawk carciofi alla giudia, and, on their Sabbath, Rome’s Jews gather after services for a great chiacchiera —communal conversation. Further north, Via Arenula and the unkempt park in Piazza Cairoli, and a vague piazza before the baroque facade of San Carlo, have all smudged the profile of this street, which, in the sixteenth century, was no less tight than straight. Moreover, it was handy, skirting the ghetto to link the fishmongers’ square at Pescheria to Piazza Giudia. It then passed the palace of the Santa Croce, Renaissance in spirit but, like Palazzo Venezia, still half-medieval in shape, with an ornamental square tower today lopped short. The Santa Croce, banished by Sixtus IV, had lost their houses; readmitted, they threw up this palace, with its elegant diamond-studding on the wall. As the Nolli map shows, heading northwest, the street, at a bivio (a fork), slotted into Via Giubbonari, a curving passage today still narrow. Joseph Connors, in his “Baroque Urbanism,” discusses the extremely ancient streets of this part of Rome, pointing out how they wander eastwards from the bridge from Hadrian’s Tomb, now Castel Sant’Angelo, forking as they go.1 The Renaissance papacy used these roads often, as a way to San Giovanni in Laterano and across Rome, and palaces of the early Renaissance clustered along them. For our nocturnal misdeeds, the wide network mattered little, but the local Strada Dritta bore much social traffic. Our louche central character straddled lines—moral, social, sexual, and religious. A liminal man, he was and is hard to place, and his actions, crossing boundaries ethical and social, remind us not to put Rome and Romans into boxes. His name reveals his hybrid nature—Ludovico Santa Croce. At first glance, nothing strange there, but, as genealogies show, the civic noble Santa Croce, descending, they believe, from Publius Valerius Publicola, anti-Tarquin and one of Rome’s first consuls, in the sixteenth century named their children almost exclusively from Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus: not a Ludovico in sight. Moreover, law courts called him “the son of the late Giovanni Antonio de Franchi” so, if he was a Santa Croce, the noble house somehow adopted him.2 A friend, aware of this f limsy identity, says of him, “The said Messer Ludovico si fa romano de casa de Santa Croce et per romano il tengo.”3 Close reading: the friend does not call him a Santa Croce: just “si fa”—“he claims to be”; the friend readily affirms his Roman identity but, as to family, balks. But Ludovico, clearly, grew up some at the family’s palace. A friend recalls: “I have known him for more than twelve years in Rome and I knew him when he was a lad [ putto] here at the Santa Croce [qui alli Santa Croce].”4 Magrino, the witness, a very recent Jewish convert (Feast of the Annunciation, 1556), testifies not at the prison as is usual, but at home, asIn bed with Ludovico Santa Croce 127he is sick, and with his “here at the Santa Croce” shows how, now fatto christiano, he has moved a mere block or so beyond the ghetto gate at Piazza Giudia to lodgings near the Santa Croce palace. Ludovico is sufficiently Santa Croce that, back in Carnevale of 1557, a noble Santa Croce helped bail him out of prison.5 But he is no signore; his cronies call him messer instead. This title f lags both his status and its ambiguity. In 1557, at his first trial here, Santa Croce is “about twenty-six, as he asserts.”6 If so, then either his friend Magrino knew him longer than twelve years or, back then, age fourteen, he had become a fairly lanky putto. He was born in 1531 or so. By 1565, at the second trial, he would be thirty-four. No sign of a marriage. His loves, we will see, were all casual, among the whores. No sign, either, of a craft, trade, or civic office. He probably still lived at the palace as, for sex, he took his hireling women to the bathhouse (stufa) or bunked down with them at friends’ and seldom, if ever, took them home. So how did he pass the days? He hung out at the Pescheria, the fish market at one end of the Strada Dritta. And the company he kept: fishmongers, Jews, and recent converts. Plus prostitutes. He ate, drank, caroused, and got into abundant trouble. In 1565 the court asks for his criminal record: I have been in prison three or four times, here in Tor di Nona and in Corte Savelli. I don’t remember why. And his lordship asked him that he at least tell for what crimes and excesses he was investigated and tried. He answered: I cannot remember things that are fifteen or sixteen years old, but I know well that I have not been under investigation either for homicides or for ugly things [cose brutte]. It is true that I remember that I was in jail in Corte Savelli for having had a brawl with another gentilhomo, and for it I paid ten scudi to Messer Pietro Bello.7 Here, Ludovico is as evasive as his memory is fuzzy; cose brutte indeed came up in court. The court asks after a jailbreak.8 The fight was probably in Carnevale, 1557, when Pietro Bello was a judge on staff. Ludovico was wounded in a brawl where he, a reluctant fighter, stabbed a spice-trader in the chest.10 In a trial of another unruly gentleman, the court asks the suspect’s serving woman if her master ever wanted to kill our Ludovico. “I don’t know,” she says, “but know that the said Ludovico was wounded once and that [my master] Pietro de Fabii rejoiced.”11 So Ludovico is a man on many margins. A self-proclaimed gentilhomo, he haunts the edge of his foster-family, in a neighborhood strung between Jews and Christians, and his socializing crosses boundaries of station, ethnicity, family, community, and moral action. So let’s join him for the evening. We begin not along the Strada Dritta, but atop Piazza Navona, by Torre Sanguigna and the Pace church, with two Christians, doublet-makers both. It was before Christmas, 1556.12 Antonio Scapuccio and Mario di Simone came offwork at the Ave Maria sunset bell. Mario, aged twenty, lived across town, by Santissimi Apostoli. With Antonio he went back three years, from their work.13 As for Ludovico, Antonio had known him since childhood: “at the time I and he were lads, we had a close friendship.”14 Antonio, via Ludovico, knew that Fabritio, another convert, kept a house where friends gathered. “Antonio brought me to the house of Fabritio, Jew-made-Christian, who sells ironware.”15 When the doublet-makers arrived, Ludovico was there, with Magrino, and one Giulio Matuccio, and the host, Fabritio.16 So began their evening. “We all decided, in agreement, to go find a Signora called Vienna Venetiana, friend of the aforesaid Giulio Matuccio.”17 Mario adds: And when we were at Vienna’s house—she lived at Torre Sanguigna— Antonio Scapuccio knocked on the door, and the mother, if I remember, said that she had hurt her arm and could not keep us company, and that we should let her off.18 Torre Sanguigna was far from Ludovico’s haunts. “We left and went to a pie-shop, also near Torre Sanguigna, and got ourselves a pasticcio. And I don’t remember which of us paid for it.”19 Magrino, a convert, adds that the pie contained a shoulder of pork.20 Ludovico stepped in, announcing as they walked: let’s fetch my whore!21 So entered Betta, a cortigiana grande, says Mario, meaning not a top-rank prostitute, but, as Magrino says disparagingly, a big tall woman—“una donna grande longaccia.”22 Betta lived near the stufa of Felice, near the Cavaglieri family palace, two blocks north of the strada dritta.23 As the five trailed after him, Ludovico vaunted his sex with her: And Ludovico said it again, while he was going with us for that woman, and he was heading to knock on her door . . . that last night he had slept with this woman, and he said that she had a fine ass and that it gripped firmly.24 At Betta’s lodgings, the men remained outside. Ludovico called or knocked and the prostitute came down, and, oddly, if she really had slept with him the night before, in error she embraced the wrong man, as if Ludovico, though a gentilhuomo, was hard to tell from the company he kept.25 “And we asked her if she wanted to come to dinner with us, showing her the pasticcio, and she said yes, and came away. And going down the street Messer Ludovico and she went arm in arm.”26 The passage illustrates handsomely some workings of Roman prostitution. Note how complex were the exchanges between these women and their customers. Roman prostitution was seldom simple sex for plain cash. Like many transactions in the economia barocca, it had wide bandwidth and complex linkages forward, backward, and across society.27 Betta here accepted a promise of food and entertainment, and furnished public gestures of affection, a gift to Ludovico, who could f launt her to posse and to street.In bed with Ludovico Santa Croce 129The party, with Betta making seven, retired to Ludovico’s hang-out, the inn at Pescheria, called after its owner Domenidio.28 It was some hour after nightfall.29 “All of us, in company, went to dinner at the aforesaid inn, and we brought with us a pasticcio, and we ate.”30 To this osteria, patrons readily brought food. After dinner, the whole group went to spend the night at Fabritio’s dwelling, near Ludovico’s own house, where Ludovico, other times that winter, sometimes brought women: “in the time that he was made Christian . . . he lent me the room.”31 On the way, the men say, Ludovico again boasted of anal sex with Betta.32 The room had but a single bed; Fabritio, leaving the bed to his gentleman guest, hospitably withdrew to a little attic, a solarello —“no great thing”—and slept.33 Magrino “gave the command to fetch from home a mattress, which we threw on the f loor.”34 Ludovico and Betta undressed at once and slipped under the covers.35 There was a bed curtain. It would have had many colors, and it was mine [Magrino’s]. And to a question he answered: It was not spread around the bed but gathered to one side.36 Ludovico, in his account, avers that the curtain was draped around the bed. 37 While Magrino settled somehow on a chair, clothed, to spend the night, the two doublet-makers and Giulio huddled on the mattress. Ludovico, meanwhile, lay snugly in one convert’s bed and another convert’s hangings, in a convert’s house. “Before the light was put out we were all joking and chatting, and Messer Ludovico told us please to put out the light.”38 And then, as men settled for the night, Ludovico thrust his arm out from the covers, making a letter “O” with his index and middle finger.39 Lest he shame Betta he said nothing, Antonio avers, but Mario claims he boasted loudly.40 Mirth erupted. Everybody laughed at that and said to one another, “He has fucked her in the ass. Fire! Fire!”41 The stake, of course. And slim regard for Betta! What is going on here? The social psychology of this scene is tangled. We have three Christian artisans, two ex-Jews on the f luid boundary of the ghetto, and one semi-gentleman half outside his noble family, a troop cemented, perhaps, by Ludovico’s leadership, occasional largess, and arrant breach of sexual and moral rules. All six men share in Betta’s humiliation. Ludovico parades his transgression and the risks he runs and, laughing, the cronies applaud and, vicariously, thrill to his vulnerability. Collusion cements this solidarity. Ludovico and Betta were the first to fall asleep.42 Much later, say the others, invited by Ludovico to join them in the bed, Magrino left the chair, climbing in still clothed, and fell asleep.43And then awoke, jostled by the bounce of sex. I could feel it when he was screwing her, and she had her bottom towards Ludovico and she was turned with her face toward me. And it was one time that I felt it, and I did not see him stick it in because it was no affair of mine. I know well that he was screwing her, and he was shoving her towards me, so that it made me wake up.44 Magrino is remembering events before Christmas, almost nine months earlier. The trial took place first at the Inquisition, at the Ripetta. Halfway through, interrogations moved to the prisons of the Governor of Rome. That is why this record survives. Precisely two years later, when Paul IV died, Rome’s most tumultuous Vacant See broke out. Mobs attacked the Inquisition’s Ripetta offices, burning the papers, and ransacked the house of the tribunal’s notary.45 Later, Napoleon’s supporters would destroy the Inquisition’s later trials, so a transcript such as this is rare indeed. Both at Ripetta and later, this trial has a Holy Office feel; the magistrates treated the courtroom as a confessional, sparing neither shame nor feelings with their swift, intrusive questions. Why did the matter slip to the criminal court? The crime in question, though moral and involving converts, revealed no taint of heresy. Prostitution in mixed company was no crime and the court was after anal intercourse. He was asked if on that night he the witness heard the said Betta moaning and crying out, because the said Messer Ludovico was having intercourse and fucking her [ futuebat] from the back. He answered: “I could hear it when she was screwed the first time by Messer Ludovico. She was crying out [si lamentava]. But one can cry out for several things.” And to a question of me the notary he said: “She can cry out the way women do.” And I the notary asked, “And how do women do?” He said, “They can cry out because it pleases them and they can cry out because it hurts them too. But, one time, as I said, I felt it when he screwed her.”46 When the Inquisition hauled her in, Betta did her all to prove it wasn’t so. Her testimony about what went on in bed surely did her little good, as, on point after point, she lied elsewhere about her history with Ludovico, shown as far skimpier than others alleged. Her testimony, earthy and vehement, catches well a prostitute’s voice in court. He never did it to me in that place. It is true that Messer Ludovico told me to turn around, that he wanted to do it cunt-backwards [a potta retro], and I told him, “You want to trick me. You want to stick it in contrary-wise.” And he said no, that he wanted to do it cunt-backwards, and so I turned around and he did it to me cunt-backwards. I know where he went in, and if he was fooled, I was not fooled.47In bed with Ludovico Santa Croce 131Betta appears twice in the record. The first time, to cover for the weakness of her case, she regales the judge with promises to live in virtue. If I had consented to the other way, it would seem to me that God would not keep me on earth. And if I have done wrong in one way, I don’t want to do wrong in the other. And if I get out of this I want to go to Santa Maria di Loreto, and then to my home to do good works, and I want to go this September. And if he wants to say that he did it to me from behind against Nature, he is lying through his throat, and he is tricked, and, me, I am not tricked, because I protect myself from this the way I do from fire.48 The next morning, Betta, Ludovico, and most of the posse stayed. (Mario, sleeping clothed, had slipped off early to his shop.)49 At breakfast, the boasts went on: She never heard a word when Messer Ludovico told us that he had twice screwed Betta in the ass, but he said it at length to us. He was asked if the said Betta was at the table eating with them, how could Ludovico have said those words, since they could be heard by Betta. He answered: I will tell you. We were kidding Ludovico . . . and when he said it at the table she had not yet sat down.50 As current events show sadly, Renaissance Italy was hardly the only place where, for some admirers, the swaggering abuse of women gives callous men allure. Jump eight years ahead. It was 1565, not 1557, and Ludovico was now some thirty-four years old. Still unmarried, still at loose ends, he haunted the same tight quarter, up to little good. He had a new entourage; none of the same men turn up. At the center, as ever, sat that osteria of Domenidio, in Pesheria. His cronies were, this time, two or three fishmongers and one Cesare Vallati, son of the civic noble family that owned a palace on the square, facing its ghetto gate. The Vallati house still stands, pared back to its medieval core, which now bears sad plaques about Roman Jewish deaths at Nazi hands. Cesare was gentleman enough to hold, they said, a civic office.51 On Friday, November 23, the friends stirred up dinner at the inn. Meo, fishmonger, says: Ludovico Santa Croce came to me, as I was in Pescheria. It may have been a half-hour after dark, and he asked me if we wanted to go to dinner together at the osteria of Domenidio. I said yes and so I picked up some fish, and along with Grillo and Ludovico we went to the osteria of Domenidio, and while we were setting up to eat Cesare arrived and said, “I want to eat with you,” and so he too sat at the table and we were four in all.52Meo reports that, when he left his fish-bench, he brought sardines, while Grillo fetched clams.53 In the midst of dinner, “a Jew”—nobody names him, ever— joined the group; no sign he ate with them.54 After dinner, except Grillo, all left together. “Let’s go to the house of my whore,” said Ludovico. “We said, ‘let’s go!’ and Cesare said, ‘I want to join you.’”55 The court asks later, did Cesare and Ludovico go with sword in hand?56 Probably. The men took the strada dritta, the ghetto to their left, the Santa Croce tower to the right, over to Il Crocefisso, behind or under where the big church of San Carlo later stood.57 Ludovico’s woman of the month was Olimpia, who, it turned out, was off with an amico, a regular of hers, who, she says, felt ill, so she headed homeward with a Lorenzo stufarolo in tow.58 But when Ludovico and his cronies arrived, only the house’s mistress, Lucretia, was yet home. Olimpia calls Lucretia the house padrona; in court, Ludovico will call her a whore, whom he has known for years, presumably hooking up with tenant after tenant. At Olimpia’s front door, the four men, masking voices and pretending to speak Spanish, shouted, “Open up the door!” Lucretia: “They banged six or seven times, for I was not of a mind to open, ever.”60 At last I went to the window and told them that I did not want to open for them under any circumstances, and told them to change their talk because no way could I not recognize them. I knew them just fine, but, with my tenant not home, and because, I knew, they wanted nothing of me, I had no intention of opening for them. Instead, I said, I would throw water on their heads if they did not get away from the door.61 The four men loped east to Via dei Chiavari, still in Lucretia’s sight.62 There they encountered a second Lucretia. Wife of wealthy Cyntho Perusco, and mother of two children, she was returning with a servant—but with no light, lest she be seen and recognized—from a call on her procurator.63 Two men armed with swords and daggers, with their swords under their arms and the daggers in hand unsheathed, came at us and at once they stopped me and one of them put his hand to my neck, feeling my neck, thinking that perhaps I had some chain necklace or string of gems.64 And I said to them, “I am a poor woman. What do you want of me?” And I was screaming, “Thieves thieves!” When they heard that, they let go of me.65 Giovanni Maria, the servant, thought he recognized one of the four assailants: “Ah Meo, why are you doing this to us?”66 Meo at once hid his face behind his cape.67 Giovanni Maria’s assailants, Meo and the Jew, grabbed him. “They were holding on to me and they told me to keep silent, and they held the naked daggers to my neck.”68 The assailants released their quarry, only brief ly. Lucretia will tell the Governor: “When we had walked three or four paces, the same men,In bed with Ludovico Santa Croce 133with some others, made a circle around me and some of them grabbed me from one side and some from the other, putting their daggers to my throat.”69 Giovanni Maria tells the Governor: “they began punch me and shove me and they threw me to the ground.” 70 Adds Lucretia: And they took from him a pouch. In it were ten giulios, between testoni coins and giulio coins, and a gold ring that was mine, with a Jesus on the top, and on the bottom, there is a “claw of the great beast” [a fabled stone with curative powers], which was also in that pouch, and they took from it also the belt and a handkerchief. The ring contains 18 giulii of gold.71 Giovanni Maria adds that the pouch had been tied to his waist and that Lucretia had removed her ring to wash her hands.72 One of the band of four, almost certainly Cesare Vallati, as Ludovico was by now no youngster, may have had second thoughts: When this [theft] was done one of those youngsters took me by the hand and told me, “Come here. I promise you as a gentleman that I will not hurt you.” And he asked me, who was that woman. And I told him that she was not for them, and that they should let her go, and that she was the wife of Messer Cynthio Perusco.73 Ludovico had other ideas. One of the two underlings, probably not the Jew but Meo, asked him “Messer, what are we to do?” “Carry her off, carry her off!” 74 And they tried with all their might to lead me to a house, for they took me by force and they dragged me . . . But I cried out, “Thieves! Thieves! Is this how you assassinate people in the street!” And I told them that I had nothing on me and that they should come to my house, that was near there.75 The assailants hauled Lucretia into an alley.76 Lucretia was convinced that they wanted to drag her to a stufa, a bath house of the sort Ludovico haunted. As they pulled her, Lucretia fell in the mud, losing her pianelle, her clogs. “She told them that her clogs had fallen off, and they told her to keep walking, and they were making her walk up that alley, leading her, as there were three or four around her.” 77 And then, providentially, down the alley came two men, in front a servant with a torch, and, behind him, his master, Agostino Palloni, a man of substance whose house stood close to the Santa Croce palace.78 And when the light arrived, I recognized the gentleman, and I begged him for the love of God to help me. And while I was saying those words, one of those young men, who had dragged me, as he thought that the light was not coming from that side and that he would not be seen—Messer Agostino recognized one of those young men, who is called Cesare Romano.And at that Messer Agostino said, “Ah Cesare, what are you doing [che fai]. What is this! Do you see that you [tu] are doing wrong?79 Turning towards Agostino, says Giovanni Maria, Lucretia tripped on an iron grate and once more fell and then, as supplicant, grasped his cape: “Ah, Messer Agostino, don’t abandon me . . .!”80 Agostino, Lucretia, and Cesare then stood together, a threesome. First off, Cesare, to catch his social balance, tried to place Lucretia as a Roman matron. Then Agostino did the same. Giovanni Maria tells the Governor: The man whom Agostino had called Cesare asked Madonna Lucretia if she knew Cyntho Perusco. She said, “Yes, I know him, and I have two children with him, and he is my husband.” And Messer Agostino asked Madonna Lucretia if she knew Messer Francesco Calvi, and she said yes, and if he came to her house with her she would show him her daughter.81 Gentleman to gentleman! Cesare Vallati, in night’s shadow, had strayed well outside his class’s code of conduct, and Agostino’s torch jolted him back from the abyss. He switched codes as nimbly as he could. Then Messer Agostino turned to Cesare and told him, “Cesare, son, you have done wrong.” And then Cesare told Messer Agostino to leave, and said that he would have Madonna Lucretia escorted by a servant of his.82 No such thing happened, of course. After questions to Lucretia about how she came to be out after dark, Agostino, with his torch and serving man, conveyed them both back home.83 At her window, the other Lucretia, the madam, had seen and heard the fracas. Outraged, woman to woman, she strove to allay the trouble. I heard a woman who was starting to scream, and when I looked toward where I heard that cry, I looked and saw a woman with a man, and she was screaming, “What do you want with me, brothers, pull the door rope for me, pull the door rope for me!” and when I heard those words, I feared it might be some neighbor, and I knocked on the window of Diana and told her, “Listen to your sister who is screaming,” and she answered, “My sister is here at home.”84 While Cesare and Agostino parleyed, the other three miscreants probably crept away, and soon, all four were back at Olimpia’s door. This time they had luck, as Olimpia turned up, with Lorenzo her bathhouse worker, and his lute. “I came back home and I found Ludovico Santa Croce there at my door, along with Meo the fishmonger and with two others whom I did not know, but there was aIn bed with Ludovico Santa Croce 135Jew.”85 Lucretia opened for Olimpia and, willy-nilly, in came all the others, with Ludovico, as usual, in the lead.86 Note Lucretia’s version: At that moment, my tenant called Olimpia arrived, along with an amico called Lorenzo the bathhouse worker, who played the lute, and I had to pull the rope, and then there came in, along with my tenant, Ludovico Santa Croce, Meo, Cesare Vallati, and a Jew.87 We learn from Olimpia several things. For one, the Jew was a stranger, known only, presumably, by his obligatory Jew’s cap. For another, Cesare Vallati had rejoined the crew. And, for a third, while she knew Meo, Vallati, a stranger to her if not to the madam, was less central to Ludovico’s habitual posse. Neither he nor the Jew had been part of the dinner’s start; though locals, they were hangers-on. When the men entered, Lucretia, the madam, upbraided them. “And when they were up the stairs, I said to them, ‘Oh this is a fine state of affairs! Poor women cannot go in the street.’ And they told me that they weren’t the ones who did it.”88 Lorenzo, with the lute, would prove Ludovico’s undoing. The men all stayed a while in Olimpia’s room, listening to him play. And then Ludovico led Olimpia off to the Santa Anna stufa to spend the night. The other three escorted him down the block, then went their separate ways.89 We catch a bit of the denouement via Barbara, Meo’s ex-puttana, who, she tells the court, had after three years broken with him because he owed her big money on borrowed goods. Barbara had moved to Monte Savelli, just a block down-river from Pescheria.90 I went to bed without dinner because I felt ill, and while I was in bed with Annibale the fish-monger I heard passing in the street Cesare Vallati with other people whom I did not see, and he said, “Your faithful servant, Signora Barbara, my heart!” I made no answer.91 Annibale and Barbara went back, she says, three years; she swam as easily among the fishmongers as a mackerel in the sea. But Cesare Vallati, clearly, slipped through these same waters; in the intimate spaces of the city, these men and women moved up and down class lines. Annibale, when asked, would tell Madonna Lucretia what he knew about the crime. Small world!92 The very next day, Madonna Lucretia sent her servant to scout the local bathhouses. Lorenzo, the fellow with the lute, a paesano, led Giovanni Maria to Ludovico and Meo, who would be arrested on Monday, together.93 At Olimpia’s, the four men, said Lorenzo, had been “in a terrible mood and all of them distressed.”94 Agostino Palloni, meanwhile, refused to help Lucretia—“he sent word to me through Cynthio that it wasn’t a gentleman’s role to accuse anybody, and that was it was enough that I had suffered no harm.”95 Citing class solidarityhe covered for Cesare Vallati, who either f led or ducked prosecution. The Jew, luckily nameless, got away. We have neither a sentence nor knowledge what our four villains did with the rest of their lives. Our story of status slippage and hasty re-calibration, coarse male solidarity, callous abuse of women, and female resilience models a careful reading of words, places, and actions, with an eye to the density of webs and the fine-grained texture of lives in time and space, to lay out the ref lexes with which Romans navigated their city. Ludovico, uneasily perched on several margins, could build coalitions, trading his noble connections, hospitality, slovenly rapaciousness, and access to paid female sex and company for male support and applause. To Cesare he offered a pathway down, to the others perhaps a step upwards. These male solidarities in a moral grey zone show the porosity of Rome’s social boundaries and its alliances’ often easy give.Notes 1 Connors, “Alliance and Enmity,” 208–09. 2 Archivio di Stato di Roma, Governatore, Tribunale Criminale, Processi (16o secolo), busta 38, case 23, folio 568r: “Ludovicus de S. Cruce filius q. Io. Ant. d. Franchis.” Henceforth, I give busta and folio only. 3 38.23, 559v: Antonio Scapuccio, August 15, 1557, to a notary at the Holy Office. 4 38.23, 573r, Magrino, August 26, 1557, at home sick, to a notary. 5 38.23, 579v: Ludovico cites Valerio Santa Croce and noble Mario Mellino. For Magrino’s conversion at the Annunciation in 1555: 38.23, 573r, Magrino. 6 38.23, 568r. 7 Busta 103, 909r: Ludovico Santa Croce: “. . . costione con un altro gentil’homo . . .” “fregit carceres et unde exivit.” 9 38.23, 572v: “questo carnevale [1557] . . . messer Ludovico uscii di pregione in Corte Savella.” 10 Investigazioni 80, 181v–183v, for 23–24, from June, 1563. 11 38.19, 461v: “. . . se ne reallegrava.” 12 38.23, 577v: Betta: “. . . avanti natale.” 13 38.23, 562v-563r: for age and employment; for the friendship and the workplace: 38.23, 562v–563r. 14 38.23, 559v: “eravamo regazi havevamo amicitia intrinseca insieme.” 15 38.23, 562v: Mario: “Fabritio giudio fatto Cristiano che venne li ferri.” 16 We know little about Giulio, never interrogated. Ludovico seems to place him among the converts: 38.23, 570r–v: “Vi pratica in questa casa Julio Mattuzzo, Fabritio doi o tre altri giudei facti christiani . . . de continuo li se ce vengono giudei et d’ogni sorte de generatione.” But no other witness calls Giulio a convert. 17 38.23, 563r–v: Mario. 18 38.23, 563v: Mario: “. . . lei o la madre . . . disse che era ferita in uno braccio et che non posseva abadarci et che lavessemo per scusata.” 19 Ibid.: Mario: “. . . a un pasticciero pur presso Torre Sanguigna et pigliassemo un pasticcio . . .” 20 38.23, 574r: “comprassemo una spalla de porco.” 21 38.23, 564r: Mario: “. . . disse per la strada che voleva pigliar detta cortigiana.” 22 38.23, 573v. 23 38.23, 563v: Mario: “apresso la stufa de Felice presso li Cavalieri.” 24 28.23, 561r: Antonio Scapuccio: “. . . ando con noi per dicta donna et voleva bussare la porta . . . che haveva bravo culo et teneva bene.”In bed with Ludovico Santa Croce 13725 38.23, 574: Magrino, for Ludovico’s call: “Messer Ludovico chiamandola . . .”; 38.23, 564r: Mario: “credendosi di abracciar messer Ludovico abraccio un altro in loco suo in cambio.” 26 38.23, 564r: Mario: “Mostrandoli il pasticcio et per la strada messer Ludovico et liei andavano abracciati insieme.” 27 Ago, Economia barocca. 28 38.23, 560r: Antonio Scapuccio: “l’ostaria de Domenidio in Piscaria.” 38.23, 574r: for the name’s origin. 29 38.23, 564r: Mario, for the time. 30 38.23, 560r: Antonio di Scapuccio: “tutti de compagnia . . . portassimo . . . un pasticcio . . .” 31 38.23, 568v: Ludovico Santa Croce: “. . . Fabritio giudio facto christiano apresso . . . [a] casa mia nel tempo che e facto christiano et lui me impresto la stantia”; 38. 560r: Antonio Scapuccio: “presso la casa de Santa Croce.” 32 28.23, 561r: Antonio Scapuccio for the boast: “et di poi che andassemo a magnar a l’ostaria . . .” 33 38.23, 574v: Magrino: “un solaretto di sopra quale era poca de cosa”; 38.23, 572r: Fabritio: “dormivo io sopra una solarello.” 34 38.23, 560r: Antonio Scapuccio: “. . . un matarazo quale lo buttassemo in terra.” 35 38.23, 574v: Magrino: “. . . spogliati si misero sotto li panni.” 36 38.23, 574v–575r: Magrino: “un paviglione che saria de piu colori quale era il mio . . . radunato da una banda.” 37 38.23, 569r. Ludovico claims to have closed the curtain: “mettevo il paviglione atorno.” 38 38.23, 564v: Mario: “et avanti che la lume fosse svitata stavamo a burlare et ciancinare . . . che di gratia volessemo svitar la lume.” 39 38.23, 561v: Antonio Scapuccio: “. . . facendo un zeno con il deto grosso et con il deto indice facendo uno O designando che lui haveva chiavato nel culo dicta donna”; 38.23, 564v: Mario: “Dicendo forte con noi altri Nel proprio facendo con il detto grosso et con il indice il tondo.” 40 38.23, 561v: Antonio Scapuccio: “lui non diceva chiaramente per rispecto de dicta donna che non volea svergognarla”; Loudly: Mario: “Dicendo forte.” 41 Ibid.: Antonio Scapuccio: “. . . la chiavata in culo foco foco.” 42 38.23, 574v: Magrino: “forno primi messer Ludovico et la donna.” 43 38.23, 574r: Magrino, for sleeping clothed: “et io ancora dormi . . . vestito”; for much later: 38.23, 560r: Scapuccio: “Giovanni Maria . . . dipoi a un gran pezo . . . se ando a corigare nel medemmo lecto.” 44 38.23, 575r: Magrino: “io ho inteso quando lui la chiavava et lei teneva le natiche verso Ludovico et lei voltata con il viso verso di me et io una volta il sentia et io non lho visto metter dentro perche io non ce ho tenuto le mane. So bene che la chiavava et lui sbatteva detta [no noun] verso di me che mi fe svigliato.” 45 Hunt, The Vacant See, 183–84. 46 38.23, 575v: notary and Magrino: “. . . langere et lamentare eo quia . . . ipsam retro negotiabat et futuebat. Respondit io sentivo che le quando fu chiava[ta] la prima volta da messer Ludovico si lamentava. Ma si posseva lamentare de piu cose . . . Si posseva lamentare come fanno le donne . . . Se posono lamentare che li sappia bono et si posono lamentare che se li faccia male ancora. Ma io una volta come o detto o sentito che l’habia chiavata.” 47 38.23, 577v: Betta, August 23, 1557: “lui mai ha fato in tal loco e e ben vero che messer Ludovico mi disse che mi voltassi che me lo voleva far a potta retro et io li disse tu me voi gabare tu me voi mettere al contrario et lui disse de no che il voleva fare a potta retro et cossi io mi voltai et mi fece a potta retro. Io so dove intro. Si lui se e gabbato non me sonno gabbata io.” Betta mi parrebbe che dio non mi tenesse sopra la terra et se ho fatto male per una via, non voglio far male per laltra, et si io ne esco voglio andare a Santa Maria de Loreto et poi a casa mia a far bene . . . et se si gabba lui non mi gabbo io, perche me ne guardaro come dal fuoco.”49 38.23, 565r: Mario. 50 38.23, 576r–v: “Lei non intese mai parole .  .  . Noi davamo la baia a Ludovico .  .  . quando lui il diceva a tavola lei non se ce era messa ancora.” 51 103, 911r: Ludovico: “me pare che sia cancelliero de conservatori.” 52 103, 906v: Meo: voleamo andare a cena al’hostaria de domenedio insieme . . . et cosi righai certo piscio et . . . andammo alhosteria . . . et mentre voleamo cenare arrivo li Cesare . . . lui se messe a tavola et cenammo tutti quatro insieme.” 53 103, 907r: Meo: “portai certe sarde . . . et Grillo porto certe telline.” 54 103, 907v: Meo: “un’hebreo . . . venne . . . mentre che magnammo.” 55 103, 907r–v: Meo: “voliamo andar a casa della mia puttana et noi dicemmo andamo et Cesare ancora disse io ve voglio fare compagnia.” 56 103, 911v. 57 The present Via del Monte della Farina was then Via del Crocefisso, named for church, San Biagio del Crocefisso (or del Annulo), demolished circa 1617 to expand San Carlo: Lombardi, Roma, 222; Delli, Le Strade, 339; Gnoli, Topografia, 91; Adinolfi, Roma, 171. Olimpia probably lived towards San Biagio. 58 103, 913r: Olimpia: “da uno amico mio quella sera . . . tornai a casa et trovai Ludovico Santa Croce li alla mia porta”; 913v for the name Lorenzo. 59 103, 918r: Ludovico: “sono parecchi anni.” 60 103, 917r: Lucretia the madam: “parlando spagnolo et contrafacendo il parlare loro solito . . . apri qua la sporta che batterno sette o otto volte ch’io non li volsi mai aprire.” 61 Ibid.: “.  .  . non li volevo aprire .  .  . dovessero mutare parlare perche non potessi di non cognoscerli, . . . ma per non ci esser’ la mia pigionante in casa et sapendo che non voleano niente da me io non li volsi aprire anzi . . . haverci buttato del acqua in testa se non si fussero levati dalla porta.” 62 Ibid.: “correre verso li Chiavari.” 63 103, 889r: Lucretia the wife: “retornandome . . . senza lume et con una cannuccia in mano per non esser vista ne conosciuta.” One Cynthio Perusco lodged by the Minerva: Bullettino della Commissione archeologica comunale di Roma 29, 15. One puzzle: on October 7, 1567, a Cinzio Perusci by San Marcello, not the Minerva, buried a wife named not Lucretia but Ortensia. de Dominicis, Notizie biografiche, 275; And, at court, (103, 899r) Lucretia appears as “Lucretia q. Petri”—no father’s family name, no husband’s name. Is Lucretia a femina, a semi-wife? 64 Ibid., r–v: Lucretia: “Doi armati . . . me si ferno incontro et subbito me fermorno et un di loro me misse la mano al collo tastandomi il collo pensando forsi ch’io havessi qualche collana o vezza.” 65 Ibid., v: “. . . io son poveretta che volete da me strillando ai ladri ai ladri . . . me lasciorno”; the servant confirms this and notes that other men were also holding Lucretia: 103, 902r. 66 103, 902r: 25: “. . . perche questo a noi.” 67 Ibid.: “se misse la cappa inanti il viso et pero non posso saper’ ne poddi veder’ se l’era quel Meo.” 68 Ibid.: “.  .  . pugnali nudi presso alla gola.” Why daggers? The gentlemen, with their swords, held Lucretia. 69 Ibid.: Lucretia: “. . . un cerchio intorno et chi mi pigliava da un canto et chi dal altro mettendomi li pugnali alla gola.” Giovanni Maria: Ibid., 902r: “ci fermamo per paura.” 70 Ibid.: Giovanni Maria: “. . . dar de i pugni et d’urtoni et mi buttorno in terra.” 71 103, 900r: Lucretia: “. . . con un yesu di sopra et di sotto c’e l’ongia della gran bestia . . . ancho la cintura et un fazzoletto: che l’anello ci e 18 giulii d’oro.” This “yesu” may have been a monogram. Giovanni Maria confirms almost all these goods. 72 103, 902r–v: Giovanni Maria: “una scarsella che io portava cinta. . . . a tenere lavandosi la mano . . . messo in la scarsella.” 73 103, 902v: Lucretia: “. . . vi prometto da gentilhuomo de non ti far dispiacer . . . che non era per loro . . . che era moglie di Messer Cynthio Perusco.” Cesare had yet to hurt the servant.In bed with Ludovico Santa Croce 13974 Ibid,: Giovanni Maria: “messer che volemo fare . . . menavola via menavola via.” See also Lucretia: 103, 899v: “menala su menala su strascinala.” Why do we say Meo and not the Jew? Note Meo’s ongoing relationship with Ludovico, their habit of joint action, plus that prompt “Messer.” 75 103, 899v: Lucretia: “.  .  . con molta instanza di menarmi in una casa che .  .  . per forza . . . me strascinavano . . . a i ladri a i ladri a questo modo si assassina alla strada, . . . che venessero in casa mia . . .” Why this invitation? Probably demonstrate her station, not to proffer loot. 76 103, 199v: Lucretia: “per andare al arco delli catinari.” The present Via dei Falegnami then was Via dei Catinari: Gnoli, Toponomia, 69. This Arco was demolished for San Carlo ai Catinari: Gnoli, Toponomia, 11. 77 103, 903r: Giovanni Maria: “. . . gl’era cascate le pianella . . . diceano che caminasse . . . la faceano camminar . . . tre o quattro attorno.” See also Lucretia: 103, 899v: “cascai in terra in un fangho et lasciai li pianelle.” 78 For Agostino Pallone’s house, see Cohen and Cohen, Words and Deeds, 136. For the two men: 103, 903r: Giovanni Maria: “arrivò quel che portava la torcia accesa et . . . mr Agostino Palone . . . per il medesimo vicolo.” In 1577, Agostino would be buried in Santa Maria in Publicolis, the Santa Croce family church: de Dominicis, Notizie biografiche, 267. 79 103, 899v–900r: Lucretia: “. . . cognobbi detto messer . . . per l’amor de dio che me aiutasse . . . pensandosi che il lume non venesse da quella banda et de non esser visto detto mr Augistino cognobbe . . . Cesari romano, al quale disse Mr. Augustino ah Cesari che fai, che cosa e questa[!] . . .” 80 103, 903r: Giovannia Maria: “casco con una gamba in una ferrata et . . . se attacò alla cappa di Messer Augistino . . . Mr Augustino di grazia. non me abbandonate per l’amor de Dio.” 81 103, 903r–v: Giovanni Maria: “. . . se conosceva Cyntho Perusco, et lei disse si che lo cognosce et ho doi figli con lui et e mio marito et . . . se la conosceva messer Francesco Calvi et lei disse de si . . . se li andava in casa con lei che li mostraria la figlia.” 82 103, 903v: Giovanni Maria: “. . . Cesari figlio tu hai fatto male . . . che andasse via che farria accompagnare Madonna Lucretia da un suo servitore.” 83 Ibid.; Lucretia: “m’accompagno con la torcia.” 84 103, 917r–v: Lucretia the madam: “. . . guardai et viddi una donna con un’homo che cridava: che diceva che volete da me fratelli che volete da me fratelli et diceva tiratimi la corda tiratimi la corda . . . dubitando io che non fusse qualche vicina, io bussai alla fenestra della Diana . . . senti quella tua sorella che crida . . .” “Tiratimi la corda” here refers to Lucretia’s door-rope: “open up for me!” with a dative. 85 103, 913r: Olimpia: “. . . trovai Ludovico Santa Croce li alla mia porta assieme con Meo pescivendolo et con doi altri . . . ci era un’hebreo.” 86 Ibid.: Olimpia: “. . . Ludovico fu il primo”; 103, 918: Ludovico Santa Croce: “il primo io d’intrare in casa.” 87 103, 917r: Lucretia the madam: “. . . Olimpia insieme con un’ suo amico che si chiama Lorenzo stufarolo, quale sonava di liuto. Et me bisogno tirar’ la corda et alhora intro . . . Ludovico Santa [Croce] Meo Cesar Vallati et un hebreo.” 88 103, 917v: Lucretia the madam: “. . . o bella cosa, le povere donne non ponno andare per la strada et loro dissero che non erano stato.” 89 103, 913v: Olimpia, “Meo et l’altri ci accompagnorno sino alla stufa et poi se ne andorno con dio”; 914v: Meo: “insieme alla stufa et poi io me ne tornai a casa mia e Cesare e l’hebreo andorno a fare i fatti suoi.” 90 103, 922r: Barbara claims Meo has been her amico for three years; 103, 904r: Barbara: “e un mese ch’io l’ho lassato perche non mi piace piu l’amicitia sua et perche ha dieci scudi delli mei in mano.” Monte Savelli is today’s Teatro di Marcello, now stripped bare by archeology. 91 103, 922r: Barbara: “me ne andai a letto senza cena perche io me sentivo male et mentre ch’io stavo a letto con Annibale pescivendolo sentei passare per la strada Cesare 92 93 94 95Vallata con altre genti . . . et disse servitor’ Signora Barbera cor mio ch’io non li resposi altrimente” 103, 914r: Giovanni Maria: “madonna Lucretia domando a . . . pescivendolo predetto per che causa fussi preso questo messer Ludovico et .  .  . rispose che fu preso perche haveva preso una donna nella strada.” 103, 905v: Meo, on Tuesday: “io fui preso hiermatina in Ponte ch’io non so perche causa assieme con Messer Ludovico Santa Croce.” 103, 901r: Lucretia the wife: “et che stavano molto di mala voglia et tutti afflitti.” 103, 900v: Lucretia: “lui mi mando a dir per il detto Cynthio che non era offitio da gentilhomo di accusar nesuno e che mi bastava che io non havessi ricevuto mal nesuno.”Bibliography Archival sources Archivio di Stato di Roma, Governatore, Tribunale Criminale Processi (16° secolo), busta 38, case 19 Processi (16° secolo), busta 38, case 23 Processi (16° secolo), busta 38, case 25 Processi (16° secolo), busta 103Publisd sources Adinolfi, Pasquale. Roma nell’età di mezzo, rione Campo Marzo, rione S. Eustachio. Florence: Le Lettere – LICOSA, 1983. Ago, Renata. Economia barocca: mercato e istituzioni nella Roma barocca. Rome: Donzelli, 1998. Bullettino della Commissione archeologica comunale di Roma 29 Cohen, Thomas V. and Elizabeth S. Cohen. Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Connors, Joseph. “Alliance and Enmity in Baroque Urbanism.” Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana de Dominicis, Claudio. Notizie biografiche a Roma nel 1531–1582, desunte dagli atti parrocchiali. Rome: Academia Moroniana, n.d. Delli, Sergio. Le Strade di Roma. Rome: Newton Compton, 1975. Gnoli, Umberto. Topografia e toponomastica di Roma medioevale e moderna. Rome: Edizioni dell’Arquata, 1984. Hunt, John M. The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome: A Social History of the Papal Interregnum. Leiden: Brill, In two unrelated sixteenth-century texts, a Renaissance prince was described as vulnerable to assassination because of a f lawed fashion judgment. In his Historia patria (published 1503), the courtier Bernardino Corio recounted that just before Galeazzo Sforza left his castle on December 26, 1476, he put on and then took off his corazina because he felt that the chest armor made him look “too fat.”1 The lack of armored protection was crucial as Galeazzo was famously stabbed to death during mass later that day. In his analysis of the event, Timothy McCall provocatively suggests that Galeazzo’s fatally bad judgment was determined by fashion; Galeazzo, according to McCall, was inf luenced by the growing pressure to conform to cultural expectations of a slim masculine figure.2 Sixty years later, a Florentine prince was murdered by stabbing, and similar to the description of Galeazzo Sforza, a chronicler of the episode points to clothing’s role in the affair. Benedetto Varchi’s Storia fiorentina (incomplete at his death in 1565) recounts that just before Duke Alessandro de’ Medici left his bedchamber on the night of his murder in 1537, he contemplated whether he should wear his gloves “da guerra” (for war) or his perfumed gloves “da fare all’amore” (for making love).3 According to the story, Alessandro chose the love-gloves as they better matched his sablelined cape and were suited to his planned sexual escapade. He apparently chose unwisely. Elizabeth Currie argues that Varchi added this presumably invented anecdote about gloves in order to communicate—through sartorial metaphors—the gap between Duke Alessandro’s expected dutiful behavior and his actual irresponsible conduct.4 To Currie’s analysis, I add that the glove anecdote also participates in what had become a literary pattern of associating men’s clothing with physical weakness. If, in the first episode, the author indicates how a soft doublet made Galeazzo defenseless to the knife blade, in the second, the writer implies that the outcome of Alessandro’s evening might have been different had the princechosen his gloves “da guerra.” The two historiographical accounts of Galeazzo’s and Alessandro’s murders underscore not only the high stakes of men’s clothing choices but the relationship between literary representations of dress and elements of masculinity. Varchi, like so many writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth century, chose to articulate men’s dress as integral components in representations of violence, war preparedness, moral virtue, and sexuality. Clothing was thus fundamental to Renaissance discourses of masculinity. While masculine subjectivity as performed through dress has been the focus of several excellent studies by fashion and art historians, what has gone somewhat unexplored is how clothing functioned in such discourses of masculinity.5 Was, for example, clothing presented as a symptom of men’s loss of masculine virtue or did writers claim that clothing had a more active role in the imperilment of men? Did so-called effeminate clothing cause men to weaken, or was it merely a byproduct of a so-called anima effeminato? This essay will address these questions by looking at the interconnection of male dress, effeminacy, and militarism in Baldassare Castiglione’s Libro del cortegiano (Book of the Courtier). I have chosen to concentrate on Castiglione’s Courtier because of its prominent place in the history of dress and fashion as well as its role in the history of masculinity.6 The Courtier presents male dress as a high-stakes enterprise; a misstep in clothing not only had grave consequences for a man’s reputation, it was also a question of life or death. Like the gloves of Alessandro de’ Medici and the cuirass of Galeazzo Sforza, a man’s clothing choice could lead to glory or personal injury, and it could also result in (at least in Castiglione’s assessment) large-scale military defeat.Arms in the Courtier Very early in the book, Ludovico da Canossa declares arms to be the primary profession of the courtier [1.17].7 Yet, the privileged status of arms is not a settled question, and it is destabilized during a debate of arms vs. letters.8 The debate is framed by the same Ludovico, who asserts that the French only respect arms and abhor letters. Ludovico extols the value of letters by describing several successful military generals who trotted off to battle with copies of the Iliad or other literature at their side. His examples of successful and literary generals are offered as proof that the French were erroneous in their belief that literature damaged a man’s ability to fight: “Ma questo dire a voi è superf luo, ché ben so io che tutti conoscete quanto s’ingannano i Francesi pensando che le lettre nuocciano all’arme” (1.43, p. 92) (But there is no need to tell you this, for I am sure you all know how mistaken the French are in thinking that letters are detrimental to arms) (1.43, p. 51).9 Ludovico’s accusation of the misguided French could as well have been leveled against Italian contemporaries of Castiglione, since none other than Niccolò Machiavelli himself was proclaiming that letters were injurious to arms in both his Art of War as well as his Florentine Histories.10Contrary to the view of the French (and Machiavelli), Ludovico proposes that letters are beneficial to arms; letters bring glory, and glory inspires courage in warfare: “Sapete che delle cose grandi ed arrischiate nella guerra il vero stimulo è la gloria. . . . E che la vera gloria sia quella che si commenda al sacro tesauro delle lettre” (1.43, p.92) (The true stimulus to great and daring deeds in war is glory. . . . And it is true glory that is entrusted to the sacred treasury of letters) (1.43, p. 51).11 When Ludovico notes that literature, like the Iliad, could have a positive effect on soldiers, he shifts the debate that began with the hierarchy of arms and letters to the correlative and causative relationship between arms and letters.12 For Ludovico, arms and letters are “concatenate” (conjoined) (1.46). Ludovico’s assessment of the positive effects of letters on arms is troubled by the fact that France, at least since 1494, had proven itself to be militarily superior to Italy. He hedges his argument in a prebuttal, acknowledging that others might cite recent French military success as evidence against his claim: “Non vorrei già che qualche avversario mi adducesse gli effetti contrari per rifiutar la mia opinione, allegandomi gli Italiani col lor saper lettere aver mostrato poco valor nell’arme” (1.43, p. 93) (I should not want some objector to cite me instances to the contrary in order to refute my opinion, alleging that for all their knowledge of letters the Italians have shown little worth in arms) (1.43, p. 51). To this objection, Ludovico states that the defeat of literate Italians by illiterate French is the fault of only a few men: “la colpa d’alcuni pochi aver dato, oltre al grave danno, perpetuo biasimo a tutti gli altri” (1.43, p. 93) (the fault of a few men has brought not only serious harm but eternal blame upon all the rest) (1.43, p. 52). The debate of arms and letters in the Courtier raises two key points for my analysis on dress and militarism. The first is that there is an anxiety among the speakers that the actions of a “few men” can bring shame on all men.13 The book’s project of social control depends in great part on this anxiety. Indeed, the belief that massive military defeat was caused by a few deviant men gives urgency to the entire masculine normativizing process (i.e., the ideal courtier). The second point, related to the first, is that men’s ability to win wars could be affected (positively or negatively) by what are presumably unrelated aspects of a courtier’s masculine identity. Throughout the Courtier, not only letters but music, dance, and of course dress are all placed in a context of their relationship to warfare.14 When, for example, one speaker condemns music as effeminate, another will anxiously argue that music stirs soldiers to combat, and thus it is rightfully masculine (I.47). The book delineates the court and the battlefield as discrete yet interrelated spaces. The courtier-soldier is expected to shuttle between the two while performing hegemonic masculinity in both.15 The challenge is that certain practices of masculinity were viewed as causing a negative effect in one or the other space. The battlefield, in particular, is shown as vulnerable to the presence of courtly practices. Analogously, the court’s refined spaces were shown as incompatible with certain military behaviors.16 Nonetheless, the court often measured itself against a functionality in war (e.g., music was useful in war) just as men in court adopted martial aesthetics (e.g., court dress was an adaptation of the military tunic).17 There thus arises a tension within the Courtier between the masculinity of courtly practices and the masculinity of warfare, and this tension is routinely expressed as a fear that practices at court are deleterious to combat. The speakers never clearly articulate how dress, letters, and music might endanger war tactics and strategies, but they do repeatedly imply that refined behavior threatens masculinity. The reader is then left to leap the epistemological gap that assumes such a claim to be true. The cumulative effect of this rhetorical technique is that a fear of effeminacy underlies the entire project to produce an ideal courtier, and this fear is often articulated in terms of dress and aesthetics.18Aesthetics and masculinity before Castiglione The association of men’s dress and aesthetics with effeminacy has a literary tradition that stretches at least back to Classical antiquity. Craig Williams’ groundbreaking text, Roman Homosexuality, provides scores of ancient examples of writers reproaching men’s aesthetics. In Roman texts, clothing, perfumes, and grooming habits were frequent subjects of scorn. According to Williams, men’s aesthetics were invoked as part of accusations of effeminacy in what was consistently a reproach of men’s loss of dominion and self-mastery.19 More recently, Kelly Olson’s Masculinity and Dress in Roman Antiquity has provided a systematic look at dress in ancient Rome, and she usefully pinpoints specific elements of dress, perfumes, and grooming to show how the Roman man “walked a fine line” between expected grooming and dressing practice and what was considered effeminate.20 As we move into the Middle Ages and Renaissance, writers adopted these Classical condemnations of men’s dress and added their own brand of Christian morality. Renaissance legal codes and prescriptive literature justified the regulation of male dress under the auspices of protecting state expenditures, preventing deviant sexuality, or ensuring the salvation of the soul.21 For example, Francesco Pontano (f l. 1424–41), a professor in republican Siena, attacked male hair styling, cosmetics, and ornate garments as a civic and Christian moral problem.22 In his treatise Dello integro e perfetto stato delle donzelle (On the whole and perfect state of girls), a work written primarily about women’s vanities, the author states that “vain and superf luous ornament” should be disdained by all males “who want to be called real men.”23 Certain men, he states, do not care if they are esteemed as masculine, and thus they spend extraordinary amounts of time on hair and skin care.24 He complains that men multiply the effect of their grooming habits by fussing over dress as well: “Ma i maschi moltiplicano questo errore or co’ lisciamenti or con continui increspamenti di falde, e arrondolamenti de’ cappucci a diadema, e infiniti altri loro frenetichi e babionerie” (But men multiply this error, sometimes using cosmetics and at other times with their continual ruff ling of crinoline and swirls of hoods in the shape of a tiara, as well as their infinite other frenzies and buffooneries) (Pontano 22). For Pontano, so-called luxurious dress muddied the gender binary as well as presented a peril to Christian morality since, as he states, vanities and ornament debased men, who were “made to be equal to the angels” to a status “below pigs.”25 Dress imperiled the body and the very soul of men. Effeminate dress, he states, showed disrespect for God. The crowd of ornate men “non crede che Dio sia, e che non sia alcuno altro iudice che quegli del podestà ovver del capitano” (does not believe that God exists, and that there is no other judge than the podestà or commander) (Pontano 22). Pontano made so-called effeminate dress a moral and theological issue. Similarly, other writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries voiced concern about the morality of dress with respect to sexuality and class status. The chronicler Giovanni Villani (c. 1280–1348) worried that men’s fashion could create dangerous alliances with foreign powers and blur class differences, and San Bernardino da Siena (1380–1444) complained that young men’s short tunics and tight hose were too erotic.26 Ironically, those same tight hose were reevaluated in the sixteenth century as evidentiary proof that the male youths of the past were uncorrupted.27 There has as yet been no systematic study of the condemnations of men’s dress in early modern Italy, but such a study would aid our understanding of possible thematic shifts. Not only did the targets of these condemnations vary (e.g., short tunics, tight hosiery), so too did the rhetoric used to vilify certain dress undergo changes. There seems to be one significant moment in the history of dress and masculinity at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when condemnations of so-called effeminate male dress shifted from threats of Christian imperilment to failed militancy.28 The anxiety over dress and militarism had real-world implications such as the standardized military uniform, just as it may have also inspired some unexpected rhetoric, such as the praise of an unkempt look.29 Most importantly, it made the abstract notions of dependency and autonomy visible; men’s clothing carried the meanings of military victory or loss. Castiglione’s Courtier has a distinct place within the normativization process of the militaristic masculine body as it is an early—possibly the earliest— example of sixteenth-century rhetoric of effeminacy, dress, and military defeat. Castiglione began writing his text during the chaotic years between the invasion of France in 1494 and the Sack of Rome in 1527. In this period of instability, he chose to point to certain courtly behaviors, including dress, in relation to the military losses that were still potentially viewed as reversible. The Courtier blames the subjugation of the Italian people on certain refined masculine behaviors that were otherwise unrelated to militarism, but so, too, it suggests that the salvation of Italy lay in the hands of this same class of men, men who often marked their class by the very dress that undermined their masculinity. There are two moments in which Castiglione suggests that men’s clothing played a role in military loss. I will analyze these passages along with other textual examples of men’s aesthetics and dress to demonstrate that Castiglione is in effect not only making pronouncements about dress but, more importantly, is establishing a practice whereby men can redeem their masculinity through speaking about the effeminizing power of aesthetics. The spoken condemnation of courtly dress purportedly critiques gender and class structures, but like the dress itself, this very speech is what marks the speaker as belonging to the properly masculine elite.30Male aesthetics and dress in the Courtier Book One: sprezzatura and gender nonconformity In Book One, the primary speaker, Count Ludovico da Canossa, says that the ideal courtier should have a manly yet graceful face. What is to be avoided, he exclaims with disgust, are certain male grooming habits: [your face] has something manly about it, and yet is full of grace. . . . I would have our Courtier’s face be such, not so soft and feminine as many attempt to have who not only curl their hair and pluck their eyebrows, but preen themselves in all those ways that the most wanton and dissolute women in the world adopt; and in walking, in posture, and in every act, appear so tender and languid that their limbs seems to be on the verge of falling apart; and utter their words so limply that it seems they are about to expire on the spot; and the more they find themselves in the company of men of rank, the more they make a show of such manners. These, since nature did not make them women as they clearly wish to appear and be, should be treated not as good women, but as public harlots, and driven not only from the courts of great lords but from the society of all noble men. (1.19, p. 27) Certo quella grazia del volto, senza mentire, dir si po esser in voi . . . tien del virile, e pur è grazioso . . . . di tal sorte voglio io che sia lo aspetto del nostro cortegiano, non così molle e femminile come si sforzano d’aver molti, che non solamente si crepano i capegli e spelano le ciglia, ma si strisciano con tutti que’ modi che si facciano le più lascive e disoneste femine del mondo; e pare che nello andare, nello stare ed in ogni altro lor atto siano tanto teneri e languidi, che le membra siano per staccarsi loro l’uno dall’altro; e pronunziano quelle parole così aff litte, che in quel punto par che lo spirito loro finisca; e quanto più si trovano con omini di grado, tanto più usano tai termini. Questi, poiché la natura, come essi mostrano desiderare di parere ed essere, non gli ha fatti femine, dovrebbono non come bone femine esser estimati, ma, come publiche meretrici, non solamente delle corti de’ gran signori, ma del consorzio degli omini nobili esser cacciati. (1.19, pp. 49–50) For Ludovico, the so-called effeminate courtiers are not by nature “molle” (soft) or “ femminile” (feminine), but they work very hard (si sforzano) to make themselvesappear to be so. Moreover, he links aesthetics to acts of despised behavior, particularly obsequious dependency. This condemned behavior occurs when, as Ludovico explains, men affect their appearance and speech around other men of rank. We can situate these despised men within the context of Ludovico’s own theory of sprezzatura. Coining a new term, Ludovico describes sprezzatura as the art of “ciò che si fa e dice venir fatto senza fatica e quasi senza pensarvi” (1.26, p. 60) (making whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it). In the case of the men who plucked their eyebrows, curled their hair, and augmented certain behaviors around men of rank, they have failed at this art. Rather than concealing a performance, as sprezzatura demands, these men drew attention to the act of ingratiating themselves to men of authority. Their failed performance of sprezzatura thus resulted in the loss of reputation and power, a point also made by Ludovico in his definition of the new term: Accordingly, we may affirm that to be true art which does not appear to be art; nor to anything must we give greater care than to conceal art, for if it is discovered, it quite destroys our credit and brings us into small esteem. (I.26, p. 32) Però si po dir quella esser vera arte che non pare esser arte; né più in altro si ha da poner studio, che nel nasconderla: perché se è scoperta, leva in tutto il credito e fa l’omo poco estimato. (1.26, p. 60) Successful sprezzatura, on the other hand, offered the courtier an ability to perform a “compelling” version of himself that masked a very different, perhaps less putatively masculine identity.32 This “manly masquerade,” however, risked pointing to both a fantastic masculine ideal as well as to the absence of that ideal.33 Dress and aesthetics, or more precisely, the discussions of dress and aesthetics in the Courtier, form a paradox in the logic of sprezzatura. When the speakers complain of the “effeminate” dress or grooming habits of men, they imply that some idealized masculine version of these men existed before the offending grooming or dressing occurred.34 However, this anchoring of essentialist manhood is dismissed in the Courtier. Instead, the speakers reaffirm that since very few men are born with the qualities of the ideal courtier, the ideal (read masculine) courtier manipulates his body, behaviors, and dress. If the ideal courtier is therefore a man who must alter his person in order to be masculine, then the ideal masculine pre-altered courtier—much like the idealized Urbino court itself—is a pastoral fantasy.35 The men who alter their hair and posture when among men of rank, in effect, draw attention to this absence of essential masculinity in all but the rarest courtiers. These men fail at a sprezzatura of masculinity not because they ornament themselves, but because they have exposed the necessity of ornamenting themselves. It is so great an infraction that Ludovico angrily condemns these men to be punished not as women but as “public harlots.” Of course, the reference to prostitution is significant for it foreshadows an episode (discussed below) in Book Four where Ottaviano explains that all courtiers must use their bodies, speech, and behavior to gain princely favors. The irony is that the principal difference between the despicable groomed courtier with plucked eyebrows and the masculine courtier with less apparently plucked eyebrows is solely aesthetic; both sell themselves for favors. The offending behavior of the groomed courtier is therefore that he has failed to conceal this economy.Book Two: foreign dress and foreign occupation Given the gravity of the punishment that Ludovico doles out to certain courtiers, it is apparent that a mistake in styling and grooming could pose a serious threat to masculinity. Thus, choosing proper male dress also caused anxiety for the upwardly mobile courtier. In Book Two, Giuliano de’ Medici expresses his personal difficulty regarding the variety of dress available to men, and he asks for assistance “to know how to choose the best out of this confusion” (2.26). Federico Fregoso responds to this question by stating that men should dress according to the “custom of the majority.” Fregoso then states that the majority of Italians wore the styles of various foreign cultures and that these foreign fashions signaled which cultures would dominate Italian men.36 But I do not know by what fate it happens that Italy does not have, as she used to have, a manner of dress recognized to be Italian: for, although the introduction of these new fashions makes the former ones seem very crude, still the older ones were perhaps a sign of freedom, even as the new ones have proved to be augury of servitude . . . Just so our having changed our Italian dress for that of foreigners strikes me as meaning that all those for whose dress we have exchanged our own are going to conquer us: which has proved to be all too true, for by now there is no nation that has not made us its prey. (2.26, pp. 88–89) Ma io non so per qual fato intervenga che la Italia non abbia, come soleva avere, abito che sia conosciuto per italiano; che, benché lo aver posto in usanza questi novi faccia parer quelli primi goffissimi, pur quelli forse erano segno di libertà, come questi son stati augurio di servitù . . . cosí l’aver noi mutato gli abiti italiani nei stranieri parmi che significasse, tutti quelli, negli abiti de’ quali i nostri erano trasformati, dever venire a subiugarci; il che è stato troppo più che vero, ché ormai non resta nazione che di noi non abbia fatto preda. (2.26, p. 158)Fregoso’s fashion advice poses a host of problems regarding identity and autonomy. By suggesting that men “follow the majority,” he undermines agency, sovereignty, and control, themes often repeated as central to masculinity by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century authors. Manliness is the ability to look like others, to disappear in the crowd; but it is also ironically defined as following the crowd’s errors. For, as Fregoso states, the majority of Italians have made a grave error and adopted foreign dress, which leads to invasion and occupation.37 If fitting in is a masculine virtue, it could even mean implicating oneself in Italy’s political and military losses. Fregoso’s concern about foreign dress is a Classical trope that has considerable fortune in the Renaissance, where French and later Imperial invasions were not infrequently associated with foreign fashions. 38 The epistemological link of fashion and invasion was so imbedded in the culture that even one hundred years after Castiglione wrote his Courtier, the Spanish priest Basilio Ponce de Leon suggested that God castigated Italy with invasion in 1494 precisely because Italian men wore French fashions.39 Within the Courtier itself, foreign fashion does not incur God’s wrath, but rather, it beckons other nations to “venire a subiugarci” (come and subjugate us). Such a logic—where large scores of men were responsible for invasion because of their fashion choice—stands in contrast to Ludovico’s claim in Book One when he claimed that the collapse of Italy was caused by a “few men.” Book Two thus broadens the guilty parties of Italy’s subjugation from a “few men” to a “majority” of (upper class) men, who, like Castiglione himself, were bedecked in the latest Spanish and French trends.Books One and Two: fashion theory and agency The first two books are differentiated also by the way they discuss men’s aesthetics. In Book One, for example, there is no association between aesthetics and military loss. Ludovico did not state that plucked eyebrows and curled hair brought about military defeat. Rather, his complaint was limited to gender nonconformity. On the other hand, Book Two draws a direct line between aesthetics (foreign dress) and military failure. This shift from Book One to Book Two might be explained by the general ideological difference that distinguishes the two books. Virginia Cox has convincingly argued that Book One proclaims that a courtier’s virtue ensures him success, while in the more cynical Book Two, success at court is depicted as at the whim of the prince.40 In particular, military bravery is praised only when it can be observed by others, particularly by the prince. To risk one’s life when no one is watching would be a waste of one’s personal resources. Virtue, therefore, is whatever the courtier makes seen in the eyes of others. In the context of Book Two, where the courtiers participate in an economy that trades in appearance of virtue rather than intrinsic virtue, clothing takes a central role in masculine identity construction. It thus follows that Fregoso attempts to draw a direct relationship between appearance and essence. He statesthat one must be attentive to what type of man he wishes to be taken for, and then act and dress accordingly, “aggiungendovi ancor che debba fra se stesso deliberar ciò che vol parere e de quella sorte che desidera esser estimato, della medesima vestirsi” (2.27, p. 160) (I would only add further that he ought to consider what appearance he wishes to have and what manner of man he wishes to be taken for, and dress accordingly) (2.27, p. 90). Such action is necessitated by the belief that external appearance (including mannerisms) communicates a person’s identity: “tutto questo di fuori dà notizia spesso di quel dentro” (2.28, p. 161) (all these outward things often make manifest what is within) (1.28, p. 90). The body makes legible the soul, and this externalization of virtue and morality is problematized by the fact that the courtier is taught to manipulate the body according to his fashion. One speaker, Gasparo Pallavicino, pushes back on the theory that dress determines personal character. He states that one should not “judge the character of men by their dress rather than by their words or deeds” (2.28, p. 90). To Gasparo’s comment, Fregoso responds that although deeds and words are more important than dress, dress is “no small index” (non è piccolo argomento) (2.28) of the man. Fregoso’s insistence that dress is ref lective of the essence of man is, however, hard to reconcile with the fact that one’s projected image, as Fregoso himself states, can be false: “avvenga che talor possa esser falso” (2.28) (although it can sometimes be false) (2.28, p. 90 translation altered to ref lect original). Despite Fregoso’s suggestions otherwise, behavior, dress, and bodily adornment do not convey an unproblematic version of the self. In the elegant fishbowl of the court, courtiers manipulate dress with the hopes that others might be duped into believing that it represents an intrinsic identity. Fregoso’s fashion theory, though not cohesive, does communicate to other men that a fashion faux pas imperils the courtier’s masculinity in two ways: it points to a perceived essential effeminacy, or it demonstrates an inability to mask this effeminacy.Book Four: Ottaviano’s paradox The last mention of dress in the Courtier is in Book Four, and it famously gives elegance of dress a virtuous purpose. In Book Four, Federico Fregoso’s brother, Ottaviano, declares that dress, manners, and pleasantries permit the courtier access to the prince so that he can provide the ruler with wise counsel. According to Ottaviano, the courtier must fashion himself with this mask of the “perfect courtier” so that he can lead the prince away from the ills of vice through deception, “ingannandolo con inganno salutifero” (beguiling him with salutary deception) (4.10, p. 213). Ottaviano’s interjection has received much scholarly attention in part because it exposes the fashioning of the perfect courtier as a performance of deceit.41 Berger, in particular, has noted how this deceit can have an effect on the integrity of the courtier: The byproduct of the courtier’s performance is that the achievement of sprezzatura may require him to deny or disparage his nature. In order tointernalize the model and enhance himself by art, he may have to evacuate – repress or disown – whatever he finds within himself that doesn’t fit the model. (20) If sprezzatura requires the courtier to deny or disparage his own nature, then there is an implicit notion that the courtier also risks destabilizing his identity, including his masculine identity.42 This is no more apparent than when we consider how a courtier’s agency is compromised by the act of sprezzatura, an act of self-fashioning that is dependent on the will of others. Ottaviano addresses this very process head on. He states that elegance of dress, along with singing, dancing, and general enjoyment, change a man and make him effeminate. Relevant here, this effeminacy has consequences not only on a courtier’s identity but also on state security: I should say that many of those accomplishments that have been attributed to our Courtier (such as dancing, merrymaking, singing, and playing) were frivolities and vanities and, in a man of any rank, deserving of blame rather than of praise; these elegances of dress, devices, mottoes, and other such things as pertain to women and love (although many will think the contrary), often serve to merely make spirits effeminate, to corrupt youth, and to lead to a dissolute life; whence it comes about that the Italian name is reduced to opprobrium, and there are but few who dare, I will not say to die, but even to risk any danger. (4.4, p. 210) anzi direi che molte di quelle condicioni che se gli sono attribuite, come il danzar, festeggiar, cantar e giocare, fossero leggerezze e vanità, ed in un omo di grado più tosto degne di biasimo che di laude; perché queste attillature, imprese, motti ed altre tai cose che appartengono ad intertenimenti di donne e d’amori, ancora che forse a molti altri paia il contrario, spesso non fanno altro che effeminar gli animi, corrumper la gioventù e ridurla a vita lascivissima; onde nascono poi questi effetti che ’l nome italiano è ridutto in obbrobrio, né si ritrovano se non pochi che osino non dirò morire, ma pur entrare in uno pericolo. (4.4, pp. 367–68) Ottaviano’s claim marks a critical shift from the other cited passages. It is the only time in the Courtier where clothing (along with other courtly behaviors) is described as rendering men effeminate. In Book One, distasteful grooming habits are practiced by those men who “wish” that they were women, and in Book Two, foreign dress beckons military defeat. In Book Four, clothing causes effeminacy, and the effeminized man loses wars. The passage is not only a significant moment in the Courtier, it is an important moment in the history ofeffeminacy. To my knowledge, it is one of the earliest Renaissance texts that figures clothing and other behaviors as the agents that cause effeminacy leading eventually to military defeat.43 Ottaviano’s brief interjection on clothing would have provided the attentive listener with (again) some troubling fashion advice. The passage forms what I call Ottaviano’s paradox: on the one hand, Ottaviano affirms that elegant dress may be necessary to ingratiate the prince and engender virtue, while on the other, he warns that dress has deleterious effects, effeminizing the courtier’s soul and bringing shame to him and Italy. If the courtier performs his requisite duties (which include ingratiating the prince with dress, dancing, music, etc.), he cannot escape losing his own masculinity. It is unclear how the reader is to navigate this paradox. Castiglione may have been genuinely concerned with the possible effeminizing effects of dress, or there may have been some irony in placing these words in the mouth of Ottaviano.44 Ottaviano had, in fact, been derided for his unusual dress in the earlier version of the book known as the seconda redazione (written 1520–21).45 Moreover, Castiglione was himself quite the fashionista. His letters tell us that he was deeply concerned with his own dress, both at court and during military operations. Many of his letters to his mother refer to his need for appropriate clothing, and on some occasions, he refers to this clothing as necessary for exercises carried out in a context of war.46 The fact that Castiglione has left us extensive writing on dress from the period raises hermeneutical questions about Ottaviano’s statement that courtly dress and activities “make spirits effeminate and corrupt youth” and eventually lead to the shame of Italy. Surely the author was not suggesting that winning wars merely a matter of changing clothing. I propose that Castiglione was less interested in changing the garments and grooming habits of Italians than he was in investigating how the rhetoric about aesthetics functioned in defining identity and motivating social groups. His book explores how courtly practices, including dress, determined the boundaries of an elite ruling class, but so too does it explain how the language used to discuss these practices could shift the values added to such practices. Thus, Ottaviano’s paradox—where the courtier is virtuous if he ingratiates the prince but loses his virtue of masculinity by doing so—is in effect a masterful demonstration of sprezzatura. When Ottaviano utters his words, he not only explains how courtliness denigrates a man for a virtuous cause, he also reveals how a courtier can assume an intentional and masculine participation in this virtuous cause. He derides the very courtly practices that he himself performs and then engenders them with virtue.47 By showing that a courtier sacrifices his masculinity on the altar of state security, Ottaviano offers a reclamation of masculinity for any courtier. The trick is, however, that the courtier must be willing to decry the very practices that make him a courtier in order to claim this masculinity. Ottaviano states, in effect, “I criticize the grooming of men as effeminizing, but I will also perform these acts for the larger good of pleasing the prince.”By way of a conclusion, we will turn to this same moment in the second manuscript edition, or seconda redazione.48 Here Ottaviano’s passage appears in Book Three (the final book of the manuscript). It is spoken by Gasparo and, most importantly, the condemned effeminate activities are not routine courtly behavior, but belong to young courtiers in love: Do you not believe that the young would be doing a much more praiseworthy thing if they were to concentrate on arms to defend the patria, their own honor, and the dignity of Italy, rather than to go around with their hair all coiffed, perfumed, and strolling through the neighborhoods with their eyes glued to the windows above without considering anything in the world except their own priorities? And what purpose do these devices and mottoes and elegances of dress serve other than vanity and frivolity? And what is the point of dancing at balls and masquerades as well as games and music (and other such things that you praise so much)? What do these things offer other than to give birth to the effeminizing of men’s spirits as well as corrupting and reducing youth to a delicious and lascivious life? Whence, as Signor Ottaviano so well says, it comes about that the effect of all this is that the Italian name is reduced to opprobrium, and one cannot find a man who dares, I will not say die, but even to risk any danger. And all of this is the cause of women. (Translation mine) Non credete voi che li giovani facessero opera più laudevole, se attendessero all’arme per difender le patrie e l’onor loro e la dignità de Italia, che andar con le zazare ben pettinate, profumati, passeggiando tutto dì per le contrade, con gli occhi alle finestre senza pensare cosa alcuna di quelle che più gl’importano? e queste imprese e motti et attillature insomma a che servano altro che a vanità e leggiereze? e danzare e ballare e mascare e giuochi e musiche e tai cose, fatte con tanta diligenzia e che voi tanto laudate, infine che partoriscono altro che effeminare gli animi, corrompere la gioventù e ridurla a vita deliziosa e lascivissma? Onde, come ben talor dice el signor Ottaviano, ne nascono poi questi effetti che il nome italiano è ridutto in obrobrio, né si truova uomo che osi non dirò morire, ma purentrare in un pericolo. E di tutto questo sono causa le donne. The manuscript passage, like that of the final 1528 version of the Courtier quoted earlier, tells us that men’s dancing, games, music, and elegance of dress are dangerous to Italian sovereignty. However, there are important differences between these two textual examples. In the seconda redazione, dressing and music, etc. are presented as the vices specific to young lovers. This characterization of lovers fits clearly within Gasparo’s stated distaste for any action that involves the courtship of women. Additionally, Gasparo explains the relationship between warfare andeffeminate behaviors in simple terms of time allocation; men should choose to spend time fighting to “defend their homelands,” but instead they focus on love. Thus, when he states that dancing, masquerades, and games effeminize men’s spirits, it follows that this causal effect is at least in part due to the fact that men are busied with these activities and not fighting. When the author adapted the passage for the final version, he changed not the effeminizing practices but the cast of the shameful men, and he removed the phrase that explains that these practices simply took up too much of the courtiers’ time. In Courtier Book Four, the list of mottoes, devices, dancing, and dress are not described as what courtiers do to woo women, but rather, they are general courtly practices. Indeed, Ottaviano mentions the previous evenings’ discussions and takes aims at these activities and practices that are described by Ludovico and Fregoso in Books One and Two.49 These courtly practices were not performed to attract only the attention of women, but also (and primarily) of men; in particular, these practices attracted the attention of other courtiers and, most importantly, the prince. What Ottaviano offers his peers is the chance to reclaim a masculinity of purpose, even while operating in a gender paradox where dress and acts necessarily effeminized the men who pursued this purpose. Ottaviano reclaimed courtly masculinity by denigrating the necessary courtly practices and dress that enabled the courtier to pursue virtue. His accusatory rhetoric allows the disempowered male to assert masculinity even in the performance of dependency. Castiglione’s book enacted the same performance as Ottaviano’s utterance; the book as a whole takes aim at dress as effeminizing while explaining that such dress typified the ideal, masculine, and virtuous courtier. These accusations of the practices of men also served the larger function of the Courtier’s normativizing project, where the “few men” who were responsible for the shame of Italy might be refashioned into warrior heroes. The nagging question is just how aesthetics figured into this degradation of Italy. It is doubtful that Castiglione (or any other Renaissance writer) would suggest that changing one’s ruff les and sleeves would be the key to defeating the French or the Habsburg empire, but why, then, we should ask, did writers frame military defeat in terms of silks and ruff les? It would seem that we still have much to learn about how aesthetics and militarism functioned in the Renaissance projects of social control.Notes 1 Corio, Storia di Milano, 2: 1398–99: “il duca se misse una corazina, quale cavò dicendo parebbe troppo grosso, puoi se vestì una veste di raso cremesino fodrata di sibelline e cinto con uno cordono di seta morella la biretta.” 2 McCall, “Brilliant Bodies,” 472. 3 Varchi, Storia Fiorentina, Vol. 3, Book 15, 186. 4 Currie, Fashion, Introduction. 5 See, for example, Simons, “Homosociality and Erotics,” Currie, Fashion, Biow, On the Importance, and Eisenbichler, “Bronzino’s Portrait.” 6 Paulicelli, Writing Fashion, 3. On masculinity and dress in the Courtier see Quondam, Tutti i colori and Currie, Fashion.7 All Italian quotes of the Cortegiano are from the Garzanti edition. All English quotes are from the Javitch edition (2002) of the Singleton translation. 8 Najemy, “Arms and Letters.” The hierarchy of arms is challenged by Ludovico himself, who states that letters are the “true and principal” adornment of the courtier. Moreover, Bembo argues that arms are actually the adornment of letters; see ibid., 211. 9 Castiglione’s references to France change from manuscript to print edition. In one of the earliest manuscript editions of the book, he calls those who do not appreciate letters, barbari. Pugliese, “The French Factor.” 10 For a discussion of Machiavelli’s position on arms and letters see Najemy, “Arms and Letters,” 207–08. For a later discussion on the danger of letters to arms see Stefano Guazzo’s “Del paragone dell’arme et delle lettere” in which an interlocutor suggests that some people fear that letters “si snervassero gli huomini Martiali,” Stefano Guazzo, Dialoghi piacevoli (Piacenza: Pietro Tini, 1587), 167. 11 See Albury, Castiglione’s Allegory, 65. 12 Ludovico is here discussing the influence of literature on war rather than the study of combat manuals. On Urbino’s master at arms, Piero Monte, who published the “first significant combat manual ever to be printed,” see Anglo, The Martial Arts, 133. 13 My reading on this passage differs from Najemy’s, which argues that Ottaviano, in Book Four, implicates the courtiers as the few bad men, responsible for Italy’s decline. 14 In Book One, Gasparo states that music and other “vanities” “effeminar gli animi” of men. Quondam’s published edition of Manuscript (L) Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnhamiano 409 shows that Castiglione originally phrased his concerns differently, without using the word “effeminize”: “e cosi fatte illecebre enervare gli animi.” Quondam, Il libro del Cortegiano. 15 On hegemonic masculinity, see Connell, Masculinities, 77. 16 Although warfare is typically shown to be endangered by courtly behaviors, there are some moments in which the court is shown to be negatively affected by the presence of warriors; see Book I.17. 17 Newton, Fashion, 1–5; Blanc, “From Battlefield to Court.” 18 On effeminacy in the Courtier see Milligan, “The Politics of Effeminacy.” On effeminacy in the study of pre-modern texts, see Halperin, “How to Do.” 19 Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 125–58. 20 Olson, Masculinity and Dress; see chapter four in particular. 21 See Blanc, “From Battlefield to Court” for a discussion about several fourteenth-century chronicles that blame a sudden change in dress for battles and plague. See also Muzzarelli, Breve storia; Mosher Stuard, Gilding the Market; Sebregondi, “Clothes and Teenagers”; Muzzarelli, Guardaroba Medievale. 22 Francesco Pontano, along with his brother Ludovico Pontano, was a professor at the university of Siena. On Francesco Pontano see Marletta, “L’umanista Francesco Pontano.” 23 “Il quale tanto più è vituperoso in loro in quanto debbono in tutto essere rimoti da ogni vano e superfluo ornamento, s’eglino debbono e vogliono esser detti veri maschi.” Pontano, “Dello integro e perfetto stato,” 22. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 24 “Li quali non minor tempo e industria mettono raschiamenti di coteche e scialbamenti di gote e di collo e de’ vari pelatogi e scorticatogi, e di bionde e d’acque sublimate e stillate, che si facciano le femine.” Ibid. 25 “Talché oggidì l’uomo che fu fatto presso che pari agli angeli ’e di sotto a’ porci e a qualunque altro sporco e vile animale.” Ibid. On dress and gender confusion in early modern England see the essays by Epstein and Straub, Body Guards. 26 See Sebregondi, “Clothes and Teenagers,” which shows how preachers such as San Bernardino da Siena complained about the erotic elements of tight hose and short doublets. Ibid., 31 cites Sermon 37 of Prediche di San Bernardino vol. 3. 27 Sebregondi, “Clothes and Teenagers,” 36. 28 Not all writers condemned male dress. Leonardo Fiorivanti states that the only way to make this “miserable world” better is to dress well and eat well, and that young men dress extravagantly and then change their dress when they reach the age to marry and have children. Fiorivanti, Dello specchio, Book I, chapter 9, 27. On the other hand, Anton Francesco Doni (1513–74) and Scipione Ammirato (1531–1601) both criticize military failings while discussing men’s dress and aesthetics. In language that is contrary to modern notions of military discipline, writers such as Pio De Rossi (1581–1667) suggested that the most courageous warriors were slovenly, dirty, and untidy. De Rossi, Convito morale, 42. On Rossi see Biondi, “Il Convito.” This mechanism functions similarly to the “hypocritical rhetoric of self-censorship” identified by Carla Freccero in that an utterance pretends to do one thing while performing a different function. Freccero, “Politics and Aesthetics,” 271. On scholarly interpretations of sprezzatura see Javitch; Rebhorn, Courtly Performances; and Berger Jr., The Absence of Grace. On the “more compelling figure” see Rebhorn, Courtly Performances, 38; on the virility of sprezzatura see Berger, Absence of Grace, 11. I borrow the term “manly masquerade” from Finucci, The Manly Masquerade. How Renaissance writers characterized the pre-dressed (naked) man as masculine or effeminate is discussed by Paulicelli, Writing Fashion, ch. 3. According to Berger, Castiglione casts an idyllic, unreal version of Urbino. Berger describes how Castiglione discloses to the reader his process of casting Urbino as unreal in a “metapastoral” gesture Berger, Absence of Grace, 119–78. On this passage see Quondam, Questo povero cortegiano and Milligan, “The Politics of Effeminacy.” See Currie, Fashion; Paulicelli, Writing Fashion. On Classical examples see Williams, Roman Homosexuality. Castiglione himself cites an ancient anecdote of Darius III, King of Persia (336–330 b.c.), told by Q. Curtius Rufus, Historiorum Alexandri Magni III, 6. For Renaissance examples see Lando, Brieve essortatione, which states that the Syrians have dominated the Italians through their perfumes, and Lampugagni claims that Italians follow French fashions like monkeys, Della carrozza da nolo. Lampugnani also complains of women who seek to “dis-Italianize” themselves by adopting foreign fashions. De Leon, Discorsi novi, published in Spanish in 1605. “E, quando in Italia cominciarono a vestirsi all’usanza di Francia, molti ciò mirando con prudenza temerono, che i Francesi havessero a mal trattargli; e non s’ingannò l’anima loro, come fra pochi giorni mostrò il successo. Di modo che la natione, che lascia la sua foggia di vestito antica, e naturale per imitare quella de’ Regni stranieri, ben può temere, che Dio non la castighi con guerre, persecutione, rubamenti, e mali trattamenti che le faranno fatti da coloro, i cui habiti ella va imitando,” 628. Cox, The Renaissance Dialogue, 54. On Ottaviano’s interjection see Rebhorn, Courtly Performances, Albury, Castiglione’s Allegory, and Quondam, Questo povero cortegiano. Berger does not characterize courtliness as weak or effeminizing; he instead states that the successful performance of sprezzatura demonstrates a certain virile mastery. Berger, Absence of Grace, 1–12. In his “Education of Boys” Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini suggests that clothing can make boys soft and effeminate. He particularly warns against feathers and silk. Piccolomini, “The Education of Boys,” 71. Basilio Ponce de Leon, Discorsi (Italian Translation 1614) suggests that clothing makes spirits effeminate and soft “Legislatori antichi giudicarono così (e la isperienza lo insegna) che non tanta delicatezza di vestiti si assottigliano gli animi, e di virile, e forti divengono bassi effeminate e molli,” 626. Some assert that Ottaviano’s response might be due to his “republican” leanings. This seems to be overstated given that Ottaviano was the nephew of Guidobaldo de Montefeltro, spent much of his childhood at the Urbino court, and was himself a prince of Sant’Agata Feltria. In response to how a courtier should dress, Federico responds “Voi lasciate una sorte de abiti che se usa, e pur non si contengano tra alcuni di questi che voi avete ricordati, e sono quegli del signor Ottaviano.” Castiglione, Seconda redazione, II.26, 110.46 See, for example, letters 29 and 30. Castiglione, Le lettere, Ottaviano’s censoring of courtly dress follows Carla Freccero’s analysis of “’hypocritical’ rhetoric of self-censorship,” in that it is as much about establishing identity groups as it is about a sincere rebuke of argument. Freccero, “Politics and Aesthetics,” 271. 48 For a useful review of the manuscript revisions to the text, see Pugliese, Castiglione’s “The Book of the Courtier”, 15–24. 49 “Estimo io adunque che ’l cortegiano perfetto di quel modo che descritto l’hanno il conte Ludovico e messer Federico, possa esser veramente bona cosa e degna di laude; non però simplicemente né per sé, ma per rispetto del fine al quale po essere indirizzato” (4.4) Castiglione, Il libro del Cortegiano, ed. Nicola Longo, 367.Bibliography Albury, W.R. Castiglione’s Allegory: Veiled Policy in the ‘The Book of the Courtier’. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Anglo, Sydney. The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. Berger Jr., Harry. The Absence of Grace: Sprezzatura and Suspicion in Two Renaissance Courtesy Books. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000. Biondi, Albano. “Il Convito di Don Pio Rossi: Società chiusa e corte ambigua.” In La corte e il ‘Cortegiano’:2 – un modello europeo. Edited by Adriano Prosperi, 93–112. Rome: Bulzoni, 1980. Biow, Douglas. On the Importance of Being an Individual in Renaissance Italy: Men, Their Professions, and Their Beards. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Blanc, Odile. “From Battlefield to Court: The Invention of Fashion in the Fourteenth Century.” In Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, and Images. Edited by Désirée G. Koslin and Janet E. Snyder, 157–72. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Castiglione, Baldassar. The Book of the Courtier: The Singleton Translation. An Authoritative Text, Criticism. Edited by Daniel Javitch. New York: W.W. Norton, Il libro del Cortegiano. Milano: Garzanti, Il libro del Cortegiano. Edited by Nicola Longo. Milan: Garzanti, Le lettere. Edited by Guido La Rocca. Volume I, 1497–1521. Milan: Mondadori, 1978. Connell, R.W. Masculinities. 2nd edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005. Corio, Bernardino. Storia di Milano. Edited by Anna Morisi Guerra. 2 vols. Turin: UTET, 1978. Cox, Virginia. The Renaissance Dialogue: Literary Dialogue in its Social and Political Context, Castiglione to Galileo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Currie, Elizabeth. Fashion and Masculinity in Renaissance Florence. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. De Leon, Basilio Ponce. Discorsi novi sopra tutti li evangelij della quaresima. Translated by Ottavio Cerruto. Venice: Sessa, 1614. De Rossi, Pio. Convito morale per gli etici economici, e politici ordinate et intrecciato si della Ragino di Stato come delle principali materie militari. Venice: Gueriglij, 1639. Eisenbichler, Konrad. “Bronzino’s Portrait of Guidobaldo II della Rovere.” Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme 24, no. 1 (1988): 21–33. Epstein, Julia and Kristina Straub, eds. Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Ambiguity. New York: Routledge, 1991.Finucci, Valeria. The Manly Masquerade: Masculinity, Paternity, and Castration in the Italian Renaissance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. Fiorivanti, Leonardo. Dello specchio di scientia universale. Venice: Sessa, 1583. Freccero, Carla. “Politics and Aesthetics in Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano: Book III and the Discourse of Women.” In Creative Imitation: New Essays on Renaissance Literature in Honor of Thomas M. Greene. Edited by David Quint, Margaret W. Ferguson, G.W. Pigman III, and Wayne A. Rebhorn, 259–79. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992. Guazzo, Stefano. Dialoghi piacevoli. Piacenza: Pietro Tini, 1587. Halperin, David. “How to Do the History of Homosexuality.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 6, no. 1 (2000): 87–123. Lampugagni, Agostino. Della carrozza da nolo, ovvero del vestire, et usanze alla moda. 1648. Lando, Ortensio. Brieve essortatione a gli huomini. Brescia, 1545. Marletta, Fedele. “L’umanista Francesco Pontano.” Nuova rivista storica 26 (1942): 32–41. McCall, Timothy. “Brilliant Bodies: Material Culture and the Adornment of Men in North Italy’s Quattrocento Courts.” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 16, no. 1/2 (September 2013): 445–90. Milligan, Gerry. “The Politics of Effeminacy in Il cortegiano.” Italica 83, no. 3–4 (2006): 347–69. Mosher Stuard, Susan. Gilding the Market: Luxury and Fashion in Fourteenth-Century Italy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. Muzzarelli, Maria Giuseppina. Breve storia della mode in Italia. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2014. ———. Guardaroba Medievale: Vesti e società dal XIII al XIV secolo. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1999. Najemy, John M. “Arms and Letters: The Crisis of Courtly Culture in the Wars of Italy.” In Italy and the European Powers: The Impact of War, 1500–1530. Edited by Christine Shaw, 207–38. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Newton, Stella Mary. Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince. 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Florence: Le Monnier, 1858. Williams, Craig A. Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, How the sausage and carne battled for gastronomic and social prestige in Renaissance literature and culture Laura GiannettiIn Girolamo Parabosco’s comedy La fantesca (published in 1556) the sexual activities of a maid, the young cross-dressed Pandolfo who impregnated his young lover Giacinta, were humorously referred to with a culinary metaphor, that of inserting meat in the oven: People, the female servant has become a male in two houses at once as you have seen. And she has shown that she is a better cook than a housekeeper, because she knew better how to put the meat (carne) in the oven than make beds or sweep the house. (V, c. 94)1 The Italian word carne with its multiple meanings of meat, f lesh, and the masculine sexual organ commonly served as a tool for clever word play in Italian literature from the Decameron to the Canti carnascialeschi and enjoyed a renaissance of its own in sixteenth-century comic prose, poetry, letters, and everyday language.2 The early modern dietary corpus reinforced the religious association between eating meat, gluttony, and lust. All nutritious food, in particular meat, created more blood than needed by the body; therefore the surplus translated into an extra production of sperm, which in turn fueled the sex drive.3 A traditional view of the link between gluttony and lust holds that biblical accounts of the Fall considered gluttony the opening door to lust, although the Garden of Eden’s transgression consisted in eating the forbidden fruit, a fig or an apple according to different versions, and not eating immoderately. Many medieval theologians and then Pope Gregory the Great, a medieval doctor of the Church, defined gluttony mainly as a desire to stimulate the palate with delicacies, while also exceeding what was considered necessary for basic nourishment and health.4 But then he drew a more precise connection between the two sins and differentorgans of the body: “when the first (stomach) fills up excessively, inevitably, the other are also excited to sin.”5 Gluttony excites the senses and therefore can carry the sinner to sins of the f lesh. In Dante’s Inferno, and following Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, incontinence (of desire) was the link between gluttony and lust. Paolo and Francesca in Canto V are among the “peccator carnali, / che la ragion sommettono al talento” [Inf. 5.38–39]). Although for Dante gluttony was a sin worse than lust, the common vision at his time was that eating immoderately and lusting were both sins of carne, the f lesh.6 If early theologians’ readings discussed gluttony without referring to a particular food, it was meat that later became the preferred target of moralists and came to be associated with ideas of lasciviousness and lust. Traditionally, animals such as the boar, pig, wolf, and/or ape in late medieval and early Renaissance visual and prescriptive sources represented luxuria7 and gluttony, as inextricably and negatively bonded together.8 Sixteenth-century prints, paintings, broadsheets, and emblem books kept those associations alive in society and culture even as the associations between those animals and gluttony or voracity often surpassed their association with luxuria.9 Sins of the f lesh were often symbolized as sins of carne in the sense of meat.10 But before delving into the imaginative perceptions and symbolism attributed to meat-eating it is advisable to recall brief ly what the lived practice and experience of consuming meat in medieval and Renaissance Italy involved. Symbol of power and violence, masculinity and aggressive sexuality, luxury and abundance, meat was often associated with the aristocracy and its lifestyle.11 As Massimo Montanari and Alberto Capatti have shown, in the Middle Ages the noble table first saw a triumph of big game gained through hunting but later the preference was directed more toward smaller game such as pheasants, quails, and/or farmed animals, like geese and capons. The new court nobility of the twelfth century no longer identified with the warriors’ taste for big, bloody game.12 Gross and nutritious meat was now left to peasants, usually in the form of pork. City dwellers also enjoyed the meat of the pig in the form of sausages but strove to differentiate themselves from the rural inhabitants by buying and eating veal, beef, and small birds. Although Fernand Braudel famously called “carnivore” the period in Europe between 1350 and 1550,13 Italians of the period had other food resources and could not, and often did not care to eat meat every day. Nonetheless, eating meat, and especially good meat, remained an indicator of social elevation and offered the promise of good health. The preference of the new court nobility for small birds and farmed animals received the approval of contemporary doctors, who exalted birds as a source of exceptional nutritional value, with the caveat that it was best suited to an aristocratic diet.14 It was not just the symbolic and nutritional value that was considered important; in dietetic tracts partridges and quails excelled also for their delicate taste and their lightness. But not all agreed. Vatican librarian and gastronome Platina (1421–81) was more open to the pleasures of eating a much wider range of meats, demonstrating more catholic tastes. His De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine(first Italian edition 1487) is full of numerous recipes that included poultry, organ meats, fowl, pork, and sausages. Still much like many doctors, cooks, and courts stewards, he agreed that meat in general was a food healthier than others and had an elevated nutritional value.15 The reputation of meat as a primary source of nourishment and good health continued in the sixteenth century, and was particularly strong among surgeons, medical practitioners, and professors of “secrets.” A Spanish “surgeon and empirical doctor”16 who lived in Rome, Giovan Battista Zapata (ca. 1520–86), claimed that all meat products sustained good health, as long as they were roasted with a rosemary oil and a mixture of other herbs and spices, and were accompanied by good wine.17 Zefiriele Tommaso Bovio (1521–1609)—a Veronese nobleman and lawyer who later became a medical practitioner—wrote a treatise at the end of the sixteenth century against the “medici rationali ” who wanted to impose a strict meatless diet on sick people. He claimed that doctors knew that eating good meat and drinking wine had the power to restore health but kept the secret to themselves for fear of losing fees from patients who recovered from illness and stayed healthy eating meat.18 The nutritional value of meat was thought to rest on the idea that meat could transform into the substance, the very carne, of the human body. The steward Domenico Romoli affirmed in his cooking manual that those who invented the eating of meat did it both for taste but especially for health reasons: they knew that “more than any other food, it is meat (carne) that makes f lesh (carne).”19 In his view eating meat meant literally giving nutriment to human f lesh.20 Renouncing meat, however, was a crucial requirement for early Christian hermits and monks. It represented unequivocally the mortification of the f lesh and contempt for the body, although numerous sources show that meat-eating in many monasteries was fairly normal. In general, the suspicion of meat running through Christian texts in the period appeared to be based on an association of the eating of meat with fears of the f lesh and sexual incontinence. San Bernardino’s preaching in the fifteenth century aggressively linked meat consumption with unruly sexuality and was particularly severe on policing widows and youths’ eating practices. He represented the extreme side of a widespread religious censure of culinary pleasures and the sense of taste, emphasizing the presumed dangers of uniting desire for meat and unruly sexuality.21 Outside of the monastic world, religious proscriptions on food dictated that for periods of fasting, such as Lent, abstinence from animal f lesh, meat, poultry, and eggs, was mandatory to mortify the body and its appetites. And Lent was not just the forty days that followed Carnival; every Friday and many vigils during the year were Lenten days when meat was proscribed as well.22 How much weight did this religious censure or the ideology of the ascetic abstention from eating meat actually have? Apparently not much in everyday life or culture. The desire for meat, originally condemned as gluttony and a carnal practice that took one away from the life of the spirit, was often identified in theliterary imagination with positive expressions of sexual desire. The longstanding Christian prohibition against eating meat associated gluttony and illicit sexuality, and the Galenic dietary theory reinforced this, claiming that the body of the meat eater would have a surplus of blood and thus an increased sex drive. Literary sources valorized the gastronomic desirability and sexual powers promised by eating meat. Slowly but surely the sexual/alimentary play on carne as food and f lesh, positively portrayed in imaginative literature and culture of the sixteenth century, battled successfully against earlier moralistic discourses insisting on restraint of the body and its instincts.23 The emerging cultural war of the period opposed a disciplining view of the body and posited the increasing importance of pleasure and taste in both life and literature, with the enjoyment of meat, carne and f lesh, at their very center.Appetite for meat in literature Returning to the courtly taste for birds in the Renaissance, the link between eating birds and the lustful consequences that followed was visible in literary texts, fresco cycles, and dietary discourses, albeit with different meanings. While Dantesque Inferno punishment scenes in late medieval Italian dietary treatises and church fresco cycles dwelt on the negative consequences of eating birds or eating too much meat, literary texts presented a competing discourse. Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, novelle collections such as those by Niccolò Sacchetti (ca. 1332–1400), Giovanni Sercambi (1348–1424), Anton Francesco Grazzini (1503– 84), and Niccolò Bandello (1485–1561), and many satirical and licentious poems, all exploited the phallic meat metaphor to elicit laughter as well as sexually allusive word-play.24 Boccaccio made clear in his Conclusione to the Decameron that the obscene language he had used came from everyday usage and included words from the culinary world: It is not more shameful that I have written words that men and women spell out continuously such as hole, peg, mortar, pestle, sausage, and mortadello. Dico che più non si dee a me esser disdetto d’averle scritte che generalmente si disdica agli uomini e alle donne di dir tutto dì foro e caviglia e mortaio e pestello e salsiccia e mortadello. Many contemporary tales depict adulterous lovers or lovers-to-be enjoying meals with game, fowl, and poultry in preparation for the carnal pleasures to come. The “carne” metaphor to designate the male member had a notable literary tradition. Giovanni Sercambi’s Novelliere (written ca. 1390–1402) presents many instances of the metaphorical/sexual use of the word carne, in some cases distinguishing between “raw” and “cooked” meat to indicate the male sexual organ and actual meat.25 In the novella “Frate Puccio e Madonna Alisandra,” Pseudo-Sermini26 plays on the double meanings of food and sex and the pleasureof tasting the meat and its f lavor.27 The metaphor of “fresh meat” to indicate the male sexual organ continued unabated in the sixteenth century as seen in a laughing novella by the Sienese Pietro Fortini (ca. 1500–ca. 1562) where a lusty friar offers a pound of “carne fresca” for free to a young woman with the excuse that religion does not let him enjoy meat that day. The novella naturally ends with the friar being beaten by the woman’s husband and with the laughter of the brigata listening to the story.28 The offer of an attractive bird for a meal often opened the way to a carnal relationship. In one sixteenth-century novella by Grazzini, the priest Agostino, enamored of his parishioner Bartolomea, decided to entice her with the offer of a large and plump duck. Bartolomea, who was a woman of “easy taste” (buona cucina), let him inside her house and made love to him with the hope of gaining the duck. But the early return of her husband allowed the priest to escape with his duck, leaving her literally empty handed. Agostino bragged cleverly that she would never find another duck, or another member, so large and plump. But, as often happens in Italian novelle, women were cleverer than their lovers. Bartolomea was no exception; when Agostino came back with a duck and two capons to make peace and love again, she got her revenge. With the help of her husband she beat him and sent him away barely able to walk, keeping the birds to enjoy with her husband.29 In this novella, birds carried out their multiple roles: they were an enticing and valued meat, able to stimulate the senses at many levels but also able to transform gluttony and lust into laughter and pleasure. In sixteenth-century comedies, birds such as partridges and pheasants could serve as domestic aphrodisiacs, for both old men and young. In Donato Giannotti’s comedy Il vecchio amoroso (written ca. 1533–36), old Teodoro, in love with the young female slave his son has brought home from Sicily, organizes a banquet where the food includes delicacies like fat capons, birds (starne), and pigeons, served with wine and sweets, in order to prepare him for the rigors of lovemaking.30 The meat of birds was believed to arouse lust because it was seen as hot and moist; for this reason Messer Nicomaco, in the comedy Clizia, plans to eat a half bloody pigeon before his night of love with the young Clizia. Perhaps because of this popular belief, or perhaps because it was the most prized and elegant type of meat, Pietro Aretino, in one of his letters from Venice in 1547, invites the painter Titian to a dinner at his house with a famous courtesan, Angela Zaffetta, promising that the main dish to be served would be roasted pheasants.31 Adulterous lovers with their lascivious dinners were the protagonists of a great number of plays and novella. Some specific language used in sixteenthcentury poetry, dialogues, and comedies also suggested that the desire for meat was closely connected to the practice of sodomy.32 A type of meat that was used euphemistically to signify sodomy, either with men or women, was the young male goat or “capretto.” Pietro Aretino in his Ragionamento (1534) used the masculine gender and the diminutive form of “capretto” to indicate the act of sodomy with a nun, in obvious contrast with the word “capra,” the adult goat used to refer to vaginal sex. In describing a moment at an orgy in a convent, Aretino exploited the culinary metaphor of meat to its fullest: Tired, at the first morsel of the goat he asked for the young goat . . . I tell [you] that as soon as he got it, he stuck inside the meat knife and madly enjoyed seeing it in and out . . . stucco al primo boccone della capra, dimandò il capretto [. . .] dico che ottenuto il capretto, e fittoci dentro il coltello proprio da cotal carne, godea come un pazzo del vederlo entrare e uscire. (Emphasis mine) 33 Matteo Bandello similarly narrates a tale about Niccolò Porcellio, humanist, poet, and historian at the court of Francesco Sforza in Milan, and well known for his notorious passion for young boys. Bandello expresses Porcellio’s desire with the culinary euphemism: he loved “la carne del capretto molto più che altro cibo” (he always preferred the meat of the young male goat much more than any other food). In his final confession, he justified his vice as the most natural thing in the world because it corresponded to his natural taste, and it was a “buon boccone”: Oh, oh, Reverend Father, you did not know how to interrogate me. Playing with young boys is for me more natural than eating or drinking to a man . . . go away as you do not know what a good morsel is . . . oh, oh padre reverend, voi non mi sapeste interrogare. Il trastullarmi con i fanciulli a me è più naturale che non è il mangiar a il ber a l’uomo . . . andate andate che voi non sapete che cosa sia un buon boccone.34 Porcellio insisted that his sexual behavior—the preference for young male goat meat—was as natural as it was natural to eat and drink for humans. His narrator Bandello explained first that Porcellio was forced to marry by the Duke in order to soften the opinion people had of him as someone who always preferred “the meat of young goat.”35 The food metaphor, so widely employed in the novella, was indeed perfect to address his sexual desire as a manifestation of taste, which can vary according to different people. Contemporary literature of the Land of Cockaigne included fantastic maps of Cuccagna [Cockaigne in Italy] where meat, in all of its incarnations, for rich and for poor, was center stage, while the theatrical Battaglia fra Quaresima e Carnevale regularly ended with the victory of Carnival and meat eating.36 The carne of the lascivious goat and luxurious hot birds were generally enjoyed by the rich. Yet it was the meat of the more humble pig, in the form of sausages that became dominant in sixteenth-century literature as a food easily conducive to sexual play, gastronomical delights, and a festive world.The triumph of the sausage The Allegory of Autumn by Niccolò Frangipane, a follower of Titian, is a remarkable painting displaying a lascivious satyr who sticks one finger into a split melon and with his other hand grabs a sausage on top of a table full of other autumn produce. In the cultural imaginary and in the common understanding of the period, that sausage in hand proclaimed with a perverse smile that it was known as a type of meat that promised and was well suited for indulgence, alimentary and sexual.37 The metaphorical use of the term “salsiccia” was not new. Many tales in Sercambi’s Novelliere, fifteenth-century carnival songs, and humorous and popular print allegories of Carnival used the same metaphor associating the consumption of meat/sausages with the pleasures of the senses, especially sexual pleasures. In one novella by Sercambi, a libidinous widow living with her brother, who had not arranged for her to marry again, realizes that there is a similarity between the sausages her brother brought home and the instrument with which her dead husband had made her happy. She decides to satisfy “the need she had of a man” using those sausages as an instrument of pleasure and consumes them little by little until discovered by her brother. 38 A popular sixteenth-century print studied by Sara Matthews-Grieco shows an old lower-class woman selling a sausage during Carnival, just before the time of Lent, when both meat and sexual intercourse will have to be forgotten. While Sercambi’s humorous novella does not attack the widow, who is described as young and naturally deprived of sexual pleasure, the prints and grotesque portraits studied by Matthews-Grieco, more often cruelly satirize old lower-class women desirous of sausages. 39 Pork occupied a particular cultural space in the realm of meat of the time. Far from high-class birds, or middle-class poultry and veal, the pork sausage was the food of the poor, the peasant, or at best, the uneducated.40 Sausages, particularly pork sausages, were a food appealing to taste but otherwise problematic as gross, humid, full of fat, and unsuited to a delicate stomach—or so claimed several early modern doctors and apothecaries. Humoral physiology dictated that the f lesh of a hot and humid animal would be beneficial only to a person with a cold temperament who needed to adjust his/her complexion: people with predominantly moist/hot humors should therefore avoid pork.41 Practice was, however, more complex. Some doctors associated with the Galenic revival of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries promoted the meat of pig as nutritious and easy to digest, although more suited to physical workers. In fact, for all the undesirable characteristics noted, the idea that pork was nourishing and healthful enjoyed wide circulation in dietaries and medical treatises. From there, it was added as a significant qualifier to the traditionally unfavorable descriptions of pigs, and ultimately found its way into comic and burlesque literature, where it merged with the well-established carnivalesque passion for fat meat and gastronomical excess. The Galenic revival maintained descriptionsof pork as gross and humid, but gave more positive press by affirming that it was a nutritious meat. Indeed, despite these warring visions, the sausage and pork continued to win their battles in both literature and life.42 Even with their negative medical and social reputation, sausages had had their partisans in the gastronomical world for at least two centuries. Platina provided a general and expected warning against the meat of pork at the beginning of Book VI (“you will find pork not healthful whatever way you cook it”) but then offered three recipes for sausages, all derived from maestro Martino: pork liver sausages, blood sausages, and the range of sausages known as the Lucanica.43 Platina was more interested in showing how to cook and smoke the meat of pork than in talking about social suitability. He included an elaborate recipe for roast piglet stuffed with a mixture of herbs, garlic, cheese, and ground pepper, beaten eggs, slowly cooked over a grill. At the end of this tempting recipe, he added the usual medical advice: “The roast piglet is of poor and little nourishment, digests slowly, and harms the stomach, head, eyes, and liver.”44 While the roast piglet was ostensibly not a fare suitable for higher classes, Platina’s detailed recipe and the ingredients used meant that the medical proscriptions against pork were losing ground to the culinary practices of courts and an emerging gastronomical culture. In a similar way, Marsilio Ficino, who considered pork a meat more suitable to laborers who already had pig-like physical features, admitted that dressing pork with expensive and luxurious spices could transform it into a valuable food.45 Significantly, in this vein, a testimony by Cristofaro da Messisbugo (late fifteenth-century–1548), steward at the court of the Este in Ferrara, showed how dressing up pork and sausages elevated such meat above its common status as a food prescribed for rustic people. Messisbugo’s cookbook, Banchetti, composizioni di vivande et apparecchio generale (published in 1549), exalted the famous “salama da sugo,” still today a renowned Ferrarese specialty. In his recipe he explained how the less noble parts of pork were mixed together with expensive spices such as cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon to create a dish that the Este family appreciated. Apparently, the salama was served especially at wedding banquets because of the reputed aphrodisiacal quality of its spicy sauce.46 Sex, pleasure, and taste were clearly winning battles for the once-humble sausage. The salsiccia, fresh or cured, also took center stage among a group of bawdy poems on fruit, vegetables, and other humble foods, authored by three of the most representative poets writing in the bernesque style, Anton Francesco Grazzini, Agnolo Firenzuola (1493–1543), and Mattio Franzesi (ca. 1500–ca. 1555). Firenzuola composed a canzone, and Grazzini and Franzesi capitoli, praising pork sausage for its alimentary and sexual properties, and demonstrating its social primacy over “superior” foods such as pheasants and capons. And, as if in a philosophical debate, these poems regularly elicited long, scholarly, and often obscene prose comments. The erotic allusions of their verses were clearly associated with the consumption of meat during Carnival, suggesting both the literal consumption of carne as meat and of carne as f lesh of a more sexual variety.47 As we have alreadyseen, pig meat had a mixed reputation because it was considered dangerous on one hand and nutritious on the other. Imaginative literature built upon medical and gastronomical culture to produce a more complex vision that allowed considerable room for ambiguity and ambivalence. Pork never entirely lost its reputation for promoting debased gluttony and pig-like manners, but it also gained a more positive reputation as a pleasurable food suitable for both peasants and upper classes to enjoy, as these poems demonstrate.48 The “Canzone del Firenzuola in lode della salsiccia,” written between 1534 and 1538 by the Florentine poet and dramatist,49 boasts of the primacy of his writing on the sausage and plays on the double erotic sense: “Since no fanciful poet / has dared yet / to fill his gorge with the sausage” (“poi ch’alcun capriccioso / anchor non è stato oso / de la salsiccia empirsi mai la gola”).50 He concludes with an invocation to the canzone itself to go and tell the poets’ friends in Florence the secrets of this most perfect food.51 Probably written in Rome while he was a member of the academy known as the Virtuosi52 and followed by an ironic prose commentary signed by a mysterious Grappa,53 the poem recognizes its affiliation with the bernesque poets. Yet it humorously affirms that they deserved an herb crown on their head because they lauded the oven, figs, and “boiled chestnuts” but not the sausage, “the most perfect food.”54 Firenzuola presented the pork sausage produced in Bologna as a food worthy of poets but good also for rich priests and lords, learned men, and beautiful women. He argued that it had a better reputation than the highest priced meat of the time, veal. The poem blended sexual innuendos and gastronomical discussion in its overtly simple description of how to make the sausage. And following the bernesque tradition, it mocked doctors’ recommendations about when to eat certain foods and reassured readers that the sausage “is good roasted and boiled, for lunch or for dinner, before or after the meal”; all these prepositions suggested different parts of the body and different types of sexual intercourse.55 Firenzuola then adds what he labels a “beautiful secret”: never use the sausage during the hot months of summer but wait until August has passed. According to Aristotelian physiology, men who are already by nature hot and dry are less potent in the summer when the excessive heat of the season takes away their sexual force.56 Nonetheless, he argues that even old men who have lost their heat can be young again thanks to the mighty sausage.57 Finally, and appropriately, for his reportedly polymorphous tastes, Firenzuola concluded that one could make sausages with “every type of meat,” referring to all possible sexual practices.58 The sausage’s morphology, then, links it to the male member and to its features that could be seen both as gastronomic and sexual: Sausages were ordered from above / to amuse those who were born into the world / with that grease that often drips from them; and when they are cooked and swelled / you can serve them in the round dish, although a few today want them with the split bread. Fur le salsiccia ab aeterno ordinate / per trastullar chi ne veniva al mondo / con quell’unto che cola da lor spesso; et quando elle son cotte e rigonfiate, le si mettono in tavola nel tondo. / Altri son, che le vogliono nel pan fesso, / ma rari il fanno adesso; / che il tondo inver riesce più pulito, / né come il pan, succia l’untume tutto.59 When a sausage is cooked and ready to serve, Firenzuola advised, it would be best to display it on the table “nel tondo” (the round dish and, metaphorically, the bottom) although others preferred it served with the “pan fesso” (split bread or, metaphorically again, a woman’s genitals). But there are few who prefer the latter today, Firenzuola added. As a Florentine, he prefers the domestic Florentine sausage, large and firm, red and natural, and encased in clean skin. The metaphors roasted or boiled and the adjectives “tondo” and “ fesso” (round and split/foolish), refer to sodomitical and heterosexual encounters, while also alluding to different gastronomical appetites. The poem concludes in an ecumenical and procreative tone, affirming that the creation of sausages was intended to give pleasure and utility to everyone, but in the end the good sausages would always be the reason why men and women were born into this world.60 Firenzuola’s poem affirms that while the sausage is for everybody and every taste, gustatory and sexual, when served “after” and roasted it is good only for upper classes. Like other bernesque poets, he seems eager to assign a higher social status to this “popular” (and economic) food. In fact, usually it was roasted fowl and roasted meat that was theoretically reserved for upper classes. Since he is suggesting sodomy with the reference to roasted meat, that sexual practice is seen as the nobler activity, although forbidden. Elevating a lower-class food to a higher status was the perfect metaphor for speaking in favor of sodomy and introducing social values along with the sexual. What function did this type of poetic imagery serve in a period when sodomy was a crime and even the depiction of non-sodomitical sexual acts in an artistic work such as I Modi proved to be so controversial? It seems likely that images had more power to move viewers than writings, but in an era of printing reproduction, cheap copies of poetry, like the one produced in the Vignaiuoli and Virtuosi circle, could circulate outside an intended audience of intellectuals and fellow poets. It is therefore difficult to assess the impact of these texts, but the humor and the metaphorical language dedicated to meat, vegetables, and fruits may have helped allay the anxiety among authorities, both religious and civic, about the diffusion and circulation of writings exalting sodomy.61 The long Capitolo in lode della salsiccia by Anton Francesco Grazzini, which is followed by an erudite and playful prose commentary by the same author, extolled the sausage mainly from a gastronomical point of view, humorously contrasting its attractions with moralizing medical lore, and interweaving it once again with sexual innuendos.62 Presenting himself as a knowledgeable gastronome, Grazzini also praised the primacy of the Florentine sausage, superior to capons, partridges, and all the meat of birds, as well as to highly prized fish such as lampreys and eels.63 After defining it as a meal worthy of poets and emperors, and begging Greece and Rome to recognize the superiority of the sausage made in Florence, Grazzini once again lauded its colors and its appearance. In addition, much like the cookbooks of his day, he listed its ingredients: well-ground lean meat and fat from the pig, salt and pepper, cloves, cinnamon, oranges, and fennel, all stuffed in a case of animal intestines.64 However, he clarified that his intent was not to explain how to make it but to laud the sausage’s beauty, taste, and goodness. And citing the process of stuffing, “imbudellar la carne,” Grazzini took the opportunity to shift the poem from the culinary to the sexual. He saluted women who always wanted to have their body full of sausages because they are good and healthy—another battle won in the same sausage wars.65 The prose Comento sopra il Capitolo della salsiccia di maestro Niccodemo dalla Pietra al Migliaio, also authored by Grazzini, makes clear that although women love the sausage, the double sense is again a reference to sodomy. The “buona carne,” well done, well cut, and making a good show when displayed in the round dish, once again is a pretext to laud the male bottom. Furthermore, the view of the tagliere wins over all the other poetic images (including those taken from fragments of Petrarch’s poems) such as eyes, hair, breasts, or feet of Beatrice and Laura.66 A long section of the Comento on the gastronomical virtues of pork begins with a verse from a sonnet by Petrarch dedicated to the name of Laura: “O d’ogni riverentia et d’honor degna.” In this line he humorously shifts abruptly from Petrarch’s words honoring his beloved Laura to the more mundane culinary and sexual wonders of pork, the only meal worthy of poets and emperors.67 Even Petrarch’s untouchable Laura takes her blows in the sausage wars. Throughout the long prose comment on his own poem on the pork sausage, Grazzini attacked Petrarchan poetry and current medical lore regarding sausages and pork’s meat. The playful observations on the ability of the sausage to heal every illness—while maintaining a sexual overtone—reads like a learned medical prescription listing several herbs and substances used by apothecaries to prepare their confetti, pills, and tonic drinks.68 Yet Grazzini also made the straightforward culinary point that Florentine pork and lard, key ingredients in their sausages, were exceptionally good for roasting and frying as well as the essential ingredient for making the popular bread with lard called pan unto. The attraction to lard, the white fat of pork, was echoed in a poem by the author and translator Lodovico Dolce (1508–68), “Salva la verità, fra i decinove,”69 dedicated to a gift of wild boar he had received from a friend. This wild pork is defined as “a magnificent and regal gift” whose rich fatty f lavor “will make Abstinence die of gluttony and Carnival lick his fingers.” 70 His enthusiasm for lard in the poem leads to a dream where Dolce witnessed himself, in an Ovidian fashion, metamorphosed into a succulent sausage, rich with fat dripping from the extremities of his body.71 Dolce gave the transference theory of Renaissance doctors a positive spin, since eating pork actually transformed him if not into the animal itself, into its gastronomical essence and pleasure. Accordingly, his poem exploited the common ideaof closeness and fratellanza between pigs and humans in an iconic and paradoxical way that privileged the sausage.72 The third poem on sausages was written by Mattio Franzesi who dedicated it to a certain “Caino spenditore,” a friend presumably in charge of food provisioning in Florence.73 Franzesi employs the language of gastronomy in an amusing pairing with quotidian language referring to sodomy. The sausage is called “buon boccon” (excellent morsel) and “boccon sì ghiotto and divino” when it is paired again with the beloved specialty panunto, declared superior to two famous upper-class foods, the impepato and marzipan.74 Franzesi, like Dolce, describes the panunto or slices of bread with sausage inside as a divine and gluttonous morsel, definitely superior to luxury foods like the beccafico, a fat and fresh songbird.75 Moreover, the salsiccia does not cost much and can be used in many different ways to sustain a meal: it can substitute for a salad (i.e., a woman)76 and priests in particular use it often because they do not need to cook it but can just warm it up between their hands. All the affirmations in Franzesi’s poem can be read in a double sense, as gastronomical discussion or as a metaphorical way of talking about the phallussausage and its pleasures. He refers with technical precision to the gastronomical side of sausages, even when metaphorically discussing sexual acts.77 The sausage is better than prosciutto (both come from pork), when boiled (used with women), and is a good meal for sauces and “guazzetti ” (sauces). Moreover, all the birds in the world would be like truff les without pepper and confetti without sugar, if not accompanied by sausages. A meal with sausages is a meal for taste and pleasure, not a meal for nourishment. Franzesi then describes its shape, and how to make a good-tasting, good-smelling sausage, using spices, herbs, and the unique ingredient for Florentine sausages, fennel. The poem ends with a list comparing the sausage in the panunto as equal to Florentine gastronomical specialties, such as the ravigiuolo cheese with grape, cheese with pears, old wine with stale bread, and others. Exalting a humble subject fitted well with the agenda of the bernesque poetry that lauded simple foodstuffs and everyday objects. But privileging sausages over songbirds was clearly not just a rhetorical ploy because it implied a comparison between a food for rustic people and a luxury food. Franzesi, like Grazzini before him, contributed in his poem to elevating the social status of the pork sausage. It was not simply a food “da tinello,” for poor courtiers used to eating the leftovers of their lord, but a meal worthy of rich people and important prelates.78 In sum, poets, novellieri, and dramatists from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries took full advantage of the possibilities offered by the different meaning inherent in the word carne. It allowed them to discuss virility, sexual potency, masculinity, and sodomy under the guise of the gastronomical discourse. The sausage poems fit well with the constant preoccupation and advice of medical and dietary literature of the time on how to ensure sexual potency. The novelle discussed sexuality between men and women, endorsing a decisively masculine and traditional view that depicted women as lusty and desirous of raw carne,which is able to heal every illness and satisfy every need. The poems on sausages confirm this hierarchical vision of sexuality dominated by the mighty phallus. Yet they also endorse a concept of diverse gastronomical taste, lesso and arrosto, nel tondo or nel fesso, to offer a variety of views of sexuality that responded to every gusto. These poems on sausages were written in the cultural circle of the Vignaiuoli and Virtuosi academies, well known in the period for their substantial corpus of poetry dedicated to the comparison of fruit and vegetables to sexual organs and sexual acts. The not-so-covert sexual sense of most of those poems exalted sodomy, in their praise of peaches or carrots, or sexuality with women in poems on salads and figs. Poems on the mighty sausage covered all the bases of sexuality, although with a preference, often openly stated, for male–male sexuality. Intriguingly, the poetic and linguistic play on carne in the form of sausage allowed lengthy descriptions of an Italian and Florentine gastronomic specialty of the time, totally ignoring the negative vision of pigs as gluttonous, dirty animals presented by dietary literature. Since gluttony was the quintessential behavior represented by pigs, what better way to reclaim pork in the sausage wars than to use it to symbolize gastronomical richness and sexual variety? If sins of the f lesh were often symbolized as sins of carne in medieval times, now in a perfect reversal the pleasures of the f lesh were symbolized by the pleasures of eating meat in all of its variety, thanks in part to these sausage wars. Thus, while a moral and disciplinary vision tried to control the discourse on food and eating in medical and dietetic treatises of the sixteenth century, a counter-argument advanced playfully in literature and bernesque poetry presented carne as a metaphor for the pleasures of the senses.79 The conceptual pairing of gluttony and lust in medieval tradition began to lose ground to a much more complex world of food, taste, and pleasure, and the no longer quite so humble sausage led the way.Notes I would like to thank Jacqueline Murray and Nicholas Terpstra for inviting me to contribute to this volume in honor of Konrad Eisenbichler, a friend and scholar who always supported my work and my career. The research and writing of this essay took place when I was a fellow at the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas, Austin, in 2016–17. Some of the topics of this essay were discussed at events at the University of Toronto in 2015 and University of Melbourne in 2012. Belated thanks to Konrad Eisenbichler and Catherine Kovesi. This essay is part of my forthcoming book Food Culture and the Literary Imagination in Renaissance Italy. 1 Girolamo Parabosco, La fantesca, quoted in Giannetti, Lelia’s Kiss, 143. 2 The popularity and frequency of the word carne to indicate the male sexual organ was matched in Renaissance literature and culture by the use of bird terminology to indicate the virile member as well as, less frequently, the female organ and sexual intercourse. Allen Grieco has recently catalogued and analyzed the numerous references to birds in imagery and literary sources and has studied birds and fowl as food to understand the connection between eating birds and fowl, and sexuality. He has uncovered the widely shared humoral perception of birds as a “hot” food which tended to over-stimulateThe sausage wars the senses. In this way he was able to give a deeper explanation of the theological link between gluttony and lust typical of the period, pointing out the reason why, in common perception, the consumption of luxurious and heating food, especially birds, stimulated the sexual function. According to the taxonomy of the Great Chain of Being, birds belonged to air and they were hot and humid: when eaten they would transfer their properties to the body and stimulate carnal appetite. See Grieco, “From Roosters to Cocks.” Albala, Eating Right, 144–47. Quellier, Gola, 15–16. Cited in Grieco, “From Roosters to Cocks,” 123. Much later, gluttony was defined as the consumption of luxury foods, particularly birds. On Dante’s conceptualization of sins see Barolini, Dante, chapter 4. The Latin word “luxuria” meant extravagant/excessive desire (for power, food, sex, money, etc.) and in the Italian form “lussuria” became the word for lust in medieval Italy. In Inferno “lussuriosi” sinners are those who had excessive love of others, thus diminishing their love for God. Gluttony is a sin of incontinence like lust. In medieval bestiary and other iconographic sources especially north of the Alps gluttony is often represented as a fat man holding a piece of meat and a glass in his hands and riding a swine or a wolf. Quellier, Gola, 15–23. For medieval bestiaries see chapter one in Cohen, Animals. In Italy church frescoes represented gluttons in Hell suffering the tantalic punishment. At the end of the sixteenth century, in the first edition of Cesare Ripa Iconologia (without images) Gluttony (Gola) is described as “donna a sedere sopra un porco perché i porchi sono golosi . . .” and Gourmandize (Crapula) is identified with a “donna brutta grassa . . .” Iconologia, 111 and 54. This helps to explain, for instance, why the famed preacher San Bernardino da Siena in his Lenten sermons in fifteenth-century Florence condemned the desire of Florentine young men for capons and partridges, claiming they opened the doors to a life of sensual foods and sensual pleasure. In particular, he linked gluttony to lust and sodomy. Bernardino da Siena, Le prediche volgari, ed. Ciro Cannarozzi (Pistoia: Tip. A. Pacinotti, 1934), II: 45–46, quoted in Vitullo, “Taste and Temptation,” 106. Montanari, “Peasants,” 179. Montanari and Capatti, La cucina italiana, 76–77. Pheasants and partridges represented the ideal components of a refined and tasty banquet, possible only for people with means. Braudel, Capitalism, 129. “Danno ottimo nutrimento, risvegliano l’appetito, massime a’ convalescenti e sono cordiali. Nuocono a gli infermi, e massime à quei che hanno la febre e fanno venir tisichi i villani.” Residing on a high position on the Great Chain of Being, they represented powerful people and, accordingly, were sternly cautioned against for rustic people, to whom, according to Pisanelli, they could be dangerous. Pisanelli, “De beccafichi, Cap. xxvi” in Trattato de’ cibi, 33. Similarly, pheasants and partridges are responsible for provoking asthma in rustic people (Cap. xxvii and xxix). In his work, Bartolommeo Sacchi, known as Platina, paid much attention to the idealistic principle of moderation derived from the Greek and Roman world, along with his interest in the revival of Epicureanism. Platina, On Right Pleasure. Eamon, Science, 163. Giovan Battista Zapata, Li maravigliosi secreti di medecina, et chirurgia, nuovamente ritrovati per guarire ogni sorta d’infirmità, raccolti dalla prattica dell’eccellente medico e chirurgico Giovan Battista Zapata da Gioseppe Scientia chirurgico suo discepolo (Venice: Pietro Deuchino, 1586; 1st ed. Rome, 1577), 37–41, quoted in Scully, “Unholy Feast,” 85. Eamon, Science, 188. Bovio, Flagello. He gives the example of a doctor whose wife was sick and how he cured her with a diet of French soup, capon, and wine but could not apply the same treatment to his other patients in fear of losing business; see 45–46. “più facilmente di carne si faccia carne che di qualunque altra sorte di cibo.” Romoli, La singolare dottrina; “Delle carni in generale,” 205r. Domenico Romoli (n.d.) previously Laura Giannettiworked as a cook with the name of Panunto (oiled bread) and then became steward for Pope Julius III. For poor people and peasants in particular, pork continued to be the meat of choice; and although it had a negative reputation, in the case of people occupied in heavy physical work, pork was reputed nourishing and healthful. Florentine communal statutes of 1322 prohibited innkeepers from serving up culinary delights because they could attract men and boys and incite them to commit the unspeakable sin of sodomy. Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 159. During Cosimo the Elder’s regime Florentine Archbishop St. Antonino—in his confessor’s manual—warned against sloth, excess food, and drink as causes of sodomy. Toscan, Le Carnaval, vol. I: 190. See Giannetti Ruggiero, “The Forbidden Fruit,” especially pages 31–33. Later in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Church allowed consumption of eggs, butter, and cheese during famines and epidemics. See Gentilcore, Food and Health. One of the most important representatives of this tendency was the Venetian noble Alvise Cornaro who wrote the extremely successful Trattato della vita sobria in 1558. In general, moralists’ writers of the later Middle Ages and early Renaissance continued to advise against eating food that would produce excessive heating of the body. The dietetic literature, particularly the influential earlier author Michele Savonarola and the later Baldassar Pisanelli, supported the restriction of birds and fowl to particular categories of people held to be more capable of controlling the passions they induced, such as the powerful and rich or those needier of stimulation such as the sick and the ailing. Grieco, “From Roosters to Cocks,” 115. See novella “De Novo Ludo” (Sercambi, Novelliere) available online at www.classicitaliani. it/sercambi_novelle_08.htm where Ancroia enjoys her time with the priest: “la donna, come vide Tomeo fuora uscito, preso un fiasco del buon vino, una tovagliuola, alquanti pani e della carne cotta per Tomeo, et al prete Frastaglia se n’andò e con lui si diè tutto il giorno piacere, pascendosi di carne cruda e carne cotta per II bocche . . .” Apostolo Zeno in the eighteenth century attributed the author name Gentile Sermini to the two anonymous caudexes containing the novelle. Monica Marchi in her critical edition of the novelle prefers to use Pseudo-Sermini instead of the conventional name Gentile Sermini. See Marchi, “Introduzione,” in Pseudo-Gentile Sermini, Novelle, 10–22. The novelle were written in the first half of the fifteenth century. non altramente fece la valente madonna Alisandra che, agustandole molto la carne e ‘l savore, per quello dilettevole giardino, preso insieme d’acordo giornata . . .” Pseudo-Gentile Sermini, Novelle, xi, 270. Fortini, Le giornate, I, xvi, 296–300. Grazzini (Il Lasca), Le Cene, I: vi, 80–94. Giannotti “Il vecchio amoroso,” II: i, 40–41. On remedies for impotence, and early modern drama, see Giannetti, “The Satyr.” “A Tiziano,” in Aretino, Lettere, 67–68. This section is partially based on Giannetti Ruggiero, “The Forbidden Fruit,” 31–52. See “Ragionamento Antonia e Nanna,” in Aretino, Sei giornate, 38. “The Roman Porcellio Enjoys the Trick Played on the Friar in Confession,” in Bandello, Novelle, vi: 125. See the discussion of the tale in Giannetti, Lelia’s Kiss, 181–82. Ibid., 181. On the battles between Quaresima and Carnival see Ciappelli, Carnevale. Albala, Eating Right, 168 and 181. The painting is now in the Museo Civico of Udine. Sercambi, “De vidua libidinosa” in “Appendice,” Novelle inedite, 417–18. Matthews-Grieco, “Satyr and Sausages.” Several novelle, from Boccaccio to Sacchetti, related the closeness in everyday life of pigs and humans in rural and urban areas and the importance of pork for sustenance, but also the negative perception of pigs and filthy and gross animals. For instance, see Sacchetti LXX, CII, CXLVI, CCXIV. For Boccaccio see “Calandrino e il porco.” Already in the Middle Ages, from the perspective of the Great Chain of Being, pork and the quadrupeds occupied a questionable position—they were not part of Air like birdsThe sausage wars nor of the Earth but somewhere in between; and pig in particular occupied one of the lowest position among all quadrupeds. Grieco, “Alimentazione e classi sociali,” 378–79. Pigs were voracious animals and, according to the Galenic doctor, eating their fattening meat would transform a person in a pig, as a later image of Gola as a woman sitting on a pork would make really explicit. For instance, in the second half of the sixteenth century, Baldassar Pisanelli advised eating sausages and salami in moderation, but recognized in them some positive characteristics such as reawakening of appetite and helping to make drinking more pleasurable. Pisanelli, Trattato de’ cibi, c. 13. Platina, On Right Pleasure, Book VI, 281. Ibid., 277. Ficino, Three Books on Life, Book 2, 181. See  the section “Sausages and Salami” in Matthews-Grieco, “Satyr and Sausages.” Pietro Aretino in his comedy Il Filosofo summarizes well this new ambivalence about pork when he had one of his characters resolutely affirm: “refined sugary confections (the biancomangiari) and quails do not stimulate taste as do steaks and sausages.” Pietro Aretino, Il Filosofo, III, 15. See the text in Romai, Plaisance, and Pignatti, eds., Ludi esegetici, 313–15. Firenzuola is also author of the famous dialogue On the Beauty of Women. vv. 12–14. “Canzon, vanne in Fiorenza a quei poeti,” v. 76 The Virtuosi academy was the continuation of the Vignaiuoli academy, one of the first “academies” of sixteenth-century Italy, an informal gathering of intellectuals that met for dinner, witty conversations, music, and poetry in the early 1530s. Around 1535 or slightly later, the Vignaiuoli renamed themselves Academia della Virtù and/or Reame della Virtù and continued their activities until ca. 1540. Meetings, often held at Carnival time, featured improvised speeches and the recitation of poems, frequently accompanied by music. The Vignaiuoli was one of the first academies in Italy to privilege the usage of vernacular and became most famous for the poetic production of so-called “learned erotica,” as well as for their anti-Petrarchan and anti-classicist poetic stance. Grappa, now identified with Francesco Beccuti, comments on Firenzuola’s poem. See Grappa, Il Comento. On Beccuti see Fiorini Galassi “Cicalamenti.” The allusion here is to the poem Sopra il forno by Giovanni della Casa, De’ Fichi by Francesco Maria Molza, and In lode delle castagne by Andrea Lori. All three are poems dedicated to the female genitals. “Mangiasi la salsiccia innanzi et drieto / a pranso, a cena, o vuo’ a lesso o vuo’ arrosto / arrosto et dietro è più da grandi assai; / innanzi et lessa, a dirti un bel segreto / non l’usar mai fin che non passa Agosto.” vv. 30–35. “Perchè in estate gli uomini sono meno capaci di fare l’amore, le donne invece lo sono di più [. . .]? Perché gli uomini sono più inclini a fare l’amore d’inverno, le donne in estate? Forse perché gli uomini sono di natura più caldi e secchi [. . .]?” Aristotele, Problemi, ed. Maria Fernanda Ferrini (Milan: Bompiani, 2000), IV, 25–28, quoted in Pignatti, ed., Ludi Esegetici II, 200. “O vecchi benedetti! / questo è quel cibo che vi fa tornare giovani e lieti, et spesso ancho al zinnare” vv. 58–60. “Fassi buona salsiccia d’ogni carne: /dicon l’istorie che d’un bel torello/dedalo salsicciaio già fece farla /e a mona Pasife diè a mangiarne? Molti oggidí la fan con l’asinello . . .” vv. 46–50. vv. 61–65. “Basta che i salsiccioli/cotti nei bigonciuoli, / donne, dove voi fate i sanguinacci, / son cagion che degli uomini si facci.” vv. 72–75. On the cultural function of humor see Matthews-Grieco, “Satyr and Sausages,” 37.62 For the text of the canzone, see Grazzini, “In lode della salsiccia,” in Romei, Plaisance, and Pignatti, eds., Ludi esegetici, 227–30. For Grazzini “Comento di maestro Nicchodemo dalla Pietra al Migliaio sopra il Capitolo della salsiccia del Lasca,” see ibid., 231–309. There is no secure date regarding the writing of the Comento but it should have been written around 1539–40. See Franco Pignatti, “Introduzione,” in Romei, Plaisance, and Pignatti, eds., Ludi esegetici, 163. 63 Ibid., vv. 22–33. 64 Ibid., vv. 76–81. 65 Ibid., vv. 94–111. 66 “La bellezza del tagliere non è come forse molti credono, e non consiste in l’esser bianco, non di buon legno, non tondo, non ben fatto, ma si bene nell’essere pieno di buona carne ben cotta e ben trinciata; . . . tolghinsi pur costoro i capelli di fin oro, la fronte più del ciel serena, le stellanti ciglia . . . come dire le Laure, le Beatrici, le Cintie e le Flore!” Grazzini, Comento di Maestro, 240–41. 67 Sonetto n. 5 of Canzoniere on the name of Laura: “Quando io movo i sospiri a chiamar voi” 68 “Perciò che quei traditori de’ medici la prima cosa levono il porco e non vogliono a patto nessuno che n’habbia l’ammalato per mantenergli bene il male addosso, sendo il porco e maggiormente la salsiccia, habile e possente a guarir d’ogni malattia e più sana che la sena, più necessaria che la cassia, più cordiale che il zucchero rosato, più ristorativa che il manicristo, et insomma ha più virtù che la bettonica.” Grazzini, Comento di Maestro, 280–81. The terzina commented is 103–05: “Io crederria d’ogni gran mal guarire/ quando haver ne potessi un rocchio intero,/ancor ch’io fussi bello e per morire.” 69 In Dolce, Capitoli. 70 “dono invero magnifico e reale,/da far morir di gola l’astinenza/e leccarsi le dita a Carnevale.” Ibid., vv. 10–12. 71 “E chi m’avesse allora allora punto/aria veduto uscir liquor divino/del corpo, ch’era pien di grasso e d’unto.” Ibid., vv. 43–45. 72 Some authors trying to dignify pork, recycled Galen’s idea expressed in De alimentorum facultatibus where he argued troublingly that pork was pleasurable because it was similar to human’s flesh. For instance “Le carni del Porco fra tutte le altre carni dei quadrupedi han vittorie in nutrire e dar più forza ai corpi perché cosi nel gusto come nello odore par che habbiano una peculiar unione e fratellanza col corpo umano si come da alcuni si è inteso che per non sapere hanno gustato la carne dell’huomo” [For taste as well as for odor, it seems that the meat of pork has a peculiar unity and likeness with the human body, as some reported, who tasted human flesh while not knowing it] in Un breve e notabile trattato del reggimento della sanità, ridotto dalla sostanza della medicina di Roberto Groppetio 362–63 v. The little volume is attached to La singular dottrina. It is not clear whether it was written by Panunto himself or not. For a similar affirmation see also: Della natura et virtù de’ cibi, 68v. Not all agreed with this troubling similarity but it was quite a common affirmation in many medical treatises and in some literary works of the time. 73 In Romei, Plaisance, and Pignatti, eds., Ludi esegetici, 316–18. 74 “Qui non è osso da buttare al cane, / e’l suo santo panunto è altra cosa/che lo impepato overo il mrzapane,” vv. 25–27. 75 “Dicon che la midolla del panunto,/incartocciata come un cialdoncino, / tal che di sopra e di sotto appaia l’unto, / è un boccon sì ghiotto e sì divino, / che se lo provi ti parrà migliore/ch’un beccafico fresco e grassellino,” vv. 38–42. It should be noted that even the luxury food, the beccafico, had strong sexual overtones. 76 The cultural discourses that surrounded salad in early modern Italy and Europe were complex and rich, ranging from sexuality and manners, to taste, gastronomy, and class identity. 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La singolare dottrina di Domenico Romoli sopranominato Panunto, Dell’ufficio dello Scalco, dei condimenti di tutte le vivande, le stagioni che si convengono a tutti gli animali, uccelli, pesci . . . . Venice: Giov. Battista Bonfadino, 1593; 1st ed. 1560. Scully, Sally A. “Unholy Feast: Carnality and the Venetian Inquisition.” Ateneo Veneto, Rivista di scienze, lettere ed arti, CXCVI, ottava serie 2 (2009): 79–104. Sercambi, Giovanni. “De Novo Ludo.” In Novelliere. Edited by Giovanni Sinicropi “De vidua libidinosa” in “Appendice.” Novelle inedite di Giovanni Sercambi tratte dal codice Trivulziano CXCIII. Edited by Rodolfo Reni. Turin: Loescher, 1889. Toscan, Jean. Le Carnaval du langage: Le lexique érotique des poètes de l’équivoque de Burchiello à Marino (XVe–XVIIe siècles). 4 volumes. Lille: Atelier Reproduction des Thèses, Université de Lille III, 1981. Vitullo, Juliann. “Taste and Temptation in Early Modern Italy.” The Senses and Society 5, Visualizing sexuality in word and image10Homosexuality in art, life, and history James M. SaslowFrom his mid-thirties, the Lombard-Sienese painter Gianantonio Bazzi (1477– 1549) was publicly known as “Il Sodoma.” This epithet translates as “Sodom,” the biblical city eponymous with sexual transgressions that were then both a sin and a crime. Sodomy bracketed multiple acts, but most commonly referred to love between men; so, his nickname might be freely rendered as “Mr. Sodomite.” Our principal biographical source is Giorgio Vasari, whose Vita of Bazzi (1568) recounts several revealing or scandalous episodes. A few are exaggerated or false, skewed by Vasari’s disdain for both homosexuality and Siena. However, his plausible explanation of how the artist earned his sobriquet is not refuted by other evidence. Vasari describes him as a gay and licentious man, keeping others entertained and amused with his manner of living, which was far from creditable.  [S]ince he always had about him boys and beardless youths, whom he loved more than was decent, he acquired the by-name of Sodoma.1 While sources for private feelings are scanty and often problematic for this period, and Sodoma left little first-person testimony, this and other records suggest a prima facie case for the artist’s erotic interest in other males. He is unique in Renaissance Italy as the only artist whose homosexuality was frankly avowed and widely known. His character and sexual interests offer a provocative case study of the intersections between eros and creativity, and how that sensibility was manifested in his imagery. His experiences further suggest that there were overlapping audiences eager to receive and respond to that sensibility. Sodoma exhibited other character traits also considered eccentric or insolent, and was fond of capricious pranks; the monks at Monteoliveto Maggiore, his first large commission, referred to him as “Il Mattaccio,” the “crazy fool.”2 Hewas an impudent mocker of moral decorum: Vasari reports indignantly about the nickname Sodoma that “in this name, far from taking umbrage or offence, he used to glory, writing about it songs and verses in terza rima, and singing them to the lute with no little facility.” He was also infamous for his f lamboyant clothing and for keeping an entire menagerie in his home, including pet birds, monkeys, squirrels, and race horses; Vasari called the house “Noah’s Ark.”3 He entered his horses in public contests, and we can date his sobriquet back to a series of races in Florence from 1513 to 1515. When his steed won, the heralds asked what owner’s name to announce; Bazzi replied, “Sodoma, Sodoma,” indicating that he was already known by that name and willing to be associated with it. The incident also reveals the precarious social landscape that known or suspected sodomites had to negotiate. Thumbing his nose at a mocking public backfired: a group of outraged elders incited a mob attack, during which he narrowly escaped being stoned to death.4 Anecdotes and documents notwithstanding, historians have long tried, for widely differing reasons, to chip away at the foundations of a historiographical tradition dating back to Vasari himself. For it was Vasari, unwittingly anticipating modern queer scholarship, who first understood Sodoma as having homosexual desires and assumed some connection between his sexuality and his work.5 To the prudish chronicler, that connection was negative: Vasari blamed Sodoma’s failure to achieve greatness on his excesses of character, from laziness to carnality, scolding that if he had worked harder, “he would not have been reduced to madness and miserable want in old age at the end of his life, which was always eccentric and beastly.”6 Value judgment aside, the assumption that artists’ personalities and passions are intimately imbricated with their work runs throughout Vasari’s biographies. Modern generations, beginning with the homophile Victorian critic-historians John Addington Symonds and Walter Pater, acknowledged the same connection with a positive valence, reading Sodoma’s androgynous figures and distinctive iconography as revealing glimpses into the sensibilities of a man aware of both his own desires and the gap separating that passion from social norms. The path they laid down guided post-Stonewall gay studies through the early 1980s.7 More recently, postmodern theoreticians, stressing the ever-shifting social constructions of sexuality and identity, have countered such attempts to posit any individual sexual identity or group homosexual consciousness, however embryonic and sporadic, in that era. Their methodology, inspired by scholars from Michel Foucault to Eve Sedgwick and David Halperin, dismisses such formulations as anachronistic over-reading.8 The generational shift in goals and methods, from “gay and lesbian studies” to “queer studies,” instigated an ongoing debate. These theoretical polarities have implications for the present study, which aims to excavate the embodied passions and creative process of an individual who felt homosexual desire, and to reconstruct, to whatever extent possible, an early moment in the gradual, fitful emergence of self-aware homosexual sensibilities and self-expression.Although I defer consideration of this theoretical controversy until the essay’s end, my working hypothesis parallels the nuanced historiography of Christopher Reed, who reminds us that, although readings of Renaissance homosexuality as similar to modern conceptions were convincingly challenged by Foucault’s insistence that [the modern] sexual typology was not invented until the nineteenth century, [nevertheless] no idea is without roots, and subsequent scholarship provided evidence that convinced even Foucault to recognize stages in the eighteenth, the seventeenth, and even the sixteenth century leading to the invention of homosexuality as a personality type.9 As a personality, Sodoma was among the few early modern artists who visualized homoerotic desire. This essay investigates that process along three intertwined axes: life, work, and historiography. His biography provides a unique microhistory of an early avowed homosexual and his culture’s understanding of that inclination. His works gave visual expression to his erotic sensibility, and contemporary patrons and spectators, from pederastic monks to libertine aristocrats, were ready to receive it sympathetically. Finally, I conclude with a more personal historiographical meditation on the controversy over whether embryonic homosexual consciousness can be located in early modern culture.Early religious works Arriving in Siena as a young man, Sodoma established relations with the Chigi family and the Benedictine order, who commissioned numerous works, mainly on sacred themes.10 Officially, since Christianity condemned all non-procreative sex, theological narratives offered next to no scope for “homo-representation”; but his religious pictures nonetheless provide material for queer readings. If a subject contained any potential for imagining or accentuating a homoerotic subtext, Sodoma exploited it more than any artist of his time except Michelangelo (also a lover of men), seldom missing an opportunity to foreground male beauty or intimacy in nude or suggestively clad bodies. Many images celebrate the boyish, androgynous type that was the most common object of adult male desire at the time, while a few idealize the more heroic male adult body; he often derived both figure types from classical sculptures with a homoerotic pedigree. And many members of the audience for his imagery, both clerical and lay, were likely to appreciate this eroticized beauty. The first example of the interlinked sensibilities of artist and spectators is his fresco cycle for the abbey at Monteoliveto Maggiore, outside Siena (1505–08), depicting the life of the order’s founder, St. Benedict.11 Payment records confirm several Vasarian details about the artist, from his early nickname, Mattaccio, to his use of apprentices ( garzoni ) and his fondness for extravagant finery. Although the austere life of the founder of monasticism was unpromising terrain,Sodoma found novel pretexts for inserting numerous visual features—often rare or unique inventions—that would appeal to the homosexual or bisexual gaze. Most striking in its novel and ironic departure from the subject’s nominal moral is the illustration of Benedict seeking relief from a female devil’s sexual temptation by stripping off his clothes and f linging himself into spiny briar bushes12 (Figure 10.1). Unlike the few earlier representations of this scene, Sodoma renders the vegetation soft and unthreatening: rather than conveying mortification of the f lesh, he presents in full frontal view a nude of heroic proportions, reclining comfortably in a pose modeled on classical prototypes. The all’antica beauty of the body displaces attention from the saint’s physical self-abnegation onto his potential to arouse erotic desire—precisely what Benedict is trying to suppress.13 The most personally revealing of the frescoes is the Miracle of the Colander (Figure 10.2), in which the saint and his homespun miracle (repairing a household sieve) are shunted to the left, leaving the central focus on the figure of Sodoma himself, showing off his legendary wardrobe. His self-portrait corroborates Vasari’s disdainful take on him as a fop, “caring for nothing so earnestly as for dressing in pompous fashion, wearing doublets of brocade, cloaks all adorned Sodoma, Abbey of Monteoliveto Maggiore, Saint Benedict Is Tempted by a Female Devil, fresco, 1505–8.Photo credit: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali/Art Resource, NY.Gianantonio Bazzi, called “Il Sodoma”Sodoma, Monteoliveto, Miracle of the Colander, fresco, 1505–8.Photo credit: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali/Art Resource, NY.with cloth of gold, the richest caps, necklaces, and other suchlike fripperies only fit for clowns and charlatans.” Here, as elsewhere, Vasari seems well informed about specific details of Sodoma’s life and work: his comment is supported by the abbey account books, which describe a garment much like the one Sodoma wears here, an embroidered gold cape listed among elaborate items of apparel as a form of payment from the monks, who had received it from a wealthy nobleman.14 The artist also surrounds himself with exotic animals, just as Vasari noted he liked to do: birds and two pet badgers. Sodoma’s sartorial tendencies and other biographical details connect him to a contemporaneous homosexual demimonde in ways that Vasari himself was perhaps unaware of, but which is well attested in social history of the period. His clothing, fondness for androgynous youths, and writing of satirical poetry are all behaviors then associated with sodomites as an identifiable group with its own recognizable customs. Research by Michael Rocke, Guido Ruggiero, and others into the prevalence of sodomy and the emergence of urban homosexual networks in early modern Italy has revealed that they were so widespread they can scarcely be called a “subculture.” As Rocke puts it, Bazzi’s brand of sexuality became “an increasingly common feature of the public scene and the collective mentality.”15 In Florence, a special sodomy court heard hundreds of casesannually until 1502; a substantial percentage of males passed through at some time in their lives.16 Hence “sodomy was a common part of male experience that had widespread social ramifications.” Rocke notes that “this sexual practice was probably familiar at all levels of the social hierarchy” and among a wide range of professions.17 Among those occupations are the “beardless boys” whom Vasari blames for the artist’s nickname, probably his apprentices and workshop assistants. Artists’ studios being all-male, “the potential for homoerotic relations in such an environment was high,”18 and intimate, sometimes sexual relations between assistants or models and their masters are suggested by documents on artists from Donatello to Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. Closer to Sodoma’s time, the bisexual sculptor Benvenuto Cellini was taken to court by the mother of one apprentice for coercing him sexually.19 This common social pattern gives Sodoma’s behavior wider implications, since his actions were shared with countless other men. His wardrobe is the clearest exemplar of those erotic implications. Helmut Puff has documented the role of material culture in formulating and enacting sexual subcultures, and how extravagant clothing was a marker of effeminacy and sexual deviance. Exchange of rare and costly textiles or clothing could betoken homosexual relationships, either as gifts for love or payment for services.20 By the mid-fifteenth century, San Bernardino da Siena’s sermons thundered against boys’ receiving clothing and money for sex.21 Within the field of costume studies, which asserts “the centrality of clothes as the material establishers of identity itself,” clothing is understood as a set of materialized symbols with social functions and meanings. As Jones and Stallybrass have explored, clothes can either embody and reinforce submission to normative social roles (uniforms) or, when deployed in violation of sumptuary standards, mark the wearer as consciously rejecting those norms—as Sodoma did by appropriating the dress of an aristocrat.22 Thus, portraying himself in extravagant, coded finery was a subversive act of self-identification with a marginalized minority: in Andrew Ladis’s phrase, “a pose of arrant foppishness, as if the painter personified the very diabolical temptations of the f lesh that he painted and lived, not excluding what was commonly known as ‘the monastic vice’”23 —a revealing euphemism for sodomy. The artist gives freest play to erotic signifiers in the scene of St. Benedict welcoming two disciples, Saints Maurus and Placidus, amid the wealthy youths’ retinue and onlookers24 (Figure 10.3). While the disciples are modestly clothed and posed, both the epicene youth on the center axis and the African groom at right are shown da tergo, Italian for a rear view that spotlights the buttocks. The central youth and his mirror image at far left are boyish androgynes, embodying the predominant pattern of pederasty, in which mature men sought stillfeminine adolescents for anal intercourse. Thus, some viewers, at least, would have appreciated the erotic implications of the motif.25Gianantonio Bazzi, called “Il Sodoma”Sodoma, Monteoliveto, St. Benedict welcomes Sts. Maurus and Placidus, fresco, 1505–8.Photo credit: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali/Art Resource, NY.Reinforcing this erotic interpretation, the two youthful onlookers at center and left also sport versions of Sodoma’s own elaborate clothing, as does the groom to the right of center. They f launt the styles associated with homosexual seduction: tight multicolored stockings, long hair, and extravagant fringes, hats, and colors.26 Such clothing had long been associated with sodomites; Alainof Lille’s De planctu naturae (ca. 1160) lamented that these men “over-feminise themselves with womanish adornments.”27 San Bernardino da Siena inveighed against parents who let their sons wear short doublets and “stockings with a little piece in front and one in back, so that they show a lot of f lesh for the sodomites,” resulting in such an appealing adolescent always “having the sodomite on his tail.”28 These suggestive details may have been projections of Sodoma’s erotic mindset, but it is highly likely that they resonated with some of the monks who were his primary audience. Shifting our focus from the artist, we should also examine the mental world of his viewers. Reception theory or spectator theory asks not what did the artist put into the work, but, rather, what did the audience take out of it? What interests, beliefs, or habits of seeing did his audience have, and how did that subject-position influence their reading of his messages? As Adrian Randolph observed regarding the reception of Donatello’s homoerotic bronze David, an artwork can function as “a receptacle for the beholder’s imaginative concerns.” His and other studies have explored how reception of religious art was determined by the viewers’ gender, particularly in convents, where nuns often specified subjects relevant to their experience; these insights can be extended to male religious and to sexuality as well as gender.29 Sodoma’s audience here was exclusively male clergy, proverbially stereotyped as sodomitical.30 Temptations were exacerbated by the enforced closeness of clerical living arrangements: several scenes depicting Benedict and his monks highlight their day-to-day intimacies both emotional and physical.31 To head off such dangers, the rules of the order specified that no brother is permitted to enter the cell of another without permission of the abbot or a prior; if this is permitted, they may not remain together in the cell with the door closed. And no monk may touch another in any way . . . A light was to burn all night in the dormitory area and latrine, presumably to prevent secret trysts under cover of darkness.32 Such precautions were not entirely effective, as a few visual examples attest. A near-contemporary satirical painted plate depicts a monk pointing to a youth’s bare bottom; the caption explains, “I am a monk, I act like a rabbit” (Figure 10.4)—then, as now, a symbol of tireless sexuality, particularly homosexuality.33 A Flemish print depicts a 1559 event in Bruges in which three monks were burned at the stake for “sodomitical godlessness.”34 These starkly contrasting examples dramatize the contradictory culture within the religious world: male–male sex was acknowledged, though officially taboo and sometimes severely punished, yet often tolerated and even laughed about. Outside monastery walls, free from Church proscriptions, Sodoma found more overt opportunities to celebrate such love. Majolica plate, attributed to Master C.I., ca. 1510–20. Musée national de la Renaissance, Écouen, France.Photo credit: ©RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.Secular subjects Sodoma illustrated secular subjects for private patrons and domestic settings. His most career-boosting painting depicted the Roman heroine Lucretia, whose suicide to preserve family honor after she was raped symbolized the ideal of married women’s honorable chastity; gifted to Pope Leo X, it earned the artist a papal knighthood.35 When the opportunity arose, however, as with sacred images, hepaid unusual attention to the homoerotic elements of myth and history, which offered explicit exemplars of male devotion and passion. And the audience for his best-known classical project, a fresco cycle for the papal banker Agostino Chigi, was the sophisticated, libertine Roman society who were as likely to share his sexual interests and habits of spectatorship as were the monks at Monteoliveto.36 In 1516–17, Chigi commissioned Sodoma to decorate the bedroom of his villa, now called the Farnesina. The wealthy financier’s love nest, shared with his mistress Francesca Ordeaschi, offers a revealing microcosm of the hedonistic, tolerant atmosphere of High Renaissance Rome, where even popes had mistresses and bastards, and humanist classical culture provided justification for libertine bisexuality all’antica.37 Numerous rooms were painted with erotic myths both heterosexual and homosexual.38 Given Chigi’s personality and interests, Sodoma was a sympathetic addition to his creative team. Although Sodoma married in 1510, his nickname was public knowledge by 1513, when he registered as “Sodoma” in a list of racehorse owners, and two years later had the heralds call that name. After describing our artist’s clothes, manners, and mocking spirit, including the racing incident, Vasari reports that “in [these] things Agostino, who liked the man’s humour, found the greatest amusement in the world.” The appreciative patron requested episodes from the life of Alexander the Great, historically implied as bisexual.39 The principal scene recreates a lost Greek painting of Alexander’s marriage to Roxana, known through an ancient ekphrasis—a classicizing tribute to Chigi and his beloved40 (Figure 10.5). The emperor proffers a marriage crown to the princess, while putti cavort in playful eroticism. To the right stand two idealized men: nude Hymen, god of marriage, and torch-bearing Hephaestion, Alexander’s intimate companion and, in some accounts, lover. Both figures are based on a well-known Greek statue, the Apollo Belvedere, depicting the most vigorously bisexual of the gods.41 While principally a heterosexual scene, then, the picture’s sub-theme is nude male beauty and the passion Hephaestion represents. Sodoma’s audience was predisposed to appreciate this story’s erotic duality. Many patrons and viewers had bisexual or homosexual desires; an anecdote in Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier (ca. 1514) reports that “Rome has as many sodomites as the meadows have lambs.” The erotic tone among these clerics, aristocrats, artists, and writers was light-hearted; while sodomy was outlawed, enforcement was spotty and penalties light.42 Eyewitness testimony for “queer visuality” at the Farnesina comes from raunchy bisexual author Pietro Aretino, who spent time there while Sodoma was painting. Aretino recorded an ancient statue of a satyr chasing a boy, an explicit complement to the loftier male love in Sodoma’s fresco. He wrote to Sodoma twenty-five years later, expressing nostalgia for their shared youth, and wishing that “we were embracing each other now with that warm feeling of love with which we used to embrace when we were enjoying Agostino Chigi’s home so much.”43 One glimpses the atmosphere of an affectionately demonstrative, pansexual pleasure-palace. Like the life it looked out upon, Sodoma’s picture is a mélange of sexualities, with intimacy between men given “equal time.”FIGURE 10.5 Sodoma, The Marriage of Alexander and Roxana, Villa Farnesina, Rome, fresco, 1517–19.Photo credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY.Further evidence for the casual attitude toward homosexuality—Sodoma’s in particular—is a set of epigrammatic couplets published in 1517 by Eurialo d’Ascoli, a poet in the circles around Chigi, Aretino, and Leo X, bluntly informing his readers that “Sodoma is a pederast.” The poem celebrates Sodoma’s painting of Lucretia, which earned his knighthood; only the final verses turn comic. Having praised the artist for verisimilitude that brings Lucretia back from the dead, Eurialo imagines her interpreting this miracle as an opportunity to convert the artist sexually. The narrator then asks her his own facetious question, implying that as a sodomite the artist would not normally be inspired by female subjects: Now beautiful Venus grants me the nourishment of light breezes [i.e., earthly life], So that I can reclaim you, Sodoma, from tender youths. Sodoma is a pederast; why then, Lucretia, did he make you So lifelike? He has our buttocks instead of Ganymede. Nunc mihi pulchra Venus tenui dat vescier aura, Ut revocem a teneris, Sodoma, te pueris. Sodoma paedico est; cur te Lucretia vivam Fecit? Habet nostras pro Ganimede nates.44Sodoma’s knighthood was cited by whitewashing early scholars as proof that the artist could not have been homosexual, since such sins would have disqualified him from religious honors.45 But here we see again how casually this milieu treated sexual transgressions. The fabulously wealthy Chigi married Ordeaschi in 1519, and Leo X—himself a reputed sodomite who, Vasari records, “took pleasure in eccentric and light-hearted figures of fun such as [Sodoma] was”— legitimized their four children.46 Worldly success was hardly evidence against impropriety. Eurialo’s couplets recall Vasari’s statement about Sodoma’s nickname that “he used to glory [in it], writing about it songs and verses in terza rima, and singing them to the lute.” As with clothing, Sodoma was participating in another cultural tradition that linked artists, writers, and readers of non-normative sexuality in a web of self-expression. Bawdy burlesque poetry treated all sexuality with lighthearted comedy; Sodoma’s texts have not survived, but we can garner some sense of their contents and tone from verses by contemporaries. What Deborah Parker labels “a poetry of transgression,” full of sexual innuendo and whimsical exaggeration, circulated in manuscript, public readings, and print.47 The father of burlesque poetry, Francesco Berni, was banished from Rome in 1523 for too openly mourning a young male lover.48 The genre became popular among visual artists eager to establish their intellectual credentials through writing, including such homosexuals or bisexuals as Michelangelo, Bronzino, and Cellini.49 Sodoma’s personality chimed perfectly with the genre’s subversive insolence. Bronzino’s capitolo “In Praise of the Galleys,” for example, unashamedly eroticizes the all-male world of oarsmen on ships, muscular and sweaty males confined in close quarters where sex among themselves was the only outlet: here “boiled and roasted meats are hardly ever mixed,” a common metaphor for vaginal (wet) versus anal (dry) sex. Berni, expanding on the trope that priests are sodomites, declares that their example is infecting monks, using a fruity symbol for boys’ buttocks: Peaches were for a long time food for prelates, But since everyone likes a good meal, Even friars, who fast and pray, Crave for peaches today. Le pesche eran già cibo da prelati, Ma, perché ad ognun piace i buon bocconi, Voglion oggi le pesche insin ai frati, Che fanno l’astinenzie e l’orazioni.50 The sardonic, guilt-free humor of such texts suggests, as Domenico Zanrè describes, “a marginal undercurrent operating within an official cultural environment,” and demonstrates that “certain individuals were able to produce alternative literary responses within a dominant . . . milieu that attempted to contain and, insome cases, exclude them.”51 An incident around 1530 corroborates Sodoma’s own refusal to accept derogatory comments from authority: when a Spanish soldier insulted him, the artist got revenge by drawing his portrait and identifying him to his superiors.52 San Bernardino was furious precisely because so many sodomites seemed unrepentant and unafraid of divine judgment. What enraged him and Vasari was not these men’s behavior alone, but the quality Italians call faccia tosta—“cheek” or “a big mouth”—refusal to give even lip service to official mores.53 The burlesque mode evinces the first buds of an oppositional response to social disapproval: a selfaware articulation of outsider status, and an emerging rebellion against social convention that opened a space, however narrow, for asserting alternative consciousness and self-affirming values.54 Greco-Roman texts and images served Sodoma, like other homosexual artists and patrons from Michelangelo to Caravaggio, as validation for their all’antica desires and pretexts for visualizing male beauty and eros.55 Within educated elites, a tolerant, classically inspired hedonism held its own against legal and clerical taboos until late in Sodoma’s lifetime, when the Council of Trent began its anticlassical reform (1545). In this libertine culture, an artist widely known for sexual nonconformity was able to smilingly adopt a derogatory nickname as a public identity and even f launt his sexual interests in word and image, with little harm to his string of major commissions and honors.Later religious works Sodoma’s late commissions were predominantly religious. As at Monteoliveto, these images emphasize the erotic appeal of figures who are nominally not sexual: saints, angels, and soldiers. Whereas at the monastery it was possible to analyze the reactions of a specific clerical audience, commissions for more public locations could be viewed by the whole cross-section of society, some proportion of which, as outlined earlier, would have understood and welcomed homoerotic allusion. As Patricia Simons has explained, “Renaissance imagery might appear to condemn non-normative sex . . ., but it was possible for viewers to take works in other, imaginative directions.”56 Sodoma’s best-known work, depicting Saint Sebastian (1525), epitomizes his typical traits: androgynous classicizing male beauty, emotional pathos and sensuous chiaroscuro (Figure 10.6).57 Iconographically, it offers a prime example of his sensitive antennae for elements of religious narrative with specialized appeal. Sebastian was a Roman soldier who refused to renounce Christianity, for which Emperor Diocletian, despite their intimate personal relationship, ordered him shot by archers. Saint Ambrose’s hagiography establishes their strong emotional bond, open to erotic interpretation: he notes that Sebastian was “greatly loved” by Diocletian and his co-emperor Maximian (intantum carus erat Imperitoribus).58 Sodoma paints a virtually nude, Apollo-like Sebastian with blood trickling from several wounds. He looks longingly at the angel bringing a martyr’s crown—his reward for loving sacrifice to God—with an expression that could Sodoma, Saint Sebastian, processional banner, Pitti Palace, Florence,1525. Photo credit: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali/Art Resource, NY.equally connote divine or earthly ecstasy. While his bond with the emperor offered a secular hint at Sebastian’s sexual inclinations, the implied passion between Sebastian and the godhead is a more important, and universal, emotional dynamic, with a profound yet ambivalent homoerotic subtext. For all Christians, intense, loving union with Christ was the ultimate spiritual goal; for men, however, exhortation to the symbolically feminine ideal of passive, ecstatic submission to another male raised the specter of sodomy. The phallic arrows piercing Sebastian evoke sexual penetration, a symbol of the saint’s necessary, but problematic, feminization;59 they also recall Cupid’s love-inducing shafts, multiplying the signals for an erotic response. Cinquecento image-makers were expected to encourage such a passionate response because, as Simons observes in relation to Christ, for Sebastian too “the visualization of supreme beauty was necessary in order to induce reverence.”60 Theoretically, religious images could function on these two levels simultaneously, without contradiction: the lure of physical beauty would hopefully lead the viewer to a higher spiritual adoration. In practice, however, it was difficult to police the borders between earthly and heavenly passion. We know that Sebastian’s beauty was experienced as problematically titillating by at least one sex: the Florentine artist-monk Fra Bartolommeo painted a nude image of the saint so appealing that female parishioners admitted in confession that it stimulated carnal thoughts, after which it was taken down.61 It was just such temptations that the Council of Trent acknowledged when it set out to purge church imagery of eroticism. So, it is not difficult to imagine that men, as well as women, were attracted to Sodoma’s provocative Sebastian in the physical sense.62 The “seeming contradictions of deliberately evoking erotic desire in religious painting” have been parsed by Jill Burke, who sees in this practice “a deep and knowing ambivalence toward sexuality” that signals “a huge variance between official rhetoric and widely accepted practice.”63 By including formal and iconographic cues to a homoerotic response, Sodoma could appeal to men who, like himself, experienced love and desire in male terms. Like extravagant dress and burlesque poetry, pictorial ambiguity opened another narrow cultural space for expressing alternative sexuality.Historiography: a modest proposal This essay has aimed to demonstrate three propositions: that Sodoma was known for, and acknowledged, desire for men; that his work evinces a distinctive mode of seeing and representing that expresses that erotic inclination; and that contemporaneous audiences would have appreciated that sensibility. As Ruggiero asserts, It is no longer possible to ignore the general shared culture of the erotic and its omnipresence in daily exchange, nor is it possible to overlook the particular subcultures that coexisted at the time and that were such a central part of daily life.64Without claiming anachronistically that this evidence establishes anything so coherent and exclusive as a modern “gay identity,” I submit that these emerging networks and customs, alongside visual and literary production on homosexual themes, constitute early shoots of an alternative sexual consciousness that would reach critical mass only during the Enlightenment. I accept the historiographic formulation of the Renaissance as “early modern,” which stresses continuities from that culture into the modern era, presupposing a model of cultural change that is gradual and evolutionary rather than abrupt and discontinuous. To quote Reed again, “If modern ideas of sexual identity and artistic self-expression cannot be simply mapped onto the Renaissance . . . it is nevertheless true that these notions have Renaissance roots.”65 However, to seek the “roots” of anything “modern” in anything “past” has become problematic since the advent of postmodern theory. There are now, as Reed observes, “wildly varying interpretations of Renaissance art’s relationship to homosexuality”66 —more broadly, of relationships among desire, behavior, identity, and self-expression. To social constructionists, the search for glimmers of an alternative, proto-modern awareness in Sodoma’s ambiente is misguided. There can be no transhistorical connections between sexual actors in different periods, because sexual identity is not innate or fixed; rather, it is created through social discourses that define and control sexuality, an unstable product of external forces acting on the passive individual. There were no homosexual persons, only homosexual acts. Puff ’s formulation: “Sodomy was not thought of as a lifelong orientation, let alone a social identity,” is echoed by Reed’s: “[S]exual behavior in Renaissance Italy was not seen as a basis for individual identity.”67 This school coined the term “essentialist” to disparage earlier researchers who, from Symonds to John Boswell, saw sufficient commonality with those in earlier times who desired other men to justify searching the Middle Ages and Renaissance for branches of a sexual family tree dating back before 1867 (when “homosexual” was coined). Without accepting all the methodological baggage identified with an often over-simplified “essentialism,” one can still maintain that someone calling himself “Mr. Sodomite” seems a prime excavation site for evidence of such genealogical links, since his name rendered his erotic proclivity a “lifelong social identity.” Like a genetic mutation that may crop up in random individuals, and only gradually spread across a species’ gene pool, Sodoma constituted an irruption of anomalous possibilities that, while not yet fully articulated, began to diffuse new forms of sexual identity and self-expression that increased over the next several centuries. These methodological disagreements center on two questions: one external and sociological, the cultural categorization of homosexual behavior; the other internal and psychological, the conscious experience of individuals who desired other men and their degree of agency within a hostile official discourse. There was clearly a dominant conceptual structure of canon and civil law that confined homosexuality to taboo acts that might potentially tempt anyone, within whichour modern notion of inherent sexual “orientations” was not officially recognized. Just as clearly, however, no culture is monolithic, and a complex of alternatives operated alongside these formal structures. As we have seen, the elements of this quasi-underworld were in place by the sixteenth century: meeting places, distinctive behaviors, and cultural expressions.68 As Ruggiero has outlined, such “illicit worlds had their own coherent discourse,”69 which viewed male–male sexuality as an amusing peccadillo; suggested that some individuals were drawn to it by distinctive character traits; and expressed awareness of (and resistance to) the gap between official values and their own experience. The solution to this impasse lies in moving beyond an “either–or” cultural analysis to a “both–and” approach. Instead of setting arbitrarily precise boundaries to ever-shifting conceptions of sexuality, it would more accurately ref lect Sodoma’s transitional environment to acknowledge the temporal overlapping of contrasting systems of thought and behavior, and to explore the realities of those who negotiated the dialectic between them. Two tendencies in current scholarship, however, militate against such open-ended rapprochement. The first is reluctance to accept evidence for alternative sexual consciousness; the second is ascribing to cultural discourses an unrealistic power over against embodied experience. What follows is part summary, part personal statement: a roadmap out of an increasingly pointless stalemate, and a brief for greater attention to the lived experience of men-who-had-sex-with-men and its genealogical links to later generations. Two principal examples of the discord over what “counts” as evidence of sexual desire and identity are the tendency to downplay or deny evidence for Sodoma’s sexuality, and the disregard of alternative language imputing distinct personality to sodomites. First, the present examination of how Sodoma expressed his homoerotic desires depends on establishing that his nickname was in fact a marker of his sexuality, which raises the question: how reliable is Vasari? Unfortunately, as Paul Barolsky notes, “How we read Vasari depends on our sensibility and taste. We all ride our own hobbyhorses.” 70 Since the Victorians, homophobic scholars have attempted to discredit Vasari and defend a respected Old Master against any implication of immorality in “his evil-sounding sobriquet.” 71 Efforts to give it a non-sexual meaning are highly speculative: Enzo Carli supposes the nickname was simply Bazzi’s own little joke, “with which . . . he loved to glorify himself facetiously,” but it strains credibility that a heterosexual man would consider a false claim of deviancy “glorifying.” 72 When such dismissals are echoed by queer-studies scholars, the hobby-horse is epistemological caution rather than morality, but the effect is the same: to erase facets of queer history that conf lict with a higher belief—that homosexuality did not (yet) exist.73 We do have to read Vasari cautiously: despite the author’s claims, Sodoma’s wife never left him, nor did he die poor.74 Because few details in Vasari’s psychological profile are confirmed by other sources, postmodern skepticism insists that any statement not independently documented is probably false. But Vasariis generally most informed about artists close to his own time, many of his artistic facts are documentable, and details in the Vite of Sodoma and Beccafumi indicate that he visited Siena, saw artworks, and interviewed informed sources. Moreover, his characterization of Sodoma as capricious, insolent, and sodomitical is corroborated by three period sources: Eurialo d’Ascoli’s couplets, Paolo Giovio’s life of Raphael (“a perverse and unstable mind bordering on madness”), and Armenini’s account of Sodoma’s revenge for an insult.75 Thus, this essay has followed a less restrictive approach, accepting any statement that is not contradicted by external sources as possible and perhaps likely. All historical reconstructions involve judgments of probabilities; giving one’s sources “the benefit of the doubt” can make up for any loss of positivistic certainty with gains in breadth, depth, and detail. Secondly, there is linguistic evidence that particular psychological traits were becoming attached to habitual sodomites; but this suggestive vocabulary is often brushed aside to “save the phenomenon” of an episteme of acts, not personalities. I agree with Simons that “both categorical approaches are problematic.” A more subtle, inclusive view is adumbrated by Robert Mills, who demonstrates that the juridical focus on potentially universal acts was in tension with moral, Church perspectives which also sought to make an identity of the sodomite . . . by characterizing sodomy as a more enduring kind of practice, a vice for which one had a particular disposition, tendency or taste. . . . [S]uch perspectives developed unevenly, over long periods of time, [but there are] signs that some medieval thinkers . . . wished to pin the sin down to particular bodies and selves.76 Examples of how “Sodoma” might thus denote an individual with an inborn sexual preference include one of Matteo Bandello’s humorous tales (novelle), ca. 1540, in which the dying Porcellio, pressed by his confessor to admit that he performed acts “against nature,” claims to misunderstand the question because, he says, “to divert myself with boys is more natural to me than eating and drinking.” 77 Similarly, Giordano Bruno’s Spaccio della bestia triunfante (1584) praises Socrates for resisting “la sua natural inclinatione al sporco amor di gargioni” (his natural inclination toward the filthy love of boys).78 Dall’Orto has surveyed numerous Renaissance Italian terms for those who commit homosexual acts, notably inclinazione, which implies “leaning” in a particular direction.79 Similar spadework for the French cognate inclination has been performed by Domna Stanton, while numerous other French and English tropes, such as “masculine love,” have been catalogued by Joseph Cady.80 Language was clearly emerging at this point articulating distinctive traits among those drawn to sodomy: not yet an “identity” in the modern sense, but a critical shift toward notions of internal difference. If postmodernism underplays evidence of sexual self-awareness, it conversely overestimates the power of discourse, unduly minimizing individual agencyand the imperatives of the embodied self. The ability of collective discourse to enforce social norms is never absolute. It engages in perpetual dialectic with the potentially anarchic desires of society’s diverse individual members, a situation in which “lived eroticism did not always conform to the rules of social hierarchy,”81 from Romeo and Juliet to Sodoma and his apprentices. This ineluctable tension arises because discourse is inculcated into the mind, whereas sexual desire is grounded in parts of the biological organism less susceptible to rational suasion. Embodied experience is transhistorical: lust, like hunger, pre-exists cultural conditioning, and “the recalcitrant realities of human conduct”82 are insistent enough when unsatisfied to overcome any social convention. This essay has marshalled evidence that Sodoma, and his contemporaries with similar inclinations, felt a dissonance between their desires and the dictates of society, and they possessed sufficient agency to imagine alternative values—what Walter Pater viewed as a signal Renaissance development, a “liberty of the heart” that enabled nonconformists to move “beyond the prescribed limits of that system.”83 Individual bodies are not mere passive receptacles for an overpowering discourse “poured into” them, but are capable of awareness of that effort at marginalization, and of active resistance. The ultimate question lying behind such methodological differences is: why do we do queer history? Here again, divergent answers ride different hobbyhorses: postmodernists focus on epistemology, while those open to historical continuity are more interested in phenomenology. The former philosophize, “How and what can we know about Renaissance sexuality?” answering that we can comprehend little about a shifting discourse in which “sexuality” did not exist; the latter psychoanalyze, “How did it feel for sexual outsiders to negotiate this social regime?,” and seek clues in intimations of difference in life, language, and art. While the former stress chronological discontinuity, the latter seek a “usable past,” a narrative that produces affinities and resonances across time. The latter project is inherently political: as George Chauncey characterizes emerging queer studies in the late nineteenth century, claiming certain historical figures was important to gay men not only because it validated their own homosexuality, but because it linked them to others. This was a central purpose of the project of gay historical reclamation. By constructing historical traditions of their own, gay men defined themselves as a distinct community.84 Put another way, this school, and this essay, seek to recover evidence of homosexual desire and expression—however fragmentary, ambiguous, and carefully historicized—to counter centuries of suppression, and it seems ironic when social constructionism abets the same historical erasure. A final image, recently attributed to Sodoma, provides an enigmatic but tantalizing coda to this discussion85 (Figure 10.7). His hair garlanded with leaves, beard and brows untamed, “Allegorical Man” leers like a satyr while his rightJames M. SaslowFIGURE 10.7Sodoma (attributed), Allegorical Man, ca. 1547–8, oil, Accademia Carrara,Bergamo. Photo credit: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali/Art Resource, NY.hand makes the contemptuous gesture of “the fig,” an insult that, since Martial’s Epigrams (2:28), can imply that the receiver is a sodomite. The picture’s precise iconography remains unexplored; Radini Tedeschi suggests the gesture alludes to Sodoma’s nickname, and the picture may thus be a final self-portrait, literally or symbolically. If so, it contrasts poignantly with the artist’s first self-portraitforty years earlier ( Figure 10.2). Once young and beardless, his foppishness a silent assertion of nonconformity, he has aged to a still elaborately costumed but more overtly defiant graybeard, telling the world in gesture what his burlesque poems expressed in words: I am what I am, I’ve survived your derision, and I still don’t care what you think. Admittedly, this interpretation remains speculative, but it would effectively bookend the scenario of Sodoma’s life and work presented here. Our ability to entertain such a hypothesis depends, however, on more than attribution and iconography. The potential to recover the self-expression of creative Renaissance sodomites also requires a polyvalent openness to a range of both personal and cultural evidence and interpretive methods. Hearteningly, many seminal postmodern theorists are more accepting of multiplicity than their acolytes. Foucault praised Boswell’s conception of “gay,” while Carla Freccero deploys Foucault’s own theoretics against his discontinuity between early modern and modern sexuality. She approvingly cites David Halperin’s suggestion that we supplement rigidly compartmentalized ideas of identity with concepts of “partial identity, emerging identity, transient identity, semi-identity . . .,” the better to “indicate the multiplicity of possible historical connections between sex and identity.”86 Murray reassures us that “the alternative to intellectual conformity is not a lack of coherence but rather a series of interwoven, complementary . . . approaches.”87 Perhaps the most balanced and inspiring methodological f lag has been raised by Valerie Traub, who recalls that, while seeking traces of early modern same-sex eros, she assumed “neither that we will find in the past a mirror image of ourselves nor that the past is so utterly alien that we will find nothing usable in its fragmentary traces.”88 I have sought in Sodoma not a mirror-image, but a family resemblance. He is “usable” as our ancestor: someone with whom we share an identifiable lineage of desire and self-expression, in whose uniquely chronicled creative life we can recapture the origins of an increasingly prominent familial trait.Notes1 2 3 4 5This essay grew from a paper delivered at a 2007 conference at University of Toronto organized by Konrad Eisenbichler. Thanks to Patricia Simons for her constructive suggestions. Vasari, Le vite, 6: 380; Vasari, Lives, 7: 246. Vasari repeats these accusations in his Vita of Domenico Beccafumi, ed. Milanesi, 5: 634–35. Vasari, Le vite, 6: 382; Vasari, Lives, 7: 247. Vasari, Le vite, 6: 381; Vasari, Lives, 7: 246. Vasari, Le vite, 6: 389–90; Vasari, Lives, 7: 251, records the old men’s protest; for documents for the 1513 and 1515 races, see 6: 389 n. 3, 390 n. 1; Bartalini and Zombardo, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 44–45, nos. 15–19. A note on terminology: I use “homosexual” throughout in the narrow descriptive sense, to refer to sexual desire or behavior between persons of the same sex. Although modern audiences read “homosexual” with broader connotations of psychology and identity, here it is only shorthand for “male–male sex.” In modern typology, Sodoma would be considered bisexual, since he was also married and a father.6 Vasari, Le vite, 6: 379; Vasari, Lives, 7: 245. The artist did not die destitute or insane: see below, n. 74. 7 Fisher, “A Hundred Years,” 13–39, outlines the activist project of research into Renaissance homosexuality since the nineteenth century. 8 For an overview of this position, see Grantham Turner, “Introduction,” 8, n. 3. 9 Reed, Art and Homosexuality, 54–55. 10 Bartalini, “Sodoma.” 11 The standard English monograph remains Hayum, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi; for Monteoliveto see 93, cat. no. 4. See further on the abbey Radini Tedeschi, Sodoma, 138–47; Batistini, Il Sodoma; documents in Bartalini and Zombardo, Fonti, 15–31, no. 7. 12 Hayum, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 93, no. 4.8; Batistini, Il Sodoma, no. 8. The incident is recorded by Gregory the Great, Life of St. Benedict, chap. 2. 13 Only a few illustrations of this subject are known: both a fresco by Spinello Aretino (San Miniato, Florence) ca. 1387 and a panel by Ambrogio di Stefano Bergognone, ca. 1490, show a pale, unidealized body among prominent briars. A sexual reading of the series is supported by Kiely, Blessed and Beautiful, chap. 7, “Sodoma’s St. Benedict: Out in the Cloister.” 14 Vasari, Le vite, 6: 383; Vasari, Lives, 7: 248, for the quote and cloak. The gift, along with other payments of fabrics and clothing, is transcribed by Bartalini and Zombardo, Fonti, 18–19, 266. See also Radini Tedeschi, Sodoma, 78–80. 15 Rocke, “The Ambivalence,” 57. 16 Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 3–6; his book provides extensive data and analysis of fifteenth-century Florence. On sodomy elsewhere, see Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros; Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, chap. 9; Mormando, The Preacher’s Demons. For a Europe-wide perspective, see Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, chaps. 10–12; Puff, “Early Modern Europe,” 79–102. 17 Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 112, 134. 18 Simons, “The Sex of Artists,” 81. 19 Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 163; Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, 262–69. 20 Puff, “The Sodomite’s Clothes,” 251–72. 21 Bernardino da Siena, Le prediche volgari, ed. Pietro Bargellini (Milan: Rizzoli, 1936), 796–97, 898, cited and discussed in Dall’Orto, “La fenice,” 5, and n. 27 and n. 28. See also Rocke, “Sodomites.” 22 Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 2–7. 23 Ladis, Victims, 109. 24 Hayum, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 94, no. 12. 25 On anal sex as social practice and artistic motif, see Saslow, Ganymede, chaps. 2–3; Rubin, “‘Che è di questo culazzino!’”; Grantham Turner, Eros Visible, 274–99. Sodoma’s Deposition, ca. 1510, similarly spotlights the rear view of a soldier: Hayum, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 117, no. 7. Other artists emphasized rear views, often motivated by the formalintellectual challenge of the paragone: Summers, “‘Figure come fratelli.’” When we have evidence of an artist’s sexual proclivities, as with Sodoma, it is reasonable to explore whether he imbued the motif with personal erotic interest; lacking such evidence, however, we cannot know which other artists might have done the same. Regardless of artistic intent, similar stimuli would invite similar audience responses. 26 Similar figures appear in scenes no. 1, 30, and 36 as catalogued by Batistini (Hayum, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 93–4, nos. 1, 20, 26). 27 Alain of Lille, The Plaint of Nature, trans. James Sheridan (Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1980), 187, cited in Puff, “The Sodomite’s Clothes,” 260. 28 Bernardino, as quoted by Rocke, “Sodomites,” 12, 15; cited in Simons, The Sex of Men, 99. 29 Randolph, Engaging Symbols, 151, chap. 4. For nuns, see Hayum, “A Renaissance Audience”; for both sexes, Hiller, Gendered Perceptions. 30 On the prevalence of clerical sodomy see Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance; Mills, Seeing Sodomy, chap. 4; Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 136–37. See also Parker, Bronzino, 37: “burlesque poets tended to present clerics as sodomites.”31 Hayum, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 93–94, nos. 4.13, 4.14, 4.21; Batistini, Il Sodoma, nos. 13, 14, 31 (illns. 59, 60, 68). 32 The regulations are in the monastery’s fourteenth- and fifteenth-century chronicle: Regardez le rocher, 182–83, 418–19 (my translation). 33 Illustrated and discussed in Saslow, Pictures and Passions, 103–04. 34 Frans Hogenberg, Execution for Sodomitical Godlessness in Bruges, 1578; illustrated in Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, 327. 35 Vasari, Le vite, 6: 387; Vasari, Lives, 7: 250. 36 On the city’s licentious paganism, see Bartalini, Le occasioni, 39–86. 37 Rowland, "Render unto Caesar.” 38 Other homoerotic images are in the Sala di Psiche, where Ganymede appears twice, and one spandrel depicts Jupiter kissing Cupid; Saslow, Ganymede in the Renaissance, 135–40; Turner, Eros Visible, 109–33. 39 Vasari, Le vite, 6: 384–88; Vasari, Lives, 7: 248–50. Alexander and Hephaestion’s love is alluded to by Aelian, Various History, 12: 7, and other ancient authors. 40 Hayum, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 164–77, no. 20; Bartalini, Le occasioni, 78–81; Radini Tedeschi, Sodoma, 193–94, no. 56. 41 On Sodoma’s use of classical sources and gender ambiguity see Smith, “Queer Fragments.” 42 Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, book 2, chap. 61. On the sexual tone in Rome, see Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, 269–90; Talvacchia, Taking Positions. Leo X’s Rome also associated sartorial effeminacy with homosexuality: pasquinades mocked Cardinal Ercole Rangone and sodomite friends for “going around disguised as nymphs”: Burke, “Sex and Spirituality,” 491. 43 Aretino, Lettere sull’arte, vol. 1, no. 68 (1537), vol. 2, no. 244 (1545); Aretino, The Letters, 123–25, no. 58. Other sources record a sculpted Antinous, Hadrian’s lover: Bartalini, Le occasioni, 73–75. 44 d’Ascoli, Epigrammatum, 11v–12r; Bartalini and Zombardo, Fonti, 64–67, no. 29; Radini Tedeschi, Sodoma, 71–72. 45 Ibid., 23. 46 Vasari, Le vite, 6: 386–88; Vasari, Lives, 7: 250. On Leo’s sodomitical reputation see Giovio’s biography, in Le vite di dicenove, 141v–142v. 47 Parker, Bronzino, chap. 1; Parker, “Towards;” Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 3–5; Tonozzi, “Queering Francesco”; Zanrè, Cultural Non-conformity, chap. 3. 48 Tonozzi, “Queering Francesco,” 589–91. 49 On these artist-authors see Parker, Bronzino; The Poetry of Michelangelo; Gallucci, Benvenuto Cellini. 50 Fisher, “Peaches and Figs,” 158–59. 51 Zanrè, Cultural Non-conformity, 1-2. 52 Armenini, De’ veri precetti, 42–43; Vasari, Le vite, 6: 393; Bartalini, Le occasioni, 17. 53 Dall’Orto, “La fenice di Sodoma,” 71-72, quoting Bernardino, in Le prediche volgari, ed. C. Cannarozzi (Pistoia: Pacinotti, 1934), 277. A document dated 1531, purportedly Sodoma’s tax declaration, is even more insolent, signed with a sexual vulgarity; Bartalini and Zombardo, Fonti, 131–33, 281–92. While now considered a seventeenth-century forgery, it demonstrates that a “legend” about Sodoma’s sexual brazenness persisted after his death. 54 See Milner, “Introduction.” 55 Sodoma depicted anther homoerotic myth distinctively: his Fall of Phaeton is almost unique in including Phaeton’s cousin Cycnus, with whom literary sources imply a loving relationship (Hayum, 135, no. 12). Suggestively, the only other artist to include Cycnus was Michelangelo. 56 Simons, “European Art,” 135. 57 Vasari, Le vite, 6: 390; Hayum, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 191, no. 24; Radini Tedeschi, Sodoma, Acta sanctorum, 2: 629, 20 Januarii; Jacopo da Voragine’s thirteenth-century Golden Legend repeats this phrase (s.v. “St. Sebastian”).59 On arrow symbolism, including homoerotic potential, see Cox-Rearick, “A ‘Saint Sebastian,’” 160–61. 60 Simons, “Homosociality,” 38. 61 Vasari, Vita of Fra Bartolommeo. For additional complaints about sexualized Sebastians, see Bohde, “Ein Heiliger,” 86, n. 18. 62 Sodoma’s later depictions of Sebastian evoke the same erotic subtext. In his Madonna and Child with Saints, ca. 1541–44 (Hayum, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 257, no. 43), Sebastian stares at Jesus, who toys with the saint’s arrow—a phallic detail seen in no other image. Similarly unique is Sodoma’s Resurrection, 1535 (Hayum, 235, no. 33) in depicting the angels as nude putti. 63 Burke, “Sex and Spirituality,” 488–92. 64 Ruggiero, “Introduction,” 2. 65 Reed, Art and Homosexuality, 43. 66 Ibid., 47. 67 Ibid., 43; Puff, “Early Modern Europe,” 84–85. 68 On this alternative culture in various cities see Puff, “Early Modern Europe,” 87; Ruggiero, “Marriage,” 23–26; Dall’Orto, “La fenice di Sodoma,” 61–64, 79. 69 Ruggiero, “Marriage, Love,” 11. 70 Paul Barolsky, “Vasari’s Literary Artifice,” 121. 71 Cust, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 10. 72 Carli, Il Sodoma, 9–12; Carli, “Bazzi.” 73 See, e.g., Patricia Simons, “Sodoma, Il,” 286. 74 Vasari, Le vite, 6: 379, 398, citing contradicting documents, 399 n. 1. 75 On Eurialo see above, n. 44; Armenini, n. 52. On Giovio’s biographies see n. 46; for his comment on Sodoma (“praepostero instabilique iudicio usque ad insaniae affectationem”) see Bartalini and Zambrano, Fonti, 83–86, no. 35. 76 Simons, “Homosociality and Erotics,” 48, n. 4; Mills, “Acts, Orientations,” 205. 77 Bandello, Tutte le opera, ed. Flora, 1: 95, novella 6; Bandello, Tutte le opera, trans. Payne, 1: 94–8. 78 Bruno and Campanella, Opere, 321. 79 Dall’Orto, “La fenice di Sodoma,” 74–76; Dall’Orto, “‘Socratic Love,’” esp. 34–35, 46–50. 80 Stanton, “The Threat.” See further Stanton, ed., Discourses of Sexuality; the historiographic overview by Smith, “Premodern Sexualities”; Cady, “The ‘Masculine Love.’” 81 Puff, “Early Modern Europe,” 87. 82 Brundage, “Playing,” 23. 83 Pater, The Renaissance, 3–6, 18–19; Fisher, “A Hundred Years,” 19–23. 84 Chauncey, Gay New York, 285–86. 85 Radini Tedeschi, Sodoma, 257, no. 118. 86 O’Higgins, “Sexual Choice,” 10; Halperin is quoted and discussed in Freccero, Queer, 48. 87 Murray, “Introduction,” xiv. 88 Valerie Traub, The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2002), 32.Bibliography Acta sanctorum. Brussels, 1863. Aretino, Pietro. Lettere sull’arte di Pietro Aretino. Edited by Ettore Camesasca, 3 vols. Milan: Edizioni del Milione, 1957–60. . The Letters of Pietro Aretino. 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Edited by Wayne Dynes and Stephen Donaldson. New York: Garland, Socratic Love’ as a Disguise for Same-Sex Love in the Italian Renaissance.” In The Pursuit of Sodomy: Male Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe. Edited by Kent Gerard and Gert Hekma, 33–66. London: Harrington Park, 1989. Fisher, Will. “A Hundred Years of Queering the Renaissance.” In Queer Renaissance Historiography: Backward Gaze. Edited by Stephen Guy-Bray, Vin Nardizzi, and Will Stockton, 13–40. Farnham: Ashgate, Peaches and Figs: Bisexual Eroticism in the Paintings and Burlesque Poetry of Bronzino.” In Sex Acts in Early Modern Italy. Edited by Allison Levy. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Freccero, Carla. Queer/Early/Modern. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006. Gallucci, Margaret. Benvenuto Cellini: Sexuality, Masculinity, and Artistic Identity in Renaissance Italy. New York: Palgrave, 2003. Giovio, Paolo. Le vite di dicenove huomini illustri. Venice, 1561. Grantham Turner, James. Eros Visible: Art, Sexuality and Antiquity in Renaissance Italy. New Haven, CT: Yale, “Introduction.” In Sexuality and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Edited by James Grantham Turner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Hayum, Andrée. Giovanni Antonio Bazzi—“Il Sodoma.” New York: Garland, 1“A Renaissance Audience Considered: The Nuns at S. Apollonia and Castagno’s Last Supper.” Art Bulletin 88 (2006): 243–66. Hiller, Diana. Gendered Perceptions of Florentine Last Supper Frescoes. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Jones, Ann Rosalind and Peter Stallybrass. Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Kiely, Robert. Blessed and Beautiful: Picturing the Saints. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010. Ladis, Andrew. Victims and Villains in Vasari’s Lives. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Mills, Robert. “Acts, Orientations and the Sodomites of San Gimignano.” In Sex Acts in Early Modern Italy. Edited by Allison Levy. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. . Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Milner, Stephen J. “Introduction.” In At the Margins: Minority Groups in Premodern Italy, ed. Stephen J. Milner. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Mormando, Franco. The Preacher’s Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Murray, Jacqueline. “Introduction.” In Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West. Edited by Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler, ix–xxviii. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. O’Higgins, James. “Sexual Choice, Sexual Act: An Interview with Michel Foucault.” Salmagundi 58/59 (1982/1983): 10–24. Parker, Deborah. Bronzino: Renaissance Painter as Poet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Towards a Reading of Bronzino’s Burlesque Poetry.” Renaissance Quarterly 50 (1997): 1016–20. Pater, Walter. The Renaissance. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980. Puff, Helmut. “Early Modern Europe 1400–1700.” In Gay Life and Culture: A World History. Edited by Robert Aldrich, 79–102. London: Thames et Hudson, “The Sodomite’s Clothes: Gift Giving and Sexual Excess in Early Modern Germany and Switzerland.” In The Material Culture of Sex, Procreation, and Marriage in Premodern Europe. Edited by Anne McClanahan and Karen Encarnación, 251–72. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Radini Tedeschi, Daniele. Sodoma: la vita, le opera, e gli allievi. Subiaco: La Rosa dei Venti, 2010. Randolph, Adrian. Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics and Public Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.Reed, Christopher. Art and Homosexuality: A History of Ideas. New York: Oxford, 2011. Regardez le rocher d’où l’on vous a taillés: Documents primitifs de la Congrégation bénédictine du Sainte-Marie du Mont-Olivet. Maylis: Abbaye de Maylis, 1996. Rocke, Michael. “The Ambivalence of Policing Sexual Margins.” In At the Margins: Minority Groups in Premodern Italy. Edited by Stephen J. Milner, 53–70. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press,Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence. New York: Oxford, Sodomites in Fifteenth-Century Tuscany: The Views of Bernardino of Siena.” In The Pursuit of Sodomy: Male Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe. Edited by Kent Gerard and Gert Hekma, 7–31. London: Harrington Park, 1989. Rowland, Ingrid. “Render unto Caesar the Things Which Are Caesar’s: Humanism and the Arts in the Patronage of Agostino Chigi.” Renaissance Quarterly 39 (1986): 673–730. Rubin, Patricia. “‘Che è di questo culazzino!’: Michelangelo and the Motif of the Male Buttocks in Itaian Renaissance Art.” Oxford Art Journal 32 (2009): 427–6. Ruggiero, Guido. The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice. New York: Oxford University, “Introduction.” In Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy. Edited by Sara MatthewsGrieco. Farnham: Ashgate, “Marriage, Love, Sex, and Renaissance Civic Morality.” In Sexuality and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Edited by James Grantham Turner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Saslow, James M. Ganymede in the Renaissance: Homosexuality in Art and Society. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York: Penguin, 1999. Simons, Patricia. “European Art: Renaissance.” In The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts. Edited by Claude J. Summers. San Francisco, CA: Cleis, Homosociality and Erotics in Italian Renaissance Portraiture.” In Portraiture: Facing the Subject. Edited by Joanna Woodall, 29–51. Manchester: Manchester University Press, “The Sex of Artists in Renaissance Italy.” In The Renaissance: Revised, Expanded, Unexpurgated. Edited by D. Medina Lasansky, 64–84. Pittsburgh, PA: Periscope, The Sex of Men in Premodern Europe: A Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Sodoma, Il.” In The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts. Edited by Claude J. Summers. San Francisco, CA: Cleis, 2004. Smith, Bruce R. “Premodern Sexualities.” PMLA 115 (2000): 318–29. Smith, Timothy B. “Queer Fragments: Sodoma, the Belvedere Torso, and Saint Catherine’s Head.” In Receptions of Antiquity, Constructions of Gender in European Art. Edited by Marice Rose and A.C. Poe, 169–98. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Stanton, Domna, ed. Discourses of Sexuality from Aristotle to AIDS. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press,  “The Threat of Seventeenth-Century Tribadism and its Punishments.” Presented at the conference of the Renaissance Society of America, Berlin, March, 2015. Summers, David. “‘Figure come fratelli’: A Transformation of Symmetry in Renaissance Painting.” Art Quarterly 1 (1977): 59–98.James M. SaslowTalvacchia, Bette. Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Tonozzi, Daniel. “Queering Francesco: Berni and Petrarch.” Italica 92, no. 3 (2015): 582–99. Traub, Valerie. The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori. Edited by Gaetano Milanesi, 9 volumes. Florence: Sansoni, 1878–85. ———. Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Translated by Gaston du C. DeVere, 10 volumes. London: Macmillan, 1912–14. Zanrè, Domenico  Cultural Non-conformity in Early Modern Florence. Burlington: Ashgate, 2004.Piccolomini’s Raffaella and Aretino’s Ragionamenti Ian Frederick MoultonIn 1539, Alessandro Piccolomini, a thirty-one-year-old Sienese nobleman living in Padua, published a short dialogue: La Raffaella, ovvero Dialogo della bella creanza delle donne [Raffaella, or a Dialogue on women’s good manners].1 Piccolomini’s dialogue, in which an older woman encourages a younger one to commit adultery, owes much to the example of Pietro Aretino’s scandalous Ragionamenti (1534, 1536),2 in which an experienced courtesan teaches her daughter how to become a prostitute. While the filial relationship between La Raffaella and the Ragionamenti has long been noted, the cultural and ideological significance of this relationship remains largely unexamined. Both texts imagine private female conversations: what do women talk about when no men can hear? The answer in both cases is men. Men and sex. (What else would men think that women talk about?) Both texts are male fantasies of female pedagogy and sexual knowledge, in which male authors adopt a voice of experienced femininity to articulate imagined feminine perspectives on sex, gender relations, and gender identity. In the Ragionamenti, the women’s conversations are scandalous, but also, at times, radical and transgressive, questioning fundamental norms of gendered behavior and exploring the role of power in gender relations.3 Despite Aretino’s ambivalent misogyny, the Ragionamenti imagine possibilities of female agency and power. Piccolomini’s Raffaella, on the other hand, merely encourages women to subvert one form of male authority in order to submit to another; it imagines freeing wives from their husbands the better to subordinate them to their male lovers. Piccolomini playfully suggests that this shift is doing women a favor because it acknowledges their need for sexual pleasure.4 His text takes the subversive energy of the Ragionamenti and turns it into a safe, sly joke. Women, it turns out, do not want autonomy: they want to submit to younger, sexier men. In La Raffaella, female agency is not a threat to male dominance—it simply rewards ardent male lovers over dreary husbands.The conversations of Aretino’s Ragionamenti take place over six days. An experienced courtesan named Nanna is discussing with a younger prostitute named Antonia what way of life would be best for her teenaged daughter Pippa—should she grow up to be a nun, a wife, or a whore? Nanna spends the first three days of the dialogue recounting her own experiences in each of these roles; at the end of the third day she and Antonia decide that Pippa should be a prostitute. They reason that while nuns break their vows and wives are unfaithful to their husbands, prostitutes (for all their faults) are not hypocritical—they are simply doing the necessary work they are paid to do.5 This ends the first volume. In the sequel, having decided Pippa’s future, Nanna and Antonia teach her the things she will need to know. On the fourth day, they instruct her how to be a successful courtesan; on the fifth, they discuss men’s cruelty to women; and on the sixth they listen while a midwife teaches a wetnurse how to make a living procuring women for sex with men. In all the discussions about prostitution, Nanna’s instruction focuses not on how to satisfy men but on how to manipulate them. The condition of a prostitute is inherently hazardous, and Nanna and Antonia teach Pippa how to survive and thrive in a world of gender warfare, where men are always seeking to exploit women, sexually, physically, socially, and financially. Throughout the Ragionamenti the text takes an ambivalent attitude to its speakers. On the one hand, Nanna and Antonia are monstrous women who embody a wide range of misogynist stereotypes. They are deceitful, amoral, gluttonous, greedy, garrulous, and fickle. On the other hand, they are cunning tricksters, who use their superior intellect to dupe those who try to exploit and manipulate them. Nanna is at once a shocking figure of feminine excess and an insightful satirist who bears more than a passing resemblance to Aretino’s own persona as an epicurean scourge of powerful hypocrites.6 The Ragionamenti contain shockingly explicit descriptions of a wide range of sexual activity, but almost all of these are in the early chapters of the text, in which nuns betray their vows in endless orgies and wives betray their elderly husbands to find satisfying sex elsewhere.7 The chapters on prostitution focus not on sexual pleasure or technique, but rather on how best to earn money and swindle clients. Aretino’s whores are not particularly interested in sexual pleasure—they want money, power, and status instead. And the best way to attain all three is by selling the promise of sexual availability while deferring sexual activity for as long as possible; the ideal relationship is one where a man is paying large amounts of money without ever actually managing to have sexual relations with the woman he is buying. As Nanna puts it, “lust is the least of all the desires [whores] have, because they are constantly thinking of ways and means to cut out men’s hearts and feelings.” (“La lussuria è la minor voglia che elle abbino, perché le son sempre in quel pensiero di far trarre altrui il core e la corata.”)8 Through a series of cunning tricks, deals, and lies, Nanna ends up living in luxury in a fashionable house protected by gangs of armed men whom she employs to remove unwanted suitors.9 She survives and thrives by manipulating male desire and profiting from male gullibility.Nanna’s worldly success is, of course, a fantasy that bears little relation to the actual living and working conditions of most early modern prostitutes,10 but the Ragionamenti admit this as well. Nanna knows she is not normative, and that her position remains precarious: “I must confess that for one Nanna who knows how to have her land bathed by the fructifying sun, there are thousands of whores who end their days in the poorhouse.” (“Ti confesso che, per una Nanna che si sappia porre dei campi al sole, ce ne sono mille che si muoiono nello spedale.”)11 On the sixth day, the Midwife agrees: “A whore’s life is comparable to a game of chance: for each person who benefits by it, there are a thousand who draw blanks.” (“E so che il puttanare non è traffico da ognuno; e percìo il viver suo è come un giuoco de la ventura, che per una che ne venga benefiziata, ce ne son mille de le bianche.”)12 Consequently, Nanna makes sure to spend a lot of time warning her daughter Pippa about the many ways that men can harm the women in their power. In contrast to Aretino’s earthy dialogue of whores, Piccolomini’s La Raffaella consists of an imagined discussion between two upper-class women: Raffaella, an elderly, impoverished, but well-born woman, and Margarita, a newly married wealthy young noblewoman. The tone of conversation in La Raffaella is certainly more polite and decorous than Nanna and Antonia’s profane and bawdy language in the Ragionamenti.13 Raffaella, a friend of Margarita’s late mother, presents herself as a pious widow, eager to help Margarita adjust to the challenges of being an adult woman and the mistress of a household. Throughout her talk of pass-times, cosmetics, deportment, and fashion, Raffaella advises Margarita to take full advantage of youthful pleasures; if a woman does not enjoy herself while she is young and beautiful, she is sure to become bitter in her old age: As for God, as I said earlier, it would be better, if it were possible, to never take any pleasure in the world, and to always fast and keep strict discipline. But, to escape even greater scandal, we must consent to the small errors that come with taking some pleasures in youth, which can be taken away later with holy water. . . . And moreover, in all this I’m telling you, presuppose that this little necessary sin will bring you much honor in the world, and that these pleasures that must be taken can be managed with such dexterity and intelligence that they will bring no shame from anyone. Quanto a Dio, già t’ho detto che sarebbe meglio, se si potesse fare, il non darsi mai un piacere al mondo, anzi starsi sempre in digiuni e disciplina. Ma, per fuggir maggior scandalo, bisogna consentir a questo poco di errore che è di pigliarsi qualche piacere in gioventù, che se ne va poi con l’acqua benedetta. . . . E però in tutto quello che io ti ragionerò presupponendo questo poco di peccato, per esser necessario, procurerò quanto piú sia possibile l’onore del mondo, e che quei piaceri che si hanno da pigliarsi sieno presi con tal destrezza e con tal ingegno, ch non si rimanga vituperato appresso de le genti.14Margarita’s husband is constantly away on business; she is bored and feels neglected. By the end of the dialogue, Raffaella has convinced Margarita to embark on an adulterous affair with a young man named messer Aspasio (who bears more than a passing resemblance to Piccolomini himself ).15 It becomes abundantly clear to the reader that convincing Margarita to sleep with messer Aspasio has been Raffaella’s goal all along. As the dialogue ends, Margarita looks forward eagerly to her planned affair, completely unaware of how she has been manipulated by the older woman. She exults, Having learned today through your words that a young woman needs, to avoid greater errors, to pour out her spirit in her youth, and having heard certainly from you the good words of messer Aspasio and the love he bears me, I am resolved to give all of myself to him for the rest of my life. And thus having pledged eternal fidelity to messer Aspasio—whom she has barely met—Margarita goes on to offer the impoverished Raffaella bread, cheese, and ham as a reward for her kindness.16 Given its subject matter, it is not surprising that some readers interpreted La Raffaella as an attack on women’s moral character: older women are presented as corrupt and amoral; younger women as hedonistic and naive. Women of all ages, it seems, are concerned primarily with deceiving men to obtain sexual pleasure. Beyond its general cynicism regarding female virtue, La Raffaella also gives precise and effective direction on ways to deceive one’s husband and to discreetly carry on long-term affairs. Raffaella warns Margarita against writing love letters—especially if her lover is married.17 She recommends that her lover be unmarried, if possible (messer Aspasio is a bachelor!).18 Raffaella tells Margarita she will need a trusted servant to communicate with her lover, and that she should choose that person with great care.19 She recommends a rope ladder for giving a lover access to private rooms without anyone in the household knowing.20 Raffaella encourages Margarita to take full advantage of the pleasures that wealth and leisure can bring, but she insists that all these pleasures are worthless without the final consummation of adulterous sex: What’s love worth without its end? It’s like an egg without salt, and worse. Holidays, dinners, banquets, masques, plays, gatherings at villas and a thousand other similar pleasures are icy and cold without love. And with love they are so pleasurable and so sweet that I don’t believe that one could ever grow old among them. In every person love inspires courtesy, nobility, elegance in dress, eloquence in speech, graceful gestures, and every other good thing. Without love, they are little esteemed, like lost and empty things. E amore poi che val, senza il suo fine? Quel ch’è l’uovo senza’l sale, e peggio. Le feste, i conviti, i banchetti, le mascere, le comedie, i ritruovi di villae mille altri cosí fatti solazzi senz’amore son freddi e ghiacci; e con esso son di tanta consolazione e cosí fatta dolcezza, ch’io non credo che fra loro si potesse invecchiar mai. Amor riforisce in altrui la cortesia, la gentilezza, il garbo di vestire, la eloquenza del parlare, i movimenti agraziati e ogni altra bella parte; e senza esso son poco apprezzate, quasi come cose perdute e vane.21 The “end” of love, which in Neoplatonic treatises was seen as a beatific transcendence of earthly desires, is here clearly redefined simply as sex.22 As a result of passages like this, La Raffaella was attacked both as an insult to women and as an instruction manual for adultery.23 That the text was explicitly dedicated by Piccolomini to “the women who will read it” (“A quelle donne che leggeranno”) only made matters worse.24 Piccolomini was destined from youth for an ecclesiastical career,25 and at the time he wrote La Raffaella he was starting to make a name for himself in Italian intellectual circles.26 He had published La Raffaella under his academic pseudonym, Stordito Intronato, but this did little to conceal his identity. Responding to criticism of the dialogue, Piccolomini disavowed La Raffaella almost immediately, writing in 1540 that the text was a “joke,” written only for his own amusement.27 Clearly, he felt that La Raffaella’s scandalous reputation was not suitable for his public image and future aspirations. Unlike Aretino, who published the Ragionamenti in two installments, Piccolomini not only never published a sequel to La Raffaella, he never wrote anything like it again.28 In his retractions, Piccolomini insisted that he had meant no insult to women in La Raffaella, and compared his work to the licentious novelle in Boccaccio’s Decameron, intended to give “a certain pleasure to the mind, that cannot always be serious and grave” (“per dare un certo solazzo a la mente, che sempre severa e grave non può già stare”).29 Although Piccolomini consistently downplayed the dialogue’s significance, La Raffaella remained in print and remained popular. There were nine Italian editions in the sixteenth century, as well as three separate translations into French.30 Indeed, La Raffaella is the most frequently republished of all Piccolomini’s texts, and one of the few still in print in the twenty-first century.31 Though criticized for its licentiousness, generically La Raffaella was in the mainstream of the literature of its time. Neoplatonic dialogues dealing with love and sexuality were a staple of Italian literary and academic culture, from Bembo’s Asolani (1505) and Judah Abrabanel’s Dialogi d’amore, to Sperone Speroni’s Dialogo d’amore, and Tullia d’Aragona’s Dialogo della infinità d’amore (1547). Along with books on love, books on the status of women and on feminine deportment were also produced in great numbers in Italy in the midsixteenth century. Advocating adultery may have been scandalous, but men telling women how to behave was commonplace. Besides internationally inf luential texts such as Juan-Luis Vives’ De institutione feminae christianae (1523)32 and Baldassare Castiglione’s Cortegiano (1528),33 there were dozens of lesser known or more specialized books, such as Giovanni Trissino’s epistle on appropriate conduct forwidows (1524),34 and Galeazzo Flavio Capella’s treatise on the excellence and dignity of women (1526).35 The vast majority of these texts were written by men, and many were prescriptive works that attempted to define appropriate female conduct.36 Of 125 works listed by Marie-Françoise Piéjus dealing with the status of women published in Italy between 1471 and 1560, only two were authored by women: Tullia d’Aragona’s 1547 Dialogo . . . della infinità d’amore and Laura Terracina’s 1550 Discorso sopra tutti li primi canti d’Orlando Furioso.37 Given Piccolomini’s deep engagement with academic and literary culture, it is not surprising that La Raffaella draws on a wide range of contemporary texts. The character of Raffaella herself has a strong resemblance to the central figure of the procuress from Fernando de Rojas’ La Celestina,38 and passages in Piccolomini’s dialogue closely echo debates over proper feminine dress in Castiglione’s Cortegiano.39 But arguably the most important model for La Raffaella remains Aretino’s Ragionamenti.40 To begin with, there are precise textual echoes: La Raffaella’s discussion of cosmetics closely follows passages from Aretino’s work,41 as does Raffaella’s reference to the illicit sexual activities of nuns.42 Even Raffaella’s notion, quoted above, that youthful sins can be removed with holy water, recalls a speech by Antonia about the relative insignificance of the sins committed by whores.43 Beyond her similarity to the title character of La Celestina, Piccolomini’s Raffaella also recalls the Midwife from the sixth book of the Ragionamenti. Certainly, the Midwife’s following account of her own techniques are a good description of Raffaella, who comes across as a pious churchgoer, says she loves Margarita like a daughter, and has endless advice on fashions and hairstyles: It was always my habit to sniff through twenty-five churches every morning, robbing here a tatter of the Gospel, there a scrap of orate fratres, here a droplet of santus santus, at another spot a teeny bit of non sum dignus, and over there a nibble of erat verbum, watching all the while this man and that girl, that man and this other woman. A bawd’s work is thrilling, for by making herself everyone’s friend and companion, stepchild and godmother, she sticks her nose in every hole. All the new styles of dress in Mantua, Ferrara, and Milan follow the model set by the bawd; and she invents all the different ways of arranging hair used in the world. In spite of nature she remedies every fault of breath, teeth, lashes, tits, hands, faces, inside and out, fore and aft. Io che ho sempre avuto in costume di fiutar venticinque chiese per mattina, rubando qui un brindello di vangelo, ivi uno schiantolo di orate fratres, là un giocciolo di santus santus, in quel luogo un pochetto di non sum dignus, e altrove un bocconicino di erat verbum, e squadrando sempre questo e quella, e quello e questa. . . . Bella industria è quella d’una ruffiana che, col farsi ognun compare e comare, ognun figilozzo e santolo, si ficca per ogni buco. Tutte le forge nuove di Mantova, di Ferrara, e di Milano pigliano la sceda da la ruffiana: ella trova tutte l’usanze de le acconciaturedei capi del mondo; ella, al dispetto de la natura, menda ogni difetto e di fiati e di denti e di ciglia e di pocce e di mani e di facce e di fuora e di drento e di drieto e dinanzi.44 In his Novelle (1554), Matteo Bandello mistakenly attributed La Raffaella to Aretino, in part because of its resemblance to the Ragionamenti.45 Clearly, the similarity of the two texts was apparent to contemporary readers. Socially and intellectually, Piccolomini and Aretino were on friendly terms in the years immediately following La Raffaella’s publication. Piccolomini wrote to Aretino in December 1540, publicly praising his satirical attacks on the abuses of the powerful.46 And in 1541, two years after La Raffaella appeared in print, Piccolomini invited Aretino to join the newly founded Accademia degli Infiammati in Padua. As Marie-Françoise Piéjus has suggested, both the Ragionamenti and La Raffaella function as parodies of the ubiquitous conduct books addressed to women in the mid-sixteenth century. The Ragionamenti and La Raffaella are “provocative text[s], animated by an ironic cynicism that, parod[ies] point by point the lessons habitually taught to women.” By focusing on women’s sexual lives, both Aretino and Piccolomini “attest to the divorce between openly affirmed principles and the daily conduct of [their] contemporaries.”47 What makes these texts parodic is their sexual subject matter; they both, in differing ways, affirm women’s fundamental sexuality and attest to the central role of sexual desire in women’s lives. This is precisely the aspect of femininity that most of the conduct books are trying most urgently to restrain, repress, and police. The vast majority of sixteenthcentury conduct books written for women are designed to make women into good wives: chaste, silent, and obedient—pleasing to their husbands and compliant to the wishes of their male relatives.48 It is telling that these two parodic texts are both written in the voice of women. Rather than having a male author lay down the law for women (like Vives does), or imagining a conversation where women listen silently as men debate (as in Castiglione), both the Ragionamenti and La Raffaella imagine female conversations with no men present. In Ventriloquized Voices, her study of early modern male authors’ adoption of female voices, Elizabeth Harvey has argued that “in male appropriations of feminine voices we can see what is most desired and most feared about women.”49 If Harvey is right, what Aretino and Piccolomini most desired and feared about women was their sexuality—and the ways their sexuality creates possibilities for female agency. In both the Ragionamenti and La Raffaella, an older woman instructs a younger one on issues of gender and sexuality—and on ways to trick men to get what they want. In both cases, the absence of male auditors creates the illusion that the reader is privy to the secret truth of feminine speech. It is significant that both Aretino and Piccolomini imagine that the main topic that women discuss in private is their sexual relations with men. While the conversation in both the Ragionamenti and La Raffaella is wide-ranging, both dialogues arguably fail the Bechdel test—an assessment that asks whether or not a work of fiction has twonamed female characters who talk to each other about something other than their relationships to men.50 In both works, the women are constantly concerned about their interactions with men and how their actions are perceived by men. The very categories of female life as set forth in the Ragionamenti—nuns, wives, and whores—are defined by the ways in which women’s sexual relations with men (or their lack) are structured and determined. In their desire to hear the truth of female sexuality, both the Ragionamenti and La Raffaella metaphorically echo a tradition of masculine fantasy in which female genitalia are compelled to speak. In the thirteenth-century French fabliau Du Chevalier qui fist les cons parler [The Knight Who Made Cunts Speak], a poor, wandering knight who treats some bathing fairies with courtesy and discretion is rewarded with the magical power to make vaginas talk.51 He uses this power to discover the truth in situations where people are lying to him: when he encounters a miserly priest riding on a mare, he makes the mare’s vagina tell him how much money the priest is hiding. When a countess sends her maid to seduce the knight, he makes the maid’s vagina reveal the plot. Eventually, he makes even the countess testify against herself by compelling her nether regions to speak.52 The vagina, it seems, always tells the truth. This provocative trope reappears most famously in Denis Diderot’s 1748 libertine novel Les Bijoux indiscrets [The Indiscreet Jewels], in which a sultan has a magic ring that makes vaginas tell all. While there is no evidence that either Aretino or Piccolomini were aware of such tales of talking vaginas, the gender dynamics of their texts are remarkably similar. The trope of a man magically forcing a vagina to speak is culturally resonant on a number of levels. On the most basic level, these stories are fantasies of masculine power: the masterful male commands the female body to do his bidding and reveal its knowledge. There is comedy, of course, in the blurring of function between vagina and mouth—the earthy lower body inevitably tells a tale that refutes the refined upper body. It is important to note that what the vagina says does not merely contradict what the mouth says; it unerringly reveals the hidden truth of the situation. Just as the Ragionamenti and La Raffaella ironically imagine the sexual desires hidden behind a public façade of decorous femininity, in these stories, the mouth tells lies, but the vagina tells the truth of the body; it cannot lie. Indeed, in all these texts, the vagina is the truth, the essence, the thing itself. The truth of woman is her sex. The same assumption underlies Eve Ensler’s popular 1996 feminist play The Vagina Monologues, an episodic work in which women of various ages and backgrounds recount their sexual experiences, some positive, others negative. While the play was acclaimed for giving voice to women’s sexuality, it was also criticized for reducing women to their genitalia: as feminist scholars and activists Susan E. Bell and Susan M. Reverby wrote, “The Vagina Monologues re-inscribes women’s politics in our bodies, indeed in our vaginas alone.”53 But of course, in Ensler’s work, the author who wrote the lines and the actors who perform them are all women. The voices we hear are the women’s voices—not men’s imagination of what a woman’s voice might sound like if there was no man there to hearand record it. In Aretino and Piccolomini’s vagina dialogues, it is always only men talking—even if the characters are female. Piccolomini’s ventriloquized fantasy of female speech in La Raffaella is all the more remarkable given that the Academy of the Intronati,54 the organization under whose auspices he published the dialogue, was more arguably more open to women than any other sixteenth-century Italian academy. The Accademia degli Intronati [the Academy of the Stunned] was founded in 1525 by a group of six Sienese young men. The avowed object of the group was “to promote poetry and eloquence in the Tuscan, Latin and Greek languages” and their motto was: Orare, Studere, Gaudere, Neminem laedere, Neminem credere, De mundo non curare [Pray, Study, Rejoice, Harm no one, Believe no one, Have no care for the world].55 Membership in the Intronati was restricted to men, but as Alexandra Coller has argued, “women were awarded much more than a merely ornamental presence within the context of the academy [of the Intronati], whether as sources of inspiration, correspondents in educationally-oriented literary exchanges, or as discussants in female-centered dialogues.”56 Sometime around 1536, not long before he wrote La Raffaella, Piccolomini himself wrote a brief Orazione in lode delle donne [Oration in Praise of Women]. He delivered the oration to the Intronati in person on his return to Siena from Padua in 1542 and it was published three years later.57 Utterly rejecting La Raffaella’s notion that love must be sexually consummated to have any real value, Piccolomini’s oration draws heavily on the Neoplatonic idealization of love articulated in Pietro Bembo’s Asolani, and in Bembo’s concluding speech in the Fourth Book of Castiglione’s Cortegiano. In this discourse, love is primarily a spiritual discipline that paradoxically leads to a transcendence of physical desire. Women’s beauty is an earthly echo of divine Beauty, and Beauty can be used by the lover to reach a higher plane of spiritual awareness.58 Women are thus to be served, adored, and obeyed, in the way that a Courtier should serve, adore, and obey his Prince.59 Many texts written by members of the Intronati were dedicated to female patrons, including a translation of six books of Virgil’s Aeneid and Piccolomini’s own 1540 translation of Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, a classic treatise on household management.60 A text from the later sixteenth century, Girolamo Bargagli’s 1575 Dialogo de’ giuochi [Dialogue on Games], describes the activities of the Intronati in the 1530s, and attests to the support of the Academy by “many beautiful and noble ladies” (“Molte belle e rare gentildonne”).61 Some scholars have suggested that women may have even participated in meetings of the Academy, a rare occurrence in sixteenth-century Italian intellectual culture.62 An unpublished dialogue by Marcantonio Piccolomini, a kinsman of Alessandro and a founding member of the Intronati, imagines a scholarly dialogue between three Sienese gentlewomen on whether God created women by chance or by design.63 At the outset, however, not all the Intronati were so welcoming to women— at least if Antonio Vignali’s Cazzaria (1525) is any indication. Vignali’s dialogue, in many ways a defense of sexual relations between men, is a fiercely and crudelymisogynist text, a product of an exclusively male environment that denigrates women at every turn.64 The Cazzaria was a scandalous text. It was initially circulated in manuscript among the Academy’s members and was probably printed without its author’s consent. Although it was not publicly acknowledged or defended by the Intronati at any point, it was nonetheless written by one of the Academy’s founding members and was one of the most prominent products of the Academy’s early years.65 Piccolomini was surely familiar with the text— indeed, his kinsman Marcantonio Piccolomini (Sodo Intronato) appears as one of La Cazzaria’s main characters.66 However eccentric and outrageous it may be, La Cazzaria is arguably an accurate ref lection of the attitudes towards women of at least some of the Intronati’s founding members. If the Intronati’s respectful and inclusive attitude towards women represented in Bargagli’s Dialogo de’ giuochi is to be believed, things must have changed a lot by the late 1530s. But it is quite possible that the Intronati’s relatively positive public attitude towards women masked more negative private views. Perhaps Alessandro Piccolomini’s ironic attitude towards women in La Raffaella is a product of this conf lict. As we have seen, the Ragionamenti ’s attitude towards its female speakers is always ambivalent. But La Raffaella’s presentation of its speakers is much more straightforward. Raffaella is a manipulative woman who is working throughout with a very specific goal in mind—to convince Margarita to have an adulterous affair with messer Aspasio. Margarita is simply a dupe. Whatever Piccolomini’s praise of women, whatever support the Intronati gave and received from Sienese noblewomen, La Raffaella ironically suggests that women are fundamentally submissive to male desire. Raffaella’s considerable ingenuity is entirely subordinate to the schemes of messer Aspasio. She has no other function than to help him obtain his desires, and she is in many ways an abject character, forced to make her living by tricking young women into having sex with manipulative men. Piccolomini’s idealistic role as defender of women in his Orazione and elsewhere has an ironic echo in the dedicatory epistle to female readers that prefaces La Raffaella. Here Piccolomini insists that he has always been a staunch defender of women against their detractors. He claims that La Raffaella clearly shows “the appropriate life and manners appropriate for a young, noble, beautiful woman,” and holds up the character of Raffaella as proof that women are capable of “great concepts and profound statements and good judgment.”67 He decries the double standard that sees extra-marital affairs as “honorable and great” for men, and “utterly shameful for women.” He admits that if a woman were to be so foolish as to conduct an affair in a way that would arouse suspicion, that would be “a great error,” but he trusts that his female readers “will be full of so much prudence, and temperance that [they] will know how to maintain and enjoy [their] lovers” for years and years. “There is nothing more pleasing nor more worthy of a gentlewoman than this.”68 In the epistle, Piccolomini is doubling down on the joke that underlies La Raffaella as a whole: what women want most of all is satisfying sex with anattractive and f lattering young man. Anyone who helps them attain this goal becomes their greatest champion.As we have seen, Aretino’s Ragionamenti argue at length that at least some women prefer money, status, and power to sexual pleasure. But this is largely because the whores of the Ragionamenti are not comfortable, upper-class women like those in La Raffaella. Aretino’s whores want power, but his nuns and wives, whose material well-being is secured either by the Church or by their husbands, want sex. In the more elevated world of La Raffaella, the wealthy and well-born Margarita lives in luxury; all that is missing from her pleasurable life is a satisfying sexual partner. The condition of Nanna, Pippa, Antonia—and indeed of Raffaella, Piccolomini’s impoverished elderly bawd—is much more precarious. The single-minded pursuit of sexual pleasure, it seems, is a privilege of the upper classes, of those women who are not compelled to participate directly in a capitalist market for goods and services in which their sexuality is primarily a commodity used to raise capital. Aretino’s attitude to women is often disdainful and dismissive; Piccolomini almost always f latters his female readers. And yet, it is the Ragionamenti that imagine autonomous women who manage to hold their own in conf lict with men, whereas La Raffaella presents women who are entirely dominated by men in one way or another. The Ragionamenti fantasize about the ways in which women trick men; La Raffaella fantasizes about the ways women can be tricked. Aretino’s Nanna provides a powerful contrast to Piccolomini’s fantasy of feminine submission. In Book 2 of the Ragionamenti, when Nanna recounts her experiences as a wife, she does exactly what Raffaella urges Margarita to do— she takes young lovers who can satisfy her sexually in ways her impotent husband cannot. But the key difference is that Nanna makes that choice for herself—she is not tricked into it by a male suitor who is using a female confidant to manipulate her. Even before becoming a prostitute, Nanna is always looking out for herself. She tricks her lovers in the same way she tricks her husband. She plays to win and is never duped. And unlike Margarita, who promises to devote herself exclusively to messer Aspasio, Nanna’s adultery is utterly promiscuous: Once I had seen and understood the lives of wives, in order to keep my end up, I began to satisfy all my passing whims and desires, doing it with all sorts, from potters to great lords, with especial favor extended to the religious orders—friars, monks, and priests. Io, veduto e inteso la vita delle maritate, per non essere da meno di loro, mi diedi a cavare ogni vogliuzza, e volsi provare fino ai facchini e fino ai signori, la frataria, le pretaria, e la monicaria sopra tutto.69 Eventually she ends up stabbing her husband to death when he assaults her after catching her having sex with a beggar.70 It is hard to imagine Piccolomini’s wellbred Margarita acting in a similar manner should her husband ever catch her with messer Aspasio. Piccolomini’s Raffaella fits into larger trends in the ways in which Aretino’s Ragionamenti were read and assimilated into mainstream early modern culture.Broadly speaking, texts that were inspired or inf luenced by the Ragionamenti adapted Aretino’s text in ways that made it less subversive and conformed better to traditional ideas of early modern gender relations. Later editions, translations, and adaptations of the Ragionamenti focused on Book 3 of the first day, on the life of whores, and presented the text to readers simply as a catalogue of female deceit and monstrosity in which the satirical and subversive elements of Nanna’s character were downplayed in order to make her a purely negative figure.71 In a similarly reductive move, La Raffaella takes the notion that women will attempt to deceive men, and limits it to the particular case of aristocratic wives deceiving their husbands—a model which fits well into traditional discourses of courtly love that go back to the twelfth century.72 Women are represented as fundamentally passionate creatures that desire physical pleasures above all else, and these are found more naturally with young men in adulterous relationships than with respectable, mature, and neglectful husbands. Margarita’s husband spends too much time on “business” and not enough with his wife, and the well-bred and discreet messer Aspasio is the natural solution to Margarita’s problems. Raffaella the bawd is not disrupting traditional aristocratic patterns of behavior, she is facilitating them. As long as the affair remains discreet, everyone will benefit and no one will care. (Machiavelli makes much the same point in his play Mandragola, but in that case the satiric irony is obvious.) In La Raffaella the extent to which Piccolomini supports Raffaella’s argument is not clear. As we have seen, he explicitly endorses her point of view in his dedicatory epistle to his female readers. But the degree of irony in the epistle is an open question. It is enough that Piccolomini had deniability when he needed it—La Raffaella, as he later claimed, was obviously a youthful joke. Later commentators agreed that the dialogue, though seemingly immoral, was actually a witty jeu d’esprit. The nineteenth-century scholar and editor Giuseppe Zonta called La Raffaella a “jewel of the Renaissance, the most beautiful ‘scene’ that the sixteenth century has left us, in which didactic intent develops deliciously out of a comic drama” (“gioiello della Rinascita, la più bella “scena” che il Cinquecento ci abbia lasciato, dove l’intento didattico deliziosamente si svolge di su una comica trama”).73 Many things have been said about Aretino’s Ragionamenti, but no one ever claimed that they were a beautiful jewel.Notes 1 On sixteenth-century editions of La Raffaella, see Zonta, ed., Trattati d’amore, 379–82; Cerreta, Alessandro Piccolomini, 175–77. There are no known surviving copies of the 1539 edition. Zonta believes the first edition may have been published in 1540. 2 Aretino, Ragionamento della Nanna; and Dialogo di M. Pietro Aretino. 3 Moulton, Before Pornography, 132–36. 4 See the dedicatory epistle to “quelle donne che leggeranno,” Piccolomini, La Raffaella, 31. Unless otherwise indicated, all references to La Raffaella are to this edition. 5 On prostitution as a form of labor and commerce in the Ragionamenti see Moulton, “Whores as Shopkeepers,” 71–86.6 Moulton, Before Pornography, 132–36. On Aretino’s public image, see Waddington, Aretino’s Satyr. 7 Moulton, Before Pornography, 130–31. 8 Aretino, Sei giornate, 132–33. English translation: Aretino, Aretino’s Dialogues, 116. All English quotations from the Ragionamenti are from this edition. 9 Aretino, Sei giornate, 115–16; Aretino’s Dialogues, 102–03. 10 See Larivaille, La Vie quotidienne, esp. chapter 6 on the economic and personal exploitation of whores and chapter 7 on syphilis. On hierarchies of prostitution, see Ruggiero, Binding Passions, 35–37. 11 Aretino, Sei giornate; Aretino’s Dialogues, 135–36. 12 Aretino, Sei giornate, 283–84; Aretino’s Dialogues, 310. 13 Baldi, Tradizione, 106–07. 14 Piccolomini, La Raffaella, 41. All translations from La Raffaella are my own. 15 Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 121. 16 Piccolomini, La Raffaella, 119. 17 Ibid., 101–02. 18 Ibid., 94. 19 Ibid., 112. 20 Ibid., 113. 21 Ibid., 110. 22 Ibid., 135 n. 120. 23 Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 82–83. 24 Piccolomini, La Raffaella, 27. 25 Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 86. 26 Cerreta, Alessandro Piccolomini, 10–48. 27 “Molte cose che per scherzo scrisse già in un Dialogo de la Bella Creanza de le Donne, fatto di me più per un certo sollazzo, che per altra più grave cagione.” Dedicatory epistle to Piccolomini, De la Institutione. See Piccolomini, La Raffaella, 7. 28 He did publish two comedies: L’Amor costante (1540) and L’Alessandro (1545). See Cerreta, Piccolomini, 177–78, 187–88. 29 Piccolomini, De la Institutione (f. 231r-v). See Piccolomini, La Raffaella, 8. 30 Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 81, 161. 31 See the 1960 bibliography of Piccolomini’s published works in Cerreta, Alessandro Piccolomini, 173–96. 32 An Italian translation of Vives’ De institutione feminae christianae was published in Venice in 1546 under the title De l’institutione de la femina. A second edition appeared in 1561. Vives’ treatise was also the model for Ludovico Dolce’s Della Institutione delle donne (Venice: Giolito, 1545). Further editions of Dolce’s text were published in 1553, 1559, and 1560. 33 Burke, The Fortunes of the Courtier. 34 Trissino, Epistola. 35 Capella, Galeazzo Flavio Capella Milanese. 36 Kelso, Doctrine for the Lady. 37 See the chronological bibliography of 125 works on women published in Italy between 1471 and 1560, Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 156–65. Women did address the issue in unpublished texts, such as the collected letters of Laura Cereta (ca. 1488). See Cereta, Collected Letters. Published texts by women were more common is the later years of the sixteenth century. For an overview of “protofeminist” writing in early modern Italy see Campbell and Stampino, eds. In Dialogue, 1–13. 38 Baldi, Tradizione, 99–102. Piccolomini, La Raffaella, 11–15. 39 Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 108. On the larger influence of the Cortegiano on La Raffaella, see Baldi, Tradizione, 86–90. 40 Piccolomini, La Raffaella, 9. Baldi, Tradizione, 100–07. 41 Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 106, 118, 126. 42 Piccolomini, La Raffaella, 43.43 Aretino, Sei giornate, 139; Aretino’s Dialogues, 158. 44 Aretino, Sei giornate, 285, 291; Aretino’s Dialogues, 312, 318. 45 Bandello, Novelle, 1.34. Included in a list of licentious books, along with the poems of Petrarch, Boccaccio’s Decameron, and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. See Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 83. 46 Cerreta, Alessandro Piccolomini, 43–44. Piccolomini and Aretino corresponded in 1540– 41. Five letters from Piccolomini to Aretino are included in Marcolini, ed., Lettere scritte. See also Cerreta, Alessandro Piccolomini, 253–54. 47 “De là naît, comme dans les Ragionamenti, un texte provocateur, animé pare une ironie cynique qui, parodiant point par point les leçons habituellement données aux femmes, renverse la finalité d’une conduite désormais subordonnée à la recherche du plaisir”; “Piccolomini constate, comme l’Arétin, un divorce entre les principes ouvertement affirmés et la conduite quotidienne de ses contemporains.” Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 147–48. My translation. 48 Kelso, Doctrine, 78–135. 49 Harvey, Ventriloquized Voices, 32. 50 The Bechdel–Wallace test was first outlined in 1985 in Allison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. See Alison Bechdel, “The Rule,” in Dykes to Watch Out For (Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1986), 22. Bechdel attributes the idea to her friend Liz Wallace, and says the ultimate source is a passage in Virginia Woolf ’s A Room of One’s Own. See also Selisker, “The Bechdel Test.” 51 Rossia and Straub, eds., Fabliaux Érotiques, 199–239. 52 In order to silence her vagina, the Countess stuffs it with cotton, but the Knight is able to make her anus speak as well, and all is revealed. 53 Bell and Reverby, “Vaginal Politics,” 435. 54 On the Intronati, see Constantini, L’Accademia. 55 Maylender, Storie delle accademie d’Italia, vol. 3, 354–58. 56 Coller, “The Sienese Accademia,” 223. See also Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 86-103. 57 Coller, “The Sienese Accademia,” 224. A second edition of the Orazione appeared in 1549. See Cerreta, Alessandro Piccolomini, 189. 58 Moulton, Love in Print, 48–53. 59 Piéjus, ‘L’Orazione, 547. Coller, “The Sienese Accademia,” 225. 60 Piccolomini translated one of the six books of the Aeneid. For these and other examples, see Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 91–96. 61 Bargagli, Dialogo de’ giuochi, 22. Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 89. 62 Ibid. She cites Elena De’ Vecchi, Alessandro Piccolomini, in Bulletino Senese di Storia Patria (1934), 426. 63 Piéjus, “Venus Bifrons,” 93–96. The untitled dialogue is roughly contemporaneous with La Raffaella. 64 Vignali, La Cazzaria, 40–41. 65 Ibid., 21–26. 66 As well as appearing in La Cazzaria and being the author of the aforementioned scholarly dialogue between three women, Marcantonio Piccolomini (1504–79) also appears as the primary speaker of Bargagli’s Dialogo de’ giuochi. 67 Piccolomini, La Raffaella, 29. 68 “Io vi confesso bene, poiché gli uomini fuori di ogni ragione tirannicamente hanno ordinato leggi, volendo che una medesima cosa a le donne sia vituperosissima e a loro sia onore e grandezza, poich’egli è cosí, vi confesso e dico che quando una donna pensasse di guidare un amore con poco saviezza, in maniera che n’avesse da nascere un minimo sospettuzzo, farebbe grandissimo errore, e io piú che altri ne l’animo mio la biasmarei: perché io conosco benissimo che a le donne importa il tutto questa cosa. Ma se, da l’altro canto, donne mie, voi sarete piene di tanta prudenza e accortezza e temperanza, che voi sappiate mantenervi e godervi l’amante vostro, elletto che ve l’avete, fin che durano gli anni vostri cosí nascostamente, che né l’aria, né il ne possa suspicar mai, in questo caso dico e vi giuro che non potete far cosa di maggior contento e piú degna di una gentildonna che questa.” Ibid., 30–31.69 Aretino, Sei giornate, 89; Aretino’s Dialogues, 102. 70 Aretino, Sei giornate, 90; Aretino’s Dialogues, 103. 71 Such texts include Colloquio de las Damas (Seville, 1548); Le Miroir des Courtisans (Lyon, 1580); Pornodidascalus seu Colloquium Muliebre (Frankfurt, 1623); and The Crafty Whore (London, 1648). See Moulton, “Crafty Whores,” and Moulton, Before Pornography, 152–57. 72 On Courtly Love as a cultural phenomenon, see Newman, ed., The Meaning of Courtly Love. On the cultural origins of courtly love, see Boase, The Origin and Meaning. 73 Zonta, ed. 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Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Newman, F.X., ed. The Meaning of Courtly Love. Binghampton, NY: State University of New York Press, 1973. Piccolomini, Alessandro. De la Institutione di tutta la vita de l’homo nato nobile in città libera. Venice: Hieronymum Scotum, La Raffaella, ovvero Dialogo della bella creanza delle donne. Edited by Giancarlo Alfano. Rome: Salerno, 2001. Piéjus, Marie-Françoise. ‘L’Orazione in lode delle donne di Alessandro Piccolomini.’ Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 170 “Venus Bifrons: Le double idéal féminin dans La Raffaella d’Alessandro Piccolomini.” In Images de la femme dans la littérature de la renaissance: préjugés misogynes et aspirations nouvelles, Centre de recherche sur la renaissance italienne 8, 81–167. Paris: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1980. Rossi, Luciano and Richard Straub, eds. Fabliaux Érotiques: Textes des jongleurs des XIIe et XIIIe siècles. Paris: Le livre de poche, 1992. Ruggiero, Guido. Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power at the End of the Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Selisker, Scott. “The Bechdel Test and the Social Form of Character Networks.” New Literary History 46, no. 3 (2015): 505–23. Speroni, Sperone. Dialogo d’amore. Venice: 1542. Terracina, Laura. Discorso sopra tutti li primi canti d’Orlando Furioso. Venice: G. Giolito, 1550. Trissino, Giovanni Giorgio. Epistola . . . de la vita che de tenere una donna vedova. Rome: 1524. Vignali, Antonio. La Cazzaria: The Book of the Prick. Edited and translated by Ian Frederick Moulton. New York: Routledge, 2003. Waddington, Raymond B. Aretino’s Satyr: Sexuality, Satire, and Self-Projection in SixteenthCentury Literature and Art. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Zonta, Giuseppe, ed. Trattati d’amore del Cinquecento. Bari: G. Laterza,Della Porta’s brief thirty-two-page treatise on the art of memory1 appeared in print in Naples in 1566. There was another edition in 1583; in 1602 Della Porta published a revised Latin version of the text under the title Ars reminscendi.2 Despite the fact that The Art of Remembering did not see nearly as many press runs as Della Porta’s more famous works on natural magic and physiognomy, and despite (or because of?) its brevity, his art of memory was frequently utilized by seventeenth-century preachers.3 Given its author’s dubious reputation with Catholic orthodoxy—and his constant difficulties with the Inquisition—this popularity might seem quite amazing.4 In both a series of articles and a book chapter, Lina Bolzoni has discussed The Art of Remembering; my contribution here seeks to elaborate on Bolzoni’s work by examining the function of a peculiar sequence of images appearing in Della Porta’s text—images that inf luence the entire structure and character of The Art of Remembering. Della Porta recommends the use of explicit sexual fantasies as the most powerful images for organizing the process of recollection. The use of erotic images was not uncommon in the medieval and early modern tradition of the art of memory. Yet in Della Porta’s text, images depicting sex between human beings and animals are amazingly prominent (and especially in the two Italian versions of the Arte del ricordare than in the later Latin Ars reminiscendi ). Here I will argue that Della Porta’s use of pornographic and even, in the modern sense of the word, sodomitic imagery is not merely a consequence of the more innovative aspects of his instructions for developing the capacities of memory. Rather, these images resonate in other of Della Porta’s numerous and highly inf luential texts—namely, his texts for the theater, on human physiognomy, natural magic, cross-breeding, and marvels (meraviglia) in general. Such pornographic images thus refer to the core topics of his most important texts—and, accordingly, to his general endeavors as an early modern magus.5The art of memory Basically, the art of memory consists of imagining a spatial structure—for instance, a house with different rooms (loci )—and then furnishing these spaces with objects and persons (imagines).6 The next step is to walk through the rooms of this imagined building and to assign to each one item one wishes to recall, in the precise order of movement through the architectonic structure. Originally developed in classical antiquity for public orators, this method allows a speaker to recall the general content and order of a speech, but the “art of memory” was also used to recollect specific sequences of words. In this “art,” it is crucial to visualize and memorize a mental structure, with its loci and imagines, in the greatest possible detail. To facilitate this formidable task, the masters of the art of memory frequently recommended that the images have a strong emotional nature (imagines agentes). Conspicuously, manuals for the art therefore often recommend erotically charged images as imagines agentes.7 Remembrance thus becomes dependent on—and simultaneously synonymous with—exercising vivid (and, as we shall see, predominantly male) sexual fantasies. The imaginary loci populated by a sequence of well-ordered and striking images tend to acquire a life of their own. As Bolzoni writes: “it is easy to imagine how centuries of experience in memory techniques have given scholars some idea of the complex nature of mental images and their capacity to inhabit their creators, to come alive and escape their control.”8 And yet the affective movement of the soul, produced by recalling a set of emotionally charged images, clashes with the imperative of order that is the other vital aspect of the art of memory.9 Thus—in contrast to modern literary authors who acknowledge and actively employ this same phenomenon in developing their texts—the masters of memory were faced with the arduous task of restraining the life of their own figments.10Della Porta’s mnemotechniques Della Porta’s approach to the topic is characterized by a methodical pluralism that is typical for the art of memory. Along with the basic principles outlined above, he presents different ways of organizing memory.11 For example, he recommends memorizing a group of ten to twenty women whom one has loved to organize a system of pleasant and striking mnemonic images. He contends that when employing the phantasmata of women one has made love to or one has desired, one can succeed in remembering not only one word, but an entire verse or even several verses.12 Della Porta also states one particular system as his most innovative and preferred innovative contribution to the art. For setting up the loci, he recommends memorizing little neutral cubicles eight palms long, each populated with different impressive personae: here, the sexually attractive women one has made love to or has been in love with are placed alongside cubicles occupied by friends, jesters, noblemen, and matrons.13 Della Porta accordingly recommends the use not only of men and women personal acquaintances, but also of charactertypes—especially from comedy—that during the sixteenth century were populating contemporary stage plays. In this respect, The Art of Remembering follows a widespread tradition in sixteenth-century treatises, as seen for example in Lodovoco Dolce’s contemporaneous Dialogo del modo di accrescere e conservare la memoria (1562).14 Another important precept in Porta’s Art of Remembering is that the sequence of personae must vary; for example, he suggests “a woman, a boy, a girl, a relative, an elderly man.”15 It is crucial to note that this succession of personae is as fixed as the structure of the cubicles where they are placed—which they “inhabit,” as it were. This implies that the personae become part of the spatial setting, of the architecture of the memory palace, the locus.16 These loci/personae determine the temporal sequence in which the imagines appear, and in turn the content to be memorized in the correct sequence (this content I will term the memorandum). In contrast to the fixed personae, Della Porta defines the images as “animated pictures” which we construct or spin out ( fingere/recamare) using the faculty of fantasy to represent things and words.17 The images are mobile and variable: they constitute what the personae in their fixed sequence do. And these activities must be extraordinary in every respect; clothed in lavish and shining robes, the personae’s movements should resemble larger-than-life actors, presenting the mind with a “painting that is new, strange, marvelous, unusual, pleasant, varied, and horrific (spaventevole).”18 Moreover, an image should also be composed of a variable set of living and dead objects, which, like stage props, are added to the persona—for instance, a cornucopia or a swan. Della Porta recommends the use of relatively few loci/personae, condensing the sequence of memoranda to a maximum of ten images agentes, as comic and tragic playwrights would.19 One cannot help speculating that Della Porta discloses here a vital aspect of his writing techniques as a prolific and inf luential author of comedies.20 He obviously followed the advice of his predecessors, shaping his personae in ways reminiscent of the exceedingly grotesque personae in his mannerist comedies.21 The most salient feature of these plays is that they use a limited set of characters whose social roles and statues are fixed in a set of stock scenes.22 The practicability of this system is obvious, because there is no need to memorize hundreds of loci and imagines. Yet there is one obvious difficulty. This artificial memory is rather limited, because it will only allow the practitioner to memorize one story (or a sequence of ten words).Della Porta’s ars oblivionis This limitation is, of course, a general difficulty for the art. From the time of its invention, the ars memoria has entailed an ars oblivions, an art of forgetting, that in turn allows for the memory to be organized anew. This is a difficult task, because laboriously constructed chains of association between personae, imagines, and memoranda must now be erased.23 Della Porta says that if we wish to remember a new story or a new set of words, we can assign the same set of personae, in the same sequence, the task of forging a new sequence of images.To this aim, we must imagine the fixed sequence of personae in their cubicles, with these “usual suspects” stripped naked or merely covered in white sheets, all in identical upright posture, leaning with their shoulders against the walls of their cells.24 In Della Porta’s system, the sequence of personae set in neutral cubicles is a permanent pattern. He compares the personae to the lines on a specially varnished sheet for musical compositions; it is inscribed with permanent lines, but what is written onto them can be washed off. Thus, just as the musical notes (or signs) are impermanent and can be reinscribed onto that sheet in a new order, creating a new melody, so the old imagines agentes may be erased, with the personae free to assume the pose of new imagines agentes.25 It is not only the architectonic structure that functions as locus; the personae (who are usually classified as “images”) become an aspect or a part of “place.”26 The personae assume the paradoxical role of living statues—and this oxymoron aptly circumscribes the self-contradictory function of the memory images: in order to impersonate new imagines agentes, they should be plasmatic, but at the same time their bodies must remain precisely fixed in dress, comportment, gesture, and the corresponding affects communicated by these visual traits. However, Della Porta prescribes that even when the personae are imagined naked, leaning against the wall—in order to prepare them for a new role in another story—they should not be the neutral recipients of images. Rather, they must be imagined in a highly individualized form. And their actions are not arbitrary: Della Porta prescribes constructing these stock characters of the imagination in the most fitting way with respect to “age, facial traits, occupation, and comportment (mores).”27 The personae’s actions are predetermined by their sex, social status, and concomitant habits. Moreover, these actions of the personae—who become the permanent abodes of the variable imagines—have to be related to the content of the word or the story to be remembered. Della Porta’s technique of character development was an important and original modification of the traditional system of loci and imagines.28 In this way, the formal structure of the memory is brought into a strong— and reciprocal—relationship with the content that is to be memorized. In a key example, Della Porta writes that the entire story of Andromeda can be remembered by the image of a naked, shivering, and wailing woman chained to a rock.29 The setup of highly individualized loci/personae is vital for the intricate task of memorizing a sequence of individual images. Since more than one image is required, the spatial arrangement of the personae/imagines becomes very important. The Latin version of The Art of Remembering supplies the following example: if the word to be remembered is avis (bird) and the cubicle is inhabited by the persona of a boy, then he should be Ganymede; if it is “cook” then he cooks the bird;30 if the word is taurus (bull) and a robust boy inhabits the cubicle, then we should imagine Hercules wrestling with Achelous;31 if we wish to remember horn (cornus) and a virgin inhabits the cubicle, we visualize her covered in f lowers and fruits, like a Naiad with a cornucopia in hand.32The Italian Arte del ricordare gives different examples.33 If we suppose the word “bird” to be the memorandum for a prostitute (meretrice), Della Porta suggests constructing an image of Leda during sexual intercourse with Jupiter in the guise of a swan.34 This direction is confirmed in many other examples: for instance, under the memorandum “bull” in the locus/persona of a virgin, we might imagine the rape of Europa.35 If the memorandum “bull” embodies the locus/persona of a meretrice (prostitute), then we should forge an image of Pasiphaë having sexual intercourse with the bull.36 There is no doubt that the imagery of the vernacular Arte del ricordare is more graphic, more sexually explicit, and less polished than the later Latin version. Yet all the versions recommend sexually explicit, or at least erotically charged, imagines agentes. Another striking feature of Della Porta’s examples is that all memoranda— the “bulls,” “horns”— are words with sexual connotations. Of course, uccello “bird” in Italian denotes the penis; thus, the sexual connotation is as present in the memorandum as in the image. 37 This intimate thematic connection highlights the rule that imago and memorandum must be as closely related as possible. These examples reveal that Della Porta wishes his readers to entwine their individual memories of (present or former) personal acquaintances with the stories of classical mythology to construct imagines agentes; like interlacing arches, they support the architecture of the memory palace. It seems that the thematic link between imago agens and memorandum is rather uncommon in the art of memory. Usually the imagines agentes are used as placeholders for any content; for example, one could use the imagines agentes of naked women to remember any sort of text, not only erotic topics. Della Porta’s thematic over-determination would seem to imply that his true interest lay in the actual topics to which the imagines agentes and their corresponding memoranda refer; namely, a discourse concerning the human body, the porous boundaries between human beings and animals. Inherent in these tales of sex with animals is the generation of monstrous—marvelous—offspring.Panoptic visions and living statues From a Foucaultian perspective, Della Porta’s vision of the defenseless personae in their mental prison cells has a panoptic character (though the term here is used, of course, anachronistically). Whereas gazing at naked or sparsely dressed human bodies, even in the imagination, can be considered a form of symbolic violence, it is a technique of visualization in which the different qualities of men and women of various ages, sexes, and professions become—quite brutally— reduced to their physical features, because they are bereft of their clothing and the social insignia, which denote, circumscribe, and protect their social status and their moral integrity. This practice of examining the physical features of naked men and women is echoed in the art of physiognomy of which Della Porta considered himself a master. In fact, in his lavishly illustrated works on the topic we find many depictions of the naked bodies of men and women, with textssupplying the reader with the character traits (mores) ascribed to various medical complexions; that is, the constituent factors of human bodies and their affinities within the animal world.38 Measuring and classifying naked human bodies according to their occupational and concomitant social status was a widespread artistic practice during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries following the techniques for painters described in Leon Battista Alberti’s De pictura (On Painting, 1435). Della Porta very closely echoes and even plagiarizes Alberti, adapting Alberti’s instructions for painters into his art of memory. In order to create images that appear lifelike and therefore suited for communicating human emotions, Alberti recommends that painters first draw human figures naked and only subsequently dress them (“ma come a vestrie l’uomo prima si disegna nudo poi il circondiamo i panni”). 39 In this context, the parallels between Alberti’s and Della Porta’s ideas are obvious. In order to create emotionally charged imagines agentes they must be as lifelike as possible, which means—especially in the case of erotic imagines—that we undress the personae. Yet, whereas Alberti had pointed to the appropriate decorum of his images, Della Porta opts for larger-than-life-personae—for grotesque and exaggerated representations.40 Another point of reference between the De pictura and The Art of Remembering is that Alberti links his measurements of human bodies to the proportions of buildings. In Alberti’s context, an implied relation of architecture and body clearly results from the process of constructing representations of irregular, organic forms in central perspective. The architectural space must be circumscribed before inserting the non-geometrical figures which are to “inhabit” that space. The parallel to Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering is striking, since for him as well the personae are an integral part of the loci they inhabit. Paradoxically, Della Porta’s personae can be considered moving statues. On the one hand, they must be imbued with as much life as possible; on the other hand, they must freeze in one position, like a tableau vivant. But the idea that moving statues are sexually arousing is much older than Della Porta; Andromeda (one of the key examples in Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering) is described by Ovid as sexually arousing to Perseus, her liberator, because her naked body resembles a marble sculpture. “When Perseus saw [Andromeda], her arms chained to the hard rock, he would have taken her for a marble statue (“marmoreum esset opus”), had not the light breeze stirred her hair, and warm tears streamed from her eyes. Without realizing it, he fell in love (“trahit inscius ignes”).”41 When viewed from the perspective of contemporary theater, Ovid’s erotic statue of Andromeda brings to mind the “living statue” of Hermione in Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale (V, 3) or Othello’s description of Desdemona’s body as “whiter skin . . . than snow” and as “smooth monumental alabaster” (Othello V, 2, 4–5). On Shakespeare’s stage, this transformational power from living being to statue (and back again, in the mode of comedy) is associated with male violence against women caused by jealousy. Such marble statues may also play an important role in imaginings of pregnant women. In a more general context, tales of walking statues are associated with magical arts, as demonstrated in Apuleius’Metamorphoses, a work closely associated with magic. Lucius, the protagonist of this second-century Roman novel, describes his arrival in Corinth, the capital of Greek witchcraft: There was nothing I looked at in the city that didn’t believe to be other than it was: I imagined that everything everywhere had been changed by some infernal spell into a different shape – I thought that the very stones I stumbled against must be petrified human beings, . . . and I thought the fountains were liquefied human bodies. I expected statues and pictures to start walking, walls to speak, oxen and other cattle to utter prophecies, . . .42 A magician’s power thus is akin to what a master of memory does: turning one thing into another. This topic is intimately linked to Della Porta’s other interests in the arts of cross-breeding, of physiognomy, and of natural magic. Yet the relationship between Della Porta’s imagines agentes and contemporary painting becomes even more striking upon a closer examination of the individual imagines agentes ref lected in contemporary media.Ovid’s Metamorphoses as represented by Titian’s paintings Virtually all the examples in Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering refer to the thicket of myths recorded in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This is no wonder; as the most inf luential “pagan” text of the Middle Ages and beyond, the Metamorphoses43 constitute a substantial encyclopedia of the transformations of the bodies of gods and human beings—transformations caused mostly by violent sexual acts of transgression on the part of gods, heroes, or powerful men upon their helpless victims. Ovid’s text is thus a rich source for the primary task of Della Porta’s art of memory: not only to associate but to exchange one image for another. Moreover, Andromeda, Leda, Ganymede, Io, and Actaeon, to mention but a few of the imagines mentioned in the Ars reminiscendi, were highly popular subjects for contemporary artistic representation. It is thus no wonder that Della Porta explicitly refers to the paintings of Michelangelo, Rafael, and Titian in his writings.44 In the mode of synecdoche, these imagines agentes serve as abbreviations for entire stories that are reduced to one single imago agens, just as Della Porta had postulated in the case of Andromeda. Accordingly, Titian’s most famous works supply the reader with instructive illustrations for Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering. His key example, Andromeda (in Perseus and Andromeda 1554–56), is represented by Titian with a body as white as a marble statue, chained to her rock, with a vivid facial expression, her arms depicted in an unusual, expressive pattern of movement. The same applies to Europa (in Rape of Europa 1559–65), with the major difference that she is not shown in an upright position like Andromeda, but instead reclining against the back of the bull/Zeus; both female figures are naked, their sexual organs barely covered by a piece of white transparent garment. In all likelihood, this is whatDella Porta imagined as the lenzuola with which the bodies of his personae should be covered in their ground positions. Of course, Titian created many striking erotic female figures. One thinks of his many Venuses, but also his renderings of a seductive St. Mary Magdalen (1530–35) or St. Margaret (ca. 1565), paintings also remarkable for the impressive movements of their subjects’ arms as well as gesture, (lack of ) apparel, and extravagant demeanor. The myth of Actaeon is the subject of two of Titian’s most impressive paintings: the Death of Actaeon (1559) and The Fate of Actaeon (1559–75). In the latter painting, the hunter’s head is already transformed into the form of a horned stag. With the exception of Leda and the Swan (by Michelangelo), nearly all the mythological subjects mentioned in Della Porta’s treatise are represented in Titian’s most famous works. We thus do not lack examples of contemporary paintings illustrating the imagines agentes in Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering. Yet there is one notable exception: the story of Pasiphaë (on whom see below). Like the imagines agentes in The Art of Remembering, Titian’s figures seem to be frozen in their movements, despite their vividness. An entire story is reduced to one spectacular moment—a snapshot (to use an anachronistic term). This reduction is not merely a convenient tool for remembering a myth in a wink of time. It also constitutes an intervention eclipsing all other aspects of the story that are not represented in the one imago agens. Titian’s paintings, like Della Porta’s imagines, are evocations of a story in the mode of synecdoche. Alive and dead at the same time, they are fetishistic representations catering to a male gaze, for a specific set of sexual fantasies. Moreover, the fragmentation implicit in this process also allows for a reduction of different myths to a limited set of structural elements or topics which all point to one and the same topic. This is exactly what Della Porta does in the examples given in The Art of Remembering; he evokes one and the same topic (for instance, a bull) in various loci/personae and the concomitant imagines agentes they enact. Moreover, all the different topics he uses as examples for memoranda (bull, horn, bird) may be subsumed under one single general topic: sex between human beings and animals.Pasiphaë As I shall argue in what follows, the myth of Pasiphaë fulfills a paradigmatic function for Della Porta’s memory technique, since it corresponds so precisely with his preferred focus in natural magic, the mating of different species and the creation of marvelous monsters. The myth is well known. Pasiphaë falls in love with a bull, has intercourse with the animal, and conceives the Minotaur. The sexual act leading to this monstrous birth is made possible through the cunning intercession of Daedalus. This archetypal male master-engineer from classical antiquity constructs a cow-shaped wooden frame in which Pasiphaë could hide while being penetrated by the bull.45 The remarkably imaginative and colorful myth of Pasiphaë thus conjoins illicit sex, the art of the engineer, and the tale of a monstrous offspring.Pasiphaë is a woman in love with an animal. She has sexual intercourse with a real bull, with her desire thus inclined toward the animal world. Ergo, she impersonates a highly negative image of women in the patriarchal societies through which the myth has travelled. This gender bias is highlighted when we compare Pasiphaë to the rape of Europa.46 Both Pasiphaë and Europa are situated in a liminal territory of intersection between the animal, human, and divine— between bodies, souls, and noumenal entities. Indeed, Europa is an inversion of Pasiphaë’s story. Zeus here figures as a male lover and a god disguised as a bull who has sexual intercourse with the maid Europa. Her fate is oriented towards the stars. To have sex with a god in animal guise is a ticket to immortality. To have sex as a woman with a real animal leads to ostracism and to the birth of monsters. Thus, it is no wonder that there are copious visualizations in fine art of the myth of Europa, but virtually none of Pasiphaë. From the perspective of the art of memory, we may say that Pasiphae and Europa, as imagines agentes, are inversions of each other. The mode of synecdoche, whereby an imago agens embodies the stories of Europa and Pasiphaë, invites a synoptic perspective on both myths, connecting as intersecting arches in the image of a woman having sex with a bull. But this contradicts the specific image of Pasiphaë observed in the myth, where the woman engaged in sexual intercourse with the animal was a (real) bull covering a (dummy) cow. Pasiphaë in fact disguises herself in what one could call a statue of a cow-like imago in the art of memory, thus transforming the dummy cow into a caricature of a “living statue.”47 Yet this image, on face value, shows an act that can be observed frequently. The myth’s image of a cow and a bull mating (again, on face value) cannot qualify as an imago agens, nor is it clear why it should be used in Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering in the locus of the meretrice. This does not mean the wooden cow is irrelevant to the phantasmatic transactions that characterize the basic method of the art of memory, namely to exchange one image for another. For the myth of Pasiphaë points in an oblique way to Daedalus’s sublime craftsmanship, his ability to fabricate a wooden image which deceives a bull. Despite the fact that Pasiphaë is a witch (Circe’s sister), she seemingly has not been able to concoct a magical love potion that would sexually attract the bull. In order to fulfill her desire, she needs the help of a male master engineer. In Greek philosophical terminology, this ability to produce potentially eternally lasting objects (like tables) is called “poetic.” Daedalus is thus pursuing an activity that he shares with the poets. Indeed Daedalus’ prop is a powerfully poetic cow, and the image he created has the power to evoke a series of (brutally violent) images which are not the image: they are quite literally “in” the image. The dummy cow (with its dark inside where the male imagination can pursue its most graphic phantasies of penetration) is a model for the associative processes at work in the art of memory—but it is in itself not an imago agens. In marked contrast to Ovid’s version of the story, where Pasiphaë is disguised in a dummy cow, Della Porta apparently wishes his readersto create an imago agens in which a prostitute has sexual intercourse with a bull without recourse to Deadalus’ prop. Pasiphaë’s myth points to the idea that the birth of monsters, in this case the Minotaur, requires the intervention of a male mastermind, who not only helps to beget the deviant creature, but also provides the means to contain the dangers arising from it, for it is Daedalus who constructs the famous maze in which Pasiphaë’s child is imprisoned.48 This image of Deadalus as creator and container of monsters or marvels epitomizes the role Della Porta wished to assign to himself as a cunning magus.49 Here, at the crossroads between mechanical device and intervention into the organic body, Della Porta’s particular form of late Renaissance natural magic, physiognomy, and the theater unfolds. Actually, the imago agens of a woman having sex with a bull has an interesting relationship to Della Porta’s Magia naturalis. Here we learn of Della Porta’s keen interest in practices of cross-breeding between human beings and animals. To bolster his claims, he cites the usual suspects for such stories: Pliny, Herodotus, Strabo and their tales of women who were raped by billy goats, producing monstrous offspring.50 This leads him to believe that “some of the Indians have usual company with bruit beasts; and that which is so generated, is half a beast, and half a man” (Magick 2, 12, 43). Della Porta also contends that it would be possible for a man to inseminate a fowl under the right astrological constellation and the right medical complexion.51 In order to create a human/animal monster, Della Porta does not resort to the kind of contraption Deadalus constructed for Pasiphaë, but relies instead on his expertise in measuring, not the proportions of the head as did Alberti, but rather the lengths and depths of male and female sexual organs, the course of the stars, and the assessment of the medical complexions inscribed in the physical traits of human beings and celestial bodies alike. These parameters—basically a doctrine of signatures—are also the most decisive indicators in Della Porta’s texts on physiognomonics, where he postulates the close resemblance of human beings to certain animals, with attendant implications for the human character.52Apuleius’ Metamorphoses This impression is confirmed by looking at another imago agens where a woman has sex with an animal. In both the Italian and Latin versions of The Art of Remembering, Della Porta claims that we remember the woman having intercourse with the ass from Apuleius’ Metamorphoses better than we do the heroism of a Muzius Scevola.53 Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, the second-century novel better known as The Golden Ass, is an interesting source for The Art of Remembering, because Apuleius describes the sexual act between an ass (not a bull) and a woman in great detail.54 Lucius, the protagonist of The Golden Ass, is a young man obsessed by witchcraft who is transformed into an ass after he applied the magical unguent concocted by Pamphile, a powerful Thessalian witch. In the shape of an ass—although never losing consciousness that he is a man—Lucius livesDella Porta’s erotomanic art of recollectionthrough a veritable odyssey during which he is beaten and mistreated. When one of his many keepers discovers that this ass is particularly clever, he makes Lucius the object of special exhibitions and a rich woman falls in love with the ass and hires it. In contrast to Pasiphaë, this woman has sex with the animal without any recourse to a prop. Both Lucius and the woman seem to enjoy the act, in spite of his asinine and—hence proverbially large—sexual organ. This changes as soon as Lucius has to perform the act again, this time as a cruel public entertainment in an amphitheater, where a female convict, before being devoured by wild beasts, is sentenced to have intercourse with the ass. Lucius deeply resents this act and manages to escape.55 It is interesting to note that Apuleius explicitly links his salacious story of the wealthy woman who has sex with the ass to the myth Pasiphaë, given he calls the woman asinaria Pasiphaë (an ass-like Pasiphaë).56 The story is thus marked as a parody of the myth of Pasiphaë in the form of a blunt satire on late Roman mores. Upon closer scrutiny, this story of the noblewoman and the ass is—again structured by a set of inversions, an oblique evocation of the myths of the rape of Europa as well as of Pasiphaë. In Apuleius it is a man, Lucius, who has been turned into the shape of an ass—neither a god ( Jupiter) who willfully changes his shape into a bull (as in the Europa myth), nor a witch (Pasiphae) who desires a real bull and who needs the help of a male engineer to fulfill her desire. Instead, Lucius is a man who has been changed into an animal, not by a Pasiphaë (who was incapable of doing that job for herself ) but by another relative or follower of Circe—Pamphile. The sexualized content with a specific violence towards female bodies is deeply inscribed into the story of Apuleius and, consequently, in the imago agens prescribed in Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering, which again condenses the stories of Pasiphaë (the prostitute has sex with a bull) and the story of the sodomite noblewoman in Apuleius, as well as including the plan to showcase the act with female convict. The extremity of this imago agens is enhanced by the fact that such acts of bestiality were a capital crime in Della Porta’s time, primarily because they were believed to engender monstrous offspring, to humanize the animal world, and simultaneously to animalize the human perpetrators.57Io: more cows Another myth Della Porta mentions in his The Art of Remembering —this time, as an imago agens for remembering the word “horns”—is the story of Io.58 Her story is most pertinent because it concerns a beautiful Naiad who is raped by Jupiter and subsequently transformed into what Ovid describes as an extremely beautiful cow. In this shape, Jupiter wishes to protect the girl he has violated from the wrath of his ever-jealous wife. Unexpectedly, however, Juno likes the animal and receives it as Jupiter’s gift. Suspecting some ruse from her husband, she proceeds to have the animal protected by Argos, the moment in the story Della Porta employs as imago agens. According to Ovid, Io did not lose consciousness of herreal identity but, rather, terrified by her transformation, she seeks the company of her (human) family. Io’s father suspects that the tame, suspiciously human cow is his daughter. He exclaims in desperation that he had been “preparing and arranging a marriage (thalamos taedasque praeparam I, v 558), hoping for a son-in-law . . . now you must have a bull from the herd for husband, and your children will be cattle (de grege nunc tibi vir, nunc de grege natus habendus. v.660).” Eventually, Juno discovers Io’s true identity, her wrath subsides, and Io is fully restored to her former human shape. Similar to Apuleius’ story of Lucius in his Metamorphoses, Ovid describes Io’s transformations from human being into cow and back again in great detail.59 Io’s story is constructed as a set of inversions of the story of Europa. Jupiter approaches Io in the form of a human being (not as a handsome bull) and he transforms not his own body but that of the maid into the shape of a beautiful cow, a body in which the sexually abused girl is deeply unhappy. However, the affinities between Lucius and Io are even more striking; their stories appear as mirrored inversions along the gender divide. Both their bodies are transformed into the shapes of animals (a cow viz. an ass), both are beautiful and attractive in that guise ( Juno unexpectedly takes a liking to the cow, the noblewoman has sex with Lucius), neither of them lose consciousness of their human nature and suffer in their shape as animals (but Io seeks the company of her father, whereas Lucius wants his girlfriend back), both are subsequently transformed into human shape again, and both were originally transformed in order to escape imminent persecution. (Io is turned into a cow by Jupiter in order to protect her from Juno’s wrath, Lucius is mistakenly transformed into an ass in order to escape from the law.) The specific aspect making the stories of Europa, Io, Pasiphaë, and Lucius so significant for Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering is the constant interplay of various but related inversions of plots. Indeed, this method is intrinsic to the modes of transformation prescribed by this particular art.60 Interchangeability arises from the set of oblique inter-textual references and inversions of plots, as amalgamated in a given imago agens.61 In the mode of synecdoche, an imago agens is designed to represent an entire story in one image. This is a constitutive strategy of Della Porta’s mnemotechnique, which aims at the thematic interconnecting of persona/locus, imago agens, and memorandum. For example, a prostitute Della Porta has slept with (persona/locus) in turn embodies Leda having sex with Jupiter (imago agens) in order to remember the word bird (memorandum). Della Porta’s personal (phallic) imagination thus becomes entwined with classical myth. Within the positional logic of loci/personae in Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering, therefore, Leda, Io, Europa, Pasiphaë, the Roman noblewoman, and the female convict all become different imagines agentes into which one and the same memorandum may be inscribed. Thus, the porous boundaries between human beings and animals integral to Della Porta’s imagines agentes not only indicate his personal taste for a bizarre and grotesque imaginary and his studiesin physiognomy; they embody the basic principles of the Renaissance natural magic tradition of which Della Porta was a late (yet inf luential) exponent. It allows for a “syn-opsis,” a viewing together of very different stories that bolsters one of the foundational tenets of Renaissance natural magic: the universal drive for wholeness permeating the entire enlivened and sexualized cosmos, where the male and female aspects strive to unite. By dint of his profound knowledge of the occult sympathies and antipathies between things, the natural magus has the power to tap and organize these cosmic erotic forces so that he may produce his marvels.62 Within this Renaissance tradition, the human imagination has not only a specific capacity of the soul for evoking and then transforming images that originate from sensory perception. The human imagination also had the power to shape the body it inhabited, as well as other bodies.The formative power of maternal longings Renaissance natural magic coopted an ancient belief in order to exemplify the extraordinary formative powers of the human imagination. If a woman was exposed to a strong sensation or harbored an intense longing during intercourse or pregnancy, this state was thought to inf luence the formation of the embryo in her womb. Renaissance magi thus believed that the image of its mother’s obsession was impressed on the fetus and the future child would physically resemble the entity she had longed for during intercourse. Della Porta makes direct reference to such ideas and related practices. Initially, it appears that he is simply repeating the highly popular theories on maternal longings encountered in authors as diverse as Ficino and Castiglione.63 In the circular reasoning characteristic of natural magic, this set of beliefs about the imagination also opened implications for purposefully shaping future children, by positively conditioning the imagination of the mother. A frequently repeated segreto for creating beautiful children recommends exposing women during intercourse and pregnancy to paintings or sculptures of beautiful children, inf luencing the future child’s shape via beautiful imaginamenta.64 Della Porta refers directly to this bedchamber practice: place in the bed-chambers of great men, the images of Cupid, Adonis, and Ganymedes; or else [.  .  .] set them there in carved and graven works in some solid matter, [. . .] whereby it may come to passe, that whensoever their wives lie with them, still they may think upon those pictures, and have their imagination strongly and earnestly bent thereupon: and not only while they are in the act, but after they have conceived and quickened also: so shall the child when it is born, imitate and expresse in the same form which his mother conceived in her mind, when she conceived him, and bare in her mind, which she bare him in her wombe.65 It is fascinating that Della Porta’s two discourses on memory and on what one could call family planning are also interconnected through his choice of visualexamples, of imagines agentes. As in The Art of Remembering, we again encounter the images of Adonis and Ganymede and of Cupid. Significantly, in contrast to Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering, where predominately female personae cater to male sexual fantasies, all of the images that Magia naturalis prescribes for pregnant women are of beautiful boys. Della Porta’s ideas on the power of maternal longings entail a creative female capacity to produce such images in the shape of children; her imagination is engaged with the future. A master of the art of memory, on the other hand, is engaged in recollecting the past. Hence, the process in the pregnant woman’s imagination constitutes an inversion of the process prescribed in Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering: the woman’s imagination allows a marble statue to come alive, whereas the (male) master of the art of memory seeks to freeze the image of a living person (preferably a sexualized woman) into an imago agens—that is, he turns the figment to stone, symbolically killing the persona just when it appears to be most alive. This excursion into beliefs about the effects of maternal longings allows us to re-contextualize the mental process structuring Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering. The imagination is a faculty of the human soul capable of producing loci and imagines agentes, to be frozen into statues, into tableaux vivants. The story of the maternal longings confirms Della Porta’s creed that the human imagination can also materialize its products; in both cases, the image may be unfrozen and directed back to its starting position to assume a new pose. The master of Della Porta’s art of memory thus arrogates for himself a phantasmatic power over life and death, inherently a much greater power that the pro-creative capacity he has ascribed to women. The asymmetric gender bias that emerges in this account is instructive. As in the story of Daedalus and Pasiphaë, the art of memory also refers to the preeminent ability of the male magus to create monsters through artificial cross-breeding, whereas the imagination of a pregnant woman requires male protection and guidance to its power to shape future children.Conclusion The evidence for my claim that Porta’s choice of memory images in his The Art of Remembering is not arbitrary, but instead it is closely related to the overreaching project he pursued as author of texts on (and a practitioner of ) natural magic, physiognomy, and the theater. A set of classical myths—Andromeda, Europa, Io, Pasiphaë, and Aktaion—handed down by Ovid, parodied by Apuleius, and painted by Titian, was put to a specific use in Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering. In the mode of synecdoche, he instructs the reader on how to reduce an entire story to a single imago agens (for instance, the image of naked Andromeda chained to her rock). The imago agens thus functions as a synopsis of the entire myth. This oscillation between the modes of synopsis and of synecdoche—entailing a constant process of re-focalization—in effect constitutes the basic cognitive operation in Della Porta’s The Art of Remembering. Since it reduces a whole welter of ancientmyths to one common narrative, the mode of synecdoche facilitates the perception of thematic or structural affinities between different myths. Accordingly, a series of imagines agentes referring to very heterogeneous stories allows a leveling in our perception of these different narratives and their content. The mode of synecdoche is conducive to focalization on a single topic via myriad topical affinities (which become highlighted in the mode of synopsis). In Della Porta’s mnemotechnique, this re-focalization of a series of stories may transpire not only through a heightening affinity, but also in the mode of inversion (for instance, in the myths of Europa and Pasiphaë). In The Art of Remembering, this results in the reduction of the stories of Io, Pasiphaë, and Europa (as well as Apuleius’ asinaria Pasiphaë ) to the topic of women having sex with animals and generating monstrous offspring (bulls, cows, asses). This topical affinity is also pertinent to the relationship between of sexualized imagines agentes and memoranda (bulls, horns, birds). The imagines agentes operate within the imagination of the master of the art of memory. This particular mental faculty not only receives such images; it also has the capacity to transform them into new images—images which in turn have the power for transforming the human body. Not only does Della Porta’s laboratory of monstrous hybridization constitute a hotbed for the literary imaginary, but the literary image also models the reader’s imagination, and once the imagination is infected by an image, these images may acquire a life of their own. This reasoning has its ultimate proof in the belief that a pregnant woman’s fantasies inf luence the form of the future child. At the thematic intersections of literature, visual art, physiognomonics, natural magic, the core topic—sex with animals and the generation of monstrous offspring—becomes embedded (in the literal sense of the word) with personal erotic experiences. The women who have intercourse with animals are impersonated by the women with whom Della Porta has had—or wished to have—intercourse. As mnemonic personae/loci and hence as slaves of his erotic fantasy, they are forced to embody any role assigned to them by their master. Della Porta is thus obliquely portraying himself in the process of recollecting his own memories—living statues of women who have sex with animals who may be seen as surrogates for him. In a series of constant mise en abimes mirroring a phallic erotic imagination, Della Porta points his readers (and himself ) towards the center of a truly mannerist Minotaur’s abode.Notes I wish to thank Marlen Bidwell-Steiner for many invaluable discussions and comments. 1 On the art of memory, see Yates, The Art of Memory; Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory; Carruthers, The Book of Memory. 2 The Latin Ars reminiscendi was published 1602. L’arte del ricordare was purported to be the Italian translation by a Dorandino Falcone da Gioia, but this was in all probability a pseudonym for the author himself. Both texts are edited in Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi: L’arte di ricordare. For the first English translation of the Italian version and a well-informed introduction to the text in English, see Della Porta, The Art of Remembering/L’arte del ricordare. On the differences between the Italian and the Latin versions, see in that edition Baum, “Writing Classical Authority”; also Bolzoni, “Retorica, teatro, iconologia, 340, with footnote 5; Maggi, “Introduction,” in Della Porta, The Art of Remembering/L’arte del ricordare, 29–30; Balbiani on the fortuna of Della Porta’s Magia naturalis in La Magia naturalis. Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory, 175. Valente, “Della Porta e l’inquisizione.” On which see Kodera “Giambattista della Porta,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. For a succinct and highly influential discussion of the medieval technique of the art, see Rhetorica ad Herennium, ed. and trans. Nüsslein, 164–80 (bk III, §§ 28–40, XVI–XXIV); Yates, The Art of Memory, 63–113. On the medieval use of memory images, Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 59, writes: “Most importantly, it is ‘affective’ in nature, that is, it is sensorily derived and emotionally charged.” See also ibid., 109, 134, and 137. Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory, 130–31. Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 75. See for instance Dolce, Dialogo del modo, 26–32. As Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory, p. 137 (with footnote 12) has pointed out, it is interesting to note that the Ars reminscendi explicitly warns against the use of medicines or drugs for enhancing the capacitances of memory, whereas in Della Porta had presented such recipes in his Magia naturalis. Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 68. On the notion of phantasmata in Della Porta, see Kodera, “Giovan Battista della Porta’s Imagination.” Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 70. See Dolce, Dialogo del modo, 92 and the attendant notes directing the reader to medieval sources of this method. Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 70. Dolce, Dialogo del modo, 33–34, for example, does not try to assimilate the personae to the loci, but instead distinguishes between them. Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 17. It is interesting to note that Della Porta does not seem to be picky about terminology, as for him very different notions—similitudo, idea, forma, simulacrum are synonyms with imago. Ibid., 79. Galileo loved exactly such character traits in Ariosto’s heroes; cf. Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory, 211. Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 17–18. Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory, 167 has pointed to the fact that Della Porta is here quoting almost verbatim from Leon Battista Alberti’s, De pictura, 2. 40, arguing that “the theatrical tradition becomes a point of reference to the painter who has to paint an istoria.” For a discussion of the number of loci from a different contemporary perspective see Dolce, Dialogo del modo, 39–43 with many references to earlier sources. Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory, 162–63; Dolce, Dialogo del modo, 145, footnote 345 with much scholarly literature on the connections between the art of memory and theater. Kodera, “Bestiality and Gluttony.” Clubb, “Theatregrams,” has called these variable parts theatergrams. One possibility is to generate a locus which is then invariably used, because it is recharged with new imagines that have the capacity to store a new set of memoranda. Yet if this process of re-inscription of the extant structure proves impossible, one must destroy the entire setup. In order to do this, many masters of memory suggested methods that were outright iconoclastic; cf. Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory, 142–44. Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 18. Ibid. Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 131 on the pictorial turn of medieval art of memory. Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 76. Ibid. Ibid., 17–18.30 This otherwise puzzling imago seems to be a remnant from a manuscript version of the Arte del ricordare, which refers as examples for imagines agentes to one of Boccaccio’s Novellae, on Chichibio, of the Decameron VI, 4 (Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 77); in that version Della Porta also mentions two more highly salacious stories from the Decameron (III, 10 and VIII, 7); see Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 79 and 95; see also Baum, “Writing Classical Authority,” 159. 31 The hero Hercules and the river god Achelous were fighting over Deianeira, the daughter of Dionysius. During the battle between the two rivals, the bull-headed river god turned first into a snake and then into a bull, whose right horn is broken by Hercules; according to one version, Hercules took that horn down to Tartarus where it was filled by the Hesperides with golden fruit and is now called Bona Dea (cornucopia). Graves, The Greek Myths, 553–54; Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. IX, vv. 1–92. Observe that the cornucopia appears in the next imago agens. 32 Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 18. 33 This increasing prurience is a general tendency in Della Porta’s works and is probably due to the increasingly intolerant intellectual climate characterizing the last decades of the sixteenth century; on this see Kodera, “Bestiality and Gluttony,” 86–87 with references. 34 Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 77. 35 Della Porta here had openly referred to the myth, whereas in the Ars reminiscendi he only alluded to it—namely, by describing the iconography of one of Titian’s most famous paintings (the persona of a virgin sitting and playing on a bull and holding a crown over the animal’s head). 36 In the Latin version the prostitute was substituted with the lover of one’s wife. In the Latin version, ibid., 22, Leda is completely omitted. 37 The word ucello (bird) denotes penis, with birds commonly looming large in all kinds of erotic metaphors; on the semantics of ucellare (the word denoting prostitution, ridicule, and penis) see Alberti, “Giove ucellato,” 59–64; for similar contexts in Della Porta’s theater, see Kodera, “Humans as Animals,” 108–09. 38 Compare Schiesari, Beasts and Beauties, 61–64 for perceptive remarks on the gender bias of Della Porta’s Physiognomy. 39 Alberti, Della pittura, 122–24 (bk 2, §36) For a discussion of the relevant passages, see for instance Heffernan, Cultivating Picturacy, 71–73. 40 Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory, 167. 41 Ovid, Metamorphoses IV, vv 671–675; 112. 42 Apuleius, Metamorphoses: The Golden Ass, Book ii, § 1, 22. 43 See Innes, “Introduction,” 19–24. 44 So does Dolce, Dialogo del modo, 146-47, mentioning Titian’s Europa and Akataion. 45 Ovid, Ars amatoria libri tres, 26–28, bk. I, v. 289–326, Ovid., Metamorphoses, bk. VIII, v. 134–36; Graves, The Greek Myths, 293–94. 46 On Europa, see ibid., 194–97. 47 A caricature of the animation of statues by Egyptian magi, as described by Hermes in the Corpus Hermeticum, an account which it is well known, and haunted many renaissance minds; for a commented edition, Copenhaver, Hermetica. 48 A labyrinth, i.e., an architectural structure designed expressly to get lost in, as opposed to orderly architectural structures—and also the inversion of the clearly represented structure of loci in the art of memory. 49 See Kodera, Disreputable Bodies, 275–93 and Della Porta, De i miracoli, 23–25, bk I, ch. 9. 50 Della Porta, Natural magick, 43, bk 2, ch. 12. 51 Kodera, “Humans as Animals,” 109–15; Della Porta, Magia naturalis libri XX, 76, bk II, ch. 12. This passage is an elaboration of Aristotle on crossbreeding, from De generatione animalium 4.3, 769b. In this case Della Porta’s credulity is greater than that of many of his educated contemporaries, who were usually more skeptical about the possibility of producing offspring through sex between humans and animals. For a very interesting24452 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 6263 64 65Sergius Koderacontemporary discussion of the topic, which clearly accentuates the ways in which Della Porta is bending his evidence, see Varchi, “Della generazione dei Mostri,” 99–106. On this see MacDonald, “Humanistic Self-Representation,” Kodera, Disreputable Bodies, and Schiesari, Beasts and Beauties. Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 78–79. Cf. Apuleius, Metamorphoses lib. X, §§ 19–22. For a succinct introduction to that text, and relevant secondary literature, see Kenney in Apuleius, Metamorphoses, ix–xli. Ibid., 84–186; 190–94, bk 10, § 19–23; § 29–35. Apuleius, Metamorphoseon, bk. 10, § 19, l. 3. See Liliequist, “Peasants against Nature,” 408. On the increasing belief in the real existence of such hybrid animals in the later Middle Ages, see Salisbury, The Beast Within, 139 and 147. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk I, vv. 588–662 and 724–45, Graves, The Greek Myths, 190–92. Just see the example of the re-transformation: Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk I, vv 737–46, trans. Mary M. Innes, 48. For Lucius’ transformations into an ass and back again, see Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 52, bk 3, § 25 and ibid., 202–03, bk 11, § 13–14. In that vein of thought, many more things could be said also on the story of Hercules and the bull-headed river god Achelous (on whom, see above, endnote 31). The Arte del ricordare mentions not only association from the same (dal simile, Della Porta, Ars Reminiscendi, 80 and 81) but also aggiungere, mancare, trasportare, mutare, partire (ibid., 85) and trasponimento dal contrario (ibid., 95). Kodera, “Giambattista della Porta,” 8–9 for a short introduction to the idea that all things in the universal hierarchy of being are moved by the (irrational) forces of attraction and repulsion they feel for one another. Porta provides an impressive description of the macrocosmic animal, the male and female aspects of which mingle in a harmonious and well-coordinated way; cf. Della Porta, Magia naturalis, bk. 1, ch. 9. Della Porta, Natural magick, 51: “Many children have hare-lips; and all because their mothers being with child, did look upon a hare.” For an earlier source see Ficino, De amore, 252. For an introduction to the history of these seemingly widespread practices and the related artwork during the Renaissance, see Jacqueline Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, 128–39. Della Porta, Natural magick, 53.Bibliography Alberti, Francesca. “Giove ucellato: quand les métamorphoses sefont extravagantes.” In Extravagances amoureuses. 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Liliequist, Jonas. “Peasants Against Nature: Crossing the Boundaries between Man and Animal in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Sweden.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 1, no. 3 (1991): 393–423. MacDonald, Katherine. “Humanistic Self-Representation in Giovan Battista della Porta’s Della Fisonomia dell’uomo: Antecedents and Innovation.” The Sixteenth Century Journal 36 (2005): 397–414. Musacchio, J.M. The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. Nüsslein, Theodor, ed. and trans. Rhetorica ad Herennium. Düsseldorf: Artemis et Winkler, 1998.Sergius KoderaOvid. Ars amatoria libri tres/Liebeskunst. Edited and translated by Wilhelm Adolf Hertzberg. Munich: Heimeran, Metamorphoses. Translated by Mary M. Innes. London, Penguin, 1966. Salisbury, Joyce E. The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages. New York: Routledge, 1994. Schiesari, Juliana. Beasts and Beauties: Animals, Gender, and Domestication in the Italian Renaissance. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. Valente, Michaela. “Della Porta e l’inquisizione. Nuovi documenti dell’ Archivio del Sant’Uffizio.” Bruniana et Campanelliana 3 (1997): 415–45. Varchi, Benedetto. “Della generazione dei Mostri.” In Lezzioni di M. Benedetto Varchi, 85–132. Florence: Filippo Giunti, 1590. Yates, Frances A. The Art of Memory. London: Penguin, 1969.13 “O MIE ARTI FALLACI” Tasso’s saintly women in the Liberata and Conquistata Jane TylusThe second half of Torquato Tasso’s tormented life was taken up by his epic poem Gerusalemme liberata and the painstaking revisions he made to it following its unauthorized publication in 1581. Posterity has canonized the 1581 poem rather than its more sprawling successor, Gerusalemme conquistata, which Tasso proudly dedicated to Pope Clement VIII’s nephew when he published it in 1593. Posterity notwithstanding, Tasso claimed that his “poema riformato” was far superior to the earlier work largely because of “the much more certain knowledge I now have of myself as well as of my writings” (“la certa cognizione ch’io ho di me stesso e de le mie cose”).1 One result of this new certainty seems to have been if not the eradication of the Liberata’s female characters, at least the curtailing of their inf luence.2 The enchantress Armida virtually disappears after Canto 13, lamenting her failures to keep the Christian army’s strongest knight with her forever, and no longer converting to Christianity as in the surprising end of the Liberata. The princess of Antioch, Erminia, is denied her remarkable role in the Liberata as the discoverer and healer of the Christian knight Tancredi’s wounded body and the revealer of a secret plot against his captain, Goffredo. Two extraordinary Christian women are completely excised from the Conquistata: Gildippe, who dies fighting by her husband’s side in the Liberata’s twentieth canto, and Sofronia, who offered her life to save the Christian refugee community in a captive Jerusalem, and who, in turn, is saved by the Muslims’ most celebrated woman warrior, Clorinda. Only Clorinda’s tale is relatively untouched—with the exception of her rescue of Sofronia. Both the Liberata and the Conquistata tell of her strident independence and her baptism into her mother’s Christian faith as she lies dying by the hand of Tancredi, who has killed what he loved. This essay will not so much catalogue the Conquistata’s many revisions as attempt to gauge the changing role of the female body in Tasso’s epic practiceTylusand its relationship to Tasso’s growing ambivalence about the status of the “arti fallaci” in his poetry—a phrase, as we will see, that is uttered by the much altered character of Erminia toward the end of the Conquistata. And even if Clorinda and Armida continue to stand out in their memorable particularity in the Conquistata, they are joined by a new host of women who exist largely to create a “dynamic that is reassuringly familial,” as Claudio Gigante has observed, and who no longer possess the self-conscious artfulness that characterized female characters in the Liberata.3 The contrast allows us to see how potentially radical the Tasso of the Liberata was and at the same time how his transformations of women in the Conquistata are tied to his reconceptualization of himself as an epic poet.4 I will elaborate some of these arguments by turning to developments that led to the Conquistata, necessarily addressing selective incidents within both poems in order to depict the nature of Tasso’s poetic transformation. One episode in particular offers itself up for special consideration. It concerns a female figure in the Liberata who has not attracted much attention, and who, as mentioned above, is nowhere to be found in the revised poem: Sofronia.5 Willing to die in exchange for the salvation of her fellow Christians, she is rescued and subsequently exiled from Jerusalem. The contrast between this stirring episode in the Liberata and its muted aftermath in the Conquistata could not be greater, as the following pages will show. At the same time, they attest to what might be called Tasso’s desire for the organicity of his revised epic, a poem in which individual characters would be immune from the criticism launched against Sofronia herself. For according to the Gerusalemme’s first readers, the episode that centered on her in Canto 2 was “poco connesso” to the Liberata as a whole.6 This lack of continuity, in turn, has a stylistic echo in the infamous critique of Tasso’s language as “parlar disgiunto” or disjointed speech—a disjointedness even Tasso acknowledged when he claimed to have learned it from Virgil, admitting that it can tempt one to swerve dangerously from the “truth” in its pursuit of fallacious artistries.7 The path toward wholeness in the Conquistata thus marks a turn away from Virgil and toward the more narratively f luid Homer, as readers of Tasso (and Tasso himself ) have readily ascertained.8 But this path also goes through the body of the female, inscripted into the Conquistata as bearer of a new epic model of integration and personal loss. It is a body that the chastened Tasso, in his final critical writings on his poetic output, may also have recognized as his own. *  **  In the early 1680s, the prolific Luca Giordano executed a series of paintings for a Genovese palazzo recently acquired by the nobleman Eugenio Durazzo. Among the works Giordano designed for the entryway into a palace that was on the “must-see” list of every foreign visitor to Genova, were portraits of the death of Seneca and the Greek hero Perseus. But his paintings also featured a large canvas depicting an event from the Liberata’s story of Sofronia, the brave young woman who volunteers to die for her fellow Christians and who, along with the man who loves her, is saved by Clorinda. Moved by the taciturn stance of thefemale victim before her, Clorinda asks Aladino, Jerusalem’s king, to free the two Christians in exchange for her promise that she will perform great deeds in Jerusalem’s defense, and Giordano chooses to display this moment in his work9 (Figure 13.1).10 At the same time, Clorinda’s back is turned, so that the real savior of the two Christians bound at the stake seems to be a painting of Mary which angels are holding aloft—suggesting that Giordano’s work may also be about the salvific powers of art. Mariella Utili has written of Giordano’s intent to throw into relief the religious aspect of the story: “the exaltation of Christianity, which had been the basis for the immediate success of Tasso’s poem and which many other artists before Giordano had noted as well.”11 Yet with respect to the episode of Sofronia and her would-be lover Olindo, who begs to die with her, such a remark might seem ironic. For this story provoked almost more than anything else in the epic the concerns of the poem’s Inquisitorial readers, and in turn Tasso’s worries aboutFIGURE 13.1Luca Giordano, “Olindo e Sofronia,” Palazzo Reale gia’ Durazzo (Genova).Photo credit: Zeri Photo Archive, Bologna, inv. 110885.the extent to which its inclusion would threaten the Liberata’s publication. So much so, that in a telling letter written on April 3, 1576 to his friend and literary confidant Scipione Gonzaga he writes, “Io ho giá condennato con irrevocabil sentenza alla morte l’episodio di Sofronia” (“I’ve already condemned the episode of Sofronia to death, and my decree is absolute”).12 Having barely escaped death at the hands of Jerusalem’s king, Sofronia was condemned anew by Tasso. The reasons for this condemnation are several, even as the episode contains within itself a germ of the process that will define Tasso’s method in the Conquistata. One reason certainly has to do with the painting which Giordano has f loating in the sky—a touch unaccounted for in the Liberata itself, but prepared for by the odd narrative Tasso weaves in the opening of Canto 2. For the catalyst that set off a tyrant’s rage, leading him to sentence Jerusalem’s Christians to death, is indeed a work of art: an image of Mary taken from the Christians’ church by the magician and former Christian Ismeno, who is convinced of its supernatural abilities to protect the walls of the city against the Crusaders. He places Mary’s picture in a mosque so as to provide “fatal custodia a queste porte.”13 For reasons on which Tasso coyly refuses to pronounce—(“O fu di man fedele opra furtiva, / o pur il Ciel qui sua potenza adopra, / che di Colei ch’è sua regina e diva / sdegna che loco vil l’imagin copra: / ch’incerta fama è ancor se ciò ascriva / ad arte umana od a mirabil opra”; “It was either the work of a stealthy hand, or heaven interposed its potent will, disdaining that the image of its queen be smuggled somewhere so contemptible” [2: 9]14)—the immagine mysteriously disappears from the mosque into which Ismeno has smuggled it. Certain that the Christians have contrived to steal it back, Aladino plots for them universal slaughter, until the beautiful Sofronia steps forward to take the blame so that her people will not die, a confession the narrator describes as a “magnanima menzogna,” a magnanimous lie. In a letter, however, written soon after he released the poem to an official reading, Tasso seems fearful that the stolen immagine has invoked the ire not of Aladino but of Silvio Antoniano, the Roman Inquisitor and official in charge of granting the right of nihil obstat for books published in Rome. Writing to Luca Scalabrino on a later occasion, he continued to insist on excising the “episodio di Sofronia”: “perch’io non vorrei dar occasione a i frati con quella imagine, o con alcune altre cosette che sono in quell’episodio, di proibire il libro” (“I don’t want to give the friars a chance to condemn the book because of that image, or because of any other little things found in the episode”).15 Much of interest has been written of the status of images in the aftermath of Trent, some of it in regard to the poem’s second canto. As Naomi Yavneh has pointed out, Trent was preoccupied with limiting the role that excessive popular devotion played in religious life, and its stance on images was no exception: it perforce needed to clarify the extent to which “immagini” were only the simulacri for the things to which they pointed. As such, the importance of an object in referencing beyond itself—its deictic function—was accentuated by the orthodox proclamations from the 1570s and 1580s. One typical characterization of the post-Tridentine image, although from the Seicento, is offered by the JesuitGiovanni Domenico Ottonelli. He suggests that in gazing at a painting, “which represents something other than the thing which it resembles, and from which it takes its name” (“che rappresenta un’altra cosa, di cui tiene la simiglianza, e prende il nome”), one must recognize that “while the image renders visible what is invisible, the image is only worthy of honor by virtue of resemblance, not substance.”16 Moreover, as Yavneh goes on to point out, in the episode from Tasso’s Liberata, the transformation of the painting of Mary into a thing of “substance”— i.e., it alone can save Jerusalem from harm—is initiated by the renegade Christian, Ismeno, unable to leave his former religion completely behind him (“Questi or Macone adora, e fu cristiano, / ma i primi riti anco lasciar non pote; / anzi, in uso empio e profano / confonde le due leggi a se’ mal note”; “He adores Mohammed, as once he adored Christ, but cannot now abandon the first way, so often to profane and evil use confounds the two religions out of ignorance” [2: 2]). It is Ismeno who recommends that Aladino place “questa effigie lor” of Mary, “diva e madre” or goddess and mother of the Christian’s god (2: 5) into the mosque because of its talismanic status—an idolatrous reading in which the Christians, who leave their offerings before the “simulacro” do not, apparently, concur.17 One can only speculate as to what about the “immagine” in Canto 2 might have angered Tasso’s inquisitorial reader; the letter from Antoniano detailing his objections to the Liberata does not survive. But it is striking that another vergine, Sofronia, proclaims for herself the protective status Ismeno gave to the immagine of Maria. Her sacrifice thus effects a substitution originally engineered by the apostate. She too adopts the language of female uniqueness when boldly stating to the king Aladino her “crime”: “sol di me stessa, sol consigliera, sol essecutrice” (“I was the only one [who knew of it], one counselor, one executor alone”; 2: 23). When Olindo challenges Sofronia’s magnanimous lie, arguing that a mere woman would be unable to carry out the theft, she insists again on her autonomy: “Ho petto anch’io, ch’ad una morte crede / di bastar solo, e compagnia non chiede” (“I too have a heart, confident it can die but once. It does not ask for company”; 2: 30). But Tasso links her in other ways to the Madonna that Ismeno made into a singularly potent object. As commentators have noticed, Tasso compares her to the stolen image when her veil and mantle are roughly taken from her when she is led to the stake.18 Just as Mary’s image, “enveloped in a slender shroud” (“in un velo avolto”; 2: 5) was seized (“rapito”) by Ismeno, so are Sofronia’s veil and mantle seized from her (“rapit[i] a lei [Sofronia] il velo e ’l casto manto”; 2: 26). And an allusion to Mary’s face (“il volto di lei”) returns with “smarrisce il bel volto in un colore / che non è pallidezza, ma candore” (“the lovely rose of [Sofronia’s] face is lost in white which is not pallor, but a glowing light”; 2: 26). And yet the resonances between Sofronia and an inimitable female figure do not end here. Giampiero Giampieri has noted that the white coloring of Sofronia at the stake is echoed eleven cantos later when Clorinda, the third vergine of the canto, dies at Tancredi’s hands. This pale demeanor at death’s arrival in turn has its haunting origins in the phrase accompanying the suicides of Virgil’smost prominent female character, Dido, and the historical figure on whom she is partially modelled, Cleopatra. These intertextual allusions thus trace an unsettling historical trajectory, insofar as far from being “vergini,” unlike their Tassian counterparts, both women are known for their sensuality and, in Dido’s case, unrequited passion. At the same time, Clorinda, like Sofronia, occupies the role enjoyed by Dido and Cleopatra before romantic liaisons led them astray. They are all the singular, female supports of their people. When Islam’s powerful woman warrior enters Jerusalem in Canto 2, Clorinda is defined as the self-sufficient savior of a people that Sofronia and—according to Ismeno—the immagine of Mary have been before her. In greeting Clorinda, Aladino bestows on her the signal distinction of the warrior who alone can protect the city (“non, s’essercito grande unito insieme / fosse in mio scampo, avrei più certa speme”: “though a whole host should come to rescue me, I would not hope with greater certainty”; 2: 47). Not only does he concede to her his scepter (“lo scettro”) but he adds, “legge sia quel che comandi” (“let the law be what you command”; 2: 48), an honor that prompts Clorinda to ask for her reward in advance: the release of the two Christians.19 Even as Clorinda will exact bloody penalties on the Christians who attack the city to which she pledges her protection, this fantasy of female potency that begins in Canto 2 will be eclipsed outside Jerusalem’s walls when Clorinda is killed by Tancredi: Meanwhile they whispered of the bitter chance behind the city wall confusedly till finally they learned the truth. At once through the whole town the bad news made its way mingled with cries and womanly laments, as desperate as if the enemy had taken the town in battle and f lew to raze houses and temples and set the ruins ablaze. Confusamente si bisbiglia intanto del caso reo ne la rinchiusa terra. Poi s’accerta e divulga, e in ogni canto de la città smarrita il romor erra misto di gridi e di femineo pianto; non altramente che se presa in guerra tutta ruini, e ’l foco e i nemici empi volino per le case e per li tèmpi. (12: 100) The defeat of a city in wartime evoked in this moving simile is the fate that Ismeno believes Jerusalem will avoid if Mary’s image is placed in the mosque; that Sofronia believes her people will avoid if she dies at the stake; and thatAladino believes his kingdom will avoid if Clorinda agrees to defend his city. And the moment, of course, looks backward again to Virgil, and to the demise of another city, Carthage, upon the death of another singular woman. “The palace rings with lamentations, with sobbing and women’s shrieks, and heaven echoes with loud wails—even as though all Carthage or ancient Tyre were falling before the inrushing foe, and fierce f lames were rolling on over the roofs of men, over the roofs of gods” (IV: 667–71).20 The “città smarrita,” the urbs in ruin: in both Aeneid 4 and the Liberata, the figurative collapse of the city, portrayed in a simile that reveals the grim devastations of war, is tied to the death of a woman characterized as savior. And in both cases, the two cities of these respective poems will be invaded by the enemy—one during the Punic Wars that are only predicted in the Aeneid, the other in Canto 20 of the Liberata. At the same time, the simile of Canto 12 following Clorinda’s death can be said to silence the diabolical suggestion that women’s bodies might be sufficient protection for Jerusalem’s community; or in rhetorical terms, that the female body stands in an analogical relationship to the city and can procure its health. Sofronia’s self less action in Canto 2 procures temporary salvation for the Christians. But genuine salvation arrives only eighteen cantos later, when Goffredo’s troops invade Jerusalem and secure it for its “rightful” owners. In the meantime, Sofronia, like the Madonna’s image, has been withdrawn forever from the poem. Following her rescue by Clorinda, she does not refuse Olindo her hand in marriage, and with him and others “di forte corpo e di feroce ingegno” (whose bodies are robust and spirits bold; 2: 55) she is banished, so fearful is Aladino of having so much virtue nearby (“tanta virtù congiunta . . . vicina”; 2: 54). Some of the banished wandered aimlessly (“Molti n’andaro errando”; 2: 55) while others traveled to Emmaus where Goffredo’s troops are gathered. Of Sofronia and Olindo, however, no more is heard. All Tasso divulges of their fate is that they both went into exile beyond the bounds of Palestine (2: 54). Such a finale to Sofronia’s sacrificial offering ensures—intentionally, it would seem— that the episode is indeed “poco connesso” to the rest of the poem. Inserted into the beginning of the Liberata, the story of Sofronia operates as a virtually self-contained unit, ending with its main protagonist banished from Jerusalem. That the episode can be said to trace Tasso’s ambivalences regarding “tanta virtù congiunta” in not one, but three, female characters, is suggested by both Sofronia’s and the immagine’s summary dispatch from the poem—as though to insist on the heretical nature of Ismeno’s view of the painting, and the women’s views of themselves, as sufficient to protect a city.21 But there may be another link between the exiled women and the immagine. The latter is both more and less than an icon: it is a work of art, in ways which the woman themselves may replicate. Much of the threat represented by Sofronia has to do with her inscrutability, which mirrors the unknowability of the immagine’s fate and of the painting itself. Moved by generosity and “fortezza,” Sofronia exits alone among the people (“tra ’l vulgo”) after Aladino orders the Christians’ houses burned. But as she journeys publicly to meet the king, Tassointroduces some seemingly gratuitous phrases: she neither “covers up her beauty, nor displays it,” and “Non sai ben dir s’adorna o se negletta, / se caso od arte il bel volto compose” (“If chance or art has touched her lovely face, if she neglects or adorns herself, who knows”; 2: 18). Similarly, she is described in relationship to the young Olindo, who has loved her desperately from afar, as either “o lo sprezza, o no ‘l vede, o non s’avede” (“she scorns him, or does not see him, or takes no note”; 2: 16), and of her considerable beauty, she “non cura, / o tanto sol quant’onesta’ se ’n fregi” (“cares not for it, or only as much as required by honor’s sake”; 2: 14). Even as Tasso depicts her as a “virgin of sublime and noble thoughts” (“vergine d’alti pensieri e regi”), he wastes no time in adding that she is also “d’alta beltà” (2: 14), suggesting that we do not know whether Sofronia is aware of her beauty’s effect on her admirers. In short, she is the product of an artfulness that at once belies her sincerity and renders her inaccessibility to public scrutiny even more pronounced. Indeed, Sofronia is impugned throughout Canto 2 in various ways that can only force the reader to suspect if not her motive—which emerges following her struggle to balance masculine virility or “fortezza” and female modesty (“vergogna”)22—then at least her self-presentation in a public space. And because she is a woman, “amore” emerges as the vehicle through which her integrity can be compromised. Or as Tasso says in introducing Olindo and in returning to the language used only several stanzas before of the chaste image of Mary and its supposed ability to provide “fatal custodia” to the gates of Jerusalem: “tu [amor] per mille custodie entro a i più casti/ verginei alberghi il guardo altrui portasti” (“although a thousand sentinels are placed, you [Love] lead men’s glances into the most chaste of dwellings”; 2: 15). The uncertain status of Sofronia’s agency and her inability to control the reception of her offer are highlighted again after the king, furious over her assertions that she was right to steal the image, orders her to be burned: “e ’ndarno Amor contr’a lo sdegno crudo / di sua vaga bellezza a lei fa scudo” (“too slight a shield is womanly grace for Love to f ling against the crude resentment of the king”; 2: 25): as though she—or Love working through her—might cunningly be able to soften the tyrant in his resolve. The manner in which Sofronia is tied to the stake—her veil and “casto manto” stripped violently from her and used to tie “le molli braccia” (2: 26)—and the ensuing appearance of Olindo beside her, “tergo al tergo,” heighten the barely suffused sensuality of the preceding stanzas in which Sofronia’s ambiguously constructed femininity has been a muted but persistent theme. “O caso od arte.” This is the phrase that threatens to turn Sofronia into the seductress Armida, who appears two cantos later at the threshold of the Christians’ camp to lure the Crusaders away from war. Sofronia is no Armida. Yet in depicting Sofronia’s inner conf lict between “fortezza” and “vergogna,” while refusing to declare the extent of Sofronia’s artful self-consciousness, Tasso highlights the problems that emerge when a woman thrusts herself into the public gaze.23 The questioning presence of male spectators, a group into which Tasso inserts the (male) reader by way of the narrator’s interventions, ultimately pointsto the inability of Sofronia—and by extension, of the immagine of Mary and of Clorinda, who has already unknowingly inspired the passion of the Christian knight Tancredi—to control the effects of her self-presentation. Like the Didos and Cleopatras before her, she is unable to escape from the controlling system of gender that makes her into the object gazed upon and fantasized about as though she were a work of art. At the same time, what prevents Sofronia from becoming a martyr and hence giving her life for her people is another woman, Clorinda: who at first appears to the populous as a male warrior (“Ecco un guerriero [ché tal parea]”) but who is betrayed as a woman by her insignia, the tiger. When Clorinda enters into the crowded piazza where the two Christians are tied to the stake, she notes Olindo weeping “as a man weighed down with sorrow, not pain” (“in guisa d’uom cui preme / pietà, non doglia)” while Sofronia is silent, “con gli occhi al ciel si fisa / ch’anzi ‘l morir par di qua giù divisa” (“her eyes so fixed on heaven that she seems to be leaving this world before she dies”; 2: 42). Clordina’s response to this sight—a Clorinda raised in the woods and led to disdain female pastimes such as sewing and embroidery—is extraordinary: “Clorinda intenerissi, e si condoles / d’ambeduo loro e lagrimonne alquanto” (“Clorinda’s heart grew tender at this sight; she grieved with them, and tears welled up in her eyes”; 2: 43). Such tenderness leads her to ask for the two Christians as a gift in advance of her promised salvation of the city: a salvation, as we will soon know, she can never achieve. Her pity for a woman like herself—at once self-contained and yet vulnerable to others’ fantasies about her sexuality—breaks through the religious and ethnic differences on which the Liberata as a whole depends, and arguably questions for Muslims and Christians alike the very premise of the war. Clorinda will be revealed later in the poem as the daughter of a Christian mother, and in retrospect one might see her recognition of herself in Sofronia as a premonition of her true identity. Yet, at this early point in the poem, her alignment of herself with Sofronia, along with Tasso’s allusions to Virgil’s fateful women, creates a potentially scandalous community of women whose unpredictable and often unreadable actions threaten to undo the transcendental militarism on which the poem is based. The crisis of the immagine, in Ismeno’s feverish recasting of its significance, is like that of the women who are endlessly substituted for it: complete within itself, it has no deictic function, failing to refer beyond itself to heavenly powers. Sofronia, too, points only to herself (“Sol essecutrice”), a presumed self-sufficiency that Tasso’s narrator translates into inaccessibility. It creates for Sofronia the same unknowable status of the stolen painting, and an unknowability Clorinda can only admire, and in which she similarly partakes. Tasso’s simile of the city that dissolves into f lames upon Clorinda’s death ten cantos later is thus ultimately a failed simile. That he will go on to banish all of his Christian women from the end of the Liberata suggests both his attempt to contain the threat represented by the female figures of Canto 2 and his inability to integrate Christian and Muslim women alike into the culminating events of the poem. Clorinda and Gildippe are dead, Erminia is in an “albergo” somewherewithin the city, Armida utters words of conversion but only on Jerusalem’s outskirts, and Sofronia has disappeared forever. To be sure, on the one hand, Tasso’s poem generally refuses to allow any character to stand in for the whole and thus represent the city, earthly or celestial, by him or herself, as the belated “Allegoria del Poema” attests and as numerous episodes involving Rinaldo and Goffredo suggest.24 In an early letter, Tasso protests the custom of romance that allows single characters to decide the fate of entire empires: “non ricevo affatto nel mio poema quell’eccesso di bravura che ricevono i romanzi; cioè, che alcuno sia tanto superiore a tutti gli altri, che possa sostenere solo un campo” (“In my poem, I don’t allow that excess of bravura that the romance welcomes, in which one figure emerges as greater than all the others, capable of defending the battlefield all by himself ”).25 To this extent, transforming the painting of Mary or the body of Clorinda into singularly protective forces copies the excess of romanzi which Tasso claims to avoid. Only the uniting of Goffredo’s “compagni erranti” or wandering companions under “i santi segni” can win for the Christians their city (1:1). The liberation of Jerusalem is the work not of women, but of men; and not of a single man, but many. On the other hand, unlike Goffredo or Rinaldo, these “virtuous” women do indeed disappear from the poem, suffering the fate of the “poco connesso” and summarily excluded from the larger body into which Tasso incorporates his men in the “Allegoria.” Yet is such exclusion ultimately a penalty? While at work on the Liberata, Tasso was penning his brief pastoral play, the Aminta, where he experiments with the inaccessibility of a vergine in the figure of Silvia, whose own near-violation while tied to a tree is reminiscent, even in its phrasing, of Sofronia’s violent torture. The Liberata’s “Già ’l velo e ’l casto manto a lei rapito, / stringon le molli braccia aspre ritorte” (“they tear away her veil and her modest cloak, bind hard her tender hands behind the back”; 2.26) echoes Silvia’s victimization at the Satyr’s hands.27 But the exposure of Silvia’s and Sofronia’s bodies is in turn contrasted with the degree to which they refuse to be contaminated by the violence that surrounds them even as they are vulnerable to varying interpretations of their sincerity. The fact that following their rescues neither female character is seen again suggests an additional layer of inscrutability, as though Tasso chose to protect the privacy of his vergini from those who would compromise their virtue.28 Perhaps only in a world where epic values— the seizing of Jerusalem from the renegade Ismeno and the infidel Turks—are unequivocally positive can Sofronia’s premature departure be construed as a loss, rather than a gain. The phrase used with respect to the mosque from which Mary’s image is taken—“a vile place heaven holds in disdain”—might stand in for the contaminated city as a whole that Sofronia inhabits with other embattled Christians. Tasso’s own narrative gesture with regard to all women of “fortezza,” Clorinda included, saves them from the bitter militarism that informs the second half of his poem, preserving for them a space offstage—or above it. But Tasso continued to ponder the ideal relationship of the female body to his epic project, one which would rely on integration rather than separation. Such integration demanded a very different kind of poem from the Liberata, whoseMuslim male warriors, if not its women, are diabolical figures from whom the city must be wrested. The Conquistata has typically been glossed as a work that celebrates the Counter-Reformation Church in all its militancy. But attentiveness to the new women of the revised poem, beginning with a lamenting Mary who has stepped out of the painting to become a character, may suggest otherwise.29 *  **  Death appears in the Conquistata’s opening stanza, where the triumphant prolepsis of “compagni erranti” joining together under “santi segni” no longer exists, and where the explicit allusions to the failures of hell, Asia, and Africa to defeat the Crusaders is replaced by a description of how Goffredo’s military feats “di morti ingombrò le valli e ’l piano, / e correr fece il mar di sangue misto” (“filled the plains and valleys with the dead, and made the sea run red with blood”). With death, there is mourning—and a world, as Tasso will call it late in the poem, of “femineo pianto” female lament (23:117). And the first evidence of female mourning that we see in Tasso’s “poema riformato” is that of the Virgin Mary, who makes a surprising cameo appearance at precisely the moment occupied in the Liberata by the episode with Sofronia. Threatened, as before, by the impending arrival of Crusaders, Aladino decides that the Christian community within the walls poses a danger, and in his rage swears to put them all to death. A stolen painting no longer exists to provoke his anger, but almost immediately the subject of that painting appears, as Tasso’s narrator redirects our gaze from the cowering Christian citizens of Jerusalem to heaven, in two entirely new stanzas: Holy Compassion, you did not keep your thoughts hidden to yourself, as you gazed down from the celestial and sacred realm onto the site where the King had lain buried, and at his faithful f lock. Thus: “Lord,” you cried, “help, help—for now I alone am not sufficient to save their lives.” Upon seeing those moist eyes—the eyes that had wept for her Son who died on the cross—the Father said, “now let me turn my attention to their fear” . . . and the savage man [Aladino] tempers his insane rage. Non fu ’l pensier, santa Pietate, occulto a te ne la celeste e sacra reggia, donde guardavi il luogo in cui sepulto il Re si giacque, e la fedel sua greggia. Pero’: – Signor, gridasti, aita, aita, ch’io non basto a salvarli omai la vita. Vedendo il Padre rugiadosi gli occhi di lei che pianse in croce estinto il Figlio, – Vo’ – disse – ch’al Timor la cura or tocchi – [e] Tempra dunque il crudel la rabbia insana. (2: 11–13) 30Thanks to this heavenly intervention that happens in the blink of an eye (“ad un girar di ciglio”), Aladino will “temper his rage” by burning the fields where the Crusaders might have found food and by exiling, rather than killing, the faithful—excepting “le vergini”—from Jerusalem, who depart in tears (“gemendo in lagrimosi lutti”). But their laments will not endure for long. When they come upon the Crusaders in their camp, they offer their services to Goffredo and participate, presumably, in the final attack on their former city in the closing cantos of the new poem. As in Canto 2 of the Liberata, we have a threatened community, and once again Mary figures in its protection. But for those familiar with the Liberata, this episode in the Conquistata’s second canto represents a loss rather than a gain, albeit a puzzling loss. Having omitted the episode of Sofronia that apparently, he, and many of his first readers, found so troubling, Tasso leaves us with the mere shadow of the women who once occupied the status, rightly or wrongly, of Jerusalem’s saviors: a mourning mother. When Mary calls upon God to temper Aladino’s wrath, she is gazing at a tomb: “il luogo in cui sepulto/ il Re si giacque.” Jerusalem is a place of death, both past and imminent, and Mary is not celebrating her son’s resurrection, but weeping for his demise on the cross. Her grief is rehearsed again in the following canto in stanzas also new to the Conquistata, where it will be shared by other mothers—many of them Muslim. On tapestries which Goffredo shows the two ambassadors who have arrived from the enemy’s forces—one of them, Argante, “intrepid warrior” (“intrepido guerriero”; 2: 91)—is the thunderous defeat of Antioch, which the Christians have just taken. Tasso lingers not over the victorious assault on the city but on the artist’s attentiveness to women’s loss as they watch their sons die below them: talented artist, you made the faces of their mothers’ pallid and pale, for life no longer was welcome to them. From above each one gazed at her dead child, who lay on the earth by enemies oppressed, his head affixed to the enemy lance; and tears bathed their dry cheeks. And so he created great variety among these images of grief . . . con viso vi [il maestro accorto] feo pallido e smorto le madri, a cui la vita allor dispiacque. D’alto mirò ciascuna il figlio or morto che tra nemici oppresso in terra giacque, e’l capo affisso a la nemica lancia; e di pianto rigò l’arida guancia. E variò le imagini dolente The resulting “istoria” tells of a “Città presa, notturno orror, tumulto, / ruine, incendi e peste”, to which the artist adds “Fuga, terror, lutto, e mal fido scampo /  e correr feo di sangue il campo” (“A city seized, nocturnal horrors, tumult, ruin, firesand plague . . . flight, terror, grief, and luckless escape, and he made the field run with blood”; 50). Argante, the Christians’ enemy, is gazing on these images, and one could argue that his perspective inf lects the presentation of the tapestries, much as Aeneas’s grief in Book 1 colors his reception of the carvings in Carthage that detail the fall of Troy. Yet, elsewhere in the descriptions, we hear of the “pious Goffredo,” the “good Beomondo,” the “great Riccardo.” Moreover, the direct apostrophes to the Christian reader (“Italici e Germani uscir diresti . . .” ) suggest that it is Tasso’s narrator—and Tasso himself—who lingers over the mournful details. In fact, the singular concentration on the Conquistata’s women as vehicles of lament suggests that Tasso is far from making their response to loss yet another diabolically tinged inspiration. Riccardo, formerly the warrior Rinaldo, now also has a mother, who like Thetis, emerges from sea-depths to comfort her son when his friend Rupert dies. The prayers of Riccardo in turn are carried by heaven to a female figure who with tearful face (“con lagrimoso volto” 21: 74) asks God, as did Mary much earlier, to bring aid by turning “your pitying face to my warrior” (“al mio guerrier pietoso ’l ciglio”; 72). But as the scenes of the tapestry suggest, women’s presence as mourners is most visible in the sections devoted to Argante, scourge of the Christians, and in the Conquistata clearly meant to be a double for Hector from Homer’s Iliad. To strengthen this parallel with the Homeric poem, Tasso had to give Argante a wife to protest his going out into battle as Andromache did with Hector, and a mother—and a Helen—who will mourn him when he dies.31 In the Liberata, this “intrepido guerriero” was killed by Tancredi after a bloody duel outside Jerusalem’s walls. The wandering Erminia, in love with Tancredi, literally stumbles over the bodies when she is escorting the spy Vafrino back to the Christians’ camp, and restores Tancredi to health with pious prayers and herbal medicines. Argante is summarily ignored by the pair until Tancredi insists that they carry his bloody corpse with them to Jerusalem: “non si frodi / o de la sepoltura o de le lodi” (do not deprive him of burial or of praise; 19: 116). But we hear no eulogies, nor do we witness Argante’s burial, and he is as arguably isolated in death as in life. The Argante of the Conquistata receives a very different fate after he dies at Tancredi’s hands. His body is given to the women of Jerusalem, who eulogize him at the close of Canto 23 as husband, father, and son, as well as fierce protector of his city. This last role is given explicitly to him by Erminia, rechristened Nicea in the Conquistata, who laments her inabilities to save him in the plaintive cry “O arti mie fallaci, o falsa spene! / A cui piú l’erbe omai raccoglio e porto / da l’ime valli e da l’inculte arene? / Non ti spero veder mai piú resorto, / per mia pietosa cura” (“O my fallacious arts, o my false hope! What use now the herbs that I gather and carry from the dark valleys and the hidden sands? I no longer hope to see you risen, saved by my compassionate healing”; 23:126). The woman who in the Liberata had collected medicinal herbs for her beloved Tancredi, and who is addressed by him as “medica mia pietosa” after she saves him from death, here reproaches herself for having failed to rescue Tancredi’s enemy Argante. Ifshe saved Tancredi and Goffredo—and the Christian cause—in the Liberata, here she can confess only her failed arts, and in the context of prophetically imagining a future of grief and destruction in the wake of Argante’s death: “Sola io non sono al mio dolor; ma sola / veggio, dopo la prima, altre ruine, / altri incendi, altre morti: e grave e stanca, / quest’alma al nuovo duol languisce e manca” (“I’m not alone in my grief, but I alone can see after this first destruction, more ruin, more fiery blazes, more deaths; and tired and heavy, this soul will languish and expire, sickened by new sorrows”; 127).32 These three weeping women—mother, wife, and friend whose arts cannot save a dead man—integrate Argante not only into the life of the city and the family, but into the future, as the women who survive him imagine their fates as vividly as the female survivors of Hector in the Iliad imagine theirs. Or as Argante’s wife, Lugeria, laments, “Ne la tenera etate è il figlio ancora, / che generammo al lagrimoso duolo, / tu ed io infelici . . . / non vedrá gli anni in cui virtù s’onora, / Né la fama tua” (“Our son whom you and I—unhappy— conceived only for tearful sorrow is still in his tender years . . . he will see the years in which virtue is bestowed on him, nor will he know your fame” (23:119). For herself, she can envision only “foreign shores” (“lidi estrani”) and service in the entourage of some proud, Christian lord. The lines closely follow those of Andromache in the Iliad, much as the lament of Argante’s mother (“Difendesti la patria, e palme e fregi / n’avesti, or n’hai trafitto il viso e ’l petto”; “You defended our country, and had honors and laurels; now your face and breast are pierced [by a lance]”) repeats that of Hecuba in Iliad 24. Thus just as in the Iliad, as Sheila Murnaghan has written, female lament has the function of tying the hero back into his community, while making it clear that the hero’s kleos or fame is achieved at women’s expense.33 Such a constitution of a larger, more sorrowful, poem can be allied in turn with Tasso’s new relationship to epic. Even for a poet as relentlessly psychoanalyzed as Tasso, the creation in the Conquistata of the familial contexts that Tasso may have longed for after the death of his mother, never knew, may come as a surprise.34 Tasso’s redefinition of the epic poet in his unfinished Giudizio del poema riformato, the last of his critical works, may instead have been in response to those readers of the pirated Liberata who complained about the inauthenticity of some of the characters’ emotions that drove the poem. In particular, he argues forcefully in the Giudizio for the new sentiment he seeks to generate throughout the Conquistata: pity, or “la commiserazione e de la purgazione de gli affetti” (“commiseration and purgation of its effects”; 165). With respect to Argante, whom he explicitly declares to have now fashioned as “most similar to Hector” (“similissimo ad Ettore”), he comments, where Argante earlier was not wretched, now he’s completely so, because he’s been changed from a foreign and mercenary soldier into the son of a king and a Christian queen, and has become the natural prince of the city: defending his father, loving his wife, and constant in his defense and in hisfaith; and so that pity that is denied him by [Christian] law can be granted out of natural and human sentiment. dove la persona d’Argante prima [nella Liberata] non era miserabile, ora è divenuta miserabilissima, perché di soldato straniero e mercenario è divenuto figliuolo di re e di regina cristiana e principe natural di quella città, difensor del padre, amator de la moglie e costante ne la difesa e ne la fede; e però quella pietà che si niega a la legge si può concedere a la natura ed a l’umanità. (164) Arguing against the likes of Dion Crisostomos who complained about the scenes of mourning in Homer (“Defunctum vero memoria honorate non lachrymis” [“the memory of the dead are not honored by tears”]), Tasso strives for a poetics “that is more humane and more appropriate to civil life” (“piú umana e piú accommodata a la vita civile”), resisting not only Dion but Plato and the Pythagoreans as “too rigid and severe” (“troppo rigida e severa”). Taking sides with that “most excellent Aristotle,” Tasso argues for a poetry that will motivate the sentiment of compassion “even for the enemy” (“ancora da’ nemici”; 178), and hence for the creation of a human community in which one takes stock not so much of differing religious beliefs, but of the parallels that make all humankind members of a single family. Thus, for example, the king Solimano is to be considered not as the emperor of the Turks, but as a valorous prince and father of a valorous and compassionate son. . . . If they were deprived of the theological virtues, they did not lack natural virtue, nor those bred by custom. non come imperator de’ Turchi, ma come principe valoroso e padre di valoroso e di pietoso figliuolo . . . quantunque fosser privi de le virtú teologiche, non erano senza le virtú naturali e quelle di costume. (177) As a result, as Alain Goddard has observed, Solimano and Argante both now fail to embody “a code of values opposed to that of strict Catholic orthodoxy” (“un code de valeurs opposé à celui de la stricte orthodoxie catholique”)35 —a failure that unleashes “a tide of ambivalence” despite the ideological claims made throughout for Catholicism’s supremacy. And the figures who help to generate such ambivalence and, in particular, compassion for those with “natural virtues” are largely Tasso’s women, as the Conquistata shapes not only a new definition of masculinity but a new role for its women.36 Tasso’s early readers may have challenged the authenticity of Armida’s conversion, the “saintliness” of Sofronia, the status of the missing “immagine,” and the rationale for Erminia’s midnight foray into the Christian camp, and her supposed self lessness when ministering to a wounded Tancredi.37 The Conquistata seems dedicated rather to making female behavior transparent and unquestionably sincere, a sincerity that Erminia/Nicea’s rebuke of her “artifallaci” confirms. The ubiquitous female mourner, for whom Mary is paradigmatic, embodies the essence of non -theatricality, conveying a spiritual intensity which Tasso himself longed to experience as clear from his late canzone to the Virgin, “Stava appresso la Croce,” in which he asks Mary to become the guarantor of his own prayerful sincerity: “Fa ch’io del tuo dolor / senta nel cor la forza” (“Grant that I may sense in my own heart the power of your grief ”), and later in the poem, “Fa ch’l duol sia verace / e ’l mio pianto sia vero” (“Enable my grief to be authentic, my lament sincere”).38 If—with the exception of Clorinda—there was no place for this expression of commiseration in the Liberata, fixated as it was on the triumphant attaining of the city, the Conquistata ensures with its weeping mothers and, on occasion, fathers and friends, that we see Jerusalem’s conquest as mixed a blessing as was the defeat of Troy. If the body recognized in the Liberata’s “Allegoria” is an exclusively militaristic one, the corpus of the Conquistata is familial, in which men are humanized, perhaps feminized, through their claims to having mothers, wives, or children. In the meantime, Erminia’s pious arts of healing, Sofronia’s daring sacrifice, and the immagine itself—aspects of feminine “artistry” not easily assimilable to this model—are gone. *  **  One final glance at Luca Giordano’s painting may help to clarify the trajectory I have attempted to chart throughout this essay. The interesting detail of Mary’s image, lifted high above the scene of impending death, can be said to resolve for Genova’s Counter-Reformation audience the identity of the “thief ” which Tasso had left in abeyance. Clearly the “mano” that perpetrated the theft was that of the queen of Heaven herself, who forcibly intervenes when her image is placed in a mosque, and who exhibits her power by rescuing not only her “immagine” but the brave Sofronia. Giordano restores Mary’s protective immagine, letting us “see” it for the first time as he rescues Mary herself from oblivion in a work that makes the exaltation of Christianity derive from her comforting presence. To this extent, the painting confirms the overtly Catholic structure on which the Conquistata insisted. But it does so by countering the very notion, emphasized by Mary herself in the Conquistata’s new second canto, that she is “not enough now to save their lives” (“io non basto a salvarli omai la vita”). Perhaps the key word in the passage is “omai”: now, as opposed to some earlier time when Mary presumably was sufficient. Reading backward from Mary’s phrase in Canto 2 of the Conquistata, one emerges with a nostalgic vision of female sanctity which the Liberata never intended to confirm; but a vision which for Tasso may have resided in a not-so-distant past before Trent, found in a work such as the Divina commedia, in which the Virgin has power to do more than weep. Her compassion can be said to have generated an entire poem, and it is thanks to her example that Beatrice is able to say to Virgil in Inferno 2, “amor mi mosse” (“love moved me and made me speak”). Giordano’s late seventeenthcentury painting willfully misreads the Liberata, as it envisions a world in which Mary can glowingly transmit her power to the two central women of Canto 2in the form of light radiating from her painting. The work of art thus comes to possess a divine, unambiguously protective status such as a renegade Christian, the wizard Ismeno, would confer on it—even if Tasso himself would not. 39 This was a world that never did exist in the Liberata. But that may finally be beside the point. Yet as Tasso tried to create a poem “senza arti fallacy,” newly directed toward the compassionate involvement of all its personaggi, Muslims and Christians alike, in the family of the “vita civile,” Mary and the women like her enable a different kind of salvation, albeit of a less dramatic kind. If threats of “parlar disgiunto” and episodic discontinuity hang over the Liberata; if the three women of Canto 2 both embodied and actualized these threats, once we arrive at the inclusive poem that is the Conquistata, the lonely isolation of heroic difference is no longer a danger. And as a result, there are no more female heroes.40Notes 1 Tasso, Lettere, ed. Guasti, 5: 72; the letter is from July 1591, when he had almost completed the Conquistata. 2 For a summary of how female characters change in the Conquistata, see Goddard, “Du ‘capitano’ au ‘cavalier sovrano,’” 236–38. Also of interest is Picco, “Or s’indora ed or verdeggia.” 3 See Gigante’s introduction to Tasso’s Giudicio sovra la Gerusalemme riformata, xlviii, as well as his discussion of the Giudicio and Conquistata in Tasso, chapter 13. 4 That the female figures of the Liberata are intriguing mirrors for Tasso himself is not a new argument; particularly in the wake of a feminist criticism that has focused on Armida and Clorinda. In some cases, such as Stephens’ article on Erminia (“Trickster, Textor, Architect, Thief ” or Miguel’s “Tasso’s Erminia,” 62–75, a female character’s narrative and artistic capabilities are put forth as convincing evidence for self-portraits of the author/artist. 5 For two recent studies devoted to the episode of Sofronia, Giamperi, Il battesimo di Clorinda and Yavneh, “Dal rogo alle nozze,” 270–94; also see the few pages dedicated to Sofronia in Hampton’s Writing from History, 116–18. 6 Some early readers of the Liberata considered the episode “poco connesso e troppo presto,” a point with which Tasso concurred; e.g., the letter to Scipione Gonzaga; Lettere di Torquato Tasso, vol. I, letter #61; 153. Molinari’s edition of the Lettere poetiche of Tasso contains this letter with ample critical text; 374. The debate over the episode went on for a period of many months in 1575 and 1576; see the excellent account of Güntert, L’epos dell’ideologia regnante, 81–85. 7 The syntactic “difetto” or defect that Tasso claims he learned from reading too much Virgil is that of “parlar disgiunto”: “cioè, quello che si lega più tosto per l’unione e dependenza de’ sensi, che per copula o altra congiunzione di parole . . . pur ha molte volte sembianza di virtù, ed è talora virtù apportatrice di grandezza: ma l’errore consiste ne la frequenza. Questo difetto ho io appreso de la continua lezion di Virgilio . . .” (Lettere, vol. I, 115). Fortini calls attention to the symptomatic crisis of “parlar disgiunto” in relationship to Canto 2 in Dialoghi col Tasso, 81, describing it as “la frattura degli elementi del discorso per ottenere maggior rilievo, maggiore drammatizzazione e magnificenza.” 8 Tasso’s references to Homer in his Giudicio are extensive, as are his spirited defenses of Homer against those who would call him a liar; he often invokes Aristotle’s praise of the poet. 9 On Tasso’s impact on and interest in the visual arts more generally, see Waterhouse, “Tasso and the Visual Arts,” 146–61 and, more recently, Unglaub’s Poussin and the Poetics of Painting and Traherne’s “Pictorial Space and Sacred Time,” 5–25.Jane Tylus10 The image is item 176 in the catalogue Luca Giordano, ed. Ferrari and Scavizzi. 11 See Utili’s entry on Giordano’s Olindo e Sofronia in Torquato Tasso, 313. 12 From the letter to Scipione Gonzaga of April 3, 1576; in Lettere di Torquato Tasso, 153; Lettere poetiche, 374. This came less than a month after Tasso had informed Luca Scalabrino on March 12, that he was going to add “eight or ten stanzas” to the end of the Sofronia episode, in the hope of making it seem “more connected” (“che ‘l farà parer più connesso”); ibid., 339. 13 I use the edition of Fredi Chiappelli; II: 6. 14 Translations of the Liberata are from Jerusalem Delivered, trans. Esolen; occasionally modified. 15 Lettere, I, 164; also in Letter poetiche, 406; italics mine. 16 Yavneh, “Dal rogo alle nozze,” 272–73. 17 Giampieri, Il battesimo di Clorinda, 27, has noted in the “casto simulacro” of Mary a parallel with the famous Palladium of Troy: Mary’s image takes the place of the Palladium, and this substitution is extended further when Sofronia herself “porta quella salvezza che tutti si aspettavano dall’efige della Madonna” once the Madonna is gone. 18 See Yavneh, “Dal rogo alle nozze,” 150, as well as Warner, The Augustinian Epic, 86. 19 This line is echoed by Armida eighteen cantos later, when she proclaims herself Rinaldo’s “ancilla,” and observes that his word is her law: “e le fia legge il cenno” (20: 136). Intentionally or not, the line brings us full circle to the missing image of Mary, but reducing the supposed potency of that image and the women who mirror it to a gesture of submission to a “conquering” Gabriel. 20 Virgil, Eclogues, Georgiecs, Aeneid I–VI, 441. 21 The Judith echoes are relevant as well, on which see Refini, “Giuditta, Armida e il velo,” esp. 87–88. But unlike Judith, who dominates the second half of the apocryphal book of Judith, Sofronia and Clorinda disappear long before the ending. 22 “A lei, che generosa è quanto onesta, / viene in pensier come salvar costoro. / Move fortezza il gran pensier, l’arresta / poi la vergogna e ‘l verginal decoro; / vince fortezza, anzi s’accorda e face / sé vergognosa e la vergogna audace” (2: 17). 23 Eugenio Donadoni remarked on Tasso’s “incapacità di ritrarre una santa,” and while he doesn’t elaborate, he clearly has in mind the puzzling presentation of Sofronia herself. Torquato Tasso, 324. 24 As Lawrence F. Rhu nicely puts it, the “Allegoria,” first composed in 1576, probably functioned “as a guarantor of acceptable intentions in the face of potential censorship . . . rather than as a sure guide in the right direction for a comprehensive interpretation of his poem”; The Genesis of Tasso’s Narrative Theory, 56. At the same time, with regard to the conflict between the “one and the many,” the poem, with its announced attention to bring together Goffredo and his “compagni erranti,”and the Allegoria, focused on demonstrating how the bodies of the (male) warriors are eventually incorporated within the body of the army, seemingly speak with a single voice. 25 Lettere, vol. 1, 84. Interestingly, Tasso will exempt Rinaldo from this rule. 26 On the possibility that Tasso resists making his female warriors stronger than the men, see Günsberg, The Epic Rhetoric of Tasso, 128: “female valour is described essentially in terms of negative comparatives. This culminates in male supremacy over a femininity that is already fragmented, and in an act characterized by sexual overtones”—such as the deaths of Clorinda and Gildippe. 27 See Act III, scene 1, from Aminta, and Tirsi’s description of the Satiro’s would-be rape of Silvia: She is tied with her own hair, to a tree, while “‘l suo bel cinto, / che del sen virginal fu pria custode, / di quello stupro era ministro, ed ambe / le mani al duro tronco le sstringea; / e la pianta medesma avea prestati / legami contra lei . . .”; lines 1237–42; from Opere di Torquato Tasso, Volume 5: Aminta e rime scelte. 28 For a more sustained reading of the Aminta and Tasso’s protectiveness of his two main characters, see my chapter in Writing and Vulnerability, 82–95. 29 In truth, a more nuanced criticism of the Conquistata has emerged in recent years, including that of Goddard and of Residori, L’idea del poema, as well as in the recent article of Brazeau, “Who Wants to Live Forever?” Yet critics have been overly hasty to dismiss the later poem as the project of Tasso’s new Counter-Reformation orthodoxy. This may be the case, but surely only in part; as the Giudicio and contemporary letters attest, Tasso was involved in a continuing dialogue with ancient authors, and the Conquistata attests to his desire to write a poem that creates more of a balance between opposing forces. Gerusalemme conquistata, II: 11–12. Luigi Bonfigli’s edition, which comprises part of his five-volume Opere di Torquato Tasso, regrettably has no notes; there is still no fully annotated modern version of the poem. Shortly after Argante’s death a trio of female mourners lament his loss in a passage taken directly from Iliad 24; the fact that they appear in the Conquistata’s twenty-third canto makes the connection structural as well as thematic. See Stephens, “Trickster, Textor, Architect, Thief,” on Erminia, in which he talks about Erminia’s imitation of Helen; while he finds in the Conquistata allusions to Helen’s weaving (Canto 3), he does not consider the Homeric echoes in Canto 23. Also see my “Imagining Narrative in Tasso.” Murnaghan, “The Poetics of Loss in Greek Epic,” 217: “As she gives voice to her role as the bearer of Hector’s kleos, Andromache’s words fill in what Hector’s gloss over . . . [she] insists that the creation of kleos begins with grief for the hero’s friends and enemies alike. . . . Before it can be converted into pleasant, care-dispelling song, a hero’s achievement is measured in the suffering that it causes, in the grief that it inspires.” Ferguson’s Trials of Desire and Enterline, The Tears of Narcissus explore psychoanalytic material. Goddard, “Du ‘capitano’ au ‘cavalier sovrano,’” 240n. I want here to make note of Konrad Eisenbichler’s suggestive work with respect to new versions of masculinity articulated in early modern Europe, and especially to his generous support of the volume that Gerry Milligan and I edited for his series at the University of Toronto, The Poetics of Masculinity in Early Modern Italy and Spain (Toronto: Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, 2010). The letters that take up these various episodes, surely to be read in the larger context of Tasso’s oeuvre, include a majority of the letters in Molinari’s Lettere poetiche, which date from March 1575 through July 1576. Opere di Torquato Tasso, vol. V, 583. See Traherne, “Pictorial Space and Sacred Time,” for a bracing discussion as to why Tasso refused to indulge in any ekphrasis of sacred images in his work—as in his late poem, Lagrime. In the Conquistata, Tasso adds eight stanzas (15: 41–8) representing a prophetic dream regarding Clorinda’s future baptism as a Christian—a future less certain in the Liberata, when a number of verbs suggest the possibility of an only apparent conversion (“pare,” “sembra,” etc.).Bibliography Brazeau, Bryan. “Who Wants to Live Forever? Overcoming Poetic Immortality in Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Conquistata.” Modern Language Notes 129 (2014): 42–61. Donadoni, Eugenio. Torquato Tasso. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1967. Enterline, Lynn. The Tears of Narcissus: Melancholia and Masculinity in Early Modern Writing. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995. Ferguson, Margaret W. Trials of Desire: Renaissance Defenses of Poetry. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983. Ferrari, Oreste and Giuseppe Scavizzi, eds. Luca Giordano. Rome: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1966. Fortini, Franco. Dialoghi col Tasso. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1999. Giamperi, Giampeiero. Il battesimo di Clorinda: Eros e religiosità in Torquato Tasso. Fucecchio: Edizioni dell’Erba, 1995.Jane TylusGigante, Claudio. Tasso. Rome: Salerno, 2007. Goddard, Alain. “Du ‘capitano’ au ‘cavalier sovrano’: Godefroi de Bouillon dans la Jérusalem conquise.” In Réécritures 3: Commentaires, Parodies, Variations dans la littérature italienne de la renaissance, 205–64. Paris: Université da la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1987. Günsberg, Maggie. The Epic Rhetoric of Tasso: Theory and Practice. Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre, 1998. Güntert, Georges. L’epos dell’ideologia regnante e il romanzo delle passioni. Pisa: Pacini, 1989. Hampton, Timothy. Writing from History: The Rhetoric of Exemplarity in Renaissance Language. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. Miguel, Marilyn. “Tasso’s Erminia: Telling an Alternate Story.” Italica 64 (1987): 62–75. Murnaghan, Sheila. “The Poetics of Loss in Greek Epic.” In Epic Traditions and the Contemporary World. Edited by Margaret Beissinger, Jane Tylus, and Susanne Wofford, 203–20. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999. Picco, Giuliana. “Or s’indora ed or verdeggia”: Il ritratto femminile dalla “Liberata” alla “Conquistata.” Florence, Le Lettere, 1996. Refini, Eugenio. “Giuditta, Armida e il velo della seduzione.” Italian Studies 68 (March 2013): 78–98. Residori, Mario. L’idea del poema: studio sulla Gerusalemme conquistata di Torquato Tasso. Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 2004. Rhu, Lawrence F. The Genesis of Tasso’s Narrative Theory: English Translations of the Early Poetics and a Comparative Study of Their Significance. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993. Stephens, Walter. “Trickster, Textor, Architect, Thief.” In Renaissance Transactions: Ariosto and Tasso. Edited by Valeria Finucci, 146–77. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Tasso, Torquato. Gerusalemme conquistata. Edited by Luigi Bonfigli. Bari: Laterza,Gerusalemme liberata. Edited by Fredi Chiappelli. Milan: Rusconi, Giudicio sovra la Gerusalemme riformata. Edited by Claudio Gigante. Rome: Salerno, Jerusalem Delivered. Translated by Anthony M. Esolen. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, Lettere. Vol. 1 and 5. Edited by Cesare Guasti. Florence, Lettere di Torquato Tasso. Vol. 1. Edited by F. Le Monnier.Lettere poetiche. Edited by Carla Molinari. Parma: Guanda,Opere di Torquato Tasso, Volume 5: Aminta e rime scelte. Milan: Società Tipografica de’ Classici Italiani, 1824. Traherne, Matthew. “Pictorial Space and Sacred Time: Tasso’s Le Lagrime della beata Vergine and the Experience of Religious Art in the Counter-Reformation.” Italian Studies 62 (2007): 5–25. Tylus, Jane. “Imagining Narrative in Tasso: Revisiting Erminia,” Modern Language Notes Writing and Vulnerability in the Late Renaissance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993. Unglaub, Jonathan. Poussin and the Poetics of Painting: Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Utili, Mariella. “Giordano’s Olindo e Sofronia.” In Torquato Tasso: Letteratura, Musica, Teatro, Arti figurative. Edited by Andrea Buzzoni, 313. Bologna: Alfa, 1990. Virgil. Eclogues, Georgiecs, Aeneid I–VI. Translated by H. Rushton Fairclough. Harvard, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1974.Warner, Christopher. The Augustinian Epic: Petrarch to Milton. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Waterhouse, E.K. “Tasso and the Visual Arts.” Italian Studies 3, nos. 3–4 (1947–48): 146–61. Yavneh, Naomi. “Dal rogo alle nozze : Tasso’s Sofronia as Martyr Manqué.” In Renaissance Transactions: Ariosto and Tasso. Edited by Valeria Finucci, 270–94. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, L’opera poetica di Virginia Martini Salvi (Siena, c. 1510 – Roma, post 1571). Siena: Accademia degli Intronati di Siena, 2012. The Sword and the Pen: Women, Politics, and Poetry in Sixteenth-Century Siena. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.Books Translations Cecchi, Giovan Maria. The Horned Owl ( L’Assiuolo). Translated with an introduction and notes by Konrad Eisenbichler. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981. 2nd ed. revised edition published in Renaissance Comedy: The Italian Masters. Volume 2. Edited with introduction by Donald Beecher, 221–88. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Firenzuola, Agnolo. On the Beauty of Women. Translated with introduction and notes by Konrad Eisenbichler and Jacqueline Murray. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992. Savonarola, Girolamo. A Guide to Righteous Living and Other Works. Translated and introduced byKonrad Eisenbichler. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2003.Books Conference proceedings and essay collections Love and Death in the Renaissance. Edited by K.R. Bartlett, Konrad Eisenbichler, and Janice Liedl. Ottawa: Dovehouse, 1991.Konrad Eisenbichler Bibliography 269Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West. Edited by Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. The Premodern Teenager: Youth in Society, 1150–1650. Edited by Konrad Eisenbichler. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2002. The Cultural World of Eleonora di Toledo, Duchess of Florence and Siena. Edited and with an introduction by Konrad Eisenbichler. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.Articles and essays “The Religious Poetry of Michelangelo: The Mystical Sublimation.” Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme 23, no. 1 (1987): 123–36. Reprinted in Michelangelo: Selected Scholarship in English. Edited by William E. Wallace. Volume 5, 123–36. New York: Garland, 1995. “Agnolo Bronzino’s Portrait of Guidobaldo II della Rovere.” Renaissance and Reformation/ Renaissance et Réforme 24, no. 1 (1988): 21–33. “Political Posturing in Some ‘Triumphs of Love’ in Quattrocento Florence.” In Petrarch’s ‘Triumphs’: Allegory and Spectacle. Edited by Konrad Eisenbichler and A.A. Iannucci, 369–81. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1990. “La carne e lo spirito: L’amore proibito di Michelangelo.” In Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia (Università di Siena), Volume 11, 359–70. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1990. Published contemporaneously in Antioco malato: Forbidden Loves from Antiquity to Rossini, 359–70. Firenze: Olschki, 1990. “Il trattato di Girolamo Savonarola sulla vita viduale.” In Studi savonaroliani: Verso il V centenario. Edited by Gian Carlo Garfagnini, 267–72. Firenze: Edizioni del Galluzzo, 1996. “Prima opera a stampa di Savonarola: I consigli per le vedove.” Città di vita 53, vol. 2–3 (1998): 161–68. Published contemporaneously in Savonarola rivisitato (1498–1998). Edited by M.G. Rosito, 65–72. Firenze: Edizioni Città di Vita, 1998. “Laudomia Forteguerri Loves Margaret of Austria.” In Same-Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages. Edited by Francesca Canadé Sautman and Pamela Sheingorn, 277–304. New York: Palgrave, 2001. “Savonarola e il problema delle vedove nel suo contesto sociale.” In Una città e il suo profeta: Firenze di fronte al Savonarola. Edited by Gian Carlo Garfagnini, 263–71. Firenze: SISMEL, 2001. “Poetesse senesi a metà Cinquecento: tra politica e passione.” Studi rinascimentali: Rivista internazionale di letteratura italiana 1 (2003): 95–102. Published contemporaneously in Rinascimento e Rinascimenti: Storia, lingua, cultura e periodizzazioni, 95–102. Salerno: Università di Salerno, 2004. “Un chant à l’honneur de la France: Women’s Voices at the End of the Republic of Siena.” Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme 27, vol. 2 (2003): 87–99. “At Marriage End: Girolamo Savonarola and the Question of Widows in Late FifteenthCentury Florence.” In The Medieval Marriage Scene: Prudence, Passion, Policy. Edited by Sherry Roush and Cristelle Baskins, 23–35. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005. “Codpiece” and “One-sex theory.” In the Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender. Edited by Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Jamsheed Choksy, Judith Roof, and Francesca Sautman, 1: 308 and 3: 1087. Detroit: Thomson/Gale, 2007. “Adolescents” and “Laudomia Forteguerri.” In The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Love, Courtship, and Sexuality through History. Volume 3: The Early Modern Period, 1400–1600.Konrad Eisenbichler BibliographyEdited by Victoria L. Mondelli and Cherrie A. Gottsleben. New York: Greenwood Press, 2007. “Erotic Elements in the Religious Plays of Renaissance Florence.” In Worth and Repute in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honour of Barbara Todd. Edited by Kim Kippen and Lori Woods, 431–48. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2010. “La Tombaide del 1540 e le donne senesi.” In Alessandro Piccolomini (Sienne 1508–1579). À la croisée des genres et des savoirs. Actes du Colloque International (Paris 23–25 septembre 2010). Réunis et présentés par Marie-Françoise Piéjus, Michel Plaisance, Matteo Residori, 101–11. Paris: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III, 2012. “Fils de la louve: Blaise de Monluc et les femmes de Sienne.” Renaissance and Reformation/ Renaissance et Réforme 37, vol. 2 (Spring 2014): 5–18. “Sex and Marriage in Machiavelli’s Mandragola: A Close(t) Reading.” Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme -- abandoned women Abrabanel, Judah Accademia degli Infiammati Accademia degli Intronati Actaeon Ad compascendum (papal bull) adultery: as crime of violence cultural narrative in fiction legal definitions of; locations of  prosecutions for and prostitution Aeneid aesthetics: and masculinity and military prowess and social control agency: of courtiers female Agnoletto the Corsican Agnolo di Ipolito Alain of Lille Alberti Alberti Albertoni Alessandro de’ Medici Alexander the Great Alexander VI Altaseda Amadesi, Angela Aminta (Tasso) anal penetration see also sodomy Andreoli, Andreoli  androgyny Andromeda Angela of Foligno angels, Carlini invoking animals, sex with Antoniano Apuleius Arenula Aretino and Il Sodoma and Piccolomini Ragionamenti aristocratic behaviour Aristotle  Armida  “arti fallaci” autonomy Averani badgers Baliera Ballerina Bandello Bandello Bargagli Barolsky bastards beastliness Bechdel Test beffa Belforte Bell Bellini Belvedere di Saragozza Bembo Benazzi Benedek Benedict Benedictine order Bernardino bernesque poetry Berni Bernini bestiality see animals, sex with Betta la Magra Bianco bigamy Bignardina birds: eating symbolising the penis bisexuality blasphemy Blastenbrei Bocca di lupo Boccaccio Bollette see Ufficio delle Bollette Bologna: Borgo degli Arienti Borgo di San Martino Borgo di Santa Caterina di Saragozza Borgo di Santa Caterina di Strada Maggiore Borgo Nuovo di San Felice Borgo Riccio  Broccaindosso men’s relationships with prostitutes in regulation of prostitutes in  residencies of prostitutes in sausages of Bolzoni The Book of the Courtier (Castiglione) arms and letters in dress and aesthetics in homosexuality in on women’s behaviour Bossi Boswell Botticelli Bovio Bràina Braudel Brizio Bronzino brothels see also prostitution Brown Bruno Buonacasa Burckhardt burlesque literature Cady Camaiani Campi Campo di Bovi canon law Canossa Capatti Capella Cappelli Cappello Capramozza Captain of Justice (Siena) Caravaggio Caretta Carli Carlini: becoming abbess entry into religious life imprisonment of investigation into marriage to Christ modern controversy over, sexual contact with Mea spirituality of carne, multiple meanings of Carnevale (neighbourhood) Carnival Carracci Carracci Castiglione castration Catherine de’ Ricci, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Saint Catherine of Bologna, Saint Catherine of Genoa, Saint  Catherine of Siena, Saint Cavedagna, Domenica Cazzaria (Vignali) Cellini Chauncey Chigi family Christ: Carlini speaking as Carlini’s visitations from forgiving the adulteress gender of loving union with Christianity: and eating meat and masculinity and sexuality Circe Clarke Clement VIII Cleopatra clergy: sexual violence by and sodomy Clorinda baptism of body of death of  and Sofronia clothing: foreign and masculinity and military defeat and sexual deviance Cockaigne, Land of Cohen Colieva Colle Colloquies (Erasmus) “compagni erranti” concubines  conjugal debt Connors Conquistata see Gerusalemme conquistata convents: power of  prostitution and sexuality within Corio Cornaro  Correggio cose brutte Cosimo cosmetics Council of Trent and adultery 7and failed saints and images nunneries after and sodomy  Counter-Reformation court ladies courtesans: in fiction idealized depiction of in Rome courtiers: ideal sacrificing masculinity Crawford Criminal Judge (Siena) Cristellon Crivelli cross-breeding cuckoldry Currie Cycnus Daedalus Dante d’Aragona d’Ascoli de Bertini de Montaigne Decameron: adultery in Branca’s edition of culinary language in and Dante and della Porta female heroines in Griselda and Gualtieri in and La Raffaella Walter of Brienne in deceit, courtiers and de’Grassi della Porta Art of Memory and myth and natural magic and nudity and Titian d’Este the Devil, and sexual violence di Loli family of prostitutes Dido dildos discourse, and social norms Dolce Domenidio, inn of Domitilla Donatello (Donato) Donina dress see clothing Durazzo, ecclesiastical courts effeminacy: in clothing  and military defeat Eisenbichler Elbl, Ivana Elliott, Dyan embodied experience England, debts to Florence Ensler epistemological caution  Erminia/Nicea erotic forces, cosmic erotica, learned essentialism Europa Fabritio faccia tosta fallacious artistries Farnese the Farnesina female bodies see also genitals, female Ferrante Ferrara Ferrari Ficino Finucci Fiorentina, Francesca Fiorentina Fiorentina Fiorentina Fiorentini Firenzuola Florence: annexation of Siena bank failures in conquest of Siena ghetto homosexuality in laws on sexual violence nobility and tyranny in  prostitution in sausages of forgetting, art of fortezza Fortini Foucault Fra Bartolommeo France: in Book of the Courtier  humiliation of Italy Francesco I Franchi Francis Franco Frangipane Franzesi Frassinago Freccero Fregoso Fregoso Furlana Gabriel Galen Galianti Gallucci, Margaret gambling Ganymede Garzoni gender: and art Foucault and Boswell on gender bias gender nonconformity genitals: of animals female male mediaeval theories about Gentileschi, Artemisia Gertrude of Helfta Gerusalemme conquistata (Tasso) female characters in as orthodox  and Sophronia episode Gerusalemme liberata (Tasso) female characters in Sofronia episode in Gesso Ghirardo Giampieri Giannetti Giannotti Gigante Gildippe Giordano Giovanni Giudi Giustiniani gluttony Goddard Goffen Gonzaga gossip Gozzadini Grandi Grazzini Gregory the Great Grosseto group sex Hadewijch  Halperin, David 1Harvey, Elizabeth hearts, gifting of Hercules Homer homoeroticism: between nuns in master-apprentice relationship in religious imagery in in Renaissance Italian art in Sodoma’s secular work homosexuality: among clergy clothing denoting in early modern Italy Il Sodoma and in Renaissance scholarship Saslow’s use of term 203n5; see also lesbians; sodomy honour: and adultery in Decameron  male and sexual violence honour killings  Il Sodoma (Gianantonio Bazzi) “Allegorical Man” biography of early religious works historiography of later religious works of painting of Catherine of Siena secular art of Iliad images: holy sexual imagination, phallic imagines agentes imitatio Christi immagine see images, holy impotence incest, laws on incontinence of desire inns, and prostitution Inquisition instruments see dildos interdisciplinarity intersectionality inversions Italian Renaissance: idealised image of scholarship on sex and gender in Jews: and prostitutes in Rome Kodera La Raffaella (Piccolomini) and Aretino’s Ragionamenti depiction of women textual sources Labalme labyrinth lactation, miracle of Landriani Marsilio lavoratori Leda and the swan lenzuola Leo X Leonardo da Vinci  lesbians, use of term for Renaissance women levitation Liberata see Gerusalemme liberata loci, in art of memory Lorenzo the bathhouse worker love: in La Raffaella masculine Neoplatonic discourse of Lucanica sausages Lucretia, wife of Cynthio Perusco Lucretia (Roman heroine) Lucretia the madam Lugeria lust luxuria Machiavelli magic: charges of and love natural Magrino male dress see also clothing, and masculinity male solidarity malmaritate Malpertuso  manly masquerade Mantuana, Chiara Marcutio, Marino Marema, Caterina Margaret of Cortona Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, Saint marital debt see conjugal debt marriage: arranged mystical and passion married women, sexual laws about Martelli Martinengo, Maria Maddalena marvels Mary Magdalene Mary mother of Christ: and Catherine of Siena in Gerusalemme conquistata images of as mourner and mystical marriage Visitation of masculinity: arms and letters in as conformity and courtiers’ self-presentation Renaissance masturbation maternal longings Mattei Matthews-Grieco Matuccio Mauro McCall McCarthy Mea see Crivelli, Bartolomea meat: eating and sexuality see also carne; sausages memory, art of Messisbugo Michelangelo militarism Mills, Robert Minotaur  misogyny mixti fori monogamy, serial monstrous offspring  Montalcino Montanari, Massimo Montauto, Federico Barbolani di Monte of the Riformatori  Monteoliveto Maggiore Moroni, Doralice Moulton, Ian Frederick  Murnaghan, Sheila Muslim women mysticism: erotic  physical signs of myths, classical naked bodies: physiognomy of in Titian Negri Neoplatonism Niccoli Nolli Plan normative codes Nosadella novelle nunneries see convents nuns: as brides of Christ in fiction lust of clergy for and prostitutes sexual activities of Office of the Night Olimpia Ordeaschi Ordinances of Justice Orsini Otto di custodia Ottonelli Ovidio Paleotti Pallavicino Palloni, Agostino Panicarolo, Pietropaolo panopticon Paolo Parabosco Parigi Parker parlar disgiunto  parodies parties, prostitutes throwing Partner Pasiphaë Pasulini Pater patria potestas Paul III Paul IV pederasty pedagogical Pellizani personae, in art of memory Perusco Pesenti Petrarca version of Griselda story Phaeton phallus, sexuality centred around the see also genitals, male Philip II of Spain 3physiognomy Piazza Navona Piccolomini Oration in Praise of Women see also La Raffaella Piccolomini Piéjus Pietro piety, emotive register of pity Pius V Pizzoli Platina (Bartolommeo Sacchi)“poco conesso” poetry, and homosexuality Ponce Pontano Poor Clares Porcellio pork: poetic praise of social attitudes to pork sausage Porta Porta Procola  Porta Stiera 56–7 postmodernism power, in gender relations printing, transformative effects of procuresses prostitution: behaviour associated with and courtesans and courtiers in della Porta evidence of ex-prostitutes in fiction and Ludovico Santa Croce male men’s interaction with female residential patterns in Bologna social and familial circles of Puff queer studies queer visuality Querzola, Giovanna Randolph, Adrian rape see sexual violence Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino) Raymond of Capua reception theory Reed re-focalization Renaissance Italy see Italian Renaissance Renaissance scholarship, sexuality and gender in  Renaissance sex Rice the Ripetta Rocke Rojas Roman antiquity, effeminacy in Roman law romance Romantic Friendships Rome: adultery trials in early modern street plan prostitution in regulation of illicit sex in Renaissance demography of sexual bohemianism in Romoli Rosetti Rossi Rossi Ruggiero Sacchetti Sacchi Romana Sack of Rome saints, failed same-sex eroticism see homoeroticism San Colombano Santa Caterina di Saragozza Santa Croce Santa Croce family Sarteano sausages Savi sbirri Scapuccio Schutte Sebastian Sedgwick self-expression self-fashioning  self-harm semen sensuality: in Renaissance Italy and spirituality women known for Senzanome Sercambi sex crimes sex ratio, in Rome sexual fantasies sexual identity sexual innuendos sexual non-conformity sexual positions sexual violence: against women and young girls  against young boys in art in classical myth by clergy laws on in Renaissance Italy sexuality: female Foucault on male (see also phallus); and meat eating Neoplatonic discourse on newer approaches to in poetry see also homosexuality Sforza, Caterina Sforza, Galeazzo Shakespeare, William shrines, prostitution around sibille Siena: administration of justice in Il Sodoma in sexual violence in Vasari on Simio Simon Simone Simons sin, sexual single women, vulnerability of Sixtus V slander, sexual social constructionism social control Socrates sodomy: defences of in early modern Italy and meat preachers against regulating Roman laws on Sienese laws against see also anal penetration; homosexuality; Il Sodoma Sofronia: episode of Giordano’s paintings of inscrutability of Song of Songs Speroni Sperone spirituality, sensual imagery Spisana Splenditello Spoloni sponsa spousal violence, and adultery sprezzatura Stanton statues, living Statuta Stefani Stiera stigmata Storey, Tessa strada dritta stufa subcultures Symonds synecdoche synopsis Tagliarini Tarozzi Tasso “Allegoria del Poema” and female bodies Giudizio del poema riformato and Sofronia episode  Gerusalemme conquistata; Gerusalemme liberata Taylor Tedeschi Teresa Terracina Tiziano Torre Sanguigna torture Toschi transgender Traub, Valerie Trevisana, Margareta and Francesca Tridentine rules see Council of Trent Tuscany, duchy of Tylus Ufficiali sopra la pace Ufficio delle Bollette Urban VIII Ursini Usinini, Terenzio Utili, Mariella The Vagina Monologues vaginas see genitals, female Vallati Vanna of Orvieto  Vanni, Francesco Varchi, Benedetto Vasari, Giorgio Venetiana, Vienna Venice: prostitution in sex crimes in Veronica Giuliani, Saint Via del Portico d’Ottavia  Via Santa Anna  Vicario Vignaiuoli  Villani, Giovanni  Virgil  Virgil virtù: in Boccaccio in Tasso  Virtuosi  visions, religious visual culture Vives, Juan-Luis Walter of Brienne  whores see prostitution witchcraft 1 see also magic women: abuse of depictions in Renaissance culture  honest and dishonest  (see also prostitution); in the Intronati men writing about men writing for 2in myth  published and unpublished texts by see also female bodies women’s history word play Yavneh Zanetti Zanrè Zapata Zonta. Giovanni Battista Modio. Modio. Keywords. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Modio” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Moiso: la ragione conversazionale e ROMOLO, o dell’implicatura conversazionale della filosofia della mitologia – la scuola di Torino -- filosofia piemontese -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Torino). Filosofo italiano. Torino, Piemonte. Grice: “I like Moiso; I would think my two favourite of his treatises is one on the ‘filosofia della mitologia’ (think Beowulf!) --; the other is a consideration on Goethe on ‘nature and her forms’ – having built my career on the natural/non-natural distinction, it cannot but fascinate me!” Esperto di storia della filosofia e della scienza di fama internazionale, ha insegnato nelle Torino, Macerata e Milano. Le sue ricerche hanno riguardato la filosofia post-kantiana, con particolare attenzione al pensiero di Salomon Maimon, l'idealismo tedesco, con ricerche su Kant, Fichte, Schelling e Hegel, Goethe e l'età goethiana, Achim von Arnim, il concetto di esperienza ed esperimento nel Romanticismo, la filosofia di Nietzsche nel suo rapporto con le scienze, il pensiero di Mach. È stato membro della Schelling Kommission per l'edizione critica di Schelling. Ha partecipato alla Enciclopedia Multimediale delle Scienze Filosofiche di Rai Educational con due interventi sulla La filosofia della natura tedesca e sulla "Scienza specialistica e visione della natura nell’età goethiana". Presso l'Udine è stato istituito il Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerca sulla Morfologia. Fondamentali per la ricerca filosofica e le oltre 100 pagine dedicate a “Pre-formazione ed epigenesis”, in “Il vivente -- aspetti filosofici, biologici e medici,” – Grice: “Interesting idea, ‘il vivente’ – we don’t have that thing in English, ‘a loose liver’ --. Verra, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. Caratteristica degli suoi studi è la connessione tra ricerca storico-filosofica e impianto teoretico, fatto particolarmente evidente in suo saggio su Schelling. “La filosofia di Maimon” (Milano, Mursia); “Natura e cultura” (Milano, Mursia); “Vita, natura libertà” (Milano, Mursia); “Pre-formazione ed epigenesi nell'età goethiana, in “II problema del vivente” Aspetti filosofici, biologici e medici, Verra, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana);  Nietzsche e le scienze” (Milano, Martino)-- Grice: cf. ‘gaia scienza’ – “Tra arte e scienza” (Milano, Marino);“La natura e le sue forme,” C.  Diekamp (Milano, Mimesis); “La filosofia della mitologia,” M. Alfonso (Milano, Mimesis); “Il nulla e l'assoluto” "Annuario Filosofico", “Teleo-logia dopo Kant” in: Giudizio e interpretazione in Kant. Convegno sulla Critica del Giudizio (Macerata, Genova, Idee in Schelling, in IDEA  Colloquio, Roma, Fattori e Bianchi (Olschki, Firenze); Schelling, "Ricerche filosofiche sull'essenza della libertà umana: e gli oggetti che vi sono connessi", Commentario A. Pieper e O. Höffe  (Milano, Guerini); Le Ricerche: una svolta in Schelling?, in Schelling, "Ricerche filosofiche sull'essenza della libertà umana: e gli oggetti che vi sono connessi (Milano, Guerini); “Dio come persona,” in Schelling, "Ricerche filosofiche sull'essenza della libertà umana: e gli oggetti che vi sono connessi", Commentario Pieper e Höffe (Milano, Guerini); “I paradossi dell'infinito, in: "Romanticismo e modernità", Torino, La scoperta dell’osso inter-mascellare e la questione del tipo osteologico, in Giorello, Grieco, Goethe scienziato” (Torino, Einaudi); “Schelling: il romano antico nella filosofia dell'arte, in "Rivista di estetica", Torino, pensatore e narratore dell'Europa, Milano, Gargnano del Garda, Milano: Cisalpino (Acme/Quaderni); E ho visto le idee addirittura con gl’occhi, in: Goethe: la natura e le sue forme, atti del Convegno Arte, scienza e natura in Goethe; Torino (Milano, Mimesis); C.  Diekamp,  Experientia/experimentum nel Romanticismo, in Veneziani, Experientia” (Firenze: Olschki); “L'albero della malattia -- motivi della medicina in età romantica, in Atti della sofferenza. Atti del seminario di studi. Udine,. Casale e Garelli, Itinerari,  La percezione del fenomeno originario e la sua descrizione, in: Arte, scienza e natura in Goethe. Torino, R. Pettoello, In memoriam, "Acme", Alfonso, Matteo, In guisa di introduzione. La filosofia della luce di Fichte, in "Rivista di storia della filosofia,” Ivaldo, La fichtiana dottrina della scienza, In memoria di  M.. La filosofia della natura, in "Annuario Filosofico", Ziche, "Un terzo più alto, la loro sintesi comune". Teorie della mediazione, In memoria di  Moiso. La filosofia della natura, in "Annuario Filosofico",  S. Poggi, Dopo Schelling, dopo Goethe. lettore di Mach, La filosofia della natura, in "Annuario Filosofico", F. Vercellone, Da Goethe a Nietzsche. Tra morfologia ed ermeneutica, in In memoria di M.. La filosofia della natura, in "Annuario Filosofico", Giordanetti, Interprete di Kant", in Rivista di storia della filosofia, Frigo, Natura della forma e storicità della sua comprensione, testimonianze di colleghi e allievi, Torino,  La responsabilità dell'uomo per la natura nel pensiero degli scienziati romantici in Testimonianze (Torino, Trauben); F. Cuniberto, Corpo e mistero, in Testimonianze (Torino, Trauben, M. Alfonso, I corsi: una lezione di ricerca, in Testimonianze (Torino, Trauben); Giordanetti, Il kantismo di Nietzsche, Testimonianze” (Torino, Trauben); L. Guzzardi, Tra filosofia della natura e morfologia dei saperi: un ruolo per l'enciclopedismo, in Testimonianze” (Torino, Trauben);  Viganò, Morfologia e filosofia: la filosofia della natura come "tropica" del reale, in Testimonianze (Torino, Trauben); Potestio, Lo Schelling di Heidegger (Torino, Trauben); Mainardi,  L'estetica pittorica di Friedrich, Testimonianze, Torino, Trauben,  Cazzaniga, La filosofia dell'evoluzione, testimonianze Torino, Trauben, La natura osservata e compresa: saggi in memoria, Viganò, Milano, Guerini,  Moro, In ricordo, in "Rivista di Storia della Filosofia",  antzen, In memoriam: In ricordo, Università degli Studi di Milano, Sala Crociera Alta,  La rivoluzione di Lavoisier, in Enciclopedia delle Scienze, Goethe e la natura, in Enciclopedia delle Scienze Filosofiche, Goethe poeta e scienziato, in Enciclopedia delle Scienze La ri-culturalizzazione della scienza, in Enciclopedia delle Scienze Filosofiche, Scheda biografica su Mimesis. Grice: “Plato is clear about this: other than predicated of ‘shape’ (forma), ‘beautiful’ has no SENSE! Moiso learned that from Gothe –problem with Goethe is that he was interested in the German mandibule!” Grice: “Pliny understood this best: it’s one boring thing to see Apollo Belvedere, larger than life. The good thing is to see or experience a ‘symtagm’, such as ‘I lottatori’ della Tribuna – a statuary group of two males – one may say there is ONE form in the Lottatori – Goethe would say that each body is a form – and so there are two forms.  -- Francesco Moiso. Moiso. Keywords: la morfologia e la fisiologia del vivente --. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Moiso” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza – GRICE ITALO!; ossia, Grice e Mondin: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell ritorno dell’angelo – la semantica filosofica – semantica pel sistema G – interpretazione e validità – la scuola di Monte di Malo -- filosofia veneta -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Monte di Malo). Filosofo italiano. Monte di Malo, Vicenza, Veneto. Grice:“Trust an Aquino to provide a systematic philosophy! Mind, I’ve been called a systematic philosopher, too!” Grice: “At Oxford, we are very familiar with angels – but only Mondin takes angeologia seriously! Trust an Italian! Ponte Sant’Angelo comes to mind!” Dottore di Filosofia e Religione a Harvard. È stato decano della Facoltà di Filosofia presso la Pontificia Università Urbaniana di Roma. Mondin membro della Congregazione dei Missionari Saveriani. Nei suoi studi, le principali figure di riferimento sono state AQUINO e Tillich, da cui ha tratto l'ideale di un accordo e di un mutuo sostegno tra filosofia e teologia.  “Etica, Etica e politica, Filosofia, Antropologia filosofica, Manuale di filosofia sistematica, La Metafisica di Aquino e i suoi interpreti,” “Storia dell'antropologia filosofica” Antropologia filosofica e filosofia della cultura e dell'educazione; “Epistemologia e cosmologia; “Logica, semantica e gnoseologia; Ontologia e metafisica Storia della metafisica, Storia della metafisica, Storia della metafisica, “Ermeneutica, metafisica, analogia in Aquino; Storia della filosofia medievale Dizionario enciclopedico di filosofia, teologia e morale Il sistema filosofico di Aquino Corso Introduzione alla teologia Dio: chi è? Elementi di teologia filosofica Scienze umane e teologia Cultura, marxismo e cristianesimo I teologi della liberazione, “Il problema del linguaggio teologico dalle origini ad oggi” Filosofia e cristianesimo I teologi della speranza I grandi teologi Professore  I grandi teologi Professore  I teologi della morte di Dio Dizionario enciclopedico di filosofia, teologia e morale. Software Filosofia della cultura e dei valori Le realtà ultime e la speranza cristiana Religione Nuovo dizionario enciclopedico dei papi. Storia e insegnamenti Commento al Corpus Paulinum (expositio et lectura super epistolas Pauli apostoli) La chiesa primizia del regno. Trattato di ecclesiologia Mito e religioni. Introduzione alla mitologia religiosa e alle nuove religioni L'uomo secondo il disegno di Dio. Trattato di antropologia teologica Preesistenza, sopravvivenza, reincarnazione Teologie della prassi L'eresia del nostro secolo Società Storia dell'antropologia filosofica Antropologia filosofica. L'uomo: un progetto impossibile? Philosophical anthropology Una nuova cultura per una nuova società. In ricordo di M..  Un tomista ed "oltre" del XX secolo: M. di PMontini, Congresso tomista internazionale, Roma,  nel sito "E- Aquinas" Studium thomisticum. Grice: “M. attempts a systematic semantics. Rather he has a section on ‘semantics’ --. The expressions have to be used carefully. System itself, should be used alla Gentzen, or as Myro does with System G in my gratitude. A semantics for System  BATTISTA M. introduzione  alla  filosofia Problemi, Sistemi, Filosofi) M. INTRODUZIONE ALLA FILOSOFIA PROBLEMI - SISTEMI - FILOSOFI Con guida alla lettura  di alcune opere fondamentali  e glossario dei principali termini filosofici MASSIMO - MILANO Carmagnani collabora alla revisione del pre-  sente volume ed ha curato i « questionari », le « sintesi contenutistiche »  e le « chiose a margine ». Massimo  Corso di Porta Romana, Milano. Altre opere filosofiche dello stesso Autore: Corso di storia della filosofia, Massimo, Milano. L'uomo: chi è? (Elementi di antropologia filosofica), Massimo, Milano.   Introduzione alla teologia, Massimo, Milano. Cultura, marxismo e cristianesimo, Massimo, Milano.   Storia della filosofia medievale, Pontificia Università 'Urbaniana, Roma. Una nuova cultura per una nuova società (Analisi della crisi epocale della cul-  tura moderna e dei progetti per superarla), Massimo, Milano.   Il sistema filosofico di Tommaso d'Aquino (Per una lettura attuale della filo-  sofia tomista), Massimo, Milano. Il valore uomo, Dino Editore, Roma.   I Verori fondamentali (Definizione e classificazione dei valori), Dino Editore,   oma.  In quale modo contribuire alla trasformazione dell'uso di un testo  per lo studio della filosofia, affinché esso divenga lo strumento vivo  di ricerca e di riflessione?   Questa quarta edizione di Introduzione alla filosofia, completa-  mente rinnovata rispetto alla precedente, risponde a questo obiettivo,  offrendo non solo una presentazione sistematica di contenuti, ma  anche indicazioni metodologiche atte a sviluppare un processo di ri-  cerca attivo e dialogico, alla luce della propria tradizione culturale,  attraverso l'esercizio della riflessione, per arrivare a soluzioni con-  formi alla ragione e alla natura dell'uomo.   L'Autore ha introdotto, nella prima parte dedicata ai problemi filosofici, tre nuovi problemi, che durante l'ultimo decennio si sono imposti all'attenzione di tutti, quello culturale, quello epistemologico e  quello assiologico. Questi tre problemi suscitano oggi particolare in-  teresse perché ci si è resi conto che la grave crisi spirituale, che ha  colpito l'umanità intera, trova la sua ragione più profonda nella  disgregazione della cultura e dei valori e nella confusione che si fa  tra scienza e tecnica. E questo vale per chi vuole fare dello studio  della filosofia non un semplice esercizio accademico, ma, come già  pensavano i greci, uno strumento fondamentale e l’unico razional-  mente possibile, per la soluzione dei problemi della vita e della no-  stra società.   Le parti seconda (dedicata ai sistemi filosofici) e terza (dedicata  alla presentazione dei principali filosofi) sono state ampliate con  l'aggiunta di altre « scuole filosofiche », specie quelle sorte negli ulti-  mi decenni e di numerose altre « schede » sui maggiori filosofi. Nella  quarta parte, dedicata alla presentazione di alcuni grandi testi filo-  sofici, è stata inserita l'opera: Introduzione alla metafisica, che è tra  le più significative e rappresentative di Heidegger, uno dei maggiori  filosofi. Infine, il volume è completato da una quinta  (nuova) parte che contiene un « glossario » dei principali termini  filosofici, che sarà di aiuto a chi si accosta per la prima volta alla  filosofia. Questa edizione dell'opera è stata rielaborata seguendo an-  che le indicazioni di molti insegnanti che hanno usato il testo nel  passato e che sono stati da noi interpellati con « schede-inchiesta ».   Ogni capitolo del testo è corredato di questionari, di concetti da  ritenere, di sintesi contenutistiche e di chiose a margine, che, opportunamente utilizzati, costituiscono un adeguato sussidio per un mi-  gliore approfondimento e una rapida consultazione. I questionari assolvono la duplice funzione propedeutica e di    verifica: a) i questionari propedeutici sono finalizzati a suscitare il  problema nei suoi aspetti fondamentali; b) i questionari di verifica  e discussione consentono il controllo del processo di apprendimento  in ordine ai contenuti, il raccordo tra le successive fasi di lavoro e  la discussione sui temi di maggior rilievo. I concetti da ritenere sono finalizzati alla corretta acquisizione  del linguaggio tecnico e alla capacità di gestire con maggiore facilità  qualsiasi testo filosofico. Le sintesi contenutistiche, elaborate alla fine di ogni capitolo,  hanno lo scopo di favorire la padronanza costante dei contenuti acquisiti.  Le chiose, ai margini del testo permettono di individuare su-  bito i temi centrali presentati. Alla fine di ogni capitolo una breve ed aggiornata bibliografia  segnala, secondo le necessità, opere per approfondire temi parti-  colari.   Questa opera, oltre che per uso scolastico, date le sue caratteri-  stiche che ne fanno una piccola enciclopedia filosofica (da consul-  tare nelle più svariate occasioni), la riteniamo molto utile anche per  tutti coloro che vogliono conoscere gli elementi fondamentali della  filosofia come studio dei grandi problemi dell'umanità e vogliono  aggiornarsi su di essi.   Ricordiamo, infine, che l'Autore ha curato presso la nostra edi-  trice un Corso di storia della filosofia, in tre volumi, con le stesse  caratteristiche metodologiche della presente opera e con un'ampia  antologia di testi dei maggiori filosofi di ogni epoca. Il terzo volume  del Corso suddetto, di pp. 616, presenta in modo esauriente la filo-  sofia degli ultimi due secoli e può diventare un o ttimo strumento  per far conoscere le maggiori correnti filosofiche contemporanee ad  ogni persona di cultura media superiore. QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO Chi sono? Da dove vengo e dove vado? Che cosa è la vita? Sono questi  i « perché » fondamentali che l’uomo si pone. Quali risposte dare a questi perché? Rispetto agli altri esseri viventi, che cosa significa essere uomo?   4. Che cosa significa essere dotato di intelligenza, di volontà, di capacità  di amare?  Che cos'è il pensiero? Che cos'è la realtà? Che rapporto c'è tra la capa-  cità di pensaree la realtà? Che cos'è la verità? 6. Che cosa significa essere libero? Che cosa significa essere condizionato? Qual è il criterio che deve regolare il rapporto con i propri simili e con l’uso delle cose? Che cos'è il bene? Che cos'è l'utile? Che rapporto c’è tra bene e utile? . 7. Ciascuno di noi ha bisogno degli altri. Come e perché? L'uomo, si dice, è naturalmente filosofo, cioè « amico della sa- pienza »; bramoso di sapere, egli non si accontenta di vivere alla giornata e di accettare passivamente le informazioni che l’esperien- za immediata gli offre, come fanno gli animali. Il suo sguardo inquisitivo vuole conoscere il perché delle cose, soprattutto il perché della propria vita. Che cos'è la filosofia 1.1 La conoscenza intellettuale L'uomo è un essere che pensa: egli è dotato di una capacità cono- scitiva superiore a quella degli altri esseri viventi appartenenti sia al regno vegetale che a quello animale. Gli animali, ad esempio, pos- sono avere coscienza ma non autocoscienza; essi sanno, ma non sanno di sapere; desiderano, ma non sanno di desiderare; amano, ma non sanno di amare; crescono, diventano adulti e muoiono, ma non sono consapevoli di queste trasformazioni del loro essere. L'uomo non solo percepisce con i sensi gli eventi particolari, come Come è accennato nella presentazione dell'Editore, i questionari pro- pedeutici hanno lo scopo, attraverso l'esercizio della riflessione e dell’autorifles- sione, di suscitare la partecipazione attiva degli allievi alla costruzione previa della lezione, Superiorità della conoscenza umana Conoscenza razionale e conoscenza simbolica Varie definizioni del termine ‘‘filosofia’’ gli altri esseri viventi, ma con la sua ragione è in grado di acquisire idee generali o di formulare giudizi universali. Egli non conosce solo i fatti ma anche i « perché ». La conoscenza intellettuale, di cui l'uomo è dotato, assume due forme principali: quella razionale o logica (che opera con i concetti) e quella simbolica o analogica (che opera con le immagini, i simboli, i miti, le parabole, ecc.). La prima è di tipo speculativo e astratto, mentre la seconda è di tipo figurativo, concreto. La conoscenza simbolica non è necessariamente inferiore a quella razionale, anzi per alcune sfere della realtà (per esempio: arte e re- ligione) essa è più congeniale della seconda. me il valore della vita e della conoscenza umana, la libertà, la natura del male, l'origine e il valore della legge morale. Di questi problemi si occupa soltanto la filosofia. In secondo luogo, perché, mentre le scienze studiano questa o quella dimensione della realtà, la filosofia ha per oggetto l’intero, la totalità, l'universo preso globalmente. Ecco, pertanto, la prima caratteristica che distingue la filosofia da qualsiasi altra forma di sapere: essa studia tutta la realtà ò, co- munque, cerca di ottenere una comprensione completa ed esauriente di ogni settore della realtà. Essa si preoccupa soprattutto, di sapere, di comprendere; mentre la scienza si accontenta di analizzare e di calcolare. 1.3 Natura della filosofia Ma ci sono anche altre tre qualità che contribuiscono a dare al sapere filosofico un carattere proprio e specifico: a) lo strumento di ricerca; b) il metodo; c) il fine o scopo. a) Lo strumento di ricerca, di analisi di cui si serve la filosofia è la ragione, la pura ragione, il « puro ragionamento », come dice Platone. Essa non dispone di microscopi, telescopi, macchine foto- grafiche, ecc. Non può effettuare controlli con strumenti materiali né affrettare le sue operazioni ricorrendo agli elaboratori. Anche gli strumenti conoscitivi, di cui si serve ogni uomo e ogni scienziato, i sensi e la fantasia, al filosofo servono solo nella fase iniziale, per ottenere quelle cognizioni del reale, su cui poi indirizza lo sguardo penetrante della ragione. Il lavoro vero e proprio dell'indagine filo- sofica è compiuto dalla sola ragione, Ia quale per sottrarsi a qualsiasi distrazione si chiude dentro il suo sacro recinto, lontana dal frastuo- no delle macchine, dalla seduzione dei piaceri e dalla prassi, dalia confusione dei sensi, in solitaria compagnia col proprio oggetto. b) Il metodo della filosofia è essenzialmente raziocinativo, anche se non esclude qualche momento intuitivo (sia nella fase iniziale sia in quella terminale). I procedimenti raziocinativi sono però mol- 9 La filosofia può esaminare ogni cosa La filosofia, a differenza delle singole scienze, studia ogni settore della realtà Lo strumento di ricerca della filosofia è la ragione La fiiosotia nella su ricerca ha un metodo e un fine La filosofia elementare è soprattutto narrativa: si esprime attraverso i miti Con l’indagine razionale è sorta la filosofia scientifica teplici, di cui i più importanti sono l’induzione e la deduzione. La filosofia li adopera entrambi: il primo per risalire dai fatti ai prin- cipi « primi », il secondo per ridiscendere dai principi primi ed illu- minare ulteriormente i fatti, per comprenderli meglio. c) La filosofia si distingue dalle scienze anche nel fine. La filo- sofia non è volta a fini pratici e interessati, come la scienza, l’arte, la religione e la tecnica, le quali, in un modo o nell'altro, hanno sempre di mira qualche soddisfazione oppure qualche vantaggio. La filosofia ha per unico obiettivo la conoscenza; essa mira semplicemente a ricercare la verità per se stessa, a prescindere da eventuali utiliz- zazioni pratiche. La filosofia ha uno scopo puramente teoretico, ossia contemplativo; non ricerca per nessun vantaggio che sia ad essa estraneo, ma per se stessa; essa è quindi come ha detto egregia- mente Aristotele nella Metafisica — « libera », in quanto non è asservita ad alcuna utilizzazione di ordine pratico, e quindi si realizza e si risolve nella pura contemplazione del vero. 2. Le origini della filosofia 2.1 Filosofia elementare e scientifica L'uomo  l'abbiamo già visto è per natura filosofo: in quan- to essere ragionevole egli è portato ad interrogarsi su tutto ciò che c'è, tutto ciò che accade, tutto ciò che compie e tutto ciò che vale. Le questioni ultime non sono una riserva di caccia aperta soltanto ai dotti e ai letterati, ma è aperta anche all'uomo della strada, an- che all'analfabeta. Esiste pertanto una filosofia elementare che è comune a tutti gli uomini. a La forma letteraria della filosofia elementare è quella del rac- conto: è essenzialmente filosofia narrativa (non è filosofia argomen- tativa, raziocinativa, sistematica); la filosofia elementare si esprime attraverso miti, presentati in racconti, poemi, diari. Sotto queste forme essa è presente in tutte le civiltà, in particolare nelle grandi civiltà orientali (cinese e indiana) e nelle antiche civiltà del vicino Oriente (egiziana, assiro-babilonese, ittita ed ebraica. Ma, come abbiamo già spiegato in precedenza, oltre alla filosofia elementare esiste anche una filosofia scientifica, sistematica, spe- cializzata. Questa forma di filosofia, storicamente, si è sviluppata soltanto in Occidente (al pari della scienza e della tecnologia). Per quale motivo? Perché soltanto gli occidentali, a partire dal popolo greco, sono riusciti a mettere a punto gli strumenti concettuali (la logica, la dialettica, il puro ragionamento) che sono necessari per elevare la filosofia dal livello elementare a quello scientifico. Infatti anche nelle altre culture, specialmente in quelle derivanti dalle grandi civiltà mediorientali ed orientali, elementi filosofici appaiono in contesti di carattere prevalentemente religioso e pertanto non 10 possono essere definiti « filosofia » in senso scientifico vero e pro- prio. Che i problemi ultimi si possono affrontare e risolvere col puro ragionamento (controllato dalle regole della logica) fu scoper- to da Parmenide, Eraclito, Platone e, soprattutto, da Aristotele. Que- ste grandi intelligenze dell’Ellade cercarono la filosofia come scien- za. La filosofia è quindi una conquista degli occidentali e, fino ai giorni nostri, è rimasta una prerogativa del pensiero occidentale. È per questo motivo che ogni storia della filosofia coincide pratica- mente con l'esposizione delle teorie dei filosofi dell'Occidente. 2.2 Mito e filosofia L'umanità primitiva (lo si può constatare presso tutti i popoli) per qualsiasi problema si è accontentata di dare delle spiegazioni mitiche. Così alla domanda: « Perché tuona? » ha risposto: « Per- ché Giove è adirato »; alla domanda: « Perché tira vento? » ha ri- sposto: « Perché Eolo si è infuriato ». A noi moderni queste soluzioni paiono semplicistiche e sbaglia- te. Tuttavia, storicamente, esse hanno grandissima importanza, in quanto rappresentano il primo sforzo fatto dall'umanità per render- si conto della natura delle cose e delle loro cause. Sotto il velo fan- tastico c'è in esse un'autentica ricèrca delle « cause prime » del mondo. Per questo motivo, riteniamo opportuno spendere qui qualche parola sul mito, sulla sua definizione, sulle sue interpretazioni prin- cipali e sul passaggio dalla mitologia greca alla filosofia. Il Turchi, noto studioso della storia delle religioni, definisce così il mito: « Il mito, nella sua accezione generale e nelia sua scaturigi- ne psicologica, è l'animazione dei fenomeni delia natura e della vità, dovuta a qualche forma primordiale ed intuitiva della conoscenza umana, in virtù della quale l'uomo proietta se siesso nelle cose, cioè le anima e personifica dando loro figura e atteggiamenti sugge- riti dalla sua immaginazione; esso è, insomma, una rappresentazio- ne fantastica della realtà spontaneamente delineata dal meccani- smo mentale ».! Di questa lunga definizione possiamo ritenere l’ulti- ma parte: il mito è una rappresentazione fantastica, intuitivamen- te delineata dal processo mentale dell'uomo, al fine di dare un'’in- terpretazione e una spiegazione ai fenomeni delia natura e della vita. Come s'è detto, sin dall'inizio l'uomo ha cercato di indagare l'origine dell'universo, la natura delle cose e delle forze cui egli si sentiva soggetto. A questa indagine, sotto la spinta cella fanta- sia creatrice e dell’intuizione, doti così vive ancor oggi presso i po- poli primitivi, egli ha dato colore e forma, costruendosi un mondo di esseri viventi (con sembianza umana oppure ferina), dotati di storia. La loro funzione è di fornire una spiegazione per qualsiasi ! TURCHI, Le religioni dell'umanità, Assisi. 11 Ii mito è ia prima riscosta dell’umanità ai fenomeni delia naiura e delia vita Rivaiutazione del mito quale risposta “‘prelogica’’ ai problemi dell’esistenza umana evenio della natura e dell’esistenza umana: per la guerra come per la pace, per la quiete come per la tempesta, per l'abbondanza come per la carestia, per la buona salute come per la malattia, per la na- scita come per la morte. Tutti i popoli antichi, gli assiri, i babilonesi, i persiani, gli egiziani, gli indiani, i cinesi, i romani, i galli, i greci, hanno i loro miti. Però, fra tutte le mitologie, la greca è quella che spicca maggiormente per ricchezza, ordine e umanità. Non c'è quindi da essere sorpresi se fu proprio dalla mitologia greca che prese svi- luppo la filosofia. Del mito sono state fornite le più svariate interpretazioni, di cui le principali sono due: mito = verità, mito = favola. Secondo l’interpretazione « mito = verità », il mito è una rappre- sentazione fantastica che intende esprimere una verità. Secondo l'interpretazione « mito = favola », il mito è un racconto immagi- noso senza nessun intento teoretico. I miti, secondo la prima inter- pretazione, sono le uniche spiegazioni che l'umanità, ai suoi primor- di, era in grado di fornire delle cose, ma sono spiegazioni in cui credeva fermamente. I miti, nella seconda interpretazione, sono raffigurazioni fantastiche in cui nessuno ha mai creduto, e meno degli altri i loro creatori. I primi a considerare i miti delle pure favole furono i filosofi greci. A loro più tardi si sono associati volentieri i Padri della Chiesa, gli scolastici e la maggior parte dei filosofi moderni. Ma, a partire dall'inizio del nostro secolo, vari studiosi di storia delle religioni (Eliade}, di psicologia (Freud), di filosofia (Heidegger), di antropologia (Lévi-Strauss), di teologia (Bultmann) hanno inco- minciato ad appoggiare l'interpretazione mito = verità, indotti a ciò dall’argomento che l'umanità primitiva, pur non potendo darsi del- l'universo una spiegazione « logica », cioè concettuale, ragionata e metodica, tuttavia deve aver cercato di darsi una spiegazione più o meno intuitiva di fenomeni come la vita, la morte, il bene, il male, ecc., fenomeni che colpiscono la mente di qualsiasi osservato- re, per quanto poco istruito. Secondo molti studiosi contemporanei, i miti nascondono, pertanto, sotto la maschera di immagini più o meno eloquenti, la risposta « prelogica » fornita dall'umanità pri- mitiva a questi grossi problemi. Tale risposta, a loro giudizio, me- rita d'essere presa in considerazione anche oggi, perché l’umanità primitiva, semplice e attenta, in alcuni casi può aver colto intuitiva- mente nel segno più dell'umanità progredita, troppo smaliziata e distratta che si vale dei metodi raffinati della logica, della dialettica e della scienza. Dall'analisi degli studiosi del nostro tempo risulta che presso i popoli antichi il mito ha svolto tre funzioni principali: religiosa, sociale e filosofica. Anzitutto « il mito è il primo gradino nel processo di compren- sione dei sentimenti religiosi più profondi dell’uomo; è il prototipo 12 della teologia »? Però, allo stesso tempo, esso è anche ciò che se- gnala e garantisce l'appartenenza ad un gruppo sociale piuttosto che ad un altro; infatti la diversa appartenenza dipende dai miti particolari che uno sposa e coltiva. Infine il mito svolge anche una funzione affine a quella della filosofia in quanto esso rappresenta il modo di autocomprendersi dei popoli primitivi. Anche l’uomo del- le civiltà antiche è consapevole di certi fatti e valori, e cristallizza la causa dei primi e la realtà dei secondi in quelle rappresentazioni fantastiche che sono appunto i miti. Noi siamo del parere che il mito sia denso di significato sia religioso che filosofico, sia sociale che personale. Però non siamo disposti a rivalutarlo fino al punto. di stabilire una equiparazione diretta tra mito e filosofia. Questa, pur proponendosi essenzialmen- te lo stesso obiettivo del mito, ossia quello di fornire una compren- sione esaustiva delle cose, cerca di conseguirlo in un modo comple- tamente diverso. Infatti il mito procede con la rappresentazione fan- tastica, con l'immaginazione poetica, con intuitive analogie suggeri- te dall'esperienza sensibile; pertanto resta al di qua del /ogos, ossia al di qua della spiegazione razionale. Invece la filosofia opera con la sola ragione, con rigore logico, con spirito critico, con motiva- zioni razionali, con argomentazioni stringenti’ basate su principi il cui valore è stato previamente assodato in forma esplicita? 3. | problemi filosofici fondamentali Abbiamo già detto che ogni cosa è suscettibile di indagine filo- sofica; si può, quindi, dare una filosofia dell'uomo, degli animali, del mondo, della vita, della materia, degli dèi, della società, della politica, della religione, dell’arte, della scienza, del linguaggio, dello sport, del riso, del gioco, ecc. Di fatto, però, coloro che si chiama- no filosofi hanno studiato di preferenza soltanto alcuni problemi, quelli che vanno sotto il nome di logica, gnoseologia (o problema del- la conoscenza), epistemologia, metafisica, cosmologia, antropologia, etica, teodicea {o religione), politica, estetica, pedagogia, cultura, linguaggio e assiologia, le quali costituiscono pertanto anche le parti principali della filosofia. La logica si occupa del problema del- l'esattezza del ragionamento; la gnoseologia della conoscenza; l'e pi- stemologia, nell'accezione attuale del termine, della scienza, del suo fondamento e del suo valore; la metafisica, del fondamento ultimo ? GILKEY, I! destino della religione nell'èra tecnologica, Roma. ? Aristotele dice che la differenza specifica tra scienza ed esperienza sta nel fatto che la seconda testimonia che qualcosa è accaduto e ne rappresenta il come, mentre la prima cerca di chiarirne il perché. A nostro avviso, anche la differenza tra mito e filosofia sta proprio qui. Il mito ci dice come si struttura l'universo, ossia il mondo degli dèi, degli uomini e delle cose. La filosofia invece vuole spiegare il perché del mondo, dell'uomo e di Dio. 13 | fondamenti filosofici sono le costanti della riflessione umana delle cose in generale; la cosmologia, della costituzione essenziale delle cose materiali, della loro origine e del loro divenire; l'antro po- logia, dell'uomo, della sua natura e del valore della sua persona; la teodicea, del problema religioso ossia dell'esistenza e della natura di Dio e dei rapporti che gli uomini hanno con lui; l’etica, dell'origine e della natura della legge morale, della virtù e della felicità; la politica, dell'origine e della struttura dello Stato; l’estetica, del problema del bello e della natura e funzione dell’arte; la pedagogia, dell’educazio- ne; la cultura del complesso delle conoscenze e dei comportamenti dell'uomo; l'assiologia, dei valori. Essendo queste le costanti del filosofare, che in forma più o meno accentuata sono presenti in tutte le epoche della storia, prima di iniziarne lo studio sistematico è opportuno acquisire un'idea abba- stanza precisa dei problemi che esse abbracciano e intendono risol- vere. A tale esigenza si propone di rispondere il presente volume. Esso non è diretto agli specialisti ma a chi inizia a studiare la filosofia. Per questo motivo, i singoli problemi sono esposti e di- scussi in forma semplice, precisa, essenziale. Di ogni problema si illustrano le origini e gli sviluppi storici, le soluzioni prospettate dai vari filosofi attraverso i secoli e le questioni tuttora aperte e pendenti. CONCETTI DA RITENERE Conoscere; filosofia; filosofo — Intelletto; razionalità; logicità — Ricerca; metodo; finalità — Scienza; tecnologia; scientificità — Induzione; deduzione — Mito; favola; risposta « pre-logica » o intuitiva. SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA Che cos'è la filosofia  La conoscenza umana è superiore a quella degli altri esseri viventi. A livello intellettuale essa assume due forme: razionale o logica e simbolica o analogica. L'uomo è naturalmente « filosofo », egli cerca sempre il perché delle cose. Vengono chiamati « filosofi » coloro che hanno come primo scopo queste ricerche condotte in modo sistematico, per arrivare ad avere delle risposte ai grandi interrogativi che da sempre si è posta l’uma- nità. La filosofia ha una sfera particolare di competenza. Non è facile però stabilire in modo specifico il campo di ricerca proprio della filosofia. In realtà i filosofi si sono occupati non solo dello studio dell'uomo, ma anche del lin- guaggio, dell'essere, della storia, dell’arte, della cultura, della politica, ecc. Si può dire pertanto che la filosofia si occupa di ogni cosa, ricercandone le cause e le ragioni fondamentali. Inoltre, mentre le singole scienze studiano una par- ticolare dimensione della realtà, la filosofia ha per oggetto l'universo preso nella sua totalità. . 2) La specificità della filosofia è data dal fatto che essa si vale: a) di uno strumento di ricerca, che è dato dalla ragione; b) di un metodo raziocinativo, valendosi dell’induzione e della deduzione; c) dell'obiettivo specifico della co- noscenza. 14 3) Le origini della filosofia — Filosofia elementare (comune a tutti gli uomini) e scientifica (sistematica, specializzata). Rapporto tra mito e filosofia. Due principali interpretazioni del mito: mito = verità, mito = favola. Mentre sino al secolo scorso ha dominato il concetto del mito = favola, dall’inizio del secolo XX molti studiosi hanno ripreso il concetto di « mito = verità » in quanto l'umanità primitiva, non potendo dare una spiegazione « logica » del- l'universo, ha cercato una spiegazione intuitiva ai grandi fenomeni come la vita, la morte, il bene, il male, ecc. I miti, sotto la maschera di immagini varie, danno una risposta « prelogica » a questi fenomeni. Dalla mitologia greca prese sviluppo la filosofia. Funzione religiosa, sociale e filosofica del mito. 4) I problemi filosofici fondamentali — La logica (studio dell'oggetto del pensiero in quanto tale) si divide in formale, trascendentale e matematica. Il « sillogismo » aristotelico; l'epistemologia (teoria generale del sapere scienti- fico) e la gnoseologia (teoria filosofica della conoscenza); la cosmologia (studio della forma e delle leggi dell'universo); l'antropologia {studio dell’uomo); la metafisica (studio dell'essere in quanto tale); l'etica o morale (studio dell'agire umano con riferimento all'ultimo fine); l’estetica (studio dell'attività e della produzione artistica); la politica (studio dell'origine e del fondamento dello stato); la teodicea {studio di Dio); la storia (lo studio del senso della storia); la pedagogia (scienza dell'educazione); la cultura (l'insieme di costumi, valori, ecc., propri di un popolo); l’assiologia (studio dei valori). QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Animali e uomo: in che cosa consiste la differenza? 2. Quali forme assume, nell'uomo, la conoscenza intellettuale? 3. Perché l’uomo è stato sempre naturalmente filosofo? L'uomo come si differenzia dagli altri esseri viventi? 4. Che cosa sono la filosofia e il filosofo? 5. La differenza tra filosofia e scienze consiste nell'oggetto o nel metodo? 6. Quali sono le principali concezioni cosmologiche della scienza contem- poranea? 7. Che cosa è il mito? Come è sorto? 8. Perché si dice oggi che il mito è una risposta « prelogica » dell'umanità? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI 1. Sul concetto di filosofia: AA.Vv., Enciclopedia Garzanti di filosofia, Garzanti, Milano 1986°. AA.Vv., Scienza e filosofia oggi, Massimo, Milano 1980. GENTILE M., Che cosa è il sapere, La Scuola, Brescia 1948. MARITAIN J., Introduzione alla filosofia, Massimo, Milano 1986. Morra G.F., Filosofia per tutti, La Scuola, Brescia 1974. PIEPER J., Per la filosofia, Ares, Milano 1966. RicoBELLO A., Perché la filosofia, La Scuola, Brescia 1979. VERNEAUX R., Introduzione e logica, Paideia, Brescia 1956. 2. Sui rapporti tra mito, religione e filosofia: ABBAGNANO N., Filosofia, religione, scienza, Taylor, Torino 1960. CopLESTON F.C., Religione e filosofia, La Scuola, Brescia 1977. MonpoLro R., Alle origini della filosofia della cultura, Il Mulino, Bologna 1956. SERVIER J., L'uomo e l'invisibile, Borla, Torino 1967. 15 SNELL B., La cultura greca e le origini del pensiero europeo, Einaudi, Torino 1963. VERNANT J., Mito e pensiero presso i greci, Einaudi, Torino 1970. 3. Sui problemi fondamentali della filosofia: AA.Vv., Studio ed insegnamento della filosofia, A.V.E., Roma 1966, 2 voll. AA.Vv., Concetti fondamentali di filosofia, Queriniana, Brescia 1982, 3 voll. AA.Vv., Storia antologica dei problemi filosofici, collana diretta da Ugo Spirito, Sansoni, Firenze 1965 ss. VOLKMANN-SCHLUCK, Introduzione al pensiero filosofico, Città Nuova, Ro- ma 1986. Per un aggiornamento generale segnaliamo la rivista quadrimestrale Per la filosofia (Filosofia e insegnamento), dell'Ed. Massimo di Milano, con temi monografici e una seconda parte di aggiornamento didattico per gli insegnanti. (Si può chiedere lo « specimen » della rivista con i sommari dei vari numeri usciti). 16 Parte prima: I PROBLEMI FILOSOFICI Capitolo primo IL PROBLEMA LOGICO (*) QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Esiste una relazione del pensiero con se stesso? 2. Eventualmente, esso come si esprime e quale valore ha? 3. Quale rapporto è possibile stabilire tra pensiero e, discorso? 1. Natura del problema La conoscenza umana è un fenomeno complesso e misterioso. Al suo studio si interessano particolarmente tre discipline filoso- fiche, la psicologia, la gnoseologia e la logica: la prima ne esa- mina l'origine e i tipi principali; la seconda ne accerta il valore, studiando il rapporto che intercorre tra la conoscenza e gli oggetti conosciuti; la terza, infine, studia le condizioni essenziali al co- stituirsi della conoscenza e fissa le regole per il suo retto funziona- mento. La logica non presuppone la gnoseologia, di cui è piuttosto uno strumento indispensabile per il raggiungimento della verità. ‘Pre- suppone invece la psicologia, perché è da quest’ultima che essa viene a sapere quali sono i tipi di conoscenza di cui è dotata la mente umana. Ottenute queste informazioni (per l'appunto dalla psicologia), la logica procede allo studio delle condizioni fondamen- tali che rendono possibili tali tipi di conoscenza ed a stabilire le norme per il loro retto funzionamento. (*) Il termine greco /ogos (dal verbo /égein = dire) presenta nella lingua originaria una pluralità di significati, che esprimono però tutti una stretta con- nessione reciproca; dal più semplice al più complesso sono i seguenti: parola, discorso, ragionamento, mente, intelletto. Il termine indica quindi sia il sog. getto pensante, sia il procedimento proprio del pensiero, sia il linguaggio nel suo irisieme che la parola nel suo valore di comunicazione e di specchio astrat- to delia realtà. La logica, di fatto, finisce per essere lo studio della retta corre- lazione di tutti quesii elementi. 17 La logica ricerca le condizioni ed il loro retto funzionamento per giungere alla gonoscenza La storia della filosofia conferma la dipendenza della logica dalla psicologia Il problema della logica si impone da sé. La logica: l’oggetto del pensiero in quanto tale La logica è lo studio degli enti di ragione Tale dipendenza della logica dalla psicologia è chiaramente con- fermata dalla storia della filosofia. Aristotele, per esempio, distin- gue tre tipi di conoscenza intellettiva (apprensione, giudizio e ra- gionamento) e così nella sua logica fissa le regole per il retto fun- zionamento dell’apprensione, del giudizio e del ragionamento. Hu- me e Stuart Mill pensano che tutta la conoscenza umana faccia capo alla fantasia e pertanto nella loro logica stabiliscono delle re- gole per il retto funzionamento della fantasia. Kant, da parte sua, distingue tre operazioni conoscitive: sensazione, giudizio e ragiona- mento, e pertanto esplora le condizioni trascendentali che rendono possibile il loro funzionamento. Il problema logico, anche se a qualcuno può sembrare artificio- so, si impone da sé. Esso prende forma non appena ci si accorge che alcune conoscenze possono essere interpretate in maniera diver- sa, oppure che la conclusione di un certo ragionamento non può essere valida. Ecco due esempi. Primo: di notte ho la sensazione d'essere colpito mortalmente da una fucilata e mi sveglio di so- prassalto; in un primo momento non so se si tratta di una per- cezione oggettiva oppure semplicemente d'un sogno. Cosa è che distingue queste due forme di conoscenza? Secondo: dalle proposi- zioni: « tutte le oche sono bipedi » e « tutti i galli sono bipedi », qualcuno potrebbe trarre la conclusione: « tutti i galli sono oche ». Per quale motivo una simile argomentazione è errata? La logica si propone, quindi, di fornire una risposta ai seguen- ti interrogativi: Ciò che esprimo quando parlo, che cos'è? E quali sono le sue strutture? Quale la sua organizzazione interna? Della logica sono state date molte definizioni. Una di quelle su cui quasi tutti gli autori si trovano d'accordo è la seguente: « è la scienza che studia il pensato in quanto pensato ». Che significa « il pensato in quanto pensato »? Vuol dire che la logica studia un oggetto di pensiero {il pensato) in quanto oggetto di pensiero (in quanto pensato) e non in quanto rappresentazione di questa o di quella cosa. Per esempio, la logica prende in esame l'idea di tavolo non in quanto è la rappresentazione più o meno fedele di questo o di quel tavolo, oppure per spiegare in che modo tale idea è entrata nella nostra men- te, ma considera il tavolo in quanto, diventato pensiero, esso assume certe particolari caratteristiche (che come oggetto fisico non ha), come l'universalità, la predicabilità, la definibilità, ecc. Così, quando spiego che nella proposizione « il tavolo è quadrato » tavolo è sogget- to e quadrato è predicato faccio un discorso che appartiene alla lo- gica e non alla fisica. Spesso si dice che la logica non studia enti reali ma enti di ragione. E questo è vero. Infatti le caratteristiche del pensato, delle idee, come l'universalità, la predicabilità, ecc. sono entità che non esistono nella natura delle cose (non sono entità fisiche), ma esistono solo nella mente. La logica si divide in tre grandi branchie: logica formale, logica trascendentale e logica matematica. 18 La logica formale esamina le caratteristiche delle idee al fine di stabilire le norme del retto argomentare. Si dice « formale », ap- punto perché ciò che l’interessa sono le caratteristiche delle idee e non i loro contenuti. Ne consegue che le norme che essa stabilisce garantiscono la correttezza del discorso ma non la sua verità. La logica trascendentale tratta della validità delle nostre cono- scenze, ossia delle condizioni alle quali esse devono la loro possi- bilità e verità, e perciò del peculiare modo di essere del pensato in quanto pensato. La logica matematica non parte da un determinato discorso al fine di determinare le regole che ne garantiscono la verità, ma procede nel senso inverso: stabilisce anzitutto un gruppo di regole sulle relazioni di certi termini tra di loro e poi procede a determi- nare quale discorso sia possibile una volta accettato tale gruppo di regole. La logica matematica viene pertanto costruita come un puro calcolo. 2. Panorama storico Aristotele ci ha dato le prime norme della logica formale: « La scienza della logica è stata scoperta dai Greci. Ciò non significa che prima di essi non vi sia stato pensiero logico: questo infatti è antico quanto il pensiero, poiché ogni ideazione fertile è con- trollata dalle regole della logica. Ma una cosa è applicare tali regole inconsciamente nelle operazioni del pensiero pratico, e un’altra for- mularle esplicitamente, in maniera da sistematizzarle sotto forma di una teoria. Spetta ad Aristotele il merito d'aver iniziato lo studio organico delle regole logiche ». Il merito principale d’Aristotele è avere fissato con grande pre- cisione le regole dell'argomentazione deduttiva, nella forma del sillogismo. Il sillogismo consta di tre proposizioni di cui le prime due sono chiamate « premesse » e la terza « conclusione ». Le tre propo- sizioni sono costruite soltanto con tre termini, denominati « me- dio », « maggiore » e « minore ». Il medio è quello che compare due volte nelle premesse ma non figura nella conclusione. Il mag- giore e il minore figurano sia nelle premesse sia nella conclusione. Il maggiore è quello che ricorre nella premessa maggiore e il mi- nore quello che ricorre nella premessa minore. Per esempio, nel sillogismo: « Tutti gli uomini sono ragionevoli; Socrate è un uo- mo; quindi Socrate è ragionevole », « uomo » è il termine medio; « ragionevole » è il termine maggiore; « Socrate » è il termine minore. ! H. REICHENBACH, La nascita della filosofia scientifica, Il Mulino, Bolo- gna 1961, p. 208, 19 La logica si divide in: — formale — trascendentale — matematica Aristotele fissa ie regole dell’argomentazione deduttiva (il sillogismo): si ha la logica ‘‘formale’’ Le quattro figure del sillogismo L’induzione: dal particolare all’universale Critica al sillogismo: da Sesto Empirico, Cartesio, Stuart Mill Del sillogismo si danno quattro figure principali, le quali si ca- ratterizzano per la diversa posizione assunta dal termine medio nel- le premesse. La prima figura si ha quando il termine medio è sog- getto della maggiore e predicato della minore; la seconda figura, quando è predicato in tutt'e due le premesse; la terza, quando è soggetto in entrambe le premesse; la quarta quando è predicato nella maggiore e soggetto nella minore. Perché il procedimento sillogistico sia retto Aristotele ha fissato otto regole fondamentali Oltre che dell’argomentazione deduttiva Aristotele s'è occupato anche di quella induttiva. Il procedimento induttivo, o induzione, si ha quando una proposizione universale viene inferita da due gruppi di proposizioni particolari. Per esempio: a) il ferro è un me- tallo, il bronzo è un metallo, l'oro è un metallo, il rame è un me- tallo, ecc.; b) il ferro è un buon conduttore di elettricità, l'oro è un buon conduttore di elettricità, il rame è un buon conduttore di elettricità, ecc.; c) dunque i metalli sono buoni conduttori di elet- tricità. L'enumerazione dei casi non può essere completa, perché i casi sono potenzialmente infiniti, ma dev'essere sufficiente a far co- gliere la ragione del fenomeno (per esempio, che l’esser metallo è la ragione della buona conducibilità). Lo studio della deduzione e soprattutto quello dell'induzione fu ulteriormente approfondito da altri filosofi dopo Aristotele. Gli Stoici e alcuni filosofi medioevali hanno sviluppato lo studio delle deduzioni imperfette, vale a dire delle argomentazioni ipotetiche e disgiuntive. Invece Bacone * e Stuart Mill5 hanno fissato alcune re- gole per rendere l’induzione più feconda e sicura. Le tabulae di Bacone offrono metodi di enumerazione dei casi; le regole di Stuart Mill precisano vari metodi di ricerca della ragione di fatti sperimentali. L'utilità del procedimento sillogistico è stata contestata da vari autori lungo il corso dei secoli, per esempio, da Sesto Empirico, Cartesio, Stuart Mill. C'è però da osservare che le loro difficoltà non muovono tanto dalla logica quanto dalla teoria della conoscenza, la quale .viene concepita in modo diverso da quello di Aristotele. ? Le otto regole del sillogismo sono: 1. I termini debbono essere soltanto tre; 2. I termini debbono avere la medesima estensione nelle premesse e nella conclusione; 3. Il medio non deve mai entrare nella conclusione; 4. Il medio deve essere preso almeno una volta in tutta la sua estensione; 5. Due premesse negative non danno nessuna conclusione; 6. Due premesse afferma- tive risultano necessariamente in una conclusione affermativa; 7. Due premesse particolari non danno nessuna conclusione; 8. La conclusione segue sempre la parte più debole, ossia se una premessa è negativa la conclusione dev'essere negativa; se una premessa è particolare, la conclusione dev'essere particolare. ? Sulla logica aristotelica cfr. B. MONDIN, Corso di storia della filosofia, vol. I, pp. 122-123, Massimo; Milano 1983. ‘ Cfr. B. MONDIN, Corso di storia della filosofia, vol. II, pp. 103-107, Massi- mo, Milano 1984. 5 Cfr. B. MONDIN, Corso di storia della filosofia, vol. III, pp. 184-186, Massi- mo, Milano 1985, 20 Sesto Empirico e Stuart Mill negano i concetti universali, e quindi per loro è assurdo pretendere di passare dall'universale al singo- lare come si fa nel sillogismo. Invece Cartesio afferma la corioscenza intuitiva sia degli universali che dei particolari, e pertanto per lui diviene superflua qualsiasi argomentazione tesa a passare da un ordine all’altro. Invece secondo Aristotele noi abbiamo la capacità di acquistare concetti universali, ma non per intuizione, bensì me- diante l’astrazione dai particolari. L’astrazione però non comporta la conoscenza di tuiti i particolari. Così nella deduzione si vengono a conoscere nuovi casi singoli che nell'universale erano presenti sol- tanto potenzialmente. Un altro tipo di logica, detta logica trascendentale, volta a stabi lire le condizioni essenziali che rendono possibili i vari tipi di cono- scenza, fu elaborata da Kant. Questi, convinto della validità della scienza, ha esaminato quali siano gli elementi che fondano tale validità. A suo giudizio, essi non possono procedere dall’espe- rienza che non è mai dotata di necessità e universalità, ma dal sog- getto stesso: sono forme o categorie con le quali il soggetto accoglie, interpreta e classifica l’esperienza. Nella sua logica trascendentale Kant determina appunto le forme (di spazio e tempo) e le categorie (dodici) che danno ordine all'esperienza. Secondo Kant l'intelletto spontaneamente foggia gli oggetti dell'esperienza (per esempio, fa sì che essi siano regolati dai principi di causalità, di ordine, ecc.), ma non li crea; esso fornisce le condizioni a priori mediante le quali, sol- tanto, qualcosa può essere pensato come oggetto. Queste condizioni sono l'oggetto della logica trascendentale kantiana, la quale studia pertanto l'origine, la validità oggettiva e l'estensione (sempre limitata all'ordine fenomenico) delle nostre conoscenze a priori. La logica trascendentale non prescinde da ogni contenuto come la logica formale, ma solo dal contenuto empirico (sensibile) delle conoscenze. La teoria kantiana della logica trascendentale ha dato luogo ad innumerevoli dispute. C'è chi l’ha salutata come la soluzione più adeguata al problema della conoscenza scientifica; invece altri l'ha respintaoperchéprivadi fondamento oppure perché non neces- saria. Alcuni ne hanno contestata la validità, negando alla matemati- ca, alla geometria e alla fisica quelle caratteristiche di certezza asso- luta che Kant ascriveva loro. Ora, se questa obiezione è fondata, come i più recenti sviluppi della matematica e delle scienze speri- mentali sembrano attestare, è evidente che crolla il terreno su cui Kant ha costruito il suo edificio. Altri non mettono in questione la validità della scienza, ma per spiegarla non ritengono necessario po- stulare elementi conoscitivi a priori (forme e categorie). Seguendo Aristotele affermano che l’universalità e la necessità delle idee e dei giudizi non è il risultato di una sovrapposizione di queste caratteri- stiche sui dati dell'esperienza, bensì di una lettura approfondita di tali dati: non sono frutto di una sintesi dell'elemento a posteriori con 21 Kant elabora le condizioni essenziali della conoscenza: si ha la logica ‘‘trascendentale”’ Dalla critica a Kant deriva il recupero della logica aristotelica Nell'ultimo secolo si è sviluppata la logica ‘‘matematica’’ costruita come un calcolo di simboli La sintassi del linguaggio comprende: — regole di formazione — regole di deduzione Il sistema assiomatico deriva dai due tipi di regole quello a priori, bensì di un'astrazione effettuata dall’intelletto sugli oggetti dell'esperienza. L'ipotesi aristotelica rispetto a quella di Kant ha il vantaggio di salvaguardare meglio l'obiettività del conoscere e, allo stesso tem- po, è in condizione di render conto della mobilità delle scienze (fi- siche e matematiche).£ In Hegel la logica formale di Aristotele e quella trascendentale di Kant non sono abbandonate ma acquistano un senso nuovo: esse non si riferiscono più semplicemente alla sfera del pensiero, ma an- che a quella della realtà, perché, secondo Hegel, tra le due sfere c'è perfetta coincidenza: « tutto ciò che è razionale è reale e tutto ciò che è reale è razionale ». Durante l’ultimo secolo, per merito di Frege, Peano, Whitehead, Russell e altri, ha ottenuto considerevole sviluppo un terzo tipo di logica, la logica matematica {detta anche logica simbolica oppure logistica). Questa, come s'è detto, viene costruita come un calcolo di simboli, i quali non hanno nessun altro senso che quello assegna- to loro dalle rispettive regole. Il primo passo della logica matematica è stabilire la sintassi del linguaggio: ossia fissare le relazioni dei segni tra di loro, mediante alcune regole generali. Tale sintassi viene costruita indipendente- mente dalla semantica del linguaggio, la quale si occupa del rapporto dei segni con ciò di cui si parla. La sintassi comprende due gruppi di regole: di formazione e di deduzione. Le regole di formazione stabiliscono prima quali se- gni scritti (per esempio, q, p, v, -) sono espressioni del linguaggio, e poi quali combinazioni di tali espressioni sono formule ben for- mate ossia espressioni sensate, distinte dalle altre (non sensate). Alcune di queste formule ben formate vengono assunte quali as- siomi, ossia quali primi enunciati validi. Le regole di deduzione poi determinano mediante quali procedimenti (per esempio, sostituzione di una espressione ad un’altra) altri enunciati validi possono essere derivati, ossia dedotti, dagli assiomi iniziali. Sia gli assiomi sia gli enunciati dedotti sono chiamati teoremi del sistema. Il sistema che ne risulta è detto sistema assiomatico, in quanto tutti i teoremi vi sono dedotti da pochi assiomi. Come s'è detto, i sistemi assiomatici sono costruiti in modo del tutto indipendente dal significato che potrà poi essere attri- buito ai loro teoremi, quando siano applicati ad una scienza; ed i loro assiomi non hanno affatto la pretesa di essere evidenti. Per- ciò «la deduzione non consiste nell’inferire da verità evidenti altre verità, mediatamente evidenti (come nel sillogismo); ma consiste solo nel trasformare date formule assunte come primitive (ossia gli assiomi), in modo da ottenerne altre (le formule derivate): tutte ‘ Cfr. B. MONDIN, vol. II, pp. 338-347. * Cfr. B. MoNDIN, vol. III, pp. 74-80. 22 queste formule — ossia tutti i teoremi — risultano così tra di loro concatenati in un unico sistema. I sistemi sono però usualmente costruiti in vista della loro interpretazione, ossia applicazione ad una data scienza; sicché l'utilità di un sistema sta tutta nella sua ca- pacità di fornire un criterio rigoroso di distinzione di date formule — i teoremi, eventualmente interpretabili come enunciati veri di una data scienza — dalle altre formule. L'interpretazione di un sistema è data dalle regole semantiche che mettono ogni sua espressione in rapporto o con un nesso logico (disgiunzione, implicazione, ecc.) o con una delle entità (oggetto, proprietà, relazione, proposizione, ecc.) studiate in una data scienza. Il sistema e la sua interpretazione sono costruiti in modo tale che ad ogni teorema del sistema corri- sponda una proposizione vera di quella scienza in cui esso viene inter- pretato »} Perché un sistema assiomatico sia corretto e logicamente inter- pretabile si esige che sia non-contraddittorio, tale cioè che due for- mule di cui una nega quello che l’altra afferma, per esempio, « A » e « non A », non siano ambedue in esso deducibili. Senonché nel 1931 Gidel fece una scoperta che ebbe del sensa- zionale: dimostrò che la non-contraddittorietà del sistema non può essere dimostrata nel sistema stesso: ossia espréssa in un enunciato che sia teorema o assioma del sistema. Sicché per affermare valida- mente la non-contraddittorietà d'un sistema occorre usare espressio- ni estranee al sistema stesso. Si prese così coscienza dei limiti interni della logica matematica. Più tardi ci si accorse che difficoltà ancora maggiori provenivano dall'esterno, nel momento in cui si passava dal calcolo simbolico alla traduzione semantica dei sistemi assioma- tici. E in effetti le difficoltà apparvero insormontabili allorché nella traduzione dei sistemi assiomatici, in un primo tempo, si adot- tarono regole semantiche come quelle del neopositivismo, regole troppo rigide e del tutto inadeguate ad esprimere la ricchezza e varietà dell'esperienza umana. Si cercò di superare tale difficoltà abbandonando il neopositivi- smo e sviluppando una nuova filosofia del linguaggio, la filosofia analitica. Questa insegna che ogni tipo di discorso deve avere una logica sua propria e che la logica matematica si addice soltanto al discorso scientifico. Dalla filosofia analitica i logici matematici hanno appreso l’impor- tante lezione di mantenere una rigorosa distinzione tra la loro opera e quella dei semantici. In effetti i logici matematici contempo- ranei (Carnap, Quine, Church) costruiscono dei calcoli puramente formali, intesi cioè come sistemi di segni privi di significato. Solo in un secondo tempo si chiedono se vi siano delle verità significate da * F. RIVETTI BARBO', « Il problema logico », in Studio e insegnamento della posse, Ave, Roma 1966, pp. 159-160. Cfr. B. 'MONDIN, vol. III, pp. 450-456. » Cfr. Ivi, pp. 456-460. 23 L’interpretazione di un sistema: — nesso logico (disgiunzione, implicazione, ecc.) — entità (oggetto, proprietà, relazione, proposizione, ecc.) Il problema della non contradditorietà e i limiti della logica matematica La filosofia ‘‘analitica’’ insegna che la logica matematica è solo del discorso scientifico Logica ‘‘formale’’ e logica ‘’simbolica”’: affinità e differenze Oggi risulta chiaro che la logica è una tecnica ordinatrice del pensiero quei segni, e quali esse siano. Le risposte variano dal nominalismo (Quine) al platonismo (Church). Al suo primo apparire, la logica matematica parve a molti incom- patibile con la logica formale tradizionale. Questo giudizio oggi non è più condiviso da nessuno. In effetti tra le due discipline non esiste nessuna incompatibilità. Tant'è vero che in uno dei testi più classici di logica matematica (quello del Quine), tutta la prima parte non fa altro che riproporre, in forma simbolica, la logica formale di Ari- stotele. Esistono tuttavia sicuramente alcune importanti differenze tra logica formale e logica simbolica. In quest'ultima è più netta la se- parazione tra il calcolo logico e l’interpretazione semantica; mentre in Aristotele regole logiche e principi semantici sono spesso mesco- lati insieme. In secondo luogo, l'apparato della logica matematica è assai più vasto e complesso di quello della logica formale. Infine, mentre la logica tradizionale partiva dalla definizione degli enti lo- gici (concetto, giudizio, ragionamento) e poi ne ricercava le strut- ture, la logica matematica si limita a costruire i sistemi formali la- sciando alla semantica di determinare, in un secondo tempo, di quali enti si tratti. Grazie alla netta separazione tra logica e semantica oggi risulta più evidente una verità che i filosofi del passato non hanno sempre visto chiaramente: che, cioè, la logica, propriamente parlando, non è una parte della filosofia (e tanto meno tutta la filosofia come pre- tendeva Hegel) bensì una tecnica generale per ordinare rettamente il pensiero, qualsiasi pensiero. Essa è pertanto un presupposto fon- damentale di tutte le scienze, inclusa ovviamente anche la filosofia. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Psicologia; gnoseologia; logica — Logica formale, trascendentale, matematica — Sillogismo; deduzione, induzione — Sintassi del linguaggio; regole di formazione; regole di deduzione — Sistema assiomatico — Filosofia analitica SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. IL PROBLEMA 1. La conoscenza umana è un fenomeno complesso e misterioso. Tre disci- pline filosofiche si interessano ad esso: la psicologia {ne esamina l'origine e i tipi); la gnoseologia (ne accerta il valore); la logica (ne studia le condizioni essenziali e le regole del retto funzionamento). x 2. La logica non presuppone la gnoseologia, di cui è strumento, ma presup- pone la psicologia che le indica i diversi tipi di conoscenza. 3. Il problema logico si pone da sé quando ci si rende conto che alcune conoscenze e alcuni ragionamenti possono condurre a conclusioni diverse. Na- 24 scono allora questi interrogativi: Ciò che esprimo quando parlo che cos'è? Quali sono le sue strutture? Quale la sua organizzazione interna? 4. La logica studia un oggetto di pensiero (il pensato) in quanto oggetto di pensiero (in quanto pensato) e non in quanto rappresentazione della realtà. 5. La logica è così distinguibile: a) logica « formale »: suo oggetto sono le idee e i loro contenuti; stabilisce le regole del retto argomentare; b) logica « trascendentale »: tratta della validità delle nostre conoscenze e della loro possibilità e verità; c) logica « matematica »: è un puro calcolo che stabilisce un gruppo di regole sulla relazione tra certi termini e determina quale discorso sia possibile. II. PANORAMA STORICO 1. Aristotele ha fissato nel sillogismo le regole dell’argomentazione dedut- tiva. Egli si è occupato anche dell’argomentazione induttiva, che inferisce una proposizione universale da una particolare. 2. Lo studio della deduzione e dell’induzione si è protratto nei secoli attra- verso gli stoici, Bacone, Cartesio e Stuart-Mill. 3. La logica trascendentale deve la sua paternità a Kant che attribuisce alle forme pure dello spazio e del tempo e alle categorie il compito di organiz- zare l’esperienza. 4. In Hegel la prospettiva aristotelica e quella kantiana assumono carat- tere metafisico: la realtà è il pensato del pensiero. 5. Nel sec. XX Frege, Peano, Whitehead, Russell, ecc. hanno elaborato la logica matematica o simbolica orientata a stabilire la sintassi del linguaggio incentrata sulle regole di formazione e di deduzione. Queste ultime portano alla individuazione dei sistemi assiomatici. La correttezza del sistema assioma- tico sta nella sua non contraddittorietà. Gòdel nel 1931 ha scoperto che il cri- terio di non contraddittorietà del sistema è posto fuori dal sistema stesso. 6. Una nuova filosofia del linguaggio, la filosofia analitica, insegna che ogni tipo di discorso deve avere una sua logica e che la logica matematica si addice solo al discorso scientifico. 7. Tra logica formale e logica simbolica vi sono importanti differenze: nella prima sono spesso mescolate regole logiche e princìpi semantici; nella seconda il calcolo logico e l’interpretazione semantica sono più nettamente separati. QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Quale relazione intercorre tra psicologia, gnoseologia e logica? 2. Che cosa contraddistingue la logica e qual è l'oggetto del suo studio? 3. La logica in quante branchie si divide e quale significato ha ciascuna di esse? 4. Che cosa sono il sillogismo e l’induzione? 5. Quale rapporto intercorre tra la logica formale e lo studio dell'analisi logica di una lingua? 6. C'è un campo di applicazione specifica della logica matematica o simbo- lica nella nostra cultura a tecnologia avanzata? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI BocHENSKI J., La logica formale, 2 voll., Einaudi, Torino 1972. CAsARI E., La logica del Novecento, Loescher, Torino 1981. Corpi I., Introduzione alla logica, Il Mulino, Bologna 1982. 25 FucHs W.R., La nuova logica, Rizzoli, Milano 1982. GRANA N,, Filosofia della logica, Loffredo, Napoli 1982. MORANDINI F., Corso di logica, P.U.G., Roma 1971. PASQUINELLI A., Introduzione alla logica simbolica, Einaudi, Torino 1953. PIageET J., Logica e psicologia, La Nuova Italia, Firenze 1971. ‘PropI G., Storia naturale della logica, Bompiani, Milano. QuINE W.V.0., Manuale di logica, Milano 1960. REICHENBACH H., La nascita della filosofia scientifica, Il Mulino, Bologna 1961. SANGUINETI J.J., Logica e gnoseologia, Urbaniana Univ. Press, Roma 1983. SELVAGGI F., Elementi di logica, P.U.G., Roma 1979. VANNI RovIGHI S., Elementi di filosofia, I, La Scuola, Brescia 1963. VERNEAUX R., Introduzione e logica (Corso di filosofia tomista), Paideia, Brescia 1966. 26 Capitolo secondo IL PROBLEMA GNOSEOLOGICO (o problema della conoscenza) QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Che cosa si può ritenere necessario per la conoscenza? 2. È possibile analizzare i caratteri del proprio modo di conoscere? 3. Quale rapporto intercorre tra verità, errore e conoscenza? Il problema della conoscenza, s'è osservato nel capitolo preceden- te, è un problema complesso, i cui aspetti principali sono tre: primo, origine e strutturazione; secondo, valore; terzo, retto funziona- mento. Il primo aspetto è trattato dalla psicologia, il secondo dalla critica e il terzo dalla logica. Nel capitolo precedente abbiamo esa- minato l'aspetto logico; ora, nel presente capitolo, ci occuperemo sia di quello critico che di quello psicologico. I principali problemi di ordine psicologico sono due, uno riguar- da le forme della conoscenza umana e l’altro la loro origine. 1. Le forme della conoscenza umana Per quanto concerne la conoscenza umana, è evidente che anche noi come gli animali siamo dotati di alcune forme di conoscenza sensitiva: vista, udito, gusto, odorato, tatto. 'Possediamo inoltre, anche un'altra capacità, la memoria, la quale ci consente di richia- mare alla mente notizie che appartengono al passato. Vi è infine la fantasia, che ci permette di rappresentare le cose in modo originale, diversamente da come le abbiamo ricevute dall'esperienza. Così, per esempio, possiamo immaginare un bue con la testa di leone e la coda di coccodrillo, anche se di fatto un simile animale non esiste nella realtà. Sul possesso di queste facoltà non esiste nessun dubbio; perciò la filosofia non ha nulla da disputare al riguardo. Senonché la conoscenza umana fornisce anche altri dati singo- lari, appartenenti all'ordine scientifico, religioso, morale, estetico, ecc., che includono idee universali e astratte, principi generali e asso- luti, leggi necessarie, e che presentano quindi caratteristiche del tutto dissimili dalle conoscenze ottenute mediante i sensi e la fanta- sia. Di fronte a tali dati sorge inevitabilmente l’interrogativo: di che 27 Aspetti del problema della conoscenza: — orlginl e strutturazione — valore — retto funzionamento Alcune forme della conoscenza: — conoscenza sensitiva — memoria — fantasia Parmenide e i Pitagorici danno valore assoluto alla conoscenza razionale Conoscenza sensitiva e conoscenza intellettiva: orientamento platonico e orientamento aristotelico genere di conoscenze si tratta? A quale sfera appartengono? Questo è un problema impegnativo e spetta al filosofo risolverlo. Le soluzioni possibili, come ci insegna la storia della fiiosofia, sono molte. Il problema fu già dibattuto dai presocratici, i quali presentano subito una soluzione contrastata: Parmenide e i Pitagorici ricono- scono apertamente oltre alla conoscenza sensitiva anche quella ra- zionale, ma soltanto a quest’ultima ascrivono valore assoluto. In- vece Protagora, Gorgia e gli altri Sofisti ammettono solo l’esistenza della conoscenza sensitiva e in tal modo ritengono di riuscire a spiegare le profonde divergenze che si incontrano tra gli orizzonti conoscitivi di membri appartenenti a diverse società o anche allo stesso gruppo sociale. In generale, però, durante il periodo classico, quasi tutti i filosofi riconoscono l’esistenza di almeno due ordini conoscitivi: quello dei sensi e quello dell'intelletto. Ma all’interno di questo ampio accordo di fondo, si danno alcune divergenze significative tra i pensatori di orientamento platonico (Platone, Plotino, Agostino, san Bonaven- tura) e quelli di orientamento aristotelico (Aristotele, Averroè, Al- berto Magno, Tommaso d'Aquino). I platonici suddividono sia la conoscenza sensitiva che quella intellettiva in due tipi: — conoscenza sensitiva per immagine diretta, — conoscenza sensitiva per immagine indiretta, ossia mediante una copia, — conoscenza intellettiva per ragionamento (che Platone chiama dianoia e Agostino ratio inferior), — conoscenza intellettiva mediante visione (che Platone chiama noesis e Agostino illuminatio)? Gli aristotelici mantengono la prima distinzione, ma le assegna- no scarsa importanza; respingono invece la seconda in quanto a lo- ro avviso la nostra mente non è dotata di conoscenza intuitiva, ma solo astrattiva e raziocinativa.* Il problema gnoseologico assume un'importanza singolare nel- l'epoca moderna a partire da Cartesio. Questi comprende che dalla soluzione del suddetto problema dipende la soluzione di tutti gli altri. Anche nel periodo moderno come in quello classico, di fronte al problema dei tipi di conoscenza i filosofi si dividono in due grandi schieramenti: alcuni ammettono sia la conoscenza sensitiva che quella intellettiva; sono i razionalisti (Cartesio, Spinoza, Malebran- che, Leibniz) e gli idealisti (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Croce). Altri ammet- tono soltanto la conoscenza sensitiva: sono gli empiristi (Berkeley, ! Cfr. B. MONDIN, vol. I, pp. 60-61. ? Cfr. Ivi, pp. 62-64. ? Cfr. Ivi, pp. 85-87; 217-219. ‘ Cfr. Ivi, pp. 137-139. 28 Hume), i positivisti (Comte, Spencer, Mill) e i neopositivisti (Russell, Ayer). Oggi, il problema delle forme della conoscenza rimane ancora aperto e tutto lascia prevedere che neppure nel futuro si arriverà ad una soluzione conclusiva. Ci sarà sempre anche in seguito, come nel passato, chi basandosi su ciò che è immediatamente sperimentabile affermerà che l’unica conoscenza di cui siamo dotati è quella di or- dine sensitivo. Altri invece, prendendo seriamente in esame alcune espressioni della nostra conoscenza che non sono riconducibili al- l'ordine sensitivo (come le conoscenze scientifiche, religiose, etiche, estetiche, ecc.) riterrà necessario ammettere che siamo dotati anche di una forma di conoscenza trans-sensitiva, ossia intellettiva. 2. Origine della conoscenza Le idee di cui noi siamo in possesso da dove provengono? Sono riproduzioni di oggetti esterni a noi o sono invece creazioni della nostra mente? Anche per questo problema, come per quello pre- cedente si possono dare varie soluzioni. Si può pensare che le idee siano esclusivamente frutto dell’azione dell'oggetto su di noi, oppure che siano, viceversa, il risultato dell’opera del soggetto solamente, oppure, infine, che siano dovute all'azione combinata del soggetto e dell'oggetto. (Le divergenze, però, non finiscono qui. Abbiamo visto che quasi tutti i filosofi riconoscono almeno due forme di conoscenza: quella sensitiva e quella intellettiva. Ne consegue che le tre ipotesi prece- denti vanno moltiplicate per due. E in effetti si può pensare: 1. tutta la conoscenza (sia sensitiva che intellettiva) viene pro- dotta dall'oggetto (Platone); 2. tutta la conoscenza (sia sensitiva che intellettiva) è prodotta dal soggetto (Hegel); 3. la conoscenza intellettiva è prodotta dal soggetto e quella sensitiva dall'oggetto (Occam); 4. la conoscenza intellettiva è prodotta dall'oggetto e quella sen- sitiva dal soggetto (Berkeley); 5. la conoscenza intellettiva è il risultato dell'azione combinata del soggetto e dell'oggetto, mentre invece la conoscenza sensitiva è dovuta esclusivamente all’azione dell'oggetto {Aristotele); 6. la conoscenza sensitiva e quella intellettiva sono entrambe il risultato dell'azione combinata del soggetto e dell'oggetto (Kant). Storicamente le grandi linee di sviluppo del problema dell'origine della conoscenza sono le seguenti. ‘Platone, il quale è il primo filosofo ad affrontare questa questione in maniera esplicita e sistematica, ritiene che tutta la conoscenza umana sia sensitiva che intellettiva abbia la sua origine dall'oggetto. Dato però che nel mondo fisico che esperimentiamo non esistono 29 Forme della conoscenza: è un problema aperto Le idee: — riproduzione di oggetti esterni — creazione della mente — relazione soggetto “oggetto Sei soluzioni al problema delle forme e delle origini Sviluppo storico: — Platone: l’origine è nell’oggetto (reminiscenza e anamnesi) — Aristotele: azione del soggetto In virtù dell’intelletto — Sant'Agostino: le verità eterne e l'illuminazione — San Tommaso: l’azione astrattiva dell’intelletto — Berkeley: Dio causa delle idee — Hume: il primato della sensazione oggetti universali e necessari, Platone, per spiegare l'origine della conoscenza intellettiva, ritiene necessario postulare l’esistenza di un mondo ideale costituito appunto di oggetti universali, necessari e pertanto immateriali. L'anima è stata a contatto con questo mondo delle Idee prima di entrare nel corpo: è quindi preesistita al corpo. Attualmente, quando conosciamo verità assolute noi non facciamo altro che prendere coscienza (reminiscenza, anamnesi) di quanto ab- biamo già esperito precedentemente, nell'Iperuranio.5 Aristotele considera la teoria platonica dell'origine della cono- scenza intellettiva artificiosa, arbitraria e non corroborata in alcun modo dall'esperienza. La conoscenza intellettiva a suo parere, è do- vuta in larga misura all’azione del soggetto, il quale è dotato di una potenza particolare (l'intelletto) mediante la quale elabora i dati offertigli dall'esperienza così da cogliere in essi l'elemento universale e necessario e pertanto essenziale. Sant'Agostino condivide la tesi platonica che le idee universali (le verità eterne) sono prodotte in noi dall'esterno, perché a suo giudi- zio se esse fossero causate da noi stessi non potrebbero avere quei caratteri di assolutezza, certezza, universalità, immutabilità di cui sono dotate, essendo noi esseri contingenti e fallibili; ma la modifica in un aspetto importante: la causa della loro origine non sono le Idee ma Dio. Questi le infonde nella nostra mente con la sua azione il- luminatrice (illuminatio). San Tommaso ritiene che la teoria agostiniana misconosca l’auto- nomia dell'uomo proprio in quella che è la sua facoltà più propria e specifica e che lo innalza al di sopra del regno degli animali. Ripro- pone quindi la teoria aristotelica: la conoscenza delle idee universali è dovuta all’azione dell'intelletto umano, il quale le astrae dalle cose.! Sulla linea di Platone continuano a muoversi alcuni eminenti filosofi moderni (Cartesio, Malebranche, Rosmini, Gioberti); invece altri si muovono sulla linea di Aristotele (Locke, i Neotomisti). Ma durante l'epoca moderna si affacciano soluzioni diverse da quelle tradizionali. Così, per esempio, Berkeley afferma che le idee sono tutte particolari, ma non hanno come causa della loro origine gli og- getti materiali, bensì Dio stesso.’ Hume fonda tutta la nostra cono- scenza sulla sensazione; ma non sa spiegare in che modo si formano in essa i dati iniziali Ad ogni modo, presupposti tali dati, tutte le nostre conoscenze fattuali, a suo avviso, sono frutto dell’azione della fantasia la quale le ottiene associando oppure dissociando i dati pri- mari in base alla loro contiguità nello spazio e nel tempo, alla loro 5 Cfr. Ivi, pp. 85-87. 6 Cfr. Ivi, pp. 137-139. ? Cfr. Ivi, pp. 217-219. * Cfr. Ivi, pp. 286-290. * Cfr. B. MoNnDIN, vol. II, pp. 229-230. 30 somiglianza e dissomiglianza, e alla loro successione causale.! Kant spiega sia la conoscenza sensitiva che quella intellettiva come il risul- tato di una sintesi di elementi forniti in parte dal soggetto e in parte dall'oggetto. L'oggetto fornisce la materia, il soggetto la forma. C'è pertanto un elemento a posteriori (la materia) ed uno a priori (la forma). Kant distingue pertanto vari elementi formali: nella cono- scenza sentitiva sono lo spazio e il tempo; nella conoscenza intellet- tiva, le dodici categorie. In tal modo Kant ritiene di aver superato l'impasse tra razionalisti ed empiristi e di avere fornito una valida spiegazione dell'origine della conoscenza scientifica." Ma la sua spie- gazione viene ben presto contestata dagli idealisti; essi escludono qualsiasi apporto dell'oggetto nella formazione della conoscenza, ritenendo che soltanto così si può salvare l'autonomia del soggetto; e affermano che la conoscenza è creazione spontanea del soggetto." Oggi si cerca di sbloccare il problema dell'origine della conoscen- za facendo intervenire nella sua formazione molti altri fattori oltre a quelli tradizionali (soggetto, oggetto, Dio). Gli psicanalisti danno rilievo al fattore subcoscienziale ed istintivo; gli strutturalisti a quello sociale; gli esistenzialisti, in particolare Heidegger, e i teorici della nuova ermeneutica (Gadamer) al fattore storico; gli analisti a quello linguistico. A nostro avviso, però, la soluzione conclusiva del problema della conoscenza non va ricercata nell’affermazione di una sola di queste componenti ad esclusione delle altre, bensì nella giusta armonizza- zione di tutti questi coefficienti tra di loro e con quei due coefficienti indispensabili che sono il soggetto e l'oggetto. 3. Valore della conoscenza Anche per quanto concerne l'aspetto critico i problemi fonda- mentali sono due: a) che valore ha la conoscenza umana? b) qual è il metodo più efficace per garantire alla nostra conoscenza il raggiun- gimento della verità? Esaminiamo anzitutto il primo problema. Il valore della nostra conoscenza diventa un problema nel mo- mento in cui facciamo esperienza dell'errore. Allora ci domandiamo: possiamo fidarci delle nostre facoltà conoscitive? Le conoscenze che esse ci procurano sono valide? Quando e in che misura? Storicamente il problema del valore della conoscenza è uno dei primi affrontati dai filosofi, i quali, poi, non hanno più cessato di dibatterlo, fino ai nostri giorni. Per risolverlo, Parmenide traccia una netta distinzione tra cono- ‘ Cfr. Ivi, pp. 234-236. " Cfr. Ivi, pp. 337-345. !? Cfr. B. MonDIN, vol. III, pp. 31-32; 67-77. 4 Cfr. Ivi, pp. 222-227; 406-414; 456-460; 468472. 31 — Kant: la conoscenza come sintesi soggetto- oggetto Valore della conoscenza: — i Sofisti: relativismo gnoseologico — Socrate: valore assoluto della conoscenza intellettiva — Platone: immortalità, assolutezza e necessità della conoscenza intellettiva — Aristotele: intelletto, essenza e verità — Agostino: evidenza dell’esistenza scenza sensitiva ed intellettiva: solo la seconda può attingere la verità; la prima al massimo può generare opinioni. I Sofisti, i quali come s'è visto hanno una concezione sensistica della conoscenza non le riconoscono in nessun caso valore assoluto: né nel campo speri- mentale né in quello filosofico né in quello religioso né in quello giuridico. Contro il relativismo e lo scetticismo dei Sofisti, Socrate fa vedere che oltre alle conoscenze dei sensi l'uomo possiede anche altre conoscenze che travalicano la sfera sensitiva come le idee di bontà, giustizia, felicità, bellezza, verità; le quali hanno valore as- soluto." Platone cerca di considerare la posizione di Socrate distinguendo due piani di realtà, quello fisico e quello ideale ed assegnando all’in- telletto la conoscenza del secondo mentre ai sensi appartiene la cono- scenza del primo. Ora, come il piano ideale è immutabile, eterno, in- corruttibile, così anche la conoscenza intellettiva è necessaria, im- mutabile e assoluta. Per contro, essendo il piano materiale mutevole e corruttibile, anche la conoscenza sensitiva è mutevole e soggetta ad errore." Aristotele condivide il pensiero di Socrate e Platone circa l’essen- ziale validità della conoscenza intellettiva, ma non la spiegazione fornita da Platone. Sono le cose stesse a suo giudizio a contenere un nucleo fondamentale sempre identico a se stesso, l'essenza. Questa non si trova al di fuori delle cose, separata, ma nelle cose. E l’intel- letto umano attinge la verità afferrando per astrazione tale essenza. Dopo Platone e Aristotele la filosofia greca attraversa un profondo travaglio, che sfocia nell’abbandono dei loro poderosi sistemi meta- fisici e nel ripiegamento, con gli Stoici e gli Epicurei, su specula- zioni di carattere etico e politico. Ma la crisi della metafisica fornisce un ulteriore motivo per mettere in dubbio il valore della ragione umana: così sorge lo “scetticismo”. Secondo questa filosofia l’uomo non può mai raggiungere con certezza la verità." Durante l’ultimo secolo avanti Cristo e nei primi secoli dell'era cristiana lo scetticismo diviene la teoria di moda oltre che in Grecia anche a Roma. Persino Agostino la condivide durante una fase della sua vita; ma poi, convertito al cristianesimo, la respinge ferma- mente, mostrando che anche ammettendo di cadere continuamente nell'errore, uno ha ciononostante e proprio per questo motivo il possesso di almeno una verità: che esiste. Si fallor, sum. « Chi può dubitare d'essere vivo, se ricorda, capisce, desidera, pensa, conosce e giudica? Dal momento che egli ha questo dubbio, egli vive; se egli dubita, pensa. Per quanti dubbi egli abbia, quindi riguardo ad altre cose, egli non deve aver dubbi riguardo a questa; poiché se egli non * Cfr. B. MONDIN, vol. I, pp. 49-51; 61-65; 70-74. * Cfr. Ivi, pp. 81-87. “ Cfr. Ivi, pp. 137-139. ” Cfr. Ivi, pp. 177-179. 32 esistesse, non potrebbe aver dubbi riguardo ad alcuna cosa »." Il valore della conoscenza umana, almeno di quella intellettiva, è apertamente affermato e difeso da san Tommaso e dagli altri Scola- stici. Ma col tramonto della Scolastica spunta nuovamente lo scetti- cismo. Alla fine del Cinquecento esso fa presa su molti spiriti tanto che non è esagerato dire che il « Que sais-je? » non è solo il motto di Montaigne ma di tutta la sua epoca. Quando Cartesio decide di rin- novare l’edificio filosofico, la visione imperante nel mondo dei dotti è ancora quella scettica. E così si comprende perché il padre della filosofia moderna inizi la sua costruzione filosofica, sottoponendo al vaglio della critica l’ordine della conoscenza, onde verificarne il valore e la portata. Egli inizia, com'è noto, facendo le massime con- cessioni allo scetticismo; ma questo non gli impedisce di cogliere una prima fondamentale verità: dubito, quindi penso; penso, quindi sono: Cogito, ergo sum. Da questa verità Cartesio deduce poi tutta una vasta serie di proposizioni di ordine metafisico, religioso e anche fisico. Alla fine egli ritiene di potere riscattare dal dubbio non sol- tanto le conoscenze di ordine intellettivo ma anche quelle di ordine sensitivo, in quanto neppure queste ultime sarebbero frutto del- l’esperienza bensì il risultato di un'attività « innata ».!° A fianco di Cartesio e a difesa del valore della conoscenza intel- lettiva si schierano alcuni grossi nomi della filosofia moderna, come Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibniz, Wolff: è il gruppo dei filosofi razio- nalisti. Ma allo stesso tempo si sviluppa anche una forte corrente contraria a Cartesio e alla sua interpretazione ottimistica del feno- meno conoscitivo: è la corrente degli empiristi (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) i quali o negano qualsiasi forma di conoscenza intellettiva oppure ne contestano l'utilità. Secondo gli empiristi l’unica cono- scenza che consente all'uomo di ottenere informazioni fattuali è quella dei sensi, la quale tuttavia non può mai rivendicare per sé i caratteri dell’universalità e della necessità. Pertanto la verità come sicura corrispondenza tra le nostre idee e le cose non esiste. Come si vede, siamo di nuovo ripiombati dentro lo scetticismo, anzi nello scetticismo più radicale. Tale è in effetti la conclusione cui giunge la ricerca filosofica di Hume.® Dalle posizioni assunte dagli empiristi e dai razionalisti, ma te- nendo allo stesso tempo anche conto delle posizioni di prestigio ac- quisite dalla scienza moderna, muove Kant quando affronta e pren- de nuovamente in esame il problema critico. Questo a suo giudizio non può essere risolto che in modo positivo dati i successi ottenuti dalle scienze sperimentali. Ossia si deve riconoscere la validità della conoscenza intellettiva. Ma secondo Kant si deve circoscrivere il suo ambito ad oggetti diversi da quelli che volevano assegnarle i ra- zionalisti e gli empiristi. La conoscenza intellettiva non ha di mira # AGOSTINO, De Trinitate, X, 10, 14. ' Cfr. B. MONDIN, vol. II, pp. 137-139. ® Cfr. Ivi, pp. 224-243. 33 — Cartesio: dall’'evidenza del pensare all’evidenza dell’esistere — Kant: la soluzione critica Tendenze attuali circa il valore della conoscenza: scetticismo che si basa sulla scienza e sulla prassi la cosa in sé (ossia la realtà oggettiva), ma i fenomeni. Soltanto come conoscenza dei fenomeni essa attinge la verità, cioè la necessità e l'universalità. Quando mediante la ragione l’uomo vuole oltrepas- sare la sfera dei fenomeni per raggiungere quella del noumeno, egli si perde necessariamente in una selva di antinomie.* La soluzione indubbiamente geniale ma discutibile di Kant, la quale se per un verso aveva il merito di chiarire la struttura della conoscenza scientifica, per un altro verso aveva anche il demerito di precludere ogni soluzione teoretica proprio per quei problemi che maggiormente interessano e tormentano l’uomo (come la pro- pria origine, la natura del proprio essere, la sopravvivenza dopo la morte, l’esistenza di Dio, la libertà, ecc.): tale soluzione non viene ac- colta per molto tempo. Dopo qualche decennio i filosofi ricadono nuo- vamente nelle due classiche alternative: quella intellettualistica (spo- sata dagli idealisti, gli intuizionisti, i neotomisti) e quella sensistica (accolta dai positivisti, gli empiriocriticisti, i materialisti, i neopo- sitivisti). î Oggi, la tendenza generale per quanto concerne il valore della conoscenza è contraria al razionalismo ed è favorevole ad uno scetti- cismo più o meno oltranzistico. È, però, una tendenza che assume toni e sfumature diverse, di cui le espressioni più significative sono due. Una è rappresentata da coloro che ritengono che la verità si debba sempre ricercare per via conoscitiva, ma sono convinti che è necessario escludere qualsiasi forma di metafisica: per scoprire la verità bisogna affidarsi soprattutto alle tecniche delle scienze umane, la psicanalisi, la nuova ermeneutica, lo strutturalismo oppure alle scienze sperimentali. L'altra è rappresentata da coloro che cercano la verità non attraverso la speculazione bensì attraverso la prassi. Secondo un gruppo di pensatori del XIX secolo, che fanno capo a Marx e a Engels, la validità di una concezione, d'una teoria, d'un sistema non si può provare con argomenti aprioristici, ma emerge nella prassi, nell'azione. Ma a questo punto il nostro discorso è scivolato fuori da quello che era l'argomento specifico di questa sezione, il problema critico, ed è entrato in un altro argomento, quello del metodo. Eccoci quin- di, ora, a trattare la questione del metodo nei suoi sviluppi storici. 4. Il metodo Il problema del metodo, in quanto si propone di trovare una via che dia sicure garanzie di attingere la verità, coincide in larga misura col problema logico, ma non interamente, perché il problema logico prescinde dai contenuti, mentre invece il problema critico si rivolge soprattutto ai contenuti. 2 Cfr. Ivi, pp. 336-346. 34 Il problema del metodo è già avvertito dalla filosofia greca (c’è il metodo maieutico di Socrate, il metodo dell’ascensus e del descen- sus di Plotino, il metodo dialettico di Platone, il metodo induttivo e deduttivo di Aristotele) e dalla filosofia cristiana (c'è il metodo alle- gorico di Origene, quello introspettivo di Agostino, quello analogico di Tommaso d'Aquino), ma acquista importanza capitale soprattutto nella filosofia moderna. Sorpresi e abbagliati dal successo delle scienze sperimentali i filosofi si persuadono che anche la filosofia potrebbe aspirare ad analoghi risultati, qualora disponesse di un buon metodo. E perciò si preoccupano o di trasferire direttamente alla ricerca filosofica gli stessi metodi della scienza (Bacone, Galilei)? e della matematica (Cartesio, Spinoza, Leibniz) oppure cercano di escogitare nuovi metodi. I più noti sono: — il metodo del « cuore » di Pasca — il metodo della verifica « storica » (verum est factum) di Vico ® — il metodo associativo di Hume * — il metodo « trascendentale » di Kant 7 — il metodo dialettico di Hegel * — il metodo positivo di Comte ” — il metodo pragmatico di James ” — il metodo intuitivo di Bergson *! — il metodo fenomenologico di Husserl” — il metodo della verifica sperimentale dei neopositivisti * — il metodo della falsificabilità di Popper.* Oggi molti autori sono propensi ad abbandonare tutti questi me- todi di tipo teoretico e ritengono che l'unico metodo valido sia co- stituito dalla prassi. È la prassi, l’azione, la vita che rivela se una teoria, un sistema sono validi. È nell'impatto con la storia, con la realtà vissuta che emerge il valore di un'idea. A nostro avviso questo metodo della prassi ha certamente dei pregi, perché la testimonianza dei fatti contribuisce senza dubbio a decidere della bontà o meno di un'idea, una teoria, un sistema. Ex fructibus eorum conoscetis eos, diceva Gesù. Ma non pensiamo che esso possa essere assunto come criterio supremo di verità, come 1% ? Cfr. Ivi, pp. 103-110. ® Cfr. Ivi, pp. 134-137; 163-164. 2 Cfr. Ivi, pp. 203-204. * Cfr. Ivi, pp. 273-275. * Cfr. Ivi, pp. 234-236. 2" Cfr. Ivi, pp. 336-344. * Cfr. B. MonpIN, vol. III, pp. 77-78. 2 Cfr. Ivi, pp. 178-181. * Cfr. Ivi, pp. 346-348. # Cfr. Ivi, pp. 253-254. ® Cfr. Ivi, pp. 389-392. ® Cfr. Ivi, pp. 450-453. * Cfr. K.R. PoPPER, Logica della scoperta scientifica, Torino 1970. 35 Metodo maieutico e metodo dialettico: Socrate e Platone Nuovi metodi di ricerca sotto l'influsso dello sviluppo della scienza Il metodo della prassi La valutazione critica di G. Reale guida infallibile delle nostre azioni. Qualsiasi azione, per non essere cieca e stolta, ha bisogno di venire guidata, illuminata, e la sua guida, ovviamente, non può essere l’azione. Su questo punto a noi pare che abbia perfettamente ragione Giovanni Reale quando scrive: « Quando sulla scia del pensiero marxistico o di estrazione marxi- stica si asserisce che la filosofia non ha da contemplare ma da can- giare la realtà [...] non si sostituisce semplicemente una visione filosofica ad un'altra, ma si uccide la filosofia: il cangiare la realtà può infatti essere solo un momento conseguente al vero ricercato e trovato, e più che filosofare è, al massimo, corollario del filosofare. Il cangiare può essere solo impegno etico, politico, educativo e non può mai essere, dal punto di vista filosofico, momento primario, per- ché presuppone strutturalmente che si sappia e si accerti preliminar- mente perché, come e in che senso e misura cangiare; dunque sup- pone sempre a monte il momento teoretico (cioè propriamente filo- sofico) come condizionante. Né vale obiettare, come coloro che, quasi sentendosi in colpa di fronte all’obiezione prassistica, asseriscono che, sì, cangiare la realtà non è filosofare, ma che, tuttavia, l'uomo di oggi deve filosofare per cangiare qualcosa. Anche questa posizione è decettiva: infatti, chi filosofa con questo spirito perde la libertà, e l'ansia del cangiare fatalmente condiziona e turba il momento del contemplare; lo turba al punto che, rovesciati i termini, e aggiogatisi al carro della prassi, la speculazione pura diventa ideologia e quindi cessa di essere filosofia »,5 CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Conoscenza sensitiva; conoscenza intellettuale — Relazione soggetto-oggetto — Scetticismo; metodo SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. LE FORME DELLA CONOSCENZA UMANA 1. La conoscenza umana, complessamente articolata, consta di una forma sensitiva (vista, udito, gusto, odorato, tatto); della memoria che custodisce il passato; della fantasia che rappresenta le cose in modo originale rispetto al- l'esperienza. Sull’evidenza di questa conoscenza la filosofia non ha nulla da discutere. Problematiche sono invece le conoscenze astratte che suscitano in- terrogativi circa il loro genere e la sfera di appartenenza. 2. Il problema gnoseologico è stato dibattuto in modo contrastante. Dalle origini del pensiero occidentale ad oggi si è verificata la seguente alternanza di orientamenti: a) compresenza della conoscenza sensitiva e di quella razionale (Parme- nide, pitagorici, platonici, aristotelici); * G. REALE, I problemi del pensiero antico dalle origini a Platone, Celuc, Milano 1972, pp. 52-53. 36 b) primato della conoscenza sensitiva su quella razionale (i sofisti, gli em- piristi, i positivisti, i neopositivisti); c) primato della conoscenza razionale su quella sensitiva (i razionalisti e gli idealisti). 3. Nell’età moderna il problema gnoseologico va acquisendo un graduale primato, decisamente affermato soprattutto da Cartesio; nel nostro tempo re- sta un problema aperto. II. ORIGINE DELLA CONOSCENZA 1. Le idee sono riproduzioni di oggetti esterni a noi o sono creazioni della nostra mente, oppure esse sono il risultato dell’azione combinata del soggetto e dell’oggetto? 2. Si sono delineate per i tre interrogativi sei piste di soluzione: a) tutta la conoscenza è prodotta dall'oggetto (Platone); b) tutta la conoscenza è pro- dotta dal soggetto (Hegel); c) la conoscenza intellettiva è prodotta dal soggetto e quella sensitiva dall'oggetto {(Occam); d) la conoscenza intellettiva è prodotta dall'oggetto e quella sensitiva dal soggetto (Berkeley); e) la conoscenza intel- lettiva è risultato dell'azione combinata del soggetto e dell'oggetto; f) la cono- scenza sensitiva è dovuta all’azione dell'oggetto {Aristotele). III. VALORE DELLA CONOSCENZA 1. Il valore della conoscenza diventa un problema DS momento in cui fac- ciamo esperienza dell’errore. 2. Storicamente il problema del valore è stato tra i primi ad essere affron- tato: Parmenide: la conoscenza intellettiva attinge alla verità, la conoscenza sensitiva genera opinioni; Sofisti: la conoscenza non ha mai valore assoluto; Socrate e Platone: le conoscenze intellettuali hanno valore assoluto, le cono- scenze sensitive sono soggette ad errore; Aristotele: l'intelletto umano attinge la verità afferrando per astrazione l'essenza delle cose; Agostino: inoppugna- bile verità dell’esistenza; San Tommaso: afferma il valore della conoscenza intellettiva; Prospettiva scettica della filosofia del ’500; Cartesio: dal dubbio metodico al valore assoluto della conoscenza intellettiva; Empiristi: primato della conoscenza sensibile e negazione della verità; Kant: mediazione tra cono- scenza sensibile e conoscenza intellettiva; Tendenza scettica della cultura con- temporanea. IV. IL METODO 1. Già avvertito nel pensiero classico (Socrate, Platone e Aristotele), il pro- blema emerge nell'età moderna con particolare riferimento al sapere scientifico (Bacone e Galilei) e al sapere matematico (Cartesio, Spinoza e Leibniz). 2. Dal metodo del « cuore » di Pascal al metodo della falsificabilità di Pop- per il pensiero moderno e contemporaneo si è impegnato in una costante ri- cerca. Oggi, abbandonata la strada teorica, si attribuisce validità di metodo alla prassi (la storia e la realtà vissuta convalidano un'idea). QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Qual è l'origine della conoscenza umana e quali le sue forme fonda- mentali? 2. Quale valore ha la conoscenza umana? 3. Come si arriva al raggiungimento della verità per la nostra conoscenza? 4. In che cosa consiste il problema gnoseologico? Quali sono i suoi aspetti princi pali? 5. Qual è il pensiero dei platonici, degli aristotelici, dei razionalisti, degli empiristi, degli idealisti sulla divisione, l'origine e il valore della conoscenza? 37 6. Come sorge il problema critico? Quale impostazione assume in Socrate, Agostino, Cartesio, Kant e Husserl? 7. Che cos'è il metodo? Quali sono i metodi proposti da Platone, Aristotele, Cartesio, Spinoza, Vico, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Mara? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI BLANDINO G., I! problema della conoscenza, Abete, Roma 1972. FagRO C., Percezione e pensiero, Morcelliana, Brescia 1961. HEEGGER M., Sull’essenza della verità, La Scuola, Brescia 1977, MARCUSE H., L'uomo a una dimensione, Einaudi, Torino 1967. MARITAIN J., / gradi del sapere, Morcelliana, Brescia 1981. Miano V., Problemi di gnoseologia e metafisica, L.A.S., Roma 1966. PENATI G.C., Problemi di gnoseologia e metafisica, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1979. Poppi A., La verità, La Scuola, Brescia 1984. RINALDI G., Critica della gnoseologia fenomenologica, Giannini, Napoli 1979. RIVETTI BarBò F., Dubbi, discorsi, verità. Lineamenti di filosofia della cono- scenza, Jaca Book, Milano 1985. SAMEK Lopovici E., Metamorfosi della gnosi, Ares, Milano 1979. SANGUINETI J.J., Logica e gnoseologia, Ed. Urbaniana, Roma 1984. VANNI RovIGHI S., Gnoseologia, Morcelliana, Brescia 1979. 38 Capitolo terzo li PROBLEMA EPISTEMOLOGICO {o problema della scienza) QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO I. Che cosa si intende per scienza oggi? E che cosa si intendeva nel passato? 2. Quale valore è da attribuire al sapere scientifico? $. Evoluzione del concetto di scienza nei corso dei seceli Da quando Comte negò alia filosofia una propria sfera di oggetti e le affidò come compito specifico lo studio delle scienze, ia determi- nazione dei loro oggetti e dei loro compiti, la loro divisione e coor- dinazione, l’attenzione dei filosofi si è rivolta sempre più insistente- mente in direzione della scienza, la quale è divenuta per molti l’ar- gomenta principale e centrale della loro analisi. Del resto, un'inda- gine più attenia e approfondita delle caratteristiche e delle funzioni del sapere scientifico era richiesta, oltre che dall’orientamento posi- tivistico delia filosofia, anche dagli enormi sviluppi e dall'importanza straordinaria che la scienza aveva acquisito durante gli ultimi due secoli, un periodo in cui essa ha mostrato di essere un sapere estre- mamente fecondo e pratico. Da tali istanze ha preso il via quelia speciale disciplina che si chiama filosofia della scienza o episiemologia. Questa si identifica « con la critica metodologica della scienza, nelia misura in cui tale critica tende all’'esplicitazione consapevole e sistematica del metodo e delle condizioni di validità dei giudizi — particolari, o singolari, e universali — fatti propri dagli scienziati e persegue così una “rico- struzione razionale”, convenzionalmente qualificata in senso empiri- co-pragmatico, del concetto di conoscenza scientifica ». Gli interrogativi a cui l'epistemologia si propone di rispondere sono i seguenti: « Cos'è la conoscenza scientifica? In altre parole, in che cosa cohsiste propriamente il lavoro dello scienziato? Cosa fa egli quando fa scienza? Interpreta, descrive, spiega, prevede? Le sue sono soltanto congetture oppure asserzioni (generali e singolari) rispecchianti fedelmente tratti (generali e singolari) dei fatti? E quan- do lo scienziato spiega, cos'è che egli spiega dei “fatti”? La fun- FO A. PASQUINELLI, Nuovi principi di epistemologia, Feltrinelli, Milano 946, p. 56. 39 La riflessione sulla scienza: caratieristiche s funzioni L'epistemotpgia: critica metodologica della scienza Gli interrogativi fondamentali — induzione — causalità — oggettività Presa di coscienza della problematicità del sapere scientifico Trasformazioni nel tempo del concetto di scienza: — divisione aristotelica: matematica, fisica, metafisica — età moderna: l’aspetto denotativo ristretto ai fenomeni sperimentabili e calcolabili zione, l'origine, la genesi, l'essenza, il fine? Qual è lo status logico delle leggi nella scienza? Sono essi l'esito di procedimenti induttivi (e poi che cosa vuol dire induzione nella scienza?), ovvero congetture della fantasia scientifica che dovranno venir sottoposte ad una terribi- le lotta (prove empiriche) per l’esistenza? Inoltre, in che senso si par- la di causalità (e di cause) nelle scienze empiriche? Quand'è, poi, che possiamo dire che una teoria è “migliore” di un’altra? E che cos'è che intendiamo allorché diciamo che le scienze empiriche sono og- gettive? Qual è il ruolo dell'esperienza nella ricerca scientifica? Sono questi tutti interrogativi che sgorgano dalla domanda iniziale su che cosa sia la conoscenza scientifica »? Questi interrogativi hanno cominciato ad imporsi all'attenzione dei filosofi verso la fine dell'Ottocento con Boutroux, Poincaré, Duhem, Mach, ecc., allorché all’atteggiamento di ottimistica fiducia e cieca esaltazione della scienza, è subentrato un atteggiamento di pacato scetticismo e di critica penetrante nei confronti della cono- scenza scientifica. Si deve appunto alla presa di coscienza della pro- blematicità di tale conoscenza (coscienza che era ancora assente in Cartesio, Newton, Kant, Comte, Spencer, ecc.) la nascita e lo sviluppo della filosofia della scienza o epistemologia. Il concetto di scienza ha subìto profonde trasformazioni lungo il corso dei secoli sia per quanto attiene all'aspetto connotativo (il significato del termine) sia a quello denotativo (il campo di applica- bilità). Aristotele, per primo, definì la scienza come cognitio rei per causas: conoscenza di una cosa attraverso i suoi principi (cause) costitutivi, o, più brevemente, « conoscenza ragionata, argomentata, delle cose ». Aristotele divideva le scienze in tre grandi rami: mate- matiche (scienze dei numeri), fisiche (scienze delle cose materiali) e metafisiche (scienze delle realtà indipendenti dallo spazio e dal tempo). Durante l'epoca moderna, a partire da Bacone, c'è stato un cam- biamento per quanto concerne l'aspetto denotativo: perché l'ambito di applicazione del termine « scienza » un po’ alla volta è stato ri- stretto allo studio di fenomeni sperimentabili fisicamente e calcola- bili matematicamente; ma allo stesso tempo interveniva anche un cambiamento concernente l'aspetto connotativo, dato il nuovo si- gnificato che andava assumendo nel pensiero moderno il concetto di causa. Per « causa » Aristotele ed in generale tutti i pensatori dell'an- tichità e del Medioevo intendevano l'essenza, la natura delle realtà (sia materiali che spirituali) e credevano che per spiegare ‘un fatto, un fenomeno, bastasse conoscere l'essenza della cosa che lo pro- duce. Così, per es., per spiegare il fenomeno dell'ebollizione del- l'acqua quando viene messa sul fuoco, pensavano che fosse necessario ? D. ANTISERI, La filosofia del linguaggio, Morcelliana, Brescia 1973, p. 95. 40 e sufficiente conoscere la natura dell’acqua e del fuoco. Da tale con- cetto di scienza e di causa derivava quell'interessamento per le es- senze delle cose tanto caratteristico del pensiero antico. Nel pensiero moderno si registra un cambiamento radicale. Da Bacone (1561-1626) in poi l'oggetto della scienza non è più l'essenza delle cose che si nasconde dietro i fenomeni, bensì i rapporti co- stanti, le leggi che legano i fenomeni fra di loro. Anche secondo la concezione moderna la scienza studia la causa dei fenomeni ma, per causa, non si intende più l’essenza e l'elemento qualitativo delle cose, ma solo gli aspetti quantitativi e la relazione costante che lega i feno- meni fra di loro, cioè la legge. La legge indica puramente una relazio- ne di fatto fra due termini. Anziché un rapporto causale propriamente detto la legge esprime una certa regolarità fenomenica. Per esempio, che ad una certa variazione di temperatura coincide nel metallo una certa variazione di dilatazione. Questo però non dice nulla riguardo alla natura ontologica del calore e del metallo o della causalità del mondo materiale. Il problema che si pone lo scienziato non è più quello del perché e dell'essenza delle cose, ma quello del come e del comportamento delle medesime. Nasce così il concetto moderno di legge naturale che viene a prendere il posto della natura, essenza, o forma aristotelica. La legge non è la definizione dell'essenza della co- sa, bensì la formulazione del rapporto costante tra due grandezze va- riabili, non è dunque che la descrizione del comportamento di un fe- nomeno, espressa in forma matematica. Questo cambiamento nella concezione dell'oggetto della scienza è avvenuto, come già detto, nel sedicesimo e diciassettesimo secolo. In tempi assai più recenti si è effettuato un cambiamento non meno sensazionale riguardo alla concezione dei rapporti tra scienza e realtà. Fino alla fine del secolo scorso si è sempre concepita la scienza come una fedele riproduzione della realtà. Scienziati e filo- sofi hanno universalmente ritenuto che la scienza riveli all'uomo la struttura effettiva delle cose e gli manifesti esattamente la realtà. Secondo tale concezione dei rapporti tra scienza e realtà, per esem- pio, le « definizioni » di Euclide non indicano semplici costruzioni mentali nostre, in certo modo convenzionali e che potrebbero perciò essere diversamente formulate, ma designano essenze reali concepite di per sé esistenti. Allo stesso modo è concepita la sostanza e lo spazio. Molti antichi credono non solamente in questa fedele corri- spondenza tra scienza e realtà ma arrivano persino ad identificare il razionale con il reale. Così, per esempio, poiché cerchio e sfera, per l'equidistanza di tutti i punti dal centro e quindi la simmetria ed ar- monia che presentano, sono figure « perfette », Aristotele e gli astro- nomi antichi deducono che gli astri, che sono gli esseri materiali più « perfetti », devono avere forma sferica e muoversi secondo orbite circolari. La scienza moderna invece, fondandosi sull’osservazione di fatto, ha dimostrato che la terra è schiacciata ai poli e che le orbite dei pianeti sono ellittiche. La concezione classica di esatta 41 Oggi si studia Il comportamento delle cose Daila scienza come riproduzione della realtà si passa alla scienza come sistemazione dei dati dell'esperienza Dogi si ritiene che i cencetti filosofici fon corrispondono esattamente alla realtà corrispondenza tra scienza e realtà è durata per molto tempo anche nell'età moderna e non raramente si è spinta la corrispondenza tra lo scientifico e il reale fino a tal punto da identificare lo scientifico col reale, sicché è reale solo quello che è scientifico. È famoso il caso delle proprietà primarie (figura, estensione e numero) e secon- darie (colore, odore, sapore, ecc.). Secondo Galilei, Cartesio e mol- tissimi altri scienziati e filosofi moderni, poiché la considerazione scientifica si limita alle qualità primarie, queste sono ritenute ogget- tive e perciò reali, mentre le qualità secondarie sono considerate sog- gettive e quindi irreali. Estensione, moto e numeri, cioè i concetti che hanno preso il luogo prima occupato dalle forme e essenze arista- teliche non sono concepiti da Galilei e Newton meno realisticamen- te di quanto non lo siano state ie forme e sono considerati l'essenza costitutiva della realtà naturale. Col crollo di molti punti cardinali della scienza moderna, co- struita da Newton e ritenuta per un paio di secoli infallibile come i dogmi rivelati, la concezione classica di esatta corrispondenza tra scienza e realtà cominciò a vacillare. Oggi la maggioranza degli scienziati ritiene che i concetti scientifici non corrispondano esatta- mente alla realtà. Essi non concepiscono la scienza come una ripro- duzione fedele della realtà ma come una semplice sistemazione dei dati dell'esperienza. La scienza, quindi, non è valida in quanto rivela all'uomo la struttura effettiva dei fenomeni ma in quanto permette all'eomo di orientarsi nella congerie dei fatti che gli presenta l’espe- rienza, di prevederne la successione futura e di poter quindi meglio attendere all'organizzazione della propria vita. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), paleontologo e teologo, ha scritto a questo proposito: « Se prendiamo nel suo insieme l’edificio di onde e di particelle costruito dalla nostra scienza, risulta chiaro che questa bella architettura contiene di “noi-stessi” almeno quanto contiene delle “cose”. Giunte ad un certo grado di ampiezza e di sottigliezza, le costruzioni della fisica moderna lasciano intravedere distintamente la trama intellettuale dello spirito del ricercatore sotto la marea dei fenomeni. Di qui il dubbio che fotoni, protoni, elettroni e altri elementi della materia non abbiano né maggiore (né minore) realtà fuori della nostra mente di quanto ne abbiano i colori fuori dei nostri occhi. Di conseguenza il vecchio realismo dei laboratori si incammina verso una specie di idealismo scien- tifico ».3 Sullo stesso argomento il matematico Jules-Henri Poincaré (1854- 1912) si è espresso nel modo seguente: « Le teorie matematiche (dei fenomeni fisici) non hanno lo scopo di rivelarci la vera natura delle cose; questa sarebbe una pretesa irragionevole. Il loro unico scopo è di coordinare le leggi fisiche che l'esperienza ci fa conoscere, ma che senza il concorso delle matematiche non potremmo neppure e- ? P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, L'énergie humaine, Parigi 1962, p. 144. 42 nunciare. Interessa poco che l'etere esista effettivamente, questo è un problema che interessa i metafisici: l'essenziale per noi è che tutto si svolga come se di fatto esistesse ».* Le parole di Poincaré sono assai autorevoli, perché è stato lui a provare che lo spazio di cui tratta la geometria euclidea non è né la riproduzione esatta della realtà, come aveva creduto la scienza classica, né una forma a priori come aveva sostenuto Kant, ma è una costruzione mentale escogitata dall'uomo per riordinare i dati dell'esperienza ed eliminare da essi il carattere complesso e contrad- dittorio con cui si presentano. Anche il concetto di numero ha mutato significato per lo scienziato moderno. Mentre per gli antichi il nu- mero era un elemento essenziale della realtà materiale e per alcuni l'essenza stessa delle cose, per gli scienziati del nostro tempo i nu- meri sono un simbolismo, come le parole, introdotto dall'uomo per esprimere e riassumere certi caratteri dei fenomeni, come la esten- sione, la molteplicità, la direzione, ecc. I principali argomenti che si adducono a favore della nuova con- cezione della scienza e del significato delle teorie scientifiche sono tre. Il primo e più importante è quello che si fonda sulla verità che tutte le nostre idee hanno solo una corrispondenza parziale con le cose. La realtà individuale è troppo complessa e la mente umana per comprenderla deve sempre sottoporla a riduzioni, semplificazioni, schematizzazioni che rappresentano le cose solo in modo imperfetto e inadeguato. Per questo motivo gli scolastici affermavano che tra conoscenze umane e cose non vi è relazione di univocità ma di ana- logia. E tutti sanno che l'analogia comporta una piccola somiglianza là dove c'è grande differenza. Un altro importante argomento 2 fa- vore della nuova interpretazione è il fatto che il soggetto conoscerite è sempre coinvolto nell'evento che sta osservando, e, per certi espe- rimenti, l'osservazione si risolve sempre in una modificazione de! fe- nomeno. È questo il significato dei famoso principio di indetermina- zione formulato dal fisico Werner Heisenberg, che afferma l’impos- sibilità di determinare assieme la posizione e la velocità di un elet- trone, perché la determinazione delia posizione richiede che l’eiet- trons sia illuminato, il che ne altera inevitabilmente la velocità. Analoga conclusione si ricava dal famoso teorema di Gòdel,' il quale dice che « di qualsiasi sistema logico è indimostrabile la non-con- traddittorietà con i mezzi offerti dal sistema stesso ». Il terzo arga- mento è la constatazione che tante teorie scientifiche ritenute incroi. labili in un non lontano passato, recentemente sono risuitate se non proprio errate quanto meno insufficienti: inapplicabili ai nuovi fe- nomeni che sono venuti alla luce con l'ampliarsi dell'orizzonte delia scienza. ‘ H. PoINCARÉ, La science et l'hypothèse, Parigi 1902, p. 245. 5 Kurt Géodel (1906-1978) matematico statunitense di origine morava, che, doro l'avvento del nazismo, andò negli USA ad insegnare nell'università di rinceton. 43 Dal carattere essenziale 21 carattere simbolico del numero Tre argomenti a favore delia concezione moderna della scienza: — if concetto di analogia — ii principio di indeterminazione —- il priterie d! falsificeditità Nozione non univoca di scienza La matematica e la geometria come rappresentazioni formali Probabilismo e relativismo del sapere scientifico Stando così le cose, si può ritenere filosoficamente valida la con- cezione moderna della scienza e la nuova interpretazione della rela- zione tra scienza e realtà, in termini di analogia (cioè di parziale cor- rispondenza tra teorie scientifiche e mondo reale), perché si tratta semplicemente di un'applicazione in un campo particolare (quello scientifico) dell'unica interpretazione corretta del rapporto tra cono- scenza umana in generale e le cose materiali. La nuova interpreta- zione sottrae definitivamente le scienze sperimentali al pericolo al quale si sono trovate sistematicamente esposte in passato: il pericolo di identificare il razionale col reale, lo scientifico col fisico, il quan- titativo col qualitativo. Oltre che alla interpretazione dei rapporti tra scienza e realtà, se- condo alcuni epistemologi (Maritain, Agazzi, Tonini, ecc.) il concetto di analogia si addice perfettamente anche alla definizione della no- zione di scienza. Questa non è una nozione univoca (che si applica cioè esattamente allo stesso modo a tutte le scienze), bensì analoga. In effetti il rigore e l'oggettività, che sono gli elementi specifici del sapere scientifico, non si applicano allo stesso modo alle varie scienze, ma variano da scienza a scienza: altro è il rigore e l’oggettività che si richiede nella fisica, nella chimica, nell’anatomia, ecc. e altro il ri- gore e l’oggettività che si esige in psicologia, sociologia, antropologia culturale, ecc.9 2. Classificazione delle scienze e natura del sapere scien- tifico secondo gli epistemologi contemporanei I primi risultati significativi di questa nuova disciplina riguar- dano la matematica e la geometria, le quali non sono più concepite come scienze reali, come rappresentazioni di situazioni obiettive, bensì come costruzioni formali: come sistemi fondati su postulati scelti arbitrariamente e costruiti con la tecnica della deduzione lo- gica delle conseguenze che tali postulati comportano. Così, per opera di Hilbert, Poincaré, Peano, Riemann, Frege, Russell e di altri stu- diosi, la matematica e la geometria prendono coscienza della loro specificità come scienze del possibile, distinte dalla fisica che è invece scienza del reale. Per quanto concerne la fisica e le scienze sperimentali in ge- nerale si passa dalla visione statica e meccanicistica ad una visione dinamica, probabilistica e relativistica delle leggi della natura. Que- sto cambiamento fu motivato dalle scoperte della entropia, della radioattività, della relatività, dei quanta, ecc... In conseguenza di tali scoperte i concetti di uno spazio e di un tempo assoluti come pure quelli di simultaneità persero ogni valore. L'idea dello spazio curvo ‘ Cfr. E. AGAZZI, « Analogicità del concetto di scienza », in Epistemologia e scienze umane, Massimo, Milano 1979, pp. 57-76. 44 prende il posto dell'idea euclidiana dello spazio rettilineo; l’idea di rapporti necessari di causalità è sostituita dall'idea di indetermi- nazione. Nelle scienze della natura, all'inizio del Novecento, acquista ri- lievo una serie di questioni filosofiche relative al carattere e alla fun- zione della conoscenza sperimentale. Le scienze naturali non figu- rano più nel campo del sapere come conoscenza assoluta e onnipo- tente, ma come una forma singolare di conoscenza, con caratteri- stiche e limiti propri. Il suo campo è la quantità. In tal modo la fisica guadagna un profilo matematico, relegando in secondo piano le intenzioni ontologiche e gli elementi sensibili. Di qui la tendenza di ridurre la conoscenza sperimentale a puri dati metrici e allo sche- ma relazionale di tali dati. Questo sforzo di quantificazione e mate- maticizzazione della fisica accentua i tratti che la distinguono sia dalla conoscenza ordinaria che da quella filosofica. ‘Per quanto concerne la filosofia della scienza propriamente detta, essa ha avuto uno sviluppo considerevole nel nostro secolo, dando origine a tre movimenti principali: il neo-positivismo, l’interpreta- zione metafisica e il razionalismo scientifico. I sostenitori più qualificati del neopositivisnio sono Schlick, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Ayer e Russell. I neopositivisti dividono le scienze in due grandi gruppi: a) quelle logico-matematiche e b) quelle sperimentali. Le prime sono costituite da proposizioni analitiche ossia tautologiche, mentre le seconde sono composte di proposizioni fattuali. Le proposizioni lo- giche e matematiche, prive di contenuto, non sono altro che regole per l'utilizzazione dei simboli e per l'ordinazione delle proposi- zioni. 'Le proposizioni sperimentali o fattuali sono quelle il cui conterfuto è verificabile empiricamente. In contrasto radicale col neopositivismo si colloca la concezione metafisica della scienza. Questa afferma che la scienza implica una metafisica e soltanto in questa trova il suo ultimo fondamento. Se- condo tale concezione l’opera della scienza si presenta o come la scoperta progressiva della realtà oppure come l’automanifestazione dello spirito umano attraverso la ricerca scientifica. Nel primo caso si tratta di una concezione metafisica realistica; nel secondo caso di una concezione metafisica idealistica. Uno dei più autorevoli esponenti del realismo metafisico è il francese Emile Meyerson (1859-1933). Questi afferma che la scienza « non è positiva e non contiene neppure dati positivi, nel senso pre- ciso che è stato dato a questo termine da A. Comte e dai suoi se- guaci, ossia di dati sprovvisti di qualsiasi ontologia. L'ontologia fa corpo con la scienza stessa e non può esserne separata ».” È il reali- smo del senso comune, secondo Meyerson, che si prolunga nella scienza senza soluzione di continuità. La scienza, avanzando nella ? E. MEyERson, /dentité et réalité, Parigi 1926, pp. 438-439. 45 La filosofia della scienza oggi: — il neopositivismo: scienze logico- matematiche e scienze sperimentali — la concezione metafisica: la scienza come automanifestazione dello spirito — il ‘“selettivismo soggettivo”’ di Eddington: attività spontanea dell'intelletto — il razionalismo scientifico: la scienza come opera della ragione Esperienza e ragione: il ruolo direttivo dell’eilemenio teorics direzione del senso comune, crea delle essenze il cui carattere reale non solamente non viene eliminato ma si intensifica. L'interpretazione metafisica idealistica della scienza ha avuto invece un valido sostenitore nell’inglese Arthur S. Eddington (1882- 1944). L'idea centrale di questo pensatore è la « selezione », che egli stesso designa come « selettivismo soggettivo ». Nella sua epi- stemologia l'idea di selezione occupa il posto che nell’epistemologia realista detiene l’idea di astrazione. La selezione corrisponde ad una attività del nostro intelletto, sorta spontaneamente e di cui lo scien- ziato inglese si compiace di accentuare la soggettività. In tal modo, al concetto di scoperta egli contrappone quello di creazione, intesa in senso idealistico, come apprensione del proprio lavoro intellettivo nell'universo. Fra le leggi fisiche, Eddington distingue quelle che egli chiama « leggi epistemologiche ». La loro caratteristica peculiare è di essere deducibili mediante il solo studio dei nostri metodi di osservazione. Queste leggi necessarie, universali ed esatte costituiscono l'elemento a priori della fisica e delle altre scienze sperimentali. Secondo un altro gruppo abbastanza nutrito di autori la scienza è opera della ragione umana, una specie di macchina creata da essa, di cui si tratta di riscoprire le strutture e le leggi interne. Mentre l'interesse dell’interpretazione metafisica si rivolgeva alla infrastrut- tura ontologica della scienza e quello del neo-positivismo ai suoi contenuti in quanto tali, appresi nel loro grado massimo di cristalliz- zazione oggettiva, lo sforzo del razionalismo scientifico, per contro, è teso a chiarire il senso dell'opus rationale che costituisce la scienza. Principale esponente di questa interpretazione è il francese Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962). Secondo questo studioso la filosofia della scienza dei nostri giorni non può accogliere né la soluzione rea- listica né quella idealistica, ma deve collocarsi in una via di mezzo ira realismo e idealismo, in cui vengono entrambi ripresi e superati: « un realismo che si è incontrato col dubbio scientifico non può più essere della stessa specie del realismo immediato [...] un razionali- smo che ha corretto i giudizi a priori, come è avvenuto nelle nuove ramificazioni della geometria, non può più essere un razionalismo chiuso ».3 Nella sua gnoseologia, Bachelard pone la coppia esperienza- ragione alla base di tutta la conoscenza umana. Non si tratta tuttavia di un condominio di potenze eguali, perché l'elemento teorico si ma- nifesta con maggior forza. In effetti è l'elemento teorico che svolge il ruolo direttivo: « Il senso del settore epistemologico ci appare assai netto. Esso va certamente dal razionale al reale e non, nell’or- dine inverso, dalla realtà al generale come professarono tutti i filo- sofi da Aristotele a Bacone »/ ; Sd RSCHELARD, Le nouvel esprit scientifique, 5° ed., Parigi 1949, pp. 2-3. Vi, p. 9. 46 Il procedimento scientifico si configura, pertanto, come « rea- lizzante », in quanto realizzazione del razionale e del matematico. È così che un certo matematicismo si impadronisce del pensiero di Bachelard, fino alla dissoluzione della realtà nella matematica, e il reale non si presenta più al limite che come un caso particolare del possibile. In questo senso la posizione filosofica di Bachelard si po- trebbe definire come un « razionalismo applicato », in cui primeggia la direttrice che va dalla ragione all'esperienza e che corrisponde alla supremazia della fisica- matematica. Mentre l’empirismo, secondo Bachelard, è la filosofia della conoscenza volgare, il razionalismo ri- sponde alle istanze della conoscenza scientifica. Anche Bachelard, come Gadamer e l'ultimo Popper, ritiene che l'osservazione scien- tifica si realizza sempre movendo da una teoria precedente e prepara- trice e non viceversa. Una posizione analoga a quella del Bachelard è quella difesa da Karl Popper. Anch'egli respinge decisamente l'empirismo in nome di una certa forma di razionalismo. « L'epistemologia empiri- stica tradizionale e la storiografia tradizionale della scienza — scrive K. Popper — sono ambedue profondamente influenzate dal mito baconiano secondo cui l’intera scienza parte dall'osservazione per poi lentamente e con cautela procedere verso le teorie ».!° Ma le cose non stanno così. Il primum {logico e genetico) nella costru- zione della scienza sono i problemi e con essi le ipotesi, le conget- ture e non le osservazioni. Noi osserviamo sempre da un punto di vista, sempre sotto lo stimolo di un problema. Tutte le nostre cono- scenze sono risposte a precedenti problemi. Noi acquistiamo le co- noscenze che si prestano a risolvere i nostri interrogativi, i nostri problemi. Pertanto le teorie scientifiche non sono cumuli di osser- vazioni, ma sistemi di azzardate e temerarie congetture. La scienza è anzitutto invenzione di ipotesi; l’esperienza svolge il ruolo di con- trollo delle teorie. Il controllo delle teorie, la convalida delle proposizioni scienti- fiche, secondo Popper, non si ottiene come vogliono i neopositivisti, direttamente, facendo ricorso alla verifica sperimentale, bensì indi- rettamente mediante il processo della fa/sificabilità. Questo criterio stabilisce che una teoria può considerarsi scientifica soltanto se sod- disfa a due condizioni: a) essere falsificabile, ossia poter venir smen- tita e contraddetta in linea di principio; b) non essere ancora stata trovata falsa di fatto. Secondo Popper « una teoria che non può venir confutata da nessun evento concepibile non è scientifica. L'in- confutabilità di una teoria non è (come spesso si ritiene) una virtù, bensì un vizio... Il criterio dello stato scientifico di una teoria è la sua falsificabilità o confutabilità o controllabilità ».! Non la verifi- cabilità è il criterio di demarcazione tra teorie empiriche e teorie non !° K. PopPER, Conjectures and Refusations, 2* ed., Londra 1965, p. 137 {ora tradotta in Italia dall”Ed. Il Mulino, Bologna 1974). # K, PopPPER, Scienza e filosofia, Einaudi, Torino 1969, p. 130 s. 47 Il ‘‘razionalismo applicato”: — dalla ragione all'esperienza — primato della fisica-matematica Popper: problemi- ipotesi e congetture sono il “primum” logico e genetico Dal criterio di verificabilità al processo di falsificabilità empiriche (per es., le metafisiche, le teologie della storia, le utopie, ecc.), ma la loro falsificabilità. In effetti, una legge scientifica non potrà mai essere completamente verificata, mentre invece può essere totalmente falsificata. 3. Conclusione La nostra breve rassegna delle posizioni degli epistemologi con- temporanei ha messo in luce come, anche in questo nuovo settore della filosofia, la ragione umana non sia riuscita a raggiungere una soluzione soddisfacente, su cui ci si possa trovare tutti d'accordo. Anche nella filosofia della scienza si sono rinnovate le classiche al- ternative: idealismo o realismo? razionalismo o positivismo? Nonostante la persistente problematicità, il compito della filosofia è quello di non arrestare mai il suo cammino di ricerca, ma di conti- nuare ad esprimere la profonda esigenza dell'uomo di trovare una spiegazione radicale ed esauriente ai suoi interrogativi. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Epistemologia — Aspetto connotativo; aspetto denotativo — Nozione di analogia; principio di indeterminazione; criterio di falsifi- cabilità — Neopositivismo; interpretazione metafisica; razionalismo scientifico SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. IL PROBLEMA DELLA FILOSOFIA DELLA SCIENZA 1. Nel pensiero contemporaneo, sulla scorta del positivismo di Comte, na- sce la filosofia della scienza, che si interroga su: che cos'è la conoscenza scien- tifica? Qual è l’attività propria dello scienziato? Di che natura sono le sue affer- mazioni? Che cosa egli spiega? Qual è lo status logico delle leggi della scienza? 2. Nel tempo il problema della scienza si è trasformato sia nell'aspetto connotativo (significato del termine) sia nel campo denotativo (campo di ap- plicabilità). 3. Nel pensiero classico la scienza aveva per oggetto l'essenza delle cose (Aristotele). Nel pensiero moderno l’oggetto divengono i rapporti costanti, le leggi che legano i fenomeni tra loro (da Bacone a Newton). Nel pensiero con- temporaneo si è ormai pervenuti alla convinzione che la scienza è una costru- zione mentale dell'uomo per ordinare e semplificare i dati dell'esperienza (Teil. hard de Chardin, Poincaré, ecc.). 4. Ne consegue un ridimensionamento del valore del sapere scientifico a cui si attribuisce la nozione scolastica di analogia, il principio di indetermina- zione di Heisenberg e il criterio di falsicabilità. II. CLASSIFICAZIONE DELLE SCIENZE E NATURA DEL SAPERE SCIENTIFICO SECONDO GLI EPISTEMOLOGI CONTEMPORANEI 1. Nel pensiero contemporaneo si passa dalla visione statica della scienza alla visione dinamica, probabilistica e relativistica. 48 2. All’inizio del ’900 le scienze naturali si pongono come una forma singo- lare di conoscenza con caratteristiche e limiti propri. 3. La filosofia della scienza nel nostro tempo si orienta in tre direzioni: neopositivismo, interpretazione metafisica, razionalismo scientifico: a) neopositivismo — distingue le scienze in logico-matematiche (costituite da proposizioni analitiche o tautologiche) e in sperimentali (il cui contenuto è verificabile empiricamente); b) interpretazione metafisica — si configura in due orientamenti: 1) meta- fisica realistica: la scienza, che ha il suo fondamento nella metafisica, è consi- derata come scoperta progressiva della realtà (E. Meyerson); 2) metafisica idealistica: la ricerca scientifica è automanifestazione dello spirito {A.S. Ed- dington); c) razionalismo scientifico — preoccupato di chiarire il senso dell’« opus rationale » che costituisce la scienza {G. Bachelard e Popper). QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Che cosa è l’epistenwologia e a quali interrogativi risponde? 2. Oggi in che cosa si differenzia l'epistemologia dalla gnoseologia? 3. L’epistemologia a quali movimenti ha dato origine? . 4. Nella cultura del nostro tempo quale rapporto intercorre tra scienza e religione? 5. In che misura il secolo XX ha promosso un progetto uomo finalizzato alla scienza? 6. Quale rapporto intercorre oggi tra scienza e potere politico? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI AA.Vv., Epistemologia e scienze umane, Massimo, Milano 1979. AA.Vv., Scienza e filosofia, Massimo, Milano 1980. AcassI J., Epistemologia, metafisica e storia della scienza, Armando, Ro- ma 1978. 'ANTISERI D., Epistemologia e didattica, L.A.S., Roma 1976. BALDINI M., Epistemologia e storia della scienza, Città di Vita, Firenze 1974. BRAITHWAITE R.B., La spiegazione scientifica, Feltrinelli, Milano 1966. FILIASI CARCANO P., Epistemologia delle scienze umane e rinnovamento filo- sofico, Bulzoni, Roma 1977. GEIMONAT L., /l pensiero scientifico, Garzanti, Milano 1954. HEMPEL C.G., Filosofia delle scienze naturali, Il Mulino, Bologna 1968. LecourT D., Per una critica dell’epistemologia, De Donato, Bari 1973. NAGEL E., La struttura della scienza, Feltrinelli, Milano 1968. PANNEMBERG W., Epistemologia e teologia, Queriniana, Brescia 1975. PASQUINELLI A., Nuovi principi di epistemologia, Feltrinelli, Milano 1974. Popper K.R., Logica della scoperta scientifica, Einaudi, Torino 1970. VAN STEENBERGHEN F., Epistemologia generale, SEI, Torino, 1966. VERNEAUX R., E pistemologia generale, Paideia, Brescia 1967. 49 Il linguaggio umano espressione della totalità della persona L’uomo-essere parlante Capitolo quarto IL PROBLEMA LINGUISTICO (o filosofia del linguaggio) QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Quale valore ha la comunicazione nella vita della persona? Possiamo vivere senza comunicare? 2. Nella comunicazione quale posto occupano la conoscenza e l’amore? 3. Esiste un rapporto tra parola, persona e libertà? 1. Caratteri del linguaggio Il linguaggio è una proprietà primaria, fondamentale dell’uomo, ed è inoltre una proprietà che lo caratterizza nettamente nei con- fronti degli altri esseri di questo mondo, viventi e non viventi. Anche gli animali sono dotati di una forma elementare di linguaggio, ma possono servirsene solo come strumento di sopravvivenza, per segnalare agli animali delia stessa specie situazioni di vitale impor- tanza, come presenza di cibo, di pericolo, ecc. L'uomo, invece, adope- ra il linguaggio per scopi e nei modi più svariati: come strumento di espressione di se stesso, dei propri sentimenti, desideri, idee, per co- municare con gli altri, per descrivere le cose, per domandare, per educare, per pregare, per cantare, come strumento di lotta, di pro- paganda, di divertimento, ecc. « L'uomo — scrive Martin Heidegger — parla sempre. Noi parliamo nella veglia e nel sonno. Parliamo sem- pre, anche quando non proferiamo parola, ma ascoltiamo o leggia- mo, ci dedichiamo ad un iavoro o ci perdiamo nell’ozio. In un modo o nell'altro parliamo ininterrottamente. Parliamo perché il parlare ci è connaturato. Il parlare non nasce da un particolare atto di volontà. Si dice che l’uomo è per natura parlante, e vale per acqui- sito che l’uomo, a differenza della pianta e dell'animale, è l'essere vivente capace di parole. Dicendo questo non si intende affermare soltanto che l’uomo possiede, accanto ad altre capacità, anche quella del parlare. Si intende dire che proprio il linguaggio fa dell’uomo quell’essere vivente che egli è in quanto uomo ». Il linguaggio costituisce un problema per i cultori di molte di- scipline: per lo storico che cerca di conoscerne l'origine e lo svi- luppo, per il fisiologo che studia gli organismi interessati alla emis- sione dei suoni, per lo psicologo che esamina l'incidenza del lin- ! M. HEIDEGGER, In cammino verso il linguaggio, Mursia, Milano 1973, p. 27. 50 guaggio sulla sfera del conscio e dell'inconscio, per il logico che stu- dia il linguaggio in vista di rimuovere da esso oscurità e ambiguità e promuovere una sua intrinseca chiarificazione, per il critico lette- rario che esamina lo stile che gli scrittori imprimono al linguaggio, per il sociologo che si interessa all’influsso del linguaggio sui movi- menti sociali, sulle dottrine, gli ideali, gli usi, i costumi di una società, ecc. Per il filosofo il linguaggio fa problema quanto all'origine, alla natura, alla funzione e al valore. Sono questi i punti della problema- tica linguistica che prenderemo in esame nel presente capitolo e a questo scopo sarà opportuno chiarire il significato di alcuni termini e di alcune distinzioni. Anzitutto lo stesso termine linguaggio. Secondo una definizione molto comune « per linguaggio si intende ogni sistema di segni che può servire come mezzo di comunicazione » Esso comporta, quindi, una struttura essenzialmente intenzionale. In effetti il linguaggio vuole segnalare intenzioni, idee, sentimenti, cose, ecc. Si può dire a buon diritto che il linguaggio è lo strumento ideale della intenziona- lità essenziale dell'uomo, che è un essere aperto e in continuo movi- mento, orientato verso tutta la realtà che lo circonda e sovrasta. Tale apertura dispone alla comunicazione, e la comunicazione si ef- fettua principalmente mediante il linguaggio. Altri termini che ricorrono spesso nel discorso linguistico sono lingua, parola, significante, significato. Diversamente dal linguaggio, il quale indica la funzione generale delia comunicazione, ia lingua significa il sistema linguistico usato da una determinata società (lingua latina, italiana, greca, russa, da- nese, inglese, ecc.). La lingua, pci, viene distinta a sua volta dalla parola. La lingua è il sistema sovraindividuale di segni grazie ai quali gli uomini pos- sono comunicare tra di loro: il sistema secondo le regole stabilite dalla grammatica e dalla sintassi e secondo i significati generali regi- strati nel dizionario. La parola, invece, è la forina concreta ed indi- viduale assunta dal sistema, secondo i’uso di una determinata per- sona, secondo i significati personali, soggettivi, emotivi da essa voluti. Abbiamo infine i termini significante e significato. Il significante indica una realtà come essa è denotata e strutturata dal linguaggio, mentre il significato indica il modo sempre parziale e storico in cui la lingua parlata attualizza il significante. Per esempio « padre » è un significante che ha il proprio senso grazie alle relazioni all’interno della costellazione familiare. Il significato rappresenta l'attuazione di questo significante in un determinato discorso e in una cultura determinata. ? A. LALANDE, Dizionario critico di filosofia, ISEDI, Milano 1971, p. 478. 51 Origine, natura, funzione e valore del linguaggio La lingua come sistema linguistico di una società Significante e significato: denotazione di una realtà e sua attualizzazione storica Linguaggio: origine naturale o origine convenzionale? La teoria evolutiva è la tesi odierna: onomatopea — caso — convenzione Preminenza di parole onomatopeiche nelle lingue europee 2. Origine del linguaggio Sulla questione dell'origine del linguaggio le soluzioni possibili, in definitiva, sono due: o il linguaggio è stato ricevuto (dalla natura oppure da Dio), o è stato inventato dall'uomo (imitando la natura oppure in un modo affatto convenzionale). Entrambe le soluzioni hanno incontrato il favore di numerosi sostenitori sia nell'antichità sia ai nostri giorni. Mentre però la prima soluzione era largamente seguita nel passato, oggi trova pochi sostenitori. Secondo Humboldt, il linguaggio non può essere stato inventato dall'uomo stesso, perché « l’uomo è uomo soltanto mediante il lin- guaggio, ora, per inventare il linguaggio, egli dovrebbe essere già uomo ». Oggi, però, la tesi più comune è che il linguaggio abbia avuto origine per evoluzione. Ma ci sono modi diversi di interpretare que- sto evento. Alcuni ritengono che l'evoluzione sia stata determinata dall'’onomatopea; altri invece assegnano la parte principale al caso e alla convenzione. La teoria che il linguaggio nasce formando suoni onomatopeici (ossia imitando suoni già esistenti in natura, per esempio, il sibilo del vento, il mormorio dell’acqua, il canto degli uccelli, ecc.) era già stata ventilata dagli stoici e più tardi da Leibniz, ma fu proposta per la prima volta in modo scientifico solo da Herder, il quale già nella sua tesi di laurea affermava: « Il primo vocabolario è costituito da suoni raccolti da ogni parte del mondo. Da ogni natura emettente un suono si ricava il suo nome: l’anima umana si vale di tali suoni quali segni per indicare le cose ».* Recentemente la tesi dello Herder è stata ribadita con dovizia di argomenti dal Bruni. Secondo questo studioso, « la tesi dell'origine naturale del linguaggio, mediante l’onomatopea, è l’unica scientifica- mente sostenibile ».5 « I glottologi e gli psicologi, che ritengono il linguaggio di origine naturale, hanno sempre pensato che l’onoma- topea sia stata la madre più feconda delle parole. Il Renan affermò che nelle lingue semitiche, e specialmente nell'ebraico, la formazione della onomatopea è sensibilissima per un grande numero di radici, e soprattutto per quelle che hanno un carattere spiccato di antichità e di monosillabismo » Del parere del Bruni è anche il Merlo. Questi afferma che « le prime parole create dall'uomo furono certo onomatopeiche, imitative dei suoni risonanti al nostro orecchio; onomatopeiche sono le prime parole che il bambino crea e che poi presto dimentica per le eredi- tarie. Il lessico delle lingue europee è pieno di parole onomatopei- } W. von HuMmBOLDT, Ueber das vergleichende Sprachstudium, par. 2. ER CIUO H. ARENS, Sprachwissenschaft, K. Alber Verlag, Friburgo-Monaco » P. IUS. 5 F. BRUNI, L'origine del Linguaggio, Studium, Roma 1958, pp. 6-7.. * Ivi, p. 7. 52 che; molte ne conosce di sue proprie il lessico della lingua latina; e perché alle ereditarie non sarebbero venute ad aggiungersene altre, e molte altre, in età latina tarda, e nelle singole lingue romanze? ».’ Secondo moltissimi studiosi il linguaggio ha origine convenzio- nale. È l’homo sapiens che escogita certi suoni per espletare deter- minate operazioni. A questa teoria ha dato espressione autorevole il Wittgenstein nelle sue Philosophical Investigatiovs. In quest'ope- ra egli sostiene che l'assegnazione di nomi alle cose è arbitraria così come è arbitrario l'accordo sulle regole per fare un determinato gioco. Il linguaggio stesso è concepito dal Wittgenstein come un gioco (Sprachspiel). Come esempio del formarsi del gioco linguistico Wittgenstein cita il caso dell'accordo che si stabilisce tra un muratore e un manovale a riguardo di un certo arnese. « Supponi che un arnese adoperato da un muratore per costruire porti un certo segno, un'etichetta. Quando il muratore mostra al ma- novale il segno (l'etichetta), il manovale gli porta l’arnese che porta quel segno. È press'a poco in questo modo che un nome significa e viene assegnato ad una cosa. Si rivelerà assai utile in filosofia ripe- tersi di tanto in tanto che denominare è una operazione simile al- l’affibbiare un'etichetta ad una cosa ».? A nostro giudizio queste due tesi sull'origine del linguaggio non sono necessariamente contraddittorie, ma si possono integrare vi- cendevolmente. Dando per certo che il linguaggio è un'invenzione dell’uomo e non un dono della natura o di un essere superiore, ci pare che questa invenzione abbia avuto luogo inizialmente mediante l'imitazione dei suoni emessi dagli animali e dalle cose. Così, per designare il cane, si ripete il verso del cane; per designare il lupo, si ripete il verso del lupo; per designare il vento, si ripete il rumore del vento, e così per tante altre cose. Questa origine prima del linguaggio è confermata dalla larga quantità di suoni onomatopeici presenti in tutte le lingue. Ed è pure confermata dal modo con cui il bambino apprende a parla- re, imitando i suoni che sente dalla mamma. Su questa base onomatopeica l’uomo ha in seguito manovrato con libertà e genialità, escogitando suoni nuovi, oppure combinando in maniera diversa suoni vecchi (per es., automobile, televisione, ae- roplano, ecc.). Per questo motivo gran parte del linguaggio attual- mente in uso ha origine convenzionale. 3. Condizioni essenziali del linguaggio Il linguaggio presuppone tre condizioni essenziali, tre costanti o componenti assolute: ? Citato in ivi, p. 8. * L. WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Investigations, n. 15. 53 L’“homo sapiens” e l'origine convenzionale: la teoria di Wittgenstein Integrazione tra naturalismo e convenzionalismo Tre condizioni essenziali del linguaggio: soggetto, oggetto, interlocutore Divisione dicotomica: conoscenza et esistenza — soggetto che parla (e si esprime parlando); ; — oggetto di cui si parla (e si rappresenta mediante la parola); — interlocutore a cui si parla e al quale si vuole dare una comu- nicazione parlando. « È chiaro che ci sono tre elementi in gioco: il parlante, l’ascol- tante o gli ascoltatori, e la comunicazione che si stabilisce tra loro. Un noto psicologo ha riassunto questo triplice aspetto del linguaggio in una chiara formula: dal punto di vista del parlante, l'atto lingui- stico è un sintomo, un'indicazione di ciò ch'egli ha in mente; dal punto di vista dell’ascoltatore è un segnale, che lo stimola ad una de- terminata azione; dal punto di vista della comunicazione è un sim- bolo, un segno cioè che sta per qualsiasi cosa il parlante intenda trasmettere ».° A ragione, quindi, il Macquarrie afferma che il linguaggio è un complesso di relazioni fondate su tre termini: «i tre termini sono ovviamente la persona che dice qualcosa, la materia di cui si parla e la persona o le persone alle quali si parla... È il linguaggio che fa da intermediario per la relazione triadica, anzi è esso che la costi- tuisce ».!° 4. Funzioni e valore del linguaggio iFino a qualche anno fa si soleva presentare una divisione dico- tomica delie funzioni del linguaggio. Vi si distinguevano, da una parte, una funzione descrittiva o conoscitiva o denotativa o rappre- sentativa o simbolica, e, dall'altra, una funzione emotiva, esisten- ziale o personale. Così Ogden-Richards, Carnap, Ayer, Stevenson, e altri. Ultimamente però sono diventati sempre più numerosi gli autori che propongono una divisione tricotomica, aggiungendo alie due funzioni precederti quella comunicativa o intersoggettiva. Sono di questo parere Schbkel, Polanyi, Barbotin, Ullmann e vari altri stu- diosi. Noi troviamo quest'ultima divisione più giustificata della prima, in quanto essa risulta dalle ire componenti essenziali costitutive del linguaggio, che abbiamo visto essere ii soggetto che parla, ciò di cui si parla e ia persona alla quale si parla. Iì linguaggio esercita una funzione diversa rispetto alle sue tre componenti: — ha una funzione rappresentativa o descrittiva o denotativa ‘nei confronti dell'oggetto; — ha una funzione espressiva o esistenziale o emotiva nei con- fronti del soggétto; ? S. ULLMANN, La semantica, Il Mulino, Bologna 1966, p. 27. * J. MACQUARRIE, Ha senso parlare di Dio?, Borla, Torino 1969, pp. 66-67. 54 — ha una funzione comunicativa o intersoggettiva nei confronti della persona cui si dirige il discorso. In connessione con la questione delle funzioni dei linguaggio si affaccia anche la questione del suo valore, la quale, fra tutte le que- stioni concernenti il linguaggio è quella oggi più assiduamente e vi- vacemente dibattuta. Se ne occupano tutti i filosofi (sia gli esistenzia- listi che gli strutturalisti, sia i neopositivisti che gli ermeneuti, sia i tomisti che i marxisti) e anche i teologi e gli scienziati. ‘Le soluzioni di questa questione sono molte e assai disparate. C'è chi assegna al linguaggio un valore puramente strumentale. Questa è la soluzione tradizionale, tuttora largamente condivisa dai neopositivisti, dagli analisti, dai tomisti, dai marxisti, e da tanti altri. C'è invece chi gli assegna un valore fondamentale, di ordine esistenziale. 4. Funzione descrittiva Una folta corrente filosofica del nostro tempo, la corrente neo- positivistica e analitica ha riconosciuto valore conoscitivo alla fun- zione denotativa (descrittiva, conoscitiva, oggettiva) e ha proscritto come insignificanti e prive di senso le altre funzioni. Secondo tale corrente, solo la funzione denotativa abilita l'uomo a raggiungere e a trasmettere la verità. Questa funzione è svolta in modo eccellente dal linguaggio scientifico, il quale è dotato della massima chiarezza, precisione e oggettività. Qualsiasi altro linguaggio acquista più o me- no valore nella misura in cui si conforma al linguaggio scientifico. La ragione dell'eccellenza di quest'ultimo sta nella semplicità del suo criterio di significazione, che è la verifica sperimentale, il quale prescrive di riconoscere significato descrittivo soltanto a quelle pro- posizioni che sono traducibili in una catena di dati sensitivi. La teoria dei neopositivisti e degli analisti inglesi ha suscitato fortissime reazioni da parte di filosofi di tutte le scuole, i quali han- no potuto provarne l'infondatezza appellandosi a vari argomenti, di cui i principali sono i seguenti: a) ilcriterio della verifica sperimentale è un postulato metafisico privo di qualsiasi fondamento, è una proposizione metafisica sensa- zionale che si squalifica da sola perché è inverificabile." " Ecco alcune critiche radicali al principio della verifica sperimentale. «Il principio di verifica sperimentale significa ridurre all’assurdità sia la conoscenza che il significato... Perché l'intenzione di riferire al trascendente l'esperienza immediata è l'essenza della conoscenza e del significato ». (C.I. LEVIS « Experience and Meaning », in Readings in Philosophical Analysis, P. . «Il principio della verifica è una dichiarazione metafisica e, perciò, il positivismo logico deve essere considerato senza significato ». (JoAD, A critique of Logical Positivism, p. 11). « Il principio di verificabilità è una dichiarazione metafisica ‘sensazio- nale’ ». (J. WIspom, Philosophy and psychoanalysis, Oxford 1953, p. 245). Cfr. anche: A.C. EwING, « Meaninglessness », in Mind 1937; MACQUERRIE, Ha senso parlare di Di0?, cit. 55 Il vaiore del linguaggio: strumentale, esistenziale Neopositivismo: valore conoscitivo e funzione denotativa Posizioni critiche al neopositivismo Funzione espressiva e funzione comunicativa b) la preferenza per il linguaggio scientifico è del tutto ingiusti- ficata, perché ci sono molti altri linguaggi che per la esistenza uma- na sono altrettanto importanti quanto quello scientifico, per es., il linguaggio ordinario, il linguaggio etico, il linguaggio artistico, il linguaggio poetico, il linguaggio mistico." c) la preferenza per la funzione descrittiva o conoscitiva del lin- guaggio è la conseguenza di una tradizione intellettualistica e razio- nalistica che è stata estremamente dannosa perché ha creato un'im- magine distorta e depauperata dell'uomo.”* 4.2 Funzione comunicativa Da questi argomenti risulta che non si può ascrivere valore sol- tanto alla funzione conoscitiva ma si deve riconoscere anche l’im- portanza fondamentale che hanno le altre funzioni, sia quella espres- siva, che quella comunicativa. Del resto è abbastanza facile rilevare che il linguaggio umano non ha soltanto e neppure principalmente valore a causa della sua fun- zione conoscitiva (descrittiva o denotativa). La sua funzione princi- pale è infatti comunicativa e la comunicazione, in moltissimi casi, non intende affatto offrire descrizione di oggetti, cose, fenomeni, leggi della natura, ma affetti, sentimenti, desideri, comandi. È soprattutto su questo punto che gli studi più recenti hanno gettato nuova luce. Qui ci limiteremo a riferire alcuni risultati ac- quisiti dal Barbotin nel suo saggio, profondo, ricco e illuminante, Humanité de l'homme. In quest'opera egli mette in evidenza il valore comunicativo esistenziale e prassistico del linguaggio. Il linguaggio è lo strumento privilegiato della‘comunicazione, nonché della pre- senza e della socialità. L'uomo, diversamente dalle cose che sono chiuse in e su se stesse, è aperto, si vuole dare agli altri e dagli altri vuole ricevere; si vuole rendere presente... La parola trasforma la nostra presenza puramente fisica e passiva — semplice giustapposizione nello spazio — in presenza attiva che ci impegna reciprocamente. «Io sono presente a me stesso nella misura in cui sono fuori di me, in un movimento di donazione che mi rende libero. La parola, per la precisione, è donatrice; al di là dei propositi, essa mira allo scambio dei due « Io »; nella preghiera mi dono, mi consegno a Dio, mi getto nelle sue mani »." Questo potere esistenziale della parola, questo potere di renderci presenti agli altri, e gli altri a noi stessi è stato meravigliosamente rafforzato dalle moderne scoperte della radio, del telefono, dei re- !? Cfr. H.G. GADAMER, « Che cos'è la verità », Rivista di filosofia, 1956, pp. 257-260. ) ! Cfr. ivi, pp. 253 ss.; P. RICOEUR, Finitudine e colpa, Il Mulino, Bologna 1970 4 E, BARBOTIN, Humanité de l'homme, cit., p. 139. 56 gistratori, ecc. Riuscire, oggi, a registrare le voci di persone che ci sono care, oppure di personaggi importanti modifica sensibilmente il salto, l'abisso della morte e i nostri rapporti con i defunti: poter risentire la loro voce ci dà la sensazione che la morte non abbia operato una separazione completa tra noi e loro. La funzione fondamentale del linguaggio è quindi quella della comunicazione. Tuttavia dobbiamo dolorosamente constatare che è una comunicazione che il linguaggio non ci consente mai di realiz- zare pienamente. « La parola scambiata, dice bene Barbotin, mette in comunicazione due persone tra di loro, essa risveglia, mantiene e consacra l'apertura reciproca; ma allo stesso tempo conserva qual- cosa di inesprimibile. E questo non è dovuto alla doppiezza, bensì alla ineffabilità della persona, delle sue intenzioni, della sua libertà: la parola lascia filtrare qualche raggio, ma ne conserva, per forza, se- greto il focolare. Sempre ineguale rispetto a ciò che manifesta, la parola è di conseguenza necessariamente molteplice — se fosse perfetta sarebbe invece unica — e provoca nell'interlocutore interro- gativi a non finire; essa esaudisce lo spirito, ma non lo sazia mai ».! Che il linguaggio abbia aspetti ambigui è cosa evidente ed è stata ripetutamente rimarcata già dai filosofi dell'antichità, in par- ticolare da Platone, Aristotele e Agostino. Esso è strumento di for- mazione (educazione), ma si presta anche molto facilmente alla de- formazione e alla corruzione, come rileva Socrate contro i Sofisti. In un capitolo celebre di Sein und Zeit Heidegger ha mostrato come l’inautenticità degli individui è dovuta soprattutto al linguaggio: la maggior parte degli uomini non pensa da sé, non giudica con la pro- pria testa, non decide per proprio conto: ma pensa giudica decide, ecc. secondo quanto sente dire dagli altri. 4.3 Funzione e valore esistenziale Il linguaggio è importante non soltanto per la funzione descrittiva e comunicativa, ma anche per la funzione esistenziale. Esso infatti oltre che a descrivere oggetti e a comunicare sentimenti serve anche a testimoniare agli altri e a noi stessi la nostra esistenza. Suppo- niamo, per es., che uno si sia smarrito in una foresta oppure su una montagna. A chi scrive capitò una volta scalando il Monte Rosa. Eravamo a quota 3.000 e, alle dieci di sera, non eravamo ancora giunti al rifugio Quintino Sella. Era buio fitto e ad un certo punto avevamo completamente smarrito la pista. Allora abbiamo comin- ciato a gridare con la speranza che qualcuno dal rifugio ci sentisse e ci fornisse qualche elemento per orientarci. In effetti fu così. Da sopra ci risposero alcune voci d'uomo. Esse bastarono da sole a li- berarci dall'angoscia e a restituirci fiducia in noi stessi e padro- 4 E. BARBOTIN, op. cit., p. 141. Sui limiti del linguaggio vedi anche G. GuSsDORF, Filosofia del linguaggio, Città Nuova, Roma, pp. 78-92. 4 M. HEIDEGGER, Essere e tempo, Longanesi, Milano, pp. 140 ss. 57 La funzione fondamentale della comunicazione Parola e determinazione dell’esistenza La densità esistenziale del nome Funzione del nome nanza della montagna. Quelle voci improvvise invasero tutto lo ssa- zio che stava intorno, conquistarone il mondo silenzioso delie cose e lo trasformarono conferendogli un nuovo significato. Così avvenne che un universo senza voci in cui ci trovavamo smarriti, divenne un universo in cui l'uomo parla. Certo lo smarrimento non avviene soltanto là dove l'uomo non parla; in certi casi ciò accade anche in luoghi dove sono troppi co- loro che parlano, facendo fracasso e confusione. Eppure anche in questi casi, è di nuovo una voce, una voce familiare che ci rassicura della nostra esistenza. Si pensi al caso di un bambino che si smar- risce in mezzo alla folla... Basta che ad un certo punto senta la voce del babbo o della mamma che lo chiama da lontano perché riacquisti la serenità e la pace. Dunque la parola testimonia la mia esistenza a me stesso e agli altri. E non si tratia di una testimonianza vaga, indeterminata, gene- rica, ma determinata, precisa e qualificata. Infatti quando sono adi- rato adopero un particolare tono di voce ed un certo tipo di lin- guaggio, che sono del tutto diversi da quelli che uso quando insegno oppure quando prego. Fare corrispondere perfettamente un certo linguaggio con i vari modi di essere dei loro personaggi è una spe- cialità degli attori. Ma ciò che questi ultimi sono in grado di fare per molti personaggi, noi lo facciamo tutti i giorni per quel perso- naggio singolare che ciascuno di noi è naturalmente. La parola acquista densità esistenziale soprattutto attraverso il nome. Avere un nome significa possedere un'esistenza. Ma a causa della pubblicità del nome, per mezzo di esso anche ia mia esistenza acquista una certa pubblicità. Lo nota bene il Barbotin guando scri- ve: « Il nome è la parola che mi rivela, mi esprime agli altri, aprendo loro l’accesso al mio essere. Io non esisto veramente che per coloro che conoscono il mio nome; l'anonimato, l’incognito sono alibi che aggiungono ai vantaggi della presenza fisica in un determinato luogo il beneficio di una certa “assenza sociale”. [...] Però, se il mio nome mi esprime agli altri, allo stesso tempo esso mi consegna a loro, mi mette in loro potere. Dichiarando il mio nome, io rinuncio a parte della mia autonomia; ormai gli altri mi dominano e mi posseg- gono. La prima preoccupazione del direttore di un internato non è forse quella di imparare il nome dei suoi ragazzi per controllare le iniziative e mantenere la disciplina? I servizi di polizia non svolgono un'attività vigile per conoscere i nomi e i molteplici soprannomi delle persone sospette e, in tal modo, poter controllare i loro movi- menti? ».!” . Sta di fatto che il nome fa sempre da sostegno alla propria pre- senza. Ovunque il nome di una persona è conosciuto, pronunciato, ricordato, ha luogo la sua presenza intenzionale presso gli altri, e soddisfa in qualche modo quel desiderio di ubiquità che è insito " E. BARBOTIN, Op. cit., p. 155. 58 in ogni uomo. Ma oltre che a superare i limiti dello spazio, il nome ci consente anche di scavalcare i confini del tempo: la nostra presenza continua a perdurare anche dopo la morte, fintanto che il ricordo del nostro nome permane vivo. Questo spiega il desiderio che noi tutti abbiamo perché il nostro nome sia famoso, acquisti notorietà: è il nostro modo di conquistare un'illusione di eternità. 5. Rapporto del linguaggio con. il pensiero, con le cose e con gli interlocutori Passiamo ora a considerare la questione del valore del linguag- gio dall'altro punto di vista: quello dei suoi rapporti col pensiero, con le cose e con i due interlocutori. Al linguaggio si assegna valore diverso a seconda del modo di- verso di come viene concepito questo rapporto. C'è chi si preoccupa esclusivamente del pensiero; altri invece si preoccupa soltanto degli interlocutori. Nell’analisi linguistica la preoccupazione è centrata sulle cose; nell’esistenzialismo è centrata sul soggetto pensante; nell'ermeneutica, nel personalismo e nello strutturalismo è centrata sugli interlocutori. In tutti i tre casi si danno però due alternative (e qualche volta anche tre). Per il rapporto pensiero-linguaggio, la soluzione comune è di vedere nel linguaggio uno strumento subordinato e secondario del pensiero. Oggi gli strutturalisti e gli ermeneuti tendono a sovvertire questo rapporto e a mettere il pensiero al servizio e alle dipendenze del linguaggio. La tesi di questi ultimi non può essere pienamente accolta, perché tutti abbiamo esperienza di pensieri per i quali non riusciamo a trovare le parole adatte per esprimerci. Tuttavia è una tesi che contiene della verità, in quanto tra pensiero e linguaggio intercorre un rapporto assai profondo. Con un linguaggio nitido an- che il pensiero guadagna in chiarezza e precisione.! Anche per quanto concerne i rapporti tra linguaggio ed essere ci sono due opposte tendenze. Generalmente al linguaggio si rico- nosce valore semantico, indicativo, segnalatore dell'essere. Oggi strutturalisti ed ermeneuti vogliono ascrivere al linguaggio una den- sità ontologica molto più profonda: l’essere trova la sua manifesta- zione nel linguaggio; soprattutto l'essere dell’uomo ha il suo soste- gno, il suo modello nel linguaggio. Anche a questo proposito ci pare di non poter accogliere la secon- da tesi integralmente perché, se seguita fino in fondo, essa sfocia inevitabilmente in una nuova forma di idealismo; tuttavia è una tesi ! Ivi, pp. 133-144, 59 Il rapporto linguaggio-pensiero La subordinazione del linguaggio al pensiero Linguaggio e intersoggettività: due tesi opposte che contiene anche un importante nucleo di verità: essa esprime il carattere storice e creativo dell’uomo.! Quanto al terzo tipo di rapporti, quelli fra linguaggio ed interlo- cutori, si danno anche qui due tesi opposte: una che afferma il valore capitale del linguaggio per l’intersoggettività, valore tanto più grande in quanto oggi si vede nell'uomo un essere essenzial- mente intersoggettivo; oggi la persona umana non è intesa in chiave egocentrica, cartesiana, ma in chiave sociale. L'altra tesi assegna uno scarso valore intersoggettivo al linguaggio, in quanto muove da una concezione egocentrica, angelicata dell’uomo. Noi riteniamo che il linguaggio abbia effettivamente importanza capitale per la funzione intersoggettiva. Tale importanza risulta da quanto è stato detto in precedenza sulla funzione comunicativa del linguaggio. Ma essa risulterà ancor più evidente in seguito, quando ci occuperemo del problema politico e sociale e vedremo che il lin- guaggio costituisce il mezzo necessario, principale ed ideale per rea- lizzare la socievolezza umana. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Linguaggio; lingua; parola — Significato; significante — Origine naturale, convenzionale, evolutiva; onomatopea — Soggetto; oggetto; interlocutore — Sintomo; segnale; simbolo — Funzione descrittiva, emotiva, comunicativa SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. CARATTERI DEL LINGUAGGIO 1. Proprietà primaria e fondamentale dell'uomo che lo distingue dagli altri esseri viventi per l’uso che ne fa, in ordine a scopi e modi diversi. 2. Il linguaggio è uno degli elementi che costituisce l'uomo in quanto uomo. Esso ha una struttura intenzionale che lo fa mezzo della comunicazione degli uomini tra loro. 3. Esiste una distinzione tra linguaggio (funzione generale della comuni. cazione), lingua (sistema linguistico usato da una determinata società) e parola (forma concreta e individuale assunta dal sistema linguistico). Differenza tra i termini significante e significato: il primo indica una realtà come è denotata dal linguaggio; il secondo indica il modo parziale e storico in cui la lingua parlata attualizza il significante. II. ORIGINE DEL LINGUAGGIO . Tre ipotesi: origine naturale (tesi ormai abbandonata); origine conven- zionale; origine evolutiva (tesi più comune oggi). La prima ipotesi annovera tra i suoi sostenitori Humboldt, Herder, Bruni e Merlo che attribuiscono al- 4 Cfr. I. MANCINI, Linguaggio e salvezza, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1964, pp. 14 ss. 60 l'onomatopea la maternità delle parole. La seconda è autorevolmente espressa da Wittgenstein: il linguaggio è un gioco di cui l’uomo ha stabilito le regole. Come terza ipotesi si può dire che oggi l’azione creativa e libera dell’uomo sul- l'’onomatopea ha prodotto un linguaggio convenzionale che può essere chiamato evolutivo. III. CONDIZIONI TRASCENDENTALI DEL LINGUAGGIO 1. I trascendentali o costanti del linguaggio sono: — il soggetto che parla — l'oggetto di cui si parla — l'interlocutore a cui si parla 2. L'atto linguistico dal punto di vista: del soggetto è un sintomo, dell'og- getto è un segnale, dell'interlocutore è un simbolo. Il linguaggio è l'intermediario di una relazione triadica. IV. FUNZIONE E VALORE DEL LINGUAGGIO Si sono delineate tre connotazioni delle funzioni del linguaggio: a) la fun- zione descrittiva (o conoscitiva, denotativa, rappresentativa, simbolica); b) la funzione emotiva (o esistenziale, personale); c) la funzione comunicativa o intersoggettiva. V. RAPPORTI DEL LINGUAGGIO COL PENSIERO, CON LE COSE E CON GLI ‘INTERLOCUTORI (Al linguaggio si assegna valore diverso in relazione al rapporto nel quale viene colto: — rapporto pensiero-linguaggio: il linguaggio è uno strumento subordi- nato e secondario del pensiero; — rapporto pensiero-cosa: a) in genere si attribuisce al linguaggio un va- lore semantico; b) oggi strutturalisti e ermeneuti considerano il linguaggio una manifestazione dell'essere; — rapporto linguaggio-interlocutore: a) importanza fondamentale del lin- guaggio per l'essere umano inteso come essere intersoggettivo; b) scarsa im- portanza del linguaggio per l'essere umano inteso in senso egocentrico. QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Quali delle diverse forme del linguaggio umano sembrano predominare nella nostra cultura? 2. In quale misura il linguaggio identifica l’uomo come essere di relazione? 3. Che cosa si intende per linguaggio, lingua, parola, significante, signi. ficato? 4. Quali sono le principali teorie sull'origine del linguaggio? 5. Quali sono gli elementi costitutivi, essenziali, trascendentali del lin- guaggio? ! 6. Quali sono le principali funzioni del linguaggio? 7. Quale rapporto è possibile stabilire tra linguaggio e concezione del- l'uomo? 8. Che rapporto intercorre tra pensiero, linguaggio e cose? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI ANTISERI D., La filosofia del iinguaggio, Morcelliana, Brescia 1973. BENVENISTE E., Problemi di linguistica generale, Il Saggiatore, Milano 1971. BERRUTO G., Nozioni di linguistica generale, Liguori, Napoli 1976. 61 BRuNI F., L'origine dei linguaggio, Studium, Roma 1958. CASTELFRANCHI C.-PARISI D., Linguaggio, conoscenza e scopi, Il Mulino, Bo- logna 1980. CoRrRapI-FIUMARA-GEMMA, Funzione simbolica e filosofia del linguaggio, Bo- ringhieri, Torino 1980. Guspore G., La filosofia del linguaggio, Città Nuova, Roma 1970. GALIMBERTI U., Linguaggio e civiltà, Mursia, Milano 1977. HeIpEccER M., In cammino verso il linguaggio, Mursia, Milano 1973. HEILMANN C., Corso di linguistica teorica, Celuc Libri, Milano. Linsky L., Semantica e filosofia del linguaggio, Mondadori, Milano 1969. Lyons J., Introduzione alla linguistica teorica, 3 voll., Laterza, Bari 1981. MONDIN B., Il linguaggio teologico, Paoline, Roma 1978. PracET J., Lo strutturalismo, Il Saggiatore, Milano 1968. RoBINS R.H., Storia della linguistica, Il Mulino, Bologna 1971. ULLMANN S., La semantica, Il Mulino, Bologna 1966. WARTBURG WALTER VON-ULMANN S., Problemi e metodi della linguistica, Il Mulino, Bologna. 62 Capitolo quinto IL PROBLEMA COSMOLOGICO QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Il mondo ha un'origine e uno scopo? Quali? 2. È possibile individuare la struttura dell'universo? In quale imaniera? ‘i. Problematicità dell’universo L'universo è una realtà problematica sotto molteplici aspetti: la sua origine, i suoi elementi costitutivi fondamentali, la sua durata, il suo fine ultimo. La branca del sapere che si occupa della costitu- zione dell'universo per definirne la forma e le leggi che lo gover- mano, viene denominata cosmologia {dal greco kosmos,! che significa ordine, mondo e logos = discorso); quanto riguarda la sua origine e il suo fine ultimo viene invece studiato dall'ontologia e dalla tsleologia. i Intorno all'universo e in ordine alla soluzione dei suddetti pro- blemi si può fare un duplice discorso, scientifico e filosofico. Nel primo caso si propone una descrizione dei fenomeni, specialmente nelle loro relazioni d'insieme e nel loro divenire, interpretandoli se- condo criteri logici, tendenti a stabilire tra loro un ordine, una struttura, una legge di conservazione e di evoluzione. Nel secondo si presenta un’interpretazione generale dei fenomeni dell'universo, nella loro natura essenziale, nelle loro proprietà, nel loro ultimo fondamento. Questa distinzione tra discorso scientifico e filosofico è una con- quista piuttosto recente del pensiero umano. Essa è divenuta possi- bile soltanto col sorgere delle scienze sperimentali, vale a dire du- rante il secolo XVII. Prima si consideravano le ricerche dei metafisici e gli studi degli astronomi e dei fisici come facenti parte d'una unica grande disciplina, la filosofia. ‘ Il termine kosmos ìn greco indica ìn senso proprio l'armonia universale regolata da leggi precise e inviolabili. Contrapposto al termine kaos, che nella mentalità dei Greci era espressione non solo di disordine indifferenziato, ma anche di tutto ciò che contiene in sé la forza del negativo, il kosmos rap- presentava per gli antichi tutto ciò che è positivamente conforme alla volontà degli dèi e che è pertanto vita e bene. 63 La cosmologia studia la costituzione dell’universo {forma e leggi) Discorso scientifico e discorso filosofico Una soluzione mitica ai primi interrogativi sul cosmo Il problema dell’uno e del molteplice in Talete 2. La cosmologia nel pensiero occidentale Il problema cosmologico è uno dei primi che la mente umana si sia posto. Appena ha acquisito il potere di riflettere, l'uomo ha cominciato ad interrogarsi sull'origine delle cose: qual è la loro causa ultima? e in che modo tale causa ha prodotto tutto il comples- so sistema dell'universo? Qual è il costitutivo fondamentale del mondo? A questi interrogativi gli uomini hanno cercato di dare una ri- sposta molto tempo prima di scoprire gli strumenti logici di ricer- ca propri della filosofia, servendosi degli strumenti espressivi del mito. Documenti preziosi di alcune spiegazioni cosmologiche di caratte- re mitico sono i poemi di Omero e Esiodo. Nelle loro opere l’uni- verso è considerato come una grande città, di cui fanno parte oltre gli uomini anche gli dei. Come la città così l'universo sta sotto il governo di un grande monarca. Tutto ciò che accade nel mondo è opera sua e degli altri dei; tutti i fenomeni naturali sono promossi dai numi: i tuoni e i fulmini sono scagliati dall'alto da Zeus, i flutti del mare sono sollevati dal tridente di Poseidone, i venti sono so- spinti da Eolo, e così di seguito. Nella sua Teogonia Esiodo ha fissato con precisione il quadro cosmico, entro cui in seguito si muo- verà la spiegazione cosmologica dei filosofi. Secondo la spiegazione esiodea della genesi dell'universo, dapprima si generò il Caos, poi si generò Gea (ossia la Terra), nel cui ampio seno sono tutte le cose. Nella profondità della Terra si generò il Tartaro buio, e, da ultimo, Eros (l’amore) che, poi, fece generare tutte le altre cose. Talete, vissuto a cavallo tra il VII e VI secolo avanti Cristo, è il primo pensatore che si domanda espressamente e sistematica- mente: « Qual è la causa ultima, il principio supremo di tutte le cose? », e che per rispondere a tale interrogativo non fa ricorso a raffigurazioni mitiche ma si vale di concetti filosofici. Talete si domanda se, nonostante l’esperienza, la quale ci pre- senta il quadro impressionante di una molteplicità infinita di fe- nomeni apparentemente irriducibili, sia possibile derivare la realtà da un unico principio supremo. È un problema colossale che oltre- passa i confini della cosmologia ed invade il terreno della stessa metafisica: il problema dell'uno e del molteplice, problema che tormenterà i filosofi d'ogni tempo. A questa domanda ardita ed im- pegnativa, Talete offre una risposta ingenua e rudimentale. Gli sembra che tra i quattro elementi che il buon senso considera pri- mordiali e costitutivi d'ogni cosa, l’acqua abbia una priorità sugli altri. E conclude che l'acqua è il principio da cui traggono origine tutte le cose. Dall'acqua per condensazione deriva la terra, per rare- fazione derivano l'aria e il fuoco. ? Cfr. B., MONDIN,, vol. I, pp. 39-40. 64 Più che come una città, alla stregua di Omero e Esiodo, Talete concepisce il mondo come una casa. In questa casa c'è movimento, c'è mutamento, c'è caldo e freddo, fuoco e umidità, c'è fuoco al centro, e su di esso una marmitta con acqua. La casa è esposta ai venti e alle correnti; ma è una casa e questo significa sicurezza e stabilità. Per tre secoli il problema cosmologico conserva l'impostazione che gli aveva data Talete, un'impostazione ambigua, in cui il pro- blema metafisico del principio supremo d’ogni cosa si confonde col problema cosmologico dell'origine e della strutturazione di questo mondo. La distinzione tra problema metafisico e problema cosmologico viene finalmente percepita e lucidamente formulata da Platone. Questi distingue due piani di realtà, uno di ordine fisico (che è quello di questo mondo materiale) e l’altro di ordine metafisico: è il piano delle idee. Della origine e strutturazione del mondo mate- riale egli presenta una famosa spiegazione nel Timeo. Il mondo è stato prodotto dal Demiurgo. Questi contemplando le Idee (ossia prendendo le Idee come modelli), assistito e coadiuvato da altre Potenze, plasma la materia informe, facendole assumere quelle qua- lità e caratteristiche che sono proprie degli esseri che popolano questo mondo. Portata a compimento la formazione del mondo, il Demiurgo vi infonde un'anima universale, la quale ha la funzione di conservare in vita il mondo, senza bisogno di un continuo inter- vento da parte del Demiurgo? Aristotele, in Metafisica, compie un esame ancora più approfon- dito del problema cosmologico, almeno per quanto concerne l’aspet- to della natura essenziale delle cose materiali e del loro divenire. Secondo Aristotele il mondo non ha né origine né fine: è eterno. Ma non è affatto immobile, statico, perché il divenire è uno dei suoi tratti più caratteristici. Ma a che cosa è dovuto questo perenne divenire? C'è anzitutto una causa estrinseca: la tensione delle cose verso il loro ultimo traguardo, Dio. Ma c'è anche una causa intrinseca: la costituzione stessa delle cose materiali, le quali sono composte di materia e forma. La materia è di natura corruttibile ed è quindi la ragione intrinseca del continuo succedersi di nuove forme sulla sce- na di questo mondo. La materia è inoltre il fondamento ultimo del- l'estensione e quindi dello spazio. Invece il divenire è la ragione pro- fonda del tempo. Da parte sua la forma è la ragione della distinzione delle cose in molte specie diverse. Le specie fondamentali secondo Aristotele sono quattro, e, di conseguenza, quattro sono anche i grandi regni degli esseri terrestri: minerale, vegetale, animale e uma- no. Particolarmente interessante ed acuta è l’analisi condotta da Aristotele intorno al divenire, di cui distingue e definisce quattro tipi principali: quantitativo (crescita e diminuzione), qualitativo * PLATONE, Timeo, 5 ss. 65 Platone e le due realtà: fisica e metafisica Aristotele e la sua concezione sulla costituzione del cosmo: materia, divenire, forma L'esistenza e la perfezione del Movente immobile La concezione atomista di Democrito ed Epicuro Agostino e Tommaso: la temporalità del mondo e la sua eternità (alterazione di qualità), sostanziale (generazione e corruzione) e lo- cale (spostamento da un luogo ad un altro).* Ma come s'è detto, secondo Aristotele, il divenire delle cose non ha soltanto una causa intrinseca ma anche una estrinseca: le cose divengono per un fine ed è appunto il fine che le induce a trasfor- marsi, ad acquisire ulteriori gradi di realizzazione. Ciò porta Ari- stotele a riconoscere l'esistenza di un Movente immobile, che pro- voca tutti i fenomeni, tutte le generazioni, tutti i movimenti di questo mondo. Aristotele deduce la necessità del Movente immobile continuando la sua analisi del divenire. Si deve dare un movente in ogni forma di divenire perché il soggetto del divenire, non può darsi da sé ciò che non ha: « Tutto ciò che è mosso, è mosso da un altro ». Dalla esistenza delle varie forme di divenire e di movimento esistenti nel mondo Aristotele deduce l'esistenza di un Movente immobile, non subordinato a nessun genere di movimenti, causa im- mediata del movimento totale dell'universo, e causa mediata di tutti i movimenti particolari. Il Movente immobile è, secondo Aristotele, eterno, unico, del tutto immobile cioè talmente perfetto da non essere suscettibile di qualsiasi perfezionamento; inesteso non però come sono inestesi di natura loro la materia o i punti, ma perché superiore a tutto il mondo della materia e dell'estensione. Una concezione profondamente diversa e sotto molti aspetti con- traria a quella di ‘Platone e di Aristotele hanno sviluppato alcuni loro contemporanei, detti atomisti, i cui massimi esponenti sono Democrito ed Epicuro. Secondo questi filosofi il mondo è composto di una moltitudine infinita di atomi o elementi fisicamente invisibili, a causa della piccolezza delle loro dimensioni. Queste particelle si muovono nel vuoto e unendosi producono la nascita dei corpi e se- parandosi la distruzione. Fino a questo punto Democrito ed Epicuro sono perfettamente d'accordo. Divergono invece nella maniera di concepire il moto degli atomi. Mentre secondo Democrito tale moto assume una direzione rettilinea, Epicuro ritiene che per spiegare il mutamento e la combinazione degli elementi tra di loro occorre concepire il moto come passibile di deviazioni spontanee (clinamen): è proprio grazie a tali deviazioni che gli atomi danno origine a com- binazioni così molteplici e diverse, quali noi osserviamo in questo mondo I pensatori cristiani per spiegare la struttura intrinseca delle co- se materiali di solito si rifanno alla dottrina aristotelica; mentre in- vece per spiegare l'origine del mondo ricorrono alla nozione biblica di creazione: il mondo è scaturito dal nulla per volontà di Dio. Ma quando è stato creato questo mondo? Per rispondere a questo in- terrogativo gli autori cristiani hanno avanzato due soluzioni: una fa capo ad Agostino ed è quella più comune; l'altra è quella di Tom- 4 Cfr. B. MONDIN, vol. I, pp. 129-133. 5 Ivi, pp. 134-136. 6 Ivi, pp. 52-54; 174-177. 66 maso d'Aquino. Secondo il Vescovo di Ippona il mondo è stato creato nel tempo, così vuole la Scrittura e così esige anche la natura contingente e mutevole delle cose materiali. Invece secondo l’Aqui- nate, in linea di principio (vale a dire assolutamente parlando senza tener conto di quanto la ragione umana ha acquisito dalla Rivelazione) non si può escludere l’esistenza eterna del mondo, in quanto Dio ha potuto crearlo da sempre.” L'epoca moderna si apre con uno spiccato interessamento per il problema cosmologico. L'’Umanesimo e il Rinascimento sono carat- terizzati appunto da un interesse straordinario per il mondo, per la natura. Gli uomini del Quattro e Cinquecento (Cusano, Telesio, Pico della Mirandola, Ficino, Bruno, ecc.) sono incantati, abbagliati dalla bellezza, grandezza, fecondità, potenza della natura e su di essa ap- puntano il loro sguardo indagatore. Ma le loro spiegazioni di so- lito, sono pure fantasticherie, che non possono vantare maggiore solidità di quelle di alcuni pensatori greci, dai quali traggono ispi- razione. Eppure, ciononostante, le loro ipotesi costituiscono il pro- logo essenziale allo sviluppo di una nuova cosmologia, la quale assu- me la veste di ricerca scientifica anziché quella di indagine filo- sofica.? Già con Galilei non ci si interessa più delle essenze delle cose materiali e delle loro cause ultime, ma si concentra tutta l’attenzio- ne sui fenomeni e sulle leggi che li regolano. Sono soprattutto le leggi che contano. Si tratta di una rivoluzione che ha prodotto copiosi frutti. Un po’ alla volta, per merito di Galilei, Keplero, Newton, Lavoisier, Einstein e tanti altri, l'indagine scientifica è riuscita, almeno in parte a dipanare la complessa voluminosa ed intricata matassa delle leggi che regolano i fenomeni dell’universo. Tutte le cosmologie antiche, quella egiziana, babilonese e gre- ca, mettevano sempre al centro dell'universo la Terra, circondata e sostenuta da un oceano e sopra la volta del cielo. Nel secondo secolo dopo Cristo, il matematico ed astronomo alessandrino Tolo- meo Claudio rielaborò tutti i risultati delle ricerche precedenti e sviluppò un complesso sistema geocentrico, basato su una serie di circonferenze, in cui la Terra era al centro ed il sole e la luna le giravano intorno, mentre gli altri corpi celesti avevano dei percorsi eccentrici. Questo sistema fu accettato per oltre un millennio, sino a che Niccolò Copernico non elaborò il suo sistema eliocentrico, nel 1507, secondo cui i pianeti si muovono intorno al sole su orbite com- plementari. Si deve soprattutto agli studi di Galilei la diffusione del sistema copernicano. Un altro elemento caratteristico della cosmologia moderna trae origine da Galilei: il meccanicismo. Applicando allo studio dell’uni- ? Ivi, pp. 221-223; 285. * B. MONDIN, vol. II, pp. 48-50. 67 Il naturalismo della cultura rinascimentale Il cammino verso la scienza: da Galilei ad Einstein Il ‘‘meccanicismo’’ di Galilei Teoria cinetica e teoria molecolare: movimento perpetuo e struttura atomica I corpi celesti e la distanza infinita Teoria stazionaria e teoria evolutiva: creazione continua ed esplosione originaria verso il metodo matematico, come aveva insegnato Galilei, i filosofi e gli scienziati moderni non si interessano più delle qualità e delle forme, ma guardano esclusivamente alla quantità e ai numeri. Viene in tal modo a cadere la spiegazione vitalistica delle cose di questo mondo: le piante e gli animali non svolgono determinate attività perché sarebbero dotati di un'anima ma semplicemente perché sono forniti di elementi fisici capaci di svolgere movimenti più o meno complicati Il meccanicismo peraltro non è mai riuscito a sradicare il vitali- smo, il quale conta anche oggi molti validi sostenitori. È comunque al meccanicismo che si ispirano alcune importanti ipotesi scientifiche dell'ultimo secolo, come la teoria cinetica e quel- la molecolare. La teoria cinetica constata un perpetuo movimento disordinato delle particelle dei gas, tanto più rapido quanto maggio- re è la temperatura. In quésto disordine si possono tuttavia applicare le leggi del calcolo delle probabilità, e trovare delle relazioni tra grandezze macroscopiche direttamente misurabili. Secondo la teoria molecolare la struttura della materia risulta da un'aggregazione di atomi, tutti di una specie se si tratta di un corpo semplice, di tante specie diverse quanti sono i componenti semplici, se si tratta di un composto o di un miscuglio. Di ciascuna specie di atomi si conosce esattamente il peso, indicabile con H per l'idrogeno, 238 H per l’ura- nio, ecc. 3. La cosmologia nel secolo XX In questo secolo, grazie allo sviluppo di nuovi strumenti di ri- cerca, è stato possibile penetrare sempre più a fondo nel cuore della materia e individuarne gli elementi costitutivi più minuscoli, come le molecole, gli atomi, gli elettroni, ecc. Anche del più piccolo organismo vivente, la cellula, si è riusciti a decifrare in larga misura la complessa e meravigliosa struttura. Dal lato opposto lo sguardo umano, sospingendosi sempre più lontano, è riuscito a raggiungere corpi celesti che si trovano ad una distanza pressoché infinita dalla terra. In tal modo l’uomo ha acquistato una coscienza più acuta della vastità e della complessità dell'universo che lo circonda, un universo di cui gli riesce sempre più difficile cogliere le ragioni del suo inizio, il tempo della sua durata e il momento della sua fine. Per risolvere questi problemi enormi oggi si avanzano varie ipotesi: le più note sono quella stazionaria e quella evolutiva. Secondo la teoria stazio- naria, oggi meno accettata, vi è una creazione continua di materia, che mantiene l'universo ad una densità costante, nonostante la sua espansione, che si desume dall'ipotesi del moto di allontanamento * Ivi, pp. 107-110; 143. 68 delle galassie. Secondo la teoria evolutiva, vi fu un’esplosione origi- naria in un universo superdenso, il cosiddetto « big bang », circa 10 o 12 miliardi di anni or sono. Oggi comunque la parola definitiva è affidata alla ricerca che si vale di strumenti sempre più perfezionati. Ma a parere di molti filosofi e scienziati moderni, i quali riten- gono valida la distinzione kantiana tra realtà fenomenica e realtà noumenica, cioè pensata, non è possibile trovare una risposta con- clusiva agli interrogativi ultimi della cosmologia (origine del mondo per creazione o per caso, durata finita oppure infinita, estensione li- mitata oppure senza limiti, movimento teleologico oppure necessario, ecc.), in quanto ad ogni tesi è possibile contrapporne un'altra di segno contrario. Ma qui sono la natura e il valore della ragione umana e più spe- cificamente della speculazione filosofica che sono chiamati in causa. E qualora si rifiuti di accogliere la prospettiva kantiana, e si ascriva alla ragione il potere non solo di cogliere i nessi tra i fenomeni ma la verità stessa delle cose, allora si può anche ritenere che il pre: blema cosmologico non sia un problema insolubile. A nostro avviso esiste una filosofia in grado di fornire una risposta valida anche a questo difficile problema: è la filosofia dell'essere. Questa filosofia (lo vedremo meglio nel capitolo dedicato al problema ontologico) muove dalla « intuizione » del valore infinito della per- fezione dell'essere e dalla constatazione che nel mondo tale perfezio- ne si realizza sempre e soltanto in modi limitati. Ora, la finitudine e contingenza dell'essere di tali modi, ossia delle cose dell'universo, fanno comprendere l'esigenza della realtà di un Essere infinito, che ne segni l'origine e lo mantenga in vita, la necessità d'un Incondizio- nato che regga tutta la serie delle condizioni. Pertanto l'universo trae origine da Dio. Questi lo genera compiendo un atto singolare, che nessuna creatura può compiere, l'atto della creazione. Crea- zione significa la produzione di una cosa che prima non era in nessun modo, né in se stessa né nella potenza d'un soggetto (o ma- teria). Il termine « creazione » quindi evidenzia la totale inesisten- za dell'universo prima della sua produzione da parte dell'Essere sussistente; esso pone l'accento sul nulla del punto di partenza rispetto all'oggetto, l'universo. Con l’atto creatore l'Essere sussi- stente comunica il suo essere all'universo. Il suo è un dono del tutto straordinario, perché dal suo darsi nasce la realtà dell'universo là dove prima c'era soltanto il puro nulla. Il termine « creazione » pone quindi l'accento sull'inizio dell'universo, punto di partenza che è tutto nell'Essere sussistente, nella sua generosa dedizione, una dedizione che non ha nulla a che vedere né con l’emanazio- ne necessaria dei neoplatonici, né con l'alienazione dell'Assoluto degli idealisti. Si tratta però, ovviamente, di una comunicazione limitata. L'Essere sussistente non crea un altro essere sussistente, !° J. DE FINANCE, Existence et liberté, Vitte, Paris 1955, pp. 152-207. 69 La risposta della filosofia dell'essere L’atto creativo dell’Essere sussistente (Dio) Insoluto il problema cosmologico della durata ma un ente contingente. Per questo motivo l'universo non eguaglia la perfezione di Dio e tanto meno si identifica con la sua realtà. Esso semplicemente partecipa alla perfezione dell'Essere sussistente, os- sia possiede in modo particolare, limitato, imperfetto, quella perfe- zione che nell’Essere sussistente si attua in modo totale, illimitato e perfetto. C'è tuttavia una tensione permanente nel modo di fare ritorno alla sua prima sorgente, all'Essere sussistente; e questo spiega il profondo dinamismo che lo pervade, la costante trasformazione e la meravigliosa evoluzione che lo animano: l’universo è in cammino verso Dio. Questi è pertanto allo stesso tempo sia il punto Alfa che il punto Omega dell’universo."! Abbiamo così chiarito, facendo appello ai principi della filosofia dell'essere, i due principali problemi della cosmologia: origine e fine dell'universo. Resta ancora insoluto il problema della durata. Qual è la distanza temporale che deve percorrere l'universo prima di raggiungere il punto Omega? ‘Per trovare una risposta a questo interrogativo non possiamo fa- re appello a nessuna filosofia, neppure alla filosofia dell'essere. Si tratta certamente di una distanza finita, come affermano oggi una- nimemente gli scienziati; ma è una distanza che la ragione non riuscirà mai a misurare. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Teogonia — Condensazione-rarefazione — Materia; forma; divenire — Motore immobile — Geocentrismo; eliocentrismo; meccanicismo — Teoria cinetica, molecolare, stazionaria, evolutiva; creazione SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. ‘PROBLEMATICITÀ DELL'UNIVERSO 1. ‘L'universo è una realtà problematica in ordine alla sua origine, ai suoi elementi costitutivi, alla sua durata, al suo fine ultimo. 2. La risposta al problema può essere scientifica o filosofica. Nel primo caso si propone una descrizione dei fenomeni. Nel secondo una interpretazione generale dei fenomeni dell’universo. 3. La distinzione tra i due ordini di soluzione risale al sec. XVII. Il problema cosmologico è uno dei primi che la mente umana si è posto: "! B. MONDIN, Il sistema filosofico di Tommaso d'Aquino {Per una lettura at- tuale della filosofia tomista), Massimo, Milano 1985. 70 qual è la causa ultima delle cose? in che modo ha prodotto il sistema dell'uni- verso? qual è il costitutivo fondamentale del mondo? 2. Le cosmogonie e le teogonie del mondo antico (da Esiodo ad Omero) sono state i primi tentativi di soluzione. 3. Il problema sta alla base della filosofia ionica {Talete, Anassimene, Anassimandro) che prospetta ambiguamente il problema cosmologico con il problema metafisico. 4. La distinzione tra i due problemi viene posta da Platone con la sua di- stinzione tra il mondo fisico e il mondo metafisico (natura e mondo delle Idee). 5. Aristotele approfondisce il problema cosmologico: it mondo è eterno e il divenire è uno dei suoi caratteri, poiché le cose tendono verso il proprio perfezionamento. Un Motore immobile provoca tutti i fenomeni, tutte ie gene- razioni, tutti i movimenti del mondo. 6. Gli atomisti (Democrito e Epicuro) pongono all'origine del mondo atomi invisibili per le loro dimensioni che unendosi e separandosi provocano la na- scita o la distruzione. Democrito afferma che il movimento degli atomi è retti- lineo; Epicuro afferma che avviene per deviazione spontanea. 7. I pensatori cristiani per spiegare la struttura intrinseca delle cose si rifanno ad Aristotele, mentre spiegano l'origine del mondo come atto creativo deila volontà di Dio. 8. L'Umanesimo e il Rinascimento privilegiano il problema cesmologico (Cusano, Telesio, Pico della Mirandola, Ficino, Bruno). Le visioni sono spesso fantasiose e animistiche. 9. Progressivamente, nel corso dell'età moderna e contemporanea, la co- smologia passa dalla dimensione metafisica a quella scientifica attraverso i traguardi segnati da Galilei, Newton, Lavoisier e Einstein. Il meccanicismo so- stituisce il vitalismo rinascimentale, lasciando successivamente il posto alla teoria cinetica e alla teoria molecolare. III. LA COSMOLOGIA NEL SECOLO XX 1. I nuovi strumenti di ricerca hanno consentito di penetrare i segreti del- la materia e di individuarne gli elementi costitutivi fondamentali: molecole, atomi, elettroni. 2. La teoria stazionaria afferma la creazione continua di materia; la teoria evolutiva afferma l'origine di un universo superdenso da un'esplosione ori- ginaria. 3. La filosofia dell'essere offre una valida soluzione al problema dell'origine dell'universo stabilendo una relazione tra gli esseri finiti e contingenti e l’Es- sere infinito e incondizionato. L'universo trae, pertanto, origine da Dio per atto creativo, in virtù del quale l'Essere sussistente comunica il suo essere al- l'universo con un atto di generosa dedizione. QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Quali rapporti intercorrono tra metafisica e cosmologia? 2. Che cosa caratterizza la distinzione tra discorso mitico, scientifico e filo- sofico circa il mondo? 3. Quali correlazioni è possibile stabilire tra scienza e cosmologia? 4. In che misura il problema cosmologico si incontra con il problema religioso? 5. Quali sono i principali aspetti del problema cosmologico? 6. Quali sono le interpretazioni cosmologiche più significative del pensiero occidentale? 71 7. Quali interpretazioni sono state date al problema dello spazio e del tempo? 8. Che cosa sono il meccanicismo e il vitalismo? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI ARCIDIACONO G., Relatività e cosmologia, Veschi, Roma. AuBERT J.M., Cosmologia, Paideia, Brescia 1968. BERTOTTI B., Lo cosmologia, Le Monnier, Firenze 1980. CRICK F., Uomini e molecole, Zanichelli, Bologna 1970. HOENEN P., Cosmologia, Università Gregoriana, Roma 1956. JoLIVET R., Trattato di filosofia, vol. II: Cosmologia, Paideia, Brescia 1957. MARCOZZI V., Caso e finalità, Massimo, Milano 1978. MERLEAU PonTY J., Cosmologia del secolo XX, Il Saggiatore, Milano 1974. Monop J., I! caso e la necessità, Mondadori, Milano 1970. OraISsoN M., I! caso e la vita, SEI, Torino 1971. SELVvaGGI F., Filosofia del mondo fisico, PUG, Roma 1977. TEILARD DE CHARDIN P., Il fenomeno umano, Il Saggiatore, Milano 1968. TONINI V., La scienza della vita, Jouvence, Roma 1983. TORALDO DI FRANCIA G., L'indagine del mondo fisico, Torino 1976. VAN Hacens B., Filosofia della natura, Urbaniana ‘University Press, Roma 1983. 72 Capitolo sesto IL PROBLEMA ANTROPOLOGICO QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Quali interrogativi l’uomo si pone in relazione a se stesso? 2. Perché l'uomo ha bisogno di capirsi? 3. Di che cosa si ha più bisogno per stare bene con se stessi? 1. Natura del problema La filosofia ha sempre fatto dell'uomo argomento del suo studio e delle sue ricerche. Però, lungo l'arco della sua storia plurimille- naria, ci sono momenti in cui l’attenzione del filosofo s'è rivolta all'uomo in maniera distinta e privilegiata. Così, nell'antichità, dopo che lo sforzo dei primi filosofi greci, teso a scoprire la causa ultima delle cose era riuscito vano, con Socrate e i Sofisti la ricerca filo- sofica si concentra tutta sull'uomo, al fine di comprenderne la vera natura, determinarne le capacità e intenderne i doveri e la missione. « Conosci te stesso »: ecco l'obiettivo preciso della filosofia di Socrate e dei suoi contemporanei. Altrettanto è accaduto molti secoli più tardi, alla fine del Medio- evo, dopo i vani tentativi degli Scolastici di fissare in bell’ordine gli elementi molteplici che compongono l'universo. Ancora una volta l'indagine filosofica torna a riflettere anzitutto e soprattutto sul- l'uomo, per conoscerlo più profondamente. In seguito, tutta la filosofia moderna ha assunto un indirizzo spiccatamente antropocentrico. Oggi, anche chi crede nella possibi- lità della metafisica ossia nella possibilità di un sapere filosofico in- torno all'essere assoluto, ritiene di doverla sviluppare partendo dal- l'uomo. Attualmente persino i teologi ritengono opportuno se non proprio necessario dare alla loro disciplina un'impostazione antro- pocentrica. Ma questa tendenza dei metafisici e dei teologi di portare l'uomo al centro delle loro considerazioni rende più acuto che mai il pro- blema di sapere chi sia l'uomo. Infatti senza una soluzione adegua- ta di questo problema ogni tentativo di elaborare dottrine metafi- siche, etiche, politiche, religiose, sociali è inevitabilmente destinato al fallimento. Chi è, dunque, l'uomo? 73 Nel secoli la filosofia ha sempre studiato l’uomo L’interrogativo fondamentale: l’uomo chi è? La complessità della realtà ““uomo”' definito ‘‘mistero’’ da sant'Agostino Il problema antropologico si riferisce all'essenza propria dell’uomo Tre prospettive di ricerca sull'uomo: Sant'Agostino, che è uno degli autori che hanno studiato più at- tentamente la realtà umana, a questo interrogativo risponde di- cendo: « Grande mistero è l'uomo ».! L'uomo, infatti, a causa della complessità del suo essere, fisico e psichico ad un tempo, confinato in una piccola zona dello spazio col suo corpo, ma in grado di scaval- care tutti i confini dell'universo con la sua mente, è effettivamente una realtà di cui è impossibile ottenere una comprensione e fornire una spiegazione sicura ed esaustiva. L'uomo è una realtà estremamente complessa. Ciò è vero anzitut- to nell'ordine dell'azione. Egli esplica attività d'ogni genere: cono- sce, studia, scrive, parla, lavora, gioca, prega, canta, ama, soffre, gode, mangia, ecc. Ed ognuna di queste attività solleva interrogativi e problemi di non facile soluzione. Ma la complessità diventa ancora più accentuata quando si passa dal piano dell'azione a quello dell’es- sere. Allora ci si domanda: chi è questo individuo singolare che chiamiamo Io e che qualifichiamo come persona? Che cos'è che con- sente al suo corpo di esplicare le suddette attività molte delle quali trascendono così palesemente i confini della materialità? È mai pos- sibile decifrare l'essere profondo dell’uomo? Il problema-uomo investe pertanto tutti i campi della filosofia, dalla logica alla gnoseologia, alla cosmologia, alla metafisica, all’eti- ca, alla politica, alla cultura, all'arte, alla psicologia, alla religione. Una antropologia generale dovrebbe affrontarlo nella sua tota- lità e trovare una risposta per ogni specifico interrogativo. Ma, di solito, quando si parla di problema antropologico non si intende riferirsi al problema di questa o di quella attività umana (per esem- pio al problema della conoscenza oppure della libertà, del lavoro, ecc.) ma al problema della natura umana in quanto tale: qual è l'essenza propria dell'uomo? quali sono i suoi elementi costitutivi fondamentali? in che rapporto si trovano tra di loro? quale l’ori- gine prima e il fine ultimo dell’uomo? È appunto di questa serie di interrogativi che noi terremo conto tracciando il quadro storico del problema antropologico. 2. Panorama storico Agli interrogativi: chi è quell’essere vivente che chiamiamo uomo? quali sono gli elementi costitutivi della sua natura? in che rapporto si trovano tra di loro? sono state date le risposte più disparate, le quali tuttavia sono riducibili ad alcuni tipi fondamentali, qualora si tenga conto della prospettiva in cui si sono collocati i filosofi op- pure del metodo che hanno impiegato nell’elaborarle. Le prospettive principali sono tre, cosmocentrica, teocentrica e antropocentrica. ! S. AcostINO, Confessioni, IV, 14. 74 La prospettiva cosmocentrica assume come punto d'osservazione il mondo. È la prospettiva della filosofia greca. Platone, Aristotele, gli Epicurei, gli Stoici, i Neoplatonici quando studiano l'uomo lo situa- no all’interno del mondo e lo considerano alla luce della visione che hanno di quest’ultimo. La prospettiva teocentrica assume come punto d'osservazione Dio. È la prospettiva della filosofia cristiana dei Padri e degli Sco- lastici. Questi si accostano all'uomo in un contesto teologico ossia tenendo conto di quanto Dio stesso ha fatto conoscere all'umanità riguardo alla realtà divina, umana e cosmica. La prospettiva antropocentrica prende come punto di riferimento l'uomo stesso, focalizzando questo o quell'altro suo aspetto caratte- ristico. È la prospettiva propria della filosofia moderna. A partire dall’Umanesimo tutte le antropologie, quella di Cartesio come quella di Hume, quella di Kant come quella di Hegel, quella di Comte come quella di Freud, quella di Nietzsche come quella di Heidegger, ecc., pur tra grandi e profonde divergenze, concordano nell’assumere la stessa prospettiva antropocentrica. Se, però, per classificare le antropologie, anziché la prospettiva si prende come fondamento il metodo, allora si ottengono quattro ti- pi principali: — antropologie metafisiche, le quali si valgono del metodo me- tafisico. Sono quelle di Platone, Aristotele, Plotino, Agostino, Tom- maso, Cartesio, Spinoza, Leibniz, ecc. — antropologie naturalistiche, le quali applicano anche allo studio dell’uomo il metodo positivo-scientifico. Sono le antropologie di Darwin, Comte, Spencer, Freud, ecc. — antropologie storicistiche, le quali adoperano il metodo sto- rico. Di queste le più rappresentative sono quelle elaborate da Vico, Marx, Croce, Gadamer, ecc. — antropologie esistenziali, le quali si servono del metodo fe- nomenologico. A questo gruppo appartiene la maggior parte delle antropologie più recenti. Tra queste ricordiamo le analisi di Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Ricoeur, Merleau-Ponty, Marcel, Gehlen, ecc. Qui, a motivo dei limiti che ci siamo imposti nel presente scritto, non ci è consentito di tracciare un panorama completo delle antro- pologie che abbiamo ricordato. Illustreremo soltanto alcune posi- zioni più rappresentative e storicamente più influenti. Sono posi- zioni che si trovano già delineate nella filosofia greca. Nella cultura greca la posizione dell'essere umano nell'universo assume indubbiamente maggior rilievo che nelle altre culture ad es- sa contemporanee sia del Medio che dell'Estremo Oriente (cultura babilonese, egiziana, ebraica, indiana, ecc.). E tuttavia anche nella cultura greca la posizione dell'uomo rimane sempre una posizione in- certa, contrastata, subordinata: egli non è padrone dell'universo e neppure della sua storia. Tutti gli sforzi ch'egli compie per affermare se stesso, la propria autonomia, la propria libertà, e per far valere i 75 — cosmocentrica: l’uomo e la visione del mondo — teocentrica: l’uomo e la rivelazione di Dio — antropocentrica: l’uomo a partire da se stesso Quattro metodi di ricerca antropologica: metafisico, naturalistico, storicistico, esistenzialista Soprattutto nella cultura greca emerge lo studio dell’uomo Visione predominante: il fato incombe sull'uomo Altre visioni: — Platone: natura spirituale con libertà assoluta — Aristotele: il limite della corporeità — Plotino: il ritorno dell’anima all’Uno I quattro problemi fondamentali diritti della propria intelligenza sono destinati al fallimento, perché egli rimane inesorabilmente incatenato alle forze del Fato, della Natura e della Storia. La libertà è una vana aspirazione, come pure vana aspirazione è quella di sfuggire alla morsa della morte per rag- giungere l'eternità. Intelligente, coraggioso, forte e astuto l’uomo greco si sente circondato da potenze soprannaturali che sono più forti, intelligenti ed astute di lui. Prometeo incatenato è la figura più emblematica della visione antropologica ellenica. Da tale visione si staccano peraltro le concezioni dell’uomo ela- borate dai filosofi Platone, Aristotele e Plotino. Platone afferma la libertà assoluta dell’uomo, riconoscendogli una natura spirituale che non può in nessun modo essere incate- nata dalle forze del mondo, del tempo e del fato. L'uomo per Platone è essenzialmente anima, spirito. Perciò la sua sopravvivenza, la sua immortalità è fuori questione e non presenta nessun problema. L'u- nico problema per l’uomo è quello di riscattare la sua anima dalla prigione del corpo.’ Aristotele è meno ottimista di Platone riguardo al carattere tra- scendente dell'uomo e all’eternità del suo destino. A suo giudizio l'uomo non è puro spirito, non è essenzialmente ed esclusivamente anima. Come tutti gli altri esseri di questo mondo anche l’uomo è composto di materia (il corpo) e forma (l’anima). Ora, dato che l'anima svolge il ruolo di forma, proprio per questo motivo, nono- stante la sua evidente superiorità rispetto al corpo e alla sua capa- : cità di dedicarsi ad attività sublimi come quella della contempla- zione, non pare tuttavia in grado di sfuggire alla corruzione e di sot- trarsi al flagello della morte. Plotino riprende e sviluppa ulteriormente la concezione plato- nica. Afferma anch'egli la dicotomia tra anima e corpo ed assegna all'anima un'attività che appartiene soltanto ad essa, la contempla- zione. L'anima che conosce la verità può sottrarsi alla prigione del corpo e del mondo, può ritrovare se stessa e ricongiungersi con l'Assoluto, l’Uno. Il ritorno dell'anima alla sua fonte originaria è reso possibile da una tensione che le è connaturale. È una tensione che all’inizio si afferma come impulso oscuro e pressoché inconsa- pevole, ma è già sufficiente a determinare un senso di disgusto per tutto ciò che è molteplice e diveniente. Le tappe del ritorno del- l'anima all’Uno sono tre: ascesi, contemplazione, estasi. Oggi, queste tre visioni antropologiche elaborate da ‘Platone, Ari- stotele, Plotino potranno sembrare inadeguate. Esse hanno comun- que il merito singolare d'avere quanto meno individuato i problemi fondamentali di qualsiasi indagine antropologica: — determinazione di ciò che caratterizza essenzialmente l’uomo, ossia il problema della natura umana; ? Cfr. B. MONDIN, vol. I, pp. 88-91. ? Ivi, pp. 137-139. * Ivi, pp. 185-186. 76 — funzione e consistenza dell'elemento psichico, ossia proble- ma della sostanzialità dell'anima; — rapporti tra elemento psichico ed elemento somatico, ossia problema dei rapporti tra anima e corpo; — destino ultimo dell'essere umano: ossia problema dell’immor- talità dell'anima. Su questi quattro problemi fondamentali si è incentrata l'atten- zione di tutti i filosofi posteriori, del Medioevo e dell’epoca moderna, allorché hanno affrontato il problema antropologico. Sul problema della natura umana, fino al secolo scorso c'è stato un accordo costante tra i filosofi nel situarla nell'elemento razionale, come avevano già indicato Platone, Aristotele e Plotino: l’uomo è essenzialmente animale ragionevole (anima! rationale). Agostino, Tommaso, Scoto, Occam, Cartesio, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, convengono tutti su questo punto. Ma da un secolo a questa parte si è cominciato a rilevare che nell'uomo esistono altre dimensioni e manifestazioni altrettanto ti- piche e fondamentali quanto quella del conoscere, come il parlare, il lavorare, il giocare, l’amare, il pregare, ecc. Sono così sorte nuove antropologie che definiscono l'uomo in base a queste altre sue at- tività. Tra le definizioni che hanno suscitato maggior interesse ricor- diamo quelle di Marx (essere economico), Freud (essere sessuale), Heidegger (essere ex-sistente), Marcel (essere problematico), Fink (essere ludico), Gadamer (essere storico), Ricoeur (essere fallibile), Buber (essere dialogante), Bloch (essere utopistico), Luckmann (essere religioso), Eliade (essere mitologizzante), Tillich (essere a- lienato), Sartre (essere libero). Per ultima riportiamo quella di Scheler che definisce l'uomo « l'essere capace di dire di no all’im- pulso istintivo ». Anche altri filosofi, come Plessner, Gehlen, Litt han- no confermato il concetto che il tratto essenziale dell'uomo sia la rottura con l’istinto, valendosi dei risultati delle ricerche biologiche. Naturalmente in questa sede non possiamo esporre le ragioni con cui i vari autori giustificano le loro definizioni della realtà umana. Possiamo tuttavia affermare che in generale si tratta di ragioni valide. Essi fanno vedere che sotto l’aspetto della tecnica, del linguaggio, del gioco, della cultura, della religione, dell'amore, ecc., l'uomo sovrasta infinitamente tutti gli esseri che lo circondano e che, pertanto, ci si può servire di ciascuno di tali aspetti a modo di principio erme- neutico della natura umana. Occorre tuttavia riconoscere che la com- prensione di tale natura riesce più chiara e profonda se non la si ac- costa alla prospettiva di una sola attività, ma di molte. Le antropo- logie pluriprospettiche sono quindi preferibili alle antropologie che esplorano l'uomo da un solo punto di vista. Queste ultime riescono difficilmente ad aggirare lo scoglio del riduttivismo. Il problema dell’esistenza dell'anima e del suo carattere sostan- ziale è indubbiamente il più difficile dei problemi antropologici. Pla- tone fu il primo ad affrontarlo in modo esplicito e rigoroso. Nel 77 L’essenza razionale della natura umana La pluralità delle dimensioni Validità delle antropologie pluriprospettiche Platone: spiritualità e immortalità dell'anima Agostino, Cartesio, Leibniz: la sostanzlalità dell’anima Lucrezio, Hobbes, Marx, Comte e altri: l’anima epifenomeno della corporeità Fedone egli prende in esame l'obiezione di coloro che negano al- l'anima il carattere sostanziale, dicendo che essa non è altro che un epifenomeno del corpo: l’anima non sarebbe altro che uno splen- dido accordo degli elementi che costituiscono il corpo. Platone re- spinge l’obiezione rilevando che l’anima, lungi dall'essere in accordo col corpo, si trova praticamente in costante dissidio con esso; infatti le esigenze dell'anima sono in perenne contrasto con quelle del corpo. Per esempio « nel corpo c’è arsura e sete, e l’anima lo tira al contrario a non bere; c'è fame, e l’anima lo tira a non mangiare, e così in mille altri casi in cui vediamo che l’anima si oppone alle passioni del corpo ».î Quindi per Platone non c'è nessun dubbio che l'anima è una sostanza, una sostanza di natura spirituale, incorrutti- bile e immortale. Essa stessa costituisce la vera autentica essenziale natura dell'uomo. L'uomo è l’anima. Il corpo è la prigione in cui l'anima espia le sue colpe. Dopo Platone il problema della sostanzialità dell'anima continua a suscitare dispute assai vivaci, ricevendo soluzioni molto diverse e contrastanti. Alcuni autori (Agostino, Cartesio, Leibniz) seguendo l'esempio di ‘Platone affermano che l’anima è una vera sostanza e che la sua sostanzialità si identifica con quella dell’uomo. Le ragioni che adducono a sostegno di questa tesi sono in parte di ordine mo- rale (come l'aspirazione dell'uomo ad una vita di perfetta felicità, che non può trovare attuazione in questo mondo) e in parte d'ordine gnoseologico (per esempio, il possesso di verità assolute che non sembrano tratte dall’esperienza)£ Secondo un altro gruppo di filosofi (Lucrezio, Pomponazzi, Hob- bes, Marx, Comte, i neopositivisti, gli strutturalisti e molti altri pensatori contemporanei) l’anima non è affatto una sostanza ma semplicemente una trasformazione inconscia ed immaginaria (un epifenomeno) della corporeità. Le ragioni che adducono a sostegno della loro posizione sono note. A loro giudizio la fonte unica d'ogni cosa è la materia. Da essa si sviluppa tutto quello che noi osserviamo nell'universo, compreso l’uomo. Anche ciò che c'è di più alto e di più sublime in lui, come la scienza, l’arte e la morale, è tutto frutto della potenza inesauribile della materia. Quindi anche l'insieme di quegli aspetti superiori dell'uomo per spiegare i quali di solito si postula l’esistenza dell'anima non sono il frutto di « uno spirito che abita nella macchina », ma il risultato più o meno casuale di un alto grado di evoluzione della materia.” Secondo san Tommaso, il quale su questo punto ritiene di inter- pretare il pensiero autentico di Aristotele, e secondo la nutrita schie- ra di discepoli che l’Aquinate ha avuto durante la Seconda Scolastica (Silvestri, Caietano, Suarez) e durante la rinascita neotomistica (Mer- 5 PLATONE, Fedone, c. 43. * Cfr. B. MonpIN, ‘vol. I, pp. 226-227; vol. II, pp. 189-191. ? Cfr. J. Monop, Il caso e la necessità: saggio di filosofia naturale e della biologia contemporanea, Mondadori, Milano 197 78 cier, Gilson, Maritain, Masnovo, De Finance, ecc.) il possesso da parte dell’uomo di un'anima spirituale è una verità indiscutibile, ma essi non condividono la tesi di Platone secondo cui l’anima si identifica con l'uomo, perché l'anima da sola non è in grado di svol- gere tutte le attività che sono tipiche dell'uomo, come sentire, par- lare, lavorare, giocare, ecc. E tuttavia essendo l’anima dotata di al- cune attività proprie come il riflettere, il ragionare, il giudicare, il volere liberamente, anch'essi affermano che l'anima è dotata di un suo proprio atto di essere e che pertanto è una sostanza completa: è una sostanza completa in ordine all'esistenza ma non in ordine alla specificazione. Essa ottiene la propria specificazione nella scala de- gli esseri soltanto unendosi al corpo. C'è infine un altro gruppo di filosofi che ha per capostipiti Hume e Kant, il quale, per ragioni d'ordine gnoseologico, nega che si possa risolvere il problema della sostanzialità dell'anima. Questo è un pro- blema che riguarda « la cosa in sé », mentre la nostra mente è com- petente soltanto su quanto concerne la sfera dei fenomeni? Oggi, con la crisi profonda che sta attraversando la metafisica e con quello scetticismo che sta aggredendo anche la scienza, la posizione, agno- stica di Kant e di Hume incontra un numero sempre più grande di sostenitori. Strettamente connessi col problema della sostanzialità dell'anima sono gli altri tre problemi principali dell'’antropologia: origine del- l'anima, rapporti dell'anima col corpo, e destino ultimo dell'essere umano. Per il problema dell'origine dell'anima i filosofi hanno proposto le seguenti soluzioni: — traducianesimo, ossia derivazione dell'anima dei figli da quella dei genitori (analogamente a quanto succede per il corpo). Questa posizione è stata assunta da Tertulliano e Agostino per rendere in- telligibile la trasmissione del peccato originale; — emanazione dall'essere supremo: dal Logos secondo gli Stoi- ci, dall'Uno secondo i Neoplatonici, dalla Sostanza secondo Spi- noza, dallo Spirito assoluto secondo gli Idealisti; — creazione simultanea di tutte le anime prima oppure nel mo- mento stesso dell'origine del mondo. Questa tesi è stata proposta da Platone, Filone Alessandrino e Origene; — creazione individuale e diretta di ogni singola anima da parte di Dio nel momento stesso della formazione del corpo. È la tesi più diffusa tra i pensatori cristiani d'ogni tempo, condivisa anche da quasi tutti i massimi esponenti della filosofia moderna (Cartesio, Vico, Campanella, Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, ecc.); * Cfr. B. MONDIN, vol. I, pp. 289-290. * Cfr. B. MONDIN, vol. II, pp. 345-347. 79 Da Aristotele e Tommaso al neotomismo: sostanzialità dell'anima e specificazione in unione al corpo L’agnosticismo di Hume e Kant. La crisi scettica attuale Il problema dell’origine: traducianesimo, emanazione, creazione, evoluzione Creazione ed evoluzione Origine spirituale dell'anima: è creata da Dio Il rapporto anima- corpo: a) unione accidentale — evoluzione dalla materia: è la tesi patrocinata da tutte le cor- renti moderne di ispirazione materialistica. Di queste soluzioni le prime tre oggi non trovano più sostenitori e il campo delle scelte è pertanto ridotto a due: creazione individuale da parte di Dio e evoluzione dalla materia. Qual è quella giusta? Le anime discendono direttamente da Dio o sono invece derivate dal- la materia? A nostro avviso la seconda soluzione ha un solo argomento dalla sua parte: la promozione della conoscenza scientifica a metro esclu- sivo di qualsiasi verità e, conseguentemente, il rifiuto di prendere in considerazione fenomeni che non sono suscettibili di verifiche sperimentali, come il fenomeno della riflessione, della libera scelta, dell'autotrascendenza, ecc. Ma per chi non vuole prestar fede al dog- ma dello scientismo, la derivazione dell'anima dalla materia non trova nessuna giustificazione e diviene, per contro, plausibile la tesi della sua origine per creazione. Anzi, una volta che per spiegare fenomeni come la riflessione, il giudizio, il ragionamento, l’auto- trascendenza, la libera scelta, ecc., si ammetta nell'uomo l’esistenza di un elemento spirituale, l’anima, non è più possibile derivare il suo essere dal basso, dal mondo fisico, dalla materia, perché tra l’a- nima quale si rivela nella sua essenza e nelle sue proprietà e il mondo fisico si spalanca un abisso che nessun processo evolutivo di ordine materiale ha la possibilità di colmare. ‘Pertanto su questa questione ci pare che abbiano perfettamente ragione quei filosofi i quali riten- gono che l’anima abbia origine dall'alto, abbia cioè un'origine spi- rituale e non materiale. Il loro argomento, ridotto all'osso, è il se- guente: l’origine dell'anima dev'essere conforme al suo essere. Ora, essendo il suo essere di natura spirituale, è necessario concludere che anche la sua origine abbia carattere spirituale, vale a dire essa non può essere causata che da Dio; si deve pertanto trattare di crea- zione, perché così si chiama l’azione con cui Dio causa l'esistenza del- le creature. Quanto al problema dei rapporti tra anima e corpo, anch'esso ha ricevuto soluzioni molto disparate, che tuttavia in generale sono perfettamente coerenti con le posizioni che gli autori hanno assunto sul problema della natura dell'anima e della sua sostanzialità. Le più significative sono le seguenti: — unione accidentale. È una delle tesi che ha trovato il più ampio coro di consensi; patrocinata anzitutto da Pitagora e Platone è stata in seguito ripresa e sviluppata dai loro innumerevoli disce- poli di cui i più illustri sono Agostino, Bonaventura, Cartesio, Mà- lebranche e Leibniz. Tutti questi autori considerano l'unione tra anima e corpo un'unione accidentale, ossia un'unione tra due so- stanze già completamente strutturate, ciascuna dotata d'un proprio atto di essere, due sostanze assolutamente eterogenee e pertanto aliene da qualsiasi saldatura profonda e duratura. Com'è noto, Pla- tone paragona l'unione dell'anima col corpo a quella del nocchiere 80 alla nave o del cavaliere al cavallo. Malebranche parla di una unione puramente occasionale; Leibniz di un'armonia prestabilita. Cartesio, infine, fissa una localizzazione ben precisa alla saldatura tra l'anima e il corpo: essa avviene nella ghiandola pineale;! — unione sostanziale. È la tesi che Aristotele ha contrapposto a Platone e Tommaso ad Agostino. Secondo lo Stagirita e l’Aquinate l'unione tra l’anima e il corpo è una unione profonda, sostanziale, duratura, perché non è l'incontro fra due sostanze già dotate di un loro essere autonomo prima di incontrarsi, bensì di due elementi sostanziali di cui almeno uno, il corpo, non dispone di un suo proprio atto di essere. La loro unione è simile a quella della materia con la forma sostanziale: due elementi che si compenetrano da capo a fondo, così da formare una sola, unica sostanza;! — identificazione dell'anima col corpo. È la tesi dei materialisti, positivisti, neopositivisti, strutturalisti e di altri autori i quali negando all'anima qualsiasi carattere sostanziale, risolvono il suo es- sere in quello della corporeità; . — posizione agnostica. È la posizione di Hume, Kant e dei loro rispettivi discepoli, i quali, ritenendo che nulla si possa dire del- l'anima come « cosa in sé », concludono logicamente che non è neppure possibile pronunciarsi sulla natura dei suoi rapporti col corpo.!? Anche il problema del destino ultimo dell'essere umano segue la strada già segnata precedentemente dalle soluzioni che i vari autori elaborano per il problema della natura dell'anima e della sua sostan- zialità. Le soluzioni basilari sono tre: — estinzione dell'essere dell'uomo con la morte: la morte non segna soltanto la fine del corpo ma di tutto l'essere dell'uomo, anima compresa. Questa tesi che fino agli inizi del secolo scorso aveva in- contrato il favore di pochissimi pensatori, a partire da Feuerbach, Marx, Comte, Nietzsche, diviene la tesi maggiormente seguita. Og- gi è sostenuta dalla maggior parte degli esistenzialisti, dai neo- positivisti, dai materialisti, dai marxisti, dagli strutturalisti e da molti altri ancora; — sopravvivenza dell'anima dopo la morte del corpo. Questa te- si avanzata in sede filosofica per la prima volta da Pitagora, Socrate e Platone è stata in seguito ripresa e sviluppata con ogni sorta di argomentazioni da quasi tutti i filosofi del Medioevo e dell’epoca moderna. Tra gli argomenti più suggestivi a favore dell'immortalità dell'anima ricordiamo i seguenti: a) argomento di Platone. È basato sulla conoscenza che l'anima ha delle idee del Bello, del Bene, del Vero, del Giusto, del Santo, ecc. Ora, questa conoscenza si raggiunge non mediante i sensi, ma pi$t- tosto con l’allontanamento da essi. Vi è quindi una vita propria dello !° B. MONDIN, vol. I, ‘pp. 88 ss.; vol. II, pp. 1402142; 189-191. 1! Ivi, pp. 137-139; 286-290. !? B. MONDIN, vol. II, pp. 238-239; 345-347. B1 b) unione sostanziale c) identificazione d) agnosticismo Il destino ultimo: estinzione o sopravvivenza? Immortalità dell'anima secondo: — Platone: l’affinità dell'anima con il mondo delle idee — Agostino: la conoscenza delle verità eterne — Tommaso: il desiderio naturale della sopravvivenza — Cartesio: non si può provare la corruttibilità dell'anima spirito, che si svolge tutta sola, indipendentemente dal corpo. « Quan- do compie da sola la ricerca, l’anima si slancia verso ciò che è puro, eterno, immortale e sempre uguale a se stesso; e, sentendo la pro- pria affinità con esso, vi dimora per tutto il tempo che le è con- cesso, e trova pace nel suo errare, e posta in contatto con tali realtà, permane essa stessa costante e immutabile ».* L'affinità, la parentela con l'Idea, che è eterna, è il perno dell'argomento platonico. In quanto spirito la nostra anima è fatta per l’Idea e di essa si nutre e per essa vive della vita dello spirito. Ora l’Idea è eterna, immuta- bile. Di conseguenza anche la nostra anima, che è affine ad essa e vive di essa, è eterna ed immutabile; b} argomento di sant'Agostino. È basato anch'esso sulla cono- scenza delle verità eterne. « L'anima, dice Agostino, nella conoscen- za intellettiva attinge la verità. Ora, in quanto sede della verità, l’a- nima è immortale allo stesso modo della verità. Infatti se ciò che si trova in un soggetto è eternamente duraturo, è necessario che lo stesso soggetto sia eternamente duraturo. Ma poiché ogni scienza risiede sempre in un soggetto, è necessario che l’anima duri per sem- pre. Ma dato che la scienza è verità e la verità dura per sempre, anche l’anima dura per sempre, né si potrà mai dire che essa muore »;! c) argomento di san Tommaso. È basato sul desiderio naturale che l'uomo ha di sopravvivere alla morte e di non morire mai. Ecco come ragiona san Tommaso: « È impossibile che una tendenza na- turale sia vana. Ora l'uomo brama per natura di durare in perpetuo. E questo appare chiaro dal fatto che l'essere è ciò che da tutti è desiderato; l’uomo poi mediante l'intelletto percepisce l'essere non soltanto in un dato momento (come si trova realizzato hic et nunc), a modo degli animali bruti, ma assolutamente. Dunque l’uomo con- segue la perpetuità nella sua parte spirituale, vale a dire l’anima, per la quale percepisce l'essere assolutamente e secondo ogni tempo »;! d) argomento di Cartesio. È basato sull'impossibilità di provare che l’anima umana sia logorata dal tempo e destinata a perire: « Non abbiamo nessun argomento e nessun esempio che ci persuada che la morte, o l'annientamento di una sostanza quale lo spirito, debba seguire da una causa così leggera come un cambiamento di figura, il quale non è altro che un modo, e di più un modo del corpo e non dello spirito... Non abbiamo nessun argomento né esempio che ci possa convincere che vi sono delle sostanze spirituali soggette ad essere annientate »; — posizione agnostica. È la posizione di coloro che ritengono che il problema della sopravvivenza dell’uomo dopo la morte del corpo sia insolubile. Tracce di questa posizione si incontrano già 4 :PLATONE, Fedone, c. 27. 4 S. AcosTINO, Soliloquia, II, c. 13. 4 S. TomMaso, Summa contra gentiles, II, c. 79. * CARTESIO, Meditazioni, Laterza, Bari 1954, p. 156. 82 in alcuni filosofi del Medioevo (Abelardo, Scoto, Occam) e del Rinascimento (Valla, Zabarella, Caietano); ma diviene una posizione molto seguita dal momento in cui essa ottiene il suffragio di due dei massimi esponenti della filosofia moderna: Hume e Kant, i quali come sappiamo, in conseguenza dei loro postulati epistemologici, ritengono che la sfera della realtà oggettiva (sia essa materiale oppu- re spirituale) sia inaccessibile alla nostra mente. La posizione agno- stica è molto diffusa anche ai nostri giorni. Ci sono, oggi, tanti stu- diosi i quali non negano l'immortalità dell'anima ma ritengono che non sia possibile risolvere questo problema mediante prove attinte dalla metafisica. C'è poi un gruppo di teologi capeggiato da Barth e Cullmann, il quale considera la teoria dell'immortalità dell'anima incompatibile con la Rivelazione biblica e, pertanto, ritiene che il cristianesimo primitivo si sia reso colpevole di un errore imperdo- nabile allorché ha tradotto la dottrina biblica della risurrezione dei morti nella teoria greca dell'immortalità dell'anima.” Tale è, a grandi linee, il quadro del problema antropologico così come si è venuto delineando attraverso i secoli. Con la sua lunga serie di tentativi di soluzione, tentativi quasi sempre insoddisfacen- ti, esso comprova l'esattezza della affermazione di Agostino: « Gran- de mistero è l'uomo ». In effetti, messi di fronte a noi stessi, per cercare di cogliere la vera natura del nostro essere ed il nostro ultimo destino, dobbiamo riconoscere che non riusciamo a realizzare que- sta impresa: capaci di risolvere complicati problemi relativi alla fisica, alla matematica, all'astronomia, all'economia, alla politica, ecc., non siamo però in grado di spiegare con sufficiente chiarezza la problematicità del nostro essere, della nostra vita e del nostro de- stino. 3. Il significato dell’autotrascendenza Una delle costanti del comportamento umano è di superare, tra- scendere sistematicamente quello degli animali: l'uomo sorpassa gli animali nel pensiero, nella libertà, nel lavoro, nella parola, nel di- vertimento, nella tecnica ed in tante altre cose. ° Ma ciò che è ancor più singolare è la presenza in tutte le espres- sioni dell'agire umano di un altro tipo di superamento, di trascen- denza, la quale non è più volta verso l'esterno, verso gli altri esseri viventi, bensì verso l'interno, verso l’uomo stesso: questi in tutto ciò che fa, dice, pensa, vuole, desidera, mostra di tentare costante- mente di superare se stesso. L'uomo è essenzialmente segnato dal- l’autotrascendenza. .I filosofi del nostro tempo ancor più che i filosofi dei secoli pre- ” O. CULLMANN, « Immortalità dell'anima o risurrezione dei morti», in Protestantesimo, 1956, pp. 48-74. 83 Insolubilità del problema: l’agnosticismo da Abelardo a Kant Barth e Culmann: incompatibilità tra immortalità e risurrezione Trascendenza e autotrascendenza: la tensione oltre il limite Soluzione egocentrica: il perseguimento della propria perfezione Ritrovare se stessi in pienezza cedenti vedono nell’autotrascendenza il tratto più caratteristico del- l'essere umano e ritengono quindi che si possa giungere alla com- prensione di quest'ultimo soltanto chiarendo il senso dell'auto- trascendenza. Ma su questo punto le loro opinioni sono discordi. Vo- lendo schematizzare si possono ridurre a tre. Secondo alcuni l’auto- trascendenza ha come obiettivo il perfezionamento del soggetto che si autotrascende (soluzione egocentrica). Secondo altri il suo obiet- tivo è il perfezionamento della comunità, dell'umanità (soluzione filantropica). Secondo altri ancora il suo obiettivo primario è Dio: chi si autotrascende si distacca da se stesso per raggiungere Dio (soluzione teocentrica). a) Soluzione egocentrica - In tutte le epoche della storia troviamo filosofi insigni che interpretano l'autotrascendenza come supera- mento di ciò che l'uomo è attualmente al fine di raggiungere uno stato superiore di esistenza, di perfezione, di felicità. Tra i sosteni- tori più rappresentativi di questa soluzione figurano Platone, Aristo- tele, gli Stoici, Cartesio, Hegel, Nietzsche, Sartre. ‘Sul senso ultimo dell'esistenza umana tutti gli autori citati ma- nifestano un sostanziale accordo. Secondo il loro modo di vedere, l'uomo nella vita presente si trova in una situazione precaria, piena di deficienze e di miserie. C'è però nell'uomo una tensione (più o meno forte a seconda dei casi) di superare tale situazione e di libe- rarsi-dalla schiavitù dell'ignoranza, dell'errore, della paura, delle passioni. Ma questo sforzo di autotrascendenza non vuole essere un’alienazione da se stessi e un'immersione in qualche altro essere diverso da sé. L'intento dell’autotrascendenza è di ritrovare se stessi mediante l'acquisto di un essere più vero, più proprio e più autentico, effettuando una attuazione più piena e più completa delle proprie possibilità. A nostro parere questa interpretazione dell’autotrascendenza è valida nei limiti di ciò che afferma. Essa riconosce giustamente che l'uomo supera costantemente se stesso non per disfarsi della propria realtà ma per realizzarla più pienamente. L'uomo vuole acquisire nuovi livelli di conoscenza, nuovi gradi di cultura e di benessere, ma senza buttare a mare quanto già conosce, può e possiede. L'auto- trascendenza non è una restituzione della macchina vecchia per l’ac- quisto di quella nuova, ma è piuttosto una revisione e un nuovo col- laudo della macchina vecchia. L'autotrascendenza non è un'immola- zione di se stessi a vantaggio di qualche altro. Ma essa è anzitutto e soprattutto ricerca d'un essere personale più perfetto. Però in questa interpretazione dell’autotrascendenza rimane insoluto il problema di come si possa portare a compimento questo processo di più completa autorealizzazione, in quanto da tutti gli autori sopracitati questa impresa è affidata alla iniziativa e alle forze dell'uomo. Ora, l’esperienza insegna che nella maggior parte dei casi i nostri sforzi vengono sistematicamente frustrati: non acqui- siamo mai né il sapere, né l'avere, né il potere, né l'essere che vor- 84 remmo. Ma allora l’autotrascendenza non diviene uno sforzo insen- sato e vano? A questo interrogativò cruciale l’interpretazione ego- centrica non offre nessuna risposta. Per avere una risposta dobbia- mo rivolgerci alle altre due interpretazioni. b) Soluzione sociocentrica - A partire da Marx e Comte numerosi autori hanno visto nell’autotrascendenza un movimento di supera- mento dei confini dell’individualismo e dell'egoismo e un tentativo di dare origine ad una nuova umanità affrancata dalle miserie indi- viduali e dalle diseguaglianze sociali e quindi in grado di conseguire la perfetta felicità. Recentemente questa concezione dell'autotrascen- denza ha trovato dei validi interpreti soprattutto nei marxisti revisio- nisti, Bloch, Marcuse e Garaudy. A nostro avviso questa interpretazione contiene un punto assai positivo: il riconoscimento che il movimento di autotrascendimento ha anche una dimensione sociale: è l'uomo come essere socievole che si autotrascende e non come una monade senza porte e senza finestre. Del resto questo trascendimento a livello sociale oggi è am- piamente testimoniato dalle contestazioni che le giovani generazioni (ma non soltanto loro) sollevano contro le strutture attuali della so- cietà (di qualsiasi società sia capitalista che socialista). Ma il riconoscimento che l’autotrascendenza abbia una compo- nente sociale non significa affatto che essa non comporti anche un elemento personale. Quanto è stato affermato dalla concezione ego- centrica non può essere ignorato completamente come fanno tutti i marxisti, sia quelli ortodossi che i revisionisti. E pertanto la soluzione che Marx e discepoli offrono al problema dell'autotrascendenza non può essere accolta. Pure ammesso (anche se ciò è decisamente assai improbabile) che nel suo progressivo auto- trascendersi l'umanità raggiunga uno stadio finale di perfetta rea- lizzazione di se stessa e delle proprie esigenze, questo non offre nes- suna risposta al problema della propria, personale autotrascendenza. In effetti nessuna comunità storica organizzata, nessuna economia, nessuna politica, nessuna cultura umana riescono ad esaurire l’esi- genza di totalizzazione delle persone che trova espressione nell’auto- trascendenza. Per questo motivo assegnare al movimento di autotra- scendenza traguardi affascinanti e spettacolari che potranno essere raggiunti dall’umanità soltanto in un lontano futuro, come fanno Marx, Comte, Bloch, Garaudy e altri, significa lasciare completa- mente disattese e deluse speranze reali degli uomini d'oggi, che oltre che collettivamente e socialmente sperano anche e soprattutto individualmente e personalmente, ciascuno per il proprio essere, e non tanto per la realizzazione di una nebulosa « società senza clas- si », di cui siamo ben poco sicuri di poter mai far parte.!? Ha ragione quindi Helmut Gollwitzer quando scrive: « Tutti i o Cfr. J. DE FINANCE, Essai sur l'agir humain, Gregoriana, Roma 1962, P. S. Ivi, pp. 185 ss. 85 Soluzione sociocentrica: la realizzazione di una nuova umanità Componente sociale ed elemento personale Contingenza dei fenomeni ed esigenza del significato dell’uomo Soluzione teocentrica: Dio è l'Alfa e l’Omega dell’autotrascenden- za L’autotrascendenza come prova dell’esistenza di Dio fenomeni di questo mondo sono destinati a decadere col tempo; non possono quindi conferire un senso permanente alle cose. Non rimane allora che l’uomo a dare un significato all'uomo. Ma il prossimo che è altrettanto transitorio e imperfetto, non è capace di fornire questa spiegazione — per quanto ci si possa, nel caso pratico individuale, attaccare al prossimo nella speranza di trovare in lui il significato dell’esistenza —. Sembra allora più qualificata a far ciò l'umanità nel suo complesso, la cui durata supera di gran lunga quella dell’indi- viduo. Essa però è un'astrazione di grado elevato e bisognerebbe chiudere gli occhi per ignorare il fatto che anch'essa è un fenomeno passeggero nel cosmo. Per trovare un significato, si deve presuppor- re un'istanza permanente. Mancando questa, s'impone all'uomo e al- l'umanità un peso che non possono portare, un compito che non possono svolgere ».® c) Soluzione teocentrica - Molti studiosi all'autotrascendenza danno un senso teocentrico: l’uomo esce incessantemente da se stesso e oltrepassa i confini della propria realtà, perché vi è sospinto da una forza superiore, Dio. Questi grazie alla sua grandezza, bontà, perfezione e onnipresenza polarizza su di sé tutte le creature, in particolare l'uomo. Dio è il punto A/fa e Omega dell'autotrascen- denza. I più validi esponenti di questa interpretazione dell'autotrascen- denza sono Blondel, Rahner, Marcel, Metz, Boros e De Finance. Ma contro questo modo d'intendere l’autotrascendenza si solleva una grossa difficoltà, che è la seguente: l’autotrascendenza teocen- trica dà per scontata la realtà di Dio. Ora questa è una concessione che la filosofia moderna non è affatto disposta a fare. Oggi c'è tutta una schiera di filosofi i quali affermano che Dio è assolutamente in- conoscibile e indimostrabile, oppure dicono che l’idea di Dio è sol- tanto una ipostatizzazione dei bisogni e degli ideali dell'uomo, cioè Dio è una creatura della mente umana. A questa grave difficoltà Blondel, Rahner, De Finance e gli altri sostenitori del senso teocentrico dell’autotrascendenza replicano che la loro interpretazione del movimento di autotrascendimento non presuppone nessuna dimostrazione dell’esistenza di Dio, ma al con- trario essa fa vedere che è questo stesso movimento a fornire un chiaro documento a favore della realtà divina. Infatti l'autotrascen- denza, essendo un movimento, esige un senso, un traguardo, una meta. Ma s'è già visto in precedenza che né l’io né l'umanità possono fornire il senso richiesto. Perciò non resta altra possibilità che rico- noscere che il senso ultimo dell'autotrascendenza è Dio. Perciò a nostro avviso commettono grave errore quei filosofi (e sono molti) che contrappongono la trascendenza orizzontale a quella verticale, come se si trattasse di due tensioni antitetiche, quando ®* H. GOLLWITZER, La critica marxista della religione e la fede cristiana, Morcelliana, Brescia 1970, p. 118. 86 invece ci sono fondati motivi per credere che la trascendenza oriz- zontale acquista senso e realtà soltanto mediante la irascendenza verticale. Lo stesso Merleau-Ponty ha giudicato stolto il tentativo di opporre trascendenza orizzontale e trascendenza verticale, attri- buendo alla prima quello che si toglie alla seconda e concependo la Storia infinita e progressiva come « una Potenza esteriore », di cui l'uomo non sarebbe che strumento senza sostanza interna. « Non è mai stata tipica di nessuna filosofia, — assicura Merleau-Ponty, — la scelta tra le trascendenze, per esempio quella di Dio e quella del- l'avvenire umano; che anzi è sforzo costante di ogni filosofia me- diare tali trascendenze ».? Questo incontro tra le due trascendenze è stato ultimamente lu- cidamente esplorato da Antoine Vergote. Egli descrive in modo e- gregio la trascendenza orizzontale (egocentrica) nei termini seguen- ti: « L'uomo è corporalmente legato al mondo che lo porta. Ma ne è il centro movente. Tutte le direzioni di senso, in avanti e all’in- dietro, in lontananza e in vicinanza, a destra e a sinistra sono relative alla totalità del suo io corporeo. Centro contingente e asso- luto, riferisce tutto a sé e, nel guardare, toccare o semplicemente nel camminare, si muove nello spazio ambiente. La dimensione oriz- zontale gli offre il campo che si estende davanti a lui. Egli vi sfoggia la sua potenza, lo ordina e gli dà senso. L'orizzontalità è il terreno delle sue possibilità e delle sue realizzazioni. Egli vi mostra la propria vita nell'immediato. Vi si muove instancabile, padrone di quanto lo circonda, dando forma ai suoi desideri e alle sue idee ». Ma nell’uo- mo la trascendenza orizzontale si apre spontaneamente e chiaramen- te verso la trascendenza verticale. Questa è felicemente illustrata dal Vergote nel brano seguente: « Il desiderio dell’uomo, il suo pensiero e il suo linguaggio si slanciano senza tregua al di là del mondo de- gli oggetti o si volgono verso la loro origine, verso la sorgente ori- ginaria da cui scaturiscono. La scissura verticale scava la sua pre- senza negli uomini e nelle cose, perfino quando vuole recuperarsi tra- mite un ritorno orizzontale. Ed è precisamente la presenza interiore di una liberatrice deiscenza verticale che crea nelle cose un'apertura, salvaguardandole da ogni reificazione. È essa che garantisce così al mondo ambiente la sua separazione e la sua autonomia, nei limiti definitivi di un orizzonte del mondo in perpetua estensione ».? A conclusione della sua penetrante analisi del senso della trascen- denza verticale il Vergote scrive: « Il cielo non sovrasta l'uomo come un'oscura trascendenza minacciosa. E non è neppure il miraggio di un paradiso che aliena dai problemi della terra. Delimita invece la terra come dimora e regno dell'umano. Esso è anche l’indizio di un ? M. MERLEAU-PonTY, Signes, 1960, pp. 88-89. Ro La teologia e la sua archeologia, Esperienze, Fossano 1974, pp. 79-80. 87 integrazione della trascendenza orizzontale e verticale Il cielo delimita la terra ma non la nega L’Altro assoluto sorgente dell’ipseità e superamento del limite superamento che non spezza mai il legame terrestre della condizione umana ».# L'uomo non esce dai confini del proprio essere per sprofondare nel nulla, ma esce da se stesso per buttarsi in Dio, il quale è l'unico essere capace di portare l’uomo alla perfetta e perenne realizzazione di se stesso, « Ciò che è necessario riconoscere, è che lo slancio verso l'Ideale non è possibile e non ha significato che a causa della presen- za affascinante e in certo qual modo aspirante dell’Ideale sussi- stente o, per dargli il nome sotto il quale l’invoca la coscienza reli- giosa, di Dio. È lui e lui solo — l'Altro assoluto e cionondimeno la sorgente della mia ipseità — che pur consegnandomi a me stesso mi strappa al mio io; è la sua presenza che introduce in me un principio di tensione interiore e di oltrepassamento ».* Così, lungi dal fondare l’'Ideale, l'autotrascendenza dell’uomo tro- va il suo ultimo fondamento. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Cosmocentrismo; teocentrismo; antropocentrismo — Antropologia metafisica, naturalistica, storicistica, esistenziale — Traducianesimo; emanazione; creazione simultanea; creazione indivi- duale e diretta; evoluzione; unione accidentale; unione sostanziale; identifica- zione anima/corpo — Posizione agnostica — Estinzione, sopravvivenza — Autotrascendenza; soluzione egocentrica, filantropica, teocentrica SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. NATURA DEL PROBLEMA 1. Interesse costante della filosofia per l’uomo fino a farne l’obiettivo pri- vilegiato con i Sofisti e Socrate. 2. La filosofia moderna assume un indirizzo spiccatamente antropocentrico, Oggi persino i teologi ritengono opportuno dare alla loro disciplina una impo- stazione antropocentrica. 3. Diviene pertanto sempre più urgente rispondere all'interrogativo chi sia l'uomo e confrontarsi con la complessità della sua natwira e del suo mistero. Il problema antropologico investe il problema della natura umana in quanto tale: qual è l'essenza propria dell'uomo? quali i suoi elementi costitutivi? quale la sua origine e il suo fine? II. PANORAMA STORICO DELLO STUDIO DELL'UOMO 1. Storicamente si sono delineate tre prospettive di studio: cosmocentrica, teocentrica, antropocentrita: i A a) la prospettiva coòmocentrica (Platone, Aristotele, Epicurei, Stoici, Neo- platonici) situa l'uomo nell'ordine dela natura e lo studiano in relazione ad esso; ® Ivi, p. 107.  J. DE FINANCE, Op. cit., p. 191. 88 b) la prospettiva teocentrica (filosofia cristiana dei Padri della Chiesa e degli Scolastici) considera l’uomo come « immagine di Dio» e lo studia in prospettiva teologica; c) la prospettiva antropocentrica è propria della filosofia moderna e con- temporanea (Umanesimo, Cartesio, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Comte, Freud, Nietz- sche, Heidegger, ecc.) e assume come punto di riferimento l’uomo stesso accen- trandone questo o quell’aspetto. 2. Le antropologie possono distinguersi anche in ordine al metodo: 1) an- tropologie metafisiche (Platone, Aristotele, Plotino, Agostino, Tommaso, Carte- sio, Spinoza, Leibniz, ecc.); 2) le antropologie naturalistiche (Darwin, Comte, Spencer, Freud, ecc.); 3) le antropologie storicistiche (Vico, Marx, Croce, Ga- damer, ecc.); 4) le antropologie esistenziali (Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Ricoeur, Merleau-Ponty, Marcel, Gehlen, ecc.). 3. Nel panorama antropologico domina il problema della libertà: a) nel mondo classico essa è una vana aspirazione vinta dalle forze del Fato; b) nel mondo post-cristiano emerge come il dono di Dio all'uomo responsabile così della sua storia e del suo destino; c) nell'epoca moderna la libertà legittima il graduale distacco dell'uomo da Dio; d) nell'epoca contemporanea l’antropolo- gia oscilla tra arbitrarietà e condizionamento. 4. Il problema della natura umana è così determinabile: — problema della sostanzialità dell'anima — problema dei rapporti tra anima e corpo . — problema dell'immortalità dell'anima. Il pensiero contemporaneo ha progressivamente accentuato altri aspetti da cui derivano definizioni dell'uomo in base alla sua attività fondamentale: eco- nomico (Marx); sessuale (Freud); esistenziale (Heidegger); storico (Gadamer); fallibile (Ricoeur); dialogico (Buber); utopico (Bloch); religioso (Luckmann); mitologizzante (Eliade); alienato (Tillich); libero :(Sartre); problematico {Mar- cel); ludico (Fink). III. IL SIGNIFICATO DELL'AUTOTRASCENDENZA 1. Il comportamento umano supera quello degli animali. L’agire umano, inoltre, non esprime solo una trascendenza rivolta all’esterno, ma anche ri- volta verso l’uomo stesso. L'uomo è autotrascendente. 2. L'autotrascendenza dell’uomo è interpretata in tre direzioni: a) egocentrica (Platone, Aristotele, Stoici, Cartesio, Hegel, Nietzsche, Sar- tre): l'uomo tende a ritrovare se stesso mediante l'acquisto di un essere più vero, più autentico, attuando pienamente le proprie possibilità; b) sociocentrica (Marx, Comte, Bloch, Marcuse, Garaudy): l’autotrascendi- mento è uscita dall’egoismo e ha una dimensione sociale; c) ieocentrica (Blondel, Rahner, Marcel, Metz, Boros, De Finance): l’uomo esce incessantemente da se stesso e oltrepassa i confini della propria realtà sospinto da una forza superiore, Dio. QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Perché l'uomo è un problema a se stesso? Sotto quali aspetti si presenta come un problema filosofico? 2. Quali sono le principali prospettive in cui si sono collocati i filosofi per risolvere il problema antropologico? 3. Quali sono i metodi usati dai filosofi nello studio dell'uomo? 4. Come interpretano i rapporti tra anima e corpo Platone, Aristotele, Agostino, Tommaso, Cartesio, Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibniz? 5. Perché secondo Kant il problema antropologico è insolubile? 6. Perché la morte del corpo non implica necessariamente la fine di tutto l’uomo? 89 7. A che cosa è riconducibile il problema metafisico e religioso come esi- genza peculiare della natura umana? 8. In che rapporto si trova il singolo con le strutture sociali, economiche, politiche? 9. Quali sono le principali opinioni sul significato di autotrascendenza del- l'essere umano? 10. Quale rapporto è possibile stabilire tra l’autotrascendenza e la dimen- sione etica e politica dell'uomo? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI AA.Vv., Il problema filosofico dell'antropologia, Morcelliana, Brescia 1977. AA.Vv., Umanesimo cristiano e umanesimi contemporanei, Massimo, Mila- no 1982. AA.Vv., Antropologia e filosofia della religione, Benucci, Perugia 1982. BALESTRO P., Introduzione all’antropoanalisi, Bompiani, Milano. ‘BeAaLs R.-Howyer H., Introduzione all'antropologia, 2 voll, Il Mulino, Bologna. BocLIoLo L., Antropologia filosofica, Città Nuova, Roma 1977. BoTTURI F., Desiderio e verità. Per una antropologia cristiana nell'età seco- larizzata, Massimo, Milano 1985. CoreTH E., Antropologia filosofica, Morcelliana, Brescia 1978. GEVAERT J., Il problema dell'uomo. Introduzione all’antropologia filosofica, Elle Di Ci, Torino 1973. DI NOLA A., Antropologia religiosa, Vallecchi, Firenze 1975. DurkHEIM E.-Mauss M., Sociologia e antropologia, Newton Compton, Milano. GaraUDY R., Prospettive dell'uomo, Borla, Torino Î973. GROETHUYSEN B., L'’antropologia filosofica, Guida, Napoli 1969. Harris M., L'evoluzione del pensiero antropologico, Il Mulino, Bologna. HeipEGcER M., Essere e tempo, Longanesi, Milano 1970. Lévi STRAUSS C., Antropologia strutturale, li Saggiatore, Milano 1966. KANT I., Antropologia dal punto di vista prammatico, Laterza, Bari 1971. MARCEL G., L'uomo problematico, Borla, Torino 1964. MARCOZZI V., L'uomo nello spazio e nel tempo, C.E.A., Milano 1969, Monpin B., L'uomo, chi è?2, Massimo, Milano 1983. Morra G.F., Sociologia e antropologia, Esperienze, Fossano s.d. RICOEUR P., Finitudine e colpa, Il Mulino, Bologna 1970. ScHELER M., La posizione dell'uomo nel cosmo, Fabbri, Milano 1970. SERVIER J., L'uomo e l’invisibile, Borla, Torino 1967. TENTORI T.-CATEMARtO A.-DI CRISTOFARO G., L'antropologia oggi, Newton Compton, Milano 1982. VANNI RovIGHI S., L’antropologia filosofica di san Tommaso d'Aquino, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1965. Ip., Uomo e natura. Appunti per una antropologia filosofica, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1980. 90 Capitolo settimo IL PROBLEMA METAFISICO ‘QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Che cosa c’è a fondamento e a garanzia dell’esistenza? 2. Che cosa esprimono le parole « esistere », « essere »? 3. Che cosa accadrebbe se esse scomparissero dal linguaggio umano? 1. L'origine del termine L'origine del termine metafisica è legata all'opera di‘ Aristotele e al destino dei suoi scritti dopo la sua morte. Aristotele morendo lasciò la propria biblioteca al discepolo Teo- frasto. Essa conteneva, oltre le opere pubbliche degli altri filosofi e di Aristotele, anche gli scritti privati del maestro, riservati alla stretta cerchia dei discepoli, tra i quali la Metafisica. A sua volta, morendo, Teofrasto lasciò con la propria biblioteca anche quella di Aristotele a Neleo, discepolo di ambedue. Questi la trasportò a Scepsi, nella Troade, sua patria. Qui i suoi eredi, per sottrarla alle ricerche dei sovrani di Pergamo e di Alessandria, che intendevano ar- ricchire le proprie raccolte acquistando tutte le opere importanti su cui riuscivano a metter mano, la nascosero in un sotterraneo, dove ri- mase poi abbandonata e quasi ignorata fino verso il 100 a.C., anno in cui il bibliofilo Apellicone la scoprì, l’acquistò e la portò ad Atene. Quando nell'86 a.C. Silla conquistò la città, fece portare i preziosi manoscritti a Roma, dove furono affidati ad Andronico di Rodi, affin- ché ne curasse l'edizione completa. Egli li suddivise e, poiché dopo avere ordinato le opere di fisica si era trovato davanti ad un gruppo di 14 libri senza nome, allora aveva deciso di chiamarli «i libri che vengono dopo la fisica » (tà metà tà physicà). Il nome, originato in modo così casuale, corrispondeva effettivamente al contenuto dei volumi: essi infatti trattavano di realtà, qualità, perfezioni, es- seri, che non si trovano oppure non si restringono al mondo fisico, ma vanno oltre, sono cioè « metafisiche »; tutto ciò costituiva per Aristotele la « filosofia prima ». Quindi il nome dato ad un gruppo delle sue opere è passato giustamente a designare quella parte della filosofia che si occupa delle cause ultime, dei principi costitutivi su- premi delle cose. 91 II problema delle cause ultime e dei principi supremi La scienza dell'essere in quanto tale Scetticisti, empiristi e materialisti: negazione della metafisica Il dibattito metafisico non è più controverso di quello scientifico La validità della definizione aristotelica 2. Oggetto della metafisica La metafisica è stata variamente definita: come « scienza suprema in assoluto, che studia l'essere in quanto tale e le proprietà che lo accompagnano necessariamente » ed è « la scienza che esplora le cause prime e i primi principi » (Aristotele); come « scienza dei principi primi della natura e della morale » (Kant); come « immer- sione della propria esistenza nelle possibilità fondamentali dell’esse- re considerato nella sua totalità » (Heidegger); come « riflessione sui principi primi » (Gilson). L'elenco delle definizioni potrebbe con- tinuare ancora, ma quelle riportate bastano ad indicare qual è la preoccupazione che dà vita all'indagine metafisica: è la preoccu- pazione di scoprire le ragioni supreme della realtà. La possibilità della metafisica è stata messa in questione ripetuta- mente per ragioni diverse. Prima dagli scettici a causa della loro sfi- ducia nelle capacità conoscitive dell'uomo, poi dagli empiristi a causa della loro riduzione della conoscenza umana all'esperienza sensitiva, più tardi dai positivisti, dai materialisti, dai marxisti a motivo della loro riduzione di tutta la realtà all'ordine materiale, e, infine, dagli analisti del linguaggio a causa della loro riduzione di tutti i pro- blemi, compresi quelli filosofici, a puri problemi linguistici. Però pare che nessuna delle suddette ragioni abbia valore pro- bativo. Anzitutto non è affatto vero che quando i filosofi discutono della realtà delle cose, della loro origine, del loro essere, della loro natura, del loro divenire, ecc., discutano soltanto sul significato dei termini « realtà », « origine », « natura », « essere », « divenire », per il semplice motivo che i dispareri tra i filosofi non sono di natura diversa da quelli che si incontrano tra gli scienziati. Ora nessuno vorrà affermare che quando i dotti della Sorbona non condividevano la teoria dei coniugi Curie a proposito del radium, il loro disaccordo riguardasse solamente la parola « radium ». Altrettanto si deve dire del disaccordo dei filosofi a proposito dei principi primi della realtà, della natura, dell'essere delle cose. Non sono semplicemente disac- cordi verbali; il disaccordo non verte sul significato delle parole ma sulle cose stesse. Neppure è vero (e la prova è stata fornita nel capi- tolo dedicato al problema epistemologico), che l'uomo è dotato sol- tanto di conoscenze sensitive. Noi possediamo anche una conoscenza superiore a quella sensitiva, di ordine intellettivo, capace di raggiun- gere la verità entro certi limiti. Vengono così a crollare le obiezioni mosse dagli scettici e dagli empiristi alla possibilità della metafisica. Ma, ammessa la legittimità dell'indagine metafisica, qual è l’og- getto al quale essa è diretta? Aristotele, come abbiamo ricordato, determina l’oggetto della metafisica con la celebre espressione: l'essere in quanto tale e le proprietà che l'accompagnano necessariamente. Quasi tutti i filosofi sono d'accordo sulla bontà di questa definizione: chi fa metafisica 92 scruta il mistero dell'essere degli enti al fine di scoprire che cosa sia che dà loro consistenza, che li riempie di realtà. Alla domanda « che cos'è l'essere dell'ente » si arriva così: si osserva anzitutto nelle cose una molteplicità di aspetti, che le ren- dono interessanti, meravigliose, spaventose, problematiche, ecc. A poco a poco, però, un aspetto attira con maggior forza la nostra attenzione, l'aspetto della loro esistenza, il loro essere: anziché non essere, le cose sono! Improvvisamente la mente avverte la fondamen- talità di tale aspetto a paragone di tutti gli altri e comincia ad in- terrogarsi sull'essere delle cose, sull'essere dell'ente e nell’ente. È a questo punto che l'indagine metafisica spicca il suo volo. Quindi l'indagine metafisica è indagine intorno all'essere del- l'ente 0, che è poi lo stesso, indagine intorno all'ente in quanto es- sere. La metafisica è essenzialmente ricerca intorno all'essere. Quan- do invece il filosofo abbandona la questione dell'essere, egli si al- lontana automaticamente dal terreno della metafisica. Da ciò che siamo venuti dicendo risulta che l'oggetto formale della metafisica non è questa o quella cosa, questa o quella qualità, questo o quel principio; oggetto formale della metafisica non è nep- pure l'ente, nessun ente: né l'ente materiale né quello spirituale, né l'ente necessario né quello contingente. Lo studio di questo o quel- l'ente particolare, di questa o di quella specie di ente non spetta alla metafisica ma ad un altro ramo della filosofia oppure ad una delle scienze sperimentali. L'oggetto formale della metafisica è l'essere in quanto tale. L'ente materiale non è il suo oggetto formale ma solo il suo punto di partenza. Solamente l'essere dell'ente (l’ente consi- derato nella sua qualità di essere, l'ente in quanto è, l'ente conside- rato dal punto di vista dell'essere) costituisce l'oggetto formale del- la metafisica. Naturalmente la metafisica non si accontenta di parlare dell'ente in quanto essere, perché il suo resterebbe un discorso puramente a- stratto. Essa deve parlare anche di tutto ciò che è implicato in una risposta esauriente all'interrogativo: « Che cos'è l'essere dell'ente? ». Però è bene precisare che non tutto appartiene al discorso metafisico allo stesso modo. L'essere dell'ente costituisce l'oggetto formale; il resto rientra nel discorso metafisico come risultato dell'indagine. Quindi se per spiegare l'essere dell'ente occorrerà parlare di Dio, questi non entrerà a far parte dell'oggetto formale della metafisica, ma dei suoi risultati. 3. Metodo della metafisica Dunque l'oggetto della metafisica è l'essere in quanto tale. Se- nonché dobbiamo constatare, come osserva giustamente Heidegger, che l'essere non è mai accessibile direttamente e immediatamente: l'essere non si manifesta mai da solo; non ci parla mai a tu per 93 L’essere oggetto della metafisica L’uomo: l’ente che si interroga sull’essere Metodo deduttivo e metodo induttivo Esigenza di tre metodi: fenomenologico, induttivo e deduttivo tu; ma è sempre velato, nascosto sotto la maschera di un ente par- ticolare. Perciò, si può arrivare all'essere soltanto passando attra- verso gli enti. Ma, attraverso quale ente? A quale dei moltissimi en- ti che affollano la grande scena dell'universo è più opportuno rivol- gersi per spiare la natura dell'essere? C'è qualche ente privilegiato che meglio di ogni altro possa svelarci i segreti dell'essere? Gli esi- stenzialisti hanno sottolineato il fatto che il nostro ente (quell’ente che noi chiamiamo « uomo ») ha per l’essere un interessamento del tutto particolare: è l’unico ente che si interroga sull'essere; gli importa molto di scoprire che cosa sia l'essere in quanto tale, e so- prattutto che cosa sia l’essere del nostro ente. Gli esistenzialisti tro- vano in questa singolare vicinanza del nostro ente all'essere un mo- tivo sufficiente per iniziare la metafisica con lo studio dell'essere dell'uomo, uno studio che essi conducono secondo il metodo fenome- nologico. Invece nel passato per risolvere il problema metafisico i filosofi ricorrevano generalmente o al metodo deduttivo oppure a quello in- duttivo. Platone, Plotino, Agostino, Avicenna, Bonaventura, Cartesio, Leib- niz e molti altri, movendo dal presupposto che la mente umana co- nosce a priori o per illuminazione divina i principi primi e le idee universali oppure considerando il conoscere non come un apprendere ma come un creare, hanno potuto procedere nell'indagine metafisica servendosi esclusivamente del metodo deduttivo. Altri filosofi, tra cui Aristotele, Tommaso d'Aquino e molti mo- derni, non ammettendo le idee a priori e neppure una illuminazione speciale da parte di un essere metaempirico e neanche concependo il conoscere come un creare bensì come un rappresentare, hanno im- piegato il metodo induttivo. A nostro avviso, l'indagine metafisica per essere seria, feconda e concreta, esige l’uso di tre metodi: quello fenomenologico, quello induttivo e quello deduttivo. I primi due servono ad assicurarle una solida base nel concreto, mentre il terzo va incontro all’esigenza del- la metafisica di offrire una visione sistematica del reale. 4. Sguardo storico Tracciare la storia del problema metafisico equivale sostanzial- mente a tracciare la storia della filosofia occidentale, ché la primà e massima preoccupazione di tutti i filosofi dei periodi antico, me- dioevale e moderno è sempre stata quella di fornire una spiegazione conclusiva dei fenomeni che noi esperimentiamo, scoprendo la cau- sa suprema, la ragione ultima del loro essere. L'intento metafisico è già chiaramente presente nei filosofi io- nici: è la causa ultima che essi ricercano, anche se poi in effetti 94 la situano in uno dei quattro elementi costitutivi della materia, l’acqua, l'aria, la terra, il fuoco. Con Parmenide la metafisica non è più una semplice aspirazione ma diviene un'autentica realtà. Infatti, additando l'essere quale prin- cipio unico e supremo d'ogni cosa, egli introduce la metafisica nel- l'ambito che le è proprio e che resterà tale per sempre. Platone approfondisce la ricerca dell'essere, distinguendo tra ciò che veramente è e ciò che invece è solo in modo apparente, finito, contingente. Ciò che veramente è egli io identifica col mondo delle Idee: esso è ingenerato, eterno, incorruttibile; mentre ciò che sem- plicemente appare lo identifica col mondo materiale: esso è finito, mutevole, contingente, corruttibile. Ovviamente, per Platone, il mon- do ideale è il fondamento, la causa di quello materiale. In che mo- do? È noto che su questo punto Platone non ha mai raggiunto una posizione definitiva. Egli ha formulato due ipotesi: quella della par- tecipazione delle cose nelle Idee, e quella della imitazione delle Idee da parte delle cose. Ma entrambe presentavano alcune grbsse diffi- coltà e questo gli impedì di ascrivere certezza assoluta alle sue ipo- tesi metafisiche.’ - Aristotele, l'abbiamo già detto e ripetuto, definisce il problema metafisico come « studio dell'essere in quanto tale e delle proprietà che l'accompagnano necessariamente ». Egli identifica tale studio con quello delle quattro cause: materiale, formale, efficiente, finale. Ma le quattro cause di che cosa? Ovviamente, del mondo materiale che ci circonda. È scoprendo i principi fondamentali che sorreggono questo mondo che si dischiude il mistero dell'essere. Peraltro, quan- do si tratta di determinare la natura specifica delle cose materiali egli rifiuta la teoria platonica delle Idee ritenendola come puramen- te fantastica e del tutto superflua. L'essenza delle cose, a suo giu- dizio, non sta fuori delle cose ma nelle cose stesse. E tuttavia, quan- do vuole rendere ragione del fondamento ultimo delle cose, anche Aristotele ritiene necessario postulare, come aveva fatto Platone, l’esistenza di una realtà spirituale, Dio. Questi però non lo conce- pisce come causa efficiente del mondo, ma come suo ‘fine ultimo: Dio è il movente supremo, che col suo fascino determina l’evolu- zione del mondo. L'impostazione e la soluzione data al problema metafisico da Pla- tone e da Aristotele esercitarono un influsso decisivo su tutta la speculazione posteriore. Le si ritrova sostanzialmente inalterate presso gli Stoici, i Neopiatonici, i Padri della Chiesa, gli Scolastici e anche presso la maggior parte dei filosofi moderni. Lo studio del- l'essere degli enti finiti e contingenti li porta tutti a postulare l'’esi- stenza di un Essere infinito, assoluto, necessario. Questi per gli Stoici, ! B. MONDIN, vol. I, pp. 82-85. 2 Ivi, pp. 124-136. 95 L'emergenza metafisica in Parmenide Platone: l'essere è il mondo delle idee Aristotele: l'essere e le sue proprietà Influenza di Platone e Aristotele sulla speculazione posteriore L’Essere sussistente nella filosofia cristiana Il graduale primato della gnoseologia sulla metafisica da Cartesio a oggi L’impossibilità della metafisica per Hume e Kant è il Logos, per i Neoplatonici l’Uno, per i Padri e gli Scolastici Dio, per Spinoza la Sostanza, per Leibniz la Monade suprema. Ma, nella filosofia cristiana, pur conservando essenzialmente l’im- postazione che gli avevano dato i due massimi esponenti della filo- sofia greca, il problema metafisico fa un notevole passo avanti e raggiunge un definitivo chiarimento su uno dei punti più difficili ed oscuri, quello concernente i rapporti che intercorrono tra gli enti finiti e l’Essere sussistente. Questo punto viene chiarito mediante l'introduzione della dottrina della creazione, la quale insegna che gli enti finiti (il mondo) devono tutta la loro realtà all'Essere sussi- stente, a Dio. Senza Dio il mondo è assolutamente nulla, e prima d’es- sere stato prodotto da Lui non aveva alcuna realtà. Ma anche do- po che è stato posto in essere, esso deve la sua consistenza alla presenza attiva di Dio. Tratto dal nulla, il mondo si muove continua- mente sull'orlo del nulla. E tuttavia proprio perché ha Dio per pa- dre e creatore, il mondo non sarà mai sopraffatto dalle insidie del nulla. Al contrario, sviluppando le possibilità che Dio gli ha con- ferito esso si allontana gradualmente dall’abisso del nulla e si avvi- cina al regno inespugnabile e indistruttibile dell'Essere sussistente.’ Il problema metafisico, s'è detto, abbraccia gran parte della spe- culazione filosofica fino agli inizi del secolo XIX. Occorre però preci- sare che già a partire da Cartesio esso cede il primato, che prima era sempre stato suo, al problema gnoseologico. Ciò che occorre affron- tare per primo è il problema del valore e della portata della nostra conoscenza. Solo se si risolve positivamente questo problema, è le- cito passare all'indagine metafisica. Diversamente si rischia di co- struire dei castelli in aria. Sappiamo che Cartesio, Spinoza, Pascal, Malebranche, Leibniz, Vico e, parzialmente, anche Locke, considerano obiettivamente valida la conoscenza della ragione umana e, conseguentemente, se ne val- gono per risolvere il problema del fondamento ultimo della realtà. Di esso Cartesio, Malebranche, Pascal, Vico, Leibniz offrono una soluzione che non si discosta gran che da quella degli autori cristia- ni che li avevano preceduti; mentre invece profondamente ‘innova- trice è la soluzione di Spinoza. Secondo questo autore la realtà ma- teriale non rimanda ad un piano superiore di ordine spirituale: i due piani, materiale e spirituale, a suo avviso, sono strettamente con- giunti tra di loro, e rappresentano le facce d'una unica Sostanza.* Ma, dopo che il problema metafisico ha ceduto il primo posto a quello gnoseologico, si intuisce facilmente come esso possa venire soppiantato del tutto da quest'ultimo e definitivamente soppresso: basta soltanto contestare il valore obiettivo e trascendente della ra- gione umana. È la posizione che adottano prima gli empiristi inglesi e poi Kant. Per i primi non si dà altra conoscenza fattuale al di ? Ivi, pp. 221-223; 283-286. ‘ B. MONDIN, vol. II, pp. 164-168. 96 fuori di quella dei sensi, i quali, ovviamente possono ben fornire catene di dati ma non garantirne l’obiettività e tanto meno proporre una spiegazione profonda ed esaustiva della loro esistenza. Per Kant la mente umana è sì in grado di fornire un'interpretazione ge- nerale, scientifica della realtà fenomenica, ma soltanto di questa, non della realtà in sé (la realtà noumenica). A proposito di quest’ul- tima è lecito sollevare degli interrogativi, ma non fornire delle ri- sposte valide e sicure. Il fondamento della realtà è irraggiungibile ed incomprensibile.’ Così con Hume e Kant la sorte della metafisica è definitivamente segnata. La situazione per la metafisica non migliora nel nostro secolo, quando, dopo aver esperimentato la sterilità dell’'impostazione cri- tica della ricerca filosofica, alcuni autori {ci riferiamo ai neo- positivisti e agli analisti) operano una seconda rivoluzione coperni- cana, affermando che l’unica via per risolvere i problemi metafisici non è quella che parte dall'essere e neppure quella che parte dal co- noscere, ma quella che muove dal linguaggio. La questione fondamen- tale, che dev'essere affrontata prima di ogni altra, è la questione del senso delle nostre parole. Risolta questa questione anche le più astruse questioni metafisiche non presentano più nessuna difficoltà. Questa impostazione linguistica dell'indagine filosofica di per sé non è ostile alla metafisica; di fatto però ha condotto alla sua negazione radicale, perché i filosofi del linguaggio per determinare quali parole siano sensate e quali prive di senso hanno assunto un criterio non meno rigorosamente empiristico di quello che i filosofi inglesi del secolo XVIII avevano usato per risolvere il problema del valore della conoscenza. Secondo tale criterio, detto della verifica sperimentale, una proposizione ha significato soltanto se è tradu- cibile in una serie di proposizioni sperimentali. Quando « una pro- posizione non è traducibile in proposizioni di carattere empirico [...] non è affatto un’asserzione; non dice nulla; non è altro che una se- rie di parole vuote; è semplicemente senza senso »$ Con questo criterio di significanza crolla ovviamente e voluta- mente qualsiasi metafisica. « È impossibile » dichiara Carnap « ogni metafisica che voglia inferire il trascendente, cioè ciò che giace al di là dell'esperienza, dall'esperienza stessa. [...] Non c'è affatto una filosofia come teoria, come sistema di proposizioni con caratteristiche proprie, che possano stare accanto a quelle della scienza ».” È per- tanto impossibile qualsiasi visione del mondo che abbia la pretesa di essere l’ultima risposta all'ultima domanda, che voglia fornire la 3 Ivi, pp. 345-347. $ R. CARNAP, Philosophy and Logica! Syntax, Londra 1935, pp. 13-14; trad. it., Sintassi e logica del linguaggio, Silva, Milano 1961. ? R. CARNAP, « Ueberwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache » (JI superamento della metafisica mediante l'analisi logica del lin- guaggio, pubblicato nel 1932 a Vienna), in Erkenntnis II (1931-1932), p. 240. 97 Linguistica e metafisica: il problema del senso delle parole Il crollo della metafisica per il criterio della significanza Oggi la metafisica riemerge costantemente chiave risolutiva del problema del fondamento dell'essere degli enti. Abbandonata la metafisica, ai giorni nostri si cerca di trovare una risposta agli interrogativi ultimi rivolgendosi o alle scienze positive o alla storia oppure, più recentemente, alle scienze umane (psico- logia, psicanalisi, etnologia, sociologia, ecc.). Ed oggi il dibattito sul rapporto metafisica-scienza nell’ambito della storia della scienza è tornato a svilupparsi in modo intenso (v. Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyera- bend, Strawson, ecc.). Ma le risposte che si ottengono da queste discipline, anche se di notevole interesse, non riescono neppure a scalfire il problema del fondamento ultimo della realtà. E allora la metafisica fa di nuovo capolino in uno dei due modi seguen- ti: o come esigenza di superare i confini angusti della storia, delle scienze positive, delle scienze umane; oppure, e questo è il modo più comune, mascherandosi dietro il paravento della visione gene- rale delle cose che ognuno porta necessariamente in se stesso e che, però, quasi mai si è disposti a riconoscere e tanto meno a concet- tualizzare rigorosamente. Così attualmente, nonostante la generale ostilità per la metafisica teoretica, c'è una metafisica esigenziale ed esistenziale che è più viva che mai. E questo conferma quanto avesse ragione Kant quando di- ceva che l'uomo è un animale essenzialmente metafisico. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Essere; ente — Oggetto formale; metodo induttivo, deduttivo; fenomeno logico — Mondo delle Idee; Essere sussistente; enti finiti; creazione — Metafisica esigenziale, esistenziale SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. L'ORIGINE DEL TERMINE 1. L'origine del termine « metafisica » è legata all'opera di Aristotele e al destino dei suoi scritti dopo la sua morte. Essi, dopo alterne vicende, furono af- fidati ad Andronico di Rodi, il quale, ordinate le opere di fisica, si trovò davanti a un gruppo di libri senza nome che chiamò « i libri che vengono dopo la fisi- ca » (tà metà tà physicà). Il nome dato in modo casuale corrispondeva al con- tenuto relativo alle realtà che vanno oltre il mondo fisico. II. OGGETTO DELLA METAFISICA 1. Variamente definita, la metafisica esprime l'esigenza dell'uomo di sco- prire le ragioni supreme della realtà. Nel corso dei secoli la sua possibilità è stata messa ripetutamente in discussione da quegli orientamenti filosofici che tendevano a ridurre l'ambito conoscitivo dell’uomo (scettici, empiristi, positi- visti, marxisti, materialisti in genere, strutturalisti, ecc.). 2. La capacità propria della natura umana di esercitare, oltrela conoscenza sensitiva, quella intellettiva legittima tuttavia l'indagine metafisica. 3. L'indagine metafisica verte sull'essere dell'ente, è essenzialmente ricerca 98 intorno all'essere. Oggetto formale della metafisica è l’essere in quanto tale. L'ente materiale è solo il suo punto di partenza. III. METODO DELLA METAFISICA 1. L'essere non è mai accessibile immediatamente e direttamente, è sem- pre velato dall'ente. C'è allora qualche ente privilegiato che ne favorisca la rivelazione? 2. Nel nostro tempo gli esistenzialisti hanno colto nell'uomo, l’unico ente che si interroga sull’ente, il punto di partenza per l'indagine metafisica. 3. Nel pensiero classico la ricerca metafisica ha assunto ora il metodo de- duttivo ora quello induttivo. I filosofi di orientamento platonico e razionalistico sulla base dell'innatismo delle idee hanno accentuato la deduzione. I filosofi aristotelico-tomisti hanno usato invece il metodo induttivo. 4. Una completezza di indagine richiede tre metodi: il fenomenologico, l’'induttivo e il deduttivo. I primi due le danno una base nel concreto, il terzo offre la visione sistematica della realtà. IV. SGUARDO STORICO 1. Il problema metafisico nel mondo classico è caratterizzato dall’intreccio con la cosmologia nella filosofia ionica; dalla centralizzazione del problema dell'essere con Parmenide; dall’approfondimento di Platone che lo riconduce al mondo delle Idee; dalla definizione del problema in Aristotele: « studio del- l'essere in quanto tale e delle proprietà che lo accompagnano necessariamente ». 2. Platone e Aristotele influenzano la filosofia medioevale. Con san Tom- maso il problema metafisico risolve il problema del rapporto tra gli enti finiti e l’Essere sussistente in virtù dell’atto creativo. 3. Nell’età moderna con Cartesio questo problema cede il posto a quello gnoseologico ed entra in una grave crisi con il criticismo kantiano, che chiu- dendo la conoscenza nell’ambito dell’esperienza, nega la possibilità della meta- fisica come scienza. 4. Nel pensiero contemporaneo, dopo il passaggio dalla metafisica dell’es- sere a quella della soggettività, segnata dall'idealismo, con il positivismo la metafisica entra in una crisi ulteriore. I filosofi del linguaggio, in particolare, ne decretano la fine affermando la validità solo di quelle proposizioni che sono traducibili in proposizioni di carattere empirico. Nel nostro tempo la metafisica tende tuttavia a riemergere come metafisica esigenziale ed esistenziale. QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Qual è il significato etimologico del termine « metafisica »? Da chi è stato introdotto? 2. Come viene definita la metafisica da Aristotele, Kant, Heidegger? 3. Qual è l'oggetto, il fine, il metodo della metafisica? 4. Perché molti filosofi hanno messo e mettono tuttora in dubbio la possi- bilità della metafisica? 5. Perché si dice che Parmenide è il « padre della metafisica »? 6. Che cosa si intende per creazione, emanazione, evoluzione, partecipa- zione? 7. Che cosa si intende per sostanza e accidente, materia e forma, atto e Potenza, essenza ed esistenza? 8. In che misura il problema metafisico coinvolge il problema gnoseo- logico? 9. Quali sono i punti di interazione e di contrasto tra metafisica ed epi- stemologia? 99 10. Quali rapporti si possono stabilire tra il problema metafisico e il pro- blema religioso? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI AA.Vv., Metafisica e ontologia, Gregoriana, Padova. AA.Vv., Metafisica e scienze dell'uomo, a cura di B. D'Amore e A. Ales Bello, 2 voll., Borla, Roma 1982. ARATA C., L'’aporetica dell'intero e il problema della metafisica, Marzorati, Milano 1971. BogLIoLo L., Metafisica e teologia razionale, Urbaniana University Press, Roma 1983. BONTADINI G., Saggio di una metafisica dell'esperienza, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1979. EIMSOCETH H., Grandi temi della metafisica occidentale, Mursia, Milano 1978. FaBro C., Dall’essere all’esistente, Morcelliana, Brescia 1975. FaccIoTTO P., Saggio sulla struttura della metafisica, CEDAM, Padova 1969. Ip., Problemi della metafisica nel pensiero moderno, 2 voll., CEDAM, Pa- dova 1975. GILSON E., Elementi di filosofia cristiana, Morcelliana, Brescia 1964. Ip., Dio e la filosofia, Massimo, Milano 1983. Ip., Introduzione alla filosofia cristiana, Massimo 1984. HeIpeccER M., Introduzione alla metafisica, Mursia, Milano 1968. MARCEL G., Il mistero dell'essere, Borla, Torino 1971. MARITAIN J., Sette lezioni sull'essere, Massimo, Milano 1981. MonpIn B., I! sistema filosofico di Tommaso d'Aquino, Massimo, Milano 1985. PENATI G., Problemi di gnoseologia e metafisica, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1979. PIERETTI A., Analisi di linguistica e metafisica, Marzorati, Milano. RicoBELLO A., L'impegno ontologico, Armando, Roma 1977. TRESMONTANT C., Idee fondamentali della metafisica cristiana, Morcelliana, Brescia 1963. VANNI ROVIGHI S., Elementi di filosofia. II, Metafisica, La Scuola, Brescia 1979. 100 Copiolo0Hovo riu IL PROBLEMA RELIGIOSO QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Come si spiega la presenza del fenomeno religioso in tutti i tempi e in tutte le culture? 2. In che misura la dimensione religiosa fa parte della natura umana e perché? 3. C'è differenza tra bisogno naturale di Dio e scelta religiosa? < 1. | termini del problema La dimensione religiosa è propria ed esclusiva dell’essere uma- no, e non esiste presso gli altri esseri viventi. Si tratta peraltro di una manifestazione che, abbracciando l’intera umanità sia in ordine allo spazio che al tempo (e non soltanto quesito o quell'altro gruppo di un'epoca storica particolare), assume proporzioni notevolissime. Gli antropologi ci informano che l’uomo ha sviluppato una attività religiosa sin dalla sua prima comparsa sulla scena della storia e che tutte le tribù e tutte le popolazioni di qualsivoglia livello culturale hanno coltivato qualche forma di religione. D'alironde è cosa risapu- ta che tutte le culture sono profondamente segnate dalla religione e che le migliori produzioni artistiche e letterarie non solo delle civiltà antiche ma anche moderne si ispirano a motivi religiosi. È pertanto ragionevole affermare che l'uomo oltre che sapiens, volens, faber, loquens, ludens, ecc., è anche religiosus. Né il fatto che oggi la religione stia attraversando una crisi profonda e si in- contrino molti individui che si professano areligiosi, costituisce un argomento plausibile contro la rilevanza del fenomeno religioso. In effetti, noi consideriamo l’uomo ludens, loquens, faber, sapiens, ecc., anche se non tutti gli uomini giocano, lavorano, parlano, pensa- no. Altrettanto vale per la dimensione religiosa: essa si impone come una costante dell'essere umano, anche se non è coltivata da tutti gli individui della specie. La religione è quindi un fenomeno reale, tipico dell’uomo, ma è anche un fenomeno molto problematico, forse il più problematico di tutti. Infatti mentre le altre attività umane si rivolgono ad oggetti la cui esistenza è fuori di discussione, l’attività religiosa, per contro, si dirige verso un oggetto, di cui si vede messa in questione persino l'esistenza. — Iti queste poche pagine noi cercheremo di dare un'idea della na- 101 La religione dimensione universale ed esclusiva dell’uomo Problematicità del fenomeno religioso Nella storia la questione religiosa è sempre esistita Controversie interpretative dei filosofi degli ultimi secoli Riconoscimento del valore oggettivo della religione in Hume e in Kant tura e della complessità del problema religioso. A tal fine procede- remo secondo l’ordine seguente: anzitutto tracceremo una breve storia delle interpretazioni del fenomeno religioso così com'è stato visto dai filosofi; poi faremo un approfondimento teoretico del pro- blema, elaborando una definizione della religione ed esaminando i rapporti che essa mantiene con le altre attività umane. 2. Le principali interpretazioni filosofiche della religione La questione religiosa è stata sempre presente nella storia della filosofia. Nel periodo antico se ne interessarono Senofonte, Prota- gora, Platone, Aristotele, Lucrezio, Plotino; in quello medioevale Avicenna, Averroè, Maimonide, Tommaso d'Aquino, Scoto, Occam; agli inizi dell'epoca moderna, Giordano Bruno, Campanella, Spi- noza, Hobbes, Locke. Ma è stato soprattutto a partire da Hume e da Kant che la questione religiosa è divenuta uno dei punti cen- trali della riflessione filosofica, e possiamo dire che, a partire da questi, ha inizio una vera e propria « scienza delle religioni » che è andata sempre più sviluppandosi sino ad oggi. Fu Muller che usò per la prima volta nel 1877 il termine religionswissenschaft, cioè « scienza delle religioni », che ebbe uno sviluppo notevole, va- lendosi molto dell’antropologia culturale. Più tardi, alla « scienza delle religioni » fu dato l'apporto dei sociologi, soprattutto di Durk- heim che elaborò, nel 1912, una teoria generale della religione. “Sulla questione religiosa i filosofi moderni si sono schierati su due fronti opposti. Da una parte alcuni hanno cercato di mostrare che la religione è priva di qualsiasi fondamento oggettivo: essa sarebbe una più o meno astuta invenzione dell'uomo, dovuta alla paura (Feuerbach), alla prepotenza (Marx), all'ignoranza (Comte), al ri- sentimento (Nietzsche), alla sublimazione degli istinti (Freud), ad abusi linguistici (Carnap), ecc. Dalla parte opposta altri autori difendono il valore oggettivo della religione, in quanto essa si fon- derebbe su un rapporto dell'uomo con la realtà assoluta (Hegel, Croce, James, Bergson, Scheler, Otto, Jaspers, ecc.). I primi svilup- pano una critica negativa e demistificante; invece i secondi elaborano una critica positiva e costruttiva del fenomeno religioso. 2.1 Demistificazione della religione Hume e Kant, pur assegnando basi diverse al fenomeno religioso (Hume l'aveva fondato sull’istinto e Kant sulla ragione pratica), non ne avevano messo minimamente in dubbio il valore essenzialmente oggettivo. Tale valore, più tardi, venne nuovamente ribadito dagli idealisti, in particolare da Hegel. L'orizzonte culturale entro il quale Hegel interpreta la religione è quello della « religione nei limiti della pura ragione » di Kant. 102 Essa costituisce il secondo momento del sapere assoluto, quando lo spirito prende piena coscienza di se stesso e diventa « autoco- scienza ».! Feuerbach, discepolo di Hegel, partendo dal pensiero di questi, arrivò a negare il valore oggettivo della religione. Contro il postulato hegeliano il quale afferma che tutto procede dall’Assoluto e ogni cosa, l’uomo compreso, non è altro che un mo- mento del suo automanifestarsi, Feuerbach sostiene che le cose stan- no esattamente all'opposto: Dio è solo un'idea escogitata dall'uomo allo scopo di conseguire la piena realizzazione di se stesso; pertanto la realtà suprema non è Dio ma l'uomo. Nel famoso saggio L'essenza del cristianesimo Feuerbach argomenta che la religione trae origine da un processo di ipostatizzazione dei bisogni e degli ideali dell’uo- mo: l'uomo proietta tutte le qualità positive che ha in sé in una persona (ipostasi) divina e fa di essa una realtà sussistente, capace di sopperire ai suoi bisogni e alle proprie lacune? In Karl Marx, anche egli discepolo di Hegel, le critiche avanzate da Feuerbach al pensiero del maestro hanno certamente contribuito ad avviare anche lui alla contestazione del fenomeno religioso, alla negazione di Dio e alla condanna di ogni chiesa. Ma a fargli sposare la causa dell’ateismo, più che argomenti di natura filosofica e meta- fisica sono stati motivi di ordine storico e sociale? La sua identifica- zione della società ideale con la società senza classi e la ricerca della instaurazione di tale società mediante la demolizione delle strutture sociali vigenti ai suoi tempi, l'hanno portato necessaria- mente a confrontarsi con la religione. Ora, tutta una serie di circo- stanze storiche gli hanno fatto credere che la religione fosse uno dei maggiori ostacoli alla realizzazione della nuova società e, per- tanto, concludere che la religione non può essere che un'invenzione delle classi privilegiate per meglio sfruttare le classi subalterne: essa è strumento di evasione per gli sfruttati e di giustificazione per gli sfruttatori. La religione è l'oppio del popolo. « La religione è il sospiro della creatura oppressa dalla sventura, l'anima di un'epoca senza spirito. È oppio per il popolo. [...] Il fondamento della critica religiosa è questo: l'uomo crea la religione, non è la religione che crea l’uomo ».* Nel XIX secolo la critica della religione di maggior riscontro non fu quella di Marx e Feuerbach, ma quella di Comte, il padre del positivismo. Secondo Comte tutto l'universo procede dalla materia per via di evoluzione. Anche l’uomo è un portato dell'evoluzione. Con la sua comparsa sulla scena del mondo ha inizio la storia, le cui fasi principali, secondo la celebre classificazione del padre del po- ! B. MONDIN, vol. III, pp. 67, 79-80. 2 Ivi, pp. 142-144. » Cfr. W GOLLWITZER, La critica marxista della religione e la fede cristiana, Morcelliana, Brescia 1970. ‘+ B. MONDIN, vol. III, pp. 153-156. 103 La crisi post- hegeliana: Dio autoproiezione dell'uomo Negazione di Dio e condanna della Chiesa in Marx La critica di Comte alla religione L'esperienza religiosa come stadio primitivo dell’umanità Nietzsche: la ‘morte di Dio” e l'autonomia del Super-uomo Il cristianesimo messaggio di debolezze e di mediocrità sitivismo, sono tre: religiosa, metafisica, scientifica. Le tre diverse fasi corrispondono a tre diversi modi di concepire e di spiegare le cose. Nell’epoca religiosa l’uomo si dà una spiegazione mitica defenomeni naturali escogitando cause soprannaturali; nell'epoca me- tafisica egli ottiene una spiegazione dei fenomeni ricorrendo a prin- cipi reconditi, quali sostanza, accidenti, essere, ecc.; nell'epoca po- sitiva infine egli elabora una spiegazione ragionata, scientifica delle cose per mezzo delle leggi naturali, le quali bastano da sole (senza che ci sia bisogno di ricorrere a Dio oppure a principi metafisici) a spiegare tutti i fenomeni che noi constatiamo. Tutte le attività e tutte le branchie del conoscere passano per questi tre stadi: la politica come il diritto, l'economia come la morale, la fisica come l’astrono- mia, ecc. All’inizio dell'epoca moderna, con lo sviluppo del metodo scientifico, l'umanità ha raggiunto finalmente l'età adulta e può, quindi, lasciarsi alle spalle sia la religione, sia la metafisica. An- ziché rivolgere la sua attenzione ad esseri soprannaturali o recon- diti essa può ora prendere cura di se stessa. Questo è l’unico culto (cioè il culto dell'Umanità) che essa deve promuovere. Un altro autorevole esponente della critica negativa del fenomeno religioso, nel secolo scorso, è Nietzsche. Di lui tutti conosciamo il famoso proclama: « Dio è morto ». Questa sentenza, che rappresenta il leit-motiv della predicazione di Zaratustra è anche il motivo do- minante della riflessione filosofica di Nietzsche. Questi vuole svi- luppare l’idea di un uomo (il Super-uomo) assolutamente autonomo, padrone di se stesso, sovrano della natura e della storia, affrancato dai vincoli e dalle costrizioni imposte dalla morale, dal diritto, dalla religione. Studiata alla luce dell'idea del Super-uomo a Nietzsche la religione appare una ingegnosa invenzione degli uomini, però non dei forti per tenere sotto il loro giogo i deboli, bensì dei deboli per di- fendersi dalla prepotenza dei forti, dei super-uomini. Di tale origine della religione il Nietzsche ritiene di trovare conferma nel cristia- nesimo. Qui i deboli, gli umiliati, gli oppressi elevano il loro ideale di debolezza, di vigliaccheria, di rassegnazione ad ideali universali e fanno di tutto per costringere anche gli uomini forti, i potenti, i su- per-uomini, ad accettarlo. « Solo il misero è buono, proclama il cri- stianesimo, il povero, il debole, l'umile solamente sono buoni; l’am- malato, il bisognoso, colui che fa ribrezzo soltanto è pio. Solo a co- storo viene promessa la felicità e la salvezza eterna. Mentre a voi potenti, aristocratici, a voi viene detto che siete per tutta l'eternità cattivi, perversi, ingordi, insaziabili nemici di Dio e che perciò siete eternamente infelici, condannati, maledetti »f Un'altra importante forma di critica della religione è stata intro- dotta all'inizio del nostro secolo da Freud mediante la psicanalisi. Da Freud l'infondatezza della religione è data per scontata in quanto 5 Ivi, pp. 178-181. $ Ivi, pp. 217-222. 104 a suo giudizio è cosa ovvia che fuori del mondo dell’uomo non esiste alcun altro essere. Allo studioso rimane perciò solo il problema di spiegare come sia sorta la « illusione religiosa ». A pa- rere del fondatore della psicanalisi essa non è sorta in conseguenza di una lotta di classe tra classi dominanti e classi dominate, come voleva Marx, e neppure in conseguenza di una lotta tra deboli e potenti come sosteneva Nietzsche, bensì attraverso un processo di sublimazione di una lotta primordiale tra i membri del focolare do- mestico, con la conseguente proiezione, fuori della psiche sul piano cosmico, dell'idea di padre. L'oggetto della religione — Dio — è appunto il risultato di tale proiezione. L'idea di questo Essere su- premo riflette, sul piano cosmico, la polarità affettiva amore-adio, che i figli sentono nei confronti del padre.” Altre forme di demistificazione del fenomeno religioso sono state sviluppate nel nostro secolo dagli esistenzialisti (in particolare da Sartre e da Heidegger) e dai neopositivisti. Mentre però il pensiero di Sartre è chiaro ed inequivocabile, non si può invece*stabilire con sicurezza quali siano le vedute di Heidegger riguardo alla religione. In effetti le sue opere più recenti contengono tracce inconfondibili di misticismo. Una cosa, peraltro, è fuori discussione: secondo l’autore di Sein und Zeit la filosofia non può dare che un giudizio negativo per quanto concerne l’idea di Dio. Infatti, a suo parere, tale idea è aberrante sia nei confronti della metafisica, in quanto fa decadere il problema dell'Essere nel problema di un ente; come pure nei confronti del problema della esistenza umana, perché la distoglie dal- le sue vere, autentiche possibilità.* L'ultimo importante tentativo di demistificare il fenomeno reli- gioso è stato compiuto dal neopositivismo. Per questo movimento, com'è noto, la filosofia consiste essenzialmente nell'analisi del lin- guaggio: solo in questo modo essa può determinare la verità o la falsità di una dottrina. Ma, per effettuare l’analisi del linguaggio occorre anzitutto un criterio per distinguere le proposizioni che hanno significato da quelle che ne sono prive. Ora, secondo i neo- positivisti per le proposizioni fattuali (non per quelle logiche) l’'u- nico criterio possibile è quello della verifica sperimentale. Vale, per- tanto, anche per la religione quanto abbiamo citato precedentemente da Carnap circa la metafisica” Da queste premesse i neopositivisti traggono la conclusione, logica e necessaria, che il linguaggio etico, estetico e religioso è privo di senso, non dice nulla: è privo di qual- siasi valore oggettivo. Pertanto « dire che Dio esiste è un'espressione metafisica che non può essere né vera né falsa. E, per lo stesso mo- tivo, nessuna proposizione che miri a descrivere la natura di un ? Ivi, pp. 224-221. ® Ivi, pp. 410-413. ° Vedi cap. VII, nota 7. 105 Freud: Dio proiezione dell'immagine paterna Ateismo e misticismo nelle filosofie esistenzialiste La negazione della reiigione nel neopasitivismo fl valore positivo della religione Kierkegaard: il primato della fede per giungere allo stadio religioso Bergson e il valore dell’esperienza mistica Dio trascendente può avere significato letterale... Tutte le espressioni riguardanti la natura di Dio sono prive di senso ».! 2.2 Difesa della religione Contro le opinioni espresse dai demistificatori del fenomeno re- ligioso hanno preso posizione molti ‘filosofi del secolo scorso e del nostro, affermandone il valore positivo e considerandolo anzi una delle manifestazioni più proprie, autentiche e genuine dello spirito umano. Qui non possiamo riferire le vedute di tutti coloro che si sono espressi in questo senso. Ci limiteremo a riferire il pensiero di alcuni autori più rappresentativi, cominciando da Kierkegaard. Contro la concezione hegeliana della religione, la quale vede in essa puramente un momento logico, naturale dell'evoluzione dello Spirito Assoluto e contro qualsiasi subordinazione della religione al- la filosofia, Kierkegaard proclama che la religione non può essere ridotta ad un momento logico d'un sistema generale di pensiero, perché essa appartiene alla sfera dell’esistenza, della vita. Allo stadio religioso non si giunge attraverso l'intuizione come sosteneva Hegel, ma mediante la fede. L'incontro con Dio non si dà nell’immediatezza della visione, ma nelle tenebre della fede. E questa non è la con- seguenza d'un ragionamento bensì un atto di decisione che com- porta un salto al di là di tutto ciò che poggia sulla sicurezza delle leggi scientifiche e dei codici morali. Quando l’uomo crede in Dio e avverte l’infinita differenza che separa la natura divina dalla pro- pria, allora si prostra davanti a Lui e Lo adora." Lo sforzo di Kierkegaard di riabilitare la religione nel suo signi- ficato autentico non ebbe successo. Durante la seconda metà del- l’Ottocento, come s'è visto, per opera di Marx, Engels, Comte, Niet- zsche, Freud, esplode la demistificazione della religione la quale incontra vasti consensi e moltissimi sostenitori nel momento in cui impera il positivismo e il materialismo. Ma quando questi sistemi cominciano a vacillare, anche la demistificazione della religione per- de terreno. Anzi è proprio l'impossibilità dell’accettazione di una simile interpretazione del fenomeno religioso che induce autori co- me Bergson, James, Scheler, Otto, Blondel a prendere posizione contro il positivismo e il materialismo. Bergson, nel celebre saggio Le due sorgenti della morale e della religione, prende in esame il fenomeno religioso in alcune delle sue manifestazioni più elevate, quali il misticismo greco ed orientale, il profetismo ebraico e il misticismo cristiano. Attraverso l’esperienza dei mistici egli arriva all'esistenza di Dio. Questa, già presentita nella speculazione filosofica dello slancio vitale (é/an vital), si impone ora in maniera incondizionata. In che modo? In base alla testimonianza 0 A.J. AYER, Language, Truth and Logic, New York (senza data), p. 115; trad. it., Linguaggio, verità e logica, Feltrinelli, Milano 1961. ! B. MONDIN, vol. III, pp. 212-216. 106 di coloro che hanno l'esperienza delle cose divine. Bisogna credere ai mistici in queste cose così come si crede ai medici e agli ingegneri quando si tratta di problemi attinenti alle loro specializzazioni: gli uni e gli altri sono degli esperti; sanno quello che dicono." L'esempio di Bergson esercitò un grande influsso anzitutto in Francia e poi anche altrove. Tra i suoi seguaci si distinse in par- ticolare Maurice Blondel. Questi, tuttavia, nel difendere il valore oggettivo della religione, si colloca in una prospettiva diversa da quella del suo maestro. Mentre Bergson giustifica il fenomeno reli- gioso partendo dalle sue espressioni più autentiche, Blondel cerca di fondarlo sull'analisi del dinamismo umano considerato nella sua struttura essenziale. Secondo Blondel un esame attento e appro- fondito dell’azione conduce logicamente al riconoscimento dell’esi- stenza di Dio. Infatti « L'azione è in perpetuo divenire come trava- gliata dall’aspirazione di una crescita infinita. [...] Noi siamo costretti a voler divenire ciò che da noi stessi non possiamo né raggiungere né possedere. [...] È perché ho l'ambizione d'essere infinitamente che sento la mia impotenza: io non mi sono fatto, non posso ciò che voglio, sono costretto a superarmi. [...] Ora, questa spinta verso l'infinito, che dilata continuamente la mia azione, è Dio. Egli non. ha altra ragion d'essere per noi perché è ciò che noi non possiamo essere né fare con le nostre sole forze ».! Noi siamo la sproporzione tra l'ideale e il reale, ma tendiamo verso la loro identità: tale iden- tità è Dio stesso. Un'abile difesa del valore e del significato dell'esperienza reli- giosa è stata condotta anche dal filosofo americano William James, in particolare nell'opera Le varie forme dell'esperienza religiosa. La sua difesa è basata su motivazioni d'ordine mistico come in Bergson, piuttosto che su speculazioni d'ordine teoretico come in Blondel, James non crede che sia possibile trasformare la religione in un siste- ma di proposizioni scientifiche dimostrabili apoditticamente. A suo giudizio il fondamento della religione non è la ragione, ma la fede, il sentimento ed altre esperienze particolari come la preghiera, conver- sazioni con l'invisibile, visioni, ecc. Tutto questo però non significa che la religione sia priva di concetti e di dottrine. Anzi James rico- nosce che una religione che sia veramente autentica deve logicamen- te guardare ad un certo tipo di metafisica o di cosmologia teistica, e che perciò la fede in Dio, i cui attributi sono essenzialmente « mo- rali » o connessi con l’esperienza umana, può essere difesa come un elemento necessario dell'esperienza religiosa, sebbene non possa ser- vire come base di una teologia razionale." Ma i più autorevoli assertori del valore oggettivo dell'esperienza religiosa non sono venuti dalla Francia o dall'America, bensì dalla 12 Ivi, pp. 257-258. 4 M. BLONDEL, L'action, Parigi 1893, pp. 352-354; trad. it., L'azione, La Scuola, Brescia. “4 B. MONDIN, vol. III, pp. 348-349. 107 Blondel: esperienza religiosa e dinamismo umano James: la dimensione interiore della religione e l’esiysnza delle dotirine Il valore oggettivo dell’esperienza religiosa Scheler: la critica all’interpretazione evoluzionistica L'automanifestazione di Dio Otto: le differenti modalità dell'esperienza religiosa (il sentimento del numinoso) Germania. Si tratta di una vasta schiera di profondi pensatori di cui i più noti sono: Scheler, Otto, Schmidt, Guardini, Adam, Tillich, Dessauer, Lang. Per esigenze di spazio noi qui ci limiteremo a rias- sumere brevemente il pensiero dei primi due. Max Scheler pone il fenomeno religioso al centro della sua ricerca filosofica. In polemica coì positivismo, che come abbiamo visto riduce la religione ad un momento transitorio dello sviluppo pro- gressivo della storia dell'umanità, Scheler afferma il carattere asso- luto e perenne dell'esperienza religiosa. Egli respinge categoricamen- te la teoria positivistica della nascita della religione per un processo evolutivo che va dal feticismo, all'animismo, alla magia, ecc., al po- liteismo e finalmente al monoteismo. Rifacendosi per la parte storico- positiva agli studi di W. Schmidt, in particolare alla sua tesi del monoteismo primitivo, Scheler rileva come fenomenologicamente « anche il feticcio più primitivo presenta, per quanto rozzamente, l'essenza indeducibile del divino, quale sfera globale dell’essere as- soluto corredato con tutte le caratteristiche del santo ».5 In esso, e tramite esso, l'intenzione religiosa intende, sente, vede la totalità dell'essere assoluto e santo e non un semplice oggetto naturale in cui per entropia introduce una vita psichica. Per quanto concerne la sfera religiosa Scheler ritiene che il motivo ultimo della sua accet- tazione sia l'evidenza immediata dell'oggetto che si dà come tale in atti di conoscenza specifica, nel caso, negli atti religiosi. Pertanto il fondamento ultimo della religione non può essere che l’automani- festazione di Dio. Tale automanifestazione della realtà personale di Dio, secondo Scheler, può avvenire solo tramite gli uomini religiosi, culminanti nel « santo originario », che egli individua nella figura di Cristo.! Rudolf Otto, nel suo famoso saggio Das Heilige (Il sacro), de- scrive con acutezza straordinaria le differenti modalità dell’espe- rienza religiosa. Questa si configura anzitutto come sentimento del numinoso. Il numinoso è una categoria che fa parte della categoria più complessa del « sacro ». È una categoria del tutto sui generis, che è completamente inaccessibile alla comprensione concettuale e, in quanto tale, costituisce un arreton, qualcosa di indefinibile, ineffa- bile, proprio come il « bello » sul piano estetico. In questo senso appartiene al dominio dell’« irrazionale », e rappresenta l'elemento più intimo che è comune a tutte le religioni. Il numinoso a sua volta assume due aspetti che lo caratterizzano in modo inequivocabile: a} l'aspetto di mysterium tremendum e b) l'aspetto di miysterium fascinans. Il primo costituisce l'aspetto ripulsivo del numinoso, il se- condo ne rappresenta invece l'aspetto attrattivo e « affascinante ». Però il sacro oltre che un aspetto « irrazionale », rappresentato dalla categoria del numinoso, riveste anche un aspetto « razionale »; que- 5 M. SCHELER, L’eterno nell'uomo, Fabbri, Milano. i 4 Cfr. G. FERRETTI, Max Scheler. Filosofia della religione, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1972. 108 sto trova espressione soprattutto nei « simboli » e nei « dogmi ». Grazie a queste categorie, attraverso « segni » stabili e universal- mente validi, il sacro acquista una struttura solida, che gli conferisce il carattere di « dottrina » rigorosa, oggettivamente valida, e l’op- pone per ciò stesso alle stravaganze dell’« irrazionalismo » fanta- stico e sognatore. 3. Definizione della religione e sua distinzione dall’arte, dalla filosofia e dalla morale « Tutti quelli che si occupano di scienza della religione — nota A. Lang — tutti quelli che della religione intendono favorire lo svi- luppo, tutti quelli che la vorrebbero estirpare, offrono una defini- zione della sua essenza »."” Noi proponiamo come definizione sufficientemente descrittiva la seguente: « La religione è l'insieme di conoscenze, di azioni e di strutture con cui l’uomo esprime riconoscimento; dipendenza, ve- nerazione nei confronti del ‘sacrò ».' Questa definizione, come si vede, comprende due elementi, uno riguardante il soggetto e l’altra l'oggetto. Quanto al soggetto essa indica l'atteggiamento che l’uomo assume quando si esprime religio- samente. In effetti non ogni‘rapporto col Sacro è attività « religiosa ». Se per esempio si studia il processo di trasformazione e di sviluppo delle religioni, i loro influssi e Manifestazioni, non si può fare a meno di occuparsi anche dell'oggetto dell'esperienza religiosa, tuttavia ci si muove sul piano della storia, non della religione. « Si può par- lare di un atto religioso, soprattutto d'un atto religioso fondamentale, solo quando l'uomo assume di fronte al Sacro e al Divino un atteg- giamento soggettivo del tutto particolare, cioè quando viene emoti- vamente colpito e attratto dall'oggetto ed entra in contatto DErR0: nale con esso. Questo è il lato psichico o interiore della religione ». Come s'è detto, l'aspetto soggettivo del fenomeno religioso è costi- tuito dal riconoscimento della realtà del Sacro, dal sentimento di to- tale dipendenza nei suoi confronti e dall’atteggiamento di venera- zione verso di esso. Dell’oggetto della religione la nostra definizione indica ciò che lo caratterizza in modo esclusivo, vale a dire di essere-sacro. Sacro è un concetto primario, fondamentale, come i concetti di essere, di vero, di bene, di bello, e pertanto non lo si può spiegare ulteriormen- te rifacendosi a categorie estranee alla sfera religiosa. Su questo punto mi pare che Scheler e Otto abbiano perfettamente ragione. Ma non per questo lo si deve considerare un concetto non suscetti- " A. LANG, Introduzione alla filosofia della religione, 2° ed., Morcelliana, Brescia 1969, p. 25. 4 Ivi, p. 48. 109 L'aspetto razionale del sacro: simboli e dogmi Una definizione della religione L’atto religioso fondamentale come atteggiamento soggettivo di fronte al Divino Il ‘Sacro’ è un concetto primario e fondamentale Le caratteristiche del Sacro: oggettività, assiologia, trascendenza, personalisticità L'elemento oggettivo distingue la religione dalla filosofia bile di qualche delucidazione. Infatti, all'interno della sfera reli- giosa il Sacro assume caratteristiche sue proprie, inconfondibili, che consentono di descriverlo in modo inequivocabile. Tra le carat- teristiche più perspicue ricordiamo quelle così bene evidenziate da Rudolf Otto: la numinosità (o sacralità), la misteriosità, la maestà, il fascino. Ma sue caratteristiche importanti sono anche queste al- tre: l'oggettività, l’assiologia, la trascendenza e la personalisticità. Anzitutto l’oggettività: il Sacro finché permane sacro e quindi og- getto della religione non può essere considerato una trovata della fantasia umana, una proiezione e ipostatizzazione dei bisogni, de- sideri, ideali dell'uomo. L'atto religioso è rivolto ad una realtà effettivamente esistente: « sempre i contenuti religiosi si presentano con la pretesa d'avere consistenza e validità anche al di fuori della coscienza e dell'esperienza religiosa ».” La trascendenza: anche se non è collocato fuori del mondo, il Sacro viene sempre conside- rato come qualcosa che supera infinitamente il mondo stesso e tut- to ciò che nel mondo è compreso, in particolare l’uomo. L'assio- logia: il Sacro rappresenta il valore supremo, cui fanno capo tutti gli altri valori. La personalisticità: l'uomo religioso non si colloca in rapporto con un oggetto, ma con un Tu, con una persona. « C'è qualcuno di fronte a lui. Io esperimento un Tu. E io me lo immagino sotto la forma di un dèmone o di un dio ».® Determinata in questo modo l'essenza della religione, risulta evi- dente in che cosa essa si distingua dalla filosofia, dall'arte e dalla morale. Ciò che la distingue dalla filosofia è soprattutto l'elemento soggettivo; infatti sia la religione che la filosofia si occupano del Sacro, del Divino, della « realtà ultima », ma fanno ciò in un modo totalmente diverso. La filosofia procede astrattamente e con fina- lità puramente speculative; invece la religione « è una presa di po- sizione personale che va oltre la semplice conoscenza della verità, è l'atteggiamento in cui tutto l’io si raccoglie nella sua singolarità »,% con un impegno supremo (ultimate concern)? Ciò che distingue la religione dall'arte è invece soprattutto l'elemento oggettivo: la re- ligione ha per oggetto il reale, l’arte l'ideale. Infine, anche religione e morale, nonostante siano legate l'una all'altra nel modo più stret- to, sono essenzialmente distinte. « La prima è incontro con Dio: contatto personale con Lui, riconoscimento umile e devoto del suo valore assoluto e della sua santità. Alla seconda spetta la cura e la realizzazione dei valori che corrispondono all'essenza dell’uomo ».# » Ivi, p. 79. i i 2° G. VAN DER LEEUW, L'uomo primitivo e la religione, Einaudi, Torino 1961, p. 144. 2 A. LANG, Op. cit., p. 110. ® P. TiLIcH, Systematic Theology, Chicago 1951, vol. I, pp. 22 ss. 3 A. Lanc, Op. cit., p. 118. 110 4. Fondazione teoretica della religione A questo punto, se si vuole passare dal piano formale della de- finizione della religione a quello della sua verità obiettiva, occorre affrontare il problema della verità dell’ oggetto della religione, un problema di capitale importanza ma anche estremamente arduo qualora ci si voglia affidare esclusivamente alle forze della ragione. Per risolverlo si possono battere due vie: la metafisica e l’erme- neutica storica; però né l'una né l'altra sono in grado di garantire il sicuro raggiungimento del traguardo e sono tutte due SOSpAFE di grosse difficoltà. La metafisica ha il pregio di far leva esclusivamente sulle forze della pura ragione; ma proprio per questo ha ben poche probabilità di risolvere un problema così difficile come questo. Anche nell’even- tualità che riesca ad elevarsi fino al piano religioso, la ragione spe- culativa non potrà mai fornire un quadro sufficientemente preciso, dettagliato, concreto ed esistenziale. La sua massima aspirazione è provare l’esistenza di Dio, la creazione del mondo e la possibilità della rivelazione. Ma queste verità non sono sufficienti ad alimentare la vita religiosa, una vita fatta di intimità, amore, devozione, ado- razione, preghiera. Da Leibniz in poi a quella parte della metafisica che si occupa del problema di Dio si è dato il nome di teodicea (difesa di Dio; dal greco theos = Dio; dikein = difendere). I limiti inevitabili che accompagnano questa disciplina sono ovvi per la natura sovrannaturale del suo oggetto: Dio, che rimane anche per il filosofo un mistero tremendo e fascinoso, il quale acceca qualsiasi intelligenza che pretende di catturarlo. Lo stesso san Tom- maso confessava che il modo migliore di parlare di Dio è quello x« per negazioni », perché « Dio rimane avvolto nella notte oscura del- l'ignoranza, ed è in questa ignoranza che noi ci avviciniamo a Dio durante la nostra vita. Infatti in questa fitta nebbia abita Dio ». Ma altra cosa è riconoscere i limiti di una disciplina, altra cosa conte- starne la legittimità e la possibilità. A partire da Kant sono state sollevate contro la teodicea tali dif- ficoltà da mettere in dubbio la sua stessa legittimità e possibilità. Kant ha sollevato obiezioni di ordine gnoseologico; Wittgenstein di ordine semantico; Heidegger di ordine metodologico. In breve, Kant confinando la conoscenza umana all'ordine dei fe- nomeni, concede alla ragione il potere di sollevare la questione di Dio ma le nega la possibilità di risolverla positivamente. Wittgen- stein, ritenendo che si possa parlare sensatamente soltanto di oggetti verificabili empiricamente, poiché Dio non appartiene a questo or- dine di oggetti, dichiara che di Lui non si può parlare: né sollevare questioni, né dare risposte. Infine, Heidegger ritiene che la meta- fisica abbia come oggetto proprio lo studio dell'essere degli essenti (« Perché vi è, in generale, l’essente e non il nulla? ») e come metodo 111 II problema della verità dell'oggetto ‘religioso Il compito della “‘teodicea’’ Obiezioni contro la teodicea I limiti dell’ermeneutica e della ragione storica proprio la fenomenologia e di conseguenza sostiene che non c'è spazio per una riflessione autenticamente metafisica su Dio: la teo- dicea non può essere altro che una onto-teo-logia. Alle obiezioni di Kant, Wittgenstein e Heidegger non è difficile replicare: basta denunciare la loro pretesa di bloccare la conoscen- za umana dentro il mondo dei fenomeni, il linguaggio sensato den- tro la sfera delle cose verificabili, la metodologia appropriata per accostarsi alla realtà al solo metodo fenomenologico. Se tali pre- clusioni non vengono ritenute legittime, allora lo studio di Dio divie- ne per il filosofo non solo una possibilità ma anche un dovere, poiché esprime l’esigenza insopprimibile della natura umana di afferrare il senso della sua origine e del suo fine ultimo. L'ermeneutica, cioè l’arte della interpretazione, da parte sua, assumendo come punto di partenza un evento storico particolare (la rivelazione biblica, oppure quella cristiana, quella islamica, ecc.) si trova nella difficoltà di provare come un evento storico di carattere particolare (situato in un dato momento spazio-temporale) possa assurgere a valore universale, assoluto. Essa dovrebbe mostrare che è l'unico evento capace di rispondere alle istanze fondamentali della natura umana e di appagarle pienamente. Ma dove trovare argo- menti decisivi a sostegno di questa pretesa? La ragione storica non sembra in grado di scoprirli. Qualcuno potrebbe pensare di risolvere il problema unendo in- sieme le due vie. Ma questa è un'impresa irrealizzabile, perché la metafisica e l’ermeneutica storica si dirigono verso oggetti che non hanno nulla di comune tra di loro. Tutto ciò lascia intendere che la soluzione adeguata del problema religioso non si può ottenerla con la pura ragione, ma soltanto me- ‘ diante la fede, cioè mediante un'umile e completa sottomissione di tutto l'essere dell'uomo a colui che costituisce il centro, il cuore, l'anima della sfera religiosa, Dio. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Stadio religioso — Numinoso; arreton; mysterium tremendum — Soggetto e oggetto della religione — Numinosità; misteriosità; maestà; fascino; oggettività; assiologia; tra- scendenza; personalisticità SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. I TERMINI DEL PROBLEMA a) La religione è una manifestazione tipicamente umana che ha caratteriz- zato tutti i tempi e tutte le culture. Essa si impone come una costante dell'es- sere umano, anche se non è coltivata da tutti gli uomini. b) :La problematicità della religione risiede nel fatto che l’attività religiosa è rivolta verso un oggetto di cui si vede messa in questione persino l'esistenza. ‘112 II. LE PRINCIPALI INTERPRETAZIONI FILOSOFICHE DELLA RELIGIONE 1) La questione religiosa ha interessato sia il pensiero classico che quello medioevale e moderno. Ma è a partire da Hume e da Kant che essa assume una connotazione centrale. Nella cultura contemporanea si delineano due orien- tamenti: uno tendente a demistificare la religione, l’altro a difenderla. III. DEMISTIFICAZIONE DELLA RELIGIONE Iniziatore di tale orientamento è Feuerbach che sottraendo alla religione ogni valore oggettivo la riduce a fenomeno in proiezione di alcuni bisogni fon- damentali dell’uomo: Dio èsolo l’idea che esprime ciò che l’uomo aspira ad essere. — Sulla scorta di Feuerbach, Marx radicalizza l’interpretazione affermando che la religione è una delle sovrastrutture prodotte da una determinata strut- tura economica e che di essa la classe egemone si è sempre servita per man- tenere lo stato di sottomissione della classe subalterna. — La soluzione della questione economico-sociale prospettata dal comuni- smo decreta la scomparsa della religione. — Comte, padre del positivismo, colloca l’esperienza religiosa nella fase primitiva della storia dell'umanità, che nella sua fase matura {quella del pro- gresso industriale e scientifico) è chiamata ad esprimere un unico culto, quello di se stesso: il culto dell'Umanità. — La religione viene considerata un fenomeno proiettivo e illusorio anche da Freud, che considera il fatto religioso come espressione dell'idea del padre che l'inconscio umano porta dentro di sé. — Nietzsche giunge perfino a decretare la « morte di Dio », con particolare riferimento al Dio cristiano, in un mondo in cui il Super-Uomo non lascia più spazio alla realtà dei miseri, dei deboli, degli umili, dei poveri. — Esistenzialisti (per esempio Sartre ed Heidegger) e neopositivisti (Car- nap, Ayer) negano alcun valore alla dimensione religiosa, i primi impegnati totalmente sulla dimensione dell’immanenza e dell’esistenzialità dell'uomo, i secondi perché ritengono valide solo le proposizioni il cui contenuto è speri- mentalmente verificabile. IV. DIFESA DELLA RELIGIONE — Kierkegaard attribuisce allo stadio religioso il grado più elevato del- l’esistenza umana che affida il proprio senso alla fede e all'adorazione di Dio. — Bergson arriva all'esistenza di Dio attraverso l’esperienza dei mistici, che egli considera gli esperti delle cose divine. — Blondel cerca di fondare il fenomeno religioso sull'analisi del dinami- smo umano considerato nella sua struttura essenziale; l’azione, che trova solo in Dio la giustificazione della sua spinta all'infinito. — James afferma che fondamento della religione sono la fede, il sentimen- to e la preghiera. Una religione autentica deve guardare a una certa metafisica o a una certa cosmologia razionale e la fede in Dio, i cui attributi sono « mo- rali », può servire da base ad una teologia razionale. Il valore oggettivo della religione è stato ribadito soprattutto da pensatori tedeschi: — Scheler afferma il carattere assoluto e perenne dell'esperienza religiosa. Il fondamento ultimo della religione è l’automanifestazione personale di Dio, che avviene attraverso gli uomini religiosi, culminanti nel Cristo, il « Santo originario ». — Otto configura il fenomeno religioso come sentimento del numinoso che assume due aspetti: il mysterium tremendum (aspetto repulsivo) e il myste- rium fascinans (aspetto attrattivo e affascinante). L'aspetto irrazionale si ac- compagna a quello razionale dei simboli e dei dogmi, che conferiscono al sacro il carattere di dottrina rigorosa, oggettivamente valida. 113 — Ricordiamo tra gli assertori del valore oggettivo dell'esperienza reli- giosa anche Schmidt, Guardini, Adam, Tillich, Dessauer, Lang. V. DEFINIZIONE DELLA RELIGIONE E SUA DISTINZIONE DALL'ARTE, DALLA FILOSOFIA E DALLA MORALE 1. La religione è stata definita da Lang come l'insieme di conoscenze, azioni, strutture con cui l’uomo esprime riconoscimento, dipendenza, venerazione nei confronti del sacro. 2. Soggetto della definizione è l'atteggiamento assunto dall'uomo nell’espri- mere la sua religiosità; oggetto è l'essere Sacro. Sacro è un concetto primario, fondamentale, come l'essere, il bene, il vero, ecc. Pertanto può essere spiegato solo attraverso le categorie dell'esperienza religiosa. 3. Le categorie del sacro sono state ben evidenziate da R. Otto: numinosità, misteriosità, maestà, fascino, oggettività, assiologia, trascendenza, personali- sticità. 4. a) La religione si distingue dalla filosofia in ordine all'elemento sogget- tivo: quest’ultima procede astrattamente e speculativamente, mentre la prima è un atteggiamento totale, personale .e singolare dell'io; b) la religione si di- stingue dall'arte in ordine all'elemento oggettivo: per la prima esso è il reale, per la seconda è l'ideale; c) religione e morale pur strettamente legate sono distinte: la prima è incontro personale e contatto con Dio, la seconda è realiz- zazione dei valori che rispettano l’uomo. VI. FONDAZIONE TEORETICA DELLA RELIGIONE 1 La fondazione è possibile attraverso due strade: a) la metafisica fa leva sulla forza della ragione. La sua aspirazione è di provare l’esistenza di Dio, la creazione del mondo, la possibilità della rivelazione; b) l’ermeneutica assume come punto di partenza un evento storico particolare (ad esempio la rivela- zione biblica). 2. Limite della metafisica è quello di non poter alimentare la vita religiosa (intimità con Dio, amore, adorazione, preghiera). Limite dell'ermeneutica è quello di poter provare come un evento storico particolare può assurgere a valore universale assoluto. QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. In quale misura la dimensione del mistero circonda la vita umana e si sottrae al possesso della conoscenza e dell'indagine scientifica? L'uomo può veramente ignorare questa dimensione? 2. Perché la religione è un fenomeno problematico? 3. Come provano l’esistenza di Dio Aristotele, Agostino, Tommaso, Ansel. mo, Cartesio, Leibniz? 4. Che cosa si intende per prova ontologica? 5. Kant quale classificazione presenta delle prove dell’esistenza di Dio? Che valore assegna alle prove tradizionali? 6. Su quali ragioni basano la demistificazione della religione Feuerbach, Marx, Comte, Freud, Nietzsche, Sartre, Carnap? p 7. Che funzione assegnano alla religione Spinoza, Hegel, Croce? 8. Su che cosa fondano la religione Schleiermacher, James, Bergson, Otto, Scheler? © 9. Come ha avuto origine la religione? Che cos'è il sacro? Qual è la sua relazione col profano? | 10. In che rapporto si trovano religione e cultura, religione e cristianesimo, ‘religione e filosofia, religione e scienza, religione e mito, religione e morale, ‘religione e arte? 114 11. Fino a che punto il nostro tempo ha perso il senso del mistero e di Dio? Quati le conseguenze storico-culturali ed etiche più evidenti? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI AA.Vv., L'ateismo: natura e cause, Massimo, Milano 1983. AA.Vv., Il problema di Dio in filosofia e teologia oggi, Massimo, Milano 1983, AA.Vv., Etica e filosofia della religione, Benucci, Perugia 1980. AA.Vv., Con Dio e contro Dio, a cura di M.F. Sciacca, 2 voll., Marzorati, Milano 1973. ARTINI S., Cristianesimo religione possibile?, Massimo, Milano 1975. - BERGSON H., Le due fonti della morale e della religione, Morcelliana, Bre- scia 1949, BIASUTTI F., Problemi di metodo: filosofia e religione, Liviana, Padova. BOCcHENSKI J.M., La logica della religione, Ubaldini, Roma 1967. CANTONE C., Introduzione al problema di Dio, La Scuola, Brescia 1973. COPLESTON F., Religione e filosofia, La Scuola, Brescia 1977. CRISTALDI G., Prospettive di filosofia della religione, Vita e Pensiero, Mila- no 1980. DEL Noce A., I! problema dell’ateismo, Il Mulino, Bologna 1970*. Fagro C., Introduzione all'ateismo moderno, Studium, Roma 1969?. GILKEy L., Il destino della religione nell'era tecnologica, Abete, Roma 1972. GILSON E., Dio e la filosofia, Massimo, Milano 1984. GRISON M., Teodicea, Paideia, Brescia 1978. JAMES W., Le varie forme della coscienza religiosa, Principato, Milano. KANT I, La religione entro i limiti della sola ragione, Guanda, Parma 1967. LUCKMANN T., La religione invisibile, Il Mulino, Bologna 1976. MANCINI I., Filosofia della religione, Abete, Roma 1968. MARITAIN J., Ateismo e ricerca di Dio, Massimo, Milano 1983. MONDIN G.B., Introduzione alla teologia, Massimo, Milano 1984. PELLEGRINO U., Rivelazione di Dio e umanesimo cristiano, Ancora, Milano 1967. THIELICKE H., E se Dio esistesse..., Morcelliana, Brescia 1975. TURNER V., La foresta dei simboli, Morcelliana, Brescia 1976. WEIL S., Attesa di Dio, Rusconi, Milano 1972. WINDELBAND W., Filosofia e filosofia della religione, Benucci, Perugia 1982. 115 Etica: studio dell’attività umana riferita al suo fine ultimo Prospettiva critica: indagine sui codici morali e le prescrizioni Capitolo nono | IL PROBLEMA ETICO O MORALE QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Che cosa caratterizza il comportamento umano? In che misura libertà e capacità di scelta orientano l’azione? 2. Come si può definire il valore morale? L'etica o morale, secondo una delle definizioni più comuni, è lo studio dell'attività umana con riferimento al suo ultimo fine, che è la piena realizzazione dell'umanità. Il problema etico assume due aspetti principali: uno riguarda il fondamento e il valore dei codici, dei principi, delle norme, delle persuasioni morali già esistenti; è la prospettiva critica. L'altro ri- guarda le condizioni che rendono possibile l’azione morale in asso- luto; il criterio di ciò che è morale e immorale per l’uomo; il fine ultimo della vita umana e i mezzi più adatti per raggiungerlo. Que- sta è la prospettiva teoretica. Le due prospettive non sono disgiunte l'una dall'altra, ma intimamente connesse, in quanto la prima fa da preambolo alla seconda: infatti la teorizzazione sistematica della morale richiede la valutazione critica dei comportamenti comuni. 1. La prospettiva critica La prospettiva critica riguarda gli interrogativi suscitati dalle prescrizioni e dalle norme dei codici morali. Infatti, se tali codici non sono suffragati dall'autorità divina, è naturale che ci si domandi: Chi li ha stabiliti? Che valore hanno? Si possono cambiare? A chi spetta il diritto di sostituirli con altri? Tocca alla collettività, oppure ai singoli, o ai governanti? Nella storia della filosofia questi sono gli interrogativi che han- no dato il via alla riflessione morale. Essi sono già dibattuti vivace- mente dai Sofisti, ma poi sono ripresi anche dalla filosofia morale di Socrate, Platone, Aristotele e dagli Stoici. Il contesto politico e culturale dell'età di Pericle era particolar- mente propizio allo sviluppo della critica della morale tradizionale. Le guerre con i Persiani e il commercio con gli altri popoli avevano rivelato ai greci nuovi stili di vita, e di pensiero, costituzioni civili e consuetudini morali diverse dalle proprie. Questo induce i Sofisti, 116 che già avevano rinunciato alla riflessione sul mondo per concentrare la propria attenzione sull'uomo, ad interrogarsi sul fondamento del- le norme che regolano la condotta umana. La constatazione che tali norme presentano notevoli divergenze presso i vari popoli li induce a concludere che esse non si fondano sulla natura umana bensì su determinate convenzioni sociali. Gli stati fissano per i propri citta- dini le convenzioni che giudicano più opportune per il loro benessere individuale e sociale. Ovviamente i Sofisti ritengono che il popolo greco possegga le convenzioni morali più elevate di qualsiasi altro popolo barbaro. Ma poiché non si tratta di principi morali innati bensì acquisiti, occorre farli apprendere alla gioventù mediante una apposita istruzione ed educazione. Di qui l’importanza che assume l'insegnamento morale nella polis greca. I Sofisti dicono di assumersi la responsabilità di tale insegnamento e si presentano perciò come « maestri di virtù ». Il problema del fondamento dei codici e delle consuetudini mo- rali viene ripreso ed approfondito da Socrate il quale lo fa con tale originalità di vedute da meritare di essere considerato*il creatore della filosofia morale: « Socrate è il principale punto di partenza da cui si distaccano tutte le successive linee di sviluppo del pensiero etico greco; le speculazioni sulla condotta umana prima di Socrate, a nostro avviso, sono semplicemente un preludio alla effettiva rap- presentazione ».! Socrate prende nettamente posizione contro le due tesi basilari dei Sofisti. Contro la prima la quale dice che i codici morali, le per- suasioni etiche, i concetti fondamentali dell'etica (come buono, giu- sto, onesto, ecc.) sono frutto di convenzioni sociali, Socrate sostiene che essi trovano invece il loro fondamento nella natura stessa delle cose e dell’uomo. Parimenti contro la seconda tesi la quale afferma che le idee e i principi morali si apprendono mediante l’insegnamen- to, Socrate mostra che l'insegnamento presuppone il possesso di tali principi ed idee, e contribuisce tutt'al più alla presa di coscienza ri- guardo ai medesimi. Ma Socrate non si accontenta di respingere le tesi dei Sofisti contrapponendo ad esse altre tesi che si ispirano alla visuale filosofica opposta; egli sposta l'indagine morale ad un livello più profondo domandandosi come si possano giustificare le valuta- zioni morali. Certo, valutazioni morali se ne davano anche prima di Socrate. Per esempio Eutifrone (il personaggio dell'omonimo dia- logo di Platone) riteneva « empia » la condotta di suo padre e per questo aveva deciso di denunciarlo; ma l’incontro con Socrate gli impone in sostanza questo problema: « Perché giudico empia la con- dotta di mio padre? Che cos'è l’empio e che cosa invece il suo op- posto, il santo? ». Si badi bene, la domanda non è « che cosa è empio e che cosa è santo » — questo può indicarlo anche l'ordine E Outlines of the History of Ethics, Macmillan, London 1949, Pp. . 117 L'’interrogativo dei Sofisti sul fondamento della norma morale Socrate: critica al convenzionalismo e fondamento naturale della morale Il fondamento ultimo della moralità La nozione di bene e di male Prospettiva teoretica: le condizioni trascendentali dell’agire morale costituito (quell’ordine in base al quale Eutifrone aveva deciso di procedere contro suo padre) — bensì « che cos'è l’empio e i/ santo », ossia che cosa sono l’empietà e la santità, che cosa sono cioè quei valori in base ai quali si può dichiarare empia o santa una deter- minata azione, e giustificare questa valutazione. Come si vede, Socrate non si accontenta di prendere in esame i codici morali correnti e di verificarne la legittimità. Egli si spin- ge più avanti e si interroga sul fondamento ultimo della moralità in quanto tale. In tal modo egli oltrepassa il problema critico e si cimenta con quello teoretico. La sua soluzione di questo pro- blema è nota. Scavando sotto le apparenze le quali danno l’im- pressione che non esista nessun principio morale assoluto, univer- sale, Socrate mostra che l’uomo è in possesso di un criterio su- premo di moralità che lo aiuta a distinguere il bene dal male. È vero che gli uomini considerano buone cose diverse: uno pone il suo bene nella ricchezza, un altro negli onori, un altro ancora nella virtù; ma è anche vero che ogni uomo possiede la stessa nozione di bene e di male. Un uomo può amare le ricchezze e considerarle buone, un altro può considerare buoni gli onori, un altro i piaceri. Ma, osserva Socrate, nessuno dirà che il bene è male e che il male è bene; ognuno cercherà quello che egli considera bene e fuggirà quello che considera male. È evidente, dunque, che in ciascun uomo c'è la nozione o concetto di bene e di male, in se stessa sempre ugua- le, anche se la sua applicazione è diversa. Il problema critico del fondamento e del valore dei codici e delle consuetudini morali dopo Socrate viene ripreso spesse volte da molti altri filosofi, ma senza più uscire dall’alternativa già emer- sa nel dibattito tra Socrate e i Sofisti, l'alternativa tra convenzio- nalismo (la soluzione dei Sofisti) e naturalismo (la soluzione di So- crate). A favore del convenzionalismo si schierano gli epicurei, gli scettici, i nominalisti, Cartesio, gli empiristi, i positivisti, gli esi- stenzialisti, i marxisti e altri ancora. Si mettono invece dalla parte del naturalismo Platone, Aristotele, Plotino, i neoplatonici, la mag- gior parte degli scolastici, gli idealisti, i neorealisti e i neotomisti. 2. La prospettiva teoretica La prospettiva teoretica verte sulle condizioni trascendentali del- l'agire morale e sul criterio supremo per distinguere il bene dal male. Quanto alle condizioni trascendentali tutti i filosofi sono d’ac- cordo nel riconoscere che la prima di tutte le condizioni è la libertà. Essi potranno discutere sulla possibilità o meno di provare teoretica- mente che l'uomo possiede questa qualità, ma non sul principio che se l'uomo non è libero non si può assolutamente parlare di mora- lità. Questa verità già lucidamente illustrata da Aristotele nell’Etica nicomachea fu ulteriormente approfondita dagli Scolastici, in parti- 118 colare da san Tommaso, da Cartesio e da Kant. Questi considera la libertà la conditio essendi della morale e fa di essa il primo postu- lato della ragion pratica ossia della filosofia morale. A proposito della libertà Vanni Rovighi osserva giustamente che essa è non soltanto una condizione ma anche una componente co- stante dell'atto morale. Essa non precede la scelta e poi viene meno, ma accompagna la scelta dall'inizio alla fine. « La scelta è sempre libera, perché sempre il tradurre in azione un giudizio valutativo esige impegno. Il valore da attuare in concreto non ci determina mai necessariamente perché non incarna mai totalmente il valore, per- ché non è mai la pienezza del valore. Un’azione giusta e generosa è sempre abbastanza scomoda e faticosa per poter essere guardata sotto questi aspetti negativi, e quindi scartata, e il giudicare che hic et nunc è il mio vero bene, che l’autentica attuazione di me stesso è questa, anche se impone un sacrificio, esige sempre, come si diceva, un impegno, un atto di volontà »- Un'altra condizione trascendentale della morale è là consapevo- lezza o coscienza. Di per sé questa è già implicita nella condizione precedente:peressere veramente libera un'azione implica che si conosca ciò che si fa. Uno dei principi più elementari della morale cristiana dice giustamente che, per essere grave, un'azione cattiva dev'essere compiuta con piena avvertenza, ossia con consapevolezza. L'assenza di questa condizione può essere determinata da due motivi: a) errore riguardo a ciò che si fa (si sceglie una cosa per un'altra); b) mancanza della facoltà raziocinativa o impedimento del suo uso in chi agisce (per esempio, il bambino che non ha ancora l’uso di ragione, il pazzo, l'ubriaco, ecc.). La terza condizione trascendentale della morale è che la libertà sia guidata da qualche norma, da qualche principio direttivo. Una libertà assoluta che rifiuti di sottostare a qualsiasi legge, come quella affermata da Nietzsche e Sartre, diventa necessariamente una libertà amorale. Ma a quali norme deve sottostare la libertà? Qui tocchiamo già la questione del criterio supremo della moralità, una questione che vede i filosofi profondamente divisi. Da una parte si trova una va- stissima schiera d’autori che assegnano la funzione di criterio su- premo al fine ultimo verso cui si dirige l'uomo nelle sue azioni. Dall'altra si trova un gruppo abbastanza nutrito di filosofi che asse- gnano il ruolo di criterio supremo alla legge, al dovere. Le morali costruite sul principio del fine si chiamano teleologiche; invece quelle costruite sul principio del dovere si chiamano deontologiche, Dato, però, che tutt'e due i principi, fine ultimo e dovere, sono suscettibili di diverse interpretazioni (così, per esempio, il fine ultimo può essere identificato col piacere, oppure con l'interesse, 2 S. VANNI RovIGHI, « Il problema morale », in Studio ed insegnamento della filosofia, Ave, Roma 1969, vol. I, pp. 294-295. 119 Costante interazione tra libertà e scelta La consapevolezza 0 coscienza Morali teleologiche e morali deontologiche Le concezioni relativistiche o situazionali Edonismo: il bene morale è il piacere sensibile Epicuro: il piacere come assenza di dolore La virtù mezzo per conseguire il vero piacere l'utile o privato oppure della società, con la felicità, con i valori, ecc., e il dovere può essere fondato su leggi divine oppure naturali oppure civili, ecc.) ne consegue che si possono sviluppare vari tipi sia di morali teleologiche sia di morali deontologiche. Nel gruppo delle morali teleologiche i'tipi principali sono: edo- nismo, utilitarismo, eudemonismo e l'etica dei valori. Mentre nel gruppo delle morali deontologiche i tipi principali sono due: stoici- smo e formalismo kantiano. Ci sono però alcuni filosofi che rifiutano di costruire la morale su di un principio assoluto, sia esso il fine ultimo oppure il dovere. Ammettono senz'altro che l’uomo ha doveri da compiere, leggi da osservare, fini da realizzare, ma questi mutano da un'epoca all'altra, da un luogo all’altro, da una circostanza all'altra. Pertanto ritengono che si possano elaborare soltanto etiche relativistiche o situazionali. Nelle pagine che seguono esporremo brevemente questi tipi fon- damentali di morale teleologica, deontologica e situazionale, riferen- doci a qualcuno degli autori più rappresentativi. a) Edonismo - L'edonismo assume quale criterio supremo della moralità il piacere sensibile e, pertanto, identifica il bene morale con quest'ultimo. Esso è stato professato anzitutto da alcune cor- renti della filosofia greca: i Sofisti, i Cirenaici e gli Epicurei, e poi da vari autori dell'epoca moderna: Montaigne, Hobbes, Helvetius, Bentham, Stuart Mill, Freud. I più noti assertori dell'etica edonistica sono gli Epicurei, ai quali si deve senz'altro l'elaborazione più rigorosa di questo tipo di morale. Epicuro giustifica la scelta del piacere quale criterio supremo della morale nel modo seguente: « Noi diciamo che il pia- cere è principio e fine della vita felice, perché abbiamo riconosciuto che tra i beni il piacere è il primo e quello più connaturale a noi ». In effetti è sempre per il piacere che noi scegliamo di fare o di fuggire qualche cosa. a Il piacere in cui Epicuro fa consistere la felicità è la vita pacifica, l'assenza di qualsiasi preoccupazione (atarassia). Il piacere è quindi concepito come assenza di dolore piuttosto che come soddisfaci- mento di qualsiasi passione: « Quando diciamo che il piacere è il bene supremo non intendiamo riferirci ai piaceri dell'uomo corrot- to, che pensa solo a mangiare, bere e alle donne ». La virtù è il mezzo per conseguire il vero piacere. Virtuoso è colui che coglie il vero diletto secondo moderazione e misura, e limita il suo desiderio a quei piaceri che non turbano l’anima. Per il pieno raggiungimento dell’atarassia, della felicità, Epicuro raccomanda di liberarsi dalle tre preoccupazioni che maggiormente assillano l'uomo: gli dèi, la morte e la politica? L'etica edonistica teorizzata da Epicuro e propagandata dai suoi ' Cfr. B. MONDIN, vol. I, pp. 176-177. 120 discepoli in tutte le regioni dell'impero ellenistico, aveva già trovato dei convinti assertori in alcuni filosofi del secolo V a. C., soprattutto tra i Sofisti e i Cirenaici (questi ultimi capeggiati da Aristippo). Le loro teorie avevano richiamato l’attenzione di Platone e di Aristotele, i quali elaborano le loro dottrine morali in costante polemica con le posizioni degli edonisti, mettendone in luce i gravissimi limiti. In- fatti la natura umana si caratterizza per la sua componente spiri- tuale, l'anima, e, quindi, non può avere per fine il piacere, bensì la virtù, in particolare la virtù della sapienza. Questa e non il pia- cere costituisce il criterio supremo della moralità, e per conseguire la sapienza l'uomo dev'essere disposto a compiere qualsiasi sacrificio. Una critica altrettanto perentoria dell’edonismo si ha col cristia- nesimo che esalta l’amore come superamento dell’egoismo e del- l’edonismo, e rivela i lati positivi del dolore, i quali lo rendono per- fino amabile, non in sé, ma come mezzo insostituibile di purifica- zione e di perfezione individuale, e di redenzione per gli altri. b) Utilitarismo - L’utilitarismo assume come criterio supremo della morale l’utile, l'interesse, il vantaggio. Di esso si danno due ver- sioni principali, dette utilitarismo egoistico e utilitarismo altruisti- co o sociale. Il primo fa valere come criterio l'utilità, l'interesse del singolo; invece il secondo fa valere l'interesse, il vantaggio della collettività. Il sostenitore più convinto dell’utilitarismo egoistico è Hobbes; mentre quasi tutti gli altri massimi esponenti della filosofia inglese (Bacone, Locke, Hume, Stuart Mill, Russell) sostengono l’u- tilitarismo altruistico e criticano severamente la posizione di Hob- bes. Così, per esempio, Hume osserva, contro Hobbes, che la lode e il biasimo che noi accordiamo ad azioni virtuose compiute lontano da noi (lontananza di tempo e di spazio) oppure da un nostro avversario e che possono anche nuocerci, provano l’esistenza, all’ori- gine dei nostri sentimenti, di qualcosa che sfugge all’istinto egoista e che non pretende di far appello nemmeno ad un interesse privato immaginario. Vi sono inoltre inclinazioni in noi, come la generosità, l’amore, l'amicizia, la compassione, la rettitudine, che hanno « cause, effetti, oggetti, operazioni » totalmente diverse da quelle delle pas- sioni egoistiche. L'ipotesi di una benevolenza disinteressata, distinta dall'amore proprio, è realmente più semplice e più conforme all'e- sperienza dell'ipotesi che pretende di risolvere ogni sentimento u- manitario attraverso l'egoismo. Vi sono esigenze naturali e passioni mentali che ci spingono verso l'oggetto senza alcuna considerazione di puo interesse. A Stuart Mill spetta il merito d'avere elaborato una forma sofi- sticata di utilitarismo in cui cerca di far coincidere il piacere indi- viduale (fissando una ingegnosa « scala dei piaceri ») con l'utilità della collettività. La coincidenza si realizza allorché si dà la prefe- renza ai piaceri del « cuore » (devozione e altruismo), inesauribili produttori di gioie incessantemente rinnovate per colui che dà come 121 L'utilitarismo egoistico di Hobbes Stuart Mill: piacere individuale e interesse collettivo Eudemonismo in Aristotele e Tommaso: la felicità come piena realizzazione dell’essere Contemplazione filosofica e contemplazione teologica per colui che riceve. Il traguardo di questa mirabile fusione non è frutto di calcoli egoisticamente sottili, ma piuttosto di un pro- cesso psicologico di associazione delle idee. Secondo Mill, grazie a tale processo, la nozione di interesse proprio e ia nozione di interesse altrui diventano così strettamente fuse che l'individuo non può più pensare alla propria felicità senza, automaticamente, pensare a quella degli altri: donde l’aspetto d'obbligazione e di spontaneità, allo stesso tempo, che assume la vita morale presso l’in- dividuo realmente virtuoso. c) Eudemonismo - Per l’eudemonismo (dal greco eudaimonia), il criterio supremo della morale è la felicità, cosicché un'azione è giudicata moralmente elogiabile oppure riprovevole a seconda che sia o no compiuta in vista della felicità, I massimi esponenti di questo tipo di morale sono Aristotele e Tommaso d'Aquino. Secon- do entrambi questi autori ogni azione è diretta ad un fine, ma que- sto non basta a renderla eticamente valida; ciò avviene soltanto nel caso che il fine particolare in vista del quale è compiuta sia in ar- monia col fine ultimo verso cui è orientato colui che la compie. Il fine ultimo d'ogni ente è la sua piena realizzazione, e questa si ottiene con lo svolgimento a pieno ritmo di quell’attività che gli è propria, ossia di quell'attività che attua la sua natura specifica. Dal raggiun- gimento dell'ultimo fine dipende la sua felicità. Quanto all'uomo, l’attività che lo distingue dagli animali è il pensiero, la cui espres- sione massima è la contemplazione. Perciò la felicità dell'uomo non consiste né nelle ricchezze né negli onori e tanto meno nel piacere (tutte cose che anziché contribuire alla piena realizzazione della men- te umana, la disturbano e persino l’offuscano interamente), bensì nella contemplazione. Ma contemplazione di che cosa? Su questo punto c'è una parziale divergenza tra Aristotele e Tommaso. Secondo Aristotele la contemplazione che assicura all'uomo la piena felicità è quella della verità assoluta nei tre campi della fisica, della mate- matica e della metafisica. Invece per san Tommaso la contempla- zione ha un senso eminentemente teologico: secondo il pensatore di Aquino l’unica contemplazione che può esaurire tutte le esigenze del pensiero e che perciò può ricolmare l’anima di felicità è la con- templazione di Dio. Per comprendere bene il pensiero di san Tom- maso su questo punto occorre però fare una precisazione: la cono- scenza di Dio in cui egli ripone la piena felicità dell'uomo non è certamente quella conoscenza analogica di Dio che la nostra mente può raggiungere durante la vita presente. Neppure la conoscenza metafisica più eccelsa può bastare a farci felici, dato che la rîfles- sione filosofica ci fa vedere più quello che Dio non è, che quello che egli è. Persino la conoscenza che otteniamo mediante la fede è insufficiente a farci felici: essa mette a disagio la nostra mente piuttosto che appagarla. La sola conoscenza in cui san Tommaso ri- pone la nostra felicità è la visione beatifica di Dio, una conoscenza 122 soprannaturale che possiamo ottenere solamente nella vita futura. S'è detto che la moralità d'una azione secondo Aristotele e Tom- maso dipende dal rapporto che intercorre tra il fine al quale essa è di fatto diretta e il fine ultimo. Ora, a questo proposito sorge spon- taneamente la domanda: come fa l’uomo a determinare la moralità delle proprie azioni? Chi lo istruisce sui rapporti esistenti tra le azio- ni che vuole compiere e il suo fine ultimo? Sia secondo Aristotele che Tommaso, questa è la funzione propria della legge, la quale è essenzialmente l’espressione della moralità d'una azione. Si danno però due tipi principali di legge. C'è anzitutto una legge naturale, la quale è conosciuta infallibilmente solo nei suoi principi più univer- sali, come, per esempio, « fa' il bene e evita il male ». Da questi principi generali della legge naturale l’uomo può procedere a deter- minare la moralità delle singole azioni mediante il ragionamento. E questo è il compito principale dell’etica e di chi fa filosofia morale cioè del saggio. Senonché questo è un lavoro che ben pochi hanno la possibilità e capacità di svolgere. Ecco allora che subentra la legge positiva (umana per Aristotele, anche divina per Tommaso), la quale ha la funzione di determinare la legge naturale e di applicarla ai casi concreti.‘ d) Stoicismo - Lo stoicismo assume come criterio supremo della morale la pratica della virtù. I tratti essenziali dello stoicismo etico sono già presenti in Platone. Questi nel Gorgia dimostra che merita più compassione chi commette ingiustizia che colui che la soffre; con lo stesso ragionamento nella Repubblica dimostra che è più fe- lice il giusto in croce che l'ingiusto che nuota in un mare di piaceri. Infine, nel Fedone insegna che per raggiungere la felicità è necessario rinunciare ai piaceri e alle ricchezze e dedicarsi alla pra- tica della virtù. Gli insegnamenti etici di Platone sono stati ripresi e sviluppati con maggiore organicità da Zenone e dai suoi discepoli (ossia dagli Stoici). Il loro principio fondamentale è che condotta morale significa condotta secondo ragione (vale a dire secondo il Logos). Condotta secondo ragione vuole dire pratica della virtù. Pertanto la virtù costituisce il criterio supremo della moralità. Ma che cosa intendono gli Stoici per virtù? La virtù è una dispo- sizione interna dell'anima per la quale essa si trova in armonia con se stessa, ossia col proprio Logos. La virtù non consiste come aveva creduto Aristotele nel giusto mezzo tra due difetti opposti, bensì in uno dei due estremi: e precisamente nell'estremo conforme alla ragione (mentre l’altro estremo è conforme alle passioni). Tra virtù e vizio non si dà via di mezzo; uno non è più o meno vizioso o più o meno virtuoso: o è virtuoso o è vizioso. E di fatto, chi vive secondo ra- 4 Ivi, pp. 139-141. 5 Ivi, pp. 92-93. 123 La funzione regolatrice della legge morale Il criterio morale supremo dello stoicismo è l'esercizio delle virtù La virtù: condotta secondo ragione La virtù è l'assoluto dominio della ragione La ‘‘apatia’’ degli Stoici: superamento dell’egoismo e immedesimazione nel Logos Il formalismo etico: l'esecuzione del dovere L’“‘imperativo categorico’’ di Kant come norma suprema della moralità gione, cioè il saggio, fa tutto bene e virtuosamente; invece chi è privo della retta ragione, lo stolto, fa tutto male e in modo vizioso. La pratica della virtù secondo gli Stoici consiste nell’apatia (a- patheia), cioè nell'annullamento delle passioni e nel superamento della propria personalità. Solo superando la propria personalità, che è l'indice estremo dell’egoismo, perdendo la propria individua- lità, è possibile congiungersi col Logos. Per questo è necessario liberarsi dalle passioni che sono le catene che legano l’anima al cor- po e le impediscono di unirsi al Logos. Per raggiungere questa libertà di spirito bisogna essere indifferenti alle contingenze della vita quotidiana, e a tutto ciò che non è in nostro potere. La morale stoica con i suoi spunti fortemente ascetici e con il suo impegno squisitamente interioristico e spirituale presenta una considerevole affinità con la morale cristiana. Questo spiega perché essa abbia incontrato il favore della chiesa primitiva e abbia indotto i padri della chiesa e molti scolastici ad incorporarla nella loro dottrina morale. Ciò è durato fino a quando san Tommaso, riabili- tando Aristotele, introdusse una nuova visione dell'uomo e delle cose in cui si esaltano non soltanto i valori dell'anima e del cielo ma anche quelli del corpo e di questo mondo. Il felice connubio du- rato tanti secoli tra stoicismo e cristianesimo fu allora interrotto. e) Formalismo etico - Il formalismo etico pone il criterio supre- mo della morale nella pratica della virtù, nell'esecuzione del dovere, nell’obbedienza alla legge, come lo stoicismo. Ma esso insiste ancor di più di quest’ultimo sulla non pertinenza dei contenuti al fine di determinare il valore morale di una azione: ciò che conta è esclusiva- mente la forma e questa è data dall’obbedienza alla legge per la legge, dall'esecuzione di un'azione solo per puro amore del dovere. Questa è la nota concezione della morale che Kant sviluppa nella Critica della ragion pratica. In quest'opera Kant sostiene che il cri- terio supremo della morale non può essere derivato dall’esperienza, perché in tal caso si avrebbe un criterio soggettivo e particolare, per- ciò variabile e contingente, che determinerebbe la volontà ad agire per un fine esterno ad essa e non per la legge morale che la volontà dà a se stessa: la volontà sarebbe eteronoma e non autonoma, come invece esige la moralità dell’azione. Perché il criterio supremo della moralità abbia validità assoluta e universale, è necessario che sia indipendente da ogni possibile oggetto particolare e si riferisca ad una forma a priori incondizionata. Come la conoscenza è universale e necessaria non per il contenuto fornito dall'esperienza, ma per la forma a priori che la riveste; così un'azione assume valore morale non in forza dell'oggetto a cui è rivolta bensì per una forma a priori, una legge pura. Tale forma a priori, tale legge pura, per Kant è l'im- perativo categorico: « obbedisci alla legge per la legge stessa e per ‘ Ivi, pp. 171-174. 124 nessun altro motivo ». L'obbedienza a questo imperativo costituisce l'essenza della morale. « L'essenziale d'ogni determinazione della vo- lontà mediante la legge è: che essa come volontà libera, quindi non solo senza il concorso degli impulsi sensibili, ma anche con l’esclu- sione di tutti quegli impulsi, e con danno di tutte le inclinazioni, in quanto possono essere contrarie a quella legge, venga determinata solo mediante la legge ». Kant, però, è consapevole che la norma dell'imperativo categorico è troppo astratta e indeterminata per costituire una guida valida ed efficace della vita morale, e pertanto suggerisce alcune formule che consentono a chi agisce di verificare se la propria azione sia con- forme all'imperativo categorico o no. Le formule sono le seguenti: Prima: « Agisci in modo che la massima della tua azione possa sempre valere al tempo stesso come principio universale di con- dotta ». Seconda: « Agisci in modo da trattare l'umanità sia nella tua persona che negli altri come fine e mai come mezzo ». Terza: « A- gisci in modo che la tua volontà possa considerare se stessa come istituente una legislazione universale », ossia agisci secondo mas- sime tali che la volontà d'ogni uomo, in quanto volontà legislatrice universale le possa approvare. f) Etica dei valori o assiologia? - Da alcuni autori (Meinong, Hart- mann, Scheler, ecc.) il tentativo di Kant di uscire dal soggettivismo facendo appello ad un principio a priori non è ritenuto valido, e que- sto per due ragioni. Prima, perché deriva il criterio dell’imperativo categorico esclusivamente da un dettame della coscienza indivi- duale. Seconda, perché prescinde completamente dal contenuto delle azioni. Al fine di restituire obiettività al criterio supremo della mo- rale essi si richiamano alla tradizione classica, la quale come s'è visto, assegna la funzione di norma suprema della morale al bene. Questo però viene da loro concepito non tanto come fine ultimo quanto come valore. Di qui il nome della loro etica. Il massimo esponente di questa concezione del fondamento della morale è Max Scheler. Nell'opera Formalismo nell'etica e l'etica ma- teriale dei valori egli fa vedere che la critica kantiana all'etica ma- teriale può valere soltanto se riferita a dei beni particolari, ma non vale se riferita al bene inteso come valore. Questo infatti non è per nulla un dato empirico come pretende Kant, ma qualcosa di as- soluto. Il valore, precisa Scheler, è l'oggetto proprio dell'etica così come l’essere è l'oggetto della metafisica, il bello dell'estetica, il sacro della religione, il fatto della storia. E pertanto come per la percezione del bello, del sacro, dell'essere, ecc., si danno organi specifici, simil- mente l’anima possiede un organo particolare per la percezione del valore. Quest'organo non è né la fantasia, né il senso, né la ragione, ® I KANT, Critica deîla ragion pratica, Laterza, Bari 1924, p. 87. $ B. MONDIN, vol. 1I, pp. 320-326. ? L'etica dei valori (o assiologia) è trattata più ampiamente nel cap. XIV. 125 Le tre massime universali di Kant L’etica dei valori: recupero del contenuto delle azioni Scheler: il valore - oggetto della morale L’apprensione emozionale come sentimento intenzionale I valori della persona e i valori delle cose Relativismo morale e gnoseologia scettica ma qualcosa di diverso, che Scheler chiama « organo emozionale ». L'organo emozionale che ci pone a contatto col valore si articola in un « sentire » che coglie i singoli valori, in un « preferire » che ne stabilisce la gerarchia, e in un « amare » che precede il sentire e il preferire nella ricerca di nuovi valori, « come un pioniere e una guida ». Siffatta apprensione emozionale non ha nulla a che vedere con la sensibilità empirica, perché il valore è una qualità che sussi- ste del tutto indipendentemente, non una proprietà connessa sostan- zialmente con l'oggetto che ne è il portatore; tanto è vero, osserva Scheler, che la « sfumatura di valore » di un oggetto, ad esempio il carattere simpatico o antipatico di una persona, è colto prima an- cora che si colga distintamente l'oggetto stesso. E neppure si tratta di un sentimento psicologico, bensì di un sentimento intenzionale, che è « un originario riferirsi o indirizzarsi a qualcosa di oggettivo », qual è appunto il valore. Determinato il criterio fondamentale dell’etica e la facoltà co- noscitiva atta a riconoscerlo, Scheler passa a considerare quali sono di fatto i valori che l’uomo conosce e con quale ordine gerar- chico si presentano. Scheler distingue due classi di valori: valori di persona {Personwerte) e valori di cosa (Sachwerte). Ovviamente i valori di persona sono quelli che si riferiscono alla persona, e cioè anzitutto il valore dell'essere stesso della persona e poi i valori delle virtù. Invece valori di cosa sono quelli che contribuiscono a formare quelle unità axiologiche cosali costituenti i « beni », siano essi beni materiali (utili o piacevoli), beni vitali (come quelli economici), beni spirituali (come la scienza e l’arte), o siano in genere i beni culturali. Di queste due classi solo la prima abbraccia i valori propriamente etici, perché questi, come già osservava Kant, hanno per portatore essenzialmente la persona. Ciò significa che un'azione, che contri- buisce alla formazione e allo sviluppo della persona, in sede etica, merita d'essere giudicata positivamente; mentre invece un'azione che danneggia la persona va giudicata negativamente. g) Relativismo e situazionismo - Con questi due termini si designa una teoria etica, la quale si sforza di dimostrare che le esigenze morali sono determinate da condizioni mutevoli dalle quali derivano, per tali esigenze, contenuti non solo diversi ma anche in parte con- traddittori, cosicché è logico pensare che nessuna istanza morale può essere veramente vincolante. Il relativismo morale come pure il situazionismo si presentano in due forme principali. La prima forma è a base gnoseologica e ha avuto diffusione anche di là dal campo dell'etica filosofica e délla stessa scienza. I suoi principali sostenitori si trovano tra i sofisti, gli scettici, i nominalisti. La seconda forma è a base ontologica: è il relativismo proprio del materialismo storico elaborato da Marx e da Engels. In entrambe queste forme di relativismo, proprio perché si nega 126 l'esistenza di un criterio supremo della moralità, qualsiasi discorso etico diviene arbitrario e, in ultima analisi, privo di senso. A questa conclusione è giunta ultimamente anche la corrente filo- sofica del neopositivismo, in base a considerazioni che a prima vista sono di ordine linguistico, ma guardando a fondo, sono di ordine gno- seologico: si tratta sempre di una concezione empiristica e quindi relativistica della conoscenza umana. I neopositivisti e i loro discendenti, gli analisti del linguaggio, ritengono errata l'impostazione tradizionale della filosofia morale come del resto anche di tutte le altre parti della filosofia. La que- stione primaria e specifica della filosofia in ogni suo settore non è esaminare contenuti e tanto meno stabilirli, bensì studiare il lin- guaggio con cui vengono espressi. Pertanto, per quanto concerne l’e- tica, il compito del filosofo non è di ricercare il criterio supremo della moralità, ma di esaminare il linguaggio proprio della morale al fine di determinarne il vero significato. Secondo i neopositivisti il linguaggio della morale non può avere significato oggettivo, perché non si può controllarlo mediante la « verifica sperimentale »: esso esprime disposizioni soggettive di chi parla oppure è teso a suscitare determinate disposizioni sogget- tive di chi ascolta. È pertanto un linguaggio che ha un valore essen- zialmente emotivo. I filosofi della corrente analitica ritengono arbitraria e falsa la teoria neopositivista del linguaggio, in quanto privilegia indebita- mente un tipo di linguaggio, quello delle scienze sperimentali, ad e- sclusione di tutti gli altri. Il linguaggio modello a loro avviso non è quello scientifico bensì quello ordinario. Il significato e il valore degli altri linguaggi va determinato mettendoli a confronto col lin- guaggio ordinario. L'esito di questo confronto per quanto concerne il linguaggio morale varia da autore ad autore. C'è peraltro una tendenza a riconoscerne il valore oggettivo ed universale.! 3. Il problema etico ha delle soluzioni? Il quadro che ci presenta la storia della filosofia morale è indub- biamente uno dei più sconcertanti: all'uomo che ha bisogno di di- rettive sicure per le sue azioni e di un'indicazione precisa sul senso e il significato ultimo della sua esistenza esso offre i suggerimenti più diversi e contraddittori. Che significa tutto questo? Forse, che ci tro- viamo davanti a problemi insolubili? Molti filosofi, tra cui alcuni anche di ispirazione cristiana, pensano di sì. Noi non siamo di questo parere. Ammettiamo senz'altro che an- che per la morale come per je aitre parti della filosofia sia impossibile ottenere soluzioni dogmatiche, si tratta in effetti di problemi estre- 1° Per il problema del linguaggio vedi cap, III 127 Neopositivismo: determinazione del senso del linguaggio morale Analisi del linguaggio: l'assunzione del linguaggio ordinario come modello Impossibilità di una soluzione dogmatica Esigenza della correlazione antropologica, metafisica e teologica naturale Rapporto tra valore e volontà mamente difficili, la cui soluzione si raggiunge soltanto per la tor- tuosa via della speculazione. Ma ciò non toglie che tale speculazione possa avere esiti positivi e conseguire soluzioni valide. Per raggiungere questo traguardo però occorre sviluppare l'etica su basi teoretiche sufficientemente sicure, derivandole dall’antropo- logia, dalla metafisica e dalla teologia naturale. Una morale autono- ma, totalmente disgiunta dalla metafisica e dalla teologia naturale e indipendente dalla filosofia dell'uomo, così come la concepisce Kant, sfocia necessariamente nel soggettivismo e nel relativismo. D'altronde è inammissibile che si possa dare autonomia etica per un essere come l'uomo, un essere finito, creato da Dio, dal quale riceve oltre all'esistenza, anche lo scopo della sua vita e le regole e i mezzi per conseguirlo. Pertanto la morale è essenzialmente legata alla metafisica e tale nesso si coglie bene nel concetto di valore. La morale, come dicono molti autori, è la scienza dei valori e il suo obiettivo è di promuovere valori come la giustizia, la carità, la pace, la speranza, la sapienza, la modestia, ecc. Ma che cosa sono essenzialmente questi valori? Qual è il loro fondamento? Forse il capriccio individuale? È la volontà umana che stabilisce che cosa è bene, cosa è giusto, cosa è vero, cosa è puro, o è la realtà stessa che porta con sé questi caratteri? La riflessione metafisica può mostrare che è la realtà stessa che pos- siede questi valori. D'altra parte il concetto di valore dice rapporto ad una volontà (valore è la caratteristica per cui una cosa è degna d'essere voluta). Ciò significa che la realtà è in quanto tale voluta; « vuol dire che all'origine delle cose c'è una Volontà intelligente, vuol dire che il supremo Essere, quello da cui procede ogni realtà, è volontà intelligente ».!! Su queste basi metafisiche si può innalzare un edificio morale sufficientemente robusto, universalmente valido e, allo stesso tem- po, solidamente ancorato alla realtà concreta e alla storia. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Problema critico; problema teoretico — Edonismo; utilitarismo; stoicismo; formalismo etico; etica dei valori o assiologia; relativismo o situazionismo — Apatia; imperativo categorico SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA . I. CARATTERI DEL PROBLEMA 1. L'etica o morale è lo studio dell’attività umana con riferimento al suo fine ultimo, ovvero la sua piena realizzazione. 2. Il problema riveste due aspetti o prospettive: a) critico (fondamento e 4! S. VANNI ROVIGHI, Articolo citato, p. 292. 128 valore dei codici, dei principi, delle norme); b) teoretico {condizioni che ren- dono possibile l'azione morale in assoluto). II. LA PROSPETTIVA CRITICA 1. Si impone da sé a partire dalle norme e dalle leggi che i membri di una società devono osservare. Si pongono i seguenti interrogativi: Chi le ha stabi- lite? Che valore hanno? Si possono cambiare? Chi ha diritto di farlo? ecc. 2. I Sofisti, a motivo delle diversità presenti nei vari popoli, ritengono che le norme etiche siano determinate dalle convenzioni sociali e che i giovani deb- bano essere educati ad esse. 3. Socrate, al contrario, afferma che le norme e i principi etici hanno il loro fondamento nella natura umana e l'educazione pertanto non è finalizzata all’ap- prendimento, bensì alla presa di coscienza di ciò che è innato. 4. Nel corso dei secoli il convenzionalismo avrà i suoi sostenitori negli epicurei, scettici, nominalisti, in Cartesio, negli empiristi, neopositivisti, esisten- zialisti e marxisti. Il naturalismo sarà invece condiviso da Platone, Aristotele, Plotino, dai neoplatonici, dagli scolastici, dagli idealisti, dai neorealisti e dai neotomisti, III. LA PROSPETTIVA TEORETICA 1. Prima condizione trascendentale dell'azione morale è concordemente ritenuta dai filosofi la libertà. La questione aperta da Aristotele «(Etica nico- machea), è stata approfondita da s. Tommaso, da Cartesio e da Kant. 2. Seconda condizione trascendentale è la consapevolezza o coscienza. L'assenza di essa può essere determinata da: a) errore circa ciò che si fa; b) mancanza di facoltà raziocinativa o impedimento momentaneo del suo uso. 3. Terza condizione trascendentale è che la libertà sia guidata da un princi- pio direttivo. Una libertà assoluta (Nietzsche e Sartre) diviene libertà amorale. 4. Circa il criterio supremo della moralità si prospettano due concezioni: la teleologica (basata sul principio del fine); la deontologica (basata sul prin- cipio del dovere) con delle diversificazioni al proprio interno; una terza posi- zione, dettata da orientamenti relativistici, è quella situazionale (leggi e fini mutano attraverso i tempi, i luoghi, le circostanze). Le specificazioni interne ai due criteri sono: — edonismo (Sofisti, Cirenaici, Epicurei, Montaigne, Hobbes, Helvetius, Bentham, Stuart Mill, Freud): criterio supremo è il piacere sensibile, con il quale si identifica il bene morale; — utilitarismo: criterio supremo è l’utile, l'interesse, il vantaggio. Esso si distingue in: a) utilitarismo egoistico (Hobbes) che fa valere come criterio l'utilità e l'interesse del singolo; b) utilitarismo altruistico (Bacone, Locke, Hume, Stuart Mill, Russell) il quale tende a far coincidere la realizzazione del- l'utile individuale con quello della collettività; — eudemonismo (Aristotele, S. Tommaso): criterio supremo è la Felicità: un'azione è morale nella misura in cui fa conseguire la felicità, che esprime la piena realizzazione della persona; — stoicismo: criterio supremo è la pratica della virtù. La prospettiva, già presente in Platone (Gorgia, Repubblica, Fedone) è maggiormente sviluppata dagli Stoici, secondo i quali la pratica della virtù consiste nell’apatia (annulla- mento delle passioni e superamento della propria personalità). L'ascetismo, che caratterizza la morale stoica, ha fatto sì che essa fosse ben accetta dalla Chiesa primitiva; — formalismo etico: il criterio supremo sta nell'esecuzione del dovere e nell'’obbedienza alla legge. Ciò che conta è soprattutto la forma, cioè l’obbe- dienza alla legge (cfr. Kant, Critica della Ragion pratica). — etica dei valori o assiologia {Meinong, Hartmann, Scheler): esprime anzitutto una critica nei confronti del formalismo etico kantiano e si richiama 129 alla tradizione classica, assegnando al bene Ja funzione di norma suprema. Il bene è concepito però come valore più che fine ultimo. Scheler in Formalismo nell’etica e l'etica materiale dei valori afferma che il valore è l'oggetto dell'etica così come l'essere lo è della metafisica, il bello dell’arte, il sacro della religione. L'anima possiede pertanto un organo specifico per percepirlo, che Scheler chiama « organo emozionale » che « sente » i singoli valori, li « preferisce » gerarchicamente e « ama », ovvero ricerca valori nuovi, come « un pioniere e una guida ». Scheler distingue inoltre i valori di persona e i valori di cosa. — relativismo e situazionismo: secondo tali concezioni le esigenze morali sono determinate da condizioni mutevoli dalle quali derivano contenuti non solo diversi ma anche in parte contraddittori: a) la forma a base gnoseologica (sofisti, scettici, nominalisti) ha avuto dif- fusione anche al di là del campo dell'etica e della scienza. b) la forma a base ontologica è quella propria del materialismo storico elaborato da Marx ed Engels. Il relativismo è oggi condiviso dai neopositivisti e dagli analisti del linguaggio. IV. ETICA E METAFISICA 1. È impossibile per il problema etico trovare soluzioni dogmatiche, ma è possibile avere esiti positivi e conseguire soluzioni valide. 2. È necessario pertanto reperire basi teoretiche sufficientemente sicure nell'antropologia, nella metafisica, nella teologia naturale. 3. Il nesso tra etica e metafisica si coglie nel concetto di valore. La rifles- sione metafisica, infatti, può mostrare che è la realtà stessa che possiede i va- lori, mentre il concetto di valore rivela che c'è un rapporto tra realtà e volontà (cioè che una cosa è degna di essere voluta: quindi la realtà in quanto tale è degna di essere voluta). QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Come si configura il nostro orizzonte culturale in ordine all’antropolo- gia, alla metafisica, alla teologia e conseguentemente all'etica? 2. Che cosa studia la morale? 3. Che cosa si intende per prospettiva critica e teoretica della morale? 4. Qual è il compito del filosofo riguardo alla morale? 5. Su che cosa si fondano i codici morali? Qual è l'opinione dei massimi filosofi al riguardo? 6. Quali sono i principali tipi della morale filosofica? Che cosa si intende per edonismo, utilitarismo, eudemonismo, formalismo etico? 7. Che cosa rappresenta la libertà per la morale? 8. Quali sono le condizioni essenziali dell'atto morale? 9. Che cos'è l’etica dei valori? 10. Qual è il fine ultimo della vita umana secondo i massimi filosofi? 11. Quali dovrebbero essere i termini di una correlazione tra scienza ed etica? . 12. In che relazioni si trovano morale e religione, morale e metafisica, mo- rale e arte, morale e politica? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI AA.Vv., Valori morali e democrazia, Massimo, Milano 1986. ARISTOTELE, Etica nicomachea, Laterza, Bari 1973. 130 BAUSOLA A., Filosofia morale: lineamenti, Celuc Libri, Milano. BourKkE V.J., Storia dell’etica, Armando, Roma 1972. CaLoceRo G., Etica giuridica, politica, Einaudi, Torino 1946. CAPOGRASSI G., Introduzione alla vita etica, Studium, Roma 1977. CHIaVvACCI E., Introduzione all'etica sociale, Studium, Roma 1966. CoMPostTA D., Morale fondamentale ed etica sociale, Urbaniana University Press, Roma 1983. CROCE B., Etica e politica, Laterza, Bari 1981. DE FINANCE J., Etica generale, Del Circito, Bari 1975. GREGOIRE F., Le grandi dottrine morali, Guida, Napoli 1969. HARE R.H., Il linguaggio della morale, Ubaldini, Roma 1971. HARTMANN N., Etica, 3 voll., Guida, Napoli 1972. JoLIvET R., Trattato di filosofia: Morale, Morcelliana, Brescia 1956. MARITAIN J., La filosofia morale, Morcelliana, Brescia 1971. Ip., Nove lezioni sulle prime nozioni della filosofia morale, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1979. MELCHIORRE U., Corso di filosofia morale, C.U.S.L., Milano. MoorE G.E., Principia ethica, Bompiani, Milano 1964. PIZZORNI R., Giustizia e carità, Città Nuova, Roma 1980. RIONDATO E., Ricerche di filosofia morale, Liviana, Padova. ROSMINI A., Compendio di etica, Sodalitas, Stresa. SAVATER F., Invito all'etica, Sellerio, Palermo 1984. SIMON R., Morale, Paideia, Brescia 1970. SPIAZZI R., Etica sociale, La Guglia, Roma 1978. WARNOCK G., Filosofia morale contemporanea, Armando, Roma 1974. 131 Educazione: esigenza dell’uomo di realizzare le sue infinite capacità Solo gli esseri umani possono acquisire mediante insegnamento e apprendimento: ciò è l'educazione Interazione tra discorso filosofico e quello sull'educazione Capitolo decimo a ee IL PROBLEMA PEDAGOGICO QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Qual è il significato etimologico dei termini « pedagogia » ed « educa- zione »? 2. Che cosa dovrebbe caratterizzare in modo particolare l'educazione? 3. L'educazione è un'azione o una relazione? 1. La pedagogia come teoria pratica Pedagogia è una parola di derivazione greca, che significa « arte di guidare il fanciullo » ed è generalmente usata come sinonimo di « scienza dell'educazione ». L'educazione è un dato di fatto che non ha mai cessato di esistere. Si tratta, in effetti, di un'esigenza fondamentale dell’uomo il quale nasce con sconfinate capacità di agire ma senza l'abilità di realiz- zarle. Egli deve apprendere dagli altri come esplicare le sue capa- cità: come nutrirsi, camminare, parlare, leggere, scrivere, lavorare, ecc. Il fenomeno dell'educazione è tipicamente umano. Solo l'uomo può e deve educarsi; nel mondo animale è possibile tutt'al più un addestramento. Questo perché, mentre l’animale è un essere già « specializzato » sin dalla nascita, dotato istintivamente di determi- nate abilità e soltanto di quelle, l'essere umano è, invece, inizialmen- te privo di qualsiasi specializzazione, ma con la capacità di acquisire, mediante l'insegnamento e l'apprendimento (vale a dire tramite l’e- ducazione) le specializzazioni più disparate: nel cibo, nel vestito, nel lavoro, nello studio, nello sport, nella religione, nell'arte, ecc. Mediante l’opera educativa esso si specializza e, conseguentemente, si individualizza, diventa un « io ». In tal modo acquista una per- sonalità che, tra l’altro, è in continua evoluzione e maturazione. Naturalmente la concezione che si ha dell'educazione dipende dal- la concezione che si ha dell’uomo e del suo destino, cioè, come af- ferma il Laberthonnière « esiste tra l'educazione e la concezione che si ha della vita un rapporto che dovrebbe essere impossibile contestare ».! È quindi evidente il necessario rapporto che esiste tra il discorso filosofico ed il discorso sull'educazione. Quest'ultimo è ! L. LABERTHONNIÈRE, Teoria dell'educazione, La Scuola, Brescia 1965, p. 3. 132 il logico coronamento dei discorso antropologico ed etico: dopo che sì è compreso chi è l'uomo e quai è il traguardo ultimo della vita umana, si pone necessariamente il problema di come guidarlo alla conquista di tale traguardo. La pedagogia è, dunque, una teoria pratica, € cioè « una teoria che ha per oggetto di riflettere sui sistemi e sui procedimenti di edu- cazione al fine di valutarne il valore, con ciò illuminando e dirigendo l’azione degli educatori ». La pedagogia è nata come esigenza delle persone e dei pcpoli per due motivi. In primo luogo, perché sarebbe rischioso lasciare l’edu- cazione esclusivamente all'istinto e alla tradizione. in secondo luogo, perché lo stesso pensiero, cercando di spiegare l’esistenza del- l'uomo ed il suo impegno etico, ha dovuto necessariamente incon- trarsi con la realtà educativa. 2. Autcnomia della scienza pedagogica e interdisciplina- rietà L'evoluzione della cultura ha contribuito alla configurazione an- che della pedagogia come scienza autonoma. Nelle civiltà antiche le varie cognizioni sulla realtà costituivano un sapere indifferenziato, identificato generalmente con la filosofia, di cui faceva parte anche la pedagogia. Nel Medioevo questa venne assorbita dalla teologia. Solo dopo la fine del Medioevo, con l’ap- profondirsi delie diverse conoscenze, le scienze acquistarono pro- gressivamente la loro autonomia rispetto sia alla filosofia che alla teologia. Nell'antichità vediamo pertanto che la pedagogia è considerata come parte della politica, la quale a sua volta è vista come ramo della filosofia morale. Infatti, l'ideale educativo dei greci e dei ro- mani era la formazione dell'uomo in quanto cittadino. Aristotele afferma che, essendo uno solo il fine della comunità politica, « è ma- nifesta la necessità che l'educazione sia una sola e identica per tutti, e che la cura di essa sia affidata allo Stato e non ai privati »? La rivoluzione intellettuale, morale e sociale operata dal cristia- nesimo portò in primo piano il problema etico-religioso. Per questo motivo, anche la pedagogia non fa più parte della politica, ma di- venta un capitolo della morale teologica durante tutto il Medioevo. Con l’umanesimo e il Rinascimento l'ideale educativo non è più il perfetto cittadino o il santo, ma l'uomo colto. Gli studi filosofici si approfondiscono e influenzano anche la pedagogia, che sente sempre più l'esigenza di un'impostazione di carattere filosofico evi- ? A. LALANDE, Dizionario critico di filosofia, ISEDI, Milano 1971, p. 620, 3 ARISTOTELE, Politica VII, c. 1. 133 La pedagogia come taoria pratica Con l'evaluzione della cultura la pedagogia è divenuta scienza autonoma Oggi la pedagogia, che rappresenta l'educazione dell’uomo, si vale di scienze ausiliarie (psicologia, etica, biologia, sociologia) Prospettiva integrale e autonomia della pedagogia Pedagogia e destino dell'uomo tando peraltro qualsiasi subordinazione ad altre discipline filo- sofiche. Oggi, l'affermarsi delle scienze positive sta influenzando anche il campo pedagogico. Si riconosce che se la pedagogia riguarda es- senzialmente l’uomo, è necessario un contributo di tutte le scienze; ma non per questo essa deve essere considerata una sintesi oppure un aggregato di varie scienze, « un ammasso più o meno incoerente di ricette », come afferma il Mialaret.* Senza dubbio, la pedagogia è una scienza dell'uomo, ma ha vn ambito -specifico diverso da quello delle altre scienze: l'educazione dell'uomo. Le scienze che maggiormente concorrono alla conoscenza dell'uomo e costituiscono pertanto il necessario presupposto della pedagogia sono la psicologia, l'antropologia, l'etica, la biologia e la sociologia. Queste, che sono chiamate « scienze ausiliarie » della pedagogia, sono importanti nella scienza della educazione perché, considerando l'uomo nella sua evoluzione verso una maturazione fisico-biologica, psicologica e sociale, affrontano problemi e acqui- siscono cognizioni che sono di importanza capitale per l’impostazio- ne dell’opera educativa. In effetti, se lo scopo dell'educazione è la liberazione totale dell'educando, il raggiungimento di tale fine si verifica tenendo conto delle situazioni biologiche, psicologiche, an- tropologiche, sociologiche e storiche vissute concretamente dal sog- getto. Inoltre, se l'educazione dev'essere integrale, cioè riguardante sia l'aspetto materiale che spirituale dell'uomo, deve mutuare prin- cipi, criteri, metodi dalla filosofia, dall’etica, dall’estetica, ecc., a se- conda dei problemi specifici che deve affrontare nel suo ambito. La pedagogia è quindi una scienza autonoma, pur esigendo un ap- prodo interdisciplinare. Di tutte le discipline, la filosofia è quella che dà il massimo con- tributo al costituirsi della scienza pedagogica. Perché? Abbiamo affermato precedentemente che la pedagogia è il logico coronamento dell'antropologia (la quale spiega chi è l'essere u- mano) e della morale (la quale stabilisce il fine ultimo della vita umana); conseguentemente l'educazione è sempre, necessariamente condizionata da una visione dell'uomo e del destino umano. Infatti, come già s'è detto, « specialmente riguardo all'uomo, di cui le scienze studiano molteplici aspetti, sono molti i problemi che nes- suna di esse affronta (mentre li suppone già risolti), come il valore della vita e della conoscenza umana, la natura del male, l'origine e il valore della legge morale. Di questi problemi si occupa soltanto la filosofia ». Esistono tuttora due posizioni opposte per ciò che riguarda il rapporto tra pedagogia e filosofia: coloro che identificano le due * G. MIALARET, Introduzione alla pedagogia, Armando, Roma 1970, p. 9. 5 B. MONDIN, vol. I, p. 8. 134 scienze, considerando la pedagogia una semplice appendice della filosofia e coloro che, al contrario, negano qualsiasi discorso filo- nell’ambito della pedagogia. Riteniamo queste posizioni er- rate, perché ogni corrente filosofica trae dai suoi principi una propria pedagogia ed ogni pedagogia ha come fondamento una data imposta- zione filosofica. Ma la pedagogia ha un campo di ricerca suo proprio, e dispone di metodi e criteri specifici che non sono quelli più gene- rali della filosofia. Ed è pertanto da considerarsi come ambito spe- cifico della ricerca filosofica, alla pari dell'etica e della politica. 3. Soggetto e finalità delia pedagogia La pedagogia moderna, capovolgendo il rapporto tradizionale tra maestro e discepolo, ha affermato il ruolo primario di quest'ultimo nel processo della sua educazione e di fronte al maestro stesso. Il moderno pensiero pedagogico ha coniato la espressione rivoluzione copernicana dell'educazione per indicare il sostanziale mutamento avvenuto nel rapporto tra educatore ed educando, derivando tale lo- cuzione dal capovolgimento della relazione Terra-Sole operata da Copernico. Che cosa significa « rivoluzione copernicana dell'educazione »? Come Copernico in campo astronomico aveva rivoluzionato la concezione tolemaica della centralità della terra nel sistema solare, affermando la centralità del sole rispetto a tutti i pianeti del sistema solare, così, in campo pedagogico, non è più il maestro il perno del- l'azione educativa, ma il discepolo, alle cui esigenze il maestro deve adeguarsi, cercando di scoprirle e facendo in modo che egli si auto- promuova. In questa prospettiva, l’attore e l'autore primario nel processo educativo è il fanciullo stesso (puerocentrismo). Il sogget- to quindi dell'educazione è certamente l'educando, come essere at- tivo, personale ed originale; ma è bene precisare che per « educando » non si deve intendere esclusivamente il bambino, il ragazzo, il gio- vane, ma l'uomo, perché l'educazione non ha mai termine, né limiti di età, ma continua per tutta la vita (da questo è derivato il con- cetto di educazione permanente). Soggetto allora dell'educazione è l’uomo, ma egli è persona ed è tale nella misura in cui realizza la propria personalità. Attingendo dalle affermazioni della scienza psicologica, soffermiamoci un mo- mento su quest'ultimo concetto. La personalità dell’uomo è la risultanza di elementi nativi, ere- ditari e di elementi acquisiti mediante la propria esperienza. Co- munque, tali strutture sono dinamiche e non rigidamente definibili e quindi la personalità è una realtà « plastica », dinamica, determi- nantesi con atteggiamenti differenziati a seconda delle situazioni che l'individuo incontra e vive concretamente. L'uomo non è determi- nato (almeno non lo è totalmente) dalla sua struttura originaria, 135 Nel rapporto ira filosofia e pedagogia questa ha un ambito specifico di ricerca La ‘‘rivoluzione copernicana” in pedagogia: l’educando come protagonista (puerocentrismo) Educazione permanente per la continua realizzazione della personalità umana L’educazione dura tutta la vita Promozione a autopromozione dell’individuo: aspetto personale Aspetto sociale: relazione interpersonale e convivenza con gli altri Aspetto culturale: trasmissione dei valori e custodia della civiltà dalla sua essenza, ma può anche migliorare, peggiorare o, comunque, cambiare. E se c'è sempre una possibilità di mutamento, allora è valido quanto già detto: l'educazione dura per tutta la vita. Ciò che si è detto a proposito del soggetto dell'educazione con- sente di esaminare le finalità di un certo tipo di processo educativo che permette ad ogni individuo di giungere allo sviluppo della pro- pria personalità. ‘4. I tre aspetti fondamentali dell'educazione L'educazione, dal punto di vista teoretico e scientifico, presenta tre aspetti fondamentali: personale, sociale e culturale. a) Personale: perché l’educando è una persona e non una cosa od un oggetto; è soggetto dotato di attività, di personalità e di creati- vità. Egli pensa ed agisce seguendo energie interiori. L'educazione dunque deve promuovere o meglio fare in modo che l'individuo si autopromuova. Rimandiamo qui al concetto di maieutica socratica già espresso nel Corso di storia della filosofia Come è la madre che genera il bambino e l’ostetrica l’aiuta soltanto a darlo alla luce, così il vero educatore non comunica la « verità », ma mette l’educando nelle condizioni di trovare la risposta da sé. Innanzitutto, quindi, l'educazione è autopromozione della personalità del soggetto che si educa... b) Sociale: e questo sia come fatto che come obiettivo. Anzitutto come fatto perché l'educazione è un evento eminentemente inter- personale e sociale, perché coinvolge quanto meno due persone, l’e- ducando e l'educatore. In secondo luogo, come obiettivo perché tra le finalità primarie che l’opera educativa si propone è inclusa quella di far conoscere gli altri e di abituare a vivere insieme con essi, in loro armonia, per la realizzazione di un bene superiore comune a tutti. L'educazione pertanto « socializza » il singolo, perché « la no- stra vita personale si esplica in una vita sociale. Certo ci può essere una vita sociale che al limite ignora o soffoca la vita personale ed è questo che va evitato ».’ Il fine primario dell'educazione lo si ottiene operando sui singoli soggetti e non sul gruppo. Però è necessario an- che l'apporto del gruppo, che spesso opera inconsciamente, per me- glio sviluppare l'educazione del singolo. Anzi in molti stati, oggi l'e- ducazione è attuata operando sul gruppo, e in tal modo si raggiun- gono anche i singoli. c) Culturale: perché l'educazione trasmette alla persona i valori culturali elaborati dall'umanità nel corso delle generazioni, tra- 6 Ivi, p. 70. ? C. PERUCCI, in Educare, U.C.L.I.M., Varese 1572, p. 67. 136 sformando un essere incolto in un essere che può contribuire al progresso della civiltà in cui è nato. È evidente che questi tre aspetti della educazione sono interagenti poiché formare la personalità del soggetto significa promuovere la socialità e, trasmettendo la cultura e la civiltà, l'educazione fa parte- cipe il soggetto dei progressi dell'umanità stessa. In conclusione, la finalità educativa consiste: in primo luogo nella realizzazione della personalità intesa come affermazione della individualità e originalità di ognuno; in secondo luogo nella capa- cità di partecipazione alla vita sociale. Tale centralità della persona e dell'individuo non ha sempre costituito l'ideale educativo in’ seno alle varie civiltà: Infatti, ciò che attualmente secondo un certo si- stema politico e filosofico si apprezza ed esalta come individuale, era per i greci un aspetto negativo. 5. Autoeducazione ed eteroeducazione Tenendo presente il fine da realizzare si possono distinguere due concezioni radicalmente opposte dell'educazione. Da una parte si afferma che educare un fanciullo vuol dire ren- derlo conforme ad un modello prestabilito, per cui il fine dell'educa- zione è posto fuori dal fanciullo (= eteroeducazione) e l'educazione si risolve in un adattamento delle disposizioni del fanciullo ad un ordine preesistente, di fatto o di diritto. Dall'altra parte si dice che educare significa permettere al fan- ciullo di sviluppare tutto ciò ch'egli ha in se stesso (autoeducazione), per cui il fine è il fanciullo stesso e l'educazione mira a favorire la realizzazione della sua personalità ed il suo armonico sviluppo. L'eteroeducazione si fonda sul presupposto che le strutture con- crete della civiltà attuale (sociali, economiche, morali, religiose, ecc.) impongano di adattare il fanciullo in modo che da adulto possa age- volmente integrarsi in esse, per cui un'educazione sarà ritenuta va- lida se riuscirà ad adattare l’uomo all'ordine stabilito, considerato come assoluto, sia esso la classe sociale, la chiesa, lo stato. In questo caso l’educatore rivelerà le sue doti nella misura in cui la sua abilità tecnica sarà capace di realizzare tale scopo, senza troppe preoccupa- zioni delle esigenze soggettive dei singoli educandi. Per contro, l’autoeducazione mira ad assicurare, per quanto è possibile, l’armonico sviluppo delle varie tendenze e capacità pre- senti nel fanciullo, senza fare appello ad ideali preesisienti. Educa- zione quindi che rifiuta ogni intervento autoritario esterno e lascia alla spontaneità naturale del fanciullo di sviluppare le naturali forze bio-psichiche che operano in lui; all'educazione inoltre è dato il ° A. AGAZZI, Problemi attuali della pedagogia e lineamenti di pedagogia sociale, La Scuola, Brescia, 1968, pp. 9-10. 137 Eterceducazione: confermità a un modello Autoeducazione: armonice sviluppo di tendenze e capacità Interazione di eteroeducazione e autoeducazione compito di preservare il fanciullo stesso dalle influenze che dall’ester- no potrebbero turbare l’armonico sviluppo della personalità. Che dire di queste due opposte concezioni dell'educazione? A nostro avviso un'educazione integrale non può essere né pura- mente estrinsecistica come ritengono i fautori della eteroeducazione, ma neppure semplicemente innatistica come affermano gli assertori dell’autoeducazione. Ma dev'essere l'una e l’altra insieme. Se è vero infatti che una valida educazione non può trascurare i condizionamenti dell'ambiente familiare, sociale, politico, religioso, ecc., è anche vero che il voler considerare tali fattori come assoluti, e riconoscerli come norme intangibili cui sottomettere gli elementi personali dell’educando, è un palese controsenso, date le variabilità e precarietà del cosiddetto « ordine stabilito ». D'altra parte, « che il fanciullo possa spontaneamente e con le sole sue forze, senza l'intervento di un'autorità esterna, disciplinare se stesso e diventare capace di libere scelte, è stato il paradosso di Rousseau, fondato sulla bontà naturale dell'uomo, al quale però lo stesso Rousseau sembrò non concedere molta fiducia quando con- sigliava agli educatori di lasciar credere all'educando di essere lui il padrone, ma di non permettergli di esserlo, di fatto. In definitiva, un sistema educativo che si limiti a rispettare nel fanciullo ciò che l'osservazione psicologica, scientificamente anche la più perfetta e accurata, permette di osservare in lui, non è sufficiente ad edu- carlo veramente »? Autentica educazione dev'essere quindi autoeducazione, perché non è concepibile una maturazione integrale inconsapevole e priva di impegno personale; e dev'essere inoltre eteroeducazione perché la presenza del docente non è solo auspicabile, ma necessaria. Oc- corre, peraltro, tener ben presente che nell'opera di educazione il do- cente non può né deve sostituirsi all’educando; egli è solo la guida e la forza stimolatrice delle energie che devono svilupparsi spontanea- mente dall’interiorità del soggetto (secondo i canoni della maieutica socratica). Nel rapporto educatore-allievo esiste, senza dubbio, un pericolo che occorre assolutamente evitare: quello di « manipo- lare », « foggiare » ed inoltre di distruggere la personalità dell’edu- cando per far emergere quella dell’educatore. Educare significa, in- vece, aiutare ad autodeterminarsi come essere libero, e ciò è possi- bile soltanto attraverso il libero esercizio delle proprie attitudini. 6. L’attivismo pedagogico Tra le tante teorie dell'educazione, l'attivismo è senza dubbio quella che ha suscitato maggior interesse durante il nostro tempo. * A. VALERIANI, « Il problema dell'educazione », in Studio ed insegnamento della filosofia, I, AVE-UCIIM, Roma 1966, pp. 315-316. 138 Essa però ha qualche riferimento nel passato. I Sofisti ritenevano che l'educazione deve essere sottratta ad ogni autoritarismo e dog- matismo. Nel Medioevo viene ripreso talvolta il concetto di sant'Ago- stino, il quale riteneva che l'educazione deve essere un processo au- tonomo di autoeducazione: il maestro comunica solo le parole, ma la vera educazione è « autoeducazione », data da Dio per illumina- zione. Con l’inizio del Rinascimento inizia il superamento delle vecchie tradizioni e con Bacone si ha la prima grande affermazione del carat- tere attivistico del sapere. Comenio, poi, con il suo « naturalismo » e la sua « pansofia » intende dare a tutto il sapere una connessione si- stematica, seguendo gli indirizzi della nuova scienza sperimentale. In Rousseau, infine, sono già presenti le varie motivazioni con cui l'attivismo di oggi giustifica l'introduzione del lavoro nella scuola. L'attivismo pedagogico si presenta come reazione alla pedagogia tradizionale, la quale era di tipo estrinsecistico e teoretico. L'ideale del mondo classico e, generalmente, anche del mondo cristiano, era la vita come attività teoretica, come conoscenza e come contempla- zione. L'educazione consisteva nell’insegnamento di principi, dottri- ne, ideali trascendenti e assoluti. La pedagogia contemporanea ha compiuto un rovesciamento radicale, risolvendo il conoscere nel- l'agire, la verità nel fatto. Ma è necessario subito riconoscere che in quel rovesciamento si ritrovano il valore ed, insieme, i limiti dell'at- tivismo pedagogico contemporaneo: il valore, perché l'ideale del mondo classico non poteva soddisfare la mobilità sociale e l'ansia di attività dell'umanità moderna; i limiti perché molto spesso l'agire viene ridotto ad un semplice fare meccanico, ad un fare per il fare, anche contro le attese degli stessi fautori dell’attivismo. :iA fondamento dell'attivismo sta, come s'è detto, un atteggia- mento di rifiuto del metodo tradizionale. Ma l’attivismo non è sol- tanto protesta: esso è anche proposta, e propone una educazione proiettata verso l'avvenire, quindi dinamica, centrata sul soggetto, quindi aperta ed esistenziale: una scuola attiva sostitutiva di quella passiva.! ‘Applicando i criteri dell'autoeducazione, l’attivismo si pone al servizio delle attitudini, dei bisogni, dei modi di sentire e di agire pro- pri del fanciullo che deve poter liberamente esprimere tutto se stesso ed apprendere quanto sarà utile per sé e per la società nella quale si troverà a vivere da adulto. Da parte sua, l’educatore, anziché in- tervenire per trasmettere un sapere dall'esterno o inculcare principi morali assoluti, è chiamato a fornire all’educando occasioni ed ali- menti al suo appetito di conoscere e di agire, ponendolo a contatto con l’esperienza che è la vera maestra della vita, ad aiutare lo svi- luppo spontaneo della intelligenza e della volontà dell'allievo, se- !° Cfr. A. AGAZZI, « Scuole nuove e attivismo », in Questioni di storia della pedagogia, La Scuola, Brescia 1963, p. 972. 139 L’attivismo pedagogico: reazione alla pedagogia tradizionale L’attivismo come educazione proiettata verso l’avvenire Attivismo e autoeducazione Psicologia, attivisma e scuola nuova Concezione ateo- materialista dell’attivismo guendo le linee dei suoi interessi scientificamente determinati. Ne- cessità, quindi, di muovere dal fanciullo, « ma non dal fanciullo in sé, considerato in astratto, ma dal fanciullo come individuo origi- nale ed unico, dalla ricchezza della sua spontaneità naturale da co- noscere e da dirigere. Lo studio della psicologia sarà pertanto a fon- damento della preparazione e dell’azione dell'educatore e la scuola su misura sarà il nuovo credo didattico del puerocentrismo ».! Le idee dominanti dell’attivismo sono, pertanto, le seguenti: azio- ne, spontaneità, vita. Delle prime due s'è già parlato. Quanto alla terza essa fa parte di un'espressione cara all’attivismo, l’espressione scuola-vita. Secondo l’attivismo la scuola deve preparare alla vita, deve essere essa stessa vita, adeguarvisi e strutturarsi secondo le forme reali della vita. Sulla legittimità dell’attivismo pedagogico ci siamo già implicita- mente pronunciati parlando dell’autoeducazione. Abbiamo escluso che si possa realizzare pienamente il processo educativo col solo me- todo dell'autoeducazione. È un metodo che si fonda su una visione troppo ottimistica dell’uomo, considerato esente da ogni debolezza e da ogni cattiva inclinazione e già intimamente incamminato verso il bene e la virtù. Ma troppo spesso l’attivismo è anche basato su una concezione materialistica ed atea dell’uomo. Questi è visto come creatore d’ogni valore e, allo stesso tempo come il prodotto ultimo dell'evoluzione della materia. Fondate su tali premesse, anche le tesi più interessanti e, in se stesse, legittime, dell’attivismo pedagogico diventano discutibili e sospette. Per acquistare piena legittimità occorre che siano fondate sul riconoscimento dei valori più auten- tici della persona (libertà, spiritualità, immortalità) e sulla realtà di Dio, creatore del mondo, padre di tutti gli uomini, termine ultimo delle nostre più profonde aspirazioni. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Pedagogia come teoria pratica — Liberazione totale; educazione integrale — Rivoluzione copernicana dell'educazione — Aspetto personale, sociale, culturale — Autoeducazione (modo innatistico), eteroeducazione (modo estrinse- cistico) — Attivismo pedagogico SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. LA PEDAGOGIA COME TEORIA PRATICA 1. Il termine pedagogia (« condurre il fanciullo ») indica l’« arte» o la « scienza dell'educazione ». L'educazione esprime l'esigenza dell'uomo che na- ! A. VALERIANI, Op. cit., p. 324. 140 sce con molteplici capacità, ma ha bisogno di essere aiutato a realizzarle nel corso della sua crescita. 2. L'educazione è quindi un fatto propriamente umano. L'uomo si educa, l’animale si addestra. La concezione dell'educazione si ricollega alla concezione che si ha del- l'uomo: il discorso pedagogico è collegato al discorso antropologico e al di- scorso etico. La pedagogia è una teoria pratica, cioè ha per oggetto di riflettere sui si- stemi di educazione per aiutare l’azione degli educatori. II. ‘AUTONOMIA E INTERDISCIPLINARIETÀ DELLA PEDAGOGIA 1. Nelle civiltà antiche la pedagogia faceva parte dei diversi sistemi filo- sofici. Spesso essa è riferita alla politica, che a sua volta dipende dall’etica. L'ideale greco-romano è la formazione dell’uomo in quanto cittadino. 2. Nel Medioevo la pedagogia diventa un capitolo della teologia a motivo del primato assunto dal problema etico-religioso: dal cittadino al santo. 3. Nell'epoca dell'Umanesimo e del Rinascimento l’ideale diviene quello dell'uomo colto. La pedagogia avverte, pertanto, l'esigenza di una imposta- zione di carattere filosofico. ; 4. Nella cultura contemporanea l'affermazione delle scienze positive, ha collocato la pedagogia in una posizione interdisciplinare. La psicologia, l’an- tropologia, l'etica, la biologia e la sociologia si configurano come scienze ausi- liarie della pedagogia, offrendole elementi di integrazione e di approfondi- mento circa gli scopi che le sono propri. 5. L'educazione può avere come scopo: a) la liberazione totale dell’educan- do e necessita del contributo della biologia, della psicologia, dell’antropologia, della sociologia e della storia; b) l'educazione integrale e si dovrà rivolgere alla filosofia, all’etica, all'estetica, ecc. al fine di promuovere sia la dimensione spi- rituale che quella materiale dell’uomo. 6. Il rapporto tra pedagogia e filosofia è visto attraverso due posizioni: a) l’identificazione tra le due scienze; b) la dipendenza della pedagogia dalla filosofia. Una conclusione opportuna appare la seguente: la pedagogia gode di una autonomia nel campo di ricerca, dei metodi e dei criteri. Afonda comunque le sue radici in una determinata visione filosofica, di cui è una ramificazione al pari dell'etica e della politica. III. SOGGETTO E FINALITÀ DELLA PEDAGOGIA 1. La pedagogia moderna è orientata dalla cosiddetta rivoluzione coperni- cana dell’educazione: il perno dell'azione educativa non è più, come nel mondo classico-medioevale, il maestro, bensì il discepolo. 2. La prospettiva puerocentrica guarda all’educando come ad un soggetto attivo, personale e originale. Occorre però ricordare che in senso proprio l’edu- cando è l’uomo nelle diverse tappe della sua vita e che pertanto l'educazione è un fatto permanente, un cammino continuo senza meta terminale. 3. Poiché la persona è la protagonista dell’azione educativa, l'educazione avrà come scopo la formazione della personalità. La personalità è la risultanza di elementi originari, ereditari e acquisiti. Essa è quindi una struttura dinamica e in perenne trasformazione. Compito dell'educazione è di orientare la trasformazione sempre verso la positività. IV. I TRE ASPETTI FONDAMENTALI DELL'EDUCAZIONE1. Aspetto personale dell'educazione: l’educando è una persona, soggetto dotato di attività, personalità e creatività. L'educazione deve promuovere la persona e renderla capace di autopromozione. 2. Aspetto sociale dell'educazione: a) è un fatto perché l'educazione è un 141 evento interpersonale e sociale {rapporto educatore-educando); b) è un obiet- tivo perché l'educazione si propone di formare gli individui alla conoscenza reciproca, alla vita in comune, all'armonia sociale, al bene comune. 3. Aspetto culturale dell'educazione: l'educazione trasmette di generazione in generazione i valori elaborati dall’umanità, facendo di ogni individuo un essere capace di dare il proprio contributo alla civiltà. I tre aspetti sono interagenti; infatti sono propri della finalità educativa sia la realizzazione della personalità e dell’originalità dell'uomo, sia la forma- zione della sua capacità di partecipazione alla vita sociale. V. AUTOEDUCAZIONE E ETEROEDUCAZIONE 1. L'autoeducazione mira ad assicurare l’armonico sviluppo delle varie ten- denze e capacità presenti nel fanciullo senza riferimento ad ideali preesistenti. Rifiuta l'intervento autoritario, promuove la spontaneità e preserva dalle in- fluenze esterne. Tale concezione può anche essere definita innatistica. 2. L'eteroeducazione vuole adattare il soggetto umano alle strutture con- crete sociali, economiche, morali, religiose, ecc. Il processo educativo raggiunge il suo scopo se l'educando saprà adattarsi all'ordine stabilito, considerato come un assoluto {concezione estrinsecistica). 3. Alla concezione innatistica e a quella estrinsecistica si può opportuna- mente opporre quella integrale, per cui il processo educativo fonde le esigenze della libertà e dell'originalità della persona con l’ineliminabile presenza del condizionamento ambientale. L'autoeducazione, pertanto, favorisce una matu- razione integrale e consapevole attraverso l'impegno personale, mentre l’etero- educazione forma nell’educando il senso del limite e gli dà la misura di ciò che significa vivere con gli altri. VI. L'ATTIVISMO PEDAGOGICO 1. La pedagogia contemporanea ha compiuto un rovesciamento radicale, risolvendo il conoscere nell’agire, la verità nel fatto. 2. Il valore dell’attivismo pedagogico, la teoria dell'educazione che ha tro- vato maggiore risonanza nel nostro secolo, sta nel fatto che, puntando sul. l'autoeducazione, stimola la partecipazione attiva dell'educando nell'esperienza scolastica. L'educatore fornisce all'’educando occasioni di esperienza al suo de- siderio di conoscenza e orienta le sue attitudini ed i suoi interessi, individuati scientificamente. 3. Azione, spontaneità e vita sono le idee dominanti dell’attivismo pedago- gico. L'espressione scuola-vita indica, inoltre, la convinzione che la scuola deve adeguarsi e strutturarsi secondo le forme reali della vita. 4. L’attivismo pedagogico si fonda: a) su una antropologia ottimistica che ignora in realtà la debolezza della natura umana; b) su una visione essenzial- ‘mente materialistica ed atea, QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Che cosa si intende per pedagogia? Qual è il significato etimologico di questo termine? 2. Perché l'educazione è un fenomeno tipicamente umano? 3. Quando la pedagogia si è costituita come scienza autonoma? Prima, în quale disciplina era incorporata? 4. Che rapporti intercorrono tra pedagogia e filosofia? 5. Quali sono gli aspetti fondamentali dell'educazione? 6. Che cosa si intende per autoeducazione e per eteroeducazione? 7. Che cosa si esige per una educazione integrale? 142 8. Che cos'è l’attivismo pedagogico? Quali sono i pregi e i limiti di questo metodo educativo? 9. Quali contraddizioni pedagogiche e strutturali ostacolano nell’ordina- mento scolastico attuale una educazione integrale della persona? 10. Quali implicazioni si possono individuare tra pedagogia e formazione della coscienza democratica? 11. Nel nostro tempo quali sono le esigenze emergenti per una individua- zione di opportuni obiettivi educativi in vista di un progetto-uomo aperto al secondo millennio? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI AA.Vv., Questioni di storia della pedagogia, La Scuola, Brescia 1963. ABBAGNANO N.-VISALBERGHI A., Linee di storia della pedagogia, Paravia, To- rino 1959, 3 voll. AGAZZI A., Problemi dell'educazione e della pedagogia, Vita e Pensiero, Mi- lano 1979. BARONI A., Pedagogia moderna, Studium, Roma 1960. BERTOLINI P., Pedagogia e scienze umane, C.L.U.E.B., Bologna 1983. Boy W., Storia dell'educazione occidentale, Armando, Roma 1960. CaRBONI-ZEPPA-MONDIN, Pedagogia, storia e problemi, 3 voll., Massimo, Mi- lano 1975. CasoTTI M., Scuola attiva, La Scuola, Brescia 1962. DE BARTOLOMEIS F., Pedagogia come scienza, La Nuova Italia, Firenze 1976. DEWEy J., Il mio credo pedagogico, La Nuova Italia, Firenze 1950. FLorES D'ARCAIS G., Discorso educativo e discorso pedagogico, 2 voll., Li- viana, Padova. FoERSTER F.W., I compiti essenziali dell'educazione, Herder, Roma 1961. GIUGNI G., Significato e dimensione dell'educazione nella società contem- poranea, SEI, Torino 1974. MARITAIN J., Educazione al bivio, La Scuola, Brescia 1966. MIALARET G., Introduzione alla pedagogia, Armando, Roma 1970. PERETTI M., Cultura, pedagogia, educazione cristiana, La Scuola, Brescia. SCURATI C., La pedagogia oggi e le principali correnti, Esperienze, Fossano 1971. STEFANINI L., Personalismo educativo, Bocca, Roma 1955. Viotto P., Per una filosofia dell'educazione secondo J. Maritain, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1985. VoLPICELLI L., L'educazione contemporanea, 2 voll, Armando, Roma 1964. 143 Socialità e politicità dell’uomo Preminenza del problema politico e sociale nel nostro tempo Origine, fondamento e fine dello Stato Capitolo undicesimo IL PROBLEMA POLITICO E SOCIALE QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. L'uomo ha bisogno degli altri per vivere o è autosufficiente? 2. Qual è lo scopo del vivere associato? 3. Da che cosa nasce la realtà sociale e politica dell'uomo? Come deve es- sere regolato il rapporto uomo-libertà-bene-utile-società-Stato? 4. Che rapporto c'è tra politica e morale. È possibile considerarle separate? 1. I termini del problema L'uomo è un essere vivente atto a una vita sociale e politica, come aveva già osservato Aristotele nella sua Politica. Nelle condi- zioni delle età precedenti, queste caratteristiche hanno trovato un'’at- tuazione ristretta; allora era perfino possibile condurre una vita ri- tirata, eremitica, lontano dalle vicende del mondo e considerarsi una monade « senza porte e senza finestre », secondo la nota espressione di Leibniz. Oggi tutto questo è impensabile, oltreché impossibile. Il più piccolo atto umano e qualsiasi realtà per quanto minuscola sono coinvolti in un regime sociale e politico che li dirige e li compenetra da ogni parte. Così, nel nostro tempo i problemi politici e sociali hanno acqui- stato importanza capitale. 'Nel presente capitolo tratteremo anzitutto del « problema po- litico », che è quello di cui i filosofi si sono occupati da sempre. Poi nella seconda parte studieremo quello che è stato chiamato « pro- blema sociale », un problema che i filosofi hanno cominciato ad af- frontare sistematicamente soltanto nel secolo XVIII al sorgere del- la questione sociale derivante dalla rivoluzione industriale determi- nata dall'introduzione della macchina nell’attività produttiva. Il problema politico è il problema relativo all'origine e al fon- damento dello Stato (polis), alla sua organizzazione, la sua forma migliore, la sua funzione e il suo fine specifico, alla natura della azio- ne politica e ai suoi rapporti con l'azione morale, ai rapporti tra Stato e individui, tra Stato e Chiesa, tra Stato e partiti. Questo problema così vasto e complesso, è stato studiato nei suoi aspetti diversi quando le istanze storiche l'hanno richiesto. Così per esempio la questione dell'origine dello Stato, della sua struttu- razione e della sua forma migliore è stato dibattuto quando guerre 144 o rivoluzioni hanno messo in questione o posto termine ad uno Stato oppure ad una forma di governo per sostituirli con altri. Ciò è avve- nuto, in Grecia, nel secolo V in conseguenza delle guerre con i Per- siani, delle guerre tra Atene, Sparta e Tebe e delle guerre civili all’interno di queste tre città-stato. Furono tali congiunture storiche ad indurre i Sofisti, Platone e Aristotele ad esaminare il problema del- l'origine dello Stato, della sua funzione e della sua forma ideale. Al- trettanto accadde nel secolo XVII, al tempo delle guerre religiose, della guerra dei Trent'anni, delle rivoluzioni e delle guerre civili del- l'Inghilterra e della Francia. Questi eventi determinarono le spe- culazioni politiche di Hobbes, Bacone, Locke, Campanella, Hume, Rousseau. In tempi recenti hanno trattato del problema dello Stato Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci e la Scuola di Francoforte, determinando larghe correnti di pensiero e attuazioni ispirate alle loro ideologie; va inoltre ricordato il contributo particolare ad una soluzione cristiana di tali problematiche dato da Jacques Maritain e da Luigi Sturzo. î Trattando il problema politico nei suoi vari aspetti non si può dimenticare quello dei rapporti tra Stato e Chiesa che ha acquistato rilevanza soprattutto nel Medioevo, allorché la Chiesa assunse una strutturazione sociale da far concorrenza a quella dello Stato. Di qui le teorie politiche di Innocenzo III, san Tommaso, Bonifacio VIII, Occam, ecc. Il problema dei rapporti tra politica e morale ha potuto svilup- parsi soltanto nell'epoca moderna, nel momento in cui le varie forme di sapere e di operare si sono affermate nella loro autonomia rispetto alla teologia e alla filosofia. Questo ha consentito prima a Machiavel- li e poi a Hobbes e a tanti altri di proporre una concezione dell’a- zione politica come qualcosa di assolutamente distinto da qualsiasi altro tipo di attività. Il problema dei rapporti tra lo Stato e i partiti, tra lo Stato e i suoi membri è diventato d'attualità nell'epoca contemporanea, quan- do alle forme monarchiche e assolutistiche di governo sono suben- trate quelle parlamentari e democratiche, e ai sistemi capitalisti si sono opposti quelli socialisti e comunisti. 2. Natura sociale dell’uomo L'uomo — come è stato già detto — è essenzialmente socievole: da solo non può venire al mondo, non può crescere, non può edu- carsi; da solo non può neppure soddisfare i suoi bisogni più ele- mentari; né realizzare le sue aspirazioni più elevate; egli può otte- nere questo solo in compagnia con altri. Perciò sin dalla sua prima comparsa sulla terra troviamo sempre l'uomo collocato in gruppi so- ciali, inizialmente assai piccoli (la famiglia, il clan, la tribù) e poi sempre più vasti (il villaggio, la città, lo stato). Man mano che il 145 Dagli eventi storici ha origine lo studio del ‘‘problema Stato” Rapporti tra: — Stato e Chiesa — Politica e morale — Stato e partiti La socialità come condizione originaria Riflesso sociale delle azioni umane Oggi c’è il primato della dimensione sociale livello culturale dell'umanità si innalza, anche la dimensione della socievolezza si espande e si arricchisce. Oggi essa ha raggiunto un orizzonte sconfinato: da nazionale è diventata, prima, internazionale, poi, intercontinentale e ormai sta assumendo proporzioni planetarie. I moderni mezzi di comunicazione hanno messo ciascuno di noi in contatto con ogni vicenda (importante o insignificante) che ac- cade in qualsiasi parte del mondo. La vita di ciascuno di noi, ora, « può essere sconvolta da cima a fondo a causa di un avvenimento che capita in una parte del mondo ove egli non ha mai messo piede e di cui forse si fa un'immagine alquanto vaga ».' « Il più piccolo atto umano e qualsiasi realtà per quanto minuscola sono coinvolte in un regime sociale che le dirige e compenetra da ogni parte. Non posso compiere il più piccolo atto commerciale, pretendere il più modesto salario, regolare il contratto più elementare senza sentirmi immediatamente accerchiato da ogni parte — anche sostenuto — dalla solidarietà economica, sociale, giuridica, che costituisce la base stessa del mio contratto, del mio lavoro, del mio commercio, indipen- dentemente e al di fuori delle mie intenzioni. E questo in un interse- carsi che, da un capo all'altro del mondo, moltiplica senza fine una rete inestricabile ed invincibile: un colpo della borsa di New York accresce, oggi, senza che io me ne interessi, il mio capitale, e domani la mia piccola impresa potrebbe crollare sotto la concorrenza tra- volgente dell'industria giapponese. Lo stesso si deve dire per qual- siasi altro settore ». Quanto l'intreccio sociale oggi sia vasto e pro- fondo l’ha mostrato negli anni ‘70 e '80 l'embargo del petrolio nei confronti dell'occidente attuato dagli Stati arabi nel conflitto arabo- israeliano. Questo espediente degli arabi è bastato a mettere in crisi l'immenso castello della civiltà dei consumi, il concetto stesso di progresso e il modello di sviluppo del mondo occidentale. 'La dimensione sociale durante il nostro secolo ha assunto tali proporzioni che può venire legittimamente considerata un fenomeno tipico del nostro tempo. La dimensione privata è praticamente scom- parsa. A stento possiamo occultare i nostri pensieri e i nostri desi- deri; ma appena questi si traducono in azione, essi diventano appan- naggio anche degli altri e grazie alla televisione e alla radio e alla stampa in un batter d'occhio vengono divulgati nei quattro angoli della terra. L'isolazionismo, oggi, non è più possibile. « Se dobbiamo in qualche modo sopravvivere, è chiaro che sopravviveremo solo come membri gli uni degli altri. La linea tra il privato e il pubblico diventa sempre più confusa. Bene o male, questa in cui viviamo è l'epoca della pianificazione: dell'assistenza sociale, della compro- prietà e, sul piano internazionale, delle organizzazioni soprannazio- nali. La capacità dell'individuo di agire, e persino di pensare, con una certa indipendenza dal suo ambiente sociale o in contrasto con ! G. MARCEL, L'uomo problematico, Borla, Torino 1967, p. 143. a MD. CHENU, L’évangile dans le temps, Du Cerf, Parigi 1964, pp. 89-90; trad. it., Il Vangelo nel tempo, A.V.E., Roma 1968. 146 esso si va costantemente riducendo [...] Ciò significa, tra l’altro, che il nostro ideale di libertà e di società libera non può essere semplice- mente definito in termini di in-dipendenza. Per l’uomo contempora- neo la redenzione coincide con la sua capacità di diventare non già un individuo — la cui indipendenza sarebbe, in realtà, impotenza di fronte alla gigantesca macchina dello Stato — bensì una persona che possa trovare (e non perdere) se stessa nell’interdipendenza del- la comunità. Il contenuto della sua salvezza in seno alla società consiste, per l’uomo moderno, nello scoprire se stesso come persona che deliberatamente decide a favore d'un rapporto d'interdipen- denza con gli altri; consapevole che la sua natura è fatta per mettersi in relazione con i simili, egli vuole positivamente questa interdipen- denza, anziché subirla per effetto delle pressioni della sua epoca. . L'alternativa al “loro” non è l’“io”, ma il “noi” ».? Nel momento attuale, mentre da una parte i diritti della persona umana e la sua esigenza di libertà ottengono riconoscimento uni- versale, dall'altra i sistemi politici, le strutture economiche e so- ciali, le scoperte della scienza e della tecnica, e l'apparato statale minacciano di soffocarli inesorabilmente. Questa situazione ripropone con particolare urgenza il problema tante volte dibattuto anche nelle epoche precedenti, circa l'origine, la natura e le funzioni dello Stato, e dei rapporti tra gli individui e la società. 3. L'origine dello Stato Lo Stato è una realtà empirica la cui esistenza è incontrovertibile, ma è anche una realtà estremamente mutevole: nasce, si sviluppa, sviluppandosi assume molte forme, e spesse volte e per ragioni varie si indebolisce e dissolve. Tutto questo fa dello Stato una realtà problematica. Anzitutto problematica per quanto concerne la sua origine. Da che cosa nasce lo Stato? Chi ne è l’autore, la causa, il fondamento? A questo interrogativo sono state date molte risposte, di cui le principali ci sembrano le seguenti: a) origine naturale dello Stato: sappiamo che l'uomo è socie- vole e da solo non può soddisfare i suoi bisogni né realizzare le pro- prie aspirazioni; può ottenere questo soltanto in compagnia con gli altri. Quindi è la natura stessa che induce l’individuo ad associarsi con altri individui e ad organizzarsi in comunità, in Stato. I princi- pali teorici dell'origine naturale dello Stato sono Aristotele, Hegel e Marx. Secondo Aristotele « è evidente che lo Stato è una creatura della natura e che l'uomo è per natura un animale politico. Colui che per natura è senza Stato è superiore oppure inferiore all'uomo, vale a dire o un dio oppure una bestia. Il motivo per cui nasce lo Stato 3 J.A.T. RoBINSON, /! corpo, Gribaudi, Torino 1967, pp. 20-21. 147 L'esigenza di riscoprire la propria persona: salvezza dell’uomo contemporaneo Le attuali strutture economico-politiche minacciano i diritti della persona Stato: realtà empirica e mutevole Origine naturale: l’uomo è essenzialmente politico Hegel: lo Stato come volontà dello Spirito assoluto Marx: lo Stato deriva dalla necessità di unirsi per soddisfare i bisogni dei singoli Origine convenzionale: autonomia originaria e logica della sopraffazione è quello di rendere possibile la vita e anche una vita felice. E poiché il traguardo della vita umana è la felicità, la ragion d'essere dello Sta- to è di facilitare il raggiungimento della felicità ». In Hegel la natura di Aristotele diviene lo Spirito Assoluto, per- ciò lo Stato ha origine per volontà dello Spirito Assoluto, di cui è anzi l'attuazione conclusiva. Infatti, secondo Hegel, lo Spirito Assoluto si esprime e si sviluppa nella storia, la quale è essenzial- mente storia dell'uomo. Questi come essere socievole si unisce spon- taneamente con gli altri. In tal modo sorgono le varie organizzazioni: anzitutto la famiglia poi la società civile ed infine lo Stato. La fami- glia è l'unione amorosa di almeno due persone. La società civile è una condizione in cui c'è una mutua dipendenza di tutte le persone da tutte le altre, essendo esse già una collezione di individui indi- pendenti. Essa poggia su di un sistema di bisogni. Lo Stato è una isti- tuzione concreta, che unifica e dà una realtà più alta alla vita etica dei suoi membri individuali. Pertanto lo Stato è « l’Idea dello Spirito Assoluto nella manifestazione esterna della volontà umana e della sua libertà ». Anche per Marx come per Aristotele (e linguaggio idealistico a parte come per Hegel), lo Stato deve la sua origine alla natura stes- sa delle cose (non a patteggiamenti convenzionali o a prevaricazioni contro qualche ordine soprannaturale): deve la sua origine alla na- tura stessa dell’uomo la quale è fatta in modo tale che le è consen- tito di soddisfare i suoi bisogni più elementari di sopravvivenza soltanto con l’aiuto, il concorso, l'assistenza di altri uomini. Non si può dire invece altrettanto delle varie forme concrete che lo Stato assume nella storia. Esse non sono dovute alla natura ma all’arbitrio umano: alla sua decisione di distribuire in un modo o in un altro i tre elementi costitutivi fondamentali della struttura fondamentale dello Stato che è quella economica: il lavoro, il capitale e gli stru- menti di produzione.‘ b) Origine convenzionale. Questa teoria dice che all'inizio, al suo primo apparire sulla faccia della terra, l’uomo, il singolo indi- viduo era pienamente autosufficiente e perciò per vivere e svilupparsi non aveva bisogno di unirsi agli altri. Senonché la presenza di tanti altri piccoli centri di potere (quali erano gli altri uomini) ha inevita- bilmente dato luogo a conflitti, per evitare i quali è stato necessario trattare con gli altri, mettersi d'accordo con loro, rinunciando a qualche diritto e assoggettandosi a qualche dovere. Così, sulla base di tale accordo, è sorto lo Stato. Questa teoria che era già stata avanzata dai Sofisti fu ripresa e sviluppata da molti filosofi moderni, in particolare da Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke e Rousseau. Ciascuno di questi autori ha presentato una versione personale della teoria convenzionalistica o contrattuale; per Spinoza e Hobbes il contratto sociale ha carattere irreversibile: * Cfr. B. MoNnDIN, vol. III, pp. 548-550. 148 una volta rinunciato ai propri diritti per costituire lo Stato non si può più ritirarli e tornare indietro. Invece per Locke e Rousseau il contratto sociale ha carattere reversibile. c) Origine preternaturale. Questa teoria considera lo Stato come conseguenza di una caduta dell'uomo da una condizione originaria di perfezione e di felicità dove non abbisognava di sostegno e di aiuto da parte degli altri. Già annunciata da Platone, la teoria del- l'origine preternaturale dello Stato è stata sviluppata in forma orga- nica da due grandi pensatori cristiani, Agostino e Vico. Agostino afferma l’esistenza di due grandi associazioni di spiriti: la civitas Dei (città di Dio) e la civitas terrena (città terrena o Stato). Tutt'e due sono fondate sull'amore. Ma mentre la città di Dio è fon- data sull'amore di Dio, un amore così altruistico che non teme d'ar- rivare fino al sacrificio totale di se stesso, della propria vita, la città terrena è fondata sull'amore di se stessi, un amore talmente cieco ed egoistico che arriva fino al disprezzo e al rinnegamento di Dio. « Ciò che anima la società terrena (civitas terrena) è l'amore di se stessi al punto di disprezzare Dio; ciò che anima la società divina (civitas coelestis) è l'amore di Dio al punto di disprezzare se stessi. L'una basa il suo orgoglio in se stessa, l'orgoglio dell'altra è in Dio; una cerca la gloria fra gli uomini, l’altra ritiene che la conoscenza di Dio sia la gloria più grande »% L'essenziale nel regno terreno così come in quello spirituale è il debitus finis, vale a dire lo scopo che deriva dall'intrinseca natura della cosa: dunque in questo caso la realizzazione di valori puramen- te terreni. Questi includono, per cominciare, « il corpo e i suoi beni, cioè una buona salute, sensi acuti, forza fisica e bellezza, parte di essi essenziali per una vita migliore, e quindi più desiderabili, parte di minor pregio. Poi, la libertà, nel senso che uno crede di essere libero quando è padrone di se stesso, cioè nel senso desiderato dagli schiavi. In terzo luogo i genitori, le madri, una moglie e dei bambini, i vicini, i parenti, gli amici, e, per coloro che condividono il nostro modo di vedere (quello greco-romano) l'appartenenza ad uno Stato, nonché gli onori, le ricompense e ciò che è chiamato favore popolare. Infine il denaro, intendendo con questo termine tutto ciò che posse- diamo legalmente, o che abbiamo il potere di vendere o di cui possiamo altrimenti disporre ».” Storicamente l'origine della civitas terrena risale alla caduta dei primogenitori; ma essa trova la prima espressione emblematica nel- la Torre di Babele. Come nella Torre di Babele, così nella civitas ter- rena regna costantemente la confusione, la violenza, la malvagità, la miseria. Ma, a parere di Agostino, l’espressione più mostruosa la civitas terrena l'ha raggiunta nell'Impero Romano, esempio supremo 5 B. MONDIN, vol. II, pp. 162-173 (Spinoza); 220-224 (Hobbes); 224-228 (Locke); 320-328 (Rousseau). € S. AcosTINO, De civitate Dei XIV, c. 28. ? S. AcostINO, De libero arbitrio, I, 15, 32, 149 Origine preternaturale: Agostino e Vico Agostino: regno terreno (‘civitas terrena’) e regno spirituale (‘‘civitas Dei””) Dal peccato originale ha origine la '‘civitas terrena” Vico: lo Stato come creazione provvidenziale di Dio Per Platone e Aristotele: — costituzioni giuste (monarchia, aristocrazia, repubblica) di brutale conquista e sfruttamento, che si può definire come « brigantaggio su vasta scala ». Anche per il Vico lo Stato deve la sua origine al peccato, ossia ad un atto di ribellione dell'uomo nei confronti dei disegni di Dio. Tuttavia Vico non ha affatto dello Stato quell’opinione così negativa e pessimistica dataci da Agostino; in effetti l’autore della Scienza nuova, anziché un'invenzione degli uomini per meglio soddisfare le loro brame egoistiche, vede nello Stato una creazione provviden- ziale con cui Dio cerca di trar fuori gli uomini dalle loro miserie. « E sommamente da ammirare la provvidenza divina la quale, in- tendendo gli uomini tutt'altro fare, ella portògli in prima a temere la divinità (con il primo fulmine)... Appresso, con la religione me- desima, li dispose ad unirsi con certe donne in perpetua compagnia di lor vita: che sono i matrimoni, riconosciuti fonte di tutte le po- testà; di poi con queste donne si ritrovavano aver fondato le fa- miglie, che sono il seminario delle repubbliche. Finalmente, con l'aprirsi degli asili (per dare rifugio a quei giganti che non si erano piegati alla religione), si truorono aver fondato le clientele onde fussero apparecchiate le materie tali che poi, per la prima legge a- graria, nascessero le città sopra due comuni di uomini che le com- ponessero: una di nobili che vi comandassero; l’altra di plebei che ubbidissero ».* 4. Le forme di governo Lo Stato può assolvere la sua funzione essenziale di garantire pace, giustizia e benessere per tutti soltanto se dispone di un governo, e di un governo autorevole e giusto, il quale sappia far rispettare i diritti e far osservare i doveri da parte di tutti i cittadini. Di go- verni capaci di realizzare queste funzioni se ne possono ipotizzare molti. Però tutte le ipotesi possibili si trovano già chiaramente for- mulate in Platone ed Aristotele, i primi due grandi maestri del pen- siero politico. Movendo dal principio che scopo dello Stato è facilitare il rag- giungimento del bene comune, sia Platone che Aristotele dividono le costituzioni possibili (ossia le forme di governo ipotizzabili) in due categorie: giuste ed ingiuste, e affermano che si danno tre forme di costituzioni giuste e altrettanto di ingiuste. Sono costituzioni giu- ste quelle che servono il bene comune e non solo quello dei gover- nanti. Tali sono: la monarchia, ossia il comando di uno solo che cura il bene di tutti; l'aristocrazia, ossia il comando dei virtuosi, dei mi- gliori, che curano il bene di tutti senza attribuirsi alcun privilegio; la repubblica o politia, ossia il governo popolare che cura il bene di tutta la città. Sono invece costituzioni ingiuste quelle che servono * G. Vico, Scienza nuova, ed. Nicolini, p. 629. 150 il bene dei governanti e non il bene comune. Tali sono: la tirannia ossia il comando di un solo capo che persegue il proprio interesse; l'oligarchia, ossia il comando dei ricchi che cercano il bene econo- mico personale; la democrazia, ossia il comando della massa popo- lare che vuole sopprimere ogni differenza sociale in nome dell’egua- glianza. Queste sono sostanzialmente anche le ipotesi che hanno avanzato nel Medioevo san Tommaso, Dante, Marsilio Ficino, Occam, e du- rante l'epoca moderna Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rous- seau, Fichte, Marx e molti altri ancora. Si nota però una diversità di opinione, anzi una vera e propria inversione di pareri tra i filo- sofi dell'antichità e del Medioevo da una parte, e i filosofi moderni dall'altra. Mentre i primi ritenevano, normalmente, che la forma ideale di governo fosse la monarchia assoluta e la forma più imper- fetta quella democratica, i secondi, in generale, giudicano l’'asso- lutismo monarchico la forma peggiore e invece ritengono che la for- ma ideale sia o quella della monarchia parlamentare oppure*quella della repubblica. La complessità delle strutture attuali della società, la diffusione della cultura in tutti gli strati sociali, l'esigenza di rendere tutti i membri della società direttamente partecipi dei benefici del potere, la consapevolezza dei rischi che corre la libertà individuale allorché il governo viene affidato ad uno solo, tutti questi motivi ci sembrano dar ragione ai filosofi moderni: essere cioè la forma repubblicana quella più adatta a tutelare i diritti di tutti e a procurare il bene comune. 5. Rapporti tra politica e morale a partire dall'epoca mo- derna Fino agli inizi dell'epoca moderna si pensava che la politica non disponesse di criteri di giudizio suoi propri e che dovesse mutuarli dalla morale e dalla religione. Perciò, quando un sovrano doveva pren- dere una decisione, suo primo compito era consultare la Bibbia e la propria coscienza. Se queste gli dicevano che una certa azione era moralmente illecita oppure contraria agli interessi della religione, egli doveva considerarla anche politicamente riprovevole. Il primo assertore dell'autonomia della sfera politica rispetto a tutte le altre, in particolare rispetto alle sfere della morale e della religione, in quanto disporrebbe di principi normativi suoi propri, è Niccolò Machiavelli. Per la prima volta, la politica viene indaga- ta dal Machiavelli nella sua cruda realtà, nella sua nudità; per la prima volta essa viene fissata nella sua logica interna spregiudicata- mente, fuori cioè da ogni preoccupazione d'ordine morale e teolo- ° Cfr. B. MonDIN, vol. I, pp. 78-97 (Platone); 120-143 (Aristotele). 151 — costituzioni ingiuste (tirannide, oligarchia, democrazia) Dall’epoca moderna si capovolge il concetto di governo ideale Garanzie della forma repubblicana Machiavelli: — l'autonomia della politica dalla morale — la politica come forza positiva e autonoma Kant: distinzione e interazione tra etica e politica gico; e, come risultato di questo metodo, per la prima volta essa viene affermata nella sua peculiarità. Il Machiavelli, attingendo es- senzialmente dalla lezione delle cose, « proclama che la politica non è né la morale, né la negazione della morale, ma una forza positiva, impossibile ad eliminare dal mondo, come ogni altra forza della na- tura, che contribuisce a tener su e far camminare il mondo. In quanto forza positiva, non riducibile quindi alla negatività del male ma insieme non identificabile, per l’invincibile resistenza delle cose a tale identificazione, con la moralità, essa sta per sé, è cioè una forma particolare dell'attività spirituale. La politica è la forza del mondo dello spirito, della forza “cruda e verde”, come si dirà più tardi, che, in quanto forza spirituale, non può essere che forza co- sciente, cioè volontà forte, solida, coerente, indirizzata risolutamente al fine. L'uomo politico, degno di questo nome, è dotato di questa forza, di questa volontà, senza la quale non sarà in grado né di fondare né di mantenere lo Stato: che è lo scopo della sua azione, a conseguire il quale egli calcola l'utilità di tutti i mezzi nella situazio- ne disponibili, tenendo fisso lo sguardo alla realtà effettuale, libero da pregiudizi e scrupoli, persino morali, e invece pronto a sfruttare, ove sia il caso, ossia ove ciò sia utile e necessario, le altrui preoc- cupazioni, credenze e scrupoli ».! Dopo Machiavelli, i filosofi della politica si dividono in due cor- renti, una favorevole a Machiavelli e l’altra contraria. Gli antima- chiavellici (Campanella, Vico) tentano di ricondurre la politica alla dipendenza dalla morale. Per contro, i machiavellici (Spinoza, Hob- bes e poi Marx e Lenin) ribadiscono la totale autonomia della politica dalla morale e dalla religione. La questione dei rapporti tra morale e politica viene per qualche tempo accantonata dagli illuministi (Rousseau, Montesquieu), i quali preferiscono concentrare la loro attenzione nella ricerca del governo più conforme ai lumi della ragione. Ma il problema del rap- porto morale-politica si ripresenta con forza in Kant. Questi, pur mantenendo una rigorosa distinzione tra le due sfere, afferma che né la politica può sottrarsi alla giurisdizione universale dell'etica, né l'etica può prescindere dalla politica, ossia dalla società civile, che è il mezzo e quasi il luogo ideale della sua espiicazione mondana: «La condizione formale sotto cui soitanto ia natura può raggiun- gere questo suo scopo finale (la moralità) è quella costituzione nei rapporti degli uomini tra loro, che in un tutto che si dichiara società civile, oppone una resistenza legale alle infrazioni reciproche della libertà, perché solo in tale costituzione si può effettuare il massimo sviluppo delle disposizioni naturali » (Kant). Qualsiasi distinzione tra etica e politica viene invece respinta !° A. ATTIANI, « Politica », in Enciclopedia filosofica, Sansoni, Firenze 1957, vol. III, col. 1497. 152 da Hegel, perché secondo questo filosofo la fonte suprema d'ogni moralità è lo Stato. Il pensiero di Marx sui rapporti tra etica e politica è ambivalen- te. Nella polemica contro l’idealismo e contro il capitalismo egli riduce l'etica e la politica a semplici sovrastrutture dei fatti econo- mici, i quali si svolgono e trasformano in diretta dipendenza rispetto a questi ultimi. Invece nella progettazione della società ideale in cui tutte le discriminazioni e le differenze di classe saranno tolte, Marx vede nell’etica uno dei valori fondamentali e nella politica uno strumento necessario per la sua realizzazione. « Marx crede nella so- vranità della coscienza morale, che condanna l'ingiustizia nel mondo e anela alla instaurazione della giustizia e della libertà spingendo a maturazione le condizioni che ne rendano possibile l'avvento. La po- litica, allora, sotto questo aspetto ha da servire alla instaurazione dell'ordine morale nel mondo e, questo instaurato, a mantenerlo, di- fenderlo e potenziarlo ».! Ma che cosa è questo « ordine morale » vagheggiato da Marx? In forza del principio che le trasformazioni economiche determi- in molte parti del mondo e che ha assunto una dimen- sione planetaria in base allo sfruttamento dei pochi paesi ricchi sul resto dell'umanità. Il motivo fondamentale della difficile situazione politica e so- ! A. ATTIANI, Art. cit., col. 1501. 153 Hegel: lo Stato fonte suprema della morale Giudizio ambivalente di Marx: lo Stato è regolatore delle condizioni morali per edificare la dittatura del proletariato L’ordine morale costringe l’individuo ad una unica volontà sociale Per Maritain la realtà morale deve ispirarsi ai principi morali evangelici Esigenza del recupero della morale cristiana che ha l’amore al centro della vita talmente assorbito nella dimensione religiosa ed ha cercato questa riabilitazione nel se- parare l'uomo da Dio. L'umanesimo che ne è nato e che si è svilup- pato nelle varie formule — capitalistiche, marxistiche, idealistiche — è un umanesimo antropologico, finalizzato all'uomo e realizzato dall'uomo attraverso la sua ragione, la sua coscienza, la sua tecnica, le sue violente reazioni contro le alienazioni emergenti dalla storia del suo tempo. Si tratta di un umanesimo naturalistico, che si chiude in un materialismo senza sbocchi. Volendo dimenticare che nell’uo- mo vi è una componente negativa, l’antropocentrismo naturalistico ha dovuto subire tutto il male che è nell'uomo senza poterlo spie- gare o spiegandolo erroneamente come imputabile a un « sistema » storicamente dominante, o all'’imperfezione del grado di progresso conseguito, o a oscure ragioni psicologiche del profondo. In particolar modo, sotto la spinta dell’interpretazione marxi- stica della storia, lo sforzo di liberazione dell'uomo si è incentrato nella lotta contro un sistema economico fondato sulla fecondità del denaro. Ma in questa azione di liberazione della classe operaia si è assunto come valore la forza dell'odio e la violenza, mentre la prospettiva da realizzare è posta in un materialismo che vuole solo procurare le maggiori quantità di beni materiali, ricopiando in tal modo lo schema della società neocapitalistica, che operando sui fat- tori tecnica, produzione e pubblicità ha prodotto la società consumi- stica. « Le realtà della vita sociale, economica e politica sono state ab- bandonate alla legge della carne, sono state sottratte alle esigenze del Vangelo. Ne è risultato che è sempre più difficile viverle. Contem- poraneamente, la morale cristiana, non essendo più praticata nella vita sociale dei popoli, s'è isterilita — non già in se stessa o nella Chiesa — ma nel mondo, nel comportamento pratico della civiltà, in un universo di formule e di parole ».! « Per vincere questa fatalità occorre il risveglio della libertà e del- le forze creatrici. E l'uomo ne diviene capace non in virtù dello 1 J. MARITAIN, Che cosa è l'uomo: discorso per la città fraterna, in « Vita e Pensiero », 1973 (LV), n. 1, p. XXV. 154 Stato o di una pedagogia di partito, ma nell'amore che pone il centro della vita infinitamente al di sopra del mondo e della storia tem- porale ».! 6. Rapporti tra Stato e Chiesa Lo « Stato » è per definizione una società perfetta con un fine ul- timo suo proprio (il bene comune degli uomini in questo mondo) e con mezzi adeguati per raggiungerlo. Ma anche la « Chiesa » si con- sidera una società perfetta, avente un suo fine ultimo da raggiungere (la salvezza eterna dell'uomo) e mezzi appropriati da utilizzare per conseguirlo. a dei due poteri: quello dello Stato e dei regni terreni e quello di Dio e della Chiesa, corpo mistico di Cristo: questi due poteri sono essenzialmente di natura diversa come diversi sono i loro fini: il primo si occupa della felicità terrena dell’uomo, il se- condo ha per fine la sua felicità eterna; secondo, anche il potere della società politica viene dall'alto: Omnis auctoritas a Deo. Con questa affermazione si vuol intendere che il potere terreno trova la sua giu- ” Ibidem. 155 Stato e Chiesa: due società perfette in teoria completamente separate Conflitto e interazione dal Medioevo ai giorni nostri tra Stato e Chiesa Le diverse soluzioni: — subordinazione indiretta delio Stato alla Chiesa (san Tommaso) — subordinazione diretta dello Stato alla Chiesa (Bonifacio VIII) — subordinazione diretta della Chiesa allo Stato (Marsilio da Padova) Età moderna: tendenza alla separazione Maritain: uomini liberi sotto la provvidenza di Dio stificazione non in sé ma in Dio, e quindi si afferma un nesso con il potere dato alla Chiesa. Ma Gesù non volle determinare le applicazioni concrete di questi principi universali. Questo deve essere il compito di tutti i cristiani inseriti nella propria epoca storica. olitica dalla morale e dalla religione le teorie di Bo- nifacio VIII, Marsilio e Tommaso cadono in disuso e si dà sempre maggior credito alla teoria della netta separazione tra Stato e Chiesa. Ma anche questa ipotesi, in pratica non è scevra di difficoltà, per la ragione che abbiamo ricordato più sopra: cioè che gli stessi indi- vidui fanno parte sia dello Stato che della Chiesa. Ora può accadere (e in effetti accade di sovente) che le decisioni dello Stato siano in contrasto con quelle delle varie Chiese. Così quella separazione che si era ipotizzata teoricamente, nella realtà quotidiana non è ‘facil- mente realizzabile. Su questo contrastato problema ha fatto delle acute considera- zioni Maritain, il quale analizzando la costituzione americana, os- serva che il suo spirito si oppone all'idea di una società umana che si tenga lontana da Dio e da ogni fede religiosa. In realtà la distin- zione tra Stato e Chiesa che la costituzione americana afferma è in funzione di una reale cooperazione, escludendo ogni privilegio nel- l'una e nell’altra parte. Si tratta di far vivere uomini liberi sotto la 156 provvidenza di Dio (under God). In questa linea lo Stato ha tutto da guadagnare riconoscendo alla Chiesa una influenza immateriale sulle anime attraverso l'insegnamento del Vangelo. Ma alla base del contrasto moderno che vuole l'opposizione to- tale tra Chiesa e Stato, sta il malinteso di chi non intende considerare la Chiesa se non in termini umani, non riconoscendole altro valore che di istituzione umana, nata nella storia, come fatto umano che può come tutti i fatti umani esser modificata o distrutta. Chi consi- dera la Chiesa come fatto umano — prosegue Maritain — tende a riversare tutte le colpe, che gli uomini in essa viventi manifestano, alla Chiesa stessa. Bisognerebbe riconoscere che anche se il cristia- nesimo fosse tradito dai cristiani (ma in realtà vi sono sempre uo- mini che realizzano pienamente il cristianesimo in ogni epoca) ciò non infirmerebbe gli ideali e la realtà che la Chiesa porta nel mondo. Allo stesso modo che sul piano delle civiltà umane, queste non si giu- dicano dal comportamento dissennato di parte dei membri di esse.!* 7. Rapporti tra fede e politica Il problema del rapporto politica-religione oggi non si configura più solo come studio dei rapporti tra Stato e Chiesa, intesi come due associazioni autonome e complete in se stesse. Ogni Chiesa oggi è vista come una comunità spirituale che tiene uniti i suoi membri con il solo vincolo dell'amore, senza strutture temporali che possono farla apparire come uno !Stato in concorrenza con gli altri Stati. Ma non per questo si può estromettere la Chiesa o le Chiese dalle vicende di questo mondo e confinarle in un mondo impalpabile delle anime. Molti teologi in questi ultimi anni hanno sottolineato l’impor- tanza della dimensione politica del messaggio cristiano e, di conse- guenza, dell'impegno politico di ogni cristiano sia singolarmente che collettivamente. Si rileva, anzitutto, che destinatario della Pa- rola di Dio e della sua opera di salvezza è l'uomo. Ora, questi non è una monade, un angelo, un monaco, ma un essere essenzialmente socievole. Egli non si realizza nella clausura della sua anima, con- templando la verità, ma nella apertura intersoggettiva, nel rapporto recettivo e comunicativo con gli altri, inserendosi in una società e avvalendosi delle sue molteplici strutture. Questo aspetto politico dell'essere umano è al centro della rivelazione nella Bibbia (Antico Testamento), la quale sì occupa costantemente delle strutture so- ciali e politiche del ponolo ebraico, l’eletto dal Signore, sottraendolo * Cfr. J. MARITAIX, L'uomo e io Stato, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1971, pp. 224- 227, passim. 157 Il contrasto moderno Il rapporto fede- politica oggi La dimensione politica del messaggio cristiano al dominio dei suoi nemici (v. Esodo), determinando la sua organizza- zione in tribù, assegnandogli determinate forme di governo, ecc. Reazione del potere Nel Nuovo Testamento l'attenzione alla dimensione politica è politico meno esplicita, ma si trova sempre presente. Pur non intraprendendo all'insegnamento di iniziative politiche, Gesù è coinvolto nella politica. La sua condotta Gesù e il suo insegnamento provocano la violenta reazione dei poteri po- litici costituiti. Egli diviene la loro vittima. Ma il « potenziale sov- versivo » della sua dottrina e della sua grazia non sarà soffocato. Esso opererà profondamente sui rapporti umani, sulle strutture sociali e a poco a poco li trasformerà radicalmente. Esiste quindi un impatto inevitabile della fede sulla politica. E Fede e liberazione —se questo può essere vero di qualsiasi fede, lo è in modo singolare totale della fede cristiana, che è fede nella liberazione dell'uomo: a ciò contribuisce il cristiano con la testimonianza della sua fede, la quale, di conseguenza, non è passiva accettazione né estatica contempla- zione della parola di Dio, ma è fattiva attuazione delle promesse divine in ordine alla piena realizzazione del regno di Dio che Gesù ha annunziato. 8. Lettura politica del messaggio evangelico Queste importanti ragioni (la natura dell'uomo e il processo sto- rico della rivelazione di Dio) autorizzano una lettura « politica » del messaggio evangelico. Questo, tuttavia, non può essere letto esclu- sivamente in chiave politica, come pretendono alcuni oggi. Quello politico, infatti, è soltanto un aspetto del messaggio cri- Una lettura politica —stiano. Questo ha di mira anzitutto la singola persona (e poi la so- del messaggio cietà) e in ogni persona considera in primo luogo la dimensione evangelico interiore: la conversione dello spirito, la trasformazione del cuore. I profeti dell'Antico Testamento e Gesù Cristo vogliono instaurare un nuovo tipo di rapporti, basato essenzialmente sull'amore, tra l'uomo e Dio e tra i singoli uomini. Ma non intendono realizzare tale obiettivo con la forza, con la violenza, con le armi, bensì con la tra- sformazione interiore delle anime, sollecitandole alla conversione con la testimonianza delle opere, con l'insegnamento della verità, con la pazienza, la carità e il sacrificio di se stessi. Il comandamento [L'amore per Dio e per il prossimo è il vero comandamento « po- dell'amore è il litico » di Gesù. Però non un amore romantico ma un amore critico, comandamento non inteso solo come aiuto caritativo al prossimo, ma come dedizione politico di Gesù. piena alla giustizia, alla libertà e alla pace. Questo comporta una cri- tica decisa contro ogni forma di potere puro e un impegno concreto: per trasformare ogni situazione politica oppressiva degli uomini. Impegno del Di fronte ai grandi temi politici, concretamente, il cristiano sa che cristiano per il bene la vita politica tende ad un bene comune che è superiore alla sem- comune e la plice somma dei beni individuali, un bene che deve riversarsi sulle promozione Umana —rersone umane cioè un bene che riguardi innanzi tutto il miglioramento della vita umana, non già sul solo piano degli squilibri eco- nomici, ma anche su quello dei valori spirituali, permettendo a cia- scuno di vivere sulla terra come uomo libero e di godere i frutti della intelligenza umana. Per il cristiano la libertà è una realtà di cui deve rendersi degno; l'uguaglianza con gli altri uomini si instaura soltanto in un clima di rispetto reciproco e di fraternità, e non già in una lotta per l’afferma- zione di una sola classe sulle altre; la giustizia è la forza di conserva- zione della comunità politica e la condizione indispensabile per per- mettere all’« amicizia civica » di prendere forma « conducendo gli ineguali all'uguaglianza ». Si potrebbe obiettare che il cristiano, secondo questa visione ideale, appare tutto proteso in una visione verticale, tutto rivolto all’affermazione di principi spirituali e morali, che lo disincarnano dal mondo attuale. È la nota accusa dell’alienazione del cristiano dalle responsabilità del mondo presente. In realtà nella natura uma- na è presente anche un movimento orizzontale, anch'esso determi- nante per la piena e totale realizzazione dell’uomo in se stesso. Tale movimento orizzontale riguarda l'evoluzione dell'umanità e rivela progressivamente la sostanza delle forze creatrici dell'uomo nella storia. È il movimento orizzontale della civiltà, che se è orientato ver- so fini temporali autentici, aiuta la tensione verticale dell'umanità. L'ideale supremo cui deve tendere l’opera politica e sociale del- l'umanità è l'inaugurazione di una città fraterna, la quale non com- porta che tutti gli uomini saranno un giorno perfetti sulla terra e si ameranno fraternamente, bensì la speranza che lo stato esistenziale della vita umana e le strutture della civiltà si avvicineranno sempre più alla perfezione, la cui misura è la giustizia e la fraternità. « Questo ideale supremo è anche quello della democrazia au- tentica, l'ideale di una nuova democrazia che tutti attendiamo. Essa esige non solo il potenziamento di tutte le strutture tecniche e una organizzazione socio-politica salda’ e razionale nelle società degli uomini, ma soprattutto una filosofia eroica della vita e il fermento interiore vivificante dell’ispirazione evangelica ».” 9. Capitalismo o socialismo? Il mondo attuale si presenta diviso in due blocchi contrapposti: da un lato i paesi che gravitano nell'orbita della Russia governati da un regime politico-economico di tipo socialista; dall'altro i paesi detti « dell'Occidente », che comprendono l'America del Nord, l’Eu- ropa occidentale, il Giappone e l'Australia, a regime capitalista sotto la guida reale dell'altra superpotenza mondiale (gli Stati Uniti d’Ame- rica). Vi sono poi i cosiddetti « paesi non allineati » (o. del Terzo 4 Ivi, p. XXIX. 159 Libertà, uguaglianza e giustizia cristiana Visione verticale ed orizzontale del cristiano L'ideale di una città fraterna I due blocchi politici contrapposti Due sistemi economici, due scelte di civiltà Horkheimer: la società capitalista è una diretta conseguenza dell’Illuminismo Individualismo, liberalismo e Stato di diritto “Mondo) rappresentati dalla maggioranza dei paesi « poveri ». Ma anche questa distinzione non fa che ribadire la contrapposizione mon- diale dei « due blocchi ». Si tratta di una contrapposizione non soltanto di due sistemi economico-politici, ma di due concezioni di vita da cui derivano ri- percussioni profonde umane e sociali. Entrambi si pongono come « scelte di civiltà » affermando di possedere la garanzia del futuro individuale e sociale del mondo. Di fronte all’alternativa per quale dei due sistemi optare, è difficile pronunciare un giudizio sereno e spassionato. La propagan- da e la lotta politica hanno confuso e oscurato fatti e dottrine, fino al punto di radicalizzare la convinzione ideologica degli individui e delle masse che vivono nei due schieramenti contrapposti. Tutta- via per molti uomini d'oggi, all'interno dell'uno e dell'altro schiera- mento, si pone un urgente problema di coscienza: per quale dei due sistemi è giusto schierarsi? Prima di tentare di avanzare una risposta, è necessario richiama- re i punti essenziali su cui si fondano i due sistemi e le differenzia- zioni che si sono sviluppate nel loro seno. 9.4 Il capitalismo classico Giova innanzitutto avere delle idee chiare sulla ‘situazione sto- rica degli ultimi secoli, in cui si è sviluppata la società attuale. La società, infatti, non è un prodotto naturale, ma il risultato di un lungo processo storico. Ci sembra utile a questo proposito ricordare che, muovendo dai suddetti presupposti, Horkheimer e i suoi col- leghi della Scuola di Francoforte hanno condotto uno studio accu- rato sulle origini della società capitalista contemporanea, stabilen- do che essa affonda le sue origini nell’illuminismo e nelle sue distor- sioni. Con questi studi Horkheimer arriva a concludere che «la manipolazione, lo sfruttamento e l'oppressione che si registrano nella nostra società sono la diretta conseguenza della concezione illuministica del sapere e del ruolo che l’illuminismo ha preteso di assegnare al sapere ».” Il sistema economico chiamato capitalismo non può essere effet- tivamente compreso nella sua essenza se non come conseguenza di una concezione dell’uomo detta « antropocentrica »: l’uomo non ha altro fine all'infuori di se stesso. Egli è destinato a promuovere il proprio sviluppo nella storia, sotto la guida della ragione, nella to- tale espansione della propria libertà. In questa concezione dell’uomo si esalta l'individuo nei confronti della società (individualismo) e si proclama la sua libertà incondizionata (liberalismo). Lo Stato, e- spressione delle libertà individuali, si regge sulla democrazia rap- * B. MONDIN, vol. III, pp. 540-541. " Ivi, p. 541. 160 presentativa e sulle garanzie della Legge (stato di diritto). Sul piano economico la libertà dell'individuo (o dei gruppi) si estende quanto si estendono le sue possibilità economiche. All'iniziativa privata del capitale non vengono posti limiti né di natura legale né di ordine sociale. L'uomo, spinto dal suo esclusivo egoismo, mette in atto una sfrenata « lotta per il successo », e basandosi esclusivamente sulle leggi inevitabili della economia-libera concorrenza, concentrazione dei mezzi di produzione e dei capitali nelle mani di uno o di pochi (trusts, oligopòli, multinazionali, ecc.) esercita una forza di pressione su governi, partiti politici, opinione pubblica, allo scopo di assicu- rarsi copertura ideologica sugli intrighi utilitaristici. È questo il capitalismo classico !# che ha avuto il suo massimo svi- luppo nel secolo scorso e nei primi anni del nostro secolo; esso si fonda sul principio secondo il quale l’attività economica nasce nel li- bero gioco tra capitale e lavoro; due forze nel cui equilibrio non devono interferire né lo Stato né la morale, perché il solo rapporto economico è sufliciente a bilanciarne gli eccessi. In realtà il capitale, con l'enorme concentrazione di potere in suo dominio, riusciva ad arrogarsi ogni vantaggio, lasciando alle forze del lavoro (proletariato) appena di che mantenersi e ripro- dursi. La legge ineluttabile che si diceva essenziale all'ordine eco- nomico, continuava a mantenere ed accrescere la ricchezza in mano di pochi, mentre il lavoro, pur derivante dalla produzione di molti, li condanna allo sfruttamento e a una disumana condizione di vita. La critica a questo sistema scaturisce dalla sua insanabile ingiu- stizia e dalla inammissibilità di un sistema che mette le persone umane (i lavoratori) in balia di una cosa (il capitale). Ma anche sul piano strettamente economico l'errore su cui si fondava il capitali- smo non tardò a rendersi evidente: l’uomo non è sensibile esclusiva- mente a stimoli di ordine economico. Le tensioni sociali che si mani- festarono a partire dalla metà del secolo XIX nascono dalla presa di coscienza che l'uomo non può essere schiavo delle leggi econo- miche, ma queste devono servire al suo sviluppo sociale e morale. Questa presa di coscienza deriva soprattutto dalla nascita di asso- ciazioni di lavoratori sorte verso la metà del secolo scorso in Inghil- terra per la difesa dei propri diritti, inizialmente soprattutto di ca- rattere economico, soprattutto dei cosiddetti sindacati. 9.2 Il neocapitalismo Il crollo del rendimento produttivo dei lavoratori e la loro cre- scente avversione ai datori di lavoro condussero il capitalismo a profonde modificazioni. Con Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) X Il capitalismo nasce dalla rivoluzione industriale, in forza della quale la macchina, applicata alla produzione, assorbì gran parte della mano d'opera nelie fabbriche. Secondo Marx ciò ebbe inizio nel 1735 con l'introduzione del- la macchina per filare di Wyatt. 161 Capitalismo classico e sfruttamento del proletariato L’uomo non è schiavo delle leggi economiche Nel neocapitalismo c’è l'intervento condizionatore dei sindacati dei lavoratori e dello Stato La crisi del ’29 e il “Nuovo corso” Effetti sociali della tecnostrutiura che modifica i processi produttivi La ‘‘società dei consumi” e la manipolazione dei ‘mass-media’ nasce negli Stati Uniti il neocapitalismo che riconosce al lavoratore «dipendente, sia pure dopo dure e lunghe lotte dei sindacati operai, e allo Stato un intervento condizionatore dell'attività economica, non più lasciata ai soli automatismi di mercato. Riconoscendo al lavoratore il diritto a migliorare le condizioni di lavoro, il neocapita- lismo supera il gretto concetto di sfruttamento della mano d'opera. Si elabora una organizzazione scientifica di pianificazione del lavoro (scientific management) e al lavoratore vengono riconosciuti il di- ritto a tempi ragionevoli di lavoro, il diritto a un'istruzione specifica, il diritto alla cooperazione tra direzione manageriale e lavoratori. Dopo la grande crisi economica del 1929, con il New Deal di F.D. Roosevelt, il potere politico viene coinvolto sempre più decisamente nel processo economico e la nuova politica economico-sociale dello Stato rappresenta uno strumento di redistribuzione dei redditi della produzione economica a più larghi strati della popolazione, e- sercitando una forte pressione sugli automatismi economici. Soprattutto dopo la seconda guerra mondiale, con l'avvento della tecnostruttura, l'automazione introdotta nei processi produttivi in- serisce nel processo economico gli scienziati e i tecnici, condizionan- do una volta di più la potenza del capitale e riducendo il proletariato tradizionale a sempre più esigue minoranze. Ma il neocapitalismo sa approfittare ancora una volta delle mu- tate condizioni di produzione con l’estendere su larga scala la pro- duttività di beni di consumo e favorire in tal modo i consumi di massa. Nasce la « società dei consumi » (affluent society) il cui ideale è di produrre sempre di più per rendere più umana la vita dell’indi- viduo, fornendogli un numero sempre crescente di beni di consumo. La critica a questo sistema emerge dal fatto che l'uomo viene stritolato nel rapporto produttività-consumi, rapporto che si confi- gura come una nuova e più sofisticata forma di sfruttamento di massa:. l’uomo della civiltà dei consumi vive costretto a produrre ciò che dovrà consumare. Di qui uno stato di insoddisfazione sempre crescente, cui s'aggiunge l'alienazione derivante dalla mercificazione della cultura e dallo svuotamento delle menti prodotto dai mass media. H. Marcuse ha tratteggiato amaramente l’uomo « unidimen- sionale » emergente dalla nuova società creata tanto dal consumismo dell'Occidente, quanto dall'industrialismo sovietico: « Una confor- tevole, democratica non-libertà prevale nella società industriale a- vanzata ».!? 9.3 Il labourismo e la socialdemocrazia Nel 1883 sorge a Londra la « Società Fabiana » (Fabian Society) che si pone come fine la elevazione della classe lavoratrice, in modo che essa possa arrivare ad assumere il controllo dei mezzi di produ- # H. MARCUSE, L'uomo a una dimensione, Einaudi, Torino 1967, p. 21. 162 zione. Questo fine doveva essere raggiunto in modo graduale, « tem- poreggiando ». Da qui il nome di questa società, derivante dal con- sole romano Fabio Massimo, detto il « temporeggiatore ». Dopo qual- che anno (nel 1900) dalla Società Fabiana e dalle Trade Unions (i sindacati operai, sorti agli inizi del secolo XIX come associazione di mutuo soccorso tra gli operai dell'industria metallurgica inglese) fu fondato il partito labourista inglese (Labour Party = partito del la- voro) che assume il programma del socialismo (per cui il controllo dei mezzi di produzione deve passare ai lavoratori) senza fare però un dogma dei suoi principi filosofici tratti dal marxismo. Esso diven- ne nel giro di alcuni decenni uno dei due partiti fondamentali della Gran Bretagna, andando al potere diverse volte a partire dal 1924. I mezzi di lotta adottati per raggiungere le mete prefissate sono stati: una imponente azione di propaganda tra le masse popolari per farle crescere culturalmente e renderle coscienti dei propri diritti di esseri umani sullo stesso piano di tutte le altre classi sociali; gli scioperi, attraverso il sindacato, anche a livello nazionale e di sostegno tra le varie categorie di lavoratori, per ottenere dallo Stato una legislazione sia di assistenza sociale (dalla culla alla tomba) onde migliorare le condizioni di vita, sia per sancire il passaggio allo stato o un suo di- ritto di controllo delle aziende di interesse nazionale (comunicazioni, miniere, energia, banche, ecc.), e per ottenere dal padronato adeguati miglioramenti salariali ed una partecipazione, sia pure indiretta, alla gestione dell'azienda. Come in Inghilterra, così anche in altri paesi dell'Europa occiden- tale come Germania, Olanda, Danimarca e in Scandinavia i partiti socialisti, sorti nei primi decenni del XX secolo, non fecero la scelta rivoluzionaria, ma presero la strada del riformismo e della gradualità per la trasformazione della società capitalista. :IIl nome di partiti « socialdemocratici », che essi assunsero, era una indicazione della loro scelta democratica, cioè del pieno rispetto della volontà dei cittadini. Alcuni di essi, che erano sorti basandosi sul marxismo, specie dopo il secondo dopoguerra, fecero una esplicita rinuncia al materialismo storico e dialettico di Marx, accettando nella pratica il sistema neocapitalista con cui convivere tranquillamente. Il partito socialdemocratico della Germania occidentale e quelli scandinavi sono gli esempi più significativi di questo socialismo in perfetta simbiosi con il capitalismo; anche i partiti socialisti france- se, italiano e spagnolo, pur restando in teoria marxisti, nella pratica sono da tempo dei partiti socialdemocratici che hanno accettato le tesi del neocapitalismo per il quale lo sviluppo massimo della pro- duzione con l'utilizzazione della tecnica moderna, permette la cre- scita di tutta la società e l'aumento dei consumi per ogni categoria sociale (v. il paragrafo sul neocapitalismo). 163 Dal fabianesimo alle ‘Trade Unions”’ inglesi e al labourismo Il socialismo riformista dell'Europa occidentale: la socialdemocrazia Marx: abolizione dello sfruttamento e comunismo Lotta di classe e collettivizzazione dei mezzi di produzione Il ‘Manifesto del partito comunista’’ e la coscienza di classe L'Internazionalismo socialista I partiti dei lavoratori italiani 9.4 Il socialismo marxista Karl Marx (1818-1883), fondatore del socialismo scientifico, si propone di fondare una società in cui sia abolito lo sfruttamento dell'uomo e a tutti venga assicurato il soddisfacimento dei loro bisogni materiali e spirituali (comunismo). Marx vede nel possesso privato dei mezzi di produzione il prin- cipio di ogni male, non solo economico, ma anche individuale e sociale. Da questa privatizzazione nasce il rapporto salariale per cui l'operaio vende il proprio lavoro per un salario sul quale l’im- prenditore lucra ingiustamente il « plusvalore », cioè il profitto. La lotta di classe, cioè la lotta per la conquista della proprietà collettiva dei mezzi di produzione da parte del proletariato sfruttato dai ca- pitalisti, è, secondo Marx, un fatto ineluttabile della storia che deve condurre all'eliminazione della classe padronale. Tolta di mezzo quest'ultima, nascerà un nuovo tipo di umanità, senza più classi né egoismi: uomini che vivranno in una società di uomini « comuni », solleciti al bene degli altri quanto e forse più che non al bene proprio. Nel 1848 Marx lanciò un appello a tutti gli operai, con il « mani- festo del partito comunista » firmato anche da Engels, in cui il pro- letariato veniva sollecitato a prender coscienza della propria con- dizione e della propria individualità, per diventare una forza sociale contro lo sfruttamento. Con la fondazione della I* Internazionale dei Lavoratori (Londra, 29-8-1864) le varie correnti socialiste sviluppatesi prima e durante la diffusione del marxismo si associarono, non senza contrasti pro- fondi. In Inghilterra prevalse il sindacalismo delle « trade unions » riformista e antirivoluzionario; in Germania il socialismo democra- tico mirava alla trasformazione dello Stato, mentre in Francia an- ziché alla conquista del potere il movimento operaio tendeva a or- ganizzarsi e a liberarsi dallo sfruttamento senza ricorrere alla rivo- luzione. Ma vi furono anche movimenti dichiaratamente anarchici, terroristici e rivoluzionari ispirati da Bakunin, fiero oppositore di Marx. In Italia, con la fusione dei movimenti operai preesistenti, nacque a Genova nel 1892 il Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani (l'anno seguente prese il nome di Partito Socialista Italiano), in cui ben presto si ma- nifestò la divisione tra socialisti riformisti e socialisti radicali, rivo- luzionari, i quali sotto la spinta della rivoluzione bolscevica del 1917 in Russia finirono per separarsi e fondare a Livorno nel 1921 un nuovo partito denominato « Partito Comunista d’Italia », cam-° biando poi il nome nell'attuale Partito Comunista Italiano. 9.5 Il marxismo-leninismo-stalinismo Con la rivoluzione d'ottobre 1917, in Russia, ad opera di Lenin si ebbe la creazione di uno Stato collettivista, senza distinzioni di 164 classe. Lenin stabilì tutto il potere al vertice, non già nella classe — come avrebbe voluto Marx — ma nel partito. Stalin giungerà ancor più avanti: alla dittatura personale del capo unico. Il paese fu spinto con la forza alla collettivizzazione della terra, all'industrializzazione a tappe forzate, alla compressione continua e spietata dei consumi. Le libertà individuali o di gruppo furono abolite e con Stalin venne accentuato il regime poliziesco repressivo con continue « purghe » e con l'invio di milioni di persone nei famigerati campi di lavoro in Siberia. Questo terrorismo dispotico venne poi denunziato al XX Congresso del Partito Comunista da Kruscev nel 1956, dopo la morte del dittatore. Anzi, dopo questa denunzia, venne iniziata la cosid- detta fase di « destalinizzazione », in cui tutti gli errori e le deficienze del sistema vennero addebitate al dittatore scomparso. Sul piano dell'economia e dei diritti umani non cambiò pratica- mente nulla, pur con qualche accenno di liberalizzazione attuata in qualche settore e solo per brevi momenti. La rigida organizzazione centralizzata avente come perno il Partito Comunista, fonte di ogni potere e costituito da un gigantesco apparato burocratico, è rimasta invariata in questi ultimi 30 anni, in quanto il marxismo-leninismo è rimasto la filosofia ufficiale dell'Unione Sovietica. Questo sistema in cui praticamente domina lo sfruttamento delle masse da parte di una oligarchia costituita dall’apparato del partito e dalla macchina statale, è stato imposto a tutti i paesi del blocco dell'Europa orientale, caduto sotto il dominio comunista alla fine della seconda guerra mondiale. 9.6 L'esperienza del maoismo in Cina Una esperienza diversa si è attuata in Cina da Mao-Tse-tung, quando, dopo una lunga lotta rivoluzionaria contro il regime di Chiang-Kai-sheck, riuscì a conquistare il potere nel 1949, costituen- do la Repubblica Popolare Cinese su basi marxiste. Mao-Tse-tung — che era stato uno dei fondatori del Partito Comunista Cinese, sorto nel 1921 a Shangai — divenne il capo cari- smatico del comunismo cinese e dell'immenso paese asiatico, che ha ora 900 milioni di abitanti. Egli, dopo la morte di Stalin nel 1953, si proclamò unico difensore e interprete del marxismo-leninismo, accusando di revisionismo i paesi del blocco sovietico. In realtà il suo socialcomunismo si è differenziato da quello proclamato da Marx e Lenin, soprattutto per alcuni punti qualificanti: a) stretta unione tra teoria e prassi; b) legame completo e continuo con le masse; c) sviluppo dell’autocritica. In realtà, Mao ha creato un nuovo tipo di comunismo, in cui le verità universali del marxismo vengono ri- pensate per un popolo contadino, povero, fortemente socializzato attraverso un incessante indottrinamento — i « pensieri di Mao » — » B. MONDIN, vol. III, pp. 514-515. 165 La rivoluzione del ’17: dai marxismo- leninismo alla dittatura di Stalin Mao e ii ripensamento del marxismo per un popolo contadino Caratteri militari e monacali del maoismo: la rivoluzione culturale Il processo di revisione del maoismo a partire dal 1976 ‘‘Marxismi’’ e ‘‘postmarxismo”’: la devianza eterodossa in forza del quale si tenta di cambiare la natura degli uomini, il loro modo di pensare e di comportarsi, accentuando una forte tendenza nazionalistica e volontaristica. Accentuando il valore «teoretico » della prassi, più che Marx ed Engels, Mao è stato soprattutto un utopista pragmatico e per questo, vedendo diminuire nel quadro del partito la spinta ideale iniziale, si fece promotore nel 1966 della cosiddetta « rivoluzione cul- turale » con un appello diretto alle masse, specialmente ai giovani, per controllare l’attività dei dirigenti di partito che si erano im- borghesiti e burocratizzati e combattere chi non condivideva le sue tesi politiche riunite nel « libretto rosso ». Come risultato si ebbe una ventata di violenze con processi sommari e centinaia di mi- gliaia di vittime innocenti e l'anarchia in tutto il paese, con lo scardi- namento di tutto l'apparato produttivo. Solo dopo la morte del dittatore, nel 1976, i nuovi dirigenti, sotto la guida attenta di Deng Hsiao-ping, eminenza grigia del regime, hanno iniziato un graduale processo di revisione delle direttive maoi- ste, rivalutando i dirigenti vittime della « rivoluzione culturale » ed avviando una politica economica più duttile, aperta alle esperienze dei paesi capitalisti. Facendo un primo bilancio del maoismo, si può dire che esso, co- me il bolscevismo russo dei primi decenni, era incentrato sul partito come motore di tutta l’attività del paese, fondata sulla cieca ubbi- dienza di tutti i sudditi, trattati solo come strumenti di produzione. Una delle sue debolezze fondamentali, ereditate dal marxismo, è stata la sua incapacità di affrontare le realtà insopprimibili della vita e della morte. E questo perché ignorava le preoccupazioni fondamen- tali di ogni essere umano. 9.7 Crisi del marxismo ortodosso: i nuovi marxismi Dopo un settantennio di esperienza di comunismo sovietico e circa quarant'anni di quella, simile nei principi, della Repubblica Popolare Cinese e delle altre costituzioni « socialiste », si può tentare di formulare un giudizio di validità e di merito. Il pensiero di Marx che in questo secolo ottenne una grande diffusione e fu assunto come dottrina di Stato, indiscutibile come un dogma, sia in Russia che in Cina e nelle altre « democrazie popo- lari », ebbe da parte di qualche eminente studioso marxista, spe- cialmente dell'Europa occidentale, delle nuove interpretazioni che . modificarono alcune delle sue tesi classiche. Tanto che da alcuni decenni non si parla più di marxismo ma di « marxismi » e di « post- marxismo ». Naturalmente queste nuove interpretazioni furono su- bito condannate come eterodosse dagli organismi culturali ufficiali dei governi comunisti. L'elemento che distingue maggiormente il marxismo non orto- dosso o revisionistico da quello ortodosso è che per quest’ultimo la 166 dialettica regola con leggi inderogabili tutti gli eventi della natura e della storia, mentre per i nuovi marxismi la dialettica non ha leggi e non riguarda affatto la natura bensì il soggetto singolo nei suoi rapporti con la storia. Anche nelle società a regime comunista occor- re lottare contro la disumanizzazione e l'alienazione delle singole personalità. Inoltre mentre per i marxismi ortodossi la religione è soltanto « oppio del popolo » e perciò da distruggere, per i nuovi marxismi la religione è considerata come un importante fattore di superamento e di liberazione dalle presenti situazioni di oppres- sione e di sofferenza in cui si dibatte l'umanità ed anche di sostegno delle aspirazioni per un mondo migliore. (I più qualificati rappresen- tanti di queste nuove correnti di pensiero marxista sono stati An- tonio Gramsci, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse ed Ernst Bloch, i quali hanno esercitato un notevole influsso nei movimenti culturali del nostro tempo). ‘Assolutizzando l'influsso che le strutture esercitano sull'uomo e sulla società Marx scorge nella base economica il peccato d’origine che determina l’uomo, la sua coscienza, le sue alienazioni. Ciò com- porta una visione materialistica dell'uomo, la quale ne autorizza la strumentalizzazione e la manipolazione, subordinandolo alla ideolo- gia, né più né meno di quanto avviene ad opera del capitalismo. Anche per il capitalismo l’uomo conta soltanto in quanto è iavoro, senza alcun riferimento superiore o trascendente. Non si può quindi credere ingenuamente e acriticamente che una semplice scelta capitalista o socialista sia in grado di eliminare, automaticamente, i molteplici mali, ingiustizie, discriminazioni, op- pressioni che affliggono la società attuale. I mali della società non derivano tanto dai sistemi, quanto dagli uomini. L'origine dello sfrut- tamento sociale e dell’oppressione risale alla volontà dell'uomo di ser- virsi egoisticamente e brutalmente di un altro uomo. Occorre dire poi che queste critiche di ordine teoretico (filoso- fico o scientifico) non avevano mai fatto grande impressione a molti altri studiosi, ammiratori di Marx e non avevano scalfito minima- mente la fede di milioni di comunisti militanti dei vari partiti comu- nisti dell'Europa occidentale. Per tanti anni, neppure le pesanti conseguenze di ordine pratico (sociale, economico, politico) che accompagnarono il marxismo, specie in Russia, erano bastate ad intaccare la convinzione delia intrinseca bontà di tale sistema. Anche quando gli innumerevoli cri- mini di Stalin divennero di dominio pubblico, la grande intelligentsia dei paesi occidentali continuò ad aderire al marxismo, sottovalutan- do o facendo finta di non vedere gli stermini, le oppressioni, le pur- ghe, i campi di concentramento che avevano flagellato il popolo rus- so da quando i comunisti conquistarono il potere. Senonché, a partire dagli anni ’60, sia in Russia che nei paesi occidentali, cominciò a serpeggiare un senso di sfiducia nella capa- 167 de Marxisma revisionistico: la dialettica e ii soggetto singoio nella storia; îa religione come fattore di liberazione La subordinazione dell’uom& all’ideologia Le colpe dell’ ‘‘intelligentsia’’ occidentale filomarxista Le crisi di fede nel marxismo e l'““arcipelago Gulag” L’interesse del cristianesimo per il problema economico-sociale cità del marxismo di creare quella nuova società perfetta, senza di- seguaglianza, senza ingiustizie, senza divisioni di classe, promessa da Marx. Le ragioni di questa crisi di fede nel marxismo sono molteplici. Ma quella fondamentale, a mio avviso, è il vuoto culturale del marxi- smo stesso. Questo sistema, come ha mostrato Karl Popper, dove ha la pretesa di parlare « scientificamente » non può produrre che ipotesi falsificabili. Mentre per quelle dure realtà quali il male, il dolore, la morte, il senso della storia, non ha nessuna parola da dire. Un'altra ragione che ha messo in crisi la fiducia nel marxismo è stata la pubblicazione di Arcipelago Gulag di A. Solzenicyn. Per molti lettori di fede marxista questo libro è stato una rivelazione sensazionale, «decisiva, che li ha scossi profondamente e da fedeli e zelanti seguaci di Marx li ha trasformati, tutto d'un tratto, nei suoi critici più severi e nei suoi più violenti avversari. 10. Le dottrine sociali di ispirazione cristiana Sarebbe oltreché ingiusto, acritico, pensare che la soluzione alla questione sociale sia venuta soltanto dai movimenti socialistici del- l'Ottocento e, in modo particolare, dalla dottrina di Karl Marx. Il cri- stianesimo non si disinteressò mai, nel corso della sua millenaria storia religiosa e sociale, dell'uomo nei confronti del problema eco- nomico-sociale e delle ingiustizie conseguenti alle soluzioni impo- ste dall'egoismo umano. Le soluzioni cristiane possono ridursi a due tipi, spesso integran- tisi: da un lato una forma prevalentemente (anche se non esclusiva- mente) assistenziale-caritativa (cristianesimo caritativo) e dall'altro, una forma che proponeva la revisione delle stesse strutture econo- mico-sociali (cristianesimo sociale). La prima forma, che è essen- ziale al cristianesimo stesso, è presente in tutti i secoli dell’era cri- stiana e cerca di lenire con la fattiva carità le esasperate conseguen- ze della violenza, di qualsiasi tipo, che l'uomo e la società fa sul- l'uomo..È questo uno dei frutti più originali del Vangelo che ha a cuore i poveri, gli umili, gli oppressi, i diseredati. Sono innumerevoli le opere di efficace aiuto realizzate, nei secoli, dalla Chiesa in questo campo. Né si può dimenticare la precisa condanna nei confronti del- l'usura, del profitto ingiusto e speculativo, dell’ingiustizia economica derivata dallo strapotere della ricchezza. Il cristianesimo sociale si è preoccupato invece di individuare, accanto all'azione caritativa, anche il problema della giustizia. Di qui le sollecitazioni, specialmente da parte del magistero della Chiesa cat-, tolica, a interventi individuali, di categoria, statali per rimuovere le cause dell’ingiustizia sociale, derivante dalla concentrazione della ricchezza nelle mani di pochi. Il magistero della Chiesa cattolica ha elaborato, a partire dalla 168 seconda metà del secolo XIX," una sempre più precisa critica al prin- cipio di libertà — uno dei miti della società nata dall'Illuminismo — applicato sul piano della realtà sociale ed economica. Inoltre non si è abbandonata la tesi della legittimità del principio di proprietà pri- vata, « la quale è conforme alla natura umana e vantaggiosa per l’or- dine sociale »? ma ci si è sforzato di condizionarlo con le esigenze sociali, attribuendo allo Stato il diritto di determinare i limiti nel- l'uso del bene privato in vista del bene comune. Nella discussione tra legittimità delia proprietà privata e bene comune, spesso non si di- stingue tra proprietà e uso che se ne fa: nella mancata distinzio- ne tra proprietà e uso — e quindi, in certo senso, tra proprietà privata e destinazione universale dei beni — sta la radice sia dell'in- dividualismo capitalistico che del comunismo. Dal fatto che i beni sono fatti per tutti, il comunismo deduce la dottrina e la prassi che i beni devono essere di tutti; dal fatto che i beni devono essere ap- propriati e sono di fatto appropriati, l’individualismo capitalistico ricava che essi sono fatti solo per i singoli, i quali, quindi, possono disporne senza curarsi per nulla degli altri. Entrambe queste solu- zioni commettono lo stesso errore. . In questa linea di principio, le soluzioni proposte negli ultimi cento anni alla questione sociale riguardano soprattutto lo Stato, che deve promuovere l’uso dei beni, pur posseduti in privato, a effet- tivo vantaggio sociale, a promozione del bene comune. I sindacati dei lavoratori, per la rivendicazione dei loro diritti individuali, fami- liari e di categoria, nonché la loro partecipazione alla ripartizione delle ricchezze prodotte con il proprio lavoro a vantaggio non di alcuni, ma di tutti, devono egualmente svilupparsi e potenziarsi. 11. Îl cristiano e la promozione delia coscienza sociale e politica: la mediazione culturale e l'impegno politico Soprattutto nei tempi più recenti, si è sviluppata nella coscienza individuale del cristianesimo la consapevolezza che non si tratta più di vivere interiormente la propria fede, ma di esprimerla come “ I documenti principali sono: l’enciclica Rerum novarum del pontefice Leone XIII (1891); l'’enciclica Quadragesimo anno di Pio XI (1931); Radiomes- saggio per il 50° della Rerum novarum di Pio XII (1941); l’enciclica Mater et magistra di Giovanni XXIII (1961); l’enciclica Pacem in terris di Giovanni XAIII (1963); la costituzione Gaudium et spes del Conc. Vaticano II (1965); l'enciclica Popolorum progressio di Paolo VI (1967); la lettera apostolica Octogesima adveniens di Paolo VI (1971); il documento su « La giustizia nel mondo » del III Sinodo dei Vescovi (1971); l’enciclica Laborem exercens di Giovanni Paolo II (1981) e l’istruzione della Congregazione per la dottrina della fede Libertà cristiana’ e liberazione (1986). Si suggerisce come testo di consul- tazione il volume / documenti sociali della Chiesa (da Pio IX a Giovanni Paolo II, 1864-1982), Massimo, Milano 1983. © PIo XI, Quadragesimo anno, n. 73. ® G. BATTISTA GUZZETTI, L'uomo e i beni, Marietti, Torino 1956, p. 215. 169 La dottrina sociale della Chiesa dal sec. XIX a oggi H problema della proprietà privata in rapporto al bene comune Responsabilità dello Stato e promozione del bene comune Esperienza di fede e testimonianze di impegno di azione sociale Un nuovo modello di civiltà e l'appello all’immaginazione sociale Gli insegnamenti del Concilio Vaticano li La ‘‘mediazione culturale”: congiunzione e sintonia tra fede e coerenza politica impegno di azione sociale, testimonianza di una autentica volontà di rinnovare il mondo secondo l'ideale cristiano. Ma accanto a questa preliminare posizione del cristianesimo, anzi come conseguenza della conversione personale, nasce l'impegno di chi vuol vivere la sua fede cristiana in una azione politica. Verso questa testimonianza cristiana nel mondo politico-sociale contemporaneo sono orientati oggi i cristiani più sensibili e consa- pevoli dell'urgenza dei problemi che il mondo è chiamato a risol- vere. Il cristiano sa che non si tratta più di affrontare i problemi sociali emergenti dal conflitto capitale-lavoro, bensì di affrontare l’urgen- te problema di un nuovo modello di civiltà. « In nessun'altra epoca come nella nostra l'appello all'immagina- zione sociale è stato così esplicito. Occorre dedicarvi sforzi di inven- tiva e capitali altrettanto ingenti come quelli impiegati negli arma- menti e nelle imprese tecnologiche ».* Oggi si incomincia a vedere con chiarezza che nessuna delle ideo- logie dominanti porta con sé la proposta di un mondo veramente instaurato sulla democrazia, sulla giustizia e sulla non violenza. Le ingiustizie del capitalismo sono note ed evidenti. Ma anche là dove esso è stato debellato secondo la soluzione socialista-marxi- sta non mancano gravi problemi che si impongono a una coscienza umana sincera e non prevenuta. Una perenne tensione divide il mondo e pone « due continenti ideologici » in uno stato di guerra e di inconciliabile opposizione. L'urgenza e la consapevolezza di questi problemi impegnano de- cisamente i cristiani che nel corso dell'ultimo ventennio, soprattutto sulla scorta degli insegnamenti del Concilio Vaticano II, si sono tro- vati a compiere lo sforzo di attuare una corretta modalità di pre- senza. Il cristiano, infatti, nell'impegno politico ha dovuto confron- tarsi e guardarsi sia dal rischio di attuare una presenza politica, in cui la scelta di fede e l'azione politica non siano sintonizzate da alcun legame di coerenza, arrivando a compiere scelte ideologiche di formulazione anticristiana, come dall'altro rischio che deriva dalla pretesa di attingere l'indicazione della teoria e della prassi politica direttamente dalla dimensione di fede e dal contenuto delle verità ultime. Possiamo dire pertanto che il cristiano deve operare per « co- struire la città dell'uomo a misura d'uomo; e questo lo impegna a superare stati d'animo di disinteresse, di diffidenza, talora di rifiuto della politica fino a forme di gretto qualunquismo ».® . Sorge così l'esigenza di pervenire all'elaborazione di una « me- diazione culturale » per operare in sintonia tra scelta di fede e * :PaoLO VI, Lettera apostolica Octogesima adveniens del 14-5-1971, n. 19. * Questo concetto è preso dal volume La città dell'uomo di Giuseppe Laz- zati, scomparso recentemente, splendida figura di uomo politico cristiano, di studioso, che fu rettore dell’Università Cattolica di Milano. 170 coerenza politica. Le mediazione culturale si pone, inoltre, come la linea di confine lungo la quale realizzare il confronto ideologico e stabilire i termini di possibilità del dialogo nel pluralismo delle culture e degli orientamenti politici. 12. | nuovi problemi impongono una nuova concezione di società 12.1 La nuova società « post-industriale » o della comunicazione Come è stato detto nei paragrafi precedenti, l'immenso progresso negli ultimi decenni della scienza ha permesso l'applicazione delle tecnologie più avanzate, soprattutto la robotica e l'informatica, in ogni settore dell'attività produttiva. Per distinguere questa nuova fase della società industriale si è creato il termine di « società post-industriale » la quale pur avendo risolto molti problemi che a- vevano pesato sull’umanità nei secoli scorsi, si è trovata ‘a fronteg- giare altri nuovi gravi problemi, sorti soprattutto per effetto della nuova civiltà della comunicazione e dell'immagine che ha svilup- pato una serie di nuovi bisogni, dando origine alla « società dei con- sumi » e a nuove forme di potere disumanizzanti della vita indivi- duale, familiare e comunitaria. Nella società comunista come in quella capitalista sono nati i «nuovi poveri » che si sostituiscono a quelli creati nel secolo scor- so dalla rivoluzione industriale: i drogati, i disadattati, i deviati, gli emarginati d'ogni tipo; cresce la difficoltà del dialogo tra generazio- ni; si moltiplicano le forme di discriminazione razziale, culturale, religiosa, nonché quella meno apparente ma altrettanto grave del- l'emarginazione di coloro che sono improduttivi come i vecchi, i ciechi, gli handicappati. La civiltà dell'immagine, sorta soprattutto con la televisione, ha sviluppato la violenza ed ha contribuito anche ad una eccezionale crescita della criminalità organizzata che ha reso insicura la vita di tutti. Infine, lo sfruttamento irrazionale per i propri fini egoistici delle risorse terrestri minaccia l’ambiente na- turale e di conseguenza il contesto umano stesso. Sarebbe semplicistico ridurre tutti questi problemi — ed altri an- cora dello stesso genere — al semplice conflitto tra capitale e lavoro. È una società intera che, nonostante abbia iniziato da qualche ge- nerazione la soluzione dei suoi problemi in termini di « capitale- lavoro », oggi riconosce amaramente che la società tecnologica, sia essa a servizio del capitalismo o sia a servizio del proletariato, ha aperto il passo a conflitti umani che richiedono un superamento ra- dicale della concezione della società e dell'uomo. L'invocazione che emerge da questi gravissimi conflitti è che si debba al più presto sorpassare ogni sistema e ideologia attualmente vigenti, per trovare 171 Nella società post- industriale sorgono nuovi problemi sociali I nuovi poveri: gli emarginati, i devianti, i disadattati Occorre giungere ad una nuova concezione della società e dell’uomo Pesante costo sociale delia odierna societa tecnologica Gsisi dell’era tecnologica perché essa appare troppo pericolosa Il giudizio di Abbagnano {sa scensiderato delia tecnologia nuove forme di democrazia, libera e sociale, che sia un autentico con- trappeso alla invadenza della tecnocrazia.® 12.2 La « crisi epocale » della società nell'era tecnologica L'era tecnologica e dell'informatica ha determinato, come è stato detto, nella società trasformazioni di dimensioni tali da creare una « crisi epocale » della nostra società. Questo progresso, infatti, se da un lato ha portato immensi van- taggi all'umanità, dall'altro lato ha avuto un pesante costo, non solo in termini economici, ma soprattutto per quanto riguarda la difesa della natura, la salute e l'integrità della persona. Di questa « crisi epocale » segnaliamo qui appresso gli aspetti più rilevanti: a) Crisi tecnologica - « La crisi della tecnica è esplosa dopo anni di infatuazione per i risultati spettacolari che la tecnologia moderna è riuscita a conseguire: treno, auto, aereo, radio, televisione, trat- tore, carro armato, veicoli spaziali, missili, grattacieli, metropolitane, calcolatori elettronici, polmoni e reni artificiali. La crisi è scoppiata quando la gente ha cominciato ad accorgersi che il gioco tecnologico è troppo costoso e troppo pericoloso. «Davanti al costo enorme di certe armi (missili, bombardieri, sottomarini atomici, bombe atomiche, ecc.) e soprattutto dei viag- gi spaziali, molta gente ha cominciato a chiedersi se questo impiego della tecnologia sia lecito, morale, o se non sia invece più giusto indirizzare la tecnologia ad obiettivi ben più urgenti come il pro- blema della fame, la cura dei tumori, ecc. ».” « Oggi come oggi — nota Nicola Abbagnano — il senso di una insicurezza radicale che investe tutti gli aspetti della vita è assai diffuso e costituisce il carattere dominante del tempo. I capisaldi sui quali, da qualche secolo in qua, si fondava la certezza dell'uomo riguardo al suo destino non stanno più in piedi. Non si crede più al progresso ineluttabile della storia. La scienza e la tecnica hanno realizzato conquiste enormi e insperate, ma i contraccolpi negativi di esse, i costi enormi naturali ed umani, sono diventati evidenti ed appaiono sempre più pesanti ed insostenibili ».* « Oltre che per i suoi costi altissimi la tecnologia viene messa in crisi dai pericoli e dai danni assai gravi che essa procura sia alla natura sia all'uomo. « Nel mondo della natura l'uso sconsiderato della tecnologia ha provocato danni gravissimi forse irreparabili. [....] ì « Oltre che per i danni che sta provocando nella natura, la tecno- logia viene messa in crisi per gli effetti perniciosi che ha sull'uomo. * PaoLo VI, Ivi, par. n. 47. . Î ? B. MONDIN, Una nuova cultura per una nuova società, Massimo, Milano 1983, p. 169. 5 N. ABBAGNANO, L'uomo progetto 2000, Dino, Roma 1980, pp. 231-232. 172 Essi riguardano anzitutto l'ordine fisico, materiale, economico. [....] « Un altro effetto negativo della tecnologia è di produrre disoc- cupazione: essa, appena può, sostituisce l'uomo con la macchina e annulla moltissimi posti di lavoro. [....] « Ancor più grave è l’avvertimento che ci viene dalla tecnologia allorché essa viene impiegata per fare esperimenti sulla struttura genetica dell'uomo. È un'aberrazione gravissima, mostruosa. [...] Infatti intervenire sulla struttura genetica è far violenza all'uomo, alla sua libertà, la quale non è solamente quella qualità e quel diritto a cui noi moderni teniamo maggiormente, ma quella capacità che insieme all'intelligenza costituisce il vero nucleo essenziale del no- stro essere ».? b) Crisi morale - Anche sull'ordine morale le ripercussioni nega- tive della tecnologia sono allarmanti. « Una delle ragioni dello sfacelo morale del nostro tempo è stato il dimenticare che l'uomo diviene autenticamente uomo soltanto col- tivando se stesso, plasmando il proprio essere, disciplinando i propri istinti, tenendo lo sguardo fisso su certi valori fondamentali che for- mano la morale naturale: quelli già scoperti dal pensiero greco (bel- lezza, bontà, giustizia, prudenza, temperanza, amicizia, ecc.) e quelli aggiunti più tardi dal cristianesimo (amore, sacrificio, umiltà, pu- rezza, eguaglianza, solidarietà, ecc.). [...] « Con questo è chiaro che ultimo responsabile degli effetti per- versi della tecnologia e del suo cattivo uso è l'uomo. La responsabi- lità della “crisi epocale” ricade sulla società che ha introdotto la tecnologia e sugli uomini che l'adoperano. Essi hanno smarrito il cor- retto impiego della tecnologia dal momento in cui hanno smarrito la verità dell'uomo e della società ».® c) Crisi dei valori - « Storici e letterati, scrittori e giornalisti, filosofi e teologi, sociologi e psicologi, uomini politici ed ecclesia- stici, tutti riconoscono che la ragione fondamentale per cui la nostra società sta precipitando nel caos è il suo abbandono dei valori fonda- mentali che l'avevano informata e ispirata per secoli, cioè Dio, la Pa- tria, la Famiglia, lo Stato, la Chiesa, la Scuola, il Diritto, la Persona, la Solidarietà, la Filantropia, la Giustizia, ecc. ».* « Tutta la società è rimasta sconvolta dalla crisi dei valori tradi- zionali e dal loro capovolgimento. Ma la vittima principale, che pa- ga il prezzo più alto, è la gioventù, la quale spesso soffre di un vuoto interiore spaventoso che cerca di colmare rifugiandosi nei paradisi artificiali della droga oppure nell’inferno della criminalità e della violenza. Sono, però, soprattutto gli stessi giovani a restare delusi dalla cultura di oggi e a contestarne i risultati morali. Essi respin- gono assolutamente il principio base del consumismo, secondo cui * B. MONDIN, Una nuova cultura..., cit., pp. 169-172. ® Ivi, pp. 172-175. # Sul problema dei valori vedere il cap. XV. 173 Grave crisi morale della società attuale Grave crisi dei valori Una dura verità che deve essere annunciata Giovanni Paolo Il: occorre pensare non all'uomo astratto ma a quello reale, concreto Mediazione tra fede e cultura l'uomo tanto vale in quanto è un principio di produzione e di con- sumo ».® 12.3 È necessario un nuovo progetto culturale « Ciò che è urgente e inderogabile per trarre l'umanità fuori dalla barbarie è darle una nuova forma spirituale, ossia una nuova cul- tura, la quale, dopo Cristo, non può più essere una forma semplice- mente umana ma dev'essere una forma cristiana. [...] « Per i laicisti questa è una dura verità ma è la verità, e il cre- dente non può nasconderla sotto il moggio, per non offendere la loro miopia. La verità va annunciata, proclamata con coraggio, con chiarezza, non a mezzi termini, con circonlocuzioni più o meno oscu- re. E questo vale anche per la cultura. [....] « Il credente sa che solo Cristo (il quale fa parte della storia e l'ha anche profondamente trasformata) possiede la verità sull'uomo e sulla società e ce ne ha resi partecipi. [....] « Perciò per chi rifiuta il messaggio evangelico ed il suo insegna- mento equivale ad escludersi automaticamente dalle condizioni per rielaborare un progetto culturale adatto alla nostra società ».* L'ha proclamato in un modo estremamente chiaro il papa Gio- vanni Paolo II nella enciclica Redemptor hominis indirizzata alla u- manità intera: « Non si tratta dell'uomo astratto, ma reale, dell'uomo concreto, storico. Si tratta di ciascun uomo, perché ognuno è stato compreso nel mistero della redenzione, e con ognuno Cristo si è unito, per sempre, attraverso questo mistero. L'uomo così com'è voluto da Dio, così come è stato da lui eternamente scelto, chiamato, destinato alla grazia e alla gloria: questo è proprio ogni uomo, l'uo- mo il più concreto, il più reale; questo è l’uomo in tutta la pienezza del mistero di cui è divenuto partecipe in Gesù Cristo, mistero del quale diventa partecipe ciascuno dei quattro miliardi di uomini vi- venti sul nostro pianeta, dal momento in cui viene concepito » (Enc. Redemptor hominis, n. 13). « Con ciò non si intende identificare fede e cultura, perché la cultura non si deduce immediatamente, direttamente dalla fede, ma deve avvalersi delle varie mediazioni fornite dalla scienza, dalla filosofia, dalla sociologia, dalla politica, ecc. Ma il pilastro portante, a pietra angolare, storica, reale, è Cristo. Chi lo rifiuta non potrà mai produrre un progetto culturale atto a promuovere il bene reale della persona umana e della società ». * B. MONDIN, Una nuova cultura..., cit., pp. 176-179. ® Ivi, pp. 188-189. 174 CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Origine dello stato naturale, convenzionale, preternaturale — Civitas terrena; civitas Dei; debitus finis — Costituzioni giuste e ingiuste: monarchia; aristocrazia; repubblica o politfa; tirannia; oligarchia; democrazia — Autonomia della sfera politica — Ordine morale; volontà sociale — Stato; Chiesa; società perfetta; subordinazione diretta; subordinazione indiretta — Mediazione culturale — Città fraterna — Capitalismo; individualismo; liberalismo; stato di diritto; trust; oligo- poli; multinazionali; capitalismo classico; capitale; proletariato; sfruttamento — Neocapitalismo scientifico; management; New Deal; tecnostruttura; af- fluent society — Socialismo marxista; comunismo; salario; plus-valore; profitto; lotta di classe — Marxismo; leninismo; stalinismo; maoismo; labourismo — Marxismo revisionista; postmarxismo; neomarxismo — Cristianesimo caritativo; cristianesimo sociale; testimonianza; impe- gno; nuovo modello di civiltà; immaginazione sociale; continenti ideologici SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. I TERMINI DEL PROBLEMA 1. Il carattere essenzialmente politico e socievole della natura umana, già evidenziato da Aristotele nella sua Politica, ha assunto oggi una rilevanza quasi predominante. 2. Il problema politico investe l'origine e il fondamento dello Stato, la sua organizzazione, la sua forma migliore, la sua funzione, il suo fine specifico, la natura dell'azione politica e i suoi rapporti con l’azione morale, i rapporti tra Stato e Chiesa, tra Stato e partiti. 3. Le diverse istanze storiche hanno accentuato di volta in volta uno dei diversi aspetti: a) durante la crisi della polis (Sofisti, Platone, Aristotele) e durante le vi- cissitudini dell'età moderna e contemporanea (Hobbes, Bacone, Locke, Cam- panella, Hume, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Maritain, ecc.) è emersa la questione dell'origine dello Stato; b) nel Medioevo e per taluni aspetti nell'età contemporanea (ad esempio, nel contesto dell’unificazione nazionale) si è affrontato il problema dei rapporti Stato-Chiesa; c) la relazione « politica-morale » ha trovato soprattutto riscontro nell'età moderna (Machiavelli e Hobbes); d) i rapporti Stato-partito sono oggetto soprattutto della riflessione con- temporanea. II. NATURA SOCIALE DELL'UOMO 1. Sin dall'origine della sua storia l'uomo è vissuto in relazione a un grup- po sociale (inizialmente la famiglia, il clan, la tribù, successivamente il villag- gio, la città, lo Stato). La dimensione sociale dell'uomo si perfeziona in rela- zione alla sua crescita culturale. 2. Oggi la socialità ha assunto una fisionomia planetaria favorita anche dai 175 mezzi di comunicazione di massa. A motivo di ciò la socievolezza ha assunto dimensioni tali da poter essere considerata un fenomeno tipico del nostro tempo. 3. ‘Per l'uomo contemporaneo la redenzione coincide con il diventare una persona capace di trovare se stessa in interazione con la comunità. 4. Caratteristica del momento attuale è il fatto che da un lato vengono affermati i diritti inviolabili della persona e la sua libertà e dall'altro alcuni sistemi politici, strutture economiche e sociali e il primato tecnologico-scien- tifico tendono a soffocarli. Lo Stato è una realtà empirica di natura incontrovertibile. Tre sono le interpretazioni che ne spiegano l’origine: a) Origine naturale: l’uomo, essenzialmente socievole, può soddisfare i suoi bisogni e realizzare le sue aspirazioni solo in relazione ai suoi simili. — Secondo Aristotele il traguardo della vita umana è la felicità e lo Stato ne facilita il conseguimento. — Secondo Hegel, lo Stato è originato dalla volontà dello Spirito Assoluto, principio metafisico della realtà, che nello Stato si attua compiutamente. Fami- glia, società civile e Stato sono le diverse tappe di questa attuazione che, par- tendo dall'unione d'amore di due persone, arriva alla realizzazione di una isti- tuzione concreta che organizza la vita etica dei suoi membri. — Secondo Marx, lo Stato nasce dal bisogno degli uomini di soddisfare i loro bisogni elementari attraverso l’aiuto reciproco. Le forme che successiva- mente lo Stato assume nella storia sono invece dovute all'arbitrio umano circa la distribuzione dei tre elementi costitutivi della struttura fondamentale dello Stato che è la struttura economica: lavoro, capitale, mezzi di produzione. b) Origine convenzionale: l'originaria autosufficienza degli individui sa- rebbe stata inficiata dal progressivo costituirsi di piccoli centri di potere. I con- seguenti conflitti hanno dato origine allo Stato come garanzia di stabilità e di accordo sulla base della rinunzia a qualche diritto e con l’assoggettazione a qualche dovere. I Sofisti avanzarono per primi questa ipotesi, sviluppatasi suc- cessivamente attraverso altri filosofi. — Secondo Hobbes e Spinoza il contratto sociale ha carattere irreversi- bile: la delega allo Stato dei propri diritti non può essere revocata. Per Locke e Rousseau, invece, il contratto è reversibile. c) Origine preternaturale: lo Stato è conseguenza di una caduta dell'uomo da una condizione di perfezione originaria, Avviata da Platone, tale concezione è sviluppata da Agostino e da Vico. — Agostino distingue la civitas Dei, fondata sull'amore di Dio e sulla ca- rità, dalla civitas terrena fondata sull'amore di se stessi fino all'egoismo e al rifiuto di Dio. L'essenziale di entrambi i regni è il debitus finis, l'uno ricerca la gloria di Dio, l’altro la gloria degli uomini. Secondo Agostino l’espressione più mostruosa della civitas terrena è stato l'Impero Romano. — Vico, pur attribuendo l'origine dello Stato al peccato, non ha la conce- zione pessimistica di Agostino. Egli vede però nello Stato un intervento prov- videnziale di Dio per trarre gli uomini dalle loro miserie. IV. LE FORME DI GOVERNO 1. Platone e Aristotele, considerando lo Stato in relazione al consegui- mento del bene comune, distinguono le costituzioni possibili in giuste ed in- giuste: 176 GIUSTE INGIUSTE — la monarchia: governo di uno so- — la tirannia: governo di uno solo lo che cura il bene di tutti che persegue il proprio interesse — l'aristocrazia: governo dei virtuo- — l'oligarchia: governo dei ricchi si che curano il bene di tutti sen- che cercano il bene economico za attribuirsi privilegio personale — la repubblica: governo popolare — la democrazia: governo della che cura il bene di tutta la città massa popolare che vuole sop- primere ogni differenza sociale Nei filosofi dell'età moderna le ipotesi hanno avuto una inversione di ten- denza rispetto a quelli dell'antichità e del Medioevo: mentre questi ultimi rite- nevano la monarchia assoluta la forma ideale di governo, i primi si sono fatti assertori della monarchia parlamentare e della repubblica. Oggi la forma repubblicana è considerata la più adatta alla tutela dei di- ritti e al perseguimento del bene comune. V. POLITICA E MORALE 1. Machiavelli fu il primo assertore dell'autonomia della politica sia ri- spetto alla morale che rispetto alla religione. Egli riteneva infatti che la poli- tica disponesse di principi normativi suoi propri. Essa è posta come una for- ma particolare dell'attività spirituale, non riducibile in quanto forza eminen- temente positiva rispetto alla negatività del male. 2. Dopo Machiavelli i teorici della politica si dividono tra coloro che sono favorevoli alla sua teoria e coloro che sono contrari: a) Vico e Campanella tendono a ricondurre la politica alla morale; b) Hobbes e Spinoza rivendicano la totale autonomia della politica. 3. Dopo una pausa segnata dall’interesse degli Illuministi solo sulla ricerca delle forme ideali di governo, il problema viene nuovamente approfondito: — Kant, pur distinguendo le due sfere, afferma che né la politica può sot- trarsi agli obblighi morali, né la morale può sottrarsi all'impegno nella vita civile. — Per Hegel la distinzione è inammissibile, poiché lo Stato è la fonte su- prema di ogni moralità. — Marx presenta una prospettiva ambivalente: a) polemica contro l'idea- lismo e il capitalismo: l’etica e la politica sono sovrastrutture dei fatti econo- mici; b) progettazione della società ideale: l'etica è uno dei valori fondamentali e la politica è uno strumento necessario per la sua realizzazione. Non diversamente da Hegel, nella seconda prospettiva, Marx attribuisce allo Stato il com- pito regolatore della volontà collettiva. — Nella prospettiva cristiana, Maritain riafferma non solo la stretta cor- relazione tra morale e politica (la morale orienta i fini della politica e ne giu- dica i mezzi di realizzazione), ma ribadisce inoltre l'ispirazione lievitante e liberante del Vangelo, capace di dirigere l’azione dell’uomo e il suo significato oltre i limiti della natura e della storia. VI. STATO E CHIESA 1. Stato e Chiesa sono entrambi caratterizzati dalla definizione di società perfetta, il primo finalizzato al bene comune terreno, la seconda finalizzata alla salvezza eterna e ai mezzi per conseguirla. 2. La legittima distinzione tra i due ordini non può comunque intendersi come una separazione poiché i soggetti delle due società sono gli stessi: i cit- tadini di uno Stato sono per lo più anche i membri di una Chiesa. Inoltre gli obiettivi si integrano: né il vero benessere della persona può disgiungersi dalla sua salvezza; né la salvezza è disgiunta dal benessere materiale. 177 3. La questione « Stato-Chiesa », acuta nel Medioevo a motivo dell’univer- salismo dell'Impero e della Chiesa di Roma, si ridimensiona nell'età moderna con gli stati unitari e le pluralità confessionali dopo la Riforma. Le linee risolutive principali restano comunque le seguenti: a) S. Tommaso: subordinazione indiretta dello Stato alla Chiesa (il fine della seconda è superiore a quello del primo); b) Bonifacio VIII: subordinazione diretta dello Stato alla Chiesa: 1) Lo Stato è al servizio della Chiesa. 2) Il Papa riceve di- rettamente l’autorità da Dio; l'Imperatore la riceve dal Papa; c) Marsilio da Padova: subordinazione diretta della Chiesa allo Stato, che provvede al benes- sere totale dei cittadini; il Papa e la gerarchia ecclesiastica sono funzionari incaricati del benessere spirituale dei cittadini; d) Età moderna-contempora- nea: progressiva netta separazione tra le due società. VII. RAPPORTO FEDE-POLITICA 1. È maturata oggi la consapevolezza che la Chiesa è essenzialmente una comunità spirituale vincolata dall'amore, senza strutture temporali che la fac- ciano apparire uno Stato in concorrenza con gli altri stati. 2. La concezione integrale dell'uomo e la fede in un Dio che si è incarnato ha fatto sì che la teologia contemporanea abbia sottolineato l’importanza della dimensione politica del messaggio cristiano, esplicitamente al centro dell’An- tico Testamento (in particolare nel libro dell'Esodo), ma presente anche nel Nuovo {la condotta e l'insegnamento di Gesù provocano la violenta reazione dei poteri politici costituiti). 3. La testimonianza del cristiano non è accettazione passiva né estatica contemplazione della parola di Dio, ma fattiva attuazione delle promesse divine per la piena realizzazione del Regno. VIII. LETTURA POLITICA DEL MESSAGGIO EVANGELICO 1. La legittimità di una lettura politica del messaggio evangelico non la giustificano come lettura esclusiva. Scopo fondamentale del messaggio cristia- no è anzitutto la conversione del cuore. 2. Il cristiano sa che la vita politica deve tendere al bene comune, che la libertà e l'uguaglianza sono diritti inalienabili della persona. 3. Il cristiano è consapevole del fatto che nella natura umana è presente un movimento orizzontale anch'esso determinante per la totale realizzazione dell’uomo in se stesso. In questa direzione l’ideale verso cui deve tendere l'opera politica è l'inaugurazione di una città fraterna (Maritain). IX. CAPITALISMO O SOCIALISMO? 1. Capitalismo e socialismo sono i due sistemi economici contrapposti che oggi si spartiscono le sorti del mondo. Entrambi sono caratterizzati al loro interno da alcuni punti essenziali e da alcune differenziazioni. CAPITALISMO A) Capitalismo classico: sistema economico conseguente ad una concezione antropocentrica dell’uomo: l’uomo non ha altro fine all'infuori di se stesso. e Affermazione prioritaria dell'individuo rispetto alla società (individua- lismo) e sua libertà incondizionata (liberismo). e Lo Stato (espressione delle libertà individuali) si regge sulla democrazia rappresentativa e sulla Legge (stato di diritto). e Economicamente la libertà dell'individuo si estende sulla base delle sue possibilità economiche. È e La lotta per il successo porta all'organizzazione di trust (oligopoli, mul- tinazionali, ecc.) che esercitano pressione sui governi e sull’opinione pubblica. e Accresce se stesso sulla base dello sfruttamento del proletariato. B) Neocapitalismo: nasce negli Stati Uniti con F.W. Taylor (1856-1915) a 178 motivo del crollo del rendimento produttivo dei lavoratori e del loro conflitto con i datori di lavoro. e Si riconosce allo Stato capacità di intervento condizionatore nell’attività economica e ai lavoratori di associarsi liberamente per difendere i propri diritti. e Lo scientific management regola i tempi di lavoro, di istruzione specifica e di cooperazione tra direzione manageriale e lavoratori. e Dopo la crisi del 1929, il « New Deal » di F.D. Roosevelt, lo Stato viene maggiormente coinvolto nel processo economico con un intervento di ridistri- buzione dei redditi attraverso una forte pressione sugli automatismi economici. e La tecnostruttura degli anni ’30 inserisce scienziati e tecnici nel processo economico per un'ulteriore riduzione dell’area proletaria. e Nel secondo dopo-guerra nasce la « società dei consumi », il cui scopo è il miglioramento delle condizioni di vita in base alla disponibilità sempre mag- giore dei beni di consumo. Ma l’uomo di questa società iperproduttiva finisce per vivere costretto a consumare sempre di più ciò che produce. SOCIALISMO A) Socialismo marxista: K. Marx (1818-1883) si propone di fondare una so- cietà in cui sia abolito lo sfruttamento e garantito a tutti il soddisfacimento dei bisogni fondamentali (comunismo). e La proprietà privata è considerata l'origine di ogni male individuale e sociale. x e La privatizzazione fa generare il rapporto salariale sul quale l’impren- ditore lucra il « plus valore » o profitto. e iLa lotta di classe è il mezzo per risolvere lo stato di sfruttamento e av- viare la società verso il comunismo. e Con la I° Internazionale dei Lavoratori (Londra 28-9-1864) le varie cor- renti socialiste si associano seppure con profondi contrasti. e Dalle posizioni di Bakunin nasce l'orientamento anarchico. e In Italia, a Genova, nel 1892 nasce il partito dei lavoratori italiani (poi P.S.I.). B) Labourismo e socialdemocrazia: il primo (Labour Party) sorge in In- ghilterra all’inizio di questo secolo come naturale frutto politico della Fabian Society, fondata nel 1883 a Londra con lo scopo della elevazione della classe lavoratrice e delle Trade Unions, i sindacati operai che avevano iniziato la loro attività nei primi decenni del 1800 come società di mutuo soccorso tra gli operai metallurgici. Come it socialismo, il labourismo si è data la meta di arrivare a dare alla classe lavoratrice la proprietà dei mezzi di produzione, senza accogliere però i principi filosofici di quello. I mezzi di lotta per raggiungere le mete stabilite è l'educazione delle masse e lo sciopero attraverso il sindacato per ottenere dallo Stato e dal padronato migliori condizioni di vita, salariali ed una legislazione sociale a difesa del lavoratore. Sulla linea del labourismo sorgono in altri paesi dell'Europa occidentale (come Germania, Olanda, Danimarca, Scandinavia) partiti socialdemocratici i quali ripudiano la via rivoluzionaria per il riformismo, per attuare nel tempo le proprie mete. Entrambi questi due socialismi riformisti e democratici non combattono il capitalismo, trasformatosi nel contempo in neocapitalismo, ma convivono con esso, accettando la tesi dello sviluppo massimo della produzione come strumento per migliorare le condizioni dei lavoratori e rendendoli partecipi della vita sociale e politica del proprio paese. C) Marxismo-leninismo e maoismo: nel 1917 con la Rivoluzione d'ottobre 179 Lenin crea in Russia uno Stato collettivista, con un potere di vertice esercitato dal partito in modo assoluto. e :La terra fu collettivizzata; furono negate le libertà individuali e di grup- po. Con Stalin il regime assume un carattere dittatoriale estremo. e Nel 1956 al XX Congresso del Partito Comunista il dispotismo staliniano viene denunziato. e Nel 1949 in Cina Mao-Tze-Tung costituisce la Repubblica Popolare Cinese. Furono collettivizzate l'agricoltura, l'industria e i commerci. e I capisaldi del marxismo vengono ripensati per un popolo povero e con- tadino che viene indottrinato secondo una metodologia nazionalistica e volon- taristica. Il socialismo maoista ha caratteri militaristi. Dopo la morte di Mao- Tze-Tung il regime comunista cinese diviene meno rigido. D) Marxismo revisionista o neo-marxismo: dopo sessant'anni di marxismo sovietico e nonostante la notevole diffusione del marxismo in Occidente, vi è stato un evidente allontanamento nell’area degli intellettuali dalle tesi classiche. e Peri nuovi marxismi, ad esempio, la dialettica non ha leggi, non riguarda la natura, ma il soggetto singolo in rapporto con la storia. e La religione è considerata un fattore di liberazione e apertura alla speranza. e Tra i rappresentati del nuovo marxismo: Gramsci, Horkheimer, Mar- cuse, Bloch. X. LE DOTTRINE SOCIALI DI ISPIRAZIONE CRISTIANA 1. Le soluzioni cristiane alla questione sociale si distinguono in due tipi: — forma assistenziale caritativa {cristianesimo caritativo): la prima forma essenziale al cristianesimo è presente in tutti i secoli cristiani, come frutto dell'attenzione evangelica agli umili, agli oppressi, ai diseredati; — forma propositiva di revisione delle strutture economico-sociali (cristia- nesimo sociale): si è preoccupata di individuare accanto all'azione caritativa, il problema della giustizia a partire dalla seconda metà dell’800. e Il magistero della Chiesa ha elaborato a partire dalla fine del XIX se- colo una coraggiosa dottrina sociale che legittima la proprietà privata nel ri- spetto del bene comune, rivendica i pieni diritti del lavoratore e indica i com- piti dello Stato per un giusto equilibrio sociale ed economico. La testimonianza cristiana nel mondo socio-politico si traduce in un im- pegno capace di promuovere un nuovo modello di civiltà e di favorirne la realizzazione. 2. Il cristiano sente tutta la responsabilità di essere la coscienza critica dei « due continenti ideologici » del capitalismo e del socialismo e di dover offrire all'uomo del nostro tempo il terreno di una mediazione culturale sul quale egli possa recuperare la propria integrazione personale e sociale. XII. I PROBLEMI DI UNA NUOVA CONCEZIONE DELLA SOCIETÀ 1. Tra i fenomeni emergenti del nostro tempo appaiono l’'urbanesimo e la civiltà dell'immagine e della comunicazione presenti sia nell’area comunista che nell’area capitalista. 2. Questi fenomeni hanno generato la realtà dei « nuovi poveri »: delin- quenti, drogati, disadattati, devianti, emarginati in genere. 3. Si sono acutizzate le discriminazioni razziali, culturali e religiose. Si ri- fiutano i deboli, i vecchi, gli handicappati perché improduttivi, 4. Il nostro tempo mostra l'urgenza del recupero di una mentalità che ri- trovi l'amore per l’uomo inventando nuove forme di democrazia libera e sociale. 180 5. « La « crisi epocale » della società attuale è soprattutto crisi tecnologica, morale e dei valori, 6. In questa situazione di « crisi epocale » emerge la necessità di un nuovo progetto culturale, ispirato dal Vangelo, che abbia come centro del suo inte- resse l’uomo concreto, storico. QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE i. Che cosa si intende per politica? 2. A che cosa deve la sua origine lo Stato? 3. Quali sono le opinioni dei filosofi antichi e moderni riguardo allo Stato? 4. Qual è la costituzione politica ideale secondo Platone, Aristotele, Tom- maso, Hobbes, Campanella, Locke, Hegel, Marx? 5. Che rapporto c'è tra politica e morale? Qual è lo scopo dello Stato? 6. Come sono stati intesi i rapporti tra Stato e Chiesa da Agostino, Tom- maso, Bonifacio VIII, Marsilio da Padova, Machiavelli, Mazzini, Croce? 7. Politica e morale si distinguono tra di loro? Come? 8. Che rapporto intercorre tra fede e politica? C'è una funzione politica nel messaggio evangelico? 9. Cosa si intende per stato democratico, liberale e totalitario? 10. Quali sono le caratteristiche del capitalismo e del socialismo? Che cosa è il neocapitalismo? E il labourismo e la socialdemocrazia?* 11. Quali sono le caratteristiche del marxismo-leninismo-stalinismo rispetto al maoismo? Che significano i termini « nuovi marxismi » e « postmarxismo »? 12. Il neocapitalismo e il marxismo riescono a superare i mali della so- cietà odierna? Perché si dice società dei consumi? 13. Che cos'è il cristianesimo sociale? Il cristiano come deve operare in campo sociale e politico? 14. Quali possono essere considerate le cause determinanti che hanno pro- gressivamente subordinato il potere politico al potere economico? 15. È legittimo oggi parlare non solo di continenti ideologici ma addirit- tura di dittature planetarie? 16. In quale misura è possibile stabilire un rapporto tra il deterioramento attuale dell'orizzonte metafisico, antropoiogico ed etico e il disorientamento politico contemporaneo? 47. In quale prospettiva e perché una sana mediazione culturale può fare dell'esperienza religiosa la coscienza critica dei sistemi politici ed economici degenerati? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI AA.Vv., Fede e politica oggi, Massimo, Milano 1982. AA.Vv., Economia, politica e morale, Morcelliana, Brescia 1958. AA.Vv., Filosofia e impegno politico, Massimo, Milano 1982. AA.Vv,., Politica e filosofia, F. Angeli, Milano. ARANGUREN J., Etica e politica, Morcelliana, Brescia 1966. Biscione M., La filosofia politica del Novecento in Italia, Bonacci, Roma 1981. BruNELLO B., Dottrine politiche, La Scuola, Brescia 1955. CARMAGNANI R.-PALAZZO A., Mediazione culturale e impegno politico in Stur- zo e Maritain, Massimo, Milano 1985. CipoLLA C., La partecipazione politica, Città Nuova, Roma. Croce B., Etica e politica, Laterza, Bari 1981. EISERMAN G., Trattato di sociologia, Marsilio, Padova 1965. 181 FAGONE V., Il marxismo tra democrazia e totalitarismo, La Civiltà Cattolica, Roma 1983. FaRIAs D., Saggi di filosofia politica, Giuffrè, Milano 1977. FICHTER J., Sociologia fondamentale, ONARMO, Roma 1967. LA Pira G., Premesse della politica, L.E.F., Firenze 1979. LAZZATI G., La città dell’uomo (Costruire, da cristiani, la città dell'uomo a misura d'uomo), A.V.E., Roma 1986. MARITAIN J., L'uomo e lo stato, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1975. Ip., Strutture politiche e libertà, Morcelliana, Brescia 1972. Ip., Umanesimo integrale, Borla, Torino 1976. Ip., Cristianesimo e democrazia, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1977. Ip., La persona umana e il bene comune, Morcelliana, Brescia 1973. Ip., Per una politica più umana, Morcelliana, Brescia 1972. MERTON R.K., Teoria e struttura sociale, Il Mulino, Bologna 1971. MONDIN G.B., Una nuova cultura per una nuova società, Massimo, Milano 1984, MONGARDINI C., Lezioni di scienza della politica, Bulzoni, Roma 1978. ‘PASINI D., Problemi di filosofia della politica, Jovene, Napoli 1977. PASSERIN D’ENTRÈVES A., Letture di filosofia politica, C.L.U.T., Torino. SABINE G.H., Storia delle dottrine politiche, Etas Kompass, Milano 1953. SMELSEN N.J., Manuale di sociologia, Il Mulino, Bologna 1984. SPIAZZI R., Etica sociale, La Guglia, Roma 1979. Strauss L., Che cos'è la filosofia politica, Argalia, Urbino 1977. Tommaso D'Aquino, Scritti politici, Massimo, Milano 1985. VioLa F., Introduzione alla filosofia politica, L.A.S., Roma 1980. WEIL E., Filosofia politica, Guida Napoli 1977. 182 Capitolo dodicesimo iL PROBLEMA ESTETICO QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. L'uomo avverte l'esigenza della bellezza? Che cosa è la bellezza? 2. Che cosa caratterizza l’opera d'arte? 3. Che rapporto intercorre tra soggetto, natura e opera d'arte? 4. Qual è lo scopo dell'opera d’arte? Il problema estetico riguarda la natura dell'opera d'arte, il suo fine e i rapporti che intercorrono tra l’attività estetica e le altre attività umane. Questi tre aspetti capitali del problema estetico, già esplorati tante volte nel passato, continuano ad essere oggetto di discussione anche ai nostri giorni. Nel presente capitolo noi cerche- remo di determinare il senso di questi aspetti del problema estetico e presenteremo inoltre un quadro sintetico delle soluzioni più si- gnificative elaborate dai filosofi antichi e moderni. 1. Natura dell’opera d’arte Che cos'è l'opera d'arte in se stessa? Quali sono le ragioni per cui qualche cosa viene considerata artistica mentre altre cose no? Per esempio, perché lo scarabocchio d'un bambino non viene rite- nuto artistico, e invece se porta la firma di Picasso sì? Oppure, per- ché si giudica artistica una cattedrale gotica, ma non un palazzo in cemento armato? Ancora, quando un artista produce un'opera d’arte, che cosa fa di preciso: crea oppure imita, inventa oppure copia, e- sprime se stesso, i propri sentimenti, le proprie passioni, oppure dà corpo a valori universali intuitivamente percepibili da ogni uomo? Questi sono appena alcuni degli interrogativi che si affacciano alla mente quando ci si trova di fronte ad un'opera d'arte. Per prenderne coscienza non occorre nessuna preparazione speciale e nessun grado elevato di cultura. Ma la risposta non è affatto ovvia e molto spesso neppure le menti più acute e preparate sono riuscite a trovarne una soddisfacente. Il problema estetico è tra i primi che si presentano alla riflessione dei greci, per la necessità di intendere anzitutto come ad un mondo di poesia possa affiancarsi o anteporsi un mondo di idee, e come l'essere possa persistere nella sua assorbente sovranità, pur lascian- 183 La natura dell’opera d’arte, il suo fine, il suo rapporto con le altre attività umane I caratteri essenziali dell’opera d’arte Platone: l’arte imitazione della Bellezza La poesia come procreazione spirituale Aristotele: la bellezza è ‘‘un bene che piace” Filosofia cristiana e concezione mimetica: Dio, che è bellezza, è oggetto di imitazione do sussistere accanto e di fronte a sé la scialba e inconsistente realtà del mito e della poesia. Questo problema ha appassionato soprattutto Platone, il quale ha cercato di risolverlo nel contesto della sua teoria delle Idee, fa- cendo dell'estetica una specie di controprova di tale teoria. L'arte viene intesa da Platone come imitazione -della natura e questa, a sua volta, è concepita come imitazione delle Idee. L'oggetto della imi- tazione è la Bellezza. Nel Filebo Platone descrive la Bellezza come un preludio sensibile del Bene inaccessibile, quasi si trattasse del « portico » della casa del Bene. Nel Fedro egli parla del Bello come di un'idea corporea, l’unica tra le idee che ebbe in sorte il privilegio di rendersi visibile ai mortali, per poter essere da loro ardentemente amata. Nel Convito Platone oltrepassa la concezione mimetica del- l'arte e formula una teoria dell’arte intesa come creazione, una pro- duzione dall'interno, un « parto » (tokos). Eros, il simbolo divino del Convito, è fecondato dall’anelito verso la Bellezza oggettiva e asso- luta, quando si rende capace di generare e procreare nel Bello. Quand'uno già brama di generare e procreare, allora soltanto si lan- cia alla ricerca del Bello e, trovatolo, genera e procrea ciò di cui da lungo tempo era pregno. Poesia è questa procreazione spirituale, per cui nessun particolare requisito si chiede ai « buoni poeti », eccetto che siano generatori e inventori. Alla concezione mimetica dell’arte si attiene anche Aristotele, no- nostante il suo rifiuto della teoria platonica delle Idee: per lui l’arte è essenzialmente imitazione della natura. L'imitazione, però non è in- tesa come semplice riproduzione, ma piuttosto come emulazione della natura, considerata maestra. Dal punto di vista soggettivo, Ari- stotele definisce la bellezza come « un bene che piace » e la distin- gue, pertanto, sia dal bene che dal piacere. Infatti, mentre il bene è oggetto della volontà e il piacere delle passioni, il bello interessa le facoltà conoscitive: è un piacere suscitato nelle facoltà conoscitive. Gli elementi fondamentali che contribuiscono a rendere bella ossia artistica una cosa sono tre: l'ordine, la simmetria e la determina- tezza. La concezione mimetica dell’arte viene ripresa anche dai filosofi cristiani i quali peraltro la modificano su di un punto fondamen- tale: oggetto dell'imitazione non è più la natura oppure le Idee, ma Dio stesso. L'arte umana dovrà risultare imitazione dell'atto con cui Dio crea la natura. Si tratta di una modificazione profonda che non riguarda soltanto la maggior eievatezza della realtà imitata, ma anche la natura stessa dell'imitazione, perché questa diviene imi- tazione dell'attività creatrice di Dio, un'attività che i greci non ave- vano mai conosciuto. Ne consegue che « unità, armonia, proporzione, integrità, congruenza, convenienza della forma bella, tutti i concetti estetici insomma, che i cristiani avevano ereditato dalla classicità, acquistano un nuovo timbro nella loro riesecuzione: tutte queste sono note della bellezza, per loro in quanto appartengono all'atto -184 espressivo e manifestativo dello Spirito Assoluto che contiene il mon- do nella sua potenza creatrice e perciò lo rende bello. Nessuna cosa sarebbe bella, se non venisse da Dio: è il motivo che ricorre dalle Confessioni di S. Agostino all'Itinerarium di S. Bonaventura. Il Dio cristiano è il « genio della nuova estetica ».! Dal punto di vista soggettivo, i pensatori cristiani, seguendo Aristotele definiscono la bellezza come una relazione: « pulchrum est quod visum placet » (bello è ciò che piace alla vista). Come la bontà così pure la bellezza è una relazione di convenienza, di ar- monia, ma non più tra le cose e la facoltà appetitiva (come nella bontà), bensì tra cose e facoltà conoscitive. Tuttavia la bellezza si distingue anche dalla verità, in quanto pur essendo come quest’ulti- ma una relazione tra cose e facoltà conoscitive, diversamente da essa non è una relazione di corrispondenza, ma di eccitazione e di sod- disfazione. Dal punto di vista oggettivo anche gli autori cristiani, come Aristotele, fondano la bellezza sull’integrità, l'ordine e lo splendore (integritas, proportio, claritas). % Durante il Rinascimento, che è anche l’epoca d'oro delle arti figurative, non potevano mancare indagini intorno alla natura del- l'opera d’arte. Tali indagini in alcuni casi sono svolte dagli autori stessi di alcuni dei più celebri capolavori di pittura, scultura, archi- tettura di tutti i tempi; Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgio Vasari, ecc. Le loro considerazioni si rifanno oltre che ad Aristotele anche, anzi soprattutto, a Platone. Di lui si apprezzano in particolare ie dottrine sull'amore (eros), sulla generazione creativa (tokos) e sull’entusiasmo lirico (mania). Una svolta decisiva alla storia dell'estetica fa registrare Giam- battista Vico. Da lui l'arte non viene più concepita secondo la ma- niera mimetica, ma come un modo fondamentale ed originario di e- sprimersi da parte dell'uomo in una determinata fase del suo svilup- po. Secondo il Vico, com'è noto, tale sviluppo comporta tre fasi o età: del senso, della fantasia e della ragione. L'arte è il modo carat- teristico di esprimersi dell'età della fantasia: in quell'età l’uomo diede espressione al suo modo di intendere la realtà nelle creazioni della fantasia, nei poemi, nei miti, ecc. « La sapienza della gen- tilità dovette cominciare da una metafisica non ragionata e astratta qual è questa degli addottrinati, ma sentita ed immaginata quale dovette essere da tali primi uomini ». La mente degli uomini antichi, incapace di usare la ragione logica e ribelle alla fatica dell’astrazio- ne e del ragionamento, è naturalmente portata a sostituire o antici- pare il processo astrattivo mediante la fantasia. E in tal modo an- ziché universali logici si foggia universali fantastici, fantasmi o im- ! L. STEFANINI, Estetica, Studium, Roma 1953, p. 19. 185 La bellezza: relazione di convenienza e di armonia tra cose e facoltà conoscitive Umanesimo- Rinascimento: amore, generazione creativa e entusiamo lirico Vico: l’arte come una delle espressioni fondamentali della natura umana L'accoglienza di Vico da parte dei filosofi idealisti Kant: l’opera d’arte nasce dai sentimento che esprime l’universale nel particolare Idealisti e neohegeliani: l’arte rappresentazione sensibile deli’Assoluto L'arte come meccanica psicologica e come sovrastruttura magini che tengono il posto di veri universali, ossia delle idee o con- cetti elaborati dalla ragione.” La concezione vichiana dell'estetica, corabattuta aspramente ai suo primo apparire, in quanto urtava contro il pregiudizio cartesiano allora imperante, secondo cui soltanto la ragione può attingere la verità delle cose, fu più tardi calorosamente accolta e ampiamen- te seguita dai romantici e dagli idealisti (Schelling e Hegel) i quali reagendo contro gli eccessi del razionalismo e dell'illuminismo, a- scrivevano grande importanza alle facoltà della fantasia e del sen- timento in ordine alla conoscenza della verità. Una singolare teoria della natura dell'opera d’arte, teoria in parte dettata da esigenze di sistema, viene elaborata da Kant nel- l'opera Critica del giudizio. In essa l'autore cerca di mostrare che l’opera d’arte non è né un'imitazione della natura e neppure un'inter- pretazione metafisica della realtà e che pertanto non è prodotta né dalla fantasia né dall’intelletto. Essa è invece essenzialmente frutto deì sentimento il quale nell'opera d’arte percepisce ed esprime l'’uni- versale nel particolare, l'intelligibile nel sensibile, ii noumeno nel fenomeno. E così fa sorgere il piacere estetico che appaga tutto l’uo- mo in quanto produce una profonda armonia tra le opposte facoltà dei sensi e dell'intelletto. Il problema estetico occupa un posto di singolare rilievo nelle speculazioni degli idealisti e dei neohegeliani (Croce, Gentile). Ii lorc obiettivo è fondere ì motivi più originali delle teorie di Vico e Kant. Dal primo riprendono la tesi secondo cui l’arte rappresenta un momento preciso e di capitale importanza nella storia dell'uma- nità; dal secondo mutuano la tesi secondo cui l’arte è una rappre- sentazione dell’Assoluto in forma sensibile. Il significato spirituale dell'opera d'arte è stato però ripetuta- mente messo in questione durante l’ultimo secolo da autori che si ispirano più o meno direttamente al positivismo. Alcuni come il Taine riconducono l’arte ad un teorema di meccanica psicologica, legata ai tre fattori concorrenti della razza, dell'ambiente e del mo- mento; altri, come Marx, vedono nell'arte una sovrastruttura de- terminata dai rapporti tra i mezzi di produzione all'interno di una particolare società; altri, come Freud, considerano l’arte una su- blimazione dell'istinto sessuale; altri infine, come Dvorak, conside- rano l’arte come criterio ermeneutico della storia della culiura e così identificano la storia dell’arte con la storia della cultura. Contro queste interpretazioni positivistiche dell’opera d’arte han- no preso posizione i filosofi della Gestaltschule (scuola della figura). Secondo questi autori la conoscenza delle condizioni storico-psico- logiche non giova affatto alla comprensione di una opera d’arte. La sola cosa che importa è la figura sensibile, cioè importano i valori ? B. MONDIN', vol. II, pp. 238-240. 3 Ivi, pp. 321-322. 186 tattili o quelli della pura visibilità oppure gli elementi contrappun- tistici e tonali dell'esecuzione musicale, presi globalmente, come un tutto, e non frammentariamente. Attualmente molti filosofi che si ispirano al neopositivismo e agli analisti del linguaggio, non affrontano più il problema della natura dell'opera d'arte in se stessa, ma in modo assai indiretto, cercando di stabilire quale sia il senso del linguaggio estetico e se esistano dei criteri validi per accertarne la presenza (come per determinare il significato oggettivo delle proposizioni scientifiche esistono i criteri della verifica sperimentale oppure della falsificabilità). La lezione che possiamo raccogliere alla fine di queste brevi note intorno alla storia del problema della natura dell'opera d’arte mi pare che possa essere la seguente. L'opera d'arte non è una semplice imitazione di idee archetipe o di fatti naturali. Per caratterizzarsi come esteticamente bella un'opera dev'essere qualcosa di più e di diverso da ciò che esiste già nel mondo della natura oppure della cultura. Per avere opera d'arte ci vuole originalità, creatività. L'ope- ra d'arte è in un certo senso (certo non proprio in senso letterale) una creazione, più esattamente una trasformazione radicale degli ele- menti che l’artista ha a sua disposizione: gli elementi fornitigli dalla. tecnica, dalla osservazione, dalla ispirazione. Ciò che ne risulta si qualifica come bello se presenta tratti d'assoluta novità. Il lavoro dell'artista può essere paragonato a quello dell’ape: egli non crea ma, assimilando elementi già preesistenti, produce una realtà asso- lutamente nuova.‘ 2. Il fine dell’opera d’arte Oggetto dell'attività estetica è il bello (così come oggetto di quella scientifica è la verità, di quella etica il buono, di quella reli- giosa il sacro). L'artista facendo un’opera d’arte si propone anzitutto di dare espressione sensibile alla bellezza. Ma oltre a questo fine specifico i filosofi generalmente assegnano all'opera d’arte anche altre finalità più o meno importanti. Così, per Platone, Agostino e Tommaso essa ha una finalità eminentemente pedagogica; perciò raccomandano solo le opere d'arte che giovano all'educazione e condannano quelle che favoriscono la corruzione. Platone nella Repubblica condanna la commedia e la tragedia so- prattutto per due motivi. Primo, perché i comici e i tragici rappre- sentano gli dèi e gli eroi attribuendo loro bassezze e passioni pro- prie della natura umana e in questo modo snaturano il senso reli- gioso. Secondo, perché, componendo le loro opere, non si fondano sulla ragione ma sul sentimento e sulla fantasia; e invece d'essere d'aiuto alla ragione agitano le passioni, provocando il piacere e il * Cfr. F. MEI, La filosofia del concreto, Marzorati, Milano 1961, pp. 101-104. 187 L'opera d’arte è creazione Il fine: esprimere sensibilmente la bellezza Da Platone a Tommaso: scopo pedagogico dell’opera d’arte Platone: la musica come educazione all’armonia interiore Scopo teoretico dell’opera d’arte: conoscenza delle verità ultime Idealisti tedeschi e neohegeliani: scopo metafisico dell’arte Pedagogico, catartico e metafisico: scopi secondari dolore. Secondo Platone, una sola arte merita d'essere coltivata as- siduamente: la musica. Essa educa al bello e forma l'anima all’ar- monia interiore. Per Aristotele, Plotino e Schopenhauer l’arte ha uno scopo es- senzialmente catartico: va coltivata in quanto aiuta l’anima a libe- rarsi dalle passioni, a purificarsi, a elevarsi verso la contemplazione.‘ Per Vico, Schelling, Hegel, Croce, Gentile l’arte ha una finalità eminentemente teoretica: ha di mira la conoscenza delle verità ul- time, della natura profonda delle cose, del mondo intelligibile, del- l'Assoluto. Vico respinge espressamente le opinioni di Platone e di Aristotele. A suo parere, l’arte non ha primariamente né funzione pedagogica né catartica: essa non è al servizio né dell'estetica né della pedagogia. L'opera d'arte ha anzitutto e soprattutto una fun- zione teoretica e metafisica in quanto costituisce una comprensione ed espressione profonda delle cose da parte di un essere intelligen- te, nel quale la ragione non ha ancora raggiunto la piena matura- zione e che, quindi, riesce ad esprimersi meglio per mezzo della fan- tasia e del sentimento. Questo intento metafisico dell’arte, com'è noto, è stato ribadito dagli idealisti tedeschi del secolo scorso e dai neohegeliani italiani (Croce e Gentile) del nostro secolo. Per tutti questi autori l’arte è una delle attività supreme dello Spirito Asso- luto. Il suo scopo specifico è esprimere l'Assoluto in forma sensi- bile. Pertanto un’opera è artistica soltanto e nella misura in cui è una manifestazione concreta dell’Assoluto. Oggi queste finalità secondarie dell’opera d'arte (pedagogica, catartica e metafisica) non riscuotono troppi consensi tra i filosofi. Generalmente si afferma, e a nostro parere giustamente, che l'arte ha una sua funzione autonoma, che è fine a se stessa, come la scienza, la religione, la morale, la politica, l'economia. Per quanto concerne l'autonomia si paragonano le opere d'arte alle opere della natura. Allo stesso modo come quest'ultime hanno una consistenza propria e una propria autonomia, altrettanto si deve pensare delle prime: an- che le opere d’arte devono essere considerate come aventi una fina- lità loro propria. La natura produce delle realtà (animali, laghi, fo- reste) che non vanno riferite a qualche cosa d'altro per essere com- prese, ma sono studiate direttamente in se stesse. Altrettanto si deve far anche per le opere d’arte. Producendo l’opera d'arte, l'artista in- tende creare qualcosa: vuole metterci davanti ad una realtà nuova, La sua creazione, questa nuova realtà, va guardata in faccia diret- tamente, per conto proprio, senza la pretesa o la preoccupazione di trovarvi dei significati reconditi, delle seconde intenzioni. Tutto quello che l'artista ha voluto dire è quanto egli è riuscito di fatto : Cfr. B. MONDIN, vol. I, pp. 96-97. > Ivi, p. 142 (Aristotele); pp. 185-186 (Plotino); vol. III, pp. 208-209 (Schopen- hauer). * B. MONDIN, vol. III, pp. 79-80. 188 a manifestare. E quello ch'egli è riuscito a manifestare sta lì davanti a noi. C'è però una precisazione da fare riguardo all'autonomia del- l'arte. Quando si dice che l’arte è essenzialmente autonoma non si vuole escludere che essa venga adoperata anche per altri scopi, teo- retici o pratici. Si vuole solo affermare che se lo scopo teoretico e pratico per cui l’opera d'arte viene compiuta è innalzato a fine pri- mario, in tal caso si priva l'opera d'arte della sua autonomia e quindi della sua vita. Quindi se un’opera d'arte ha intenti pedagogi- ci, religiosi, politici, ecc. essa può ancora riuscire come opera d'arte alla sola condizione che tali intenti non siano quelli primari ma se- condari. In conclusione, il principio dell'autonomia delle singole attività e discipline, che è stata la grande conquista dell’epoca moderna, vale certamente anche per l’attività estetica. Quindi nell'esplicarla e nel valutarla non si deve tener conto d'altri criteri al di fuori di quelli che sono intrinseci alla natura stessa dell’opera d'arte. . 3. Arte e morale Alla questione dei rapporti tra arte e morale s'è già fatto cenno alla fine del precedente paragrafo. Questo problema è stato diversa- mente risolto dai filosofi a seconda della finalità ch’essi hanno rite- nuto giusto assegnare all'attività estetica. Sia gli autori che come Platone e Aristotele attribuiscono all'arte una finalità essenzialmen- te pedagogica e catartica, come pure gli autori che col Vico le ascri- vono una finalità metafisica sottomettono in modo più o meno di- retto, più o meno esplicito, l’arte alla morale, e, di conseguenza, condannano dal punto di vista estetico quelle opere che giudicano moralmente riprovevoli. Il riconoscimento dell'autonomia dell’arte dalla morale è una conquista piuttosto recente e va ascritta a merito degli idealisti, in particolare di Benedetto Croce. ‘Secondo Croce l’arte è assolutamente autonoma: non è soggetta né alla filosofia, né alla morale, né alla pratica. L'arte come arte è amorale, cioè al di qua del bene e del male. « L'arte per avere carattere d'arte, per essere vera arte, deve essere vera espressione. Espressione di che? Che volete che esprima l'artista se non le sue im- pressioni? i sentimenti che prova? ».* Per fare vera arte bisogna espri- mere ciò che si ha in sé: chi lo esprime bene, è artista. Ma l’uomo e l'artista sono due realtà distinte. Per essere artista basta esprimere bene i propri sentimenti mentre l’uomo deve essere anche morale, saggio, pratico. Quindi, pur non essendo soggetto alla morale come artista, l'artista è soggetto alla morale come uomo: « Se l'arte è al © B. CROCE, Breviario di estetica, Laterza, Bari 1933, p. 49. 189 Non è il fine secondario a determinare il valore dell’opera d’arte Autonomia dell’arte dalla morale: conquista recente Croce: amoralità dell’arte Arte e morale: subordinazione indiretta di là della morale, non è di qua né di là, ma sotto l'impero di lei è l'artista in quanto uomo, che ai doveri dell’uomo non può sottrarsi, e l'arte stessa — l’arte che non è e non sarà mai la morale — deve considerare come una missione, esercitare come un sacerdozio ».? Di capitale importanza è la precisazione contenuta nell'ultima citazione: « L'arte è al di là della morale... ma sotto l'impero di lei è l'artista in quanto uomo ». L'uomo infatti, nonostante la molte- plicità delle sue attività e delle sue facoltà, costituisce un'essenziale unità. Ora l’unità è possibile soltanto se le varie attività sono ordi- nate ad un unico fine ultimo. Ma, dato che il fine ultimo dell'uomo è la piena realizzazione di se stesso, qui sta il suo bene supremo, la sua felicità, e poiché spetta alla morale riconoscere tale fine e stu- diare i mezzi per conseguirlo, ne deriva una certa subordinazione dell'arte alla morale. Quindi tra arte e morale c'è un rapporto simile a quello che abbiamo registrato tra morale e politica: è un rapporto di subordinazione indiretta. Anche l'arte come la politica deve con- tribuire al raggiungimento del fine ultimo dell'uomo. Questo però è l'obiettivo primario e principale della morale. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Unità; armonia; proporzione; integrità; congruenza; convenienza — Ordine; splendore — Eros, tokos; manìa — Rappresentazione dell’Assoluto; meccanica psicologica; sublimazione della pulsione istintuale; sovrastrutture — Figura sensibile; valori tattili; visibilità; elementi contrappuntistici e tonali SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. LA NATURA DELL'OPERA D'ARTE 1. Il problema estetico riguarda la natura dell’opera d’arte, il suo fine, i rapporti intercorrenti tra l’attività estetica e le altre attività umane. 2. Il problema estetico è tra i primi a presentarsi alla riflessione dei Greci: rapporto tra il mondo della poesia e il mondo delle idee (complementarietà o opposizione); rapporto tra la sovranità dell'essere, il mito e la poesia. 3. Platone (Filebo, Fedro, Convito) intende l’arte come imitazione della natura, che a sua volta è imitazione del mondo delle Idee. La Bellezza è il pre- ludio sensibile al Bene inaccessibile. In una fase ulteriore egli intende l’arte come creazione, « parto » (tokos): Eros, il simbolo divino del Convito, è fecon- dato dall’anelito verso la Bellezza oggettiva e assoluta, quando diviene capace di generare il Bello. La poesia è questa procreazione spirituale; ai poeti non si chiede altro che siano procreatori e inventori. 4. Aristotele ritiene che l'arte, imitazione della natura, sia emulazione. La bellezza è un « bene che piace », distinto sia dal bene morale che dal piacere. Tre elementi caratterizzano il bello artistico: l'ordine, la simmetria, la deter- minatezza. 9 Ivi, p. 33. 190 5. Per i filosofi cristiani l’arte è imitazione dell'atto con cui Dio crea la natura. Unità, armonia, proporzione, integrità, congruenza, convenienza della forma belia sono concetti ereditati dalla concezione classica che i cristiani ri- conducono all'atto di Dio che rende bello ciò che crea {S. Agostino, S. Bona- ventura). 6. Nel Rinascimento predomina la concezione platonica sull'amore {eros), sulla generazione (tokos) e sull’entusiasmo lirico. 7. Nell’età moderna fondamentale è l’estetica di G.B. Vico, secondo il quale l'arte è un mondo primario ed originario dell’espressività dell'uomo in quella fase del suo sviluppo che è dominata dalla fantasia. 8. Kant nell'opera Critica del giudizio afferma che l’opera d'arte è essen- zialmente frutto del sentimento, il quale in essa percepisce ed esprime l’uni- versale nel particolare, il noumeno nel fenomeno. Il piacere estetico è, per- tanto, l’appagamento che l’uomo riceve dall’armonia tra le opposte facoltà dei sensi e dell'intelletto. 9. L'idealismo e il neoidealismo, riecheggiando sia Vico che Kant, danno grande importanza al ruolo dell’arte nella storia dell'umanità e la considerano la rappresentazione sensibile dell’Assoluto. 10. Nella seconda metà del secolo XIX si sono succedute le seguenti inter- pretazioni dell’arte: a) Taine riconduce l’arte ad una meccanica psicologica regolata dai tre fattori della razza, dell'ambiente e del momento; b) Marx considera l’arte come una delie sovrastrutture dei meccanismi di produzione; c) Freud la considera prodotto del meccanismo di sublimazione della pul- sione sessuale; d) Dvorak afferma che l’arte è un criterio ermeneutico della storia della cultura e identifica la storia dell’arte con la storia della cultura; e) i filosofi della Gestalischule (scuola della forma) ritengono che a deter- mirare l’opera d'arte è la figura sensibile, i valori tattili, quelli visibili, gli elementi contrappuntistici e tonali, assunti nella loro globalità; f) oggi l'interesse è soprattutto rivolto alla ricerca del senso del linguaggio estetico e alla ricerca dei criteri validi per accertarne la presenza. II. IL FINE DELL'OPERA D'ARTE 1. Oggetto dell'attività artistica è il bello e fine dell'arte è quello di dare espressione sensibile alla bellezza. 2. Oltre al fine specifico, i filosofi hanno assegnato all’arte altre finalità: — Platone, Agostino e Tommaso le hanno attribuito scopi pedagogici; — Aristotele, Plotino, Schopenhauer le hanno assegnato uno scopo ca- tartico; — Vico, Schelling, Hegel, Croce, Gentile hanno attribuito all'arte una fina- lità teoretica e metafisica. Un'opera è artistica solo e nella misura in cui è manifestazione concreta dell’Assoluto. 3. L'estetica contemporanea tende ad affermare che l’arte ha una sua fun- zione autonoma, che essa è fine a se stessa. In tal senso l’opera d’arte è parago- nabile all'opera della natura. III. ARTE E MORALE 1. I filosofi che attribuiscono all'arte fine pedagogico o catartico o metafi- sico in modo più o meno diretto sottomettono l’arte anche alla morale. 2. Croce, invece, ha decisamente affermato l'autonomia dell’arte dalla mo- rale. L'arte in quanto tale è amorale, al di là del bene e del male. Ma anche se l'artista non è soggetto alla morale in quanto tale, lo è in quanto uomo. A motivo, quindi, della unità essenziale dell'uomo, anche per il rapporto tra arte e morale si può parlare di subordinazione indiretta della prima alla seconda. 191 QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Quali sono i principali aspetti del problema estetico? 2. Quali sono gli elementi costitutivi dell’opera d’arte? In che cosa consiste l’opera d’arte? 3. Qual è l'organo specifico che coglie la bellezza delle cose oppure di un’opera d'arte? 4. Come definiscono l’arte Platone, Aristotele, Kant, Vico, Schelling, Hegel, Croce, Freud, Marx? 5. In che cosa consiste il piacere estetico? 6. Qual è il fine dell’opera d’arte secondo Platone, Aristotele, Plotino, Vico, Kant, Hegel? 7. Quale ruolo ricopre l’arte nella cultura contemporanea? 8. La società a tecnologia avanzata conserva il senso della bellezza? 9. In quale misura e in quali contesti specifici della storia dell'umanità l’arte è stata asservita all'ideologia? 10. In che rapporti si trovano arte e morale? 11. È legittima la possibilità di rapporto tra messaggio artistico e messag- gio politico? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI Aporno TH.W., Teoria estetica, a cura di E. De Angelis, Einaudi, Torino 1975; ANCESCHI L., Autonomia ed eteronomia dell’arte (1936), Garzanti, Milano 1976. AssuNTO R., Teoremi e problemi di estetica contemporanea, Milano 1960. BANFI A., I problemi di una estetica filosofica, Milano-Firenze 1961. Ip., Filosofia dell’arte, Editori Riuniti, Roma 1962. BaARATONO A., Arte e poesia, Bompiani, Milano 1966? BIGNAMI E., La poetica di Aristotele e il concetto dell’arte presso gli antichi, Sansoni, Firenze 1932. CaLogeERO G., Estetica, semantica, istorica, Einaudi, Torino 1947. CaraccioLO A., L'estetica e la religione, Urbaniana, Roma 1972. CRocE B., Estetica come scienza dell'espressione e linguistica generale, La- terza, Bari 1902. DELLA VoLPE G., Critica del gusto, Feltrinelli, Milano 1960. DorrLEs G., Il divenire delle arti, Einaudi, Torino 1959. Eco U., La struttura assente, Bompiani, Milano, 1968. FANIZZA F., Libertà e servitù dell'arte, Dedalo, Bari 1972. GARRONI E., Ricognizione delle semiotiche, Officina, Roma 1978. GENTILE G., La filosofia dell’arte, Sansoni, Firenze 1955. MARTINI M., La deformazione estetica, Milano 1955. PAREyson L., Estetica. Teoria della formatività, Sansoni, Firenze 1974. PERNIOLA M., L’alienazione artistica, Mursia, Milano 1971. RAFFA P., Semiologia delle arti visive, Patron, Bologna 1976. Rossi L., Situazione dell'estetica in Italia, Paravia, Torino 1976. SIMONINI A., Storia dei movimenti estetici nella cultura italiana, Sansoni, Firenze 1968. STEFANINI L., Trattato di estetica, Morcelliana, Brescia 1960. 192Capitolo tredicesimo IL PROBLEMA STORICO QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Che rapporto intercorre tra la propria realizzazione e il trascorrere del tempo? 2. Che definizione si può dare del tempo? 3. Consapevolezza, ricordo e attesa: che rapporto c'è tra queste parole e il tempo? Il problema storico riguarda il senso della storia: la storia, nella sua movimentata sequenza di avvenimenti, ha un senso? Quale? Dove si situa il fulcro della storia: nel passato, nel presente oppure nel futuro? E se la storia ha un senso ed un punto di riferimento decisivo, è possibile effettuare una ricostruzione scientifica delle vicende umane? Il carattere problematico della storia è stato riconosciuto dai filosofi di tutti i tempi. Ma mai come nel nostro secolo, durante il quale il succedersi degli eventi ha assunto un ritmo incredibile sco» nosciuto alle epoche precedenti, la problematicità della storia si è imposta all'attenzione degli studiosi. 1. Il concetto di storia 'La storia si definisce diversamente a seconda che per essa si intendano gli avvenimenti in se stessi (senso oggettivo) oppure la nostra conoscenza dei medesimi (senso soggettivo). La storia in senso oggettivo è la marcia dell’uomo attraverso il tempo. Invece la storia in senso soggettivo ‘è lo studio degli avveni- menti umani che accadono nel tempo, nelle loro cause e nei loro ef- fetti, ed inoltre nel loro significato ultimo.! La storia di cui ci occu- piamo in queste pagine direttamente è la storia come scienza (sen- so soggettivo) ed indirettamente anche la storia come vicenda (senso oggettivo). ! Si suole distinguere tra storia empirica e storia filosofica. La prima si occupa solamente delle vicende umane nelle loro cause e nei loro effetti. Invece la seconda si propone di scoprire il loro significato ultimo. 193 La storia ha un senso? Senso oggettivo e senso soggettivo della storia Scetticismo storico: — apparenza degli avvenimenti — casualità degli eventi — discordanza degli avvenimenti Realismo storico: è possibile una scienza degli eventi storici 2. Possibilità della scienza storica Una scienza storica è possibile? A questo interrogativo si posso- no dare e di fatto sono state date due risposte antitetiche. Si può rispondere negativamente e allora si ha lo scetticismo storico. Op- pure si può rispondere affermativamente e allora si professa il rea- lismo storico. 2.1 Scetticismo storico La negazione della scientificità della storia poggia sui seguenti argomenti: a) Gli avvenimenti sono solo apparenti. Il mondo della esperien- za quotidiana è un mondo illusorio, apparente, senza alcuna consi- stenza e perciò senza senso. La filosofia indiana, Eraclito, Schopenhauer e altri filosofi si sono appellati a questo argomento per negare la possibilità della scienza storica. b) Gli eventi non accadono secondo un piano ordinato. Gli eventi sono reali e non illusori. (Anzi per molti pensatori che si appellano a questo argomento i fatti sono l’unica realtà). Però essi non hanno un significato, perché non hanno una direzione. Un evento suc- cede all’altro senza che nulla vada mai avanti. La storia è un ca- vallo che mentre va per la strada improvvisamente si imbizzarrisce e allora si lancia per i campi o ritorna indietro o si butta nel pre- cipizio. c) Discordanza nella interpretazione dei fatti storici. L'interpre- tazione dei fatti è molto diversa secondo che la storia sia scritta da un positivista, da un laicista, da un marxista o da un cristiano, anche escludendo che si tratti di falsificazioni volute a scopo di propa- ganda o di errori dovuti a documentazioni o indagini insufficienti. Basti pensare alle interpretazioni tanto discordanti del Medioevo, della Controriforma e del Risorgimento. 2.2 Realismo storico ‘Per realismo storico s'intende quell’indirizzo filosofico che am- mette la possibilità di una scienza degli eventi storici. Questo può avvenire in due modi, a seconda che la possibilità della scienza degli eventi storici si fondi su una visione deterministica o non determini- stica della storia. Si dà quindi un realismo storico deterministico o un realismo storico non deterministico. Nel primo i fatti accadono necessariamente, nel secondo liberamente. Tanto nel realismo storico deterministico quanto nel realismo storico non deterministico si danno due interpretazioni principali. In quello deterministico c’è chi ritiene che nella successione dei fatti non ci sia nessun progresso, mentre altri ci vede un divenire, una 194 evoluzione verso mete sempre più alte. Il primo è il realismo storico deterministico statico; il secondo, il realismo storico deterministico dinamico. Tra i fautori del primo tipo vanno annoverati tutti i pen- satori greci; tra quelli del secondo molti filosofi moderni, soprattutto gli idealisti e i materialisti. Ciò che distingue i materialisti dagli idealisti è il punto di partenza del divenire storico: per i primi è la materia, per i secondi è lo spirito. Nel realismo storico non-deterministico c'è chi sostiene che gli eventi storici si svolgono secondo un piano esclusivamente naturale, mentre altri sostengono che essi accadono secondo un piano sopran- naturale. Sostenitori della prima teoria (che chiamiamo realismo sto- rico non-deterministico naturalistico) sono gli illuministi e soprat- tutto Kant. Sostenitori della seconda teoria (che chiamiamo reali- smo storico non-deterministico cristiano o semplicemente realismo storico cristiano) sono tutti gli storici cristiani e i filosofi cristiani della storia. Riducendo questa divisione a schema, essa si presenta così: statico (pensatori greci) materialistico (Marx) deterministico | idealistico (Hegel) È dinamico REALISMO STORICO naturalistico (Kant) non deterministico cristiano : (Agostino, Bossuet, Vico) a) Realismo storico deterministico statico - Secondo il pensiero filosofico greco la storia si svolge su un piano circolare, in cui l’in- dividuo ha una certa libertà (una libertà relativa) mentre l’universo è soggetto alle leggi matematiche di una eterna palingenesi. La stra- da del tempo è una pista rotonda su cui tutte le società, tutte le civiltà, tutte le istituzioni si succedono con un ritmo inesorabile e dopo un breve periodo di gloria scompaiono. Il tempo, e quindi la storia, « è l'immagine mobile dell’immobilità eterna », esso è « quel- l'immagine senza fine che si svolge secondo le leggi dei numeri » (Pla- tone, Timeo). « Dio guida l'universo nel suo percorso circolare, ma una volta compiuti i periodi del tempo che gli sono fissati, esso riprende il suo movimento in senso inverso » (Platone, Politica). Questa concezione circolare della storia è condivisa da quasi tut- ti i pensatori greci (cfr. Empedocle, Platone, Stoici, ecc.). b) Realismo storico deterministico dinamico - Non è possibile qui effettuare una esposizione soddisfacente delle complesse dottrine della filosofia della storia insegnate in questo ultimo secolo dai ma- terialisti e dagli idealisti. Del resto ne abbiamo già trattato distesa- mente nel terzo volume della nostra storia della filosofia, ora ci pre- me solamente indicare una caratteristica fondamentale comune tan- to al realismo storico degli idealisti quanto a quello dei materia- 195 Piano naturale della storia: Kant Piano soprannaturale: storici e filosofi cristiani — Realismo storico deterministico statico: assenza di progresso (pensatori greci) — Realismo storico deterministico dinamico: cammino evolutivo (materialisti, idealisti) Identificazione tra storia e realtà Il teleologismo storico di Kant e degli illuministi: ottimismo e progresso Rivelazione, ordine soprannaturale e libertà dell’uomo listi. In tutti e due la storia viene identificata con la realtà: tutta la realtà si esaurisce negli eventi storici: al di fuori della storia non c'è più nulla. Questa identificazione della storia con la realtà si chia- ma storicismo. A nostro avviso questa interpretazione della storia è insosteni- bile, per almeno tre ragioni. Anzitutto perché essa implica la nega- zione del trascendente, di Dio. La seconda ragione è la negazione della libertà umana. Negando all'uomo la libertà lo storicismo idealistico e materialistico condan- na alla disperazione l’uomo come persona singola, che invano cerca la salvezza dal male e dalla morte che lo stringono nel tempo. Que- sta filosofia della storia rappresenta la forma estrema della disper- sione dell'essere dell'uomo. Infine lo storicismo, nonostante le apparenze, svaluta la storia perché la considera uno sviluppo incessante nel quale tutto viene superato e mutato. I valori di ieri non sono quelli di oggi. I prota- gonisti della storia, gli uomini, sono prigionieri del presente, poiché negano il passato e negheranno a loro volta l'avvenire. Rimane una sola realtà: l'eterna legge della mutazione. c) Realismo storico non-deterministico naturalistico: Kant - Se- condo Kant e molti illuministi la storia si svolge su un piano ordi- nato ‘(teleologico) voluto dalla natura. « La storia è l'attuazione di un nascosto piano della natura ». « Il fine della storia è la realizza- zione di una società che universalmente viva secondo il diritto » (Kant, Idea per una storia universale dal punto di vista cosmopo- litico, pr. 5 e 8). Altrettanto si legge nel saggio Se il genere umano sia in continuo progresso verso il meglio: « Ora io affermo di poter predire alla stirpe umana, anche senza avere spirito profetico, il suo progresso verso il meglio, escludendo che questo progresso possa conoscere sostanziali pericoli di involuzione ». Questa visione ottimistica della storia, nata dal successo bor- ghese della seconda rivoluzione industriale e dall'entusiasmo per il progresso scientifico, ha verificato i suoi limiti davanti ad una umanità provata dall’orrore di due guerre mondiali, artefice del peri- colo dell’autodistruzione atomica, del disastro ecologico e vittima di un consumismo che antepone il valore delle cose a quello delle persone. d) Realismo storico cristiano - Secondo il pensiero filosofico cristiano la storia si svolge secondo un piano determinato dall’incon- tro di due volontà libere: quella di Dio e quella dell'uomo. Di qui l'estrema difficoltà ad interpretare un così complesso disegno che è possibile comprendere solo in virtù dell'intervento di Dio e della ri- velazione da parte sua del senso fondamentale della storia. Dalla Rivelazione sappiamo che la storia non si svolge secondo un piano circolare ciclico e tanto meno secondo leggi fatalistiche e 196 meccaniche, e nemmeno secondo un ordine puramente naturale. Dio ha voluto liberamente inserire l'uomo in un ordine soprannaturale; in tale ordine, cui l’uomo corrisponde liberamente, Dio continua ad intervenire per adattare il suo piano di grazia alla corrispondenza dell'uomo di modo che nonostante le deviazioni umane, la storia pro- cede verso destini sempre più alti. Il piano cristiano della storia si può raffigurare diagrammatica- mente con una linea ascensionale in cui ci sono varie deviazioni verso il basso, ma tutto sommato la parte terminale è più alta di quella iniziale. Dalla Rivelazione si viene a conoscere: a) il significato di tutta la storia che ci precede {attraverso i dogmi della creazione, del pec- cato e della redenzione); b) il punto della storia in cui ci troviamo at- tualmente (cioè tra la prima e l'ultima venuta di Cristo); c) che cosa ci riserva l'avvenire (cioè la fine del mondo e il ritorno trionfale del Messia dopo che il suo messaggio sarà stato annunziate a, tutti gli uomini). ‘Attraverso la Rivelazione conosciamo quindi il grandioso piano divino della storia: il piano generale, non i singoli momenti e i parti- colari di esso, sempre avvolti nel mistero. Sappiamo che la storia non è in regresso, non è un circolo su cui si ripetono eterni ritorni, ma è progresso verso la salvezza. Ampliiando le conoscenze dateci dalla fede mediante quelle che ci sono fornite dalia scienza sappiamo che l'umanità esiste sul pianeta da circa mezzo milione di anni. Però la serie delle civiltà è cominciata appena da 10.000 anni, mentre le generazioni future possono percorrere un altro mezzo miliardo di anni. Il Cristianesimo appartiene quindi all'infanzia della storia dell'umanità. La Chiesa non è che ai primi passi del processo che tende a fare di lei la provincia terrena del Regno dei cieli, motore e scopo della storia della umanità. Su questa concezione cristiana della storia sono state scritte pagine interessanti in tutti i tempi, in particolare da S. Agostino (De civitate Dei), Bossuet (Discorso sulla storia universale), Vico (La scienza nuova), Maritain (Sulla flosofia della storia), De Lubac (Cattolicesimo), von Balthasar (Teologia della storia), Toynbee (A study of history), Mouroux {I! mistero del tem po), Cullmann (Cristo e il tempo). 3. La storia è veramente una scienza? Molti filosofi pensano di poter accordare alla storia il titolo di scienza, definendo la conoscenza storica come sintesi di fatti e di idee, di particolare e di universale. Anche a noi pare che la storia sia una scienza, ma non secondo il concetto ciassico di scienza, bensì secondo il concetto moderno, secondo il quale la scienza non è una riproduzione precisa, ma solo una sistemazione approssimativa 197 il diagramma ascensionale del piano cristiano della storia La scienza storica come sistema approssimativo ‘‘Cognitio certa per causas”’: — “per causas’’ (il nesso che unisce due eventi) — “‘certa’’ (futuro: necessario e universale; passato: anche particolare e contingente) La ricerca dell’unità storica: l’universale che si realizza ripetutamente Carattere ipotetico dell’universale storico La Rivelazione come garanzia del senso della storia della realtà che è troppo complessa per essere pienamente intelligi- bile. Come la scienza sperimentale si chiama scienza sebbene sia soltanto una schematizzazione conveniente, perché permette all’uo- mo di intendere il mondo complicato della natura fisica, così la sto- ria si può chiamare scienza anche se non può vantarsi di riprodurre con fedeltà la connessione causale che lega le vicende umane tra di loro, perché permette all'uomo di avere una certa comprensione della successione di tali vicende. La storia, come la scienza sperimentale, può chiamarsi cognitio certa per causas. Il per causas va inteso in storia come nelle scienze sperimentali, non come il mezzo per conoscere un evento, ma come il nesso, la legge che unisce due eventi. Quanto al certa non v'è dubbio che anche in storia si può rag- giungere certezza. Nella visione cristiana della storia ci sono dei pi- lastri assolutamente certi, posti dalla Rivelazione, che permettono di costruire una storia universale di valore categorico almeno nel- le linee generali. In più si può dare certezza per molti fatti singoli non conosciuti per fede. Circa tali fatti si può dare certezza anche se non sono universali e necessari. Infatti, pur essendo vero che quando si tratta del futuro abbiamo la conoscenza « certa » solo del- l’universale e necessario, quando si tratta invece del passato ab- biamo certezza anche del particolare e del contingente, perché quan- to è accaduto nel passato ha per noi posteri la stessa necessità e immutabilità dell'universale e necessario che accadrà nel futuro. Qualche storico ha creduto che l'oggetto della storia non sia sol- tanto certo, perché necessario e immutabile, ma anche universale. Basandosi su questa convinzione, storici come Vico, Toynbee, Spengier sono andati alla ricerca dell'unità storica, dell'universale storico (la nazione, la civiltà, ecc.) che torna a realizzarsi ripetuta- mente, come l’idea universale di uomo continua ad avere ripetute realizzazioni, (con la sola differenza che mentre l'individuo umano ha una breve durata di 50, 100 anni, l’unità storica ha una durata di migliaia di anni). Che dire di questo universale storico? A noi pare che non sia una cosa impossibile, tuttavia rimane qualcosa di estremamente ipotetico, non esistendo nessun criterio certo per determinare quale raggruppamento di eventi abbia i ca- ratteri di universalità e ripetibilità. Possiamo infine domandarci se una storia universale vera sia raggiungibile. Come abbiamo precedentemente sottolineato, sono l’esistenza di Dio e il mistero della sua incarnazione a consentirci una autentica visione dei fatti, poiché la storia è comprensibile soio nella sua du- plice dimensione naturale e soprannaturale. 198 4. L’interpretazione della storia Nel nostro secolo la problematica della storia ha acquisito uno spessore del tutto sconosciuto ai nostri antenati. Nel passato l'uomo era abituato a guardare la storia dall'alto come uno spettatore. Certo lo spettacolo non era di facile comprensione, ma almeno si pensava di poterlo osservare pacificamente dal di fuori. Invece in seguito al cumulo di eventi che ci sono piombati addosso durante gli ultimi decenni e in conseguenza degli scossoni che hanno subito tutte le nostre cognizioni della realtà e tutte le nostre convinzioni morali e religiose, nonché i nostri rapporti con gli altri e con il mondo, ci siamo accorti che noi stessi siamo immersi nella storia, che faccia- mo parte dello spettacolo; in altre parole che il divenire storico non riguarda soltanto il mondo, ma il nostro stesso essere. Perciò anche l’uomo è un essere storico. La presa di coscienza della nostra storicità, dice giustamente Gadamer, è «-verosimilmente la più importante tra le rivoluzioni da noi subite dopo l'avvento dell’epoca moderna. La sua portata spiri- tuale sorpassa probabilmente quella che noi riconosciamo alle rea- lizzazioni delle scienze naturali, realizzazioni che hanno visibilmente trasformato la superficie del nostro pianeta. La coscienza storica, che caratterizza l’uomo contemporaneo, è un privilegio (forse perfino un fardello) quale non è stato imposto a nessuna delle generazioni pre- cedenti ».? Ora, la presa di coscienza della storicità del nostro essere implica una revisione profonda non solo della scienza storica ma anche della teoria generale della conoscenza umana. Questa non può più essere concepita né come diretto riflesso della realtà, come volevano i realisti antichi e moderni (compresi i positivisti) e neppure come creazione originaria dell'Io (come affermavano gli idealisti); ma va intesa come interpretazione (ermeneutica) di situazioni: un essere storico comprende se stesso, gli altri, la cultura e le vicende del passato soltanto interpretando. Egli fa necessariamente parte di un circolo ermeneutico: gli vengono offerte dal passato delle tradi- zioni che egli riceve interpretandole, e di nuovo le comunica agli al- tri, i quali a loro volta le fanno proprie interpretandole. L'uomo coglie la realtà storica soltanto interpretandola per due ragioni. Primo, perché la storia è essenzialmente movimento e nel movimento c'è sempre qualcosa che rimane e qualcosa che muta; perciò per risalire al senso originale delle tradizioni occorre passare attraverso i vari sviluppi. Secondo, perché il passato non ci è estra- neo ma entra a far parte del nostro essere, della nostra vita; però en- tra a far parte del nostro spessore soggettivo solo mediante l'inter- pretazione. Noi siamo eredi di tradizioni che non sono semplici ? H. GADAMER, Il problema della coscienza storica, Guida, Napoli 1969, p. 27. 199 Gadamer: una rivoluzione fondamentale del nostro tempo è la presa di coscienza deila nostra storicità Gadamer: la storia come ermeneutica delle situazioni Due ragioni dell’esigenza interpretativa: — mutamento e permanenza nel movimento storico — appartenenza del passato al nostro essere I tre principi ermeneutici: — il conoscere è un interrogare — i documenti storici come risposta alle domande informazioni da registrare, ma fanno parte della nostra realtà, de- terminano le nostre prospettive e le nostre progettazioni, il riostro modo di vedere e di agire. « Comprendere è operare una mediazione tra il presente e il passato, è sviluppare in se stessi tutta la serie con- tinua delle prospettive attraverso cui il passato si presenta e si ri- volge a noi ».? Ma, accertata la verità del carattere storico del nostro essere e del nostro conoscere, come si sviluppa la nostra conoscenza intesa come interpretazione, ossia il pensare ermeneutico? Secondo Gadamer, che è il principale teorico della teoria della interpretazione (ermeneutica) storica, il pensare ermeneutico si sviluppa sulla base di tre principi. Il primo dice che ogni conoscenza è la risposta ad una domanda. Il che significa che il conoscere è anzitutto un interrogare, e que- st'ultimo, secondo Gadamer, è sempre determinato da una situa- zione particolare: « Non al giudizio, ma alla domanda spetta il pri- mato nella logica, come dimostrano storicamente il dialogo plato- nico e l'origine dialettica della logica greca. Ma il primato della domanda rispetto alla proposizione significa che la proposizione è, per sua natura, risposta. Non c’è proposizione che non sia una spe- cie di risposta e perciò non si può intendere una proposizione se non rifacendosi ai criteri intrinseci alla domanda di cui è una risposta... Certo non è facile trovare fa domanda, di cui una data proposizione è effettivamente la risposta, soprattutto perché una domanda non è mai qualcosa di semplice e primo, a cui si possa ar- rivare solo che lo si voglia: ogni domanda è ancora una risposta e questa è la dialettica in cui siamo impigliati. Ogni domanda è mo- tivata e anche il suo significato non è mai dato interamente in es- sa ». In conclusione, « l'orizzonte di ogni proposizione è il sorgere da una situazione problematica », e « una conoscenza si mostra fe- conda in quanto appiana una situazione problematica ».* Il secondo principio dice che qualsiasi documento storico, qual- siasi testo letterario e anche tutti i monumenti artistici, le istituzioni sociali, politiche e religiose sono la registrazione di certe conoscenze, le quali, come vuole la dialettica del conoscere, rappresentano le ri sposte alle domande che i loro autori si sono fatte in certe situa- zioni. Pertanto, per comprendere tali documenti occorre riportare le risposte che essi contengono nel coniesto, nell'orizzonte degli in- terrogativi da cui sono sorte, un orizzonte che conteneva la possi- bilità di molte altre risposte. In certo qual modo la formulazione conclusiva che esse hanno assunto deve essere ricondotta al movi- mento della conversazione. Questo è il compito dell'ermeneutica: « trarre il testo fuori dallo stato di alienazione in cui gtace (a causa della forma immobile che esso ha assunto nella composizione scrit- 3 Ivi, p. 93. * H. GADAMER, « Che cos'è la verità », in Rivista di filosofia 1956, pp. 261-262. 200 ta) e riportarlo al presente vivo del dialogo, Ia cui forma originaria è sempre quella della domanda e della risposta ».ò Il terzo principio afferma che nessuna conoscenza è « pura », « impregiudicata », ma è sempre « mista », accompagnata e condi- zionata da « pregiudizi ». Questo terzo postulato, nel pensiero del Gadamer, è la logica conseguenza della sua concezione dell'uomo come essere storico e, perciò, legato a certe tradizioni, prospettive, situazioni. Sono queste tradizioni, prospettive, situazioni a formare i pregiudizi. Come si vede, Gadamer dà al termine « pregiudizio » un signi- ficato che si discosta sostanzialmente da quello usuale per due ra- gioni. Anzitutto nel significato usuale il pregiudizio è una « cono- scenza errata » che impedisce di vedere e giudicare rettamente in certe situazioni. Ora, per Gadamer il pregiudizio non ha questa con- notazione negativa di falsità e falsificazione. ‘Per lui il pregiudizio è soltanto una « conoscenza previa », la quale può essere sia vera che falsa. La seconda ragione è che nella accezione comune il pregiudizio è qualcosa di contingente, qualcosa quindi che si può superare, neu- tralizzare. Invece per il Gadamer questo è impossibile, in quanto, come si è detto, i pregiudizi fanno parte della storicità dell'uomo e perciò accompagnano necessariamente la sua esistenza. Il che tut- tavia non significa che la conoscenza umana debba essere schiava dei pregiudizi. Questo no, anzitutto perché essa può prenderne coscien- za e, così, in certo qual modo li può dominare, e in secondo luogo erché di certi pregiudizi si può anche disfare. Ma come è possibile per l'interprete uscire dall’orizzonte dei suoi « pregiudizi » e mettersi in cumunicazione con l'orizzonte altrui, in particolare con quello di un testo che appartiene ad altri tempi lon- tani da lui? Non esiste forse tra passato e presente un abisso insor- montabile? Del resto, la storicità non richiude necessariamente l'in. terprete dentro il vicolo cieco del suo soggettivismo? Gadamer, pur riconoscendo e affermando l’alterità tra passato e presente, esclude che fra loro esista una scissura completa. La sto- ricità esige piuttosto il contrario: essa fa sì che la distanza tempo- rale sia « colmata dalla continuità delia tradizione e della trasmis- sione, grazie alle quali tutto ciò che ci viene trasmesso si rivela a noi ».$ Ma neppure il fatto che l'orizzonte conoscitivo dell’interprete sia circoscritto da « pregiudizi » è tale da rinchiuderle nel soggetti- vismo e «a impedirgli l’incontre con altri orizzonti. Infatti i « pre- giudizi » non sono tutti « egocentrici » e, soprattutto, i « pregiudizi » non sono la prima cosa: al di là e al di sotto dei « pregiudizi » esiste un accordo fondamentale, che Gadamer chiama « accordo portante ». Questo « punto di stabilità », questa solida piattaforma che rende 5 H. GADAMER, Wahrheit und methode, Mohr, Tiibingen 1960, p. 350. Ivi, p. 281. 201 — ogni conoscenza è mista al pregiudizio il pregiudizio come conoscenza previa e come contingente superabile La tradizione colma la separazione tra passato e presente L’‘accordo portante’ rompe il rischio del soggettivismo il linguaggio punto di stabilità e dì fusione La storia come tradizione: permanenza della forma e identità delia struttura La conoscenza del passato, del presente e del futuro come proiezione verso l'eternità possibile l’incontro e la fusione tra i vari orizzonti è fornita dal linguaggio. « Io credo che il linguaggio operi la sintesi perenne tra l'orizzonte del passato e quello del presente. Nci ci intendiamo reci- procamente, perché ci parliamo, perché, pur svolgendosi sempre il nostro discorso su piani diversi e non convergenti, alla fine, per mez- zo delle parole, riusciamo a metterci reciprocamente di fronte le cose dette con le parole ».' Come si vede, nella interpretazione gadameriana della storicità della conoscenza umana, si riscontra uno sforzo notevole di superare lo scoglio delio storicismo, del relativismo e del soggeitivismo in cui erano generalmente incappate le precedenti interpretazioni del- lo stesso fenomeno. In effetti, la proprietà della storicità non significa necessaria- mente queste interpretazioni scettiche del conoscere. Infatti, che cos'è la storia? È solo divenire senza permanere; sequenza di muta- menti senza alcuna costante? La natura della storia e conseguentemente della storicità non può essere diversa da quella del tempo. Ora, il tempo, ci dice Bergson, è essenzialmente durata. Perciò la storia più che successione di av- venimenti di natura diversa è tradizione di fatti, di azioni e, quindi, essa ha come suo connotato essenziale la permanenza della forma e l'identità di struttura, nonostante tutti i possibili mutamenti. La storia non è pura successione casuale di avvenimenti sconnessi e discontinui, ma un flusso, un trascorrere di una medesima sostan- za fondamentale; non è un divenire occasionalistico e frammentario, ma uno sviluppo organico e continuo. In conclusione, riconosciamo senz'altro che il nostro conoscere è segnato dal sigillo del tempo. Ma affermiamo che, come il tempo ha tre « estasi » (passato, presente e futuro), così il nostro conoscere ha una triplice estensione: quella in direzione del passato, quella in direzione del futuro e quella rivolta verso il presente. Inoltre il nostro conoscere gode di una considerevole padronanza rispetto a queste estasi, in quanto può protendere il suo sguardo oltre ogni orizzonte segnato dal passato e dal futuro e proiettarsi verso l’eter- nità. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Senso oggettivo; senso soggettivo — Scetticismo storico — Realismo storico, deterministico, statico e dinamico — Realismo storico non deterministico naturalistico; realismo storico cristiano — Ermeneutica storica; pregiudizio; accordo portante; punto di stabilità * H. GADAMER, « Che cos'è la verità », cit., p. 265.202 SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. IL CONCETTO DI STORIA La storia si definisce a seconda che per essa si intendano gli avvenimenti in se stessi (senso oggettivo) oppure la conoscenza dei medesimi (senso sog- gettivo): a) il senso oggettivo indica il cammino dell’uomo attraverso il tempo; b) il senso soggettivo è lo studio degli avvenimenti umani che accadono nel tempo, nelle loro cause, nei loro effetti, nel loro significato ultimo. II. POSSIBILITÀ DELLA SCIENZA STORICA Gli orientamenti nei confronti della scienza storica si distinguono in scet- ticismo storico e in realismo storico. A. Lo scetticismo storico posa sui seguenti argomenti: 1. Gli avvenimenti sono solo apparenti: a) Il mondo dell'esperienza è un mondo illusorio e perciò senza senso; b) Assertori dell'argomento sono, ad esempio, la filosofia indiana, Eraclito e Schopenhauer. 2. Gli avvenimenti non accadono secondo un piano ordinato: a) Gli eventi sono reali ma non hanno significato poiché sono privi di direzione. b) Il loro susseguirsi non determina un progresso. 3. Discordanza nella interpretazione dei fatti storici: a) L’interpretazione dei fatti storici è soggetta. al filtro ideologico dello storiografo. B. Il realismo storico ammette la possibilità di una scienza degli eventi storici. Il realismo presenta due orientamenti: il deterministico e il non-determi- nistico. 1. Realismo storico deterministico afferma l'accadimento necessario dei fatti e si distingue in: a) Realismo storico deterministico | nella successione degli avvenimenti statico | non vi è progresso — Secondo il pensiero greco la storia si svolge su un piano circolare, in cui l'individuo gode di una libertà relativa e l’universo è soggetto alle leggi ma- tematiche dell'eterna palingenesi. Il tempo è l’immagine mobile dell'eternità immobile (Platone, Timeo e Politica). b) Realismo storico deterministico | il divenire storico procede verso me- dinamico te sempre più elevate — Tale concezione tipica della filosofia contemporanea accomuna materia- listi e idealisti. Viene affermata una sostanziale identità tra realtà e storia ‘(sto- ricismo). — Lo storicismo implica la negazione della trascendenza di Dio, nega la libertà della persona e sostiene la continua transitorietà dei valori. 2. Realismo storico non-deterministico afferma che i fatti accadono secon- do libertà e si distingue in: a) Realismo storico non-determini- }la storia si svolge su un piano ordi- stico naturalistico | nato voluto dalla natura — È la concezione kantiana secondo la quale fine della storia è una so- cietà che vive secondo il diritto e che il genere umano progredisca sempre verso il meglio. . | la storia si svolge secondo un piano deter- b) Realismo storico cristiano } minato dall'incontro di due libertà: quella ( di Dio e quella dell’uomo . — Il piano della storia può essere raffigurato come una linea ascensionale con deviazioni verso il basso, ma il cui punto terminale è più elevato di quello iniziale. 203 — La Rivelazione ci svela: a) il significato della storia che ci precede; b) il punto della storia in cui ci troviamo; c) che cosa ci riserva l'avvenire. — Appartengono a tale concezione: S. Agostino, Bossuet, Vico, Maritain, De Lubac, von Balthasar, Toynbee, Mouroux, Cullmann.III. LA STORIA È UNA SCIENZA? 1. La storia, come la scienza sperimentale, può chiamarsi cognitio certa per causas. Il per causas è il nesso, la legge che unisce due eventi. 2. Anche nella storia si può raggiungere certezza. Nella visione cristiana la Rivelazione pone dei pilastri assoiutamente certi, che permettono di costruire una storia universale di valore categorico almeno nelle linee generali. 3. Vico, Toynbee, Spengler, in base alla convinzione che l'oggetto della storia non sia soltanto certo ma anche universale, hanno ricercato l’unità sto- rica, l’universale storica che torna ripetutamente a realizzarsi (nazione, civiltà, ecc.). IV. L'ERMENEUTICA STORICA 1. La consapevolezza della storicità dell'uomo, come afferma Gadamer, è una delle più importanti rivoluzioni del nostro tempo. 2. La scienza storica subisce una profonda trasformazione, poiché diviene interpretazione (ermeneutica) di situazioni: un essere storico comprende se stesso. 3. L'uomo coglie la realtà storica interpretandola per due ragioni: a) la storia è movimento, perciò per risalire al senso originale delle tradi zioni occorre passare attraverso vari sviluppi; b) il passato non è estraneo all'uomo, ma fa parte del suo essere, entra quindi a fare parte della soggettività mediante l’interpretazione. 4. Secondo Gadamer il pensare ermeneutico si sviluppa sulla base di tre principi: a) Ogni conoscenza è la risposta ad una domanda. Il conoscere è anzitutto un interrogare e l'interrogativo è sempre determinato da una situazione par- ticolare. b) Qualsiasi documento storico è la registrazione di certe conoscenze. I documenti per essere compresi richiedono che le risposte, che contengono, siano riportate nell'orizzonte da cui sono sorte. c) Nessuna conoscenza è « pura », ma è sempre condizionata da pregiudizi. In Gadamer il termine pregiudizio significa « conoscenza previa », che in quanto tale può essere sia vera che falsa. I pregiudizi fanno parte della storia dell'uomo, vanno in ogni caso dominati e se necessario eliminati. Al di là dei pregiudizi esiste tra i diversi orizzonti interpretati la possibilità di un accordo fondamentale, che Gadamer chiama « accordo portante ». Questo punto di sta- bilità è fornito dal linguaggio che opera la sintesi tra l'orizzonte del passato e quello del. presente. 5. Caratteristica dell’ermeneutica storica è il tentativo di essere il supera- mento dello storicismo, del relativismo e del soggettivismo. QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Che cosa è la storia? Come si definisce in senso soggettivo e in senso oggettivo? 2. È possibile una conoscenza scientifica della storia? Quali sono gli argo- menti pro e contro? 3. Quali sono le principali interpretazioni del senso della storia? 4. Che cosa si intende per storicismo? 5. Che significa materialismo storico? 204 6. Qual è la concezione vichiana della storia? 7. È possibile una « filosofia » cristiana della storia? 8. Che cosa è l'universale storico È possibile identificarlo con sicurezza? 9. Quale rapporto è opportuno stabilire tra antropologia e concezione della storia? 10. In quale misura la concezione della storia contribuisce all'elaborazione di un progetto-uomo? 11. Che cosa si intende per ermeneutica storica? Quali sono i principi fon- damentali su cui essa si regge? 12. È legittimo ritenere che l’ermeneutica storica possa contribuire a un recupero dei valori morali da parte della coscienza personale e collettiva del nostro tempo? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI AcosTINO, La città di Dio, Città Nuova, Roma 1978. BERDJAEV N., Il senso della storia, Jaca Book, Milano 1977. CAPPELLO C., La visione storica in G.B. Vico, Einaudi, Torino 1946. CASTELLI E., I presupposti di una teologia della storia, Cedam, Padova 1968. Croce B., Filosofia e storiografia, Laterza, Bari 1949. Ip., La storia come pensiero e azione, Laterza, Bari 1954. DANIELOU J., Saggio sul mistero della storia, Morcelliana, Brescia 1963. DAWSON CH., Il giudizio delle nazioni, Bompiani, Milano 1946. FLEISCHER H., Marxismo e storia, Il Mulino, Bologna 1970. HecEL G.W.F., Lezioni sulla filosofia della storia, Nuova Italia, Firenze 1963. HuBER G., Dio è il Signore della storia, Massimo, Milano 1982. JaspPERs K., Origine e senso della storia, Ed. di Comunità, Milano 1982.MARITAIN J., Per una filosofia della storia, Morcelliana, Brescia 1967. MELCHIORRE V., Il sapere storico, La Scuola, Brescia 1963. MriccoLI P., Introduzione alla filosofia della storia (con ampia bibliografia), Paideia, Brescia 1980. MORETTI-COSTANZI T., Il senso della storia, Alfa, Bologna 1963. MOUNIER E., Cristianità nella storia, Ecumenica, Bari 1979. ‘PADOVANI U.A., Filosofia e teologia della storia, Morcelliana, Brescia 1953. PETRUZZELLIS N.-STEFANINI L., JÎ problema della storia, U.C.I.I.M., Roma. PIEPER J., Sulla fine del tempo, Mortelliana, Brescia 1954. Pozzo G., Introduzione alla filosofia della storia, C.E.D.A.M., Padova 1973. RIGOBELLO A., Il futuro della libertà, Studium, Roma 1978. Vico G.B., La scienza nuova, Nicolini, Bari 1934. 205 Valore e funzione della cultura nello sviluppo della civiltà Cultura, termine plurisemantico: senso elitario, pedagogico, antropologico la Capitolo quattordicesimo IL PROBLEMA CULTURALE QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Quale etimologia attribuire alla parola cultura? 2. In quale misura e perché caratterizza la realtà dell’uomo? 3. Si può stabilire un rapporto tra cultura e civiltà? La cultura « è l'ultimo e più alto mezzo per il fine ultimo del- l'uomo, ossia la sua più perfetta coerenza con sé medesimo »} ha affermato Fichte in La missione del dotto (1794), facendosi porta- voce, già sul finire del XVIII secolo, di una consapevolezza nuova che l'uomo aveva ormai raggiunto di questa sua radicale dimensione. L'uomo, nella sua storia, ha sempre fatto cultura poiché egli è un essere essenzialmente culturale oltre che naturale, ma questa verità è diventata oggetto della riflessione filosofica soltanto durante gli ultimi decenni. Ciò è accaduto per due ragioni principali: a) lo sviluppo dell'antropologia culturale come scienza, la quale ha messo in luce il valore e la funzione che ha la cultura nello sviluppo della civiltà e nella caratterizzazione dei popoli; b) la crisi epocale che sta attraversando da qualche tempo la cultura occidentale. È stata so- prattutto questa crisi radicale a sollecitare uno studio più attento e più approfondito di ciò che è la cultura in se stessa, per l'individuo e per la società. 1. Definizione « Cultura » è un termine plurisemantico che storicamente e attual- mente ha tre significati e tre usi principali che possiamo chiamare elitario, pedagogico e antropologico. Nel senso elitario cultura si- gnifica una gran quantità di sapere, sia in generale che in qualche settore particolare. Così, per esempio, quando si dice che una certa persona possiede una vasta cultura scientifica, filosofica, artistica, letteraria, ecc. o quando si dice semplicemente che è « molto colta ». Nel senso pedagogico cultura sta ad indicare l'educazione, la forma- zione, la coltivazione dell'uomo: è la paideia dei greci, ossia il pro- cesso attraverso il quale l’uomo (il bambino, il ragazzo, l'adulto) 1 J.G. FICHTE, La missione del dotto, La Nuova Italia, Firenze 1973, p. 86. 206 perviene alla piena maturazione e realizzazione della propria per- sonalità. Infine, nel senso antropologico, che è quello che si è andato consolidando nel nostro secolo, cultura significa quell'insieme di co- stumi, di tecniche e di valori che contraddistinguono un gruppo so- ciale, una tribù, un popolo, una nazione: « è il modo di vivere pro- prio di una società » (Taylor). i A noi, nel presente capitolo, interessano soltanto gli ultimi due significati di cultura, in particolare il terzo. Ma il secondo e il terzo sono strettamente legati tra loro: in effetti la cultura è dimensione di un gruppo sociale, di una società, perché è anzitutto dimensione, proprietà dell'uomo in quanto uomo. Premesse alcune informazioni sulla storia del problema culturale, gli argomenti di cui ci occuperemo sono i seguenti: l'uomo come essere culturale, la cultura come forma spirituale della società, i fondamenti della cultura, classificazione delle culture, rapporti tra cultura e religione, urgenza del rinnovamento della cultura. 2. Il problema della cultura nella storia della filosofia Fino ad un paio di secoli fa il problema culturale coincise sostan- zialmente con quello pedagogico. Fino all'Illuminismo si concepiva la cultura essenzialmente come paideia, come formazione della persona e non come struttura fondamentale della società. Di con- seguenza, il problema culturale veniva affrontato dalla prospettiva antropologica, ignorando totalmente quella etnologica. Quanto la filosofia è riuscita a dire della cultura come paideia l'abbiamo visto nel capitolo riguardante la pedagogia, e qui lo diamo per acqui- sito. Ora ci interesseremo degli ulteriori sviluppi che ebbe il pro- blema culturale allorché, a partire dal secolo XVIII, fu affrontato oltre che dalla prospettiva antropologica, anche da quella etnologica. A prendere coscienza della verità che la cultura è un feno- meno che interessa oltre che la singola persona anche il gruppo so- ciale in quanto tale, in quanto essa rappresenta il suo sistema di vita e costituisce il vincolo che unisce tra loro i membri di un determi- nato gruppo e li distingue dai membri degli altri gruppi, furono gli illuministi tedeschi Herder e Humboldt. Questi due filosofi con- cepiscono entrambi la cultura sia come vincolo spirituale che tiene strettamente uniti tra loro i membri di una nazione sia come realiz- zazione di un particolare progetto di humanitas. Secondo Herder l’obiettivo primario della cultura è l’uomo stesso, la coltivazione dell'uomo per renderlo sempre più uomo e avvici- narlo all'ideale della umanità, la humanitas. « A questo scopo evi- dente è organizzata la nostra natura; per esso ci sono dati sensi ed impulsi più raffinati, per esso ci è data la ragione e la libertà, una salute delicata e durevole, il linguaggio, l'arte e la religione. In ogni condizione e in ogni società, l'uomo non può avere altro in vista 207 Cultura: dimensione dell’uomo in quanto uomo Fino al secolo XVIII coincidenza di cultura e pedagogia Herder e Humboldt: cultura, vincolo spirituale di un popolo Humboldt: funzione principe del linguaggio nella cultura Dal XIX secolo si sviluppano l’etnologia e l’antropologia culturale né può costruire altro che l'umanità, così come la pensa in se stes- so »? La realizzazione dell'ideale dell'umanità varia da popo a po- polo, da individuo a individuo, ma progredisce incessantemente stro alla fine dei tempi. Anche per Humboldt, come per :Herder, la cultura è la forma spi- rituale di un popolo, di una nazione. Egli insiste soprattutto sulla funzione che compete alla lingua quale fattore principale della cul- tura. A suo parere la cultura è una forma spirituale dell'umanità caratterizzata da una determinata lingua, individualizzata rispetto alla totalità ideale. « L'individualità divide, ma in una maniera così meravigliosa che proprio mediante la divisione risveglia il senti- mento dell'unità, anzi appare un mezzo per costituire questa unità almeno nell’idea [...1. Qui, in modo davvero meraviglioso, gli viene in aiuto il linguaggio, che unisce anche quando isola e che, nella veste della più individuale espressione, racchiude la possibilità di universale intelligenza. Il singolo, dove, quando e come vive, è un frammento staccato di tutta la sua stirpe, e il linguaggio dimostra e mantiene questo eterno nesso che guida il destino del singolo e la storia del mondo »} Dopo Herder e Humboldt e per merito loro, la cultura come forma spirituale della società diviene un tema importante sia per l'indagine scientifica sia per la riflessione filosofica. Dalla seconda metà dell'Ottocento in poi gli etnologi e antropo- logi francesi, tedeschi, inglesi, italiani, americani che si dedicano allo studio delle civiltà antiche o dei popoli primitivi elaborano teo- rie generali intorno ai fenomeni della cultura e formulano ipotesi varie circa la sua origine, il suo sviluppo, i traiti universali, la classificazione, l'assimilazione, il collegamento fra le parti di una cultura, ecc. Altrettanto fanno i filosofi. Questi, normalmente {e logi- camente) affrontano e risolvono i problemi della cultura alia luce dei postulati generali della loro cosmovisione. Così gli idealisti (Cas- sirer, Croce, Gentile, Husserl) vedono nella cultura di un popolo le varie tappe della presa di coscienza dell’Assoluto; i vitalisti (Dil- they e Spengler) considerano la cultura come massima espressione della vita; i marxisti (Marx e iLenin e i loro seguaci) interpretano la cultura come rispecchiamento delle condizioni economiche di una società; gli strutturalisti fanno della cultura un prodotto del Pensiero inconscio (così Lévi-Strauss e Foucault). I filosofi hanno dibattuto con vivacità i rapporti della cultura con la politica, la religione e la tecnologia, giungendo alle soluzioni più disparate: di conflitto, di armonia, di inclusione, di esclusione, di correlazione, ecc. Ad analoghi risultati è approdato il dibattito in- torno alla priorità tra cultura scientifica e cultura umanistica (ma 2 JG. HERDER, /dee per la filosofia della storia dell'umanità, Il Mulino, Bologna 1971, p. 137 # W. v. HUMBOLDT, « Ueber die Verschiedenheiten des menschlichen Sprach- baues », in Gesammielte Schriften, Berlino 1904, vol. VI/1, p. 125 ss. 208 questo è un dibattito che toesa maggiormente il problema pedago- gico che quello etnologico). In questi ultimi anni — dopo che la cultura moderna o occi- dentale ha dato segni evidenti di una crisi profonda, forse irrever- sibile — l’attenzione dei filosofi si è concentrata maggiormente sui fondamenti della cultura, sui suoi elementi costitutivi, sulle sue funzioni, sui valori che animano una cultura, sulla progettazione di una nuova cultura. E se è vero, come perisano molti, che la cultura moderna ha ormai esaurito le sue risorse e va verso una completa dissoluzione, allora si deve ammettere che il compito più urgente a cui sono chiamati attualmente i filosofi è quello di elaborare un nuovo progetto culturale che risponda alle esigenze della nascente società che dovrà affrontare e risolvere non più problemi di interesse particolare e locale, ma problemi di interesse planetario e universale. Per una società planetaria occorre studiare un progetto di cultura planetaria.‘ 3. L'uomo come essere culturale Abbiamo già osservato più volte nei capitoli precedenti che l’uo- mo non è solo un essere naturale ma anche culturale: ciò significa che al momento della nascita la natura gli dà appena il mirimo ne- cessario, l'essenziale, per essere uomo e affida a lui stesso il compito di farsi, di formarsi, di realizzare pienamente il proprio essere me- diante la cultura. L'integrazione della dimensione naturaie dell'uomo nella dimen- sione culturale viene così teorizzata da J. Maritain: « Essendo l'uomo uno spirito animatore di una carne, ia sua natura è di per sé una natura progressiva. Il lavoro della ragione e della virtù è naturale nel senso che è conforme alle inclinazioni essenziali della natura umana, di cui mette in moto le energie essenziali. Non è naturale nel senso che sia dato bell'e fatto dalla natura. [...] La cultura è naturale per l'uomo nello stesso senso del lavoro, della ragione e della virtù, di cui è il frutto e il compimento terreno ». Mentre l’animale acquisisce tutto dalla natura e lungo l'arco della sua esistenza non fa altro che eseguire puntualmente, istiniiva- mente, meccanicamente, quanto sta iscritto nel suo DNA, l’uomo riceve dalla natura un DNA che gli spalanca immense possibilità: col DNA la natura consegna all'uomo un progetto, ed è compito di tutta la sua vita quello di tradurlo in realtà e di portarlo a compimento. La filosofia classica (Platone, Aristotele, Zenone, Plotino, ecc.) ‘ ‘Per un'analisi critica di vari progetti culturali laici e cristiani di rinnova- mento della cultura si veda B. Mondin, Una nuova cultura per una nuova società, (Analisi della crisi epocale della cultura moderna e dei progetti per superarla), 2° ed., Massimo, Milano 1983. 5 J. MARITAIN, Religione e cultura, Morcelliana, Brescia 1973, p. 15. 209 Crisi detta cultura e indagine sui suoi fondamenti per un nuovo progetto culturale Maritain: la cultura è naturale per l’uomo La concezione naturalistica dell’uomo nel mondo classico La concezione storicistica dell’età moderna Non tutto l’uomo è opera della cultura La cultura dimensione delia natura umana considerava l’uomo come essere naturale: costituito di un'essenza immutabile che gli viene data dalla natura, dalla quale egli deriva non soltanto le leggi biologiche ma anche i dettami morali: « Agisci secondo natura » era l'imperativo categorico della filosofia greca. Era chiaramente una concezione statica dell'uomo, fondata sul pri- mato dell'intelletto sulla volontà, della contemplazione sull'azione, della natura sulla storia. La filosofia moderna ha operato una svolta radicale. Essa non vede più nell'uomo un parto della natura, ma piuttosto un prodotto di se stesso. È la tesi di Nietzsche, Hegel, Sartre, Heidegger e della maggior parte dei moderni. È una concezione « storicistica » del- l'uomo, basata sul primato della volontà e della libertà sulla cono- scenza, della prassi sulla teoria, dell'esistenza sull'essenza, della storia sulla natura. Sul piano morale non esiste nessun altro impe- rativo al di fuori di quello di tradurre in atto le proprie possibilità (la propria potenza!). Tra queste due vie antitetiche c'è però una terza via: che è quella che considera l'uomo né come essere naturale né come essere sem- plicemente storico, bensì come essere culturale. Ciò significa che non tutto l’uomo è prodotto della natura e neppure della storia, ma in parte della natura e in parte della storia, e questo amalgama tra natura e storia si chiama cultura. Non tutto l’uomo, però, è opera della cultura. Molto di quanto c'è in lui proviene dalla natura. Tutta la sua dimensione somatica e bio- logica è prodotta direttamente dalle forze naturali. Quel piccolo esse- re umano che viene alla luce dopo nove mesi di gestazione nel grembo della madre è frutto delle leggi genetiche che la natura ha iscritto nei corpi dei genitori. Gli organismi e le facoltà di cui sono muniti il bambino e l'adulto provengono dalla natura. Anche gran numero delle attività somatiche e psichiche che noi svolgiamo dipendono dal- le leggi della natura. ‘Però gran parte di ciò che noi possediamo e che facciamo già da bambini di un anno non è frutto della natura bénsì della cultura. Questa è la caratteristica più rimarchevole, che distingue immedia- tamente l’uomo dagli animali e dalle piante. Diversamente dagli altri viventi il cui essere è interamente prodotto dalla natura, l’uomo è in larga misura l'artefice di se stesso. Mentre le piante e gli ani- mali subiscono l’ambiente naturale che li circonda, l'uomo è capace di coltivarlo e di trasformarlo profondamente, adeguandolo ai pro- pri bisogni. La cultura non è qualche cosa di accidentale per l’uomo, un passatempo, ma fa parte della sua stessa natura, è un elemento costitutivo della sua essenza. In passato per distinguere l’uomo dagli altri esseri ci si basava sulla ragione, sulla volontà, sulla li- bertà, sul linguaggio, ecc. Oggi si è compreso che un aspetto, una dimensione non meno specifica dell'uomo è la cultura. Questa carat- terizza l'uomo e lo distingue dagli animali non meno chiaramente della ragione, della libertà, del linguaggio. In effetti gli animali non 210 hanno culiura, non sono artefici di cultura: tutt'al più sono passivi ricettori di iniziative culturali compiute dall'uomo. Per crescere e sopravvivere gli animali sono muniti dalla natura di certi istinti e di determinati sussidi, sia a scopo di difesa sia a scopo di prote- zione; invece « l'uomo al posto di tutte queste cose possiede la ra- gione e le mani, che sono gli organi degli organi, in quanto col loro aiuto l'uomo può procurarsi strumenti di infinite fogge per infiniti scopi ».î L'uomo è un essere culturale in due sensi, anzitutto in quanto è artefice della cultura, ma anche, come s'è visto, in quanto è lui stesso il primo destinatario e il massimo effetto della cultura. La cultura, nelle sue due principali accezioni di formazione del singolo (acce- zione soggettiva) e di forma spirituale della società (accezione ogget- tiva), ha di mira la realizzazione della persona in tutte le dimensioni, in tutte le sue capacità. Scopo primario della cultura è coltivare l’uo- mo in quanto uomo, l’uomo in quanto persona, cioè il singolo uomo, in quanto esemplare unico ed irripetibile della specie umana. Obiettivo della cultura — in senso antropologico — è sempre stato quello di fare dell’uomo una persona, uno spirito pienamente svilup- pato, in grado di portare alla completa e perfetta realizzazione quel progetto-uomo che la Provvidenza gli ha consegnato. « Fare di se stessi, dal fanciullo che si è stati da principio, dall'essere mal diroz- zato che si rischia di rimanere, far nascere l’uomo pienamente uomo, di cui si intravede l'ideale figura: tale è l'opera di tutta la vita, l’uni- ca opera a cui questa vita possa essere nobiimente consacrata ».” L'uomo, in quanto essere culturale, non è prefabbricato: egli deve costruirsi con le proprie mani. Ma secondo quale progetto? Quale modello, se ce n'è uno, deve tenere davanti agli occhi? Pla- tone, gli stoici, i neopiatonici dicevano che il suo modello è l'uomo ideale. I Padri della Chiesa, richiamandosi al Vangelo, hanno pro- posto come modello l’imago Dei, cioè Gesù Cristo, il Figlio di Dio incarnato, il grande Pedagogo. Qui emerge l'importanza capitale dell'antropologia filosofica che è l'unica disciplina razionale in grado di determinare chi è l’uomo e di conseguenza di elaborare quel progetto su cui impostare la col- tivazione dell'uomo. Spetta infatti all’antropologia filosofica e non alle scienze particolari rispondere ai grandi quesiti relativi alla na- tura dell'essere dell'uomo, alla sua origine prima e al suo ultimo destino. L'antropologia filosofica ha la possibilità di evidenziare la dimensione spirituale dell'uomo e il suo destino eterno. Essa mette in luce il primato dello spirito sulla materia, dell'anima sul corpo: verità capitale questa per stabilire con esattezza le linee di un pro- getto culturale teso alla piena realizzazione dell'essere dell'uomo. Affinché sia valido, un progetto-uomo deve assegnare il primato alla $ TomMaso D'AQUINO, S. Theol., I, 76, 5 ad 4 m. ' H.I. MARROU, Storia dell'educazione nell'antichità, Studium, Roma 1966, p. 139. 211 L’uomo artefice destinatario ed effetto della cultura L'importanza dell’antropologia filosofica: delinea il primato della dimensione spirituale La cultura ‘forma spirituale della società” Elementi costitutivi della cultura: lingua, costumi, tecniche, valori dimensione spirituale, la dimensione interiore, la dimensione che riguarda la crescita nell'essere anziché nell'avere. 4. La cultura come forma spirituale della società L'accezione oggettiva del termine « cultura » esprime soprattutto la crescita e la creatività del gruppo umano e l'incidenza che esse assumono nel cammino della storia. « Invece del termine cultura, che si riferisce allo sviluppo razionale dell'essere umano considerato in generale, si può ugualmente usare quello di civiltà, che si riferisce a questo stesso sviluppo, considerato però in un caso eminente, cioè nella produzione della città e della vita civile, di cui la civiltà è come il prolungamento e lo sviluppo ».* J. Maritain ci offre con questa riflessione una intelligenza ade- guata della cultura come caratteristica che specifica, unificandoli e distinguendoli, i vari gruppi sociali. Così la cultura è ciò che di- stingue un popolo dagli altri popoli. ‘Intesa come proprietà della società, la cultura viene definita essenzialmente come « forma spirituale della società » e descrittiva- mente come quell'insieme « di oggetti materiali, di istituzioni, di mo- duli di vita e di pensiero che non sono peculiari dell'individuo ma che caratterizzano un gruppo sociale. [...] La cultura è la vita di un popolo, così come si formalizza in contatti, in istituzioni, in apparati tecnologici che sono tipici; essa comprende inoltre concetti, com- portamenti, costumi e tradizioni caratteristici. [...] La cultura quindi significa tutte quelle cose, istituzioni, oggetti materiali, reazioni ti- piche alle situazioni, che caratterizzano un popolo e lo distinguono da altri ».° Da un'accurata analisi della cultura come forma spirituale di una società risulta che dei molteplici elementi che la costituiscono (lingua, letteratura, arte, poesia, religione, istituzioni politiche, giu- ridiche, pedagogiche, sport, macchine, strumenti di lavoro, costumi, leggi, religioni, riti, miti, valori, ecc.) alcuni sono più essenziali, altri meno (per esempio la lingua è più essenziale della scrittura, della matematica; la religione dei riti; i valori morali delle leggi, ecc.) e così si può giungere alla conclusione che gli elementi costitutivi fondamentali essenziali per avere una cultura sono quattro: la lin- gua (che sorregge il pilastro simbolico), le abitudini o i costumi (che sorreggono il pilastro etico), le tecniche (che formano il pilastro tecnologico) e i valori (che rappresentano il pilastro assiologico).! * * J. MARITAIN, Op. cit., pp. 15-16. * W.D. WALLIS, Culture and Progress, McGraw-Hill, New York 1930, p. 32. * Secondo Malinowski e molti altri antropologi le componenti fondamen- tali della cultura sono tre: l'economia, la politica e l'educazione. Con queste attività ogni società riesce a far fronte ai propri bisogni: con l'economia pro- duce, conserva e usa i beni necessari per il proprio sostentamento; con la po- 212 Per acquisire un'idea più adeguata della cultura è necessario analizzare l'apporto dato da ciascuno di questi quattro elementi alla formazione della realtà culturale. 5. Gli elementi fondamentali della cultura Come s'è detto, gli elementi fondamentali della cultura sono quattro: la lingua, le abitudini, le tecniche e i valori. Il primo elemento fondamentale è la lingua. Dove non c'è una lingua non ci può essere una società, non ci può essere una nazione, e pertanto non si può sviluppare nessuna cultura. La lingua è il pri- mo elemento che fa uscire il singolo da se stesso e lo mette in comu- nicazione con gli altri. E il raggruppamento sociale avviene anzi- tutto e soprattutto sulla base di una lingua. Anche i blocchi etnici che si formano all’interno delle nazioni, per esempio, degli operai italiani in ‘Germania, dei portoricani negli Stati Uniti, ecc., hanno per prima causa la lingua. Gli italiani che vanno in Germania non sanno il tedesco e pertanto continuano ad associarsi con i conna- zionali che parlano italiano. In tal modo formano dei blocchi in cui si conserva la cultura e non soltanto la lingua italiana. Ma la lingua da sola non basta per dare origine ad una determi- nata cultura. Ci sono tanti popoli e nazioni che parlano la stessa lingua (per esempio, l'inglese è parlato dagli inglesi, dagli irlandesi, dai canadesi, dagli australiani, dagli americani, ecc.) ma posseggono una cultura diversa. Occorrono altri elementi. Uno assai importante oltre la lingua sono le abitudini. Queste possono riguardare tutto: il cibo, il vestito, il camminare, il gesticolare, l'educazione dei bam- bini, l'attenzione per gli anziani, le credenze religiose, ecc. Nelle abi- tudini si incarna e si esprime lo stile di vita di un popolo, il suo modo di concepire e di affrontare l’esistenza, la visione e l’atteggia- mento peculiare che assume di fronte alla realtà totale: la natura, la società, la sfera del sacro. Le abitudini riguardano il comporta- mento in generale e quindi solo in minima parte cadono sotto l’or- dine morale. Oltre che abitudini comportamentali ogni gruppo umano svi- luppa delle tecniche di lavoro sue proprie. Queste corrispondono alle esigenze dell'ambiente, alla capacità, alla creatività e al livello di civiltà di un popolo. Così gli stessi popoli cacciatori, pescatori, agricoltori, industriali inventano tecniche differenti per pescare, per litica regola i rapporti tra i membri del gruppo sociale; con l'educazione adde- stra e forma i suoi membri secondo gli ideali che sono stati consacrati dalla tradizione del gruppo. La classificazione del Malinowski è corretta se si con- sidera la cultura dal punto di vista funzionale (come insieme di attività volte a provvedere ai bisogni di un gruppo sociale). Se invece si assume il punto di vista ontologico, che intende cogliere ciò che la cultura come forma specifica di una società è in se stessa, allora risulta che i suoi elementi costitutivi es- senziali sono quanto meno quattro: lingua, tecniche, costumi e valori. 213 La lingua mezzo di comunicazione con l’altro Le abitudini: incarnazione della vita di un popolo Le tecniche: espressione delle esigenze dell'ambiente La sfera dei valori: “sapienza di un popolo’ La vita: valore primario di ogni popolo Dibattito sul rapporto tra cultura e altre espressioni simboliche cacciare, per arare i campi, per lavorare i metalli, ecc. Altrettanto fanno i sarti, i cuochi, i falegnami, i giocatori, i maestri, ecc. Ogni cultura porta con sé tutta una serie di stili di ordine tecnico e gli individui che né sono in possesso mostrano chiaramente di fare par- te del gruppo sociale che possiede tale cultura. Così dal modo di giocare, di cantare, di dipingere, di cucinare, ecc., si può facilmente arguire se uno è italiano, francese, russo, cinese, indiano, ecc. Un altro elemento costitutivo fondamentale di ogni cultura sono i valori. Ogni cultura si caratterizza per apprezzamenti speciali in ordine a determinate azioni, abitudini, tecniche, cose. Si tratta di a- zioni, abitudini, tecniche o cose che rivestono straordinaria im- portanza per il gruppo sociale, il quale le assume come criteri, come norme, come ideali. Tutti insieme essi costituiscono la serie dei va- lori. Ogni popolo possiede una coscienza dei valori, che forma anche ciò che si chiama « sapienza di un popolo ». Mediante tale « sapien- za » il popolo riconosce, più o meno intuitivamente, il valore posi- tivo o negativo della realtà, e sa quale deve essere il suo comporta- mento davanti ad essa. In tutte le culture il primo posto nella sfera dei valori è occupato dalla vita. La vita è ciò che conta maggior- mente: è il valore supremo. Gli altri valori come la pace, la giu- stizia, l'onestà, la bellezza, ecc., sono subordinati ad essa. Le abi- tudini, le tecniche e il linguaggio circondano la vita come sostegno, come difesa, come promozione, ecc. Lingua, abitudini, tecniche e valori sono pertanto gli elementi costitutivi fondamentali di ogni cultura. Sulla base di tali elementi ogni popolo sviluppa tutti gli altri aspetti che contribuiscono a conferirgli una sua forma specifica: l’arte, la filosofia, la religione, la scienza, la letteratura, la politica, ecc. 6. Rapporti tra cultura e religione Nel breve excursus attraverso la storia del problema culturale abbiamo visto che nell'ultimo secolo ci sono state vivaci dispute intorno ai rapporti tra la cultura e le altre espressioni simboliche {scienza e religione in particolare), economiche e politiche della società. In realtà molti di questi problemi sono stati mal posti e il loro conflitto è stato determinato dal fatto che essi erano espressioni di presupposti teorici e ideologici molto diversi, determinati proprio dall'ambiguità del termine cultura, ai quali abbiamo già fatto rife- rimento: cultura come erudizione, come formazione (educazione), come struttura (forma spirituale della società). ° Chi tiene conto della condizione piurisemantica del termine cul. tura si avvede immediatamente che mettere a confronto la scienza (oppure la politica) con la cultura è una cosa possibile e legittima se il termine cultura viene inteso nel primo oppure nel secondo sen- 214 so, perché si tratta di dimensioni o complessi totalmente distinti; mentre la cosa diviene impossibile e assurda se la cultura viene presa nel terzo senso; perché secondo questo senso essa ha un valore on- ninclusivo: abbraccia tutte le espressioni tipiche di un gruppo socia- le, tutti i suoi prodotti e quindi anche la scienza e la politica. In tal caso domandare che rapporti intercorrono tra scienza e cultura oppure tra cultura e politica come se si trattasse di due regni di- stinti o di due edifici separati è incorrere in un inutile sofisma. Con questo non intendo sostenere che quando il termine cultura viene usato in senso etnologico la questione risulti del tutto impro- ponibile. La questione è proponibile purché si tenga presente che essa riguarda i rapporti di una parte col tutto; in questo caso i rap- porti della politica oppure della scienza come parti della cultura. Posta in questi termini la questione ha senso e ha anche un peso non indifferente, perché tocca un problema assai importante, e cioè: quale ruolo compete alla scienza oppure alla politica o alla tecnologia in seno al vasto regno della cultura, È in questi termini che intendiamo sollevare qui una questione che ha diviso profondamente gli spiriti in Italia e altrove da oltre un secolo: la questione dei rapporti tra cultura'‘e religione. Nel capitolo dedicato al problema religioso abbiamo visto come dopo Kant la religione sia stata sottoposta a tutta una critica serrata: partendo da posizioni differenti, i materialisti, i vitalisti, gli psica- nalisti, gli esistenzialisti, i neopositivisti, gli strutturalisti hanno cercato di demolire tutte le basi razionali della religione, conside- randola un'interpretazione del mondo infantile, non scientifica, alie- nante e degradante. Queste interpretazioni marcatamente illuministe e razionaliste del fenomeno religioso non potevano non pregiudicare seriamente la questione dei rapporti tra cultura e religione. Così i pensato- ri che si occuparono di questo problema da Nietzsche in poi, men- tre non potevano negare che nelle culture tradizionali la religione aveva sempre occupato un posto importante e aveva svolto un ruolo fondamentale, sostenevano quasi tutti che essa aveva ormai esau- rito la sua funzione storica ed era giunto il momento di dare alla società una cultura senza religione. Questa tesi dei filosofi — favo- rita indirettamente dalle scoperte della scienza e dalle conquiste della tecnologia — fece presa su molti spiriti, che l'accolsero come il nuovo vangelo (il vangelo dell’ateismo). In breve tempo, la reli- gione, ignorata dalle manifestazioni pubbliche e sociali della vita, fu ridotta ad una questione personale, ad un affare privato. Così la religione è scomparsa dalla cultura come forma spirituale della so- cietà. Ma è proprio vero che il sodalizio tra cultura e religione si è di- sciolto per sempre e che, in futuro, la religione non troverà più posto nella cultura come sua componente fondamentale? Molti an- tropologi culturali e molti filosofi lo negano. Per citare soltanto 215 La cultura come valore onninclusivo La cultura e il ruolo delle diverse scienze Rapporto tra cultura e religione Cultura moderna e contemporanea: esaurimento della funzione storica della religione La religione: esigenza della cultura La religione come garante dei valori assoluti e fondamento della cultura la dignità che loro com- pete. Da ciò risulta che tra cultura e religione non si dà nessuna incom- patibilità e si comprende per quale motivo in tutte le culture tradi- zionali la religione rappresenta la dimensione primaria, dominante. È in effetti la religione che facendo da sostegno ai valori assoluti‘ garantisce un sicuro fondamento anche a tutti gli altri elementi del vasto edificio della cultura. Pertanto, per passare dalla filosofia alla storia dei giorni nostri, si può dire che la nostra società secolarizzata ed atea, se vuole uscire dalla crisi epocale che la divora, deve restituire alla religione quel 216 la nuova cultura non vuole ricadere nell'errore gravis- simo della modernità che ha coltivato l’immanenza con l'esclusione della trascendenza, allo stesso tempo non vuole neppure ricadere nell'errore della cultura cristiana medioevale e delle culture orientali che hanno coltivato la trascendenza a spese dell’immanenza. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Significato elitario, antropologico, pedagogico di cultura — Accezione soggettiva e accezione oggettiva di cultura SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. DEFINIZIONE 1. Ii problema culturale si è affermato negli ultimi decenni per lo sviluppo dell'antropologia culturale e per !a crisi epocale che attualmente la nostra civiltà sta vivendo. 2. Cultura è un termine plurisemantico con tre significati e tre usi prin- ‘cipali: — elitario: la cultura come quantità di sapere generale o specifico. — pedagogico: la cultura indica l'educazione globale e progressiva del- Yuomo. — antropologico: ba cultura è l'insieme dei costumi, tecniche e valori che contraddistiaguono un gnippo sociale, una tribù, un popolo, una nazione. Il. lL PROBLEMA DELLA CULTURA NELLA STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA 1. Fino all’illuminismo si concepiva la cultura essenzialmente come paideia, formazione della persona. Il problema veniva quindi affrontato solo in pro- spettiva antropologica ignorando auella etnologica. 2. Herder e Humboldt, illuministi tedeschi, presero coscienza che la cul- tura è un fenomeno che riguarda anche il gruppo sociale: la cultura è sia il vincolo spirituale che tiene uniti i membri di una nazione sia la realizzazione di un particolare progetto di humanitas. 3. Dalla seconda metà dell’’800 in poi gli etnologi e antropologi, sia europei che americani, elaborano teorie generali sui fenomeni culturali e formulano ipotesi sull'origine, lo sviluppo, i tratti universali, la classificazione, l'assimila- zione, il collegamento tra le parti di una cultura. 217 Una nuova cultura della trascendenza 4. I filosofi affrontano e risolvono i problemi della cultura a partire dalla loro visione della realtà: — Idealisti (Cassirer, Croce, Gentile, Husserl): Ja cultura di un popolo è segnata dalle varie tappe del processo di autocoscienza dell'Assoluto. — Vitalisti (Dilthey, Spengler): la cultura è la massima espressione della vita. — Marxisti (Marx, Lenin, ecc.): la cultura è rispecchiamento delle condi- zioni economiche di una società. — Strutturalisti (Levi-Strauss e Foucault): la cultura è prodotto del Pen- siero inconscio. 5. Negli ultimi anni l’attenzione dei filosofi si è concentrata maggiormente sui fondamenti della cultura, sui suoi elementi costitutivi, sulle sue funzioni, sui valori che la animano, sulla progettazione di una nuova cultura. I caratteri planetari del nostro tempo prospettano l'esigenza di una cultura planetaria, III. L'UOMO COME ESSERE CULTURALE 1. La filosofia moderna ha integrato la concezione classica dell'uomo come essere naturale con l'affermazione che egli è anche essere culturale: diversa- mente dagli altri viventi, il cui essere è interamente prodotto dalla natura, l'uomo è in larga misura l'artefice di se stesso. La cultura è elemento costitu- tivo della natura umana. 2. La cultura nelle sue due principali accezioni di formazione del singolo (accezione soggettiva) e di forma spirituale della società (accezione oggettiva) ha lo scopo di realizzare l’uomo in tutte le sue dimensioni e capacità. 3. Esiste pertanto una profonda interazione tra cultura e antropologia filo- sofica, poiché è quest'ultima che fornisce alla prima le linee secondo le quali tracciare il suo progetto-uomo. IV. 'LA CULTURA COME FURMA SPIRITUALE DELLA SOCIETÀ E I SUOI ELEMENTI FONDA- MENTALI 1 La cultura è anche l'insieme di quei caratteri che specificano, unifican- doli e distinguendoli, i vari gruppi sociali. In questa prospettiva la cultura rap- presenta la vita di un popolo nella sua peculiare identità. 2. L'analisi degli elementi, che costituiscono la cultura come forma spiri- tuale, ha fatto giungere alla conclusione che gli elementi costitutivi fondamen- tali di una cultura sono quattro: la lingua {che sorregge il pilastro simbolico), i costumi (che sorreggono il pilastro etico), le tecniche (che formano il pilastro tecnologico), i valori (che rappresentano il pilastro assiologico). 3. La lingua è il primo elemento che fa uscire il singolo da se stesso e lo mette in comunicazione con gli altri. Il raggruppamento sociale avviene anzi- tutto e soprattutto in base alla lingua. 4. Le abitudini o costumi incarnano ed esprimono lo stile di vita di un popolo, il suo modo di concepire la vita, la sua visione della natura, della so- cietà, del sacro. 5. Le tecniche corrispondono alle esigenze dell'ambiente, alla capacità, alla creatività, al livello di civiltà di un popolo. Ogni cultura porta in sé una serie di stili di ordine tecnico e gli individui che ne sono in possesso mostrano chia- ramente di fare parte del gruppo sociale che possiede tale cultura. . 6. I valori sono caratterizzati da azioni, abitudini, tecniche e cose che rive- stono straordinaria importanza per il gruppo sociale, che li assume come cri- teri, norme, ideali. In tutte le culture il primo posto nella sfera dei valori è occupato dalla vita. 7. Sulla base degli elementi fondamentali ogni popolo sviluppa tutti gli altri aspetti che generano la sua identità: arte, filosofia, religione, scienza, let- teratura, politica, ecc. 218 V. RAPPORTI TRA CULTURA E RELIGIONE 1. Nel passaggio dalla cultura moderna alla cultura contemporanea la reli- gione, progressivamente soppressa dalle manifestazioni pubbliche e sociali della vita e relegata alla sfera della dimensione privata, è scomparsa dalla cul. tura come forma spirituale della società. 2. Tillich, Maritain, Dawson, Niebuhr, Croce, Berger, Luckmann, Guardini, Toynbee sostengono che la religione ricomparirà nell'orizzonte culturale del- l'uomo: infatti la scomparsa della prima determina la disgregazione del secondo. 3. La stessa essenzialità dei valori nella struttura costitutiva della cultura richiede uno stretto rapporto tra cultura e religione, poiché solo quest’uitima è in grado di garantire ai valori quella assolutezza e quella dignità che compete loro. La religione sostenendo i valori assoluti garantisce inoltre anche tutti gli altri elementi del vasto edificio della cultura. QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Che cosa è la cultura e quali significati gli si può dare? 2. Perché l'uomo è chiamato essere culturale? ù 3. Quali sono gli elementi fondamentali della cultura? 4. Quali possono essere considerati i caratteri più propri della cultura contemporanea? 5. Quale rapporto ci può essere ira cultura e storia e tra cultura e re- ligione? 6. Una cultura planetaria a quale progetto-uomo dovrebbe guardare? 7. Quali valori, che possono dirsi smarriti, l'uomo del terzo millennio do- vrebbe impegnarsi a riconquistare? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI ABBAGNANO N., L’uome progetto 2000, Dino Editore, Roma 1980. BARONE F. - Ricossa S., L'età tecnologica, Rizzoli, Milano 1974. BAUSOLA A., Natura e progetto uomo, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1977. BoBBIo N., Politica e cultura, Einaudi, Torino 1977. CassIRER E., Saggio sull'uomo. Introduzione ad una filosofia della cultura, Armando, Roma 1968. CoMmEs S., Responsabilità della cultura, Vallecchi, Firenze 1961. FRoMM E., Avere o essere?, Mondadori, Milano 1977. GILSON E., La società di massa e la sua cultura, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1981. GRABMANN M,, La filosofia della cultura secondo Tommase d'Aquino, Studio Domenicano, Bologna 1531. GUARDINI R., La fine dell’epoca moderna, Morcelliana, Brescia 1954. HEILBRONER R., La prospettiva uomo, Etas Libri, Milano 1975. Huizinca J., La crisi della civiltà, Einaudi, Torino 1938. HussERL E., La crisi delle scienze europee e la fenomenologia trascenden- tale, a cura di Filippini, Milano 1961. KLUCKKHOHN C., KRoEBER A.L., Il concetto di cultura, 1l Mulino, Bologna 1972. Lévi-StRAUSS C., Antropologia strutturale, Il Saggiatore, Milano 1966. LINTON R., Lo studio dell'uomo, Il Mulino, Bologna 1973, Litt T., Le scienze e l'uomo, Armando, Roma 1960. LoRENZ K., Gli otto peccati capitali della nostra civiltà, Adelphi, Milano 1974. LUCKMANN T., La religione invisibile, Il Mulino, Bologna 1970. MANCINI I. - RucGERI G., Fede e cultura, Marietti, Torino 1979. 219 MARITAIN J., Umanesimo integrale, Borla, Torino 1969. Ip., Religione e cultura, Morcelliana, Brescia 1977. MoNDIN B., Cultura, marxismo e cristianesimo, Massimo, Milano 1979, Ip., Una nuova cultura per una nuova società, Massimo, Milano 1981. Morra G.F., La cultura cattolica e il nichilismo contemporaneo, Rusconi Milano 1979. MOUNIER E.,, Cristianità nella storia, Ecumenica Editrice, Bari 1979. RASCHINI A.M., Riflessioni su filosofia e cultura (Kant, Hegel, Rosmini, Gen tile), Marzorati, Milano 1968. Sciacca M.F., Cultura e anticultura, Borla, Torino 1969. SPENGLER O., Il tranionto dell'Occidente, Longanesi, Milano 1978. SZASZKIEWICZ J., Filosofia della cultura, Gregoriana, Roma 1974. TENTORI T., Antropologia culturale, Studium, Roma 1966. TAYLOR R., Elementi di antropologia culturale, Il Mulino, Bologna 1972. VAHANIAN M., La morte di Dio, Ubaldini, Roma 1966. WHITE L.A., La scienza della cultura. Studio sull'uomo e la civiltà, Sansoni Firenze 1978. Capitolo quindicesimo IL PROBLEMA DEI VALORI. O ASSIOLOGICO QUESTIONARIO PROPEDEUTICO 1. Quale significato dare alla parola « valore » e che cosa possono rappre- sentare i valori nelia vita dell’uomo? 2. In che rapporto stanno essi con la realtà? Perché oggi si parla di « crisi di valori »? Il problema dei valori ha assunto nel nostro tempo particolare rilievo. La coscienza dei valori assoluti e perenni quali la verità, la bontà, l'essere, l'amore, la vita, la giustizia, l'onestà sembra essersi offuscata. ‘La nostra cultura appare caratterizzata da un diffuso rela- tivismo etico, in nome del quale la condotta è regolata dal cri- terio dell'utile e del piacere individuale, piuttosto che dal riferi- mento ai valori oggettivi e universali. Tuttavia la strada di ritorno verso i valori sembra essere ria- perta proprio dal malessere esistenziale provocato dalla loro per- dita, cosicché oggi l'assiologia,) ovvero la scienza dei valori, è colti- vata più che nel passato. Un tempo, infatti, il compito proprio dell'assiologia era svolto dalla metafisica, scienza delle « cause ultime », dell’« assoluto », dei « principi supremi », delle « questioni fondamentali ». Il tramonto della metafisica nell'orizzonte speculativo dell'età moderna e con- temporanea ha provocato il progressivo emergere dell’assiologia che, cercando di comprendere la natura dei valori assoluti e di verificarne la consistenza ontologica, realizza di fatto le stesse funzioni della metafisica. Essa si colloca pertanto tra le forme più elevate del sapere umano. In questo capitolo, dopo un breve excursus attraverso la storia dell’assiologia, ci occuperemo delle seguenti questioni: che cosa sono i valori in se stessi? Nell’universo che ci circonda che posto occupano? Quali sono le loro proprietà e le loro funzioni? Qual è la facoltà con cui percepiamo i valori? C'è una gerarchia nel mondo dei valori? Si può operare rina classificazione dei valori? Quali sono i valori che contano di più? Esistono anche valori assoluti? Quali sono? ' Il termine assiolcgia ritrova la sua etimologia nell’aggettivo greco acsios, che significa « valido », « degno ». Indica quindi in senso proprio la riflessione su ciò che è degno di pieno riconoscimento da parte della coscienza umana. 221 Importanza attuale de!lo studio dei valori L’assiologia al posto della metafisica Recente fondazione del problema: la transvalutazione di Nietzsche Lotze: regno dei fatti; regno delle leggi universali; regno dei valori Hartmann e l’ultrarealismo: sussistenza dei valori 1. Informazioni storiche sull’assiologia Dei grandi problemi filosofici quello dei valori è stato messo a tema per ultimo. ‘Esso è diventato oggetto di analisi sistematica ed approfondita — dando origine a quella nuova disciplina che porta il nome di assiologia — soltanto dopo che Nietzsche tentò la famosa operazione della trasvalutazione dei valori con la quale cercava di trasformare la gerarchia dei valori tramandata dalla cultura greca e dal cristianesimo. Nietzsche, infatti, cercò di demolire tutti i valori assoluti della logica (verità), della morale (virtù), della metafisica (essere) e della religione (Dio) facendo vedere che essi erano valori decadenti e alienanti: un vero blocco sulla strada che conduce l’uo- mo verso il traguardo del super-uomo. Al posto dei valori assoluti della logica, della morale, della religione e della metafisica collocò i valori dinamici e mutevoli della vita, una vita che accetta fatalistica- mente e innocentemente se stessa in tutte le sue espressioni. Si può quindi affermare che l’assiologia è nata con Nietzsche anche se il suo padre effettivo è un suo contemporaneo: Rudolf H. Lotze (1817-1881). Questi nel suo capolavoro, Microcosmo, distin- gue tre regni di ricerca: regno dei fatti, regno delle leggi universali, regno dei valori. I primi due riguardano soltanto i mezzi, il terzo i fini. I primi due sono studiati dalla ragione col metodo analitico e possono essere considerati in prospettiva meccanicista. Il terzo è appreso dal sentimento e implica necessariamente una prospettiva spiritualista. Infatti, fondamento ultimo di tutti i valori e valore assoluto esso stesso è Dio: « La realtà vera che è e dev'essere non è la materia e neppure l'Idea hegeliana, ma lo spirito vivente e per- sonale di Dio ». Sulla linea realista tracciata da Lotze si mossero Rickert, Eucken e Hartmann. Nicolaj Hartmann (1882-1950) per quanto concerne lo statuto ontologico dei valori professa una specie di ultrarealismo. I valori, a suo giudizio, non hanno fondamento né nell'uomo né in Dio, bensì in se stessi: sono sussistenti alla pari delle Idee di Platone; essi sono dotati di aseità (Ansichsein). Il valore sussiste indipendentemente ? La filosofia dei valori (l'assiologia) si costituì come disciplina autonoma solo dopo Nietzsche, ma spunti di filosofia dei valori si possono rinvenire lungo tutto il corso della storia della filosofia: in quella greca (Platone e Plotino in particolare), in quella medioevale (Tommaso e Bonaventura) e in quella moderna (Pascal e Kant). Quanto a Nietzsche, a giudizio di Heidegger, il suo pensiero è essenzialmente « una metafisica dei valori ». La metafisica nietzschiana comprende due momenti, negativo e positivo. Nel primo «i valori supremi vengono svalutati ». Quei valori che sono stati ritenuti dalla tradizione del pensiero occidentale come i più alti (l'essere, il vero, il buono, il bello, ecc.) vengono svuotati del significato fondamentale che avevano man- tenuto nel corso dei secoli. Il momento positivo è quello in cui Nietzsche opera il « capovolgimento ». Valore è per Nietzsche tutto ciò che contribuisce al mantenimento e all'aumento della durata della vita, la quale per svolgersi dispone di un solo mondo: il mondo materiale e storico. 222 dall'essere riconosciuto, così come due più due continua a fare quat- tro anche se nessun uomo ne avesse coscienza. Un altro argomento a favore della autonomia dei valori risulta dal fatto che ci si può sbagliare e anche riconoscere d'aver sbagliato nella valutazione dei valori: « Non il valore bensì la percezione del valore è variabile ». Hartmann però rifiuta di dar consistenza ontologica ai valori fon- dandoli in Dio, perché Dio non esiste né può esistere se l’uomo è li- bero. Secondo Hartmann l’esistenza di Dio renderebbe impossibile la libertà e la responsabilità dell’uomo, quindi il valore morale. Alla interpretazione « realista » dei valori si opposero Ehrenfels e altri filosofi tedeschi che sostennero la tesi contraria. Secondo Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932) i valori sono semplici stati soggettivi. In un primo tempo li identificò con il desiderio; succes- sivamente incluse come componente essenziale anche la « deside- rabilità »; cosicché il valore comprende sia il desiderio in atto di ciò che non si possiede sia la desiderabilità, cioè il desiderio poten- ziale che sorgerebbe se si venisse a conoscere un determinato oggetto o se se ne fosse privi. Pertanto « il valore — afferma Ehrenfels — è una relazione tra un oggetto e un soggetto, per cui il soggetto o desi- dera effettivamente l'oggetto, o lo desidererebbe nel caso che fosse informato della sua esistenza ». La tesi secondo cui i valori sono semplicemente degli stati soggettivi (gusti personali) — tesi soggettivista — fu categoricamente respinta e vigorosamente criticata da Max Scheler (1874-1928), mas-' simo assiologo del secolo XX. Discepolo di Eucken, Scheler subì so- prattutto l'influsso di Husserl, dal quale apprese il metodo fenome- nologico, di cui fece largo impiego nella elaborazione della sua filo- sofia dei valori. La sua opera principale si intitola Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (Il formalismo in etica e l'etica materiale dei valori), « l'opera di gran lunga più significativa apparsa da molto tempo » {Hildebrand). In effetti, l’analisi fenome- nologica della esperienza morale effettuata da Scheler assumendo la prospettiva assiologica è stata tra le più fertili del pensiero con- temporaneo. Mediante i’elaborazione di un'etica dei valori, in cui si rivendica a questa entità una dimensione ontologica che sfugge a tutte le minacce dello psicologismo, Scheler sottrae la morale a quelle visioni soggettiviste o positiviste che erano diventate di moda alla fine dell'Ottocento: nominalismo, psicologismo, pragma- tismo, formalismo kantiano, idealismo neokantiano, positivismo, ecc. Scheler definisce i valori come « oggetti autenticamente oggettivi, disposti in ordine eterno e gerarchico ». La sua assiologia si carat- terizza pertanto come realista è come gerarchica (in forza della stes- sa definizione che egli offre dei valori) ed inoltre come personalista e teocentrica. ‘Per fissare la gerarchia dei valori Scheler suggerisce i criteri se- guenti: durata, indivisibilità, fondamentalità, soddisfazione e grado di relatività. I valori sono tanto più alti quanto più durano e quanto 223 — Dio rende impossibile il valore morale Von Eherenfelds: soggettività dei valori e desiderabilità Scheler: — etica dei valori e fondazione ontologica — assiologia realistica, gerarchica, teocentrica — valori sensibili, vitali, spirituali, religiosi — modello personale — concretezza del valore — fondamento e garante dell’oggettività dei valori è Dio (teocentrismo) La diffusione dell’assiologia dalla Germania all’Europa sono indivisibili, cioè mentre la partecipazione di più individui a beni di carattere materiale (per esempio, una torta) è possibile sol tanto mediante la suddivisione di tali beni, vi sono opere di eultura e di arte per le quali la fruizione di più individui non richiede tale divisione. Ancora, i valori sono tanto più alti quanto è più profonda la soddisfazione da essi prodotta. Inoltre, il valore che fonda è ovviamente più alto rispetto al valore fondato. Infine, ci sono valori relativi a determinate sfere, come per esempio i valori vitali, e va- lori assoluti, cioè indipendenti da una determinata sfera, come per esempio i valori morali. Grazie a questi criteri Scheler fissa una gerarchia dei valori che comprende quattro livelli: valori sensibili (gradevole-sgradevole), valori vitali (salute-malattia), valori spiri- tuali (vero-falso, buono-cattivo, ecc.), valori religiosi (saero-profano, beatitudine-infelicità, ecc.). La terza caratteristica dell’assiologia scheleriana è di essere per- sonalista. Nella prefazione alla seconda edizione di Der Formali- smus ha scritto: « Il principio fondamentale secondo cui tutti i va- lori debbono essere subordinati al valore di persona [...] è così im- portante per l’autore che egli, nel titolo del libro, ha anche qualif- cato il suo saggio come un “nuovo tentativo di personalismo” ». Il carattere personalista della assiologia scheleriana emerge anche dalla teoria dei modelli personali. Secondo Scheler ai valori danno sostanza, concretezza, si potrebbe dire corporeità, i modelli perso- nali. Così, per apprezzare e seguire il valore-giustizia, occorre guar- dare al Giusto, per il valore-fortezza all'Eroe, per il valore-santità al Santo, ecc. La quarta caratteristica dell’assiologia scheleriana è di essere feocentrica. Per Scheler Dio occupa il primo posto sia come persona sia come valore e fa da fondamento e da sostegno di ogni altra per- sona come pure d'ogni altro valore. « Tutti i valori possibili — scrive Scheler — sono fondati sul valore di uno Spirito infinito e sul “mon- do dei valori” che gli sta di fronte. Gli atti, che comprendono i valori, in tanto comprendono valori assolutamente oggettivi in quanto ven- gono compiuti “in” Lui, e i valori sono valori assoluti soltanto in quanto compaiono in questo regno ». Dal purito di vista fenomeno- logico Dio fonda tutti i valori in quanto lui solo può assicurare loro quell’assoluta oggettività che non può essere garantita mediante una misura valutativa semplicemente umana: soltanto il valore del sa- cro fa sì che l’assiologia trascenda la sfera antropomorfica e a for- tiori quella vitalista. Gli sviluppi più importanti e più originali dell’assiologia ebbero dunque luogo in Germania per merito dei filosofi che abbiamo ricor- dato. Successivamente il problema assiologico destò l'interesse an- che di filosofi italiani (Stefanini e Prini), francesi (Lavelle e Le Senne), spagnoli (Ortega y Gasset), argentini (Derisi), inglesi (Moore), americani (Dewey), ecc. Qui noi riferiremo ancora brevemente sul 224 pensiero di Lavelle e Le Senne in quanto, a nostro avviso, offrond spunti interessanti per la soluzione del problema assiologico. Per Louis Lavelle (1883-1951) il problema assiologico ha un carattere essenzialmente metafisico. Il fatto contingente che talune filosofie dei valori abbiano assunto un carattere antintellettualistico, sentimentalistico e irrazionale, non deve interferire col genuino pro- blema del valore, il quale, al di fuori di ogni moda di tempi e di luoghi, è di competenza della metafisica. Il principio supremo della metafisica teorizzata da Lavelle è l’es- sere, la cui essenza è atto, inteso come perfezione assoluta, efficacia pura, sorgente di ogni determinazione e di ogni valore. Da questo principio si snoda la teoria assiologica del Lavelle. Se « l'essere alla sua radice è atto, cioè interno a se medesimo; se è un sé che è anche un per sé, è evidente che c’è identità fra l'essere e la sua giustifi- cazione. Di qui l'impossibilità di staccare l’ontologia ‘dall’assiolo- gia ». Non a caso la filosofia classica aveva accostato, fino a confon- derle, le due nozioni dell'essere e del bene. Approfondendo il concetto di valore, Lavelle osserva che il va- lore non si identifica col bene, tuttavia esso ha col bene un rapporto analogo a quello che ha l’esistenza con l'essere. Come l'esistenza è l'essere in quanto si incarna e diventa concreto, così îl valore è il bene in quanto riferito a un oggetto di cui facciamo uso, a una vo- lontà che si sforza di coglierlo; e come l’esistenza è l'essere in quanto riceve una forma interiore e individuale, così il valore è il bene, in quanto implica un'attività che tende a realizzarlo. Perciò, mentre il bene ha sempre un carattere assoluto, il valore ha un carattere re- lativo. Ma — avverte Lavelle — su questa relatività del valore oc- corre essere cauti: infatti il valore è nelle cose ciò che esprime la loro relazione all'assoluto; è ciò che permette di elevare all’asso- luto ogni cosa relativa. Pertanto il valore non è una proprietà statica ma fortemente dinamica: esso provoca il soggetto e lo tra- scina all’azione. « L'errore più grave — dichiara Lavelle — è pen- sare che il valore sia un oggetto che si contempla, mentre al contrario è sempre un'azione da farsi e una pratica da seguire ». Nel suo Breviario di metafisica assiologica René Le Senne respinge sia il naturalismo sia il nichilismo, e si oppone sia al sociologismo sia allo psicologismo per affermare ad un tempo tan- to la trascendenza quanto l'immanenza, sia il carattere oggettivo che soggettivo dei valori: « Il valore deve, per la sua origine, esserci tra- scendente », ma « tale estrinsecità resterebbe sterile se il valore non fosse fatto per discendere nella nostra esperienza: tale discesa può essere spirituale solo grazie al concorso degli spiriti umani per i quali il valore deve rendersi attuale. [...] Il valore universale deve rinfrangersi e persino frazionarsi secondo la diversità di sfu- mature e la profondità dei tagli consentiti dall'unità e dalla moltepli- cità relativa degli spiriti ». Della filosofia dei valori si sono occupati anche vari neotomisti: 225 Lavelle: — assiologia e ontologia: identità tra l'essere e la sua giustificazione (carattere metafisico) — rapporto analogico tra essere e bene Le Senne: trascendenza del valore I neotomisti: oggettività e fondazione ontologica del valore Difficoltà di definire il valore Il valore in economia, in etica, in ontologia Wittmann, Rintelen, De Finance, Derisi, ecc. Questi filosofi difendono l'oggettività dei valori e escludono sia l’interpretazione psicologistica che riduce i valori a meri sentimenti personali sia l’interpretazione ultrarealistica che fa dei valori realtà sussistenti analoghe alle Idee platoniche. Il valore ha carattere oggettivo in quanto si fonda sul- l'essere. Però, a giudizio di questi filosofi, il valore non costituisce una proprietà trascendentale dell'essere distinta dal bene: sostan- zialmente il valore si identifica col bene, anche se connota più del bene una relazione al soggetto, all'uomo. In effetti, « il valore, qua- lunque esso sia, non ci si rivela pienamente che nell'atto in cui è effettivamente amato, stimolato, desiderato, ecc. [...] Nel desiderio e nell'amore in atto, e lì soltanto, il bene — esercitando la sua causalità propria — si manifesta e diviene, per il soggetto, in “atto ultimo” un valore » (De Finance). 2. Definizione del valore Come tante altre parole dense di significato (ente, realtà, verità, tempo, onore, ecc.) anche la parola « valore » a prima vista sembra chiara, quasi ovvia; ma poi, ad una considerazione più attenta ed approfondita, essa risulta nebulosa, oscura, difficile a definirsi. « Il senso esatto di valore — osserva André Lalande — è difficile da de- finire rigorosamente perché il più delle volte questa parola esprime un concetto instabile, un passaggio dal fatto al diritto, dal desiderato al desiderabile » Nella lingua italiana essa possiede tre significati principali: eco- nomico, etico, ontologico. In economia significa « danaro »; in etica indica la virtù con cui si affrontano gravi pericoli e si compiono grandi imprese; in ontologia dice la qualità per cui una cosa possie- de dignità ed è, quindi, degna di stima e di rispetto: « valore — in questo senso — è ciò per cui un essere è degno di essere, un'azione è degna di essere compiuta ».* Di questi tre significati quello che interessa quando si affronta il problema assiologico è soprattutto l'ultimo, che è senza dubbio il più importante, ma anche il più oscu- ro, il più problematico, il più disputato. Il suo regno è vastissimo: infatti, tutto ciò che è ritenuto prezioso, e che in qualche modo può contribuire al perfezionamento dell'uomo o come singolo o come es- sere sociale, merita stima ed è perciò un valore. Dalla complessità delle questioni relative alla categoria del valore, come risulta anche dall’excursus storico precedente,.quello che ha dato luogo alle dispute più accese e alle soluzioni più di- sparate è il problema dello statuto ontologico dei valori. Per questo »? A. LALANDE, Dizionario critico della filosofia, ISEDI, Milano 1971, p. 977. ‘ R. GUARDINI, Libertà, grazia, destino, Morcelliana, Brescia 1957, p. 85. 226 e anche perché la sua soluzione condiziona praticamente la soluzione di tutti gli altri problemi, lo affrontiamo per primo. 3. Lo statuto ontologico dei valori La questione dello statuto ontologico dei valori si domanda che cosa sono i valori in se stessi: sono entità reali, oggettive come una casa, un tavolo, il Monte Bianco, la luna; oppure sono realtà fittizie, semplici aspirazioni soggettive o ideali astraiti, come una montagna d'oro oppure una società seriza classi? Qui vale la pena precisare che la questione riguarda la categoria del valore in generale e non valori singoli (come la bontà, la verità, la persona, ecc.). Ed è chiaro che si tratta di due problemi distinti come chiedere chi è l’uomo è certamente altra cosa dal domandarsi chi è ‘Pietro, Paolo o Giovanni. D'altronde la questione dello statuto ontologico espressa in forma generale ha senso solo con riferimento al valore in generale, perché solo ad essa si può dare una risposta univoca. Se si solleva con riferimento alle singole cose che sono dotate di dignità assiologica, si possono ottenere un'infinità di ri- sposte, perché ci sono valori reali e valori possibili, valori concreti e valori astratti, valori spirituali e valori materiali, ecc. Dall’excursus storico risulta che tre sono le principali soluzioni che sono state daie alla questione dello statuto ontologico dei valori. La prima afferma che sono entità oggettive, sussistenti in se stesse (Lotze, Windelband, Scheler, Hartmann). La seconda sostiene che i valori sono semplicemente dei sentimenti e perciò non hanno nes- suna realtà propria, ma esistono esclusivamente come fenomeni sog- gettivi, come disposizioni o aspirazioni della psiche (Meinong, Ehren- fels, Freud). La terza considera il valore né come una entità a sé stante né come un fenomeno soggettivo, bensì come una proprietà trascendentale dell'essere e lo identifica generalmente con il classico trascendentale del bene (De Finance, Lavelle, Hammer). A mio avviso nessuna di queste tre soluzioni è adeguata, anche se ciascuna esprime una parte di verità. La verità parziale sottolineata dalla prima è l’obiettività del valore; quella messa in luce dalla seconda è il suo rapporto col soggetto, l'uomo; quella indicata dalla ierza è il suo rapporto col bene. Si tratta effettivamente di tre pro- prietà dei valore, ma nessuna di esse esaurisce tutta la sua realtà. Ma, allora che cosa è il valore in se stesso? Il valore è un trascen- dentale, come afferma la terza teoria, cioè è una qualità che appar- tiene all'essere in quanto tale, e perciò è presente in ogni cosa come gli altri trascendentali (unità, bontà, verità, bellezza). È una pro- S Per le posizioni personali della maggior parte degli autori ricordati in questo capoverso si veda: C. Rosso, Figure e dottrine della filosofia dei valori, Guida, Napoli 1973. 227 I valori: entità reali o fittizie? Il problema vale per il valore in generale Tre soluzioni: — entità oggettive- sussistenti — sentimenti — proprietà trascendentale dell'essere Il valore: proprietà dell’essere Il valore è un trascendentale a sé Proprietà comuni agli altri trascendentali: — coestensività — convertibilità prietà trascendentale e non predicamentale: è cioè una proprietà universale che accompagna tutte le cose e non è ristretta ad una sola classe di esseri, ad una sola categoria. Il valore è un trascendentale perché di tutte le cose si può chiedere sensatamente se è un valore: dell’aria come dell’acqua, del sole come delle stelle, di una bambola come di un pallone, di un libro come di un quadro, di una capra come di un elefante, di un fiume come di una montagna, ecc. Mentre non si può sensatamente chiedere se il fiume è una montagna, se la capra è un elefante, ecc. Nel regno dei trascendentali il valore occupa un posto a sé, distinto da quello occupato dal bene, dal vero, dal bello. Infatti il valore è la dignità di una cosa, non la verità, non la bontà e neppure la bellezza. Il valore è una facciata dell'essere distinta dalle altre tre grandi facciate; tant'è vero che in noi mette in moto una facoltà di- versa da quelle che sono interessate alle altre tre facciate: la verità mette in moto la conoscenza, la bellezza, l'ammirazione e il piacere; la bontà il desiderio e la volontà; mentre il valore, la dignità di una cosa ci provoca alla estimazione, alla valutazione. Come trascendentale il valore ha in comune con gli altri trascen- dentali alcune proprietà importanti. Anzitutto la coestensività con l'essere: là dove c'è essere c'è valore e dove c'è valore c'è essere. Il valore non si distingue dall'essere e dagli enti (cioè dalle incarna- zioni dell'essere) fisicamente, materialmente e neppure realmente; perché separare il valore dall'essere significa distruggerio, sprofon- dandolo nell'abisso del nulla. Il valore si distingue dall'essere concet- tualmente, logicamente, il che non vuol dire arbitrariamente, perché si tratta di una distinzione concettuale fondata nell'essere stesso, nel- la sua pluriprospetticità rispetto alle nostre facoltà e alle nostre possibilità. Il valore esprime una modalità dell'essere che l’accom- pagna necessariamente e non accidentalmente; la sua dignità, una modalità che nel nome puro e semplice dell'essere o degli altri tra- scendentali rimane inespressa” Una seconda proprietà del valore, in quanto trascendentale, è di essere convertibile con l'essere e con gli altri trascendentali: verità, bontà, bellezza. Coestensivo con l'essere è necessariamente coesten- sivo con gli altri trascendentali che sono a loro volta coestensivi con l'essere. E, dato che anche tra gli altri trascendentali e l'essere si dà soltanto una distinzione logica e non una distinzione reale, ne segue che, per quanto concerne la realtà, tutti i trascendentali coincidono, pur restando logicamente e necessariamente distinti tra di loro. Per questo motivo, grazie alla convertibilità, nell'essere e negli enti tanto c'è di vero altrettanto c'è di buono, tanto c’è di buono altrettanto c'è di bello, e tanto c'è di buono, di vero e di bello e altrettanto c'è di valore. £ Su questa proprietà dei trascendentali vedi S. ToMmMASO D'AQUINO, De veritate, q. I, a. l. 228 Una terza proprietà che il valore ha in comune con gli altri tra- scendentali è la relazione bipolare: il valore ha due poli, un polo soggettivo e un polo oggettivo. Per quanto si dice che il valore è una correlazione: correlazione tra dignità ed estimazione, analoga alla correlazione tra verità e conoscenza, tra bontà e desiderio, tra bel- lezza ed ammirazione. Che il valore abbia bisogno di due poli e che si tratti effettivamente di una correlazione tra due poli, risulta dal fatto che è un trascendentale, cioè una modalità dell'essere (e non una fetta di essere), che non spunta dall'essere da sola come un ramo dal tronco di un albero, ma solo in rapporto ad una facoltà di un es- sere intelligente e grazie alla sua azione. E come il vero nasce dal rapporto dell'essere con la conoscenza, il buono dal svo rapporto con il desiderio o la volontà, il bello dal suo rapporto cor l'ammira- zione, così il valore nasce dal suo rapporto con la estimazione. Come tutti gli altri trascendentali, anche il valore possiede due dimensioni, una soggettiva ed una oggettiva. Tali dimensioni deri- vano immediatamente e direttamente dalla sua proprietà di essere una correlazione. Con questo si vede quanto siano infondate ed errate sia la teoria degli psicologisti, che riducono il valore al sen- timento, sia quella dei platonici che fanno dei vaiori delle realtà sussistenti. Anzitutto il valore gode della prerogativa dell’oggettività, e a provario ci vuol poco. Basta tener presente la verità che il valore è una proprietà trascendentale dell'essere (che è l’oggettività per essenza). il valore è radicato nell'essere; è una facciata dell'essere, è uno dei suoi aspetti fondamentali e più interessanti. Ti valore è og- gettivo come è oggettiva la verità, come è oggettiva la bellezza, come è oggettiva la bontà. Ma c'è anche un secondo argomento che con- ferma l'esattezza di questa assegnazione: dell’oggettività ai valore. In quanto trascendentale il valore è oggettivo perché non è una creazione e neppure un'arbitraria invenzione della psiche umana. Ci sono valori creati dall'uomo, ma non il valore come proprietà fon- damentale dell'essere. Non si può parlare seriamenie di creazione del valore da parte dell'uomo. L'uomo può produrre oggetti, cose, ma non il loro valore. L'attività creatrice dell'uomo è volta agli og- getti non ai valori; può produrre una bella statua, ma non il valore artistico; può compiere una buona azione, ma non generare il valore della bontà; può inventare la radio, ma non il valore delle comu- nicazioni. L'uomo può solo produrre oggetti di valore non il valore. Cosicché gli oggetti e le azioni di valore, per quanto concerne la di- mensione del valore, rinviano ad un fondamento diverso dall'uomo e a lui superiore. Del resto, quanto meno in rapporto a determinati valori, l’uomo ha la sensazione netta di non esserne l’inventore e il padrone, bensì il servo e il discepolo. Di fronte a valori quali la giustizia, la verità, la saggezza, la prudenza, l’amore, la bontà, ecc., l’uomo si sente più passivo che attivo: sono valori che agiscono su di lui; lo guidano, lo provocano, lo stimolano, lo attraggono, lo 229 — relazione sipolare Ls due gdimensioni diei valori: oggettiva e soggettiva Valore come proprietà trascendentale dell'essere I valori fanno crescere l’essere dell’uomo Il polo soggettivo: ia stima è valore senza l’uomo resta inespresso Necessità di un’educazione della facoltà dei valori elevano e lo arricchiscono. Non è l'uomo che comunica l'essere ai valori, ma viceversa sono i valori che contribuiscono a far crescere l'essere dell'uomo. L'uomo ha indubbiamente il potere di scoprire i valori ma non il potere di crearli. « Ogni vero valore porta in se stesso il suo significato. La “fortezza” è appunto fortezza e, in quanto fenomeno originario, non può essere derivato da nessun altro. Perciò l'uomo la può realizzare solo muovendo da essa, in quanto agisce “fortemente” e diviene “forte” ». Ma per avere il valore non basta il polo oggettivo: la dignità dell'essere; occorre anche quello soggettivo: la stima da parte del- l’uomo. Come non c'è bellezza senza ammirazione, né verità senza conoscenza, né bontà senza volontà, così non fiorisce la dignità dell'essere o di un ente senza l’estimazione. In effetti, il valore emerge nel momento in cui c'è un soggetto, l’uomo, che compie un atto positivo di valutazione, di estimazione e che, così, riconosce la dignità di una cosa, di una persona o di un'azione (analogamente alla verità: questa emerge nel momento in cui una intelligenza cono- sce una cosa). Il valore, senza l’uomo, rimane inespresso, occulto, celato: non risplende; è come un sovrano senza sudditi, vale a dire non esiste più come sovrano. Può rimanere il regno dell'essere, ma scompare il regno dei valori. Si può dire che il valore, in quanto trascendentale, è essenzial- mente dotato sia di oggettività sia di soggettività. Possiede oggetti- vità perché è fondato sull'essere. Il valore non è una chimera ma un aspetto primario, fondamentale, costante, perenne dell’essere e degli enti. Però il valore è oggettivo non alla maniera di una cosa, diuna sostanza e tanto meno alla maniera di un'idea sussistente, ma alla maniera di una relazione. Ed è oggettivo perché il primo termine della relazione assiologica è appunto l’essere. Ma il valore è anche dotato di soggettività, perché il secondo ter- mine della relazione assiologica è il soggttto: l'uomo o un altro es- sere intelligente. In forza del polo soggettivo il valore può sbocciare soltanto dove c'è predisposizione e preparazione per accoglierlo, per riconoscerlo. I colori sono oggettivi ma i sassi non li vedono. Ci vuole la vista per percepirli. Certi odori o profumi sono oggettivi ma ci vuole un particolare addestramento per avvertirli (cani da caccia, cani poliziotto, ecc.). Altrettanto accade per i valori. La dignità del- l'essere e degli enti, ia dignità della natura e degli animali, la dignità della famiglia e della patria, la dignità dell'uomo e la dignità di Dio è indubbiamente oggettiva ma per coglierla occorre un'adeguata educazione della facoltà dell’estimazione da parte del soggetto, da parte dell'uomo. Senza un'appropriata educazione della facoltà dei valori, in particolare quando si tratta di valori assoluti, trascendenti, pe- renni, si perde la capacità di percepirli. Allora i valori si offu- ? R. GUARDINI, Libertà, grazia, destino, Morcelliana, Brescia 1957, p. 85. 230 scano, si eclissano, scompaiono. È, purtroppo, quanto sta suc- cedendo nella nostra cultura e nella nostra società. 4. Gerarchia e classificazione dei valori Dopo avere chiarito che il valore è una relazione trascendentale dotata di un polo soggettivo e di un polo oggettivo e che il primo affonda le radici nell'uomo e il secondo nell'essere, possiamo risol- vere due complesse questioni assiologiche, che hanno visto i filosofi diversamente schierati circa le questioni delia gerarchia e delia classificazione dei valori. a) La gerarchia dei valori - Nel campo del valore, come nei campi della bontà, della bellezza e della verità vi è una varietà di gradi (rispetto al valore non tutte le cose e ie azioni stanno alla pari, ma ci sono quelle che hanno maggior valore e quelle che hanno minor valore) e c'è pertanto una gerarchia, ia quale presenta al ver- tice un valore massimo, con dignità piena, assoluta, totale, incon- dizionata, perenne, mentre alla base, cioè sui gradini più bassi, pre- senta valori con poca dignità: una dignità caduca, relativa, condizio- nata, parziale, provvisoria, evanescente. Che rispetto al valore, come rispetto al bene, alla verità e alla bellezza esistano dei gradi pare cosa abbastanza ovvia; perché se il valore è una proprietà trascendentale dell'essere, essendoci grada- zioni nell'ordine dell'essere, ci sono gradazioni anche in quello del valore, e certo nell'ordine dell'essere ci sone gradazioni: non c'è pa- rità di essere tra un lombrico e un cane, e ira un cane ed una donna! Il grado del valore corrisponde a quello dell'essere. Quanto più ele- vato è il grado di essere che una cosa possiede, tanto più grande è il suo valore. E che questo sia vero lo conferma anche il fatto che, obiettivamente parlando, noi riconosciamo maggior valore ad un animale che ad un pezzo di legno, ad un bambino che ad un cane, ad una persona che ad una cosa. Ma se il principio della gradazione dei valori risulta abbastanza ovvio, non si può dire altrettanto della ijoro gerarchia. In effetti, su questo punto, ancor più che altrove, non solo non si registra nessun accordo nella prassi quotidiana, ma neppure nelia speculazione degli studiosi. I filosofi dei valori hanno proposto scale gerarchiche molto disparate (basta confrontare la scala di Nietzsche cor quella di Scheler, o la scala di Marx con queila di Lavelie!}. Questo perché nel fissare le loro gerarchie hanno assunto prospettive spesso diametral- mente opposte. A mio avviso c'è un criterio valido per stabilire una gerarchia og- gettiva e completa dei valori. S'è visto che i valori non sono entità astratte, cose in sé, ma dimensioni della realtà, più esattamente re- lazioni, che hanno vitale, capitale importanza per l'uomo. I vaiori 231 Varietà di gradi 6 gerarchia i Corrispondenza ira grato cCell’essere e grad dei valore Disaccordo sulla Gerarchie dei valori Criterio di riferimento: il valore e la realizzazione del progetto-uomo Progetto-uomo e dimensione religiosa: Dio al vertice Valori economici, culturali, spirituali sono le guide, i mezzi che lo aiutano a realizzare il proprio progetto di umanità. Ecco, quindi il criterio per stabilire la gerarchia dei valori: il criterio è fornito dall’apporto che una cosa, una persona, un'azione può dare alla realizzazione del progetto-uomo e del valore- uomo. Una realtà occupa uno scalino tanto più elevato nella gerarchia dei valori, quanto maggiore è il suo apporto in tal senso, e tanto più basso quanto minore è il suo contributo. In effetti, le gerarchie dei valori sono state stabilite da quasi tutti gli studiosi con questo criterio. E se le gerarchie risultano disparate e contrastanti, lo si deve semplicemente al disaccordo che regna tra i filosofi intorno al progetto-uomo. Se si accetta il progetto nietzschiano si ottiene una gerarchia che ha al vertice la volontà di potenza; se si accoglie il progetto marxista il primo posto nella gerarchia dei valori tocca al lavoro; se si assume il progetto freudiano si elabora una gerarchia fondata sul primato del piacere. Invece, un progetto-uomo che — per essere fedele a tutti i dati della nostra esperienza — tiene conto anche della esperienza della trascendenza e perciò non trascura né soffoca la dimensione religiosa, non può non collocare al vertice della scala dei valori che Dio stesso. Lui — già degno della massima stima, rispetto e lode in se stesso — è anche degno della massima considerazione in rapporto al pro- getto-uomo, perché Egli solo è in grado di assicurare all'uomo l’at- tuazione piena del proprio progetto di umanità. Un progetto-uomo studiato sulla base di una visione globale di ciò che l'uomo è e di ciò che nel piano di Dio è chiamato a diventare, riesce non solo ad accertare che Dio è il valore sommo e che sta quin- di in cima alla scala gerarchica dei valori, ma è anche in grado di individuare, sempre in base al progetto-uomo, gli altri gradini più importanti, perché sa che l'uomo è costituito essenzialmente di tre dimensioni: corpo, anima e spirito. Dopo Dio, vengono pertanto altri tre ordini di valori, che sono quelli che contribuiscono alla realizzazione del progetto-uomo a livello somatico, a livello psichico e a livello spirituale: si tratta dei valori economici, dei valori cultu rali e dei valori spirituali. I valori economici o vitali sono quelli che contribuiscono alla pre- servazione della vita e alla conservazione, sviluppo, salute e piacere del corpo. I valori culturali, in senso stretto, sono quelli che con- tribuiscono immediatamente alla coltivazione, crescita, elevazione dell'anima o più esattamente della mente. I valori spirituali sono quelli che giovano alla cresciia, allo sviluppo e al perfezionamento dello spirito. Qui è opportuno notare — per non incorrere nell’accusa di' sog- gettivismo — che scegliere l'uomo come punto di riferimento nella determinazione della gerarchia dei valori è altra cosa dal fare del- l'uomo la misura, il metro dei valori o il loro creatore. I valori han- no la loro consistenza ed autonomia e si trovano ad un livello più o meno elevato rispetto all'uomo secondo la loro dignità intrinseca 232 e secondo il contributo che danno alla realizzazione del progetto- uomo. Certo, il riferimento al progetto-uomo spiega ancor meglio quella dimensione soggettiva che è propria del valore, di cui si è detto in precedenza: perché colui che coltiva e incarna i valori non è la natura in astratto, ma l'individuo concreto (Pietro, Paolo, Luca, Carlo, ecc.), la persona storica, la quale per la realizzazione del pro- prio progetto di umanità può essere maggiormente interessata ad alcuni valori (economici, spirituali, culturali) che ad altri. Né l'assunzione del progetto-uomo come criterio per stabilire la scala dei valori fa scomparire la distinzione fondamentale tra valori assoluti (che sono quelli che hanno dignità e sono meritevoli di stima e di rispetto in se stessi e non in ordine ad altri valori) e valori strumentali (che hanno dignità e sono meritevoli di stima solo in quanto giovano alla realizzazione dei valori assoluti). La distinzione rimane salva (anzi, più salva che mai), perché la realizzazione di un valore assoluto partecipato, qual è l'uomo, reclama l’esistenza di valori assoluti sussistenti, in particolare di quel valore assoluto sussistente, fondamento ultimo di ogni altro valore, che è Dio. b) Classificazione dei valori - Il regno dei valori è immenso: pra- ticamente abbraccia ogni pensiero, ogni azione, ogni cosa e ogni per- sona. È possibile allora effettuare una classificazione dei valori? Pare di sì e molti autori ci hanno provato. Una delle classificazioni più note è quella di Scheler, la quale riduce tutti i valori a quattro gruppi principali: valori edonistici, vitali, spirituali e religiosi. Questa classificazione è buona per distinguere, come in effetti voleva Scheler, i vari gradi dei valori, ma non serve per determinare le gran- di aree assiologiche. A tal fine credo che si riesca ad ottenere una classificazione più adeguata distribuendo i valori in dieci grandi gruppi. Si tratta di una classificazione empirica, ma abbastanza sod- disfacente in quanto riesce a trovare una sistemazione a tutto ciò che possiede una dimensione assiologica. I dieci gruppi sono: 1. valori ontici (il primo valore è l'essere); 2. valori personali (il primo è la persona); 3. valori sociali (il primo è la famiglia); 4. valori economici (il primo è il lavoro); 5. valori culturali (il primo è la cultura); 6. valori somatici (il primo è il corpo); 7. valori noetici {il primo è la verità); 8. valori estetici (il pri- mo è la bellezza); 9. valori morali (il primo è la bontà); 10. valori re- ligiosi (il primo è il sacro). Come si vede in ogni gruppo c’è un valore primario, un valore principe, un capofila. Intorno ad ogni valore primario si dispone una costellazione più o meno grande di altri valori che appartengono allo stesso ordine e partecipano alle qualità del valore primario. Così, tutto ciò che gode della perfezione dell'essere partecipa anche al suo valore e diviene pertanto un valore ontico. E quanto più grande è la perfezione di una cosa in rapporto all'essere tanto più elevato è il suo valore ontico. Sono dotate di valore ontico le piante, le 233 Progetto-uomo e dimensioni soggettive La classificazione dei valori secondo Scheler Valore primario e costellazione di valori Gruppo di valori e scienza principale Percezione dei valori: col sentimento o con i‘ intuizione? Percepire i valori con la facoltà estimativa case, i fiumi, i laghi, ie persone, la terra, il cielo, la natura..., Dio, Valore assoluto in tutti gli ordini e fondamento di ogni altro valore, Dio è il primo (non in quanto prototipo ma in quanto fuori serie) anche nell'ordine ontico. Per lo studio di ogni singolo gruppo di valori esiste una scienza principale, che è quella che si occupa direttamente del valore pri- mario, e tutta una serie di altre scienze, che sono quelle che studiano gli altri valori della stessa costeliazione. Così per esempio, per il primo gruppo c’è la metafisica, che si occupa direttamente e prima- riamente dell'essere. A fianco della metafisica per lo studio dei vari gradi dell'essere siedono la teologia (che studia Dic), l'astronomia {che studia i corpi celesti), la fisica (che studia la natura), la ma- tematica (che studia i numeri), l'antropologia (che studia l’uomo). 5. La facoltà dei valori Qual è la facoltà con cui percepiamo i valori? Anche questo è un problema che è stato molto dibattuto dai filosofi dei valori e le soluzioni che sono state proposte sono varie. Secondo aicuni la facoltà dei valori è il sentimento. Questo però viene inteso da alcuni come una disposizione totalmente soggettiva (come quella che percepisce il piacere, il dolore, la gioia, ecc.), men- tre da altri viene considerato come un sentimento del tutto speciale, che ha una intenzionalità squisitamente oggettiva. Secondo altri fi- losofi la facoltà dei valori è l'intuizione: una specie di visione in- tellettiva, che coglie immediatamente i valori, così come la visione sensitiva coglie immediatamente i colori. Noi siamo del parere che il valore sia, come gli altri trascenden- tali, oggetto di una facoltà particolare. Come la verità è oggetto della conoscenza, il bene della volontà e del desiderio, la bellezza dell’am- mirazione, così dev'essere anche del valore. Ma qual è la sua facoltà? Forse il sentimento, oppure l'intuizione? Non v'è dubbio che l’in- tuizione interviene in alcuni casi e un sentimento del tutto parti- colare (l’empatia) in altri. Ma in generale non direi che la facoltà che percepisce il trascendentale del valore o la dimensione assiolo- gica di una determinata cosa o di una certa azione sia il sentimento oppure l'intuizione, bensì la facoltà valorativa e cioè l’estimativa, che è altra cosa sia dal sentimento sia dall’intuizione, pur non esclu- dendoli. L'estimazione, cioè la percezione dell'essere o di un ente come va- lore, non è né una semplice intuizione (nuda riproduzione dell’og- getto come nella percezione della verità) né puro sentimento {cioè un rapporto affettivo ed emozionale come nella tendenza appetitiva verso un bene). L'estimazione, come s'è detto, li può comprendere en- trambi, senza tuttavia risolversi né nella prima né nel secondo e neppure nella simbiosi di tutt'e due. 234 Il valore è l'oggetto proprio dell’estimativa, così come il colore Io è della vista, il sapore del gusto, la verità della conoscenza, il bene della volontà, la bellezza dell’ammirazione. L’estimativa co- glie l'oggetto come più o meno degno, più o meno valido, così come il gusto lo coglie come più o meno gradevole, l'udito come più o meno rumoroso, l'intelligenza come più o meno evidente, la volontà come più o meno buono o utile, l'ammirazione come più o meno bello. E non può essere che così perché, come abbiamo mostrato in pre- cedenza, la dimensione dell'essere che viene alla luce attraverso il valore è una dimensione diversa da quelle che emergono attraverso la verità, la bellezza e la bontà, ed è logico che come queste tre ci inter- pellano ciascuna mediante una distinta facoltà, altrettanto accada per il valore: la sua facoltà è l'estimativa. ‘Per il costituirsi della categoria del valore l’estimativa è indi- spensabile. Dove non c'è apprezzamento, estimazione, si danno bruta facta, oggetti, cose; non affiorano ancora i valori. Alla pari della facoltà gnoseologica (che coglie la verità), etica (che coglie la bontà) ed estetica (che coglie la bellezza), anche la facoltà assiologica opera in diversi modi a seconda del livello (grado) dei valori che è in gioco. Ai diversi gradi di valore corrispondono dif- ferenti operazioni assiologiche. Nel caso dei valori materiali si può realizzare un’estimazione in base ad una semplice intuizione della cosa oppure di un'analisi ed un processo raziocinativo più o meno prolungato. Nel caso dei valori assoluti sussistenti (Dio, la Trinità, ecc.), l'estimazione è sostenuta dal ragionamento oppure dalla fede. Nel caso dei valori morali (prudenza, castità, coraggio, fedeltà, ecc. spesso interviene l’empatia, una specie di giudizio per connaturalità. Ciò succede quando tali valori sono avvertiti come rispondenti alle nostre più intime aspirazioni — in questo sta la loro connaturalità. Sono valori per i quali sentiamo una profonda sintonia, un’intima corrispondenza col nostro progetto di umanità e sono perciò in grado di condurlo verso una sua realizzazione più piena. La facoltà dell’estimazione che ci mette a contatto con i valori comprende tre funzioni: quella del capitare velorativamente che co- glie i singoli valori; quella del preferire che ne stabilisce la gerarchia e quella dell'aspirare che porta alla scoperta di nuovi valori e pre- cede il captare e il preferire come una specie di pioniere o di esplo- ratore. L'uomo è naturalmente dotato della facoltà valorativa, così come è naturalmente doiato della facoltà conoscitiva, appetitiva ed este- tica. Ma alla pari di queste facoltà anche quella valorativa va col- tivata. Come l'intelligenza perché possa conoscere la verità dev’esse- re istruita e come la volontà, perché possa scegliere il bene autentico, va educata, altrettanto l'estimativa, perché si apra all’apprezzamen- to e all'assimilazione dei valori dev'essere guidata ed ammaestrata. In tutte le sue facoltà l’uomo è essenzialmente educabile e col- 235 La facoltà estimativa coglie l’oggetto nel suo valore Valori materiali: estimazione per intuizione o per analisi Valeri assoluti sussistenti: estimazione e fede Valori moraii: estimazione ad La funzione deil’estimazione: — Captare valorativamente — preferire — aspirare Necessità di coltivare la facoltà valorativa Il ricorso all'esperto Necessità di una nuova assiologia tivabile. Ciò è dovuto al fatto che nasce più come un progetto aperto che come un’opera finita. E, dato che abbiamo visto che la realiz- zazione del progetto-uomo dipende soprattutto dalia scelta dei va- lori, l'educazione dell'estimativa, cioè della facoltà dei valori, as- sume capitale importanza. L'educazione non occorre per tutti i gradi di valore. Così, per esempio, per certi valori vitali (come l’aria, l’acqua, il pane) la valutazione è istintiva e non c'è bisogno di edu- cazione. Non così per la maggior parte dei valori appartenenti al li- vello culturale e al livello spirituale. Anche per essi ci può essere un impulso istintivo o empatico. Così l'uomo nasce con una specie di apprezzamento istintivo delia verità, della bontà, della giustizia, delia solidarietà, della castità, ecc. Ma senza un'adeguata coltiva- zione tale impulso facilmente si indebolisce e si perde. C'è di più. Nel campo degli apprezzamenti e delle valutazioni è molto facile errare e, così, molto spesso si trovano in circolazione pseudo-valori. Per questo motivo, per stabilire quali sono i valori autentici e quali quelli inautentici, è necessario ricorrere agli e- sperti, agli specialisti. Quando si tratta di perle preziose, di monete antiche, di francobolli rari non ci fidiamo di noi stessi e ricorriamo al giudizio di un perito. Perché non si deve fare altrettanto per quei valori che contano di più per la realizzazione del progetto-uomo, i valori spirituali, trascendenti, perenni? Già Aristotele diceva che, nel caso dei valori etici, è bene ricorrere al giudizio dell'uomo sa- piente. Ciò che urge maggiormente nella nostra società culturalmente di- sorientata è una nuova assiologia che sappia restituire il primato che loro compete ai valori assoluti, trascendenti, perenni e, conse- guentemente, una nuova pedagogia altamente umanistica che faccia risplendere la luce di tali valori alle menti dei giovani, menti che avvertono istintivamente la dignità dei valori perenni e sentono fortemente il loro fascino e sono pertanto naturalmente inclinati ad assumerli come guida della propria esistenza, come componenti essenziali del proprio progetto di umanità. CONCETTI DA RITENERE — Assiologia; trasvalutazione; sentimento; aseità — Statuto ontologico; ultrarealismo; tesi soggettivistica — Assiologia realistica, gerarchia, personalistica, teocentrica — Valori sensibili, vitali, spirituali, religiosi — Assiologia metafisica — Trascendentale; estensività; convertibilità; relazione bipolare — Sentimento; intuizione; empatia; estimativa — Captare valorativamente; preferire; aspirare SINTESI CONTENUTISTICA I. IL PROBLEMA E LE SUE CARATTERIZZAZIONI STORICHE 1. Il problema ha assunto particolare rilievo nel nostro tempo. La scienza dei valori ha sostituito la metafisica e i suoi interrogativi sulle ragioni ultime della realtà, ponendo l’accento sulla natura dei valori assoluti e sulla loro con- sistenza ontologica. 2. L'assiologia ha assunto dignità speculativa in tempi relativamente re- centi, dopo che Nietzsche ha teorizzato la sua trasvalutazione, demolendo i valori assoluti della logica (verità), della morale (virtù), della metafisica (esse- re), della religione (Dio). 3. Padre della assiologia è Rudolf H. Lotze (1817-1881). Nel suo capolavoro, Microcosmo, egli distingue il regno dei fatti, il regno delle leggi universali, il regno dei valori. I primi due riguardano i mezzi, il terzo i fini. I primi due sono suscettibili di interpretazione meccanicistica, il terzo è appreso dal sen- timento. Fondamento ultimo dei valori e valore assoluto per eccellenza è Dio. 4. N. Hartmann (1882-1950) è assertore di un ultrarealismo assiologico: i valori hanno il proprio fondamento in se stessi. Essi sono sussistenti, sono dotati di aseità. Hartmann, peraltro, nega l’esistenza di Dio, poiché secondo lui l’esistenza di Dio vanificherebbe la libertà e la responsabilità dell'uomo e quindi il valore morale. i 5. C. von Ehrenfels {1859-1932) è assertore al contrario del soggettivismo assiologico: il valore comprende sia il desiderio in atto di ciò che non si pos- siede sia la desiderabilità, desiderio potenziale di un determinato oggetto. 6. Max Scheler (1874-1928), massimo teorico dell’assiologia, influenzato dal- la fenomenologia di Husserl, elabora un'etica dei valori (I! formalismo in etica e l'etica materiale dei valori) a fondamento ontologico. L’assiologia di Scheler è realista, gerarchica, personalista e teocentrica: — Realista: i valori sono oggetti autenticamente oggettivi, secondo un ordine eterno e gerarchico. — Gerarchica: a) i criteri sono la durata, l’indivisibilità, la fondamentalità, la soddisfazione, il grado di relatività. b) i quattro livelli della gerarchia sono: valori sensibili, vitali, spirituali, religiosi. — Personalista: a) la persona è il valore ai quale debbono essere subor- dinati tutti i valori. b) i modelli personali danno concretezza ai valori: ad esempio il Giusto, l’Eroe, il Santo, ecc. — Teocentrica: tutti i valori sono fondati sul valore di uno Spirito infinito e sul « mondo dei valori » che gli sta di fronte. 7. L'interesse per l'assiologia si è diffuso successivamente in Italia (Stefa- nini e Prini); in Francia {(Lavelle e Le Senne); in Spagna (Ortega y Gasset), in Argentina (Derisi), in Inghilterra (Moore), negli Stati Uniti (Dewey). 8. L. Lavelle (1883-1951) elabora una assiologia di carattere metafisico: l'essere — la cui essenza è atto, perfezione assoluta, efficacia pura — è sorgente e determinazione di ogni valore. Ne consegue un legame inscindibile tra assio- logia e ontologia. Il valore ha, pertanto, con il bene un rapporto analogo a quello che intercorre tra l'essere e l’esistenza: così come l'esistenza è l’essere che si concretizza, il valore è il bene in quanto riferito a un oggetto di cui fac- ciamo uso, il valore è il bene in quanto implica un'attività che tende a realiz- zarlo. Il valore è una proprietà dinamica che trascina il soggetto all'azione. 9. R. Le Senne (1882-1954) afferma sia l'immanenza che la trascendenza del valore, sia il suo carattere oggettivo che quello soggettivo. 10. I neotomisti Wittmann, Rintelen, De «Finance, Derisi ed altri difendono 237 l’oggettività dei valori, che essi considerano fondati sull'essere. Il valore non costituisce però una proprietà trascendentale dell'essere distinta dal bene, ma si identifica con esso. II. DEFINIZIONE DEL VALORE 1. Nella lingua italiana la parola « valore » possiede tre significati princi- pali: economico, etico, ontologico. In economia significa denaro, in etica virtù, in ontologia indica le qualità che danno dignità a una cosa. 2. Il terzo significato è quello che interessa l’assiologia che riconduce im- mediatamente alla complessa questione dello statuto ontologico dei valori. LO STATUTO ONTOLOGICO DEI VALORI 1. I valori sono entità reali, oggettive; oppure sono realtà fittizie, aspira- zioni soggettive o ideali astratti? La storia dell'assiologia indica tre piste interpretative: a) oggettività e sussistenza dei valori (Lotze, Windelband, Scheler, Hart- mann); b) soggettività e fondazione sentimentale o psicologica dei valori (Meinong, Ehrenfels, Freud); c) il valore come proprietà trascendentale dell'essere, identificato con il bene (De Finance, Lavelle, Hammer); d) un'ultima interpretazione può essere elaborata a partire da elementi delle prime tre: il valore è un trascendentale, che nel regno dei trascendentali occupa un posto a sé: esso è la dignità di una cosa. In quanto trascendentale ha in comune con gli altri trascendentali alcune proprietà: — Coestensività con l'essere: dove c'è essere c'è valore e dove c’è valore c'è essere. Il valore esprime una modalità dell'essere che lo accompagna ne- cessariamente. — Convertibilità: poiché la distinzione tra l'essere e i suoi trascendentali è solo logica e non ontologica, tutti i trascendentali coincidono: tanto c'è di vero, altrettanto c'è di buono, di bello, di valore. — Relazione bipolare: il valore ha un polo soggettivo e uno oggettivo: a) oggettività: 1) il valore è radicato nell'essere; '2) il valore è scoperto dall'uomo, ma non è creato dall'uomo; b) soggettività: il valore emerge nel momento in cui l'uomo lo scopre. IV. GERARCHIA E CLASSIFICAZIONE DEI VALORI 1. Il grado del valore corrisponde a quello dell'essere: quanto più elevato è il grado «li essere che una cosa possiede, tanto più grande è il suo valore. 2. Il criterio per stabilire la gerarchia dei valori è fornito dall’apporto che una cosa, una persona, un'azione può dare alla realizzazione del progetto uomo e del valore uomo. Un progetto-uomo globale che tenga conto di tutte le dimensioni dell’uomo e del suo bisogno di Dio apre alla seguente gerarchia di valori: — valori economici o vitali: contribuiscono alla preservazione della vita e alla conservazione del corpo. — valori culturali. contrilsuiscono alla coltivazione, all’elevazione della mente. — valori spirituali. giovano alla crescita, al perfezionamento dello spirito. 3. La classificazione dei valori più nota è quella formulata da Max Scheler: valori edonistici, vitali, spirituali, religiosi. Questa classificazione distingue i vari gradi dei valori, ma non determina le aree assiologiche, in relazione alle quali è possibile produrre la seguente classificazione: Valori;- Primo valore ontici > essere personali persona — sociali famiglia — economici + lavoro — culturali -+» cultura — somatici «— corpo — noetici —verità — estetici — bellezza — morali  bontà — religiosi  sacro LA FACOLTÀ DEI VALORI 1. Secondo alcuni filosofi la facoltà che percepisce il valore è il sentimento, inteso secondo alcuni come una disposizione totalmente soggettiva, secondo altri come una intenzionalità oggettiva. Per altri ancora la facoltà dei valori è l'intuizione. 2. Il valore sembra comunque essere più propriamente oggetto dell’esti- mativa: infatti, dove non c'è apprezzamento, estimazione i valori non emergono. L'estimativa comprende tre funzioni: a) captare valorativamente: cogliere i singoli valori; b) preferire: stabilire la gerarchia; c) aspirare: scoperta di nuovi valori. 3. L'uomo è naturalmente dotato della facoltà valorativa, che al pari delle altre facoltà va coltivata. Se per i valori vitali la valutazione è istintiva, per i valori culturali e spirituali è necessario l'intervento dell'educazione. “ QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Che cosa sono i valori? Quando è sorta l'assiologia? 2. Chi è stato il massimo teorico dell’assiologia? 3. Perché l’assiologia viene chiamata realistica, gerarchica, personalistica e teocertrica? 4. Chi sono stati altri grandi studiosi dei valori? 5. La parola « valore » quali significati ha nella lingua italiana? 6. Qual è lo statuto ontologico dei valori? 7. Quali sono le gerarchie e la classificazione dei valori? 8. In che modo, con quali facoltà percepiamo i valori? 9. È legittimo stabilire delle correlazioni tra l’assiologia, il problema sto- rico, quello politico e la riflessione sulla scienza? 10. È possibile ritenere che l'assiologia possa restituire alla cultura tecno- logico-scientifica il senso del sacro e del mistero? SUGGERIMENTI BIBLIOGRAFICI AA.Vv., Il problema del valore, Atti del XII Convegno del Centro di Studi filosofici di Gallarate, Morcelliana, Brescia 1957. Aa.Vv., Il valore - La filosofia pratica fra metafisica, scienza e politica, Li- breria Gregoriana Editrice, Padova 1984. BATTAGLIA F., I valori tra la metafisica e la storia, Zanichelli, Bologna 1967. CAMPANALE D., Scienza, ontologia e valore, Bari 1963. FERRAROTTI F. {a cura di), Forme evolutive dei valori nel quadro della mo- bilità odierna di grandi gruppi umani, Angeli, Milano 1982. 239 HARTMANN N., Introduzione all'ontologia critica, Guida, Napoli 1972. ILAMBERTINO A., Max Scheler: fondazione fenomenologica dell'etica dei va- lori, Firenze 1977. MAGNANI G., Itinerario al valore in R. Le Senne, Gregoriana, Padova 1971. MARCHELLO G., Valori e tecniche di avvaloramento - Studi sull'etica dei valori, Giappichelli, Torino 1972. MonpIN' B., Il valore uomo, Dino, Roma 1983. Paci E., Pensiero, esistenza e valore, Principato, Milano 1940. Rizzo A,, Infinito e persona - Ermeneutiche cristiane di fronte alla crisi di senso, Iarma, Roma. Romano P., Ontologia del valore, studio storico critico sulla filosofia dei valori, CEDAM, Padova 1949. Rosso C., Figure e dottrine della filosofia dei valori, Guida, Napoli 1973. ScHELER M., L’eterno nell'uomo, Fabbri, Milano 1972. StoETZEL J., I valori del tempo presente. Un'inchiesta europea, SEI, Tori- no 1984. 240 Parte seconda: I SISTEMI FILOSOFICI PRINCIPALI * Come si vede qui di seguito i primi sistemi filosofici presentati sono quelli della Grecia antica. Ci si è posti il problema del perché la filosofia, come forma di sapere organizzata spesso in modo che possiamo chiamare scientifico e come ricerca di una spiegazione or- ganica ai problemi dell'universo, si sia sviluppata inizialmente pres- so i greci, e precisamente nei territori fuori della Grecia in cui si era trapiantata la civiltà greca. Perché non ci furono scuole filosofiche nelle altre più antiche ci- viltà medio-orientali, quali quella egiziana, assiro-babilonese, persia- na, o in quella ebraica? Esaminando queste civiltà si possono riscon- trare in ciascuna di esse elementi filosofici, inseriti specialmente in insiemi dottrinari di carattere religioso e che pertanto non possono essere definiti filosofici nel senso stretto della parola. Inoltre, per il mancato sviluppo di una vera mentalità filosofica, sono da sottolinea- re le differenti situazioni politiche in cui si sono sviluppate le varie civiltà, che normalmente avevano regimi autocratici o teocratici, con il dominio assoluto dei monarchi o dei loro rappresentanti sul resto della popolazione; e questo aveva impedito un libero sviluppo del pensiero individuale. Nel secolo VIII e VII la Grecia aveva sviluppato, a contatto con altri popoli del Medio Oriente, le sue particolari doti di intrapren- denza in attività commerciali ed industriali, creando un vero impero commerciale, con numerose colonie, specie nell'Italia meridionale (la Magna Grecia). L'aristocrazia terriera che aveva nella madre patria dominato sino ad allora, aveva perso pian piano potere a vantaggio degli artigiani e dei commercianti e tutto ciò aveva sviluppato una nuova forma di governo, quella repubblicana delle città-stato, in cui tutti i cittadini partecipano alla cosa pubblica. È l’inizio della democrazia. * Per notizie sulla vita e le opere dei filosofi, vedere la Parte terza. Per quanto riguarda le date di nascita e morte di gran parte dei filosofi dell'anti- chità, per mancanza di dati precisi, esse si devono ritenere approssimative. 241 Nelle colonie insediate e diffusesi fuori della Grecia, il sorgere della democrazia fu facilitato dalla mancanza di una aristocrazia terriera, padrona del potere politico; al suo posto dominavano in- vece coloro che si erano dati al commercio, traendone ricchezze e benessere. Questa fiorente attività commerciale li aveva messi in contatto con le grandi civiltà orientali, da cui avevano saputo attin- gere con intelligenza il meglio delle conoscenze scientifiche ed aveva permesso la fioritura delle arti e delle scienze. Si era perciò sviluppato in tutto il mondo greco il senso dell’osservazione, dello studio e della ricerca ed aveva portato ad un libero dibattito, nei vari campi. Pertanto le prime scuole filosofiche si erano sviluppate, prima che nella madrepatria, nelle città dell'Asia minore e della Magna Grecia. I filosofi che facevano capo a queste scuole in generale erano scienziati (matematici, astronomi, medici, ecc.) che però allo stesso tempo indagavano intorno a sé per cercare di trovare un principio unitario di tutte le cose, e per conseguire questo obiettivo ricorre- vano sia alla mitologia che alla speculazione razionale. 1. Scuola ionica o di Mileto Fondatore: TALETE (624-562 a.C.) Dottrine principali: La ricerca di questa scuola, che è stata la più antica scuola greca di filosofia, sorta a Mileto, sulla costa dell'Asia minore, verso il VII e VI secolo a.C., è volta a dare espressione filosofica al problema del- l'esistenza di una causa suprema di tutto. Il principio viene quindi individuato di volta in volta in un elemento naturale o materiale: acqua, aria, fuoco... Maggiori esponenti: TALETE, il quale pone l'acqua come principio da cui traggono origine tutte le cose per condensazione o rarefazione. :ANASSIMANDRO (610-546 a.C.), matematico e astronomo di Mileto, il quale va oltre Talete e pone come principio primo qualcosa di indeterminato (apeiron). Il suo eterno movimento determina nella materia, per separazione, i contrari. ANASSIMENE (585-527 a.C.), discepolo di Anassimandro, il quale ripone il principio primo nell'aria, eterna e in continuo movimento. 2. Scuola pitagorica Fondatore: PITAGORA (571-490 a.C.) Dottrine principali: La scuola pitagorica sviluppatasi a Crotone, nella Lucania, 242 era composta da discepoli di Pitagora (nato a Samo da cui do- vette fuggire per motivi politici) uniti insieme con uno scopo di vita comune. La ricerca scientifica era considerata come mezzo a servizio di questa comunità. Della prima scuola pitagorica si conosce solo il nome del fondatore Pitagora, e questo per la segretezza che circondava la vita di quella comunità che viveva con un codice mo- rale impegnativo. Anche i pitagorici, come gli ionici, sono impegnati alla ricerca del principio unitario, ma superano il primitivo prin- cipio unitario di natura. Per essi, il principio delle cose e la sostanza dell'universo è il numero. La monade (dal greco monàs = unità) è il termine usato dai pitagorici per indicare l'unità originaria dalla quale deriva la serie dei numeri. Dai numeri, con una serie di pas- saggi, si arriva alle figure solide; da queste derivano i singoli corpi i cui elementi costitutivi sono il fuoco, l'acqua, la terra e l'aria. Per Pitagora l'anima è immortale perché trae origine dall’etere che è incorruttibile; essa è composta dall’intelligenza, dalla ragione e dal- l'impulso passionale. 3. Scuola eleatica Fondatore: PARMENIDE (520-440 a.C.) Dottrine principali: Secondo Parmenide, l’unica realtà è l'essere; nessuna altra realtà è possibile, neppure il divenire come diceva invece Eraclito di Efeso, in Asia minore, vissuto nella stessa epoca. Infatti, o una cosa è o non è. Se è, non può divenire perché è già. Se non è, non può divenire perché dal nulla non si può ricavare che il nulla. In tal modo veniva rilevaia la correlazione tra l'essere e il pensiero. Maggiori esponenti: ‘PARMENIDE, di Elea, colonia greca in Lucania, scrisse il poema Della Natura. Egli è considerato il primo grande metafisico. ZENONE, di Elea (vissuto nel V sec. a.C.), scrisse il poema Sulla Natura. La dottrina dell’« è » parmenideo si trasforma in quella di una realtà, che non può essere molteplice e si presenta come l'« uno » assoluto. È stato un formidabile dialettico, noto per i suoi paradossi. 4. Scuola atomista Fondatore: DemocRITO (460-370 a.C.) Dottrine princi pali: Democrito di Abdera, in Tracia, sostiene sia l'immutabilità del- l'essere, sia la realtà del divenire. L'essere è costituito da atomi, 243 che sono particelle invisibili e immutabili, immerse nel vuoto. Dal movimento degli atomi derivano tutte le cose, secondo un meccanico determinismo. Queste particelle non hanno nessuna qualità eccetto l’impenetrabilità; differiscono fra loro solo per fi- gura e dimensioni. L'anima umana è costituita da atomi leggeri e sottili, di carattere igneo. Il fondatore della « scuola atomistica » di tipo fisico scrisse molte opere, andate tutte perdute. Per lui la felicità non consiste nel piacere dei sensi ma nell'armonia della ragione e nella pace dell'anima, la tranquillitas animi che deriva soprattutto dal non darsi troppo da fare, né per faccende private né per quelle pubbliche, dal sapersi accontentare di una condizione moderata. 5. Scuola sofista Fondatore: PROTAGORA (480-410 a.C.) Dottrine principali: I sofisti si caratterizzano come una corrente filosofica alla ri- cerca dell’arte del persuadere invece che della ricerca della ve- rità. Essi sollevarono per primi la questione se l’uomo avesse o no la capacità di conoscere l’intima natura delle cose e la legge morale assoluta. La loro risposta fu che l'uomo non le può conoscere, perché la realtà e la legge naturale stanno al di sopra delle capacità conoscitive dell'uomo. Quindi tutto quello che l’uomo conosce in filosofia e in etica è prodotto della sua coscienza. Da qui il famoso detto dei sofisti: « L'uomo è misura di tutte le cose ». Quindi: non è possibile una conoscenza vera, ma solo probabile; non c'è una legge morale assoluta, ma solo leggi convenzionali, In questa dimensione empirica della conoscenza umana il piacere si pone come unico traguardo per l’uomo. Maggiori esponenti: PRroTAGoRA di Abdera, in Tracia: sostiene che non c’è nessuna verità assoluta. L'uomo interpreta a suo modo e a suo vantaggio i dati della sensazione. Il sapiente, ossia il sofista, con l’arte della per- suasione, fa sì che appaiano migliori non le opinioni più vere, ma le più vantaggiose. Protagora insegna una morale convenzionale, ma non arbitraria, basata sui princìpi divini del rispetto e della giu- stizia che Giove ha comunicato a tutti gli uomini. Gorgia (484-375 a.C.) di Lentini, in Sicilia, spinge il relativismo di. Protagora verso il più radicale scetticismo. La sua filosofia so- stiene che: l'essere non esiste; una cosa è il pensare, altra cosa è l'essere; la parola detta è altro dalla cosa significata. Conclusione: bisogna rendersi conto che ciò che appare è solo probabile. Altri esponenti della scuola sofista sono: ProDpIco di Ceo ed IPPIA di Elide. 244 6. Scuola eclettica o fisico-pluralista Fondatore: EMPEDOCLE (483-423 a.C.) Dottrine princi pali: Questa scuola viene chiamata pluralistica o « eclettica » per- ché si propone di selezionare e raccogliere il meglio delle teorie sino ad allora conosciute. Empedocle, di Agrigento, sostiene che la causa ultima delle cose risiede in 4 elementi (terra, fuoco, aria e acqua), che sono originari e immutabili e che il divenire è causato dalla lotta tra due forze primordiali: Amore e Odio. L'altro grande rappresentante di questa scuola è Anassagora (500- 428 a.C.) il quale sostiene che l'essere è costituito da corpuscoli qua- litativamente diversi. Il divenire è causato dal moto rotatorio e dalla Mente Suprema che è costituita anch'essa di materia. 7. Scuola socratica Fondatore: SOCRATE (469-399 a.C.) Dottrine principali: Il convincimento fondamentale di Socrate è che si danno va- lori assoluti sia nell'ordine gnoseologico che in quelli metafi- sico ed etico. In questo egli si oppone ai sofisti, i quali sosteneva- no che tutto è relativo: le opinioni cambiano da individuo ad individuo, i costumi da città a città, da popolo a popolo. Invece, se- condo Socrate, esistono principi assoluti, verità eterne, leggi morali immutabili ed eguali per tutti. A suo giudizio la vita umana merita e dev'essere vissuta in obbedienza a tali valori etici e metafisici, an- che se questo può esigere enormi sacrifici, perché l'uomo è destinato a raggiungere la sua piena realizzazione soltanto dopo la morte, al- lorché l’anima si libera dal peso del corpo. Fermo oppositore dei sofisti, si occupa essenzialmente delle cose umane, ma raggiunge risultati ben diversi: l'immortalità dell'anima, la possibilità di giun- gere al concetto universale, l’uso efficace del metodo induttivo. Per Socrate è essenziale la distinzione di male e bene; la felicità consiste nella pratica della virtù. Maggiori esponenti: ‘SOCRATE nacque e visse ad Atene; si dedicò alla ricerca, volendo insegnare agli uomini la verità. Non ha lasciato alcuno scritto. ANTISTENE ( V-IV sec. a.C.), il quale esaspera l'ascetismo di Socrate esigendo un totale distacco dai beni materiali e l'assoluta indipen- denza dalle vicende di questo mondo. Da lui prese il via la scuola cinica. ArISTIPPO di Cirene (V-IV sec. a.C.), il quale accentua talmente l'assenza di valore per quanto concerne il mondo materiale, il corpo, 245 le passioni, i piaceri sensibili, da ritenere che sia perfettamente in- differente occuparsi di loro ed assecondarli. A lui fa capo la scuola cirenaica. EucLIDE di Megara (450-380 a.C.), il più fedele discepolo di So- crate: egli, che fu influenzato anche da Parmenide, considera il bene come l'unica realtà e fa consistere la felicità nella pratica della vir- tù. È il fondatore della scuola megarica. PLATONE, il quale è certamente il massimo esponente del socra- tismo, ma col suo possente ingegno gli conferisce una struttura fi- losofica più solida e soprattutto originale, dando origine ad uno degli indirizzi più significativi della storia della filosofia. 8. Scuola platonica Fondatore: PLATONE di Atene (427-347 a.C.) Dottrine principali: L’intuizione fondamentale del filosofo ateniese è la dottrina delle Idee, cioè la convinzione che, esistendo il mondo sensibile, deve esistere anche il mondo intelligibile, che di quello è la causa e il modello. A dimostrazione dell’esistenza del mondo intel- ligibile egli adduce tre argomenti: della reminiscenza, della vera conoscenza, della contingenza. Le principali proprietà delle Idee sono: semplicità, incorporeità, immutabilità, eternità. Non tutte le Idee hanno lo stesso valore ontologico. Circa la concezione di Dio Platone è convinto che Dio costituisce un grande mistero. L'origi- ne del mondo sensibile è attribuita al demiurgo (Artefice sovrano). La caratteristica dominante del pensiero platonico è il dualismo. Platone considera il mondo materiale come un mondo decaduto ed alienato, una riproduzione imperfetta, una imitazione malfatta, una partecipazione limitata di un mondo ideale, perfetto, eterno, incor- ruttibile, divino, il mondo delle Idee. Questo dualismo si riflette in tutti i settori della filosofia: in logica, dove si segue il procedimento dialettico; in gnoseologia, in cui si svaluta la conoscenza sensitiva riducendola alla funzione di ravvivare il ricordo delle Idee (teoria della reminiscenza); in psicologia, con la identificazione dell'uomo con la sola anima, spirituale ed immortale, considerando il corpo una prigione ed un ostacolo alle attività dell'anima; in etica, dove si or- dina un rigido controllo, anzi la completa soppressione degli istinti, delle passioni, onde rendere possibile il distacco dell'anima dalla prigione del corpo e la contemplazione delle Idee; in estetica, con la svalutazione della commedia, della tragedia e delle arti figurative, perché non giovano alla elevazione dello spirito; in politica, con la divisione della società in classi e l'assegnazione del governo al filosofo-re. 246 Maggiori esponenti: Il platonismo costituisce il massimo filone della storia della filo- sofia; esso ha avuto validi rappresentanti in tutte le epoche: in quelia ellenistica con la Vecchia e la Nuova Accademia e con il Neo- platonismo (PLoTINO [205-270]; in quella patristica (con CLE- MENTE ALESSANDRINO [150-215], OriceNE [185-254], BasiLIo [330- 379], S. AgcostINno [354-430], Pseupo-DioNIGI i[V sec.], Boezio [480- 524]; in quella scolastica (con S. ANsELMO [1033-1109], BoNAVENTURA [1221-1274], Cusano [1401-1464]; in quella moderna (con CARTESIO [1596-1650], MALEBRANCHE [1638-1715], Vico [1668-1744], LEIBNIZ [1646-1716], SCHELLING [1775-1854] e HegeL [1770-1831]). 9. Scuola aristotelica Fondatore: ARISTOTELE di Stagira, in Tracia (384-322 a.C.) Dottrine princi pali: La visione filosofica di Aristotele si caratterizza per lo sforzo di cogliere la realtà in modo unitario (contro il dualismo di Platone) e, allo stesso tempo, per il tentativo di ricondurre le cause ultime di tutto ciò che è mutevole e contingente ad un principio unico tra- scendente. A tal fine Aristotele postula quattro cause fondamentali: la materia e la forma (per spiegare la struttura intrinseca delle realtà corporee), l'agente e il fine (per spiegare l'origine delle co- se e il loro dinamismo). Egli si vale di questi principi per risol- vere tutti i massimi problemi: problema cosmologico (composizione ilemorfica delle cose, ossia esse sono costituite di materia e forma, le quali si trovano in rapporto di potenza e atto); problema teleologico (il dinamismo delle cose e il loro divenire sono causati dal Primo Motore Immobile, che è il loro fine ultimo); problema antropologico (l'uomo non è solo anima, come affermava Platone, ma è il risultato dell'unione sostanziale di anima e corpo, la prima concepita come forma e il secondo come materia; l’anima, tuttavia comprende un elemento spirituale, divino, immortale); problema gnoseologico (la conoscenza intellettiva si fonda su quella sensitiva, in quanto le idee si ricavano dalle sensazioni mediante il procedimento astrat- tivo); problema metafisico (la metafisica è il sapere più importante ed elevato, perché studia l'essere in se stesso e ha di mira la scoperta delle cause ultime delle cose); problema etico (la perfetta felicità e la piena realizzazione del proprio essere, per l'uomo, non può con- sistere solo nella contemplazione delle Idee, ma esige anche un adeguato soddisfacimento dei sensi, perché l'uomo è essenzialmente costituito di corpo oltre che di spirito); problema teologico (esiste un Essere supremo, che è la causa ultima d'ogni divenire in qua- lità di Motore Immobile). Aristotele ha realizzato una grandiosa costruzione filosofica. Ele- 247 menti validi di questa sono soprattutto un efficace metodo di ricerca (logica) e la forma espositiva, un'analisi acuta degli elementi costi- tutivi del mondo fisico, una visione realistica del mondo e dell’uomo, ed infine un'acuta concezione per il suo tempo della trascendenza di Dio. Maggiori esponenti: La scuola fondata ad Atene da Aristotele (e chiamata anche peri- patetica, perché Aristotele insegnava nel corridoio [peripatos] del lyceum, sacro ad Apollo Licio) in un primo tempo non ebbe nessun esponente di rilievo e così il pensiero del maestro cadde ben presto in oblio. Riemerse tuttavia prepotentemente durante il Medioevo, prima nel mondo arabo e poi in quello cristiano. Dall'incontro del pensiero aristotelico con l’islamico uscì la Scolastica araba (AVICENNA [980-1037] e AverRoÈ [1126-1198]); mentre dall'incontro col cristiane- simo sorse la grande Scolastica cristiana (ALBERTO Magno [1205- 1280], S. Tommaso [1225-1274], Ruscero BACONE [1214-1293], DUNS Scoro [1265-1308], OccaM [1290-1349]). Anche nel Rinascimento (con Pomponazzi [1462-1524] e TELESIO [1509-1588]) e agli inizi del- l'epoca moderna (con Locke [1632-1704]) questa scuola continuò ad avere validi rappresentanti. 10. Scuola stoica Fondatore: ZENONE di Cizio (336-274 a.C.) Dottrine principali: Lo stoicismo è il movimento filosofico più originale dell'epoca ellenistica, sorto dopo la nascita dell'impero di Alessandro Magno, e che ha avuto la:maggiore durata di tempo rispetto alle altre scuole filosofiche dell'antichità; è essenzialmente una dottrina morale, la quale fa consistere la felicità e quindi il fine ultimo dell’uomo nella pratica della virtù e nel rifiuto di qualsiasi concessione ai sensi e alle passioni. Però esso comprende anche alcune importanti dottrine sul- la conoscenza e sulla struttura del cosmo. Per quanto concerne il problema gnoseologico, gli sioici si allontanano sia da Platone che da Aristotele per il modo di concepire la verità. Mentre per Platone e Aristotele essa consiste essenzialmente nella perfetta corrispon- denza tra la rappresentazione mentale e la situazione reale delle cose, per Zenone e i suoi discepoli sta nella totale comprensione o catalessi dell'oggetto, per cui la mente è costretta all’assenso. Per quanto concerne il problema cosmologico, il mondo, secondo gli stoici ri- sulta costituito di due elementi primordiali, la materia ed il Logos. La prima, essendo indefinita ed inerte, rappresenta il principio pas- sivo; il secondo, essendo animato e pieno di energia, rappresenta il principio attivo. 248 Maggiori esponenti: Lo stoicismo, fondato alla fine del IV secolo a.C., continua a fiorire fino ad oltre il III secolo dopo Cristo. Altri esponenti di questa scuola, che si chiama stoica perché l'insegnamento era tenuto da Zenone sotto i portici (stoà) di Atene, sono: CRISPINO (281-208 a.C.), SENECA (4 a.C.-65 d.C.), EPITTETO (50-138) e MARCO AURELIO (121-180). 1i. Scuola epicurea Fondatore: EpPicuRo di Samo (341-260 a.C.) Dottrine principali: Davanti ai grandi problemi filosofici l’epicureismo assume una posizione di netto contrasto con lo stoicismo, rifiutandone il rigo- rismo etico e lo spiritualismo antropologico e metafisico. L'epicurei- smo sviluppa, pertanto, una concezione materialistica per quanto concerne i principi primi delle cose (tutte le cose, compresi gli dei e le anime, sono costituiti di atomi e vuoto); meccanicistica riguardo ai fenomeni della natura i quali sono ascritti esciusivamente al moto e alla sua legge; sensistica per il problema della conoscenza, che è tutta ricondotta alle facoltà sensitive, mentre il concetto viene con- siderato come semplice anticipazione (prolessi) del futuro; edoni- stica per quanto riguarda il problema morale: la felicità, il bene supremo dell'uomo consiste nel piacere (edoné). Maggiori esponenti: L'epicureismo ha avuto sempre dei seguaci, ma soprattutto nel mondo romane con Lucrezio (98-54 a.C.) e Orazio (65-8 a.C.) e nel mondo rinascimentale con VALLA (1407-1457) e MONTAIGNE (1533- 1592). 12. Scuola neoplatonica Fondatore: PLOTINO di Licopoli, in Egitto (205-270) Dottrine princi pali: Viene chiamato « neoplatonismo » il movimento filosofico che riprende e sviluppa, dal III al VI secolo dopo Cristo, le dottrine platoniche. Questa scuola, fondata ad Alessandria d'Egitto da Am- monio Sacca, fu sviluppata dal suo discepolo Plotino che poi si trasferì a Roma, dove aprì una scuola che ebbe grande successo. L'impegno maggiore della riflessione filosofico-religiosa di Plotino riguarda l'Assoluto e i nostri rapporti con Lui. Valendosi di sugge- stioni che gli venivano dall’ebraismo e dal cristianesimo, ch'egli bene conosceva, il pagano Plotino è in grado di superare i limiti 249 materia, che in tal modo si trova all'estremo opposto dell’Uno e del Bene e per questo si identifica col male. Al processo di emanazione fa riscontro un processo di ritorno e di riassorbimento delle cose nell’Uno. L'attuazione dell’epistrofé (ri- torno) spetta all'uomo, il quale la realizza percorrendo tre tappe: ascetica o catarsi (mediante l'esercizio delle quattro virtù cardinali), contemplazione (conoscenza dell’Uno mediante la filosofia) ed estasi (unione mistica, immediata, con l'Uno). Maggiori esponenti: ‘Profondo è stato l'influsso dei pensiero di Plotino su tutta la filo- sofia medioevale e moderna. Tra i maggiori esponenti ricordiamo i discepoli PoRFIRIO (232-303) e ProcLOo (410-485) (due filosofi pagani), PsEupo-DroNIGI (V sec.) e Boezio (480-524), l'arabo AvICENNA (980- 1037), NiccoLò Cusano (1401-1464) e MarsiLio FIcINO (1433-1499), e i moderni LEIBNIZ (1646-1716), ScuELLING (1775-1854) e HEGEL (1770-1831). 13. Scuola agostiniana Fondatore: AgostINo d'Ippona (354-436) Dottrine principali: La visione filosofica agostiniana è frutto della esigenza di trovare una base razionale per la fede cristiana. Per conseguire questo obiet- tivo Agostino fa ricorso alla filosofia di Platone e, in tal modo, ottiene una visione che viene giustamente qualificata come platonismo cri- stiano. In effetti in tutti i problemi fondamentali la matrice platonica è chiaramente riconoscibile: nel problema della conoscenza con la dottrina della illuminazione; nei problema antropologico con la so- stanziale identificazione dell'essere dell’uomo con l’anima; nel pro- blema metafisico con la teoria delle verità eterne (idee) e delle ragioni seminali cioè queile impresse sino dalla creazione; nel problema etico con la dura condanria di ogni piacere sensibile e delle passioni e di tutto ciò che appartiene al mondo naturale. Però, nella visione ago- stiniana, gli elementi platonici non costituiscono dei blocchi isolati, 250 ante e con- clusivo. Alla visione agostiniana resteranno fedeli tutti i medioevali sino a San Tommaso, e molti altri dopo di lui: basti ricordare i nomi di ANSELMO (1033-1109), Uco (1096-1141) e RICCARDO DI S. VITTORE (1123-1173), BERNARDO (1090-1153). Dominante è l’elemento agostinia- no nei pensatori francescani: BONAVENTURA (1221-1274), ALESSANDRO DI HALES (1180-1245), DuNnS ScoTo (1265-1308). Sulla scia di Agostino si muovono anche alcuni grandi filosofi moderni, in particolare CARTESIO (1596-1650) e Vico (1668-1744). Al vescovo di Ippona si ri- fanno infine LuTERO (1483-1546) e CaLvino (1509-1564). 14. Scuola tomista Fondatore: ToMMaso d'Aquino (1225-1274) Dottrine principali: ione dell'essere negli enti è dovuta ad una potenza, ossia all'essenza. Quindi negli enti si dà una distin- zione reale tra essere ed essenza; tra i singoli enti, come pure tra gli enti e l’Essere supremo, c'è analogia ossia semiglianza, perché sono tutti imparentati con la stessa perfezione. Alla luce della sua con- cezione dell'essere Tommaso risolve tutti i principali problemi filo- sofici: il problema epistemologico (la verità consiste nella corrispon- 251 denza tra il pensiero e l'essere); il problema teologico (Dio è l’ipsum esse subsistens); il problema cosmologico (il mondo trae origine per creazione mediante una comunicazione dell’essere da parte di Dio); il problema antropologico (l'anima umana è naturalmente immor- tale in quanto possiede un atto di essere suo proprio indipendente- mente dal corpo); il problema politico (come in Aristotele, viene affermata l'origine naturale dello Stato che è una società perfetta; però l'altra società perfetta, cioè la Chiesa, ha la preminenza, in quanto il fine di questa è il « bene soprannaturale » dell’uomo). Maggiori esponenti: Il pensiero tomista ha avuto poi rappresentanti di grande va- lore del secolo XVI (il Caretano [1468-1533], SUAREZ [1548-1617], DE VITORIA [1483-1546]) e nel secolo XX (card. MERcIER [1851-1926], GiLson [1884-1978], MARITAIN [1882-1973], RAHNER [1904]). 15. Scuola francescana Fondatore: BoNAVENTURA da Bagnoregio (1221-1274) Dottrine principali: Il pensiero dei maestri francescani, in particolare di S. Bona- ventura, che è il loro caposcuola, si caratterizza per una sintesi non sempre organica ma di grande respiro, di elementi desunti da varie fonti, soprattutto da Platone e Agostino, ma anche da Aristotele e da Avicenna, e ovviamente dalla rivelazione biblica. Le dottrine spe- cifiche della scuola francescana sono le seguenti: in epistemologia, la teoria della illuminazione e la conoscenza diretta e immediata sia di se stessi che delle singole cose (senza far ricorso al processo astrat- tivo); in ontologia, la concezione univoca dell'essere e ia negazione della distinzione reale tra essenza ed esistenza; in cosmologia, la dottrina dell’ilemorfismo universale (cioè tutte le cose, compresi gli angeli, sono costituiti di materia e forma) e la negazione dell’eter- nità del mondo; in antropologia, la teoria della pluralità delle forme (una per il corpo, un'altra per l’anima vegetativa e sensitiva ed un'al- tra ancora per l’anima razionale); in teologia naturale, la dottrina dell’evidenza immediata dell’esistenza di Dio, secondo alcuni autori (Alessandro di Hales e Bonaventura), oppure della sua indimostra- bilità, secondo altri autori (Duns Scoto e Occam). Maggiori esponenti: La scuola francescana ha avuto validissimi esponenti soprattutto nei secoli XIII e XIV {(BonavENTURA [1221-1274], ALESSANDRO di HaLEs [1180-1245], Duns Scoro [1265-1308], Occam [1290-1349], RucceRo BaconE [1214-1293] e PieTRO OLIVI [1248-1298]). 252 - 16. Scuola razionalista Fondatore: CARTESIO (1596-1650) Dottrine principali: Per svariate ragioni, a partire da Cartesio, la preoccupazione dominante del filosofo non riguarda più l'essere, la realtà in sé, le cause ultime delle cose, Dio, ma riguarda l'uomo, ia sua capacità di conoscere il mondo e di trasformarlo. Ciò che conta maggiormente è stabilire il valore della conoscenza umana e scoprire una metodo- logia appropriata per la ricerca filosofica. Cartesio, padre del razio- nalismo, affascinato dalla matematica e dalla geometria, ritiene che l'unica conoscenza valida sia la conoscenza che non proviene dai sensi ma si trova innata nell'anima. Quanto al metodo, Cartesio propone quello della messa in dubbio di qualsiasi conoscenza che non risulti immediatamente chiara e distinta. Chiarezza e distinzione infatti co- stituiscono per lui le proprietà essenziali d'ogni vera conoscenza. La conoscenza razionale ha per oggetto l’universale e il necessario, ed è, quindi, capace di afferrare la natura vera, immutabile delle cose. Così la metafisica diviene possibile: si può conoscere Dio (anzi la sua esistenza è praticamente evidente: per riconoscerla basta l'argomento ontologico) e si può provare l'immortalità dell'anima. L'uomo raggiunge la perfetta felicità facendo trionfare la potenza della ragione sugli istinti e le passioni e dedicandosi alla contempla- zione amorosa di Dio (amor intellectualis Dei, secondo la bella e- spressione di Spinoza). Maggiori esponenti: Le tesi razionaliste di Cartesio sono state riprese e sviluppate da MALEBRANCHE (1638-1715), SPINOZA (1632-1677), LEIBNIZ (1646-1716) e in parte anche dagli illuministi e dagli idealisti. 17. Scuola empirista Fondatore: FRANCESCO BACONE (1561-1626) Dottrine principali: Nel secolo XVII il punto di partenza della riflessione filosofica non è più il problema dell’essere, bensì quello del conoscere. Mentre, però, i filosofi continentali (Cartesio, Spinoza e Leibniz) lo affron- tano a partire dal modello delle scienze esatte (matematica e geome- tria) e questo li conduce ad evolvere una concezione razionalistica della conoscenza e delia realtà, i filosofi inglesi si trovano in una temperie culturale profondamente diversa: nel loro paese fioriscono non tanto le scienze matematiche guanto quelle sperimentali: la bo- tanica, la chimica, l'astronomia, la meccanica, ecc. ed è perciò logico che la loro preoccupazione sia volta alla ricerca d'una teoria della 253 conoscenza e di un metodo di ricerca che corrispondano alle esigenze di tali scienze. Ora, le scienze sperimentali muovono dalla costata- zione di eventi particolari, dall'esperienza di certi fatti concreti (non da idee astratte, da principi universali); loro obiettivo è il supera- mento dei fatti, con la scoperta di rapporti costanti, leggi stabili, così da rendere possibile l’anticipazione di ulteriori esperienze. La problematica epistemologica della filosofia inglese consiste essenzialmente in questo: com'è possibile, partendo dall'esperienza sen- sitiva risalire a leggi universali? Senonché proprio la tesi che tutta la conoscenza procede dall'esperienza (= empirismo) li induce a con- cludere che anche le idee astratte e le leggi scientifiche conservano la stessa incertezza, instabilità e particolarità della conoscenza sen- sitiva. La mente umana non afferra niente di universale e necessario. In tal modo la metafisica diviene impossibile: nulla si può sapere intorno alla esistenza e natura di Dio, sulla origine prima e sull'ulti- mo fine della vita umana, sulla essenza delle cose materiali. Nep- pure in campo morale si danno norme assolute: buono o cattivo è ciò che viene approvato o disapprovato dalla società. Maggiori esponenti: L'empirismo è la filosofia congeniale al popolo inglese. Nel se- colo XVII l'hanno professato FRANCESCO Bacone {1561-1626), HoBBES (1588-1679) e Locke (1632-1704); nel secolo XVIII BERKELEY (1685- 1753) e HUME (1711-1776); nel secolo XIX SPENCER (1820-1903) e MILL (1806-1873); nel secolo XX RussELL (1872-1970), AYER (1910), RYLE (1900-1976) e molti altri. 18. Scuola illuminista Fondatore: VOLTAIRE (1694-1778) Dottrine principali: L'illuminismo più che una scuola o un sistema filosofico è un complesso movimento culturale, tipico del secolo XVIII e caratterizzato da una sconfinata fiducia nella ragione umana, ritenuta capa- ce di diradare le nebbie dell'ignoto e del mistero, che limitano e oscurano lo spirito umano, e di rendere migliori e felici gli uomini illuminandoli ed istruendoli. L’illuminismo è essenzialmente un an- tropocentrismo, un atto di fede appassionato nella natura umana. È un nuovo vangelo di progresso e di felicità. L'illuminismo predica un messianismo nuovo, un'era nuova, in cui l’uomo vivendo in con- formità con la sua natura, sarà perfettamente felice. I caratteri fon- damentali dell'illuminismo sono: venerazione della scieriza, con la quale si spera di risolvere tutti i problemi che affliggono l'umanità; empirismo: tutto ciò che sta al di là dell'esperienza non mantiene alcun interesse e cessa di valere come problema; razionalismo: scon- finata fiducia nella ragione, il cui potere è ritenuto illimitato; anti 254 con BECCARIA (1738-1794) e GIANNONE (1676-1748). 19. Scuola idealista Fondatore: IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804) Dottrine principali: Ii credo fondamentale degli idealisti è l'affermazione del pri- mato assoluto delia funzione conoscitiva rispetto a qualsiasi altra at- tività (estetica, economica, tecnica, politica, religiosa, ecc.). Secondo ii loro punto di vista il conoscere diviene un principio sussistente: la Coscienza, il Sapere, la Ragione, lo Spirito Assoluto, l'Io puro. E, logicamente, il principio conoscitivo non si attua come rappresen- tazione, bensì come creazione di oggetti. Dall'attività dello Spirito traggono origine la natura, la storia e l'umanità. Nel suo agire, lo Spirito non si propone altro fine al di fuori di quello di realizzare pienamente se stesso acquistando una perfetta autocoscienza. L'i- stanza dell’idealismo è già presente nel sistema kantiano, ma Kant la sviluppò soltanto parzialmente, affermando gratuitamente l'’esi- stenza di un mondo oggettivo, della cosa in sé, che esiste fuori di ogni esperienza {il noumer0). Ma tale postulato era possibile a prezzo d'una grave contraddizione: l'attribuzione del concetto di causa, il quale secondo i princisi kantiani di per sé è applicabile solamente ai fenomeni, anche alla cosa in sé. Ai discepoli di Kant (Fichte, Schel- ling e Hegel) riuscì facilmente il tentativo di raggiungere l’idealismo assoluto: fu sufficiente liberare il criticismo dall’applicazione inde- bita del principio di causalità, trascurare la cosa in sé, e condurre alle ultime conseguenze il cuncetto kantiano dell'Io come attività ordinatrice e unificatrice dell'esperienza esterna ed interna. Con que- sta ultima operazione l'io da unificatore diviene creatore di tutta la realtà; l’'autocoscienza diviene il principio assoluto di tutto il reale e di tutto ciò che è; ogni limite al pensiero non può essere posto che dal pensiero, e dal pensiero anche superato. In breve, l'io penso è 255 insieme il mondo e Dio, il fenomeno e il nowmeno, il soggetto e l’og- getto. In tal modo ogni differenza qualitativa tra Dio e la natura, tra l'Assoluto e la storia viene cancellata. La natura, la storia, l'umanità non sono altro che i momenti decisivi della manifestazione dell'As- soluto. Maggiori esponenti: L'idealismo è stato professato, anzitutto, dai tre grandi discepoli di Kant: FIicHTE (1762-1846), SCHELLING (1775-1854) e HEGEL (1770- 1831), i quali però lo svilupparono in modo diverso, in forma etica il primo, estetica il secondo, logico-storica il terzo. Alla fine del se- colo XIX e all'inizio del XX l’idealismo ebbe validi esponenti in Fran- cia (con RavaIsson [1813-1900], BrunscHvICG [1869-1944], HAMELIN [1856-1907]), in Inghilterra (con BrapLEY [1846-1924] e Mc TAGGART [1866-1925]), in America (con Royce [1855-1916]) e in Italia (con Croce [1866-1952] e GENTILE [1875-1944]). 20. Scuola volontarista Fondatore: ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860) Dottrine principali: L'esaltazione del potere della ragione che con l'Illuminismo e l'Idealismo aveva toccato momenti di autentica follia, dopo la morte di Hegel (1831) scatenò tutta una serie di vivaci reazioni a favore della dimensione opposta dello spirito umano, la dimensione affettiva della volontà, delle passioni, degli istinti. Un gruppo di filo- sofi. di grande levatura contestò l’importanza che si ascriveva alla ragione e la sua abilità a condurre l’uomo verso la completa realiz- zazione di se stesso, ne evidenziò i limiti di fronte ai problemi più gravi e più profondi e l'incapacità di fornire un orientamento sicuro per l'avvenire. Secondo il loro punto di vista ciò che conta maggior- mente nell'uomo non è la ragione, la speculazione, la logica, la me- tafisica, bensì la volontà, l'istinto, la fede. C'è però chi (p. es.: Nietzsche) guarda alla dimensione volitiva dell'uomo con eniusiasmo, fiducia, ottimismo e, quindi, professa un velontarismo fatto di coraggio, potenza, azione, un volontarismo volto al superamento del- la condizione attuale dell'umanità e allo sviluppo di un uomo supe- riore (super-uomo). C'è invece chi (come Schopenhauer, Kierke- gaard) considera la situazione dell'uomo in modo pessimistico: l’uo- mo è alienato e oppresso da un male insanabile, governato da una volontà perversa, a cui con le sue forze non riuscirà mai a sottrarsi né potrà mai guarire. Egli potrà uscire da questa situazione in due modi: o sopprimendo la propria individualità (Schopenhauer) op- pure affidandosi alla grazia di Dio (Kierkegaard). 256 Maggiori esponenti: Oltre a Schopenhauer, KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855) e NIETZSCHE (1844 1900) che abbiamo già ricordato e che sono i massimi esponenti del volontarismo; da ricordare anche HERBART (1776-1841) e FREUD (1856-1939). 21. Scuola positivista Fondatore: AUGUSTE COMTE (1798-1857) Dottrine principali: Nel secolo XIX gli scienziati moltiplicavano le loro scoperte su aspetti della natura e dell'uomo per i quali nei secoli precedenti la filosofia aveva cercato invano di fornire spiegazioni valide. Tutto questo parve giustificare l’illazione che l'unica vera filosofia fosse la scienza stessa. E questa è precisamente la tesi centrale del positi- vismo, il quale è, pertanto, la logica conseguenza degli insuccessi della metafisica da una parte e dei trionfi della scienza dall'altra. Il positivismo si propone di rispondere alla istanza di estendere il dominio dell’uomo sulla natura per mezzo della scienza, e, insieme, all'esigenza di organizzare per mezzo della scienza lo stesso mondo umano; onde può, sotto tale aspetto, considerarsi una prosecuzione o una riaffermazione dei motivi illuministici contro le arbitrarie co- struzioni metafisiche e le aprioristiche filosofie della natura fiorite nell'età romantica. Oltre che con l'illuminismo, il positivismo è im- parentato anche con il materialismo: entrambi vedono nella materia il principio supremo, la causa ultima di tutta la realtà. Uno degli aspetti più originali ed interessanti del positivismo è la preoccupa- zione umanistica. Da una parte esso si propone di liberare l’uomo da tutte le alienazioni ideologiche a cui l'avevano precedentemente incatenato la religione e la metafisica. Dall'altra vuole acquisire una cognizione esatta dell’uomo come essere sociale, valendosi del metodo delle scienze sperimentali: come le scienze sono idonee a for- mulare le leggi relative al dispiegarsi della realtà naturale, così deb- bono essere idonee a formulare le leggi relative al dispiegarsi del mondo sociale umano. Maggiori esponenti: Come l’illuminismo anche il positivismo, il cui termine fu coniato da Saint-Simon e poi adottato da Comte, è un movimento filoso- fico di portata europea, anzi, si può dire, mondiale, avendo avuto sostenitori e seguaci in tutte le parti del mondo. Però i suoi espo- nenti più illustri appartengono alla Francia (SAINT-SIMmon [1760- 1825) e Comte [1798-1857], all'Inghilterra (DARWIN [1809-1882], SPENCER [1820-1903], STuART MiLL [1806-1873]), alla Germania HaEc- KEL [1834-1919]) e all'Italia (ArpIGÒ [1828-1920]). 257 22. Scuola materialista-marxista Fondatore: KarL Marx (1818-1883) Dottrine principali: I fattori che maggiormente concorsero alla formazione di una interpretazione materialistica della realtà in Karl Marx furono tre: lo sviluppo della scienza, la dialettica hegeliana e l’acuirsi dei pro- blemi economico-sociali. I trionfi riportati dalla scienza durante il secolo XIX favorirono l'affermarsi del materialismo perché fecero credere che l’unica spiegazione vera delle cose sia quella scientifica, non quella religiosa o quella metafisica. Anche l’acuirsi dei problemi economico-sociali con il progredire della civiltà industriale operò a favore del materialismo, in quanto ben presto uomini politici, so- ciologi e filosofi cominciarono a considerarli fondamentali, condizio- nanti rispetto a tutti gli altri. Ma la spinta decisiva per il trionfo del materialismo la fornì Hegel stesso con l'eliminazione della dico- tomia tra reale ed ideale, tra realtà pensante e realtà estesa, tra spirito e materia, e con la risoluzione di tutta la realtà nella storia. Facendo assurgere la storia a realtà assoluta, Hegel spalancò la porta al materialismo perché, partendo da queste premesse, era fa- cile trarre la conclusione che nello sviluppo storico pesano assai più i fattori economici che le teorie filosofiche e religiose: i primi costituiscono la struttura fondamentale, le seconde sono semplice- mente sovrastrutture. Il principale artefice della « conversione » del- l'idealismo nel materialismo fu Marx. Questi ha voluto dimostrare scientificamente che l’esistenza or- ganizzata degli individui, ossia la società, è il risultato della organiz- zazione dei mezzi di produzione e della loro distribuzione tra gli uomini; ha fornito una acuta e chiara diagnosi della società mo- derna come società basata sulla produzione e appropriazione pri- vata della ricchezza socialmente prodotta, come società che spacca la comunità dei soggetti in classi contrapposte, capitalisti e lavora- tori; da questa iniqua distribuzione della ricchezza prodotta ne de- riva inevitabilmente la lotta di classe e che questa a sua volta sfocerà nella rivoluzione dei proletari di tutto il mondo che porterà alla fine del capitalismo e al trionfo del comunismo. Maggiori esponenti: Il materialismo dialettico elaborato da Marx con la collaborazio- ne di EncELS (1820-1895) fu ripreso e sviluppato « secondo la lettera » da LENIN (1870-1924), STALIN (1879-1953) e Mao (1893-1976); secondo tendenze revisionistiche da GRAMSCI (1891-1937), MARcUSE (1898- 1979), BLocH (1885-1977) e GARAUDY (1913). 258 23. Scuola pragmatista Fondatori: WiLLiam JAMES (1842-1910) e CHARLES SANDERS ‘PEIRCE (1839-1914) Dottrine principali: Il pragmatismo è un indirizzo filosofico tipicamente americano, sorto negli Stati Uniti alla fine del secolo scorso, ma si inquadra in quella temperie culturale che, a cavallo del secolo, domina l’Euro- pa: la reazione al positivismo e al materialismo positivista. Mentre in Europa la reazione viene condotta sotto l’insegna dello spiri- tualismo, in America percorre una via nuova ed originale, la via del successo pratico: questo viene assunto come criterio generale nel determinare la bontà di una conoscenza, di un sistema, di una norma di condotta. Il termine pragmatism fu coniato da Ch. S. PEIRCE (intorno al 1872) per indicare che la funzione del pensiero consiste precisamente nell’imporre una regola d'azione, un comportamento, una « credenza » (belief); ne deriva che il concetto di un oggetto si identifica con gli effetti pratici che se ne possono trarre. Le tesi del Peirce sono state riprese ed efficacemente propagandate da W. James nel celebre saggio Pragmatism (1907), dove il succo del nuovo indirizzo filosofico viene così espresso: « Il metodo pragmatico con- siste nello studio delle varie dottrine dal punto di vista delle con- seguenze pratiche. Quale differenza ci sarebbe, in pratica, se fosse vera questa dottrina anziché quella? Se non si può riscontrare nes- suna differenza pratica, allora le dottrine hanno in realtà la stessa importanza e qualsiasi discussione è superflua. Quando una discus- sione è seria, dovremmo essere capaci di mostrare le differenze pra- tiche che devono derivare dal fatto che una alternativa è vera e l’altra no. Tutta la funzione della filosofia è di accertare se l'accettazione di questo o quel sistema come vero implica una differenza nei miei o nei tuoi riguardi in un momento particolare della nostra vita ». Maggiori esponenti: Oltre a CH. S. PEIRCE e W. JAMES, che ne sono i fondatori, il prag- matismo è stato professato con qualche variazione da J. DEWEY(1859- 1952) e G.H. MEAD (1863-1931). Alle tesi del pragmatismo hanno par- zialmente aderito anche pensatori europei, in particolare J. ORTEGA Y GassET (1883-1955) e E. LE Roy (1870-1954). 24. Scuola neopositivista Fondatore: LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN (1889-1951) Dottrine principali: Il neopositivismo è, essenzialmente, l'applicazione delle teorie classiche dell’empirismo inglese all'analisi del linguaggio. Non a caso esso si è sviluppato soprattutto nel mondo anglosassone (Inghil- 259 terra e Stati Uniti), anche se i suoi inizi ebbero luogo a Vienna, dove un gruppo di scienziati ebrei capeggiato da Wittgenstein e Schlick si propose di elaborare un linguaggio scientifico rigoroso sottoposto a criteri infallibili di verità. I motivi che hanno determinato la tra- sformazione dell’empirismo da teoria della conoscenza in teoria del linguaggio sono due. Primo, il convincimento che molte discussioni filosofiche siano dovute ad una insufficiente chiarezza e precisione di linguaggio. Secondo, il desiderio di scoprire un linguaggio univer- sale ed un criterio di significazione assoluto, validi per tutte le disci- pline scientifiche e filosofiche. I canoni fondamentali del neopositi- vismo, detto anche positivismo logico, sono i seguenti: a) i problemi filosofici possono essere risolti solo con l’analisi del linguaggio; b) so- lo le proposizioni sperimentali o fattuali, ossia le proposizioni che sono passibili della verifica sperimentale, hanno senso; c) le proposi- zioni della metafisica come pure quelle dell'estetica, della religione, della morale, ecc. non hanno un contenuto, in quanto ogni contenuto proviene dali’esperienza e, perciò, sono prive di senso. Su questi po- stulati si fonda la tesi centrale del neopositivismo: quella della as- surdità (più esattamente, della non-sensatezza) della metafisica, del- l'etica, dell'estetica e della religione. Maggiori esponenti: Nella forma rigida che abbiamo esposto il neopositivismo è stato sostenuto oltre che da Wittgenstein (il primo Wittgenstein) e SCHLICK (1882-1936), anche da NEURATH (1882-1945), REICHENBACH (1891-1953), CARNAP (1891-1970), RussELL (1872-1970) e Ayer (1910). Ma, allorché si riconobbe l'insostenibilità del principio della verifica sperimen- tale come criterio assoluto di significanza, la corrente neopositivista si trasformò in corrente dell'analisi del linguaggio. Questa cessa di privilegiare il linguaggio scientifico sopra tutti gli altri e adotta come linguaggio base il linguaggio ordinario. Quanto al criterio di significanza molti sono disposti ad accogliere quello proposto da K. PoPPER (1902), detto criterio di falsificabilità. 25. Scuola esistenzialista Fondatori: MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889-1976) e KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855) Dottrine principali: La prima guerra mondiale mostrò la vacuità di tutti i sistemi filosofici, dall'idealismo al volontarismo, dal positivismo al materia- lismo, mettendo in scacco i valori da essi esaltati, e fece sentire l’ur- genza d'un rinnovamento sostanziale della filosofia. Interprete di tale istanza di rinnovamento e, allo stesso tempo, testimone della situazione di angoscia in cui il flagello orrendo della guerra aveva sprofondato l'umanità è l’esistenzialismo, un movimento di pensiero che — rifacendosi anche al pensiero di Kierkegaard — concepisce 260 la speculazione filosofica come una minuta analisi dell'esperienza umana quotidiana, in tutti i suoi aspeiti, teorici e pratici, indivi- duali e sociali, istintivi ed intenzionali, ma soprattutto degli aspetti ‘irrazionali della vita umana. I caratteri fondameniali deil’esistenzia- lismo sono i seguenti: a) il metodo fenomenologico: questo consiste essenzialmente in uno sforzo di chiarificagione della esperienza con- dotto non alla luce di principi metafisici ma nell’ambito dell’espe- rienza stessa mediante l'osservazione obiettivadella realtà così come essa si manifesta;! b) il punto di parienza antropologico: la ri- flessione filosofica comincia dall'uomo e si incentra sempre su di lui; c) il tentativo di integrare le dimensioni dell'uomo comunemen- te considerate irrazionali, come gli istinti, i sentimenti e ie passioni, in una visuale più comprensiva; d) la subordinazione dell'essenza al- l'esistenza: l'uomo non è concepito come un essere naturale com- pletamente configurato nella sua essenza sin dalla nascita, ma come un individuo che, esistendo, crea la propria essenza mediante l’uso della libertà; e) i criteri della condotta morale ron sono ricavati dal- la natura e neppure da Dio bensì dalla storia e precisamente dalle possibilità concrete che si presentano quotidianamente ad ognuno di noi. È autentica ossia morale la vita di coiui che sa tradurre in atto le proprie possibilità, mentre invece è inautentica la vita di chi le trascura. Maggiori esponenti: L'esistenzialismo attuale ha avuto i suoi rappresentanti più iliu- stri in Germania (con HFipEGcER e Jaspers [1883-1969]), dove tra l'ai- tro esercitò un influsso decisivo sulla teologia, dando origine al mo- vimento denominato teologia della crisi (BARTH [1886-1968], ILLICH [1886-1965], GocarTEN [1887-1967], BuLTtMANnN [i884-1976]), e in Francia (con SARTRE [1905-1980], CAMus [1913-1960], MarczL [1889- 1973], MERLEAU-PONTY [1908-1961] e LaveLLE [1883-1951]); in Italia con ABBAGNANO (1901). 26. Scuola personalista Fondatore: CHARLES RENOUVIER (1815-1903) Dottrine principali: Il personalismo è un importante movimento filosofico contem- poraneo che ha avuto per culla la Francia (già alla fine del secolo scorso), ma poi ha trovato molti seguaci sia negli altri paesi eu- ropei come in alcuni paesi dell'America sia del Nord sia del Sud. Si caratterizza per l’attenzione che rivolge alla persona. Contro tutti quei sistemi filosofici che trascurano la persona o facendone un mo- mento dell’Assoluto (idealismo) o della Storia (storicismo) o della Vita (vitalismo) o della Natura (materialismo) o subordinandola alla 1 Vedere più avanti la Scuola fenomenologica. 261 ori religiosi (cattolici, protestanti, ebrei). Ciò spiega come il loro discorso sulla persona si apra necessariamente verso la Trascendenza: Dio è il Tu supremo che chiama, interpella e porta a compimento la progettualità umana tesa all'infinito. Maggiori esponenti: Tra i cattolici: CH. RENOUVIER (1815-1903), E. MOUNIER (1905- 1950), J. QuiLEes, R. GUARDINI (1885-1968); tra i protestanti: P. Ri- COEUR (1913), E.S. BRIGHTMAN; tra gli ebrei M. BuUBER (1878-1975) e E. LÉvInAs (1906). 27. Scuola spiritualista Origine: È un vasto movimento di pensiero che si sviluppa in Europa (in particolare in Francia, Italia e Germania) negli ultimi decenni del- l'’Ottocento e nei primi del Novecento in contrapposizione al positi- vismo, allo scientismo e al materialismo. 4 Dottrine principali: Lo spiritualismo accoglie nelle sue file pensatori di svariate ten- denze che hanno in comune tra di loro tre cose: a) il rifiuto del ma- terialismo positivista e scientista che aveva dominato la scena cul- turale europea durante la seconda metà del secolo XIX; b) la riaf- 262 fermazione del primato della dimensione spirituale su quella ma- teriale della realtà; c) la critica della concezione positivista delle conoscenze che aveva identificato scienza e ragione e, allo stesso tempo, assolutizzato i poteri della scienza. Denunciando le assurde pretese scientiste del positivismo, gli spiritualisti riaprono la porta alla riflessione metafisica. Questa però viene realizzata in svariati modi: secondo il modo più interioristico ed antropologico di Agosti- no, oppure secondo il modo più oggettivo ed ontologico di san Tom- maso, oppure secondo il modo trascendentale di matrice kantiana, oppure secondo il modo dialettico di ispirazione pascaliana, ecc. Così si è avuto lo sviluppo di uno spiritualismo agostiniano (con Blondel, Lavelle, Sciacca, Lazzarini, Guzzo); di uno spiritualismo neoscolastico o neotomistico (Gilson, Maritain, Masnovo, Fabro, Bontadini); di uno spiritualismo neokantiano (Lotze, Rickert, Ca- rabellese, Martinetti). Divisi nelle vie da percorrere gli spiritualisti si trovano però uniti nel traguardo finale: la riaffermazione di Dio quale centro spirituale dell'universo, principio primo del possente dinamismo insito nell'uomo e nelle cose, valore supremo che assi- cura un solido fondamento a tutti gli altri valori (morali, religiosi, sociali, personali) in particolare al valore assoluto della persona. Maggiori esponenti: Tra i primi e principali esponenti dello spiritualismo, oltre i nomi di cui abbiamo riferito sopra, occorre ricordare F. RAVAISSON (1813-1900), CH. RENOUVIER (1815-1903), J. LACHELIER (1832-1918), E. BouTRoux (1845-1921), che, in certo modo, possono anche dirsi fon- datori di questo movimento. 28. Scuola di Francoforte Fondatore: M. HoRKHEIMER (1895-1973), che è stato il principale ani- matore dell'indirizzo di pensiero che ebbe nell'Institut fiir Sozial- forschung (Istituto per la ricerca sociale) di Francoforte il suo cen- tro di irradiazione. Storia e dottrine princi pali: L'Istituto, fondato nel 1924 e diretto da Karl Griinberg, fu do- minato poi dalla personalità di Horkheimer, che fu chiamato a di- rigerlo nel 1931. Horkheimer diede notevole impulso agli studi del- l’Istituto, proponendosi di promuovere la elaborazione di una « teo- ria della società esistente considerata come un tutto », avvalendosi di una ricerca interdisciplinare che contava soprattutto sull’apporto oltre che della filosofia, della psicanalisi, della antropologia, della sociologia. Nel 1932 nacque la rivista Zeitschrift fiir Sozialforschung (Rivista per la ricerca sociale), come organo ufficiale dell'Istituto. Questo, nel 1933, a causa dell'avvento del nazismo che ne aveva de- cretato la soppressione, fu trasferito prima a Parigi e successiva- 263 movimento di pensiero che, nello studio della realtà, assegna il primato alle strutture anziché ai contenuti. Dello strutturalismo si danno due versioni principali, guella lingui- stica e quella filosofica. Fondatore delia prima è F. De Saussure, della seconda C. Lévi-Sirauss. Poiché la versione filosofica dipende stret- tamente da quella linguistica, si può coglierne il significato soltanto tenendo presenti le tesi basilari di quest'ultima, che sono le se- guenti: nello studio strutturalistico di una lingua i isrmini non vanno trattati come entità indipendenti ma vanno considerati nelle loro reciproche relazioni, cioè l’analisi deve basarsi sulle relazioni fra i termini; la lingua va vista come un sistema, mostrande che ci sono sistemi fonologici concreti e scoprendo le loro strutture; in- fine si cerca di arrivare, sia con l’induzione sia con la deduzione, alla conoscenza di leggi generali e a formulare relazioni necessarie. Dal campo della linguistica Lévi-Strauss ha trasferito lo strutturalismo allo studio generalizzato dell’uomo e della società, ritenendo di poter trattare i membri della società alla stregua dei singoli termini di 264 logia, dalla macchina, e si vede sempre più gravemente lesa nella sua libertà e nella sua autonomia. Ciò che è accaduto, secondo ‘Foucauli, è la morte dell’uomo; e, in effetti, più che la « morte di Dio », lo strutturalismo « annuncia la fine del suo uccisore [...] l'assoluta dispersione dell’uomo ». Maggiori esponenti: I maggiori rappresentanti dello strutturalismo sono: C. LÉvI- STRAUSS (1908) che concepisce l'antropologia strutturale come inven- tario delle possibilità inconsce da cui emergono le strutture proprie di una società; M. FoucauLT (1926), studioso dell’epistema, ossia del- l’a priori storico di alcuni periodi della civiltà occidentale. 30. Scuola fenomenologica Fondatore: EDMUND HussERL (1859-1938) Dottrine principali: Come suggerisce il termine « fenomenologia » — che è quello che dà il nome a questa scuola — lo studio dei fenomeni costituisce l’obiettivo primo e principale della filosofia secondo Husserl e i suoi seguaci. Senonché il loro concetto di fenomeno ha ben poco in co- mune con il classico concetto kantiano, il quale rimanda necessaria- mente alla « cosa in sé », il noumeno. Secondo Husser! il fenomeno è il dato immediato ed ultimo, e la questione della cosa in sé non si pone neppure. Il fenomeno, si potrebbe dire, è la cosa in sé, e in effetti per Husserl e per i suoi seguaci studiare i fenomeni significa studiare la realtà quale essa si offre alla intelligenza al fine di evi- denziarne i contenuti essenziali. Per quesio è essenziale l’epoché (termine greco che significa « sospensione », « messa in parentesi »): vale a dire la sospensione di qualsiasi conoscenza previa intorno ai fenomeno preso in esame, compreso il presupposto deila coscienza naturale che al di là del mondo conosciuto (mondo eidetico, dei significati) esista anche un mondo esterno. Il metodo fenomenologico — di cui Husserl fu il geniale inven- tore — fu accolto con entusiasmo e fu ampiamente utilizzato da 265 molti filosofi del sec. XX, soprattutto dagli esistenzialisti, ma anche dai personalisti, dagli psicanalisti, dagli analisti del linguaggio, da- gli antropologi, dai sociologi, dai filosofi della religione, ecc., i quali, però si appropriarono della teoria husserliana con una buona dose di libertà, depurandola quasi sempre da quella venatura idea- listica che c'era in Husserl. Della fenomenologia salvaguardarono i due canoni fondamentali: l'epoché (cioè sospensione di ogni cono- scenza o precomprensione di ciò che costituisce oggetto di studio) e intenzionalità (che è il riconoscimento del carattere essenzialmente referenziale della coscienza e dei suoi contenuti), mentre lasciarono cadere gli altri elementi che avevano condotto Husserl sui sentieri dell'idealismo e del solipsismo. ; Maggiori esponenti: L'indirizzo fenomenologico ha avuto un largo seguito, e l’uso del metodo fenomenologico ha consentito a numerosi pensatori di conseguire importanti risultati: a SCHELER (1874-1928) di esplorare il mondo dei valori; a HEIDEGGER (1889-1976) il mondo dell’esistenza; a MERLEAU-PONTY (1908-1961) il mondo del corpo; a WITTGENSTEIN (1889-1951) il mondo del linguaggio; a RICoEUR (1913) il mondo del simbolismo religioso; a LÉvINAS (1906) il mondo dell'altro; a MARCEL (1889-1973) il mondo della fede, della speranza e della carità; a SARTRE (1905-1980) il mondo della libertà; a GADAMER (1900) il mon- do della storia. 31. Scuola epistemologica Una vera e propria scuola! che porti questo nome non è mai esi- stita e non esiste. Nella storia della filosofia invece si registra forte attenzione a numerosi problemi della conoscenza come la natura, i fondamenti, i limiti e le condizioni di validità del sapere scientifico nei vari campi delle scienze; ciò è avvenuto soprattutto a partire da Cartesio e con maggior impegno nell'ultimo secolo. Tale attenzione è il tratto comune di tutto il pensiero moderno ed è ciò che lo di- stingue dal pensiero antico e medioevale. Mentre questo aveva un orientamento marcatamente metafisico, il pensiero moderno ha pre- so un orientamento marcatamente gnoseologico o epistemologico: la discussione fondamentale e principale riguarda il conoscere e non più l'essere. Da questo indirizzo generale e comune si distaccano sva- P ! Per avere una scuola non basta un bel tema. La metafisica e l'etica, per esempio, sono temi bellissimi eppure non esistono né una scuola metafisica né una scuola etica. Perché si dia una scuola occorre anzitutto un maestro e poi un discreto numero di discepoli che per qualche tempo ne abbiano ripreso il pensiero. Sui grandi temi (e questo è anche il caso dell’epistemologia) sono state proposte, come è detto sopra, svariate interpretazioni ed elaborazioni da parte di numerosi maestri insigni che pertanto hanno dato luogo a molte scuole, non ad un'unica scuola. 266 riate ramificazioni: la scuola razionalista (con Cartesio, Spinoza e Malebranche) nel secolo XVII; la scuola empirista (con Locke, Berkeley e Hume); la scuola illuminista (con Voltaire, Rousseau, Lessing) e la scuola criticista (con Kant) nel secolo XVII; la scuola positivista (con Comte e Spencer) nel secolo XIX; la scuola neopo- sitivista o neoempirista (con Carnap, Popper, Wittgenstein, Russell, Ayer) nel secolo XX. I recenti sviluppi della riflessione epistemo- logica (di Bachelard, Popper, Kuhn, Agazzi) ha fruttato un ridimen- sionamento delle pretese della scienza e ha rimesso in luce questio- ni preliminari sulla natura stessa del conoscere e del soggetto che svolge l’attività scientifica che debordano i confini dell’epistemolo- gia e invadono il terreno della metafisica. 32. | « Nuovi Filosofi » Non rappresentano una scuola nel senso proprio del termine, ma rappresentano sicuramente una delle correnti‘ di pensiero più indicative della crisi. della coscienza contemporanea. Giovani intel- lettuali marxisti, ‘protagonisti del maggio 1968 in Francia, sono diventati progressivamente assertori di una critica radicale alla complessità teorica e pratica del marxismo nelle .sue formulazioni di principio e nelle sue attuazioni storiche. Le ragioni di questa crisi profonda nei confronti del marxismo sono state provocate soprattutto dalle tragiche vicende degli intellet- tuali sovietici del dissenso e dalla pubblicazione di Arcipelago Gulag (1978) di A. Solzenicyn. Maggiori esponenti: CHRISTIAN JAMBET (1949), Guy LARDREAU (1947), JEAN-MARIE BENOIST (1942), JEAN PAUL Dottè (1939), MicHEL GUERIN (1946), BERNARD- Henry LEvy (1949), ANDRÈ GLUCKSMANN (1937). Kk xk Abbiamo presentato i sistemi principali delle filosofie occiden- tali. Il motivo di questo è dato dal fatto che « soltanto gli occidentali, a partire dal popolo greco, sono riusciti a mettere a punto gli stru- menti concettuali (la logica, la dialettica, il puro ragionamento) che sono necessari per elevare la filosofia dal livello elementare a quello scientifico. Infatti, anche nelle altre culture, specialmente in quelle derivanti dalle grandi civiltà mediorientali ed orientali, elementi fi- losofici appaiono in contesti di carattere prevalentemente religioso e pertanto non possono essere definiti “filosofia” in senso scientifico 267 vero e proprio ».! Altrettando non si puè dire delia filosofia islamica, la quale approfondì e Sviluppo la filosofia scolastica prima ancora che essa si sviluppasse in Europa. I massimi rappresentanti della filo- sofia islamica sono AVICENNA, nato nell'Asia centrale nel 980 e morto nel 1037 duranie una campagna militare; AVERROÈ, nato a Cordova, in Spagna, nel 1126 e morto nel 1198. Anche nel mondo ebraico si di- stinsero, rel Medioevo, due filosofi che hanno tentato di approfon- dire le più importanti verità della fede, servendosi anche delia spe- culazione aristotelica e neoplatonica: AVICEBRON, nato a Malaga, in Spagna, verso il 1820 e morto a Valencia fra il 1058 e il 1069; MAIMONIDE, nato a Cordova nel 1135 e morto a Il Cairo nel 1204. Naturalmente, alla suddivisione delle Scuole illustrate nel pre- sente volume, specie per quanto riguarda quelle degli ultirni se- coli, si possono fare delle obiezioni. Non è possibile seguire un cri- terio rigido e uniforme. Molti filosofi appaiono in più di una Scuola, sia per l'evoluzione del loro pensiero che per i, multiformi contributi dati da numerosi filosofi a più di un indirizzo filosofico. Per questo, è utile consultare la ZII Parte, che presenta le schede dei maggiori filosofi, dall'antichità ad oggi. ! B. MONDIN, vol. I, p. 9. 268 Parte terza: I PRINCIPALI FILOSOFI" Abbagnano Nicola (1901) Filosofo italiano, nato a Salerno, fu allievo di A. Aliotta e docente in varie università. Distaccatosi dall’idealismo, in Italia fu tra i pri- mi a cogliere e segnalare l’importanza della nuova prospettiva esi- stenziale nello studio della realtà, che proveniva dalla Germania e dalla Francia, propugnando, peraltro, una sorta di esistenzialismo positivo, in contrapposizione a quello essenzialmente negativo di Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre. Successivamente, dopo il 1945, approfon- dendo il pragmatismo e lo strumentalismo anglo-americano, divenne assertore convinto di una concezione del mondo che, pur afferman- do la dignità assoluta della persona e dei suoi diritti, allo stesso tempo riconosce apertamente i limiti della ragione umana, la quale deve rifuggire ogni tentazione di onniscienza ed onnipotenza e col- tivare la via del « limite ». Opere principali: La struttura dell’esistenza (1939); Introduzione all'esistenzialismo (1942); Esistenzialismo positivo (1948); Storia della filosofia, in 3 voll. (1946-1950); Possibilità e libertà (1956); Di- zionario di filosofia (1960). Abelardo Pietro (1079-1142) Filosofo e teologo francese nato a Nantes, fu una mente enciclo- pedica e un dialettico formidabile. Discepolo a ‘Parigi di Roscellino (nominalista) e di Guglielmo di Champeaux (ultrarealista), ben pre- sto prese posizione contro i suoi maestri, aprendo nuove strade sia in filosofia (con la teoria del realismo moderato), sia in teologia (col metodo dialettico del sic et non). Fu maestro prima di dialettica e successivamente di teologia a Parigi (nella scuola di Notre Dame * In questa Parte terza vengono presentate le schede dei filosofi delle grandi Scuole del periodo antico, medioevale e moderno; un maggior sviluppo è riservato ai filosofi dell’epoca contemporanea. Le date di nascita e morte di gran parte dei filosofi dell'antichità, per mancanza di dati precisi, si devono ritenere approssimative. 269 e nel monastero di san Vittore) ottenendo grande successo tra la folla dei suoi auditori. Ma incappò in due grossi infortuni: quello sentimentale a causa del suo sventurato amore per la sua giovane allieva Eloisa che aveva sposato in segreto e che gli costò l’evira- zione e la chiusura in convento a Chalons sur Saòne fino alla morte; quello dottrinale che gli attirò la condanna dei concili di Soissons (1121) e di Sens (1141). In teologia la tendenza di Abelardo è razio- nalistica: mira a sottoporre all'analisi critica della ragione anche le verità di fede. In filosofia hanno avuto vasta risonanza la sua so- luzione del problema degli universali secondo la linea del realismo moderato, e la dottrina della buona intenzione quale criterio unico della bontà di un'azione. Opere principali: Dialectica; De unitate et trinitate divina (in cui tenta di accostare le tre persone della Trinità alla triade neoplatonica Uno, Mente, Anima); Nostrorum petitioni sociorum; Ethica seu liber scito teipsum; Ingredientibus. A carattere teologico scrisse, tra l’al- tro: Introductio ad theologiam, Theologia christiana. Adler Max (187 1937). . È annoverato” tra È ‘tapiscuola dell’è ‘austromarxismo », la nuova scuola nata ‘da’ una « Comunità spirituale », frantumatasi, nel 1914, per le divergenze sorte in merito alla valutazione del problema della partecipazione alla guerra, dei nazionalismi e dei caratteri della rivo- luzione bolscevica. i Questione primaria dell’austromarxismo è la fondazione dei va- lori del socialismo e la verifica di quanta scienza sia presente nel marxismo o quanto meno derivabile da esso. La sua riflessione è polarizzata su tre questioni fondamentali: a) il concetto di pro- gresso; b) l'interrogativo circa l’interpretazione del materialismo; c) il carattere metafisico e metodologico della dialettica. Opere principali: l'opera nella quale Adler elabora le linee fonda- mentali della sua riflessione è Problemi marxisti (1920); altre sue opere sono: La condizione dello Stato nel marxismo; Democrazia e consigli operai; Socialismo e intellettuali. Adorno Theodor Wiesegrund (1903-1969) Filosofo, sociologo e musicologo, nacque a Francoforte, dove visse e lavorò sino all'avvento del nazismo, quando si trasferì negli U.S.A. insieme ad Horkheimer, dal ’34 al '50. Tornato in Germania, divenne condirettore dell'Istituto per le Ricerche Sociali, la famosa Scuola di Francoforte, che era stata fondata nel 1924, e dal 1931 al 1933 venne diretta da Horkheimer, di cui Adorno fu sempre il più sti‘etto collaboratore. Insieme a questi curò la stesura delle due opere fondamentali: Dialettica dell'Illuminismo e Lezioni di sociologia. Da marxista pienamente convinto, quale fu sino agli anni ‘’40, divenne un critico preciso del pensiero di Marx, sia come ideologia che come filosofia, impegnandosi, soprattutto negli ultimi anni, ad 270 analizzare criticamente i miti del progresso ed il loro sviluppo nelle società capitaliste avanzate. Nel contempo, come studioso della filosofia della musica, di cui può dirsi fondatore, indicò nell'arte il mezzo per riproporre in modo continuo la dimensione utopica per la risoluzione della crisi culturale moderna. Opere principali: Dialettica dell'illuminismo (1944); Lezioni di sociologia (1947); Personalità autoritaria (1950); Minima moralia (1951); Tre studi su Hegel (1963); Dialettica negativa (1966). Come musicologo è notevole La filosofia della musica moderna (1949); In- troduzione alla sociologia della musica (1962). Nel 1974 è uscita po- stuma ed incompleta la sua Teoria estetica. Agostino di Ippona (354-430) Nato a Tagaste (nell'attuale Algeria) da madre cristiana (la futura santa Monica), si dedicò a studi letterari e filosofici e poi all’insegna- mento. Aderì in epoche diverse a filosofie diverse. Passò a Roma e poi a Milano: qui, anche per l’incontro con sant'Ambrogio, si con- vertì al cristianesimo e ricevette il battesimo. Tornato in Africa, di- venne prete e poi vescovo di Ippona. Morì nel 430. Scrisse molte opere su svariati argomenti di interesse filosofico e teologico. Sant'Agostino è il massimo esponente della filosofia cristiana du- rante il periodo patristico. Egli ha operato una sintesi armoniosa di cristianesimo e di neoplatonismo. Egli dà alla sua filosofia una netta impostazione interioristica (« la verità abita nell'uomo interiore ») ed è essenzialmente attraverso l’interiorità umana che egli ascende a Dio. Nell'uomo, che è mutevole — osserva Agostino —, vi è la verità, che è immutabile: in ultima analisi, Dio è la Verità che si fa riconoscere nel cuore dell'uomo. Al problema se l'uomo possa conoscere la verità Agostino rispon- de con una serrata critica dello scetticismo, dimostrando che l'uomo conosce con certezza alcune verità. La conoscenza delle verità eterne, che è il vertice della conoscenza intellettiva, ha luogo attraverso la illuminazione divina. Il linguaggio ha funzione strumentale: la pa- rola serve per comunicare le idee. Momento centrale della sua riflessione è il tema della creazione del mondo messo in rapporto al problema dell'eternità e del tempo. Il tempo per Agostino è una dimensione propria dell'animo umano, è la durata di una natura finita che ha bisogno di tappe successive e continue per realizzarsi. Il tempo è un presente che passa, l'eternità, invece, è un presente che non passa. La mente è la misura del tempo: 1) la memoria è il presente del passato; 2) l'intuizione è il presente del presente; 3) l'attesa è il presente del futuro. Il mondo è stato creato da Dio nella sua intierezza, sin dall'inizio, con tutte quelle virtualità, che si sarebbero venute sviluppando nel- la storia (ragioni seminali). Inoltre, nell'affrontare il problema del male, comune alla tradizio- 271 ne del neoplatonismo, afferma che il male non deriva da Dio, ma dalle creature, in quanto non è una realtà positiva, ma una privazio- ne della realtà. Contro il manicheismo sostiene la libertà dell'uomo, contro il pelagianesimo il valore della grazia. La centralità riservata da Agostino all'interiorità dell'uomo fa sì che nel suo pensiero il problema dell'anima acquisti una particolare incidenza. Per Agostino l’uomo è « un'anima ragionevole che si serve di un corpo mortale terrestre ». Gli argomenti per dimostrare la spi- ritualità e l'immortalità dell'anima sono: 1) o l’anima esplica la sua attività (volere, pensare, dubitare, ecc.) senza il corpo e allora è spi- rituale, o ha sempre bisogno «del corpo e allora è materiale. (C'è un caso in cui l'anima non ha bisogno del corpo ed è quando conosce se stessa come sostanza che vive, ricorda e vuole, ecc.; 2) la prova del- l'immortalità è di ispirazione platonica: l’anima si trova in continua relazione con la verità; vi è pertanto un'intima unione tra la mente che contempla la verità e la verità che è contemplata. Con Agostino ha inoltre origine nel pensiero occidentale una vera e propria teologia della storia, innestata su una nuova filosofia della storia, ben diversa da quella del mondo classico. La storia non è più concepita come un susseguirsi di cicli che si ripetono periodicamen- te, ma un cammino in linea retta che sale dalla terra al cielo. Lo svolgersi della storia è la lotta tra la città terrena e quella celeste. La storia è divisa in tre grandi periodi (l'origine, il passato, il fu- ‘turo) rischiarati dalla luce della Rivelazione cristiana. Infine, per Agostino, i rapporti fra la « città celeste » (o Chiesa) e la « città terreno » (o mondo) sono chiariti ricorrendo alla dialettica dei due amori: l’amore di Dio; l’amore di sé. Opere principali: Contra academicos; De beata vita; De ordine; Soliloquia (quattro opere scritte tra il 386 e il 387); De immortalitate animae (387); De libero arbitrio (388); De vera religione (390); Con- fessiones (13 libri scritti tra il 397 e il 401); De Trinitate (15 libri scritti tra il 399 e il 419); De civitate Dei (22 libri scritti tra il 413 e il 426). Alberto Magno (1205-1280) Filosofo e teologo tedesco. Fece i suoi studi a Bologna e a Padova e nel 1223 entrò nell'ordine domenicano. Insegnò teologia a Parigi e poi a Colonia, dove morì. A Parigi ebbe come allievo Tommaso d'Aquino. Fu uno dei primi pensatori medievali a valorizzare la filo- sofia e la scienza aristotelica, dichiarandola compatibile con la fede cristiana; ne raccomandò l'assunzione da parte della Chiesa e diede egli stesso l'esempio di ome si poteva utilizzare le dottrine scientifi- che e metafisiche di Aristotele a vantaggio del cristianesimo. A tal fine cercò di liberare il pensiero del filosofo greco dalle distorsioni che gli aveva procurato l’interpretazione di Averroè. In tal modo egli spianò la strada al discepolo Tommaso d'Aquino, che riuscì ad operare 272 quella grande sintesi del pensiero aristotelico con la rivelazione cri- stiana, che costituisce una delle massime conquiste del Medioevo. Opere principali: Commentari alle opere di Aristotele; Tractatus de natura boni; Summa de creaturis; commento alle Sentenze di Pietro Lombardo; Summa theologiae. Althusser Louis (1918) Filosofo francese, nato ad Algeri e discepolo di Bachelard, ha insegnato a lungo all’« École Normale Superieure » di Parigi sino a quando fu colpito da una malattia mentale. Appartiene con Bloch e Garaudy al neomarxismo francese. Egli ritiene che la dialettica hegeliana sia funzionale in ordine alla prassi marxiana, leninista e maoista e pertanto vada o abbando- nata o ridefinita; asserisce, inoltre, che in Marx è presente una « rottura epistemologica » tra la nozione fondamentale di « modo di produzione » e l'umanesimo degli scritti giovanili. Assume, pertanto, il metodo strutturale come chiave di lettura dei testi marxiani con soluzioni opposte a Bloch e a Garaudy. Egli nega infatti che nelle opere giovanili di Marx esista la prospettiva di un « umanesimo socialista », attribuendo al concetto di umanesimo una valenza ideologica e al concetto di socialismo una valenza scien- tifica. Marx, secondo Althusser, si è impegnato in un affrancamento dai pregiudizi filosofici e, anche se non ha eliminato l'ideologia, ha creato le condizioni storiche per conoscerla, ponendosi così da un punto di vista scientifico. L'approccio scientifico all'ideologia avreb- be pertanto costituito il vero merito di Marx e del marxismo. Opere principali: Per Marx (1965) e Leggere il « Capitale » (scritto con i suoi allievi nel 1965); Lenin e la filosofia (1969), Umanesimo e stalinismo (1973), Elementi di autocritica (1974). Anassagora (500-428 a.C.) Originario di Clazomene, in Asia Minore, introdusse la filosofia ad Atene. Fu filosofo e scienziato. Ad Atene divenne maestro di Pe- ricle. Imprigionato a causa delle sue teorie astronomiche, fu liberato per intercessione di Pericle e morì in esilio. Anche per Anassagora, come per Democrito, l'essere è costituito da atomi qualitativamente diversi, le « omeomerie ». La diversità dei corpi è data dal prevalere di determinate omeomerie. Per primo Anassagora pone come causa del divenire una Mente Suprema (Nous), principio ordinatore delle cose. Così egli supera la spiega- zione naturalistica dell'universo ed apre orizzonti nuovi al pensiero greco. Della sua opera Sulla natura rimangono 12 frammenti. Anassimandro (610-546 a.C.) Matematico e astronomo di Mileto, oltre che filosofo. Successe a Talete nella guida della Scuola ionica. Pone come principio primo di tutte le cose qualcosa di indeterminato (àpeiron). Il suo eterno 273 movimento determina nella materia, per separazione, i contrari. L'àpeiron (infinito) di Anassimandro è un concetto nuovo e importan- tante perché introduce elementi metafisici, che trascendono cioè le co- se « finite ». Della sua opera Della natura rimane un solo frammento. Anassimene (585-528 a.C.) Nacque a Mileto, come Talete e Anassimandro, di cui fu disce- polo. Ripone il principio primo nell'aria, che è eterna e in continuo movimento, rifiutando così il concetto dell’àpeiron del suo maestro Anassimandro. È l’espressione più compiuta della filosofia ionica. Della sua opera Sulla natura rimane un solo frammento. Anselmo d'Aosta (1033-1109) Nato ad Aosta entrò, adolescente, nell'abbazia benedettina di Bec, in Normandia, nel 1086 ne divenne abate. Una decina d'anni più tardi fu nominato vescovo di Canterbury in Inghilterra. Anselmo è il massimo pensatore cristiano del secolo XI e dà l’avvio alla rinascita del pensiero filosofico e teologico medioevale. Egli studia, tra l'altro, due problemi di fondamentale importanza per la filosofia cristiana: il problema dei rapporti tra fede e ragione che risolve secondo la linea dell'armonia nella sottomissione della ragio- ne alla fede e il problema della esistenza di Dio, che risolve con la celebre prova ontologica (movendo cioè dal concetto che Dio è l’esse- re massimo che si possa concepire: id cuius maius cogitari nequit). Opere principali: Monologion; Proslogion; Cur Deus homo; De veritate; De grammatico. Ardigò Roberto (1828-1920) . Nato a Casteldidone (Cremona), mentre compiva gli studi classici a Mantova si sentì chiamato alla vocazione sacerdotale. Venne ordi- nato prete nel 1851 a Mantova, dove fu nominato canonico della cattedrale nel 1863. Dopo un lungo periodo di crisi, abbandonò il sacerdozio nel 1871. Nel 1881 fu chiamato alla cattedra di storia del- la filosofia nella università di Padova. Ricoprì tale incarico per quasi 30 anni. Morì suicida a Mantova dove si era ritirato. Ardigò fu il più illustre rappresentante del positivismo in Italia. Rifacendosi a Spencer, Ardigò insegna che tutta la realtà è una « for- mazione naturale » che va dal sistema solare alle più elevate espres- sioni del pensiero umano; pertanto egli considera la vita psichica quella che rivela nel modo più singolare la vita stessa dell'universo. Secondo Ardigò la differenza tra l’uomo e l'animale è soprattutto organica. Nell'uomo la più perfetta organizzazione del sistema rer- voso e specialmente del cervello, consente uno sviluppo psichico più perfetto. Tutta la realtà è omogenea; perciò non esiste l’inconosci- bile (Dio) ma soltanto l'ignoto. Quindi non esiste trascendenza ma pura e assoluta immanenza, per cui non si possono superare i confini della coscienza o del mondo umano. 274 Opere principali: La psicologia come scienza positiva {1870); La motale dei positivisti (1879); Relatività della logica umana (1881); Il fatto psicologico della percezione (1882); Sociologia (1886); La scienza dell'educazione (1893); L'unità della coscienza (1898). Aristotele (384-322 a.C.) Nato a Stagira (Tracia), visse ‘soprattutto ad Atene; fu discepolo di Platone e precettore di Alessandro Magno; fondò ad Atene il « Li- ceo » o Scuola peripatetica (335). Insieme a Platone, Aristotele è la figura dominante della storia della filosofia, dall'antichità sino al- l'epoca moderna. Ha scritto su moltissimi argomenti: sulle scienze, sulla logica, sulla filosofia. Mentre Platone preferisce il dialogo, Aristotele usa il trattato filosofico come espressione del suo pensiero. È il creatore della logica, cioè dello studio sistematico dei concetti e dei loro rapporti. Nel campo del ragionamento propone due metodi: la deduzione e.l’induzione. | ‘« Afistotele sostiene che la'scienza:è superiore all'esperienza, per- tte la*scienza è conoscenza medi nte lepanse. Là Metafisica è l’opera if cui i Aristotele : si occupa dei ‘principi. ‘primi delle cose. La verità prima e fondamentale è il principio. di non-contraddizione, principio noto, assoluto, indimostrabile. Quanto al costitutivo essenziale delle cose, Aristotele rifiuta la teoria platonica delle Idee perché essa, a suo avviso, non spiega né l'essenza delle cose, né il loro divenire, né il loro rapporto con le Idee, né in che modo l’uomo le possa conoscere. La spiegazione della realtà va ricercata nella realtà stessa, costituita di sostanze e di ac- cidenti ed i cui elementi costitutivi sono la materia e la forma. Materia e forma esistono soltanto insieme (« sinolo »): alla sostanza la forma conferisce i caratteri specifici; la materia conferisce le ca- ratteristiche individuali. Attraverso un'approfondita analisi del divenire, Aristotele giunge alla scoperta delle nozioni di potenza e di atto. È la « potenza » che rende possibile il divenire. Il divenire delle cose deriva dal passaggio della potenza all'atto. Solo Dio è Atto puro, unico, eterno. L'uomo, come tutti gli esseri, è costituito di materia e forma: la materia è il corpo, la forma l’anima che ha tre funzioni: vegetativa, sensitiva e intellettiva. La conoscenza umana ha come sua prima sorgente l’espe- rienza sensitiva. Secondo Aristotele la felicità dell’uomo consiste nel- l'attività della ragione mediante l'esercizio delle virtù dianoetiche o dell'intelletto e le virtù morali. Per lui lo Stato ha origine naturale e non convenzionale; esso deve facilitare la completa realizzazione delle capacità umane. Esistono tre forme di costituzioni giuste (monarchia, aristocrazia, repubblica) e tre forme ingiuste (tirannia, oligarchia, « democrazia ». L'estetica di Aristotele è una filosofia dell’arte, cioè un'attività che mira a pro- 275 durre una cosa bella. La funzione dell’arte è duplice: pedagogica e catartica (cioè di purificazione teoretica delle passioni). Aristotele ha realizzato una grandiosa costruzione filosofica i cui elementi fondamentali sono: efficace metodo di ricerca (logica) e forma espositiva; analisi acuta degli elementi costitutivi del mondo fisico; visione realistica del mondo e dell’uomo; concezione alta (per i tempi) della trascendenza di Dio. Elementi caduchi sono invece: inadeguata analisi della natura; mancato riconoscimento della causa efficiente del mondo; eternità della materia; concezione di Dio come motore immobile; dualismo di fondo del sistema. Opere principali: Metafisica (14 libri); Fisica (8 libri); Etica nico- machea {10 libri); Politica (8 libri); De anima (3 libri); Poetica. (1 libro). i Averroè (il suo nome arabo è Ibn Rushd) (1126-1198) Filosofo e scienziato arabo spagnolo, nacque a Cordoba, e di quella città fu anche per vari anni gadì (giudice). Genio polivalente operò in molti campi: teologia, diritto, medi- cina, matematica, astronomia e filosofia. Ma egli è ricordato soprat- tutto come commentatore di Aristotele, tanto che è chiamato « il commentatore » per antonomasia: « Averrois che '1 gran commento feo », dice Dante nella Divina Commedia. Averroè contribuì in modo determinante alla diffusione del pensiero di Aristotele tra gli scola- stici cristiani. L'interpretazione letterale delle opere di Aristotele operata da Averroè lo poneva spesso in contrasto con alcune dottrine fondamentali del cristianesimo. Per questo fu criticata da Alberto Magno e san Tommaso, i quali promossero una nuova interpreta- zione che si armonizzava più facilmente con la loro fede. Di religione musulmana, Averroè pone invece una netta separazione tra fede re- ligiosa e pensiero filosofico. Opere principali: Commentari (grande, medio, piccolo) alle opere di Aristotele (1169-1180); La distruzione della distruzione; Esposi- zione dei metodi di dimostrazione relativi ai dogmi della religione. Avicenna (il suo nome arabo è Ibn Sina) (980-1037) Filosofo e scienziato persiano, nacque a Bukara nell'Asia centrale (Uzbekistan). Ragazzo prodigio acquistò una cultura enciclopedica. Si affermò soprattutto come medico e come filosofo. A 17 anni era già un medico famoso e durante il Medioevo, in Europa, egli godeva più fama come medico che come filosofo. Per quanto concerne la filosofia, Avicenna è il massimo rappresen- tante della filosofia araba. Su una base sostanzialmente neoplatonica e utilizzando ampiamente le categorie metafisiche di Aristotele (ma- teria-forma, atto-potenza, sostanza-accidenti, ecc.) egli creò una im- 276 ponente sintesi tra il pensiero religioso musulmano e il pensiero filo- sofico greco. Opere principali: della sua prodigiosa produzione letteraria che venne molto diffusa nell'Occidente cristiano, sono noti soprattutto: il breve Najat (un compendio di metafisica); il voluminoso Chifa (conosciuto dai medioevali sotto il titolo di Liber sufficientiae: un'o- pera che comprende trattati sulla logica, la fisica, la matematica, la psicologia e la metafisica); il Canone (una grande enciclopedia me- dica in cinque libri); Direttive e rilievi; Libro di scienza. Bachelard Gaston (1884-1962) Epistemologo francese, nato a Bar sur Aube, insegnante per molti anni alla Sorbona di Parigi; come rappresentante del raziona- lismo scientifico è impegnato a chiarire il senso dell’opus rationale che costituisce la scienza. Egli si oppone sia al positivismo che allo spiritualismo. Nella sua gnoseologia Bachelard pone la coppia esperienza-ragione alla base di tutta la conoscenza umana. L’elemen- to teorico però svolge il ruolo direttivo. Il procedimento scientifico si configura come « realizzante », cioè come realizzazione del razionale e del matematico. La posizione filosofica di Bachelard potrebbe essere definita co- me un « razionalismo applicato », in cui primeggia la direttrice che va dalla ragione all'esperienza e che corrisponde alla supremazia della fisica-matematica. Come Gadamer e Popper, anche Bachelard ritiene che l'osservazione scientifica si realizza sempre muovendo da una teoria precedente e preparatrice e non viceversa. Opere principali: I! valore intuitivo della relatività (1929); Il nuo- vo spirito scientifico (1934); La formazione dello spirito scientifico (1938); Il razionalismo applicato (1949); Il materialismo razionale (1953). Bacone Francesco (Francis Bacon) (1561-1626) Nato a Londra da una famiglia dell'alta borghesia, si diede alla carriera politica ottenendo onorificenze e cariche importanti. Nel 1621 fu accusato e condannato per corruzione nell'esercizio delle sue funzioni di lord cancelliere. La pena inflittagli gli fu risparmiata per la protezione di cui godeva presso il re. Bacone elabora il nuovo metodo induttivo: con gli esperimenti si deve raccogliere una sufficiente informazione e poi, per mezzo della ragione, si devono elaborare ipotesi generali che consentano di arri- vare a riconoscere la causa del fenomeno studiato. Il fine della scienza è pratico, l'oggetto è la causa delle cose naturali. Nella sua opera Novum Organon contrappone una nuova logica induttiva a quella aristotelica, essenzialmente deduttiva. Nella 1? parte, pars destruens, demolisce quegli ostacoli (idola tribus, specus, fori, theatri) che possono impedire la ricerca scientifica; nella 2°, pars costruens, indica il procedimento per arrivare ai risultati. 277 Bacone ha il grande merito di essere stato il primo a porsi in maniera sistematica il problema del metodo proprio delle scienze sperimentali, del loro oggetto e del loro fine. Pur non avendo dato nessun contributo concreto al progresso di qualche scienza, il suo apporto è fondamentale perché ha fatto progredire la scienza in quanto tale. Opere principali: Discorso in elogio della conoscenza (1592); De sapientia veterum (1609); Instauratio magna scientiarum (1609) (in sei parti, ma ne portò a termine solo due: De dignitate et augmen- tis scientiarum e Novum Organon); Saggi (1625). Bergson Henri (1859-1941) Filosofo francese, nato a Parigi. Nel 1900 ottenne la cattedra di filosofia al Collegio di Francia, dove le sue lezioni ebbero un gran- dissimo successo. Nel 1927 ricevette il premio Nobel per la lettera- tura. La sua influenza sui suoi contemporanei e sulle generazioni successive (tra cui è da ricordare Maritain) fu notevole. È stato uno . dei  niaggiori rappresentanti dello spiritualismo- francese, in forte polemica ‘cori. il positivismo. e-lo scieritismo della fine .del secolo XIX e gli inizi del XX: è stato la loro coscienza critica. Esercitò una grande influenza anche sull'esistenzialismo francese, sul pragma- tismo e sulla fenomenologia. Bergson ha elaborato una filosofia antimeccanicistica e anti- materialistica imperniata su due tesi fondamentali: 1) la realtà è durata; 2) la realtà è colta mediante l'intuizione. La realtà scaturisce da una evoluzione creatrice colma di possenti energie, differente- mente impegnate (torpore vegetativo, istinto, intelligenza) e orientate in due direzioni: ascensionale {verso la vita), discendente (verso la materia). Oggetto della filosofia è lo slancio vitale, che si manifesta nel continuo divenire degli esseri: dalla materia allo spirito e dallo spi- rito alla materia. L'applicazione alla morale della distinzione fra ragione e intuizione dà origine rispettivamente alla morale « chiusa » e a quella « aperta ». La medesima distinzione vale per la religione « statica » e la religione « dinamica ». La pratica della religione di- namica è la vita mistica (il cui vertice è il misticismo cristiano). At- traverso l’esperienza dei mistici, Bergson arriva all'esistenza di Dio. La mistica, però, esige la « meccanica »; come la meccanica esige la mistica. Opere principali: Materia e memoria (1896); Il riso (1901); Intro- duzione alla metafisica (1903); L'evoluzione creatrice (1907); L'intui- zione filosofica (1911); L'energia spirituale (1919); Le due fonti della morale e della religione (1932); Il pensiero e il movimento (1934). Berkeley George (1685-1753) Irlandese, fu professore al « Trinity College » di Dublino. Nel 1709 prese gli ordini sacri nella Chiesa anglicana. Viaggiò in Inghil- 278 terra, Francia e Italia. Nel 1721 si recò in America per erigervi un seminario, ma dovette rinunciare. Nel 1723 fu nominato vescovo. Berkeley, che era un'anima profondamente religiosa, fu molto sensibile agli argomenti che i materialisti portavano contro la re- ligione, per cui tutta la sua attività filosofica fu rivolta alla difesa del teismo e all'affermazione del primato dello spirito sulla materia. Sua tesi fondamentale è quella secondo cui l'essere delle cose si risolve nell'essere pensato (tutte le qualità sono secondarie). La materia è passività, lo spirito è attivo; ed è nella mente (umana o divina) che le idee esistono. La propria esistenza è conosciuta im- mediatamente; la conoscenza degli altri spiriti è mediata e indiretta; la conoscenza di Dio è mediata ed evidente. Contro Locke sostiene che non esistono idee astratte e generali. La filosofia studia le idee ed il linguaggio attraverso il quale Dio si manifesta (la filosofia reli- giosa berkeleiana si ispira al neoplatonismo). ‘Solo la fede rivelata, infine, è in grado di illuminare la vita e di avere effetti benefici su- gli uomini. ù Opere principali: Commentari filosofici (1707-1708); Teoria della visione (1709); Trattato sui principi della conoscenza umana (1710); tre Dialoghi tra Hylas e Philonus (1713); De motu (1721). Bernstein Eduard (1850-1932) Nato a Berlino e passato attraverso l’esperienza dell'esilio sviz- zero, fu il massimo teorico del revisionismo socialdemocratico. Col- laboratore di Marx ed Engels, fu particolarmente amico di quest'ul- timo e ne ottenne l'affidamento delle opere postume. Nel 1919 iniziò una dura polemica contro il leninismo e il sistema rivoluzionario russo. Bernstein, che rifiuta la dittatura del proletariato sulle altre classi, affida al socialismo il compito etico di favorire la collaborazione tra le classi, realizzando delle riforme in seno alle stesse istituzioni borghesi al fine di realizzare l'integrazione dei lavoratori nella strut- tura produttiva. Egli ritiene fallite le previsioni fondamentali di Marx e vede come limite del marxismo il dualismo tra economia e politica. Il revisionismo-riformista di Bernstein deriva dalla sua convinzio- ne che la democrazia è un inizio e un fine al tempo stesso: soppres- sione del dominio di classe e perseguimento di una società migliore, quale impegno costante, senza fine, attraverso passaggi graduali e progressivi. Opere principali: Per la storia e la teoria del socialismo (1901); Ferdinand Lassalle (1914); I presupposti del socialismo e i compiti della socialdemocrazia (1919). Bloch Ernst (1885-1977) Filosofo tedesco, tra i massimi esponenti del marxismo revisio- nista. Nacque a Ludwigshafen. Durante la prima guerra mondiale si 279 ritirò in Svizzera, mentre durante il dominio nazista si rifugiò negli Stati Uniti. Terminata la seconda guerra mondiale si trasferì nel 1949 nella Germania orientale, a Lipsia, occupando la cattedra di filosofia. Ma nel 1961, accusato di revisionismo, abbandonò la Ger- mania orientale e si trasferì a.Tubinga per ricoprirvi una cattedra di filosofia. Bloch ha operato una revisione profonda del marxismo soprattutto in due punti: a) nell'abbandono del principio della dia- lettica, ch'egli sostituisce con quello della ‘possibilità (del « non- ancora »); b) nell’incentrare l’interpretazione della storia in una nuova concezione dell'uomo, invece che nello studio dei fenomeni economici, come aveva fatto Marx. Anima dell’antropologia blochia- na è la speranza e l'utopia; a questa dimensione Bloch assegna un primato assoluto nei confronti di tutte le altre: vita, volontà, amore, pensiero ecc. La religione è la sfera in cui l’uomo proietta la sua brama di una esistenza riconciliata. Dio non è altro che un tenta- tivo di dare un volto allo « spazio utopico ». La costruzione della sua filosofia della speranza però è fragile e insostenibile. Opere principali: Spirito dell'utopia (1918); Soggetto-oggetto. Commento a Hegel (1949); Il principio speranza (1954-1959); Diritto naturale e dignità umana (1961); Ateismo nel cristianesimo (1968); Il problema del materialismo: storia e sostanza (1972). Blondel Maurice (1861-1949) Nato a Digione, collaborò con l'organo del movimento moder- nista Annali di filosofia cristiana, fondato da Laberthonnière. Quan- do, nel 1907, Ia Chiesa condannò il movimento modernista, Blondel cessò la sua collaborazione alla rivista. Ispirandosi al metodo volontaristito di Agostino e Pascal, cerca di dare un fondamento sicuro al riconoscimento dell’esistenza di Dio, mediante la dialettica dell'azione. Infatti agire è volere e volere è volere qualcosa: ciò che è proprio dell’agire è il continuo risorgere in esso di uno squilibrio tra il potere e il volere, tra la volontà voluta e la volontà volente. Ne deriva una insoddisfazione che non si appaga fino a che la volontà voluta non abbia soddisfatto pienamente al de- siderio infinito della volontà volente raggiungendo un oggetto ade- guato al suo desiderio infinito, cioè Dio. Blondel vuole dimostrare che la natura umana è aperta verso l'alto ed è predisposta, sia pure in modo passivo, ad essere inserita in un ordine di realtà superiore alla sua natura, che è il solo che possa realizzare completamente le tendenze dell'uomo. Opere principali: L'azione. Saggio d'una critica della vita e d'una scienza della pratica (1893); Storia e dogma{(1904); Il pensiero (1934); L'essere e gli esseri (1935); La filosofia e lo spirito cristiano (1944- 1946). Boezio Severino (480-524) Filosofo ed uomo politico, nacque a Roma dalla nobile famiglia 280 degli Anici. Fu console e primo ministro del re ostrogoto Teodorico. Accusato di tradimento, fu imprigionato, processato e giustiziato a Pavia. Nella sua opera più celebre, De consolatione philosophiae, scritta in prigione mentre attendeva l'esecuzione capitale, egli cerca di risolvere il problema eternamente dibattuto della sofferenza degli innocenti, e dei problemi con esso connessi, quali la provvidenza di Dio e la libertà umana, il tempo e l’eternità. Boezio è considerato uno dei padri della Scolastica e questo per due motivi: per la tradu- zione in lingua latina degli autori (Platone, Aristotele, Porfirio ecc.) ai quali gli scolastici attingeranno molte loro dottrine; e per la de- finizione di alcuni concetti fondamentali quali quello di persona, eternità, felicità ecc. che saranno ripresi e costantemente adoperati dai filosofi medioevali. Opere principali: l’attività letteraria di Boezio fu eccezionale. Tradusse in latino e commentò molte opere di -Platone, Aristotele, dei neoplatonici, degli scrittori di matematica, geometria, astronomia, musica del periodo ellenistico. Scrisse inoltre piccoli trattati di filosofia (De Trinitate; De hebdomadibus), di teologia (De fide catho- lica; Contra Eutichen et Nestorium), di musica (De institutione musicae). Ma la sua opera più celebre è il De consolatione philo- sophiae. Bonaventura da Bagnoregio (1221-1274) Nato a Bagnoregio (Viterbo), entrò nell'ordine francescano an- cora molto giovane. Studiò teologia a Parigi e fu nominato maestro di teologia. Nel 1255, fu esonerato dall'insegnamento, assieme a san Tommaso d'Aquino, per opera dei maestri secolari dell'università di Parigi. Nel 1257 fu reintegrato nell'insegnamento e poco dopo fu nominato ministro generale dell'ordine francescano. Teologo, !filosofo e santo. È ricordato col titolo di doctor sera- phicus. S. Bonaventura sottolinea con vigore la coesistenza di ragione e fede e la subordinazione della prima alla seconda. L'oggetto della filosofia è l’esemplarismo, cioè la proprietà che le cose hanno di essere immagine di Dio. Egli considera assurda la dottrina di una creazione nel tempo; ritiene che la « materia » (che non è concepita come qualcosa di corporeo) eniri nella costituzione di tutti gli es- seri finiti. L'uomo, pur essendo una sola natura, è costituito di corpo e di anima. La conoscenza umana si vale sia dell’astrazione sia della il- luminazione. La volontà, nell'uomo, è più importante dell’intelletto. L'esistenza di Dio è evidente. In ‘Lui ci sono tre tipi di conoscenza: approvazione, visione, intelligenza. L'essenza divina è il modello di tutte le cose. ‘In una delle sue opere più importanti, il trattato mistico Itinera- rium mentis in Deum, afferma che il nostro processo di ascensione 281 dalle cose sensibili verso Dio avviene per gradi: per conoscenza dei vestigi della Trinità nel mondo sensibile, per conoscenza dell’im- magine che abbiamo della Trinità nella nostra anima; per conoscenza diretta di Dio. Opere principali: Commentario alle Sentenze (quattro volumi scritti fra il 1250 e il 1254); Quaestiones disputatae: De scientia Christi (1254), De mysterio Trinitatis (1254), De perfectione evange- lica (1255); Breviloquium (1254-1257); Reductio artium ad theolo- giam (1254-1255); Itinerarium mentis in Deum (1259). Bontadini Gustavo (1903) ‘.. Filosofo italiano, nato a Milano, professore di filosofia teoretica nelle università di Urbino e Pavia e poi all'Università Cattolica di Milano. È da annoverarsi tra i rappresentanti più significativi ed au- torevoli della neoscolastica italiana. Inizialmente seguace dell'ideali- smo gentiliano, ben presto l’abbandonò per orientarsi decisamente verso una visuale metafisica cristiana che assume come principio fondamentale la creazione del divenire o « teorema della creazione ». Secondo Bontadini la mediazione metafisica dell'esperienza è neces- saria per rimuovere quella contraddizione che si presenta sul piano fenomenologico: la contraddizione costituita dall’identità del posi- tivo e del negativo nel divenire. Opere principali: Saggio di una metafisica dell'esperienza (1938); Studi di filosofia moderna (1966); Metafisica e deellenizzazione (1971); Conversazioni di metafisica (1971). Boutroux Emile (1845-1921) Nato a Montrouge, studiò filosofia, matematica e fisica. Si laureò alla Sorbona. Insegnò all'università di Nancy e poi alla Sorbona. Boutroux fa una critica radicale al positivismo meccanicistico, in nome della libertà della natura e dello spirito, e di una nuova concezione della scienza. L'unica vera legge necessaria è quella del principio di identità che è una legge del pensiero e non delle cose. La scienza della natura deve accontentarsi di leggi contingenti. Le leggi del I gruppo (logiche, matematiche, meccaniche, fisiche) si prestano meglio al calcolo matematico, quelle del II gruppo ({biolo- giche, psicologiche, sociali) sono più vicine alla realtà. Oltre lo spi- rito scientifico, vi è la « ragione » che si occupa delle ragioni umane e divine. Opere principali: Sulla contingenza delle leggi della natura (1874), L'idea della legge naturale nella scienza e filosofia contemporanea (1895); La natura e lo spirito (1904-1905); Scienza e religione nella filosofia contemporanea (1908). Bruno Giordano (1548-1600) Nato a Nola, entrò nell'ordine domenicano e dopo essere stato accusato di eresia, lasciò l'abito talare. Dopo aver peregrinato in 282 Svizzera, Francia, Inghilterra e Germania, fu denunziato al tribunale dell’Inquisizione e, non volendo ritrattare, fu arso sul rogo a Roma. Per Bruno la realtà è costituita da due principi fondamentali: il principio attivo o anima del mondo, e quello passivo o materia. Dio si identifica con l’anima del mondo che genera eternamente un mondo infinito (panteismo). Dio non è conoscibile; lo spirito uma- no è spinto dall’'eroico furore a tendere sempre più in alto e ad avvi- cinarsi a Dio, disinteressandosi di ciò che prima lo teneva avvinto. Opere principali: De la causa principio et uno (1584); De l’infi- nito universo et mondi (1584); La cena delle ceneri (1584); Spaccio della bestia trionfante (1584); Eroici furori (1585); De monade (1590). Buber Martin (1878-1965) Filosofo tedesco nato a Vienna da famiglia israelita, ha insegnato etica ebraica a Francoforte e dal 1938 si è trasferito in Palestina; è il più importante rappresentante del personalismo religioso ispi- rato dalla tradizione ebraico-hassidica. È morto a Gerusalemme. Secondo Buber la persona è un essere in relazione, caratterizzato dall'esperienza dialogica /o-Tu. Il dialogo con Dio è la garanzia della comunione tra gli uomini. Buber contrappone il rapporto « Io-Tu » che è proprio della relazione dialogica al rapporto « Io-Esso » che è quello dell’affermazione individuale. L'individualità appare in quanto si distingue da altre individualità. La persona appare in quanto entra in relazione con le altre persone. La prima è il legame naturalizzato, la seconda è la forma spirituale della indipendenza na- turale. Il rapporto « Io-Esso » è caratterizzato dall'uso, dal possesso, dal dominio, dalla fatalità. Il rapporto « Io-Tu » è caratterizzato dal dia- logo, dall'incontro, dalla dedizione, dall'amore, dalla libertà, dal destino. Opere principali: La leggenda di Baal Shem {1908); la sua opera fondamentale Jo e Tu (1923); Gog e Magog (1941); I racconti dei chassidim (1949); Sentieri in Utopia (1950); Immagini del bene e del male (1952). Butler Joseph (1692-1752) Filosofo inglese, fu vescovo di Durham e cappellano della casa reale. Aperto avversario e critico intelligente del deismò radicale e dell'illuminismo antireligioso, Butler sostenne la complementa- rietà e convergenza tra natura e rivelazione, evidenziando tutta una serie di analogie che intercorre tra i due ordini. Ciò vale anche per l'ordine etico: in effetti la coscienza, voce naturale di Dio nell'uomo, mentre gli rivela la sua miseria e i suoi limiti, allo stesso tempo gli testimonia la sua vocazione soprannaturale. Opere principali: Quindici sermoni sulla natura umana (1720); Analogia della religione naturale e rivelata con la costituzione e il corso della natura (1736). 283 Calvino, nome italianizzato di Jean Cauvin (1509-1564) Nato a Noyon, in Francia, fu contemporaneo di Lutero e fu con lui il padre deila Riforma protestante. Di famigiia borghese, rice- vette dapprima una formazione umanistica a Parigi; poi per volontà del padre si dedicò agli studi giuridici nelle università di Orleans e Bourges, conseguendo il dottorato in giurisprudenza. Quando co- minciò a interessarsi della Riforma luterana si rifugiò nel 1534 in Svizzera, prima a Basilea e poi a Ginevra, dove fomentò e capeggiò la rivolta contro la Chiesa di Roma; fondò una nuova chiesa di cui divenne il leader indiscusso, onnipotente e intollerante. La sua opera principale è intitolata Institutiones religionis christianae (4 volumi). I punti chiave del suo sistema sono i seguenti: sovranità assoluta ed esclusiva della Parola di Dio, cioè della Scrittura; predestinazione di alcuni uomini alla salvezza e di altri alla dannazione eterna. La vera Chiesa è quella dei predestinati alla vita eterna e, in concreto, di coloro che aderiscono a Cristo con fede sincera; tale adesione si manifesta esteriormente con i sacramenti del Battesimo e della Cena e con le opere buone. Campanella Tommaso (1568-1639) Nacque a Stilo, in Calabria. Domenicano, nel 1599 preparò una insurrezione della Calabria contro la Spagna. Imprigionato, rimase in carcere per 27 anni. Liberato nel 1633, si rifugiò poi a Parigi, dove morì, sotto la protezione del re Luigi XIII. Campanella segue in parte la teoria di Telesio del sensismo e del naturalismo, ma lo supera per la sua teoria della conoscenza innata di sé (sensus inditus) che precede e condiziona ogni altra conoscenza. Nelle cose l’autocoscienza diventa sensus abditus cioè nascosto per- ché le cose subiscono un forte influsso dall'esterno. Nella Città del Sole Campanella formula il suo stato ideale, il cui governo è teo- cratico, con perfetta fusione del potere politico e religioso. Tenta di fondere il cristianesimo (religio addita) con la religione naturale (religio indita) dettata dalla ragione. Opere principali: Philosophia sensibus demonstrata (1591); La città del sole (1602); Philosophia rationalis (1606-1614); Theologia (1613-1624); Philosophia realis (1619); Metaphisica (1623). Carnap Rudolf (1891-1970) Filosofo tedesco, nato a Ronsdorf, tra i massimi esponenti del positivismo logico. Dopo gli studi a Jena, si trasferì a Vienna dove entrò a far parte del Wiener Kreis, ai cui lavori partecipò attiva- mente fino al 1935 quando, con l’avvento del nazismo, fu costretto a trasferirsi negli Stati Uniti, prima a ‘Chicago e poi a Los Angeles, sino alla morte. Lucido e convinto asseriore delle tesi de] positivismo logico o neopositivismo, Carnap afferma recisamente che compito della filosofia non è quello di elaborare teorie e costruire sistemi, ben- sì quello di sviluppare un metodo: il metodo dell'analisi logica o lin- 284 guistica e, con esso, vagliare tutto quanto viene affermato nei vari campi del sapere. Tale metodo ha una duplice funzione: togliere di mezzo le parole prive di significato e così pure le pseudo-proposi- zioni; chiarire i concetti e le proposizioni aventi significato, per dare in tal modo una fondazione logica alla scienza sperimentale, e alla fisica in particolare. Per decidere del significato delle propo- sizioni Carnap opta per il criterio della verifica sperimentale, per cui « se una proposizione significa qualcosa, può significare soltanto un dato empirico ». Con questo criterio di significazione ultraradi- cale egli elimina tutti gli enunciati metafisici, etici, religiosi, estetici. Questi non possono avere significato teoretico o conoscitivo, ma semplicemente emotivo, soggettivo. Opere principali: La costruzione logica del mondo (1928); La sin- tassi logica dei linguaggio (1934); Introduzione alla semantica (1942); Formalizzazione della logica (1943); Fondamenti logici della proba- bilità (1950). Carneade (219-129 a.C.) Filosofo greco nato a Cirene, è tra i maggiori esponenti della Se- conda Nuova Accademia, di cui ebbe anche per qualche tempo la direzione. Assertore di uno scetticismo moderato, ammette per l’uo- mo la possibilità di conoscere ciò che è probabile, anche se non gli riconosce il potere di raggiungere con certezza la verità. Per Car- neade il sapiente è colui che, pur sapendo che la verità è irraggiun- gibile, non desiste dal cercarla assiduamente. Nella vita pratica, sa- piente è colui che segue ciò che gli sembra più vicino alla verità e al bene. Non ha lasciato nessuno scritto; il suo pensiero ci è pervenuto attraverso le testimonianze trasmesse da Cicerone e Sesto Empirico. Cartesio (René Descartes) (1596-1650) Nacque a La Haye in Touraine. 'Studiò nel collegio dei gesuiti di La Flèche. Viaggiò in Germania, Olanda, Italia, Francia. Cartesio, che fa assumere alla filosofia una impostazione pretta- mente critica e gnoseologica, può essere considerato l’iniziatore della filosofia moderna, sia per l'orientamento epistemologico della sua filosofia, sia per il soggettivismo ed il razionalismo che sono impli- citi nel suo filosofare. Ritiene che l'indagine ‘filosofica debba comin- ciare con lo studio della mente umana per accertare la natura e la possibilità della conoscenza. Primo scopo che si propone Cartesio è quello della ricerca di un metodo adatto per la conquista del sapere. Scopre questo metodo prendendo in considerazione quello matema- tico, secondo il criterio di chiarezza e distinzione. Pone come prin- cipio fondamentale di tutta la conoscenza il « cogito ergo sum », cioè la certezza del proprio pensiero e della propria esistenza. In base ad esso ricostruisce tutto l'universo della metafisica clas- sica: prova che l'essenza dell'uomo (composto di materia e spirito) consiste nel pensiero (r2s cogitans); dimostra l'esistenza di Dio con la 285 prova ontologica; afferma che il mondo è essenzialmente estensione (res extensa). Opere principali: Discorso sul metodo (1637); Meditationes de pri- ma philosophia (1641); Principia philosophiae (1644); Trattato sulle passioni dell'anima (1649). Comte Auguste (1798-1857) Filosofo e sociologo francese, nacque a Montpellier da genitori cattolici, ma perdette la fede quand'era ancora molto giovane. Stu- diò all'École Polytecnique di Parigi. Per qualche tempo fu discepolo e collaboratore di Saint-Simon, dal quale apprese l'interesse per la sociologia e per la storia. Nel 1826 dette inizio a Parigi ad un corso di lezioni di filosofia positiva; ma le precarie condizioni di salute e le opposizioni ai suoi insegnamenti lo costrinsero prima a sospen- derlo e poi ad interromperlo definitivamente. Nel 1845 ebbe un'altra grave crisi nervosa e si unì a Clotilde de Vaux la quale morì nel 1846. Da questo legame ricavò l'ispirazione per una religione mi- stica umanitaria. L'intento primario della riflessione filosofica di Comte, che è con- siderato il fondatore del positivismo, è duplice: a) elaborare una filosofia della storia fondata non sul principio del divenire dialettico (come aveva fatto Hegel) ma sul principio della evoluzione progres- siva dell'umanità; b) costruire una teoria scientifica della società. Secondo Comte tutto l'universo procede dalla materia per via di evoluzione. Anche l'uomo è un prodotto dell'evoluzione della mate- ria. Quando l'evoluzione raggiunse lo stadio umano ebbe inizio la storia, le cui fasi principali sono tre: religiosa, filosofica e scientifi- ca. Attualmente l'umanità ha raggiunto la fase scientifica e si è quin- di lasciata alle spalle la interpretazione religiosa e filosofica della realtà. Il traguardo ultimo della ricerca scientifica è « giungere allo studio sistematico della umanità, sola sua stazione finale ». Opere principali: Piano di lavori scientifici necessari per riorga- nizzare la società (1822); Sistema di politica positiva (1824); Corso di filosofia positiva (opera in sei volumi scritta fra il 1830 e il 1842); Calendario positivista (1849); Sistema di politica positiva o trattato di sociologia che istituisce la religione dell'umanità (opera in quattro volumi scritta fra il 1851 e il 1854); Catechismo positivista (1852). Croce Benedetto (1866-1952) Filosofo e uomo politico, nacque a Pescasseroli (L'Aquila). Nel 1903 iniziò la pubblicazione de La Critica. Nel 1920, durante l’ultimo governo Giolitti, fu ministro dell'educazione. Quando Mussolini salì al potere, si ritirò dalla politica. . Croce identifica la filosofia con la storia (storicismo) per cui concepisce tutta la realtà come storia, cioè come opera dello spirito. Il compito dello storico è quello di capire i fatti storici; in senso as- soluto nella storia non c'è mai decadenza (storicismo assoluto). Lo 286 spirito nella ricerca della sua piena autocoscienza, esercita quattro attività: estetica, logica, economica ed etica. Le prime due sono attività teoretiche, le ultime due pratiche. Le attività estetica ed eco- nomica hanno per oggetto l’'individuale; le attività logica ed etica hanno per oggetto l’universale. Il rapporto fra le varie attività è regolato dal principio del nesso dei distinti che integra la dialettica hegeliana degli opposti, in quanto i termini non si annullano come gli opposti ma armonizzano fra loro come momenti dello spirito. Il rapporto fra i diversi gradi è chiamato « circolarità dello spirito ». Delle quattro attività dello spirito quella che Croce ha analizzato più acutamente è quella estetica. Definisce l’arte « intuizione lirica del particolare », cioè l'immagine estetica è una sintesi di intuizione e sentimento: il sentimento è l'elemento materiale, l'immagine è quello formale. Il valore dell'arte, che è autonoma, non può essere né pratico, né intellettualistico ma solo teoretico e conoscitivo. Opere principali: di carattere filosofico: La storia ridotta sotto il concetto generale dell'arte (1893); Materialismo storico ed economia marxista (1900); Estetica come scienza dell'espressione e linguistica generale (1902); Logica come scienza del concetto puro (1905); Filo- sofia della pratica (1909); La filosofia di Vico (1911); Saggio sullo Hegel (1913); Etica e politica (1931); Il carattere della filosofia mo- derna (1940); Filosofia e storiografia (1949); Indagini su Hegel e schiarimenti filosofici (1952). Di carattere letterario: Ariosto, Sha- kespeare e Corneille (1920); La poesia di Dante (1921); Poesia popo- lare e poesia d'arte (1933); Poesia antica e moderna (1941). Cusano Nicolò (Nicola Crypffs) (1401-1464) Nacque a Cues (Germania), e fu matematico e astronomo. Nel 1450 fu nominato cardinale e vescovo di Bressanone. Sî propone la rinascita religiosa e concepisce il ritorno al platoni- smo (inteso come sintesi del pensiero religioso dell'antichità) come condizione di tale rinascita. Dalle teorie di Occam desume l’impossi- bilità di conoscere Dio per via raziocinativa. Tuttavia afferma che possiamo avere l’intuizione di Dio; quanto alla natura divina sostiene che è assolutamente inconoscibile (docta ignorantia). Opere principali: De concordantia catholica (1433); De docta ignorantia (1440); De coniecturis (1441); Apologia doctae ignorantiae (1449); Idiota (1450); De visione Dei (1453); De venatione sapientiae (1463); De apice theoriae (1464). Darwin Charles Robert (1809-1882) Biologo e naturalista inglese, nato a Shrewsbury e morto a Down. Dopo alcuni anni di studi di medicina che aveva iniziato a Edim- burgo e di teologia a Cambridge, si dedicò a quelli delle scienze naturali a Cambridge. Nel 1831 ebbe la possibilità di imbarcarsi in qualità di naturalista sul brigantino Beagle al seguito di una spedi- zione scientifica intorno al mondo. Il viaggio durò cinque anni e gli 287 consentì di raccogliere moltissimo materiale intorno alla flora e alla fauna di vari continenti e sulle formazioni geologiche della terra. Dallo studio di tale materiale, al suo rientro in patria, poté pubbli- care nel 1839 un diario col titolo Viaggio di un naturalista intorno al mondo e nel 1859 il famosissimo Sull’origine della specie per selezione naturale. In questo scritto Darwin getta le basi dell’evolu- zionismo scientifico. Secondo Darwin tutti gli esseri viventi traggono origine da pochi esemplari per evoluzione, secondo leggi ben precise, di cui le principali sono le seguenti: « Crescita (cioè moltiplicazione degli esseri) con la riproduzione; ereditarietà, che è quasi implicita nella riproduzione; variabilità in conseguenza dell’azione diretta e indiretta delle condizioni di vita e dell'uso o disuso degli organi; un aumento così grande da portare alla lotta per la vita e conseguen- temente alla selezione naturale implicante la diversificazione di tipi e l'estinzione delle forme meno sviluppate » (Origine della specie). La teoria darwiniana dell'evoluzione ha esercitato un'influenza im- mensa in tutti i campi, ed anche in quello filosofico, ed è diventata assieme alla psicanalisi di Freud e all'analisi socio-politica di Marx uno dei tre pilastri portanti della cultura occidentale dell'ultimo secolo. Da tempo, però, quello dell’evoluzione, alla pari degli altri due pilastri, mostra crepe allarmanti. Democrito (460-360 a.C.) Nacque ad Abdera, in Tracia. È il vero fondatore della Scuola atomistica, secondo cui l'essere è costituito da atomi, particelle indivisibili e immutabili, immerse nel vuoto. Dal movimento degli atomi derivano tutte le cose, secon- do un meccanico determinismo. È il primo filosofo che si occupa dell'origine del linguaggio. Opere principali: Mikròs diàkosmos (Piccolo ordinamento del mondo); Logikà (Canoni); Hypothékai (Consigli); Perì Ideon. Dewey John (1859-1952) Filosofo e pedagogista americano, nato nel Vermont (Stati Uniti), insegnò all’università di Chicago e poi alla « Columbia University » di New York. Passò dall’idealismo ad un evoluzionismo naturalistico influenzato dal pragmatismo e, nel 1896, diede vita alla « scuola- laboratorio », fondata sull'attivismo pedagogico. Fondò un partito di tendenza riformista e, nel 1937, denunciò i crimini dei processi staliniani. La funzione della mente umana e quindi della conoscenza è di ricercare le vie più sicure del progresso. Ne deriva che il pensiero ha per Dewey un carattere essenzialmente strumentale. L'uomo è inteso non come parte del meccanismo naturale, bensì come forza il cui agire possa modificare in meglio le condizioni del mondo. L'agire dell'uomo deve tendere dunque alla socializzazione, alla so- lidarietà, affinché si costituisca una società veramente democratica, 288 capace di realizzare il dominio completo della natura, sottometten- dola ai nostri fini. In campo pedagogico insiste sull’attivismo nell’apprendimento e sul fine sociale dell'educazione che può risolvere tutti i problemi sociali e realizzare la vera democrazia. ‘Opere principali: Il mio credo pedagogico (1897); Scuola e società (1900); Studi sulla teoria logica (1903); Etica (1908); Democrazia ed educazione (1916); Ricostruzione filosofica (1920); Esperienza e na- tura (1925); Filosofia e civiltà (1931); Logica, teoria dell'indagine (1938); Libertà e cultura (1939); Il conoscente e il conosciuto (1949). Dilthey Wilhelm (1833-1911) Filosofo e storico tedesco, nato a Biebrich, in Renania, è stato un oppositore del positivismo ed il massimo rappresentante dello sto- ricismo tedesco contemporaneo; studiò a Berlino e insegnò a Ba- silea, Kiel, Breslavia e Berlino. Morì a Siusi, in Alto Adige. Sulla scorta di Rickert, Dilthey sostiene che i fenomeni culturali o spirituali possono essere colti solamente attraverso l’Erlebnis, cioè l'esperienza vissuta. Dell'Erlebnis, Dilthey distingue tre aspetti inseparabili: 1) la vita (momento della soggettività, dell'immediatezza, della singolarità); 2) l’espressione e 3) l’intendimento (momento dell’universale e del- l'oggettività). Le scienze dello spirito si «distinguono pertanto dalle scienze «della natura sia per l'oggetto che per il metodo. Dilthey è inoltre preoccupato di determinare i rapporti tra storia e (filosofia, che finisce per identificare, poiché la vita è la realtà suprema e la storia (unica vera filosofia) è l’espressione unica e ge- nuina della vita. I principi che giustificano tale identificazione sono i seguenti: 1) l'uomo si conosce solo attraverso la storia; 2) un'epoca è compren- sibile solo se se ne conoscono i precedenti storici; 3) i sistemi filosofici riflettono la mentalità di un dato popolo e di un dato periodo, perciò sono comprensibili solo se studiati storicamente. Dilthéy distirigue tre sistemi filosofici fondamentali: a) il mate- rialismo {primato della categoria di causa); b) l'idealismo oggettivo (primato dell'idea di valore); c) l'idealismo soggettivo (primato dell'idea di fine). Causa, valore e fine rappresentano diverse relazio- ni dell'uomo con il mondo. Opere principali: Introduzione alle scienze dello spirito (1883); Idee per una psicologia descrittiva e analitica (1894); La nascita del- l'ermeneutica (1900); L'essenza della filosofia (1907); La costruzione del mondo storico nelle scienze dello spirito (1910). Eckhart Johannes (1266-1327) Domenicano della provincia tedesca, discepolo di Alberto Magno e contemporaneo di Occam, Meister Eckhart fu per oltre un decen- nio provinciale dei domenicani tedeschi. Accusato di eresia nel 1326 289 fu sottoposto a processo. Questo si concluse due anni dopo la sua morte con la condanna di 26 proposizioni tratte dalle sue opere. La visione filosofico-religiosa di Eckhart si caratterizza come un misticismo di tipo idealistico. Fine ultimo dell'uomo è l'unione con Dio. Questi è concepito come identità di pensiero ed essere, ma con la priorità del pensiero sull'essere, anziché dell'essere sul pensiero come aveva insegnato san Tommaso. Poiché l'essere di Dio si identifi- ca col conoscere, l'uomo ascende a Lui man mano che si avvicina al- l'intellettualità. Nell'intelletto e più precisamente nella contempla- zione si realizza l'unione e l'immersione dell'anima in Dio. Opere principali: gli scritti di Eckhart comprendono oltre ad un'opera sistematica di vaste proporzioni in lingua latina, intito- lata Opus tripartitum, alcuni saggi in lingua tedesca, che gli hanno meritato il titolo di « creatore della prosa tedesca »; Quaestiones de esse; Commento al Parmenide di Platone. Empedocle (fine V sec. a.C.) Nato ad Agrigento, fu medico ed ebbe la fama di mago. iLe dottrine principali della sua filosofia riguardano la causa prima di tutte le cose che è riposta nei quattro elementi (terra, ac- qua, fuoco e aria) assolutamente originali e immutabili e il mecca- nismo della conoscenza che è spiegato mediante la teoria dell'ana- logia. Il divenire consiste nell'unirsi e disunirsi dei 4 elementi ed è causato dalla lotta di due forze primordiali: Amore e Odio. Opere principali: Sulla natura; Carmen lustrale. Engels Friedrich (1820-1895) Filosofo tedesco nato a Barmen da una famiglia facoltosa che aveva interessi nell'industria tessile inglese, conobbe Marx a Parigi, in un viaggio nel 1844 e ne divenne intimo amico. Dopo i moti in Germania del 1848 a cui partecipò, si trasferì in Inghilterra e nel 1869 si stabili a Londra lavorando intensamente insieme a Karl Marx sul piano politico e intellettuale. Dalla visione idealistica passò a quella materialistica, dopo la lettura dell'opera L'essenza del cristianesimo di Feuerbach. In col- laborazione con Marx scrisse il famoso Manifesto del partito comu- nista e La sacra famiglia in cui si criticano le dottrine di Bauer e degli altri hegeliani di sinistra. Operando in stretta collaborazione con Marx, dopo il 1844 non è facile distinguere i tratti originali del suo pensiero. Comunque, si può stabilire con sicurezza che per la sua competenza in campo economico-commerciale e la conoscenza della situazione sociale inglese fu Engels a fornire a Marx il taglio economico e sociale del suo materialismo. In alcuni saggi Engels ha cercato di illustrare la diversità tra i materialismi precedenti e quello professato da lui e da Marx. La differenza fondamentale sta nel fatto ‘che, mentre i materialismi precedenti guardavano alla natura come un insieme di realtà sta- 290 tiche, « il materialismo moderno vede nella storia l'evoluzione stessa dell'umanità secondo un movimento, e il suo scopo è di riconoscerne le leggi ». In altre parole, il nuovo materialismo di Engels e di Marx non è più naturalistico ma storico e inoltre non è più statico ed im- mobilistico, bensì evolutivo e dinamico. Opere principali: La situazione della classe operaia inglese (1845); Origine della famiglia, della proprietà privata e dello stato (1884); Feuerbach e il punto d’approdo della filosofia classica tedesca (1888). Dopo la morte dell'amico condusse a termine il secondo e terzo vo- lume de // Capitale. Epicuro (341-271 a.C.) Filosofo greco, fondatore della scuola filosofica che da lui prende il nome e che ebbe largo seguito durante il periodo ellenistico. Nato a Samo da genitori ateniesi, Epicuro fu praticamente un autodidatta. Nel 310 fondò una scuola a Mitilene; nel 306 si trasferì ad Atene dove comprò una casa con un giardino (il famoso « giardino di Epicuro »), dove fissò stabilmente la sua scuola e che lasciò in eredità ai suoi discepoli. Intollerante e polemico verso gli altri filosofi, Epicuro fu verso i suoi discepoli di somma affabilità e generosità, guadagnan- dosi una venerazione che col tempo divenne vero e proprio culto. Scrisse molto, ma tutte le sue opere andarono perdute tranne al- cune massime, tre lettere e il Testamento che sono stati conservati da Diogene Laerzio nel libro X delle sue Vite. Alla conservazione, alla diffusione e quindi alla fortuna dell’epicureismo contribuì mol- tissimo Lucrezio col suo poema, De rerum natura, nel quale il poeta latino addita la dottrina di Epicuro come farmaco supremo ai mali umani, dovuti a superstizioni e a falsi timori. Davanti ai grandi problemi filosofici che angustiano la mente umana, Epicuro assume una posizione di netto contrasto con lo stoicismo. Epitteto (50-138) Era un liberto di Nerone, il quale lo emancipò. Andò alla scuola del filosofo Musonio Rufo. Quando Domiziano, nel 92, cacciò dal- l’Italia tutti i filosofi, si rifugiò nell'Epiro e lì fondò una sua scuola. È il più celebre rappresentante dello stoicismo. Il suo pensiero filosofico è contenuto nel Manuale e nei Discorsi. Più ancora che in Zenone e Crisippo (i fondatori della scuola stoica) in Epitteto lo stoicismo diviene un sistema di vita, una dottrina morale. Si tratta d'una morale molto rigida, che nulla concede agli istinti e alle passioni, nulla agli onori, alla ricchezze e ai piaceri, e punta tutto sulla interiorità, sull'amore per il prossimo e l'unione col Logos. Questi, sotto l'influsso del cristianesimo, in Epitteto acquista le caratteristiche del Dio persona, provvidente e paterna, dei cristiani. Secondo Epitteto tutto quello che accade all'uomo, accade per volere del Logos, il quale agisce sempre secondo ragione e mai arbitraria- 291 mente. Il Logos esercita sull'uomo e su tutte le creature una perfetta provvidenza, senza lasciare nulla all'arbitrio umano. L'uomo è libero in quanto si uniforma alle leggi del Logos. Opere principali: Manuale; Discorsi. Eraclito (550-480 a.C.) Nato ad Efeso, secondo la leggenda, fu uomo aristocratico ed eccentrico. Avversò la democrazia nella sua città e si rifiutò di colla- borare alla stesura della nuova costituzione. Sostiene che la realtà è in continuo divenire (pànta rèi) e pone come principio di questo divenire il fuoco, ricollegandosi agli Ionici. La forza che opera l'unificazione del molteplice è il Lògos. Opere principali: unica opera di cui si abbia notizia è Perì phy- seos (Sulla natura delle cose), che gli procurò la fama di pensatore enigmatico e oscuro. Feuerbach Ludwig (1804-1872) Nacque a Landshut (Baviera). Studiò prima teologia e poi filo- sofia. Frequentò, a Berlino, le lezioni di Hegel. Nel 1828 ottenne la libera docenza all'università di Erlangen. Riprende le critiche a Hegel sulla religione, proprie di Sturm e Bauer. Nega ogni valore al cristianesimo. La filosofia religiosa di Feuerbach è pertanto uno studio dell'origine dell'idea di Dio e dei suoi attributi. L'origine dell'idea di Dio ha il carattere di ipostatiz- zazione: l'uomo proietta le qualità positive che ha in sé in una per- sona divina e ne fa una realtà sussistente di fronte alla quale si sente schiacciato come un nulla. All'adorazione degli enti divini bisogna sostituire il culto dell'umanità. Per Feuerbach non è il pensiero che causa la materia, ma la materia a svilupparsi in pensiero, quando tocca i vertici della sua evoluzione. Opere principali: Pensieri sulla morte e l'immortalità (1830); Per la critica della filosofia hegeliana (1839); Essenza del cristianesimo (1841); Principi della filosofia dell'avvenire (1843); L'essenza della fede secondo Lutero (1844); L'essenza della religione (1846); Lezioni sull'essenza della religione (1851); Teogonia (1857). Fichte Johann Gottlieb (1762-1814) Nacque a Ramenau in Sassonia, studiò all'università di Jena. Fu discepolo di Kant. Nel 1807, durante l'invasione napoleonica della Prussia tenne presso l'università di Berlino i famosi Discorsi alla nazione tedesca. Fichte fu il primo ad avvertire le contraddizioni che minacciavano il criticismo di Kant e a risolverle in direzione dell'idealismo. Ne- gando l’esistenza della cosa in sé (noumeno), la realtà ha un unico fondamento che può essere solo di natura spirituale, ossia il pen- siero. Il pensiero è l'Io puro. Ma alla funzione del pensare non è292 sufhciente l'identità del pensiero con sé stesso: occorre un soggetto pensante e un oggetio pensato. L'io puro origina quindi il soggetto pensante o « io empirico » e l'oggetto pensato o « non io». Fra io puro, io empirico e non-io esiste una netta distinzione. L'io puro ha una priorità assoluta sull'io empirico e sul non io. Il fine ultimo del- l'io empirico sta nel raggiungimento dell'io puro; per raggiungere tale traguardo deve rimuovere tutti gli ostacoli frapposti dal non-io. L'uomo è in continuo progresso verso il traguardo della perfetta coerenza con sé stesso. Nell'ultima fase del suo filosofare Fichte offre una nuova consi- derazione dell’assoluto, che viene concepito come un Dio sussistente e, a suo modo, trascendente. Opere principali: Rivendicazione della libertà di pensiero (1793); Contributi per rettificare i giudizi del pubblico sulla rivoluzione fran- cese (1793-1794); Fondamenti dell'intera dottrina della scienza (1794); Alcune lezioni sulla missione del dotto (1794); Fondamenti del diritto naturale (1796-1797); Il sistema della dottrina morale {1798); La mis- sione dell'uomo (1799); Introduzione alla vita beata (1806); Discorsi alla nazione tedesca (1807). Filone Alessandrino (13 a.C.-40 d.C.) Nato ad Alessandria d'Egitto da una nobile famiglia ebraica della diaspora, fu rabbino di quella città, contemporaneo di Cristo e autore di numerosi commenti alla Sacra Scrittura. Filone è considerato da tutti come l’iniziatore di un nuovo modo di interpretare la Sacra Scrittura, il modo allegorico (0 metodo alle- gorico). Ma da molti oggi è ritenuto anche fondatore di un nuovo tipo di speculazione, chiamata filosofia religiosa. In effetti Filone ha ela- borato un sistema in cui si saldano armonicamente le dottrine fonda- mentali della fede biblica con le principali dottrine di Platone e degli Stoici: dottrina delle Idee, del Logos, dell'immortalità dell'anima, della contemplazione ecc. La filosofia religiosa iniziata da Filone esercitò grande influsso sui padri della chiesa e anche sugli scola- stici che la continuarono e perfezionarono. Opere principali: Commento allegorico sulle sante Leggi; Sul de- calogo; Sulle leggi particolari; Sulia migrazione di Abramo; Sulla provvidenza; Sull’eternità del mondo, Foucauli Michel (1926-1984) Filosofo e saggista francese, nato a Poitiers, ha studiato al- l’« École Normale Supérieure » di Parigi e poi in Germania, Polo- nia e Svezia. Di vasta esperienza culturale (medicina, filosofia, psico- logia, storia), si è ben presto affermato tra i massimi esponenti della rivoluzione culturale dell'ultimo ventennio. È stato professore al « Centro Universitario Sperimentale » di Vincennes e ha insegnato dal 1970 storia dei sistemi di pensiero al « Collège de France ». Dallo studio della storia della medicina, Foucault è passato, par- 293 tendo da Heidegger, ad una indagine epistemologica delle strutture fondamentali del conoscere che sono alla base dei vari momenti della storia della moderna civiltà occidentale. Foucault svilupperà l'analisi strutturalistica del linguaggio di de Saussure spostandola dal livello dei fonemi a quello degli enunciati e concentrerà la sua attenzione sulle società evolute moderne piut- tosto che su quelle primitive. Secondo Foucault ogni cultura ha il suo « a priori storico », sot- tofondo comune a tutte le arti, scienze e ideologie di un determinato periodo. In ordine al problema del linguaggio Foucault distingue l’analisi della lingua dall'analisi degli enunciati, così come distingue la storia del discorso dall'analisi del campo discorsivo. Infine, sotto- linea come l’analisi enunciativa sia soprattutto un'analisi storica, che si tiene fuori da ogni interpretazione. Opere principali: Malattia mentale e psicologia (1954); Storia della follia (1961); Nascita della clinica (1963); Parole e cose (1967); Archeologia del sapere (1969); Sorvegliare e punire (1975); La vo- lontà di sapere (1976). Freud Sigmund (1856-1939) Nato a Freiberg, in Moravia, da famiglia israelita, si laureò in medicina all'università di Vienna nel 1881; nel 1885 conseguì la li- bera docenza specializzandosi in neuropatologia e nel 1886 aprì un gabinetto privato per lo studio delle malattie nervose. Nel 1938, con l'annessione dell'Austria alla Germania di Hitler, fu costretto a emi- grare a Londra, dove morì, l’anno dopo, all'età di 83 anni. Secondo Freud, che fu il fondatore della psicanalisi, la nostra psiche è costituita da tre livelli (o topiche): un livello profondo o inconscio che si chiama Es (0 Id), sede della pulsione libidica e orien- tato alla soddisfazione del bisogno sessuale; il livello dell'/o o della coscienza razionale; ed infine, il livello del Super-Io, risultato dell’introiezione delle figure parentali e sede della legge morale. Il costante conflitto tra Es e Super-Io spesso provoca uno stato patologico, proprio delle diverse forme di nevrosi. La pulsione libidi- ca, che muove l’attività sessuale dell'individuo, trova pertanto una possibilità di sfogo nell'attività onirica, quando l'abbassamento tem- poraneo della soglia cosciente lascia libero spazio all'Es, ai suoi de- sideri, alla sua conflittualità repressa. Fondamentale per la cultura contemporanea come scoperta del dinamismo psichico e come terapia, la psicanalisi che negli scritti freudiani dell'ultimo periodo viene teorizzata come una weltan- schauung, ha finito per presentare i suoi limiti, che sono stati evi- denziati in questi ultimi decenni da molti studiosi. Opere principali: Le origini della psicanalisi (1887-1902); Studi sull'isteria (1895); Psicopatologia della vita quotidiana (1901); Tre saggi sulla teoria sessuale (1905); Totem e tabù (1912-1913); Introdu- 294 zione alla psicoanalisi (1915-1917); Al di là del principio di piacere (1920); L'avvenire di un'illusione (1927); Il disagio della civiltà(1929); L'uomo Mosé e la religione monoteista (1934-1938). Galilei Galileo (1564-1642) Nato a Pisa, fu matematico, fisico, astronomo. Nel 1589 ebbe l'insegnamento di matematica all'università di Pisa e nel 1592 passò all'università di Padova. Nel 1609 inventò il cannocchiale. Nel 1616 la sua teoria eliocentrica venne condannata dalla Chiesa. Processato una seconda volta, fu costretto, nel 1633, a rinnegare le sue teorie scientifiche. Morì ad Arcetri, nell'isolamento obbligato e colpito da cecità. È considerato il creatore della fisica moderna e il decisivo promotore del metodo sperimentale, avviato da Bacone, nelle sue applicazioni pratiche. Merito di Galileo è di aver provato la netta distinzione tra filo- sofia, scienza e religione, mostrando che il loro oggetto specifico è di- verso. Perciò lo studio scientifico dei fenomeni umani è libero. Per la scienza diverso è anche il metodo, « induttivo-deduttivo ». Tipico di questo metodo è l’uso della matematica. In sintonia con tale im- postazione vi è la riduzione della realtà materiale ai soli aspetti quantitativi (ma in Galilei più che di un meccanicismo filosofico si tratta di un meccanicismo metodologico e scientifico). Opere principali: De motu (1589); Sidereus Nuncius (1610); Di- scorso intorno alle cose che stanno în su l'acqua (1612); Il saggiatore (1623); Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, tolemaico e copernicano (1632); Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze, attinenti alla meccanica e i movimenti locali (1638). Galluppi Pasquale (1770-1846) Filosofo italiano, nato a Tropea, studiò all'università di Napoli, dove insegnò filosofia teoretica dal 1831 sino alla morte. La filosofia di Galluppi, che è uno degli esponenti maggiori del realismo critico italiano, vuole essere essenzialmente una risposta al kantismo che egli critica soprattutto per quanto concerne la inconoscibilità del- l'io e della cosa in sé, e la apriorità delle categorie. A proposito della inconoscibilità dell'io e della cosa in sé, egli afferma che la coscienza testimonia immediatamente la conoscenza sia del primo sia della seconda (il mondo) e che pertanto occorre ammetterli tutt'e due co- me assolutamente certi. Assodato il carattere obiettivo del cono- scere, Galluppi, contro Kant, mostra che anche l’esistenza di Dio risulta dimostrabile. Opere principali: Saggio filosofico sulla critica della conoscenza (6 voll. 1819-32); Elementi di filosofia (6 voll. 1820-27); Lettere filo- sofiche (1827); Lezioni di logica e metafisica (4 voll. 1832-34); Filo- sofia della volontà (4 voll. 1832-40); Considerazioni filosofiche sul- l'idealismo trascendentale e sul razionalismo assoluto (1841). 295 Garaudy Roger (1913) Filosofo francese, nato a Marsiglia, è un esponente prestigioso e originale del revisionismo marxista; si iscrisse giovanissimo al Partito Comunista francese e alternò l’attività sindacale all’insegna- mento della filosofia. Nel 1970 fu radiato dal partito per il duro atteggiamento polemico assunto nei confronti dell'U.R.S.S. per l'in- vasione della Cecoslovacchia. Caratteristica del pensiero revisionista di Garaudy è il ripen- samento del problema del socialismo nella società contemporanea e l'apertura al cristianesimo, presente però anche nei suoi primi scritti, quando egli attribuiva alla chiesa cattolica il merito di avere realiz- zato alcune fondamentali trasformazioni della società, come l’aboli- zione della schiavitù e l'uguaglianza della donna e di avere affermato il valere della persona, dell'amore, della libertà e della trascendenza. Per Garaudy la « trascendenza » è un umanesimo prometeico e faustiano che porta al superamento del limite; ed è convinto che solo nell’organizzazione politico-sociale del comunismo esso possa trovare la sua piena realizzazione. A seguito del rifiuto del modello sovietico, Garaudy approda alla convinzione che il socialismo possa trovare la sua pienezza aprendo un dialogo con il cristianesimo, al quale è accomunato dalla passione per l'uomo, dall'impegno di trasformazione del mondo, dalla dimen- sione profetica. Opere principali: La teoria materialista della conoscenza (1953); Karl Marx (1965); Marxismo del XX secolo (1966); Lenin (1968); Tutta la verità (1970); Riconquista della speranza (1971); L’alterna- tiva (1973); Parola di uomo (1974). Gentile Giovanni (1875-1944) Nacque a Castelvetrano (Trapani) nel 1875. Insegnò nelle uni- versità di Palermo, Pisa e Roma. Aderì al regime fascista e nel 1922 fu nominato ministro della Pubblica Istruzione. Nel 1943 aderì alla Repubblica Sociale e fu trucidato dai partigiani nel 1944 a Firenze. La ‘filosofia idealista di Gentile si chiama attualismo, in quanto l'assoluto è concepito come atto puro. Le cose non sono altro che momenti di tale atto, sono l'atto puro stesso in un momento del suo generarsi. Realmente c'è solo il pensiero attuale che pone sé stesso (autoctisi). L'atto puro di Gentile, come l'idea di Hegel, svolge la sua attività secondo un processo triadico, che ha per momenti princi- pali l’arte, Ja religione e la filosofia. L'arte è il momento soggettivo; la forma immediata dello spirito assoluto. La religione è l'antitesi dell'arte, il momento oggettivo. La filosofia costituisce la sintesi del momento soggettivo con l'oggettivo, riconoscendo l'assoluto nell'atto che pone se stesso attraverso una dialettica eterna. Lo Stato è consi- derato l'incarnazione suprema dello Spirito, volontà sovrana e as- soluta da cui discende sia la morale che il diritto. La filosofia di Gen- 296 tile ha occupato un posto centrale nello sviluppo del pensiero specu- lativo italiano nei primi decenni del nostro secolo. Opere principali: Rosmini e Gioberti (1898); Sommario di peda- gogia come scienza filosofica (1912); I problemi della scolastica e il pensiero italiano (1913); Studi vichiani (1915); Fondamenti della fi- losofia del diritto (1916); Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro (1916); Sistema di logica come teoria del conoscere (1917-1922); Le origini della filosofia contemporanea in Italia (quattro volumi, scritti fra il 1917 e il 1923); I/ pensiero italiano nel Rinascimento (1920); Studi sul Rinascimento (1923); Filosofia dell’arte (1931). Gilson Etienne (1884-1978) Filosofo e storico francese, nato a Parigi, si è addottorato in lettere e filosofia alla Sorbona; ha insegnato a Lilla, Strasburgo, Parigi. Trasferitosi in Canada, nel 1929 vi ha fondato l’« Institute of Medieval Studies » di Toronto che diresse sino alla morte avvenuta nel 1978 a Cravant. Con Jacques Maritain, Gilson è colui che ha maggiormente contribuito alla rinascita del tomismo nella prima metà del sec. XX e della sua diffusione nel mondo nord-americano. AI] centro della sua riflessione è il concetto di « filosofia cristiana » di cui Gilson sostiene la legittimità, affermando che la filosofia cri- stiana non comprende verità che appartengono essenzialmente al- l'ambito della fede e della rivelazione, ma solo di fatto, storicamente. Oggetto specifico della filosofia cristiana non è il « rivelato », ma il « rivelabile », cioè verità di per sé accessibili alla ragione come l’unità di Dio, l'immortalità dell'anima, il senso della storia, la per- sona, la libertà ecc. La filosofia cristiana è stata elaborata dai Padri della Chiesa e dagli Scolastici, che hanno conferito evidenza a verità attinte dalla Bibbia e alle quali i Greci non erano pervenuti quali l'unicità di Dio, la creazione, la libertà, la persona, la storia, la contingenza, la causalità delle creature e dell'uomo, la bontà della materia e del corpo umano, la provvidenza, ecc. I filosofi cristiani hanno conferito a queste verità una espressione razionale, filosofica, che gli storici non cristiani hanno attribuito alla filosofia moderna. Per Gilson questa è una falsificazione della storia, che ha dimostrato in modo preciso ne Lo spirito della filosofia medioevale e in altre opere. Sul problema della conoscenza dell'essere, Gilson dimostra che essa non si realizza mediante un’astrazione, ma mediante il giudizio di esistenza, che è un atto di composizione che la mente compie tra un soggetto e l’atto di esistere, attribuendoglielo. Opere principali: I/ tomismo (1919); La filosofia nel Medioevo (1922); San Bonaventura (1924); Sant'Agostino (1929); Lo spirito del- la filosofia medioevale (1932); Duns Scoto (1952). Delle sue opere a ca- rattere teoretico citiamo: Il realismo metodico (1934); Dio e la filo- sofia (1941); Realismo tomista e critica della conoscenza (1945); 297 L'essere e l'essenza (1948); L'essere e alcuni filosofi; Introduzione alla filosofia cristiana (1960); Il filosofo e la teologia (1960). Gioberti Vincenzo (1801-1852) Nato a Torino, fu ordinato prete nel 1825. Laureatosi in teologia, fu preso da una crisi di fede e si orientò verso il panteismo. Par- tecipò a circoli rivoluzionari per cui fu arrestato ed esiliato nel 1833. Si rifugiò in Belgio e in quel periodo si riconciliò con la Chiesa. Passò gli ultimi anni della sua vita a Parigi, dedito allo studio della filosofia, nella povertà e nella solitudine. Gioberti ha gli stessi motivi ispiratori di Rosmini: si vale del- l’idea dell'essere ma sostiene che per salvare l'oggettività dell'idea dell'essere bisogna darle materialità, realtà. Cioè bisogna porre l'a priori non nell’idea dell'essere ideale, ma in quella dell'essere reale, Dio (ontologismo). Dio crea il mondo e opera intrinsecamente allo spirito umano, mentre a Dio il mondo ritorna grazie al progresso umano (l'ente crea l'esistente, l'esistente ritorna all'ente). Gioberti ha anche studiato la realizzazione di un piano per l’unità e l’indipenden- za d'Italia. Opere principali: Teoria del sovrannaturale (1838); Introduzione allo studio della filosofia (1840); Del bello (1841); Del primato morale e civile degli italiani (1843); Del buono (1843); Del rinnovamento civile d'Italia (1851). Giovanni Damasceno (675-750) ‘Dottore della Chiesa (di lingua greca), santo. Nacque a Damasco e morì probabilmente a Gerusalemme. Discendente da una nobile e ricca famiglia arabo-cristiana (suo padre era ministro del tesoro presso la corte del Califfo) ebbe un'eccellente educazione letteraria e filosofica. Consacrato prete da Giovanni V patriarca di Gerusalemme si ritirò nel monastero di San Saba in Palestina e si dedicò soprat- tutto all'insegnamento della sacra Scrittura e della teologia e si adoperò sia con la parola sia con gli scritti per la difesa del culto delle immagini sacre (opponendosi coraggiosamente all’iconoclastia). È stato per lungo tempo uno dei pilastri della teologia della Chiesa cattolica orientale ed anche oggi è un riferimento nel dialogo ecu- menico fra le varie confessioni cristiane. Nella sua sintesi teologica vengono adoperati non pochi elementi filosofici da lui appresi in parte dagli arabi e in parte dai Padri greci. C'è in lui un influsso ari- stotelico nella concezione della logica e della metafisica, e c'è anche un influsso platonico e neoplatonico derivato dallo Pseudo-Dionigi. iLa sua opera maggiore è la Fonte della conoscenza che si suddi- vide in tre parti riguardanti la filosofia (Capitoli filosofici), le eresie (Libro delle eresie) e la fede (Sulla fede ortodossa). Glucksmann André (1937) Laureato in filosofia, fu maoista e partecipò ai movimenti rivolu- 298 zionari del '68. Attualmente lavora al « Centro nazionale per la ri- cerca scientifica ». Critico implacabile del sistema marxista, è im- pegnato in una denuncia sistematica dei crimini sovietici. Nelle sue ultime opere denuncia il carattere disumano del sistema marxista e accusa l’U.R.S.S. di essere una potenza capitalistica, violenta e ter- roristica, di cui il Gulag è l'espressione più terrificante. Tra le molte critiche che Glucksmann muove al marxismo la più radicale è quella con cui gli contesta di essere un sistema socialista. Opere principali: Il discorso della guerra (1967); La cuoca e il mangiauomini (1977); I padroni del pensiero (1978); L'atto antitota- litario (1983). Gramsci Antonio (1891-1937) Uomo politico e pensatore italiano; nato ad Ales (Cagliari) si tra- sferì successivamente a Torino, dove interruppe gli studi letterari per dedicarsi alla vita politica. Nel 1921 con Bordiga e Tasca fondò a Livorno il Partito Comunista Italiano, di cui divenne segretario nel 1924. Arrestato dai fascisti e condannato a 20 anni di carcere, morì nel 1937 in una clinica, dopo undici tormentati e dolorosi anni di prigionia. Il pensiero filosofico di Gramsci si articola intorno al superamen- to del dilemma idealismo o marxismo; alla fondazione della filosofia della prassi, in cui risalta il carattere storicistico del conoscere e il suo carattere pratico; e infine alla dimensione storica quale tratto qualificante della filosofia della prassi. Gramsci recupera inoltre la conoscenza come creatività e non solo come rispecchiamento della realtà. Riguardo al problema politico l'ideologia gramsciana si snoda lungo le seguenti direttrici: 1) il potere va conquistato attraverso una guerra di posizione che sottragga alla classe dirigente prima il consenso e poi il dominio; 2) la rivoluzione non è violenta ma cultu- rale; nel progetto rivoluzionario gramsciano il cristiano deve giun- gere ad abbandonare la sua religione per accedere a forme più ri- spondenti al divenire storico; 3) ogni nazione ha diritto di realizzare il proprio stato socialista conforme alla propria storia, cultura e tradizioni; 4) il Partito comunista è il Nuovo Principe: esso è la fonte di ogni potere, di ogni diritto, di ogni legge; la sua attività è essenzialmente morale. Realizzatori della guerra di posizione e successivamente del rap- porto tra il Nuovo :Principe e la base proletaria sono « gli intellet- tuali organici », prima interpreti della rivoluzione culturale e suc- cessivamente garanti del consenso ideologico. Gramsci appare sensibile al problema religioso che considera la grande utopia delle classi subalterne. Come la metafisica, essa è or- mai superata dal comunismo che ha pienamente compiuto il processo di secolarizzazione del mondo moderno. Opere principali: gli scritti di Gramsci sono distinti in due 299 periodi: a) Scritti giovanili (1914-1918); L'Ordine Nuovo (1912-1920); Socialismo e fascismo (1921-1922); La costruzione del Partito Co- munista (1923-1926); b) Quaderni del carcere, scritti durante la pri- gionia. Guardini Romano (1885-1968) Filosofo e teologo tedesco, di origine italiana (nacque a Verona), conoscitore profondo della storia moderna, fu il primo a coprire la cattedra di Weltanschauung cattolica all'università di Berlino. Allon- tanato -dall'insegnamento dal nazismo, lo riprese dopo la seconda guerra mondiale prima a Tubinga e poi a Monaco sino alla morte. In base al concetto di opposizione polare Guardini afferma che ogni concetto fondamentale è distinto da un aliro, ma al tempo stes- so lo presuppone e lo implica, poiché nessun elemento pilò essere pensato senza il suo opposto. Il mondo storico è concepito da Guardini come il concreto viven- te, ed è essenzialmente mondo della cultura, mondo dell’uomo. Convinto della crisi dell'età moderna, si impegna a riaffermare il principio cattolico della unità e collaborazione tra fede e ragione, convalidata dalla tesi della polarità. In base a tale tesi, Guardini ela- bora una serie di binomi capaci di descrivere la struttura della real- tà: atto-struttura, immanenza-trascendenza, unità-pluralità, affinità- distinzione, originalità-regola. Egli riscontra inoltre la crisi del mondo moderno in tre settori principali: quello della natura, quello del soggetto, quello della cul- tura. La natura viene percepita come estraneità, il soggetto è pri- gioniero della massa e delle macchine, la cultura ha perduto la sua credibilità per lo scacco storico delle sue convinzioni. Guardini abbozza, pertanto, il progetto di una « nuova società » e di una nuova cultura sulla base della riaffermazione del valore assoluto della persona; del controllo della potenza; del coraggio del- la verità; della libertà dello spirito. Opere principali di carattere filosofico: L'opposizione polare (Sag- gio per una filosofia del concreto vivente) (1925); La fede nella ri- flessione (1928); La morte di Socrate. Una interpretazione degli scrit- ti di Platone: Eutifrone, Apologia, Critone, Fedone (1943); La fine del- l'epoca moderna (1951); Religione e soprannatura (1958). Habermas Jiirgen (1929) Filosofo e sociologo tedesco, nato a Gummersbach; dopo essersi laureato a Francoforte, si è dedicato a studi e ricerche nell’ambito dell'Istituto per le ricerche sociali di Francoforte fondato da Hork- heimer e di cui egli è il continuatore. Per Habermas, compito di una scienza sociale filosoficamente fon- data, è l'elaborazione del nesso tra teoria e prassi che penetri i meccanismi della comunicazione intersoggettiva, la sua struttura lin- guistica, i processi di creazione del consenso e della legittimazione 300 per raggiungere una Verità che è nel contempo illuminazione pra- tica e formazione di una volontà collettiva. Opere principali: Storia e critica dell'opinione pubblica (1962); Teoria e prassi (1963); Logica delle scienze sociali (1967); Conoscenza e interesse (1968); Tecnica e scienza come ideologia (1968); La crisi della razionalità nel capitalismo maturo (1973); Per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico (1976). Hartmann Nicolai Filosofo tedesco, nato a Riga e morto a Gottinga. Assertore della filosofia dei valori e vigoroso critico del positivismo, aderì all'inizio della sua formazione culturale al criticismo e in seguito alla feno- menologia di Husserl. La sua concezione ontologica dei valori è caratterizzata da una sorta di ultrarealismo platonico: i valori non hanno fondamento né nell'uomo né in Dio, ma in se stessi, sono sussisienti al pari delle Idee di Platone e sono dotati di aseità. In nome dell'autonomia dei valori Hartmann giunge perfino a negare l’esistenza di Dio, poiché la sua esistenza sàrebbe incompa- tibile con la libertà dell'uomo. Opere principali: Principi di una metafisica della conoscenza (1921); La filosofia dell'idealismo tedesco (1923-1929); La costru- zione del mondo reale (1940); Filosofia della natura (1950); Estetica (1953, postuma). Hegel Georg Wilhelm (1770-1831) Nacque a Stoccarda e fece gli studi teologici nel seminario di Tubinga. Nel 1801 fu nominato professore presso l'università di Jena, poi insegnò ad Heidelberg e infine a Berlino dove ottenne gran- de successo. Morì di colera a 61 anni. Hegel è uno dei protagonisti della filosofia contemporanea ed elaborò l’idealismo logico e storico. Egli si inserisce nel recupero romantico del concreto e del reale, ma per attuarlo radicalmente. Si impegna a coniugare la valorizzazione della creatività del pensiero e della libertà con l'esigenza di fondare razionalmente la realtà, in- tesa come costruzione logica del mondo; perviene così all'esito fi- nale del processo storico culturale moderno: un umanesimo asso- luto che sfocerà, dopo Hegel, in un ateismo assoluto (l’uomo è il fon- damento immanente delle realtà). Scopo della filosofia hegeliana è, quindi, la comprensione razio- nale del mondo e della storia, caratterizzati dalla presenza del ne- gativo e dalla nostalgia dell'armonia perduta. La storia è caratteriz- zata dalla scissione: essere-non essere; bene-male; infinito-finito; Dio-mondo. La consapevolezza di queste realtà fa dell'uomo una « co- scienza infelice », che tende a liberarsi della contraddizione. Per Hegel la realtà è Idea (tutto ciò che è razionale è reale e tutto ciò che è reale è razionale). Da questa affermazione deriva il nome 301 dato alla filosofia di Hegel di idealismo logico. L'unico metodo ade- guato per lo studio di una realtà in perpetuo divenire è quello della logica speculativa o dialettica. Esso è costituito di tre momenti: tesi, antitesi e sintesi. La tesi è il momento dell'essere in sé, l’antitesi è il momento dell'essere extra sé, la sintesi è il momento del ricongiungimento delle due parti poste dalla tesi e dell'anti- tesi in un unico tutto che annulla le imperfezioni dei momenti pre- cedenti mentre ne conserva la positività. Lo studio della triade fondamentale riconduce alle tre parti principali del sistema hege- liano: logica o studio dell'idea in sé, filosofia della natura, filosofia dello spirito, forma in cui l'idea si attua pienamente, ritornando in sé dall’alienazione della natura. Anche la vita dello spirito si svolge dialetticamente in tre momenti: spirito soggettivo (o indi- viduale), oggettivo (o sociale) e assoluto (che si attua nelle opere artistiche, religiose, filosofiche). Per Hegel la religione è mito e la teologia è mitologia. Egli sva- luta la Rivelazione e afferma l’esigenza di una religione nazionale sul modello di quella della polis greca. In una fase successiva Hegel com- pie un'autocorrezione, rivalutando la prospettiva storico-filosofica del cristianesimo come espressione del «rapporto dialettico » tra universale-particolare, pensiero-vita, infinito-finito. L'amore cristia- no si presenta come il superamento di ogni dualismo. Supera in tal modo la « dialettica servo-signore » del giudaismo e si presenta come sintesi Dio-mondo. Hegel considera il suo pensiero come sintesi del pensiero occiden- tale da Talete a Schelling. La sua critica si rivolge in particolare al- l'impostazione kantiana della cosa in sé e alla scissione tra sfera teoretica e sfera pratica. Per Hegel la storia è lo studio delle manifestazioni dello spirito oggettivo. Essa è la manifestazione progressiva dell’assoluto; in es- sa tutto quanto avviene ha un carattere razionale. Il male è solo un momento della dialettica della ragione. Per manifestare se stesso nella storia, lo spirito si vale dello Stato e della nazione: la storia si esprime nelle successive egemonie dei popoli. Opere principali: Scritti teologici giovanili (Religione popolare e cristianesimo; La vita di Gesù; La positività della religione cri- stiana; Lo spirito del cristianesimo e il suo destino) (1797-1800); Fenomenologia dello spirito (1807); Scienza della logica (tre volumi scritti tra il 1812 e il 1816); Enciclopedia delle scienze filosofiche in compendio (1817); Lineamenti di filosofia del diritto (1821). Infine quattro opere postume: Filosofia della storia; Estetica; Filosofia della religione; Storia della filosofia. Heidegger Martin (1889-1976) Nacque a Messkirch, in Germania. Si avviò verso la carriera sa- cerdotale che poi interruppe. Fu discepolo di Husserl. Nel 1928 ebbe la cattedra di filosofia all'università di Friburgo, come succes- 302 sore del suo maestro Husserl. Durante il periodo nazista si ritirò dall'insegnamento e lo riprese dopo la guerra. La prima speculazione di Heidegger, che è il massimo esponente del movimento esistenzialista, ed uno dei maggiori filosofi del nostro secolo, è diretta alla soluzione del problema dell'essere. Porta di accesso all'essere è l’uomo. Nell'uomo vi sono alcuni tratti fondamentali caratteristici del suo essere, o esistenzia- li: essere-nel-mondo, esistenza (essere fuori di sé), temporalità. Tra i primi due esistenziali, essere-nel-mondo e esistenza c'è aperto contrasto: l’uno incatena l’uomo al passato, l’altro lo proietta verso il futuro. A seconda che l'uomo si lasci guidare dal primo o dal secondo la sua vita sarà inautentica o autentica. La prima è quella di assuefazione al mondo, la seconda è quella interiore che conduce colui che vive in vista della morte. Secondo Heidegger la morte ap- partiene alla struttura fondamentale dell'uomo, perché è solo nella morte che l’uomo conquista la totalità della sua vita. L'uomo diventa consapevole della sua soggezione alla morte nell’angoscia che è un'al- tra disposizione fondamentale del suo essere. L'essere è ciò che fa presente l’ente e ciò che in esso si manifesta: ma l'essere è indicibile. L'uomo è « il custode dell'essere », ma non gli è dato sapere come avvenga il costituirsi dell'ente per mezzo dell'essere. La manifesta- zione dell'essere si realizza attraverso il linguaggio. Opere principali: Essere e tempo (1927); Kant e il problema della metafisica (1929); Dell'essenza del fondamento (1929); La dot- trina platonica della verità (1947); Introduzione alla metafisica (1953); Il principio di ragion sufficiente (1957); Nietzsche (1961); La tesi di Kant sull'essere (1963); Tempo ed essere (1968); Il trattato di Schelling sull'essenza della libertà umana (1971). Herbart Johann Friedrich (1776-1841) Filosofo e pedagogista tedesco. Discepolo di Fichte e Schiller si orientò nella linea di pensiero idealistica, che ben presto criticò e superò elaborando la sua concezione filosofica di un pluralismo rea- listico immobilistico, in cui riserva particolare attenzione ai pro- blemi pedagogici. Esercitò l'insegnamento universitario a Gottinga e poi a Kénigsberg, dove fondò un seminario di pedagogia e una scuola sperimentale. Herbart sostiene che la filosofia è analisi critica dell'esperienza e superamento delle sue coniraddizioni. L'esperienza ci dà una pluralità di esseri mutevoli, mentre l'essere è sempre se stes- so, unico e immobile. Alla base della sua concezione pedagogica vi è l’idea di istruzione educativa, tesa a promuovere la plurilateralità, il complesso delle tendenze e delle attitudini dell'’educando, senza al- terare le proporzioni e la forma dell’individualità, senza indebolire la forza del carattere. Opere principali: Manuale di psicologia; Pedagogia dedotta dal fine dell'educazione; Disegno di lezioni di pedagogia; Metafisica ge- nerale secondo i principi della filosofia della natura. 303 Herder Johann Gottfried (1744-1803) Filosofo, teologo e letterato tedesco, nato a Mohrungen e morto a Weimar. Studiò teologia a Kénigsberg, avendo come maestro Kant. Dopo essere stato alcuni anni a Riga, in Lettonia, come predi- catore, andò in Francia e di lì, per interessamento di Goethe, si tra- sferì come pastore di corte a Weimar, dove rimase sino alla morte, salvo il periodo di viaggio in Italia nel 1788-1789. Scrisse moltis- simo in vari campi e può essere ricordato come uno dei testimoni maggiori di quella stagione della cultura tedesca che costituisce il suo periodo aureo. In filosofia i campi che coltivò con maggiore successo furono l'estetica, la storia, la linguistica. Nell’estetica af- ferma la relatività della nozione di bellezza. Nella storia egli vede una rivelazione divina: natura e storia, a suo parere lavorano secondo il disegno di Dio per l'educazione dell'umanità. Infine, per quanto concerne la linguistica, Herder considera il linguaggio come espres- sione spontanea della soggettività: essa può essere intesa sia come prodotto della sensazione immediata, sia come opera della « rifles- sione ». Il linguaggio è quindi un fattore nella costruzione sintetica della coscienza, ed occupa un posto fondamentale sia nella costru- zione sia nella espressione della cultura di un popolo. Opere principali: Saggio sull'origine del linguaggio; Il conoscere e il sentire dell'anima umana; Idee per la filosofia della storia del- l'umanità. Hobbes Thomas (1588-1679) Nato in Inghilterra, conobbe Galilei e (Cartesio e ne subì gli influssi culturali. Fece lunghi viaggi in Francia e in Italia. Hobbes apre la serie dei grandi filosofi inglesi del XVII secolo, le cui principali caratteristiche sono empirismo e politicità. Per Hobbes l’unica sostanza è la materia: ad essa si riporta ogni essere come al puro e trascendentale principio del suo esistere. La cono- scenza si basa esclusivamente sull'esperienza. È bene ciò che causa piacere, male ciò che procura dolore. Nel Leviathan, apologia del- l'assolutismo, sostiene che lo Stato nasce da un volontario assogget- tamento degli uomini a un sovrano, in cui si accentrano tutti i di- ritti, per uscire dallo stato di natura, in cui regna una lotta sel- vaggia tra gli altri uomini (homo homini lupus). Opere principali: Elementi di legge naturale e politica (1640); Obiezioni alle « Meditazioni » di Cartesio (1641); De cive (1642); Le- viatano (1651); De corpore (1655); De homine (1658); Behemoth (1670). Horkheimer Max (1895-1973) Fondatore e animatore della « Scuola di Francoforte », il cui cen- tro principale è l'« Istituto per le Ricerche Sociali ». L'Istituto seguì Horkheimer quando questi emigrò a Parigi e, durante la seconda guerra mondiale, a New York. Fece ritorno a Francoforte insieme 304 col suo fondatore nel 1950. Il nucleo della Scuola di Francoforte era costituito oltre che da Horkheimer, da Adorno, Fromm e Marcuse. Per la sua formazione filosofica Horkheimer si colloca lungo l'e- redità del marxismo occidentale. Ma dal punto di vista politico la sua posizione era totalmente eccentrica, in quanto non intendeva avere rapporto alcuno con le organizzazioni di partito. Horkheimer e la sua scuola concentrarono le ricerche sulla società e sulle sue istituzioni, sviluppando una teoria critica anziché un progetto utopistico come avevano fatto Marx e Engels. La teoria critica si propone di smascherare le ingiustizie, i mali, le deviazioni, le lacune che affliggono la società in un determinato momento storico. Da Marx accetta le seguenti tesi: priorità della prassi; priorità della società sull’individuo; negazione della metafisica. In altri punti si discosta dal marxismo: socialismo e politica del partito comunista non coincidono; la dialettica ha un dominio più vasto; la religione merita un giudizio più favorevole. La società è un fenomeno storico e dinamico. La società contem- poranea affonda le sue radici nell’illuminismo; ma questo, nel com- battere il mito, prende esso stesso la forma di mito. La ragione è arte- fice e vittima dei mali provocati dall’illuminismo (manipolazione e dominio dell’uomo sull'uomo). L'ideale che Horkheimer assegna alla società è la felicità di tutti gli individui in questo mondo, in una concezione rigorosamente storicistica e immanentistica. Più tardi il filosofo accoglierà un'apertura teologica, verso la nostalgia di una perfetta e consumata giustizia. Opere principali: Autorità e famiglia (1936); Dialettica dell'illu- minismo (1944); Eclisse della ragione (1947); Studi sul pregiudizio (1950); Teoria critica (1968); La società di transizione (1972). Humboldt Karl Wilhelm von (1767-1835) Filosofo, linguista, letterato tedesco, nato a Postdam e morto a Tegel. Ebbe una educazione illuminista; si specializzò in giurispru- denza a Francoforte e a Gottinga. Dopo una breve permanenza a Parigi nel periodo della rivoluzione, si trasferì a Jena, dove divenne amico di Schiller e Goethe. Dal 1802 al 1809 fu a Roma come rap- presentante del re di Frussia presso il Papa. Rientrato a Berlino si occupò della strutturazione della nuova università. ‘Il nome di Humboldt è legato soprattutto alle sue profonde ricer- che nel campo della linguistica. Egli ha portato avanti le ricerche iniziate da Herder e con lui è il maggior rappresentante della filo- sofia romantica tedesca. Per lui il linguaggio è sintesi di dati ogget- tivi e di elementi soggettivi (tesi ripresa da Kant, che però l'aveva applicata al fenomeno della conoscenza); esso è, poi, parziale ri- flesso della totalità oggettiva nelle lingue particolari. La lingua, per Humboldt, non è opera compiuta, bensì attività: la sua definizione non può essere altro che genetica. Essa costituisce un importante 305 documento di identificazione per quelli che sono i tratti caratteri- stici di un popolo. Opere principali: Sull'origine delle forme grammaticali e il loro influsso sulle idee; Sulla differenza della struttura linguistica del- l'uomo e sulla sua influenza sullo sviluppo spirituale del genere umano. Hume Nacque ad Edimburgo, in Scozia. Nel 1735, si recò in Francia per continuare gli studi. Partecipò all'attività politica e fu segre- tario dell'ambasciata in Olanda, Italia, Austria. Nel 1756 tornò in Francia. Fu amico di Rousseau, con cui poi venne a rottura. Fu an- che sottosegretario di stato. Hume è sostenitore di un empirismo radicale. Principio fonda- mentale della sua filosofia è il principio di immanenza, interpretato empiristicamente: l’unica fonte di conoscenza è l’esperienza e l’og- getto dell'esperienza non è la cosa esterna ma la sua rappresenta- zione. In base a questo principio le rappresentazioni o impressioni costituiscono il dato ultimo della conoscenza umana. Hume trasfor- ma quindi l’empirismo in fenomenismo. Critica il rapporto di cau- salità in quanto la relazione tra causa ed effetto non è necessaria, ma nasce dall'esperienza. L'esistenza di Dio non è dimostrabile. Dio rimane un'ipotesi e un atto di fede. La morale è improntata a un utilitarismo altruista: è buono ciò che è utile e perciò approvato dalla società; è cattivo ciò che è dannoso e perciò condannato dalla società. Le passioni sono impressioni riflesse, connesse alle idee di sensazione. Le principali sono: orgoglio-umiltà, amore-odio. La virtù è un'attività conforme a quella particolare specie di passioni che causano piacere. Opere principali: Trattato sulla natura umana (1739-1740); Saggi morali e politici (1741); Ricerca sull’intelletto umano (1748); Ricer- ca sui principi della morale (1751); Discorsi politici (1752); Quattro dissertazioni (1757); Dialoghi sulla religione naturale (1779). Husserl Edmund (1859-1938) Nacque a Prossnitz, in Germania. Laureatosi in scienze matema- tiche a Berlino, si trasferì per alcuni anni a Vienna. Rientrato in Germania, insegnò filosofia all'università di Gottinga e di Friburgo fino all'avvento del nazismo. È il fondatore della Scuola fenomenologica. La fenomenologia studia l'oggetto quale si manifesta nella sua effettiva realtà, assoluta- mente puro. Il metodo fenomenologico consta di due momenti prin- cipali, negativo e positivo. Quello negativo, chiamato da Husserl epoché o riduzione fenomenologica è quello in cui si isola l’oggetto (fenomeno) da tutto ciò che non gli è proprio perché possa svelarsi nella sua purezza. Il momento positivo è quello in cui lo sguardo del- 306 l'intelligenza si dirige verso la cosa stessa e si immerge in essa e lascia che si manifesti. Mediante l'elaborazione del metodo fenomenologico, Husserl ha offerto un apporto decisivo allo sviluppo dell’esistenzialismo, for- nendogli un metodo di indagine che rispondeva perfettamente alla sua esigenza, quella di effettuare un'analisi minuziosa dell’esperien- za umana. Opere principali: Filosofia dell’aritmetica (1891); Idee per una fenomenologia pura e una filosofia fenomenologica (in tre volumi, di cui il primo nel 1913 e gli altri due posiumi nel 1952); Logica for- male e trascendentale (1929). Molte opere postume: Meditazioni car- tesiane (1950); La crisi delle scienze europee e la fenomenologia tra- scendentale (1954); Mondo, io e tempo (1955); Filosofia prima (1956); Psicologia fenomenologica (1962); Analisi delle sintesi passive (1966). James William (1842-1910) Nato a New York, fu per molti anni titolare delle cattedre di filo- sofia e psicologia all'università di Harvard, dove fondò uno dei primi laboratori di psicologia sperimentale. Rappresentante del pragma- tismo, James dette a questa corrente di pensiero un carattere marca- tamente volontaristico. Nell'uomo la facoltà principale non è la ragione ma la volontà; perciò una dottrina viene accolta non perché la ragione la riconosce come vera, ma perché la volontà la trova utile al conseguimento di un determinato obiettivo (pragmatismo). Il mondo è costituito da un insieme di parti che non armonizzano perfettamente tra loro. In questa concezione è evidente il pluralismo di James il quale difende anche l’individualismo. Opere principali: Principi di psicologia (1890); La volontà di cre- dere e altri saggi di filosofia popolare (1897); Le varietà dell'esperien- za religiosa (1902); Pragmatismo (1907); Il significato della verità (1909); Un universo pluralistico (1909); Alcuni problemi di filosofia (1911, postumi); Saggi sull’empirismo radicale (1912, postumi). Jaspers Karl (1883-1969) Scienziato, psicologo e filosofo tedesco, Jaspers fu uno dei massi- mi esponenti dell’esistenzialismo. Nacque a Oldemburg in Germania. Insegnò per molti anni filosofia nell'università di Heidelberg. Costret- to dal regime nazionalsocialista ad abbandonare la cattedra, riprese l'insegnamento universitario nel 1945. Nel 1947 si trasferì a Basi- lea dove insegnò e risiedette sino alla morte. La sua filosofia ha come punto di partenza la distinzione tra esserci (Dasein) ed esistenza (Existenz). L'esserci è la realtà empi- rica, la vita naturale dell'uomo soggetia alle leggi del tempo e dello spazio e esposta allo studio preciso delle scienze sperimentali. L'esi- stenza è la capacità dell'uomo di superare costantemente la situa- zione, il suo trovarsi sempre sistematicamente fuori di sé, oltre se 307 stesso. L'esistenza autotrascendendosi non si dissolve nel nulla, ma si muove verso l'orizzonte dell'essere, il quale mi circonda da tutte le parti: è l'’onnicomprensivo (das Umgreifende). Senonché alla ra- gione umana resta impossibile determinare il senso di tale orienta- mento. Questo può esser svelato soltanto dalla fede. Opere principali: Psicopatologia generale (1913); Psicologia delle visioni del mondo (1919); Filosofia (1932); Ragione ed esistenza (1935); Nietzsche (1936); Descartes e la filosofia (1937); Filosofia del- l'esistenza (1938); Il problema della colpa (1946); Sulla verità (1948); La fede filosofica (1948); Introduzione alla filosofia (1950); I grandi fi losofi (1957); Ragione e libertà (1959); La fede filosofica di fronte alla rivelazione (1962). Jung Carl Gustav (1875-1961) ‘Psichiatra svizzero, fondatore della psicologia analitica, nato a Kesswil e morto a Kiisnacht. Conseguita la laurea in medicina, en- tra nel 1900 in qualità di assistente nell'ospedale psichiatrico di Zurigo. Dopo vari anni di ricerche giunge alla conclusione che per comprendere le manifestazioni psicotiche occorre soprattutto tener conto della storia individuale del malato. Nel 1907 pubblica la Psico- logia della demenza precoce nella quale formula l'ipotesi dell'origine psichica della schizofrenia, interpretando il comportamento e il linguaggio del malato come espressione di fantasie inconsce che hanno sostituito completamente l’attività della coscienza. Nel 1912 pubblica la Trasformazione e simboli della libido che segna la defi- nitiva differenziazione del pensiero di Jung da quello di Freud, dif- ferenziazione che riguarda tutti i punti fondamentali della psicana- lisi: il concetto di inconscio, la libido, la funzione dei simboli, il metodo terapeutico. Queste tesi, Jung le riprende e sviluppa ulterior- mente nelle opere successive: Tipi psicologici; Energetica dell'anima; L'io e l'inconscio; Psicologia e religione. In quest'ultima opera Jung, diversamente da Freud, riconosce l'importanza della religione nella vita dell'individuo e della società e vede in essa una profonda esi- genza della natura umana stessa: questa ha bisogno e si serve della religione per dare espressione simbolica alle sue ricchezze interiori. Ma a parere di Jung, « una dottrina intorno a Dio nel senso di un'esistenza non psicologica non può essere sostenuta ». Kant Immanuel (1724-1804) Nacque a Kénigsberg (Prussia). Studiò filosofia, matematica e teologia all'università della sua città natale. Fu precettore presso alcune famiglie patrizie. Nel 1755 ebbe la libera docenza e nel 1770 ottenne la nomina a professore ordinario di logica e metafisica all’uni- versità di Kònigsberg. Nel 1794 il re di Prussia gli proibiva, con una lettera, di insegnare le idee critiche nei confronti della religione. Kant si adeguò e non tenne più corsi sulla filosofia della religione. Morì nella sua città natale che non aveva mai abbandonato. 308 La filosofia di Kant non parte dal presupposto che ci sia una realtà esteriore preordinata, ma che la realtà è costruzione nostra, in quan- to soggetti intelligenti. L’atto conoscitivo è sintesi a priori di due elementi: contenuto e forma; la forma è fornita dal soggetto, il contenuto dalle cose. Vi sono tre gradi nel processo del pensiero: ap- prensione, giudizio e raziocinio. Il contenuto del I grado è il com- plesso dei dati sensoriali, la forma è l'ordinamento che ne facciamo nello spazio e nel tempo. Il risultato che è una sintesi di carattere sensibile, o apprensione, serve di contenuto del secondo grado di conoscenza, di cui la forma è l'elaborazione secondo alcuni criteri intellettivi che Kant chiama categorie. Ne derivano i giudizi o sintesi concettuali. Questi primi due gradi dell'attività conoscitiva si inte- grano a vicenda. Nel raziocinio si hanno tre idee regolatrici dell’atti- vità stessa: anima, mondo e Dio. Anche questa attività è unificatrice, anzi è quella che tende alla sintesi suprema: ma questa non è mai realizzabile obiettivamente. Pertanto la metafisica, tradizionalmente intesa, non è possibile come scienza positiva. La reale conoscenza u- mana è limitata all'esperienza sensibile. Per Kant i postulati della vita morale sono tre: l’esistenza-di Dio, l'immortalità dell'anima, la libertà. La prima formula del dovere morale o imperativo categorico è: Agisci sempre ed esclusivamente per amore della legge, prescindendo da qualsiasi risultato utile o dannoso. Nella terza opera fondamentale (Critica del giudizio) Kant tratta dei giudizi fondati sul finalismo, che riconosciamo nella nostra vita e nella natura e dei giudizi estetici, che sorgono spontanei dalla ripercussione nel nostro spirito di tale riconoscimento. I meriti maggiori della filosofia kantiana sono il tentativo di uscire dal ristagno del razionalismo e dell'empirismo, il riconosci- mento della ragione pratica e del « sentimento ». Inoltre è riuscito a dare espressione filosofica alla Weltanschauung del popolo germanico, che è caratterizzata da una profonda coscienza del dovere e dal culto per la legge e per la disciplina, dall'amore per la natura. Opere principali: Storia universale della natura e teoria del cielo (1755); Monadologia physica (1756); Studio sull'evidenza dei prin- cipi della teologia naturale e della morale (1764); Osservazioni sul sentimento del bello e del sublime (1764); Critica della ragion pura (1781); Prolegomeni ad ogni futura metafisica che voglia presentarsi come scienza (1783); Primi principi metafisici della scienza del- la natura (1786); Critica della ragion pratica (1787); Critica del giu- dizio (1790); La religione nei limiti della semplice ragione (1793); La fine di tutte le cose (1794); Metafisica dei costumi (1797). Kautsky Karl (1854-1939) Filosofo e uomo politico tedesco, nato a Praga e morto ad Amsterdam, compì i suoi studi a Vienna. Conobbe personalmente Marx e dopo avere diretto nel 1883 Neue Zeit (Tempo Nuovo), la ri- vista teorica della socialdemocrazia tedesca, redasse il Programma 309 di Erfurt (1891) e il suo commento al Programma del Partito social. democratico costituì la formulazione di piena ortodossia per gli aderenti alla Seconda Internazionale in contrasto con l’ala revisio- nista di Bernstein. Kautsky opera una sintesi tra l'evoluzionismo darwiniano e l’or- todossia marxista. Il suo socialdarwinismo è elaborato a partire dalla sua concezione di dialettica intesa naturalisticamente come intera- zione organismo-ambiente. Egli si interroga se la storia dell'umanità non sia in fondo un caso particolare della storia degli esseri viventi. Nonostante la sua pretesa ortodossia fu spietato critico del bolsce- vismo che accusò di dittatura personale. ” Opere principali: Le dottrine economiche di Karl Marx (1887); Etica e concezione materialistica della storia (1906); La rivoluzione sociale (1909); La concezione materialistica della storia (1927). Kierkegaard Sòren (1813-1855) Nacque a Copenaghen, nel 1840 si laureò in teologia a Berlino. Visse sempre a Copenaghen. Fu un filosofo ripiegato totalmente su se stesso, sulle riflessioni del suo intimo, incentrate soprattutto su tre grandi fatti: il suo rapporto con il padre; il tormento da lui chia- mato « pungolo della carne » e la sua breve relazione sentimentale con Regina Olsen. Fu critico efficace del sistema hegeliano e del cristianesimo uffi- ciale, da lui accusato di formalismo. Obiettivo della sua filosofia è quello di riabilitare i concetti di « esistere » e di « interiorità » facen- doli gravitare intorno alla categoria fondamentale di singolo, ovvero l'uomo nel concreto della sua specificità. Secondo Kierkegaard la drammatica complessità dell'esistenza non può essere giustificata al- l'interno di un sistema logico totalizzante, cui si sottraggono la pre- carietà e la sofferenza della persona, ma può trovare il proprio senso solo nella realtà di ogni singolo e nella dialettica delle sue scelte di vita, in una continua alternanza di scelte, dominate dall'angoscia, e regolate o dalla decisione per il piacere traseunte ed egoistico (stadio esistenziale estetico o del Don Giovanni); o dal senso del dovere e dell'impegno personale (stadio etico o del padre di famiglia) o dall'ab- bandono incondizionato all'imperscrutabile volontà di Dio con un atto di fede senza ritorno (stadio religioso o di Abramo). Dio è l’Es- sere ed ha due modi di manifestarsi: naturale e soprannaturale. Sulla scia di una radicale prospettiva luterana, Kierkegaard espri- me la consapevolezza che tra Dio e uomo, tra natura divina e natura umana vi è una infinita differenza qualitativa, cosicché la conoscenza religiosa finisce per manifestarsi come passione per l'infinito. La mancanza di garanzia oggettiva fa sì che la fede sia vissuta come un rischio, ma la sua accettazione non è irrazionale. Il salto dalla inno- cenza al peccato non è spiegabile con la dialettica « quantitativa » di Hegel; esso si spiega con la dialettica « qualitativa ». Nella storia di Adamo è delineata la sequenza dall’innocenza alla colpa. La coscienza 310 del peccato costituisce il singolo; ma Cristo ha liberato l’uomo dal peccato senza privarlo della individualità. Opere principali: Sul concetto dell’ironia con particolare riguardo a Socrate (1841); Aut-aut (1843); Timore e tremore (1843); La ripresa (1843); Briciole di filosofia (1844); Il concetto dell'angoscia (1844); Stadi del cammino della vita (1845); La malattia mortale (1849); Esercizio del cristianesimo (1850); Discorsi edificanti. Opere po- stume: Diari; Libro su Adler; La dialettica della comunicazione etica ed etico-religiosa. Korsch Karl (1886-1961) Filosofo tedesco nato a Tostedt, si laureò in giurisprudenza nel 1912. Si iscrisse al Partito Socialdemocratico tedesco indipendente di Kautsky. Nel 1920, alla scissione di questo, entrò nel Partito Comunista filosovietico. A causa del nazismo abbandonò la Germa- nia e più tardi si trasferì negli Stati Uniti dove morì a Cambridge, nel Massachussets. Le sue critiche colpirono soprattutto la teoria gnoseologica del rispecchiamento di Lenin, secondo la quale la coscienza di classe sa- rebbe estrinseca alla prassi proletaria. Ciò farebbe della dittatura di Lenin una dittatura sul proletariato e non una dittatura del pro- letariato. Korsch tende inoltre a recuperare la dimensione hegeliana della totalità, valutando criticamente la « scientificità » del Capitale, che tende a separare economia, politica è cultura. Opere principali: Marxismo e filosofia (1923; l’opera che ne decre- tò l'espulsione dal Partito); Il materialismo storico (1929); Karl Marx. Labriola Filosofo italiano, nato a Cassino, docente successivamente di filosofia morale e pedagogia e quindi di filosofia della storia a Roma, dove morì; introdusse lo studio del marxismo in Italia. Ebbe rap- porti diretti con Engels e fu critico di Bernstein e Sorel. In base al metodo genetico egli guarda alle cose non più come entità fisse, ma come funzioni. Inoltre, con un deciso atteggiamento di distinzione tra marxismo e naturalismo positivista, egli differenzia un « terreno naturale » da un « terreno artificiale »: gli uomini sono originariamente dipendenti dalla natura, ma la storia dell'umanità è la storia della società che varia ad opera del comune impegno del lavoro umano. Opere principali: il suo pensiero è elaborato in tre saggi fonda-' mentali: In memoria del manifesto dei comunisti (1895); Del mate- rialismo storico. Delucidazione preliminare (1896); Discorrendo di socialismo e di filosofia (1898). Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716) Nato a Lipsia, partecipò alla vita politica, ottenendo incarichi di- 311 plomatici. Studiò filosofia all'università di Lipsia e matematica a Jena. Scoprì ii calcolo infinitesimale contemporaneamente a Newton e inventò il regolo calcolatore. Dietro suo consiglio fu fondata a Berlino l’« Accademia della Scienza », di cui fu il primo presidente. Fu a Parigi, dove propugnò la riunificazione della Chiesa cattolica con quelle protestanti. Questa missione lo impegnò per tutta la vita. La sua fine fu solitaria e triste. La filosofia di Leibniz si presenta come reazione al dualismo car- tesiano e all'empirismo inglese. È reazione al dualismo cartesiano in nome dell'unità degli esseri (ogni essere è essenzialmente uno: una monade, centro di attività e di energia, che riproduce in se stessa la struttura di tutta la realtà); non esistono due sostanze, quella spirituale e quella materiale; ma una sola: quella spirituale. È inol- tre reazione all’empirismo inglese in nome dell'originalità della cono- scenza intellettiva che non è una semplice reazione passiva alle idee dei sensi, ma lo sviluppo di idee che l'intelletto ha già germinalmente presenti sin dalla nascita (idee innate). Le facoltà conoscitive del- l'uomo sono: senso, memoria, ragione. Le conoscenze della ragione si dividono in verità di ragione (principio di non contraddizione) e verità di fatto (principio di ragione sufficiente). L'esistenza di Dio è provata con il procedimento ontologico, par- tendo dal concetto di possibilità; da ‘Dio trae origine il mondo per folgorazione. La perfezione delle creature viene da Dio, l’imper- fezione dalla loro limitazione, in cui sta anche la causa del male. Opere principali: De arte combinatoria (1666); Discorso di meta- fisica (1686); Nuovo sistema della natura, della comunicazione tra le sostanze e dell'unione tra l'anima e il corpo (1695); Nuovi saggi sul- l'intelletto umano (1703); Saggi di teodicea (1710); Principi della na- tura e della grazia fondati sulla ragione (1714); Monadologia (1714). Lenin Nikolay (1870-1924) Pseudonimo di Vladimir Ilijc Uljanov, laureatosi in legge a Pietro- burgo, iniziò la professione legale, svolgendo nel contempo attività politica sulla scorta del pensiero di Marx. Passato attraverso l’espe- rienza dell'esilio, diresse l’ala avanzata del partito socialdemocratico russo chiamato bolscevico. Rientrato in patria allo scoppio della Rivoluzione del '17, dopo l’esperienza parziale della Rivoluzione del 1905, portò al potere il suo partito, le cui linee programmatiche sono contenute nelle cosiddette « tesi di aprile » del 1917: rivendica- zione della rivoluzione socialista (potere ai Soviet), costituzione di una repubblica dei Soviet, nazionalizzazione delle banche e della terra. Capisaldi del pensiero di Lenin sono: 1) il divenire dialettico della materia con la distinzione tra concetto filosofico e concetto scientifico di materia; 2) la partiticità della filosofia in base alla quale sono vere quelle dottrine che sono utili al partito; 3) la ditta- 312 tura del proletariato come forma necessaria per il passaggio dallo stadio del capitalismo a quello del comunismo. Opere principali: L'imperialismo fase estrema del capitalismo (1899); Stato e rivoluzione (1917); L’estremismo, malattia infan- tile del comunismo (1920). La sua opera filosofica più importante è Materialismo ed empirio-criticismo (1909). Lessing Gotthold (1729-1781) Critico drammaturgo e filosofo. Nato a Kamenz, in Sassonia, stu- diò a Lipsia e passò la sua vita fra le città di Breslavia, Berlino e Amburgo. Morì a Brunswick. È la figura più rappresentativa dell'illuminismo tedesco ed è il sostenitore di un radicale razionalismo religioso. Nei suoi scritti fi- losofici, in cui si uniscono motivi illuministici e senso storico, egli ri- prende i motivi comuni dell'illuminismo: critica di tutte le manife- stazioni della cultura, tendenza a « rischiarare le menti » ed a rea- lizzare la felicità dell'umanità; ottimismo, ossia fiducia nella con- tinuità del progresso umano sulla via del suo perfezionamento spi- rituale. Molto influsso ha esercitato la sua svalutazione dell'elemento storico della figura di Cristo e dei Vangeli. A suo parere una decisione di fede e la salvezza eterna non possono dipendere da eventi storici che sono necessariamente contingenti e difficilmente accertabili. Lessing ritiene che l'elemento storico non possa avere l'importanza che le chiese cristiane gli ascrivono e che la fede, considerata come inserimento dell'uomo in una determinata tradizione storica sia qual- cosa di accessorio. L'essenza della religione è comune a tutte le re- ligioni e prescinde dai dogmi delle varie tradizioni cristiane e non cristiane. Opere principali: Sulla genesi della religione rivelata (1735-1755); Il cristianesimo della ragione (1753); Laocoonte (1766); Sulla prova dello spirito e della forza (1777); L'educazione del genere umano (1780); Dialoghi per massoni (1780). Lévinas Emmanuel (1906) Nato in ‘Lituania, ha svolto parte dei suoi studi in Russia e suc- cessivamente a Strasburgo. A Friburgo entrò in contatto con Hus- serl e Heidegger. Naturalizzato francese, insegnò prima a Poitiers e poi alla Sorbona. Da Husserl Lévinas riprende il metodo fenomenologico come ri- chiamo a pensare ciò che è implicito e sottinteso. L’epoché viene utilizzata come superamento dell’ovvietà e ritorno all’originario « prima » del pensiero. L'intenzionalità viene vista da Lévinas nel suo aspetto assiologico, come intenzionalità dei valori morali e fondamento dell'etica. La fenomenologia trascendentale diviene, in- fine, lo strumento principe per l'elaborazione del personalismo etico proprio del filosofo lituano. 313 Tale personalismo è detto propriamente etico-metafisico, poiché l'etica non è, secondo Lévinas, fondata dalla metafisica ma è essa stessa metafisica, capace di fornire una spiegazione esaustiva della realtà umana. Per accedere all’Assoluto, Lévinas parte dalla contingenza della responsabilità, pilastro dell'etica. La via etica è eminentemente auscultazione dell’Assoluto, dell’Infinito, dell'Altro, di Dio, a cui si accede seguendo la traccia del volto dell'altro, il prossimo; quindi dall'altro (il prossimo) si accede al Totalmente-Altro (Dio). Nella nudità e povertà inerme dell'uomo risplende, infatti, la traccia di Dio, fondamento di ogni rapporto etico e di giustizia. L'etica è essenzialmente rapporto con l'altro, esercizio della propria libertà come assunzione della responsabilità dell'altro. La « responsabilità per gli altri » è il principio di individuazione della persona, Nella prospettiva della responsabilità Lévinas conferisce una so- vradeterminazione etica alle categorie ontologiche: essere, ente, to- talità, infinito, differenza divengono elezione, convocazione, sostitu- zione, espiazione, ostaggio, volto. Opere principali: Totalità e infinito (1979); Quattro lettere talmu- diche (1981); Altrimenti che essere o al di là dell'essenza (1982); Etica e infinito (1983); Dal sacro al santo (1984). Lévi-Strauss Claude (1908) Nato a Bruxelles da genitori francesi, dopo gli studi filosofici, a seguito dell'insegnamento presso la cattedra di sociologia di San Paolo, dopo l’esperienza di spedizioni scientifiche in Brasile, ap- prodò allo studio dell'antropologia di cui è uno dei maggiori studiosi. Lo strutturalismo di Lévi-Strauss si fonda sulle premesse lingui- stiche di De Saussure ed egli ritiene che la priorità dello strutturale sul contenuto significativo non sia proprietà esclusiva della lingua, ma è comune a tutte le manifestazioni culturali. Il linguaggio si ri- vela pertanto come il principale elemento della vita culturale. Il metodo strutturale conferisce così all’antropologia culturale un carattere rigorosamente scientifico consentendole di separare certe proprietà in una data serie di fenomeni e nel tentare di sta- bilire definite relazioni fra di loro. Attraverso lo studio dei « sistemi di parentela », Lévi-Strauss ne scoprì l'analogia con i sistemi fonologici. I felici risultati di questi studi indussero lo studioso ad elaborare una antropologia strut- turale completa capace di cogliere al di là della immagine cosciente le infinite possibilità inconscie. L'umanità è un continuo divenire, fondato su un sostrato inalte- rabile: compito dell'antropologia è far emergere questa struttura soggiacente inconscia, che determina anche il formarsi di tutte le diverse forme di società. L'inconscio non ha però una valenza metafisica, è piuttosto la 314 mente collettiva della società che si evolve e si trasforma con la società stessa. Opere principali: Tristi tropici (1955); Antropologia strutturale (1958); Il pensiero selvaggio (1962); Il crudo e il cotto (1964); L'ori- gine delle buone maniere a tavola (1968); Antropologia strutturale due (1973); La via delle maschere (1975). Lévy Bernard-Henry (1949) ‘Autore del libro La barbarie dal volto umano che ebbe grande fortuna e prestigioso rappresentante dei « nuovi filosofi », attacca con grande virulenza il marxismo, giungendo ad identificare lo sta- linismo con il socialismo in senso proprio. Ciò che lo ha indotto a lasciare il marxismo è stata la lettura dell’Arcipelago Gulag di Solzenicyn. A suo modo di vedere la radice delle aberrazioni del socialismo è l'utopia illuministica del progresso, fatta propria da Marx e dai suoi discepoli, eredi e continuatori dell'illuminismo. Lévy sostiene inoltre che il marxismo non è altro che una eari- catura del cristianesimo del quale « va assumendo nel meglio e nel peggio l’integralità della [...] vocazione ». Non diversamente da ciò che avviene nella Chiesa, anche il marxismo si distinguerebbe in un marxismo d'élite e in un marxismo di massa, non meno alienante del cristianesimo. Opere principali: Barbarie dal volto umano (1975); Il testamento di Dio; L'ideologia francese. Locke John (1632-1704) Nato a Wrington in Inghilterra, studiò a Oxford. Da concezioni politiche assolutistiche passò più tardi a posizioni opposte. Accusato di complicità in moti politici fu costretto a esiliare e si rifugiò in Olanda. Il suo pensiero è soprattutto riunito nell'opera « Saggio dell’in- telletto umano » in quattro libri che trattano rispettivamente delle idee innate, del processo della conoscenza, del linguaggio e del valore della conoscenza. Locke critica la dottrina cartesiana delle idee innate. L'anima umana al momento della nascita è una tabula rasa: la conoscenza umana incomincia con l’esperienza sensibile. Vi sono due tipi di idee: idee semplici e idee complesse. L’idea di sostanza è inconoscibile, in quanto supera i limiti della conoscenza sensibile. Quindi l'uomo può conoscere solo l’esistenza delle cose e non la loro essenza. In politica Locke nega lo stato di natura affermato da Hobbes, so- stenendo che gli uomini possono vivere in perfetto accordo. Ammette il contratto sociale da cui nasce lo stato, ma non è una abdicazione ai propri diritti, bensì una delega della loro difesa all'autorità. È an- che assertore della tolleranza e della libertà religiosa. 315 Opere principali: Saggio sulla tolleranza (1667); Epistula de tolerantia (1688); Trattati sul governo civile (1690); Saggio sull’in- telletto umano (1688); Pensieri sull'educazione (1693); Ragionevo- lezza del cristianesimo (1695). Lotze Hermann (1817-1881) Medico e filosofo geniale, nato a Bautze, professore di filosofia a Gottinga e a Berlino, è uno dei rappresentanti della filosofia dei valori sorta in Germania come reazione al positivismo che era sfo- ciato nella distruzione di tutti i valori (nichilismo). Sostiene che fra le leggi meccaniche e la natura dell'uomo non vi è alcun contrasto. Rappresentante del pensiero assiologico Lotze afferma che i valori assoluti hanno carattere trascendente e hanno come ultimo fonda- mento Dio stesso. Per Lotze, inoltre, la realtà di Dio risulta irrefu- tabile se solo si ammette che Dio è, per definizione, essere perfet- tissimo. Opere principali: Microcosmo. Idee sulla storia naturale e sulla storia dell'umanità (tre volumi scritti fra il 1856 e il 1864); Metafisica (1841); Logica (1843); Sistema di filosofia (due volumi scritti nel 1874 e 1879); Scritti minori (1885-1891, postumi). Lukéacs Gyérgy (1885-1971) Nato a Budapest, si presenta come il teorico più complesso e interessante del marxismo occidentale. L’Italia, Heidelberg e Vienna sono le tappe in successione del suo prestigioso itinerario culturale che si è svolto in un ambito etico-estetico. Il suo pensiero si articola su tre poli di interesse: l'etica, l’este- tica e l'adesione al comunismo. L'ortodossia marxista è per Lukécs una metodologia volta all'interpretazione della società e della classe operaia intese come totalità, i cui eventi vanno colti dialetticamente nelle loro connessioni più profonde. Circa l’arte, essa non può essere considerata come rispecchia- mento della realtà, ma a partire dal « tipo », lo strumento che con- sente la riflessione estetica. Il tipo è il risultato della convergenza dialettica delle contraddizioni sociali, morali e psicologiche più significative di un'epoca. La fantasia è la generatrice del tipo. Opere principali: Il dramma moderno (1908); L'anima e le forme (1911); Teoria del romanzo (1916); Goéthe e il suo tempo (1948); Il giovane Hegel (1948); Thomas Mann e la tragedia dell'arte moderna (1953); La distruzione della ragione (1954). Il suo capolavoro poli- tico è Storia e coscienza di classe (1923). Lutero Martin (1483-1546) Padre della Riforma protestante, teologo insigne, polemista, esege- ta della sacra Scrittura e possente oratore. Nacque ad Eisleben in Sassonia. Nei 1505 entrò nell'ordine degli agostiniani, dove compiuti celermente gli studi teologici fu ordinato sacerdote. Nel 1517 con la 316 pubblicazione delle famose Novantacinque Tesi, prese energica posi- zione contro l'abuso della predicazione delle indulgenze indetta dal pontefice Leone X, un male diffuso ovunque ma soprattutto in Ger- mania. Fu scomunicato. Alla Dieta di Worms (1521) ruppe definitiva- mente con la Chiesa di Roma, seguito da molti principi, vescovi, preti e laici tedeschi, essendo considerato come difensore del popolo tedesco. L'essenza del pensiero di Lutero sta in una nuova concezione della salvezza: questa non dipende dall'uomo, dalle sue opere buone, ma esclusivamente dalla misericordia di Dio. Per salvarsi occorre quindi un totale fiducioso abbandono in Dio. In tale prospettiva non occorrono più intermediari: papa, vescovi, preti, santi, sacra- menti, reliquie. E anche se si vogliono ammettere mutano completa- mente di importanza e significato. Opere principali: 95 tesi sulle indulgenze (1517); Alla nobiltà cri- stiana di nazione tedesca per la riforma del ceto cristiano (1520); De captivitate babylonica ecclesiae praeludium (1520); De libertate christiana (1520); De votis monasticis (1521); De abroganda missa privata (1521); Esortazione alla pace (1525); Piccolo catechismo (1529); Grande catechismo (1529). Luxemburg Rosa (1870-1919) Nata a Zamo$é, in Polonia, da famiglia ebrea, militò sin da gio- vane nel movimento socialista polacco, di cui divenne ben presto una dirigente. Nel 1897 si trasferì in Germania, di cui prese la cittadi- nanza e divenne collaboratrice di Karl Liebknecht nel 1914 alla fondazione della Spartakus-Bund (Lega di Spartaco) caratterizzata da acceso spirito internazionalista e rivoluzionario. Due capisaldi della sua teorizzazione sono il diritto di sciopero generale e la teoria della catastrofe, quale autodistruzione del ca- pitalismo in base allo sfruttamento e alla conquista indiscriminata di nuovi mercati. Rosa Luxemburg condusse inoltre una spietata accusa contro il bolscevismo di Lenin. Morirà a Berlino, uccisa dai soldati del go- verno socialdemocratico, durante uno scontro con gli spartakisti. Opere principali: Riforma sociale o rivoluzione? (1899); L'accu- mulazione del capitale (1913); Questione nazionale e sviluppo capi- talista; Tra guerra e rivoluzione (1921 postumo). Malebranche Nicolas (1638-1715) Filosofo francese nato a Parigi. Sacerdote della Congregazione del- l'Oratorio, si distaccò apertamente dalle posizioni della filosofia aristotelico-tomistica. Amico e discepolo di Cartesio accoglie le tesi fondamentali di questi in metafisica (anche per lui la realtà si divide in pensiero ed estensione) ed in epistemologia (il criterio supremo di verità è l'idea chiara e distinta). In due punti però oltrepassa il 317 pensiero di Cartesio: nel problema della conoscenza ed in quello della causalità. Per Malebranche in ‘Dio è fondato sia l'essere che l'agire, includendo nell'ordine dell'agire prodotto da Dio la stessa attività intellettiva della mente umana: le nostre idee sono le perfezioni di Dio che egli ci fa vedere nella sua infinita essenza. La visione delle idee in Dio è possibile perché Egli è immediatamen- te presente nel nostro spirito. Si avvale del principio dell’occasionalismo inoltre per risolvere il problema dei rapporti tra anima e corpo: essendo queste due realtà di genere diverso, non possono entrare in comunicazione di- retta né esercitare un influsso reciproco. Le disposizioni dell'anima e del corpo servono soltanto da occasione per l'intervento di Dio, il quale svolge direttamente ed esclusivamente tutte le azioni sia del corpo sia dell'anima. Opere principali: La ricerca della verità (1675); Trattato della na- tura e della grazia (1680); Colloqui sulla metafisica e la religione (1688); Trattato dell'amore di Dio (1698). Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976) Nato da famiglia contadina, fu tra i fondatori del partito comu- nista cinese sorto nel 1921 a Shangai. Sconfitta la Cina nazionalista di Chang Kai-shek (1949) dopo la « lunga marcia », da lui guidata attra- verso migliaia di chilometri, divenne il capo carismatico della Cina Popolare e antagonista della Russia sovietica. I punti qualificanti del pensiero di Mao sono: a) unione tra teoria e prassi; b) stretto legame con le masse; c) sviluppo dell’autocritica. Nel 1966 si fece promotore della « rivoluzione culturale » che appellandosi alle masse e ai giovani intendeva esercitare un controllo sui quadri del partito e stimolarli a mantenere intatta la carica ri- voluzionaria. Purtroppo questa operazione politica degenerò rapida- mente e ne derivarono delle stragi di centinaia di migliaia di persone, coinvolte senza alcun motivo. Obbligò gli intellettuali a impegnarsi periodicamente nel lavoro dei campi e in fabbrica per evitare il ri- schio di discriminazioni con le masse. Si oppose inoltre rigidamente alla cultura tradizionale, considerando incompatibili Marx, Lenin, se stesso con Confucio, di cui era impregnata da secoli la cultura e la tradizione del popolo cinese. Opere principali: Mao scrisse solo due opere a carattere filosofico: Sulla contraddizione (1937); Sulla prassi (1937). Da questi volumi furono tratti dei brani che formarono il famoso « libretto rosso », punto di riferimento dei giovani durante la rivoluzione culturale e che divenne di moda presso i giovani dell'Occidente durante la contesta- zione sorta nel 1968. Marcel Gabriel (1889-1975) Filosofo e scrittore francese, uno dei maggiori esponenti del- l'esistenzialismo cattolico. Fu professore nei licei, si occupò di gior- 318 nalismo e di critica letteraria. Compose numerosi drammi teatrali. Nel 1929 passò dall’ebraismo al cattolicesimo. La metafisica è « ricerca di ciò che è », dell'essere, compiuta da ciascuno per proprio conto alla ricerca della verità, assurta a valore vitale, qualcosa cioè di vissuto, frutto di una esperienza personale. Egli rifiuta di definire esistenzialista il proprio pensiero e lo qua- lifica come « socratismo cristiano ». Per Marcel, mentre la scienza può parlare del reale in terza persona, la riflessione filosofica è il regno della domanda e della risposta, dell'io e del tu, in cui domina la seconda persona. Fra tutte le realtà suscettibili di ricerca meta- fisica il primato spetta all'essere perché gode di una duplice prio- rità: nei confronti del pensiero e nei confronti dell’avere. L'uomo è un essere incarnato, itinerante (homo viator), animato dalla speran- za, in atteggiamento di adorazione davanti a Dio. Alla trascendenza si arriva per intuizione: l'uomo è fatto per Dio. Opere principali: Giornale metafisico (1927); Essere e avere (1935); Dal rifiuto all’invocazione (1940); Homo viator (1945); Il mi- stero dell’essere (1951); In cammino, verso quale risveglio? (1971). Marcuse Herbert (1898-1979) Nato a Berlino, frequentò l'università di Friburgo. Fece parte del- l'’« Istituto per la ricerca sociale » di Francoforte. Nel 1933 lasciò la Germania e si rifugiò negli Stati Uniti, insegnando in diverse uni- versità americane. ‘Per lo sviluppo del suo pensiero utilizza tre fonti principali: da Freud deriva la tesi che l'essere profondo dell'uomo consiste nel- l'istinto del piacere; da Hobbes proviene la distinzione di due stati nella vita umana: quello di natura e quello sociale. La terza compo- nente fondamentale della visuale filosofica marcusiana trae origine da Marx, da cui Marcuse deriva la prospettiva del materialismo sto- rico e dialettico e la tesi che tutte le lotte sociali sono dovute a ra- gioni economiche. Anche nella società contemporanea esiste una ten- sione tra stato, natura e società e tutto si risolve a favore della so- cietà, che si è trasformata in realtà autonoma, assoluta, onnipotente, fine a se stessa. L'uomo, schiavo della società industriale, non può liberarsi dallo stato repressivo in cui si trova. Solo gli inetti, gli emarginati, gli sfruttati, cioè coloro che restano fuori dal pro- cesso democratico, che si oppongono al sistema, sono una speranza di liberazione. Opere principali: L'ontologia di Hegel e la fondazione di una teoria della storicità (1932); Ragione e rivoluzione (1941); Eros e ci- viltà (1955); Marxismo sovietico (1958); L'uomo a una dimensione. L’ideologia della società industriale avanzata (1964); Critica della tolleranza (1965); La fine dell'utopia (1967). 319 Maritain Jacques (1882-1973) Filosofo e diplomatico francese, discepolo di Bergson. Nato a Parigi da agiata famiglia protestante, dopo aver aderito per un po’ di tempo al socialismo rivoluzionario, nel 1906, con l’aiuto di Léon Bloy, si convertì con la moglie al cattolicesimo. ‘Insegnò all'« Istituto cattolico » di Parigi e, in seguito, in alcune università degli Stati Uniti. Fu ambasciatore di Francia presso il Vaticano dal 1945 al 1948. Dal 1961 sino alla sua morte si ritirò presso la comunità dei « Piccoli fratelli di Gesù » di Tolosa. Ardente sostenitore della filosofia tomista, di cui è stato il più autorevole rappresentante nel nostro secolo, ne mise in rilievo l’ap- plicabilità ai problemi moderni: politica, arte, pedagogia, scienza. Particolarmente importante il suo contributo al pensiero politico. Maritain è il teorico di un tipo di democrazia di ispirazione cristiana, ch'egli chiama nuova cristianità, per distinguerla dalla cristianità medioevale. Mentre la cristianità medioevale non riusciva a mante- nere sufficientemente distinti ordine sacro e ordine profano, la nuova cristianità, pur facendo del sacro una categoria che ordina a sé la creatura per quanto concerne il fine ultimo, riserva allo spazio strut- turale del mondo una configurazione categoriale profana, ovvero di- stinta dal sacro. Maritain propone l'umanesimo integrale, assegnando alla de- mocrazia, ispirata in modo cristiano, cinque caratteristiche: plura- lismo, infravalenza del temporale, libertà della persona, autorità de- legata e collaborazione. Egli ha avvertito profondamente la decaden- za e la « miseria » della nostra civiltà ed era sicuro di una sua immi- nente fine apocalittica. Queste sue previsioni ed illuminazioni spie- gano il fiorire dopo la sua morte in varie parti del mondo di centri di studio del suo pensiero. Opere principali: La filosofia bergsoniana (1914); Arte e scola- stica (1920); Distinguere per unire o i gradi del sapere (1932); Sul re- gime temporale e sulla libertà (1933); Sette lezioni sull'essere e sui primi principi della ragione speculativa (1934); Scienza e saggezzà (1935); Umanesimo integrale (1936); Da Bergson a Tommaso d'£ quino (1944); Cristianesimo e democrazia (1948); L'uomo e lo Stato (1951); Ateismo e ricerca di Dio (1953); L’intuizione creativa nell'arte e nella poesia (1953); Il contadino della Garonna (1966); La Chiesa del Cristo (1973). Marx Karl (1818-1883) Nacque a Treviri, in Germania, studiò presso l'università di Ber- lino. Dopo la laurea si dedicò al giornalismo, rivolgendo aspre cri- tiche ai governi assolutisti del tempo. Nel 1843 e 1844 si rifugiò due volte a Parigi per sfuggire alla caccia della polizia tedesca. Nel 1848 pubblicò il Manifesto del partito comunista insieme a Engels, con cui ebbe una grande amicizia e dimestichezza di lavoro comune (an- che Il Capitale fu preparato valendosi dell'apporto dell'amico) e nel 320 1849 dovette riparare in Inghilterra. Nel 1864 convocò a Londra la Prima Internazionale per coordinare l’attività rivoluzionaria del proletariato di tutto il mondo. L'intuizione geniale di Marx consiste nell'aver scoperto nella natura e nella storia dei rapporti economici quella logica immanente, quella dialettica progressiva che regola la storia della coscienza in Hegel. L’unica realtà è quella della storia, la quale a sua volta non è altro che l'evoluzione della materia in tutte le sue fasi, compresa quella umana. Il materialismo storico è quindi quella concezione della storia la quale afferma che nelle vicende umane il fattore fon- damentale è quello economico. Un altro punto fondamentale della teoria marxista è quello che riguarda il plus valore, cioè il guadagno superiore all'investimento che il capitalista ricava dal prodotto. Per Marx la religione è una sovrastruttura contingente e fonda il suo ateismo su tre postulati: 1) il materialismo metafisico e dialet- tico; 2) il materialismo storico; 3) l'umanesimo assoluto che situa l’uomo al vertice del cosmo. Opere principali: Manoscritti economico-filosofici del 1844; Ideo- logia tedesca (1845-1846); Miseria della filosofia (1847); Manifesto del partito comunista (1848); Il Capitale (1867, insieme a Engels). Merleau-Ponty Maurice (1908-1961) È nato a Rochefort-sur-Mer, in Francia. Fu professore all'univer- sità di Lione, poi ordinario di psicologia pedagogica alla Sorbona. Prese il posto di Lavelle nell'insegnamento al « College de France ». Fondò, insieme a Sartre, il mensile Les temps modernes e lo diresse dal 1945 al 1953. La sua filosofia è di indirizzo fenomenologico. Essa si sviluppa su due linee: 1) come critica interna della psicologia sperimentale e convinzione che la riduzione fenomenologica ci riconduce ad una coscienza sempre più definita dal corpo, rapporto originario con il mond, e dalla situazione storica, rapporto originario tra soggetto e soggetto; 2) come riflessione sul marxismo: da una proposta di let- tura esistenzialistica degli scritti del giovane-Marx, ad una successiva interpretazione dello stalinismo come tragedia giustificata da una storia rivoluzionaria, il cui fine fondamentale è tuttavia il consegui- mento di rapporti comunitari, per giungere infine ad una concezione del marxismo come componente indispensabile, accanto ad altre, della cultura contemporanea e di Marx come di un punto di riferi- mento ormai classico ma inattuale. Opere principali: La struttura del comportamento (1942); Feno- menologia della percezione (1945); Umanismo e terrore (1947); Senso e non senso (1948); Le avventure della dialeitica (1955); Segni (1960); Il visibile e l'invisibile (1964, postumo). 321 Mill John Stuart (1806-1873) Nacque a Londra. Filosofo ed economista. Fu in Francia e in Inghilterra dove si dedicò alle scienze e alla giurisprudenza. Genio precocissimo, fu scrittore molto fecondo e per alcuni anni membro della Camera dei Comuni. Il problema speculativo che lo preoccupò maggiormente fu l'ela- borazione di una logica induttiva valida e completa, basata sulla gnoseologia dell'empirismo inglese, la quale non ammette concetti, idee universali. A tal fine egli escogitò vari metodi di cui i principali sono: metodo dell'accordo, metodo della differenza, metodo dell'ac- cordo e della differenza. Opere principali: Sistema di logica deduttiva e induttiva (1843); Principi di economia politica (1848); Sulla libertà (1859); Conside- razioni sul governo rappresentativo (1861); Utilitarismo (1863); Comte e il positivismo (1865); Tre saggi sulla religione (1874, po- stumi). Mounier Emmanuel (1905-1950) Ritenuto da molti il vero fondatore del personalismo, fu per un ventennio (1930-1950) una delle voci più autorevoli e più ascoltate del mondo cattolico europeo. Dopo aver iniziato gli studi alla facoltà di scienze di Grenoble dove era nato, passò a quella di filosofia della Sorbona, superando il disagio, provocatogli dalla filosofia ideali- sta, attraverso il rapporto con Maritain, Guitton e il teologo P. Payet. L'incontro fondamentale resta però quello con il pensiero di C. Péguy. Fondò la prestigiosa rivista Esprit (1932). Mounier colpisce con la sua critica sia il carattere oppressivo dell'economia capitalista sia il carattere generico, utopistico, ateo e collettivista del marxismo. Al capitalismo e al marxismo contrappone il personalismo (I/ Personalismo, 1949) le cui linee fondamentali sono: 1) la struttura psicofisica della persona umana; 2) la trascendenza della persona ri- spetto alla natura; 3) l'apertura verso gli altri e verso il mondo me- diante la comunicazione; 4) la dinamicità; 5) la vocazione; 6) la libertà. Secondo Mounier le difficoltà di carattere materiale e sociale che ostacolano la realizzazione della vocazione della persona possono essere ridimensionate da una democrazia che sia politica e socio- economica al tempo stesso. Opere principali: Rivoluzione personalista e comunitaria (1935); Dalla proprietà capitalista alla proprietà umana (1936); Personalismo e cristianesimo; Manifesto al servizio del personalismo (1936); I cri- stiani e la pace (1939); Trattato del carattere (1946); Che cos'è il per- sonalismo (1947); Rottura fra l'ordine cristiano e il disordine stabili- to; Il lavoro; Il denaro; Tentazioni del comunismo; Aspetti del cor- porativismo. 322 Nietzsche Friedrich (1844-1900) Figlio di un pastore protestante, nacque a Rochen, in Germania. Studiò filosofia classica nelle università di Bonn e di Lipsia. Nel 1869 fu chiamato ad insegnare all'università di Basilea lingua e let- teratura greca. Nel 1879, per il suo precario stato di salute, lasciò definitivamente l'insegnamento e iniziò a soggiornare senza fissa di- mora in Svizzera, Italia e Francia, specie in riviera. Nel 1889 fu colto, a Torino, da un nuovo e più grave attacco di pazzia che, sia pure con brevi periodi di sosta, non lo lasciò più e lo portò alla morte, che avvenne a Berlino. Nietzsche si oppone criticamente all'idealismo di Hegel e al pessimismo di Schopenhauer e contesta aspramente ogni religione. La base del suo pensiero è il concetto che la realtà sia una esplo- sione di forze disordinate. Davanti a questa strepitosa esplosio- ne di potenza, che non può essere imbrigliata da nessuna legge della ragione, si può assumere un duplice atteggiamento: di debo- lezza (quello del gregge), di forza e potenza (del superuomo). Il gregge, di fronte alla potenza sregolata della natura, invènta la re- ligione. Contro la massa dei mediocri (il gregge) Nietzsche, per bocca di Zarathustra, il protagonista del suo famoso libro Così parlò Zarathustra, proclama che l’esistenza dell'uomo è completamente ter- rena e che Dio non esiste: « Dio è morto », L'etica del superuomo, l'uomo forte, « il leone », come egli lo chiama, è il trionfo della propria personalità, al di là del bene e del male, purché si affermi sugli altri; come è per il bambino, deve saper « dire di sì alla vita » in tutte le sue forme e deve creare nuovi ideali di esistenza, nuovi simboli sacri (Dioniso al posto di Dio). Nietzsche recupera la dottrina dell'eterno ritorno, che ha come proprio centro la volontà creatrice dell'uomo. Opere principali: La nascita della tragedia dallo spirito della mu- sica (1872); Considerazioni inattuali (1873-1876); Umano troppo uma- no (1878); Il viandante e la sua ombra (1880); La gaia scienza (1882); Così parlo Zarathustra (1883-1885); Al di là del bene e del male (1886); Genealogia della morale (1887); Il caso Wagner (1888); Cre- puscolo degli idoli (1888). Opere postume: L'Anticristo; Ecce homo; Nietzsche contro Wagner. Occam (di) Guglielmo (1290-1349) Francescano, studiò e insegnò ad Oxford. Per le sue dottrine so- spette nel 1314 fu invitato a presentarsi alla corte papale ad Avi- gnone per rispondere delle idee eretiche di cui era accusato. Fuggì da Avignone con un gruppo di francescani dissidenti e in seguito si rifugiò a Monaco di Baviera, presso l'imperatore Ludovico il Ba- varo, venendo così scomunicato. Egli afferma che gli universali esistono solo nella mente e non hanno nessun rapporto con le cose; sono solo puri concetti. Quindi bisogna eliminare le entità astratte {rasoio d’'Occam). 323 Tra fede e ragione non esiste armonia: non si possono conoscere le verità soprannaturali; sono solo oggetto di una fede cieca. Opere principali: Commento alle Sentenze; Summa logicae; Opus nonaginta dierum (1333-1334); De dogmatibus papae Johannis XXII (1334); Dialogus; Octo quaestiones; Breviloquium de potestate papae; De imperatorum et pontificum potestate. Parmenide (I metà del V sec. a.C.) Nacque a Elea (colonia greca in Lucania). Fondatore della Scuola eleatica, pone come unica realtà l’essere, negando il divenire considerato come illusione dei sensi. Secondo Parmenide l’unica realtà ‘è l'essere; nessun'altra realtà è possibile in quanto senza l'essere nulla è pensabile: « la stessa cosa è pensare e il pensiero che è ». Con questo Parmenide intende dire che l'oggetto del nostro pensiero è l'essere, e che il non essere non è pensabile. Coerente con questo postulato, passando dalle esigenze del pensiero a quelle dell'esperienza, conclude iogicamente che il nasce- re e il perire delle cose, ossia ogni forma di divenire, sono solo nomi, esprimenti le fallaci opinioni degli uomini. Parmenide è considerato il primo grande metafisico della storia perché è il primo filosofo che si preoccupa di chiarire la nozione fondamentale dell'essere. Opere principali: scrisse il poema Della natura. Pascal Blaise (1623-1662) Nacque a Clermont Ferrand. Di grande ingegno fin da ragazzo, studiò matematica e fisica. A 18 anni si trasferì con il padre, alto magistrato da cui aveva avuto la prima educazione, a Parigi e qui frequentò il circolo culturale guidato da Mersenne. Si distinse per le sue ricerche e scoperte di geometria e di ‘fisica. Questa sua vita completamente indirizzata agli studi rese la sua salute fragile e gli abbreviò l'esistenza, morendo a Parigi non ancora quarantenne. Nel 1646 aderisce al giansenismo, per cui attacca violentemente sia i gesuiti francesi, che accusa di predicare una morale lassista, sia i cosiddetti « libertini », ai quali rimprovera il mancato impegno per la salvezza finale. Abbracciò il misticismo del monastero di Port-Royal e nel 1654, dopo una breve crisi mondana, ebbe una specie di visione mistica (la famosa notte del 23 novembre) e si convertì definitiva- mente. Pascal critica il metodo geometrico di Cartesio che pretende di ridurre tutto ad idee chiare e distinte. Ad esso contrappone il metodo affettivo (esprit de finesse); alle idee chiare e distinte le idee emozio- nanti. Più che opporre la ragione al cuore, intende integrare la ra: gione col cuore: e valersi di entrambi nella difesa del cristianesimo di cui fu ardente seguace e abile apologista. Oltre che scienziato di grandissimo valore e forte polemista, fu dotato di uno spirito finissimo, l'esprit de finesse, di cui fu pieno il suo pensiero filosofico che partiva da una conoscenza penetrante, 324 quasi intuitiva, delia realtà umana nella sua condizione storica con- creta. Opere principali: Trattato sulle sezioni coniche (1639); Lettere provinciali (1656); Apologia della religione cristiana (del progetto rimasero solo alcuni frammenti raccolti poi nei famosi Pensieri). Peirce Charles Sanders (1839-1914) Filosofo e matematico statunitense, studiò alla « Harvard Uni- versity » e dal 1859 al 1891 lavorò presso il servizio geodesiaco e costiero degli Stati Uniti. Visse gli ultimi anni nella solitudine e nella povertà. Può essere considerato il fondatore del pragmatismo, corrente nata in America come reazione al positivismo e al materiali- smo positivistico e che risolve il criterio di verità delle diverse teorie nel loro successo pratico, operando induttivamente e poi veri- ficando. L'impostazione di Peirce è infatti empiristica e sperimenta- lista; egli però nega che la sua tesi abbia esiti soggeîtivistici e uti- litaristici. Opere principali: La grande logica; Raccolta di scritti di Ch. S. Peirce (in 8 volumi fra il 1931 e il 1958, postumi); Corne rendere chia- re le nostre idee (1878). Piaget Jean (1896-1980) Nato e vissuto in Svizzera è annoverato tra gli studiosi più ge- niali della psicologia contemporanea. Notevole il suo contributo an- che di carattere epistemologico. Nel 1954 foridò a Ginevra il notis- simo « Centro internazionale di epistemologia genetica ». A partire dall’osservazione del comportamento Piaget sottolinea che il pensiero del fanciullo differisce da quello dell'adulto non solo quantitativamente, ma anche qualitativamente e ciò perché il pen- siero umano è evolutivo. Tappe dell'evoluzione del pensiero infantile sono: 1) l'intelligenza serisomotoria; 2) l’attività rappresentativa; 3) l’attività imitativa differita e il linguaggio verbale. Piaget ritiene, inoltre, di poter cogliere una stretta correlazione tra linguaggio e pensiero attraverso tre fasi fondamentali di svilup- po: 1) il pensiero egocentrico (il fanciullo attribuisce valore assoluto alla propria esperienza); 2) il pensiero realista (primato dei dati per- cettivi su quelli rappresentativi); 3) lo sviluppo intellettuale vero e proprio nelle due evoluzioni successive che vanno dai nove ai dieci anni e dai quindici ai sedici anni. Partendo dall'evoluzione del pen- siero umano, Piaget affronta due questioni fondarnentali di episte- mologia genetica: quelia relativa allo sviluppo della nozione e quella relativa alla cognizione della nozione. Opere principali: Il linguaggio e il pensiero del fanciullo (1923); Il giudizio e il ragionamento nel fanciullo (1925); La rappresentazio- ne del mondo nel fanciullo (1926); Il giudizio morale nel fanciullo (1932); La nascita dell’intelligenza (1936); La formazione del sim- bolo (1947); Introduzione all’epistemologia genetica (1950); Le trasformazioni delle operazioni logiche (1952). 325 Pitagora (571-490 a.C.) Nacque a Samo, isola greca del Mar Egeo. Fu un genio multi- forme che coltivò ad un tempo la matematica, l'astronomia, l’asce- tica e la mistica. Fondò a Crotone la scuola pitagorica, la cui dot- trina fondamentale è che il numero è l'essenza di ogni cosa. Da cui la derivazione della molteplicità dell'unità. Il concetto matematico con cui Pitagora spiega i fenomeni è superiore a quello degli Ionici, perché è astratto e più razionale. Per Pitagora l’anima è eterna e rinasce in altri corpi di uomini o animali (metempsicosi). Alla sua scuola diede un indirizzo spiccatamente religioso. I suoi membri vi- vevano in comunità, compiendo pratiche ascetiche molto elevate. Platone (427-347 a.C.) | Nacque ad Atene da una famiglia fra le più nobili della Grecia. È uno dei più grandi filosofi della storia. Fu discepolo di Cratilo e poi di Socrate. Dopo la tragica fine di questi, per evitare delle rappre- saglie, si allontanò da Atene e si rifugiò a Megara e più tardi iniziò a viaggiare, visitando varie città della Grecia e dell’Italia, sofferman- dosi a Siracusa, dove ritornò alcuni anni dopo. Tornato ad Atene, vi fondò nel 387 a.C. l'Accademia che può essere considerata la prima università a carattere scientifico. Per secoli questo prestigioso centro di studi attrasse le migliori intelligenze della Grecia. Scrisse moltis- sime opere, in parte andate perdute. Platone fu il primo filosofo meta- fisico: per spiegare il mondo sensibile sentì il bisogno di ipotizzare un altro mondo ideale, immateriale. Infatti, caratteristica dominante del pensiero platonico è il dualismo: esistono due mondi: uno intelligibile o mondo delle Idee, che sono le essenze eterne, divine e immutabili delle cose e il mondo sensibile, che è prodotto dal De- miurgo, l'artefice sovrano, plasmando la materia informe a immagi- ne delle Idee. Caratteristica della filosofia platonica è la tesi secondo cui il conoscere umano non è altro che un ricordare. Per Platone l'uomo è un'unità accidentale di anima e di corpo: essenzialmente l’uomo è soltanto anima. Tutta la sua filosofia ha un orientamento etico: l'uomo è sulla terra di passaggio, nel desi- derio dell'eternità. iPer raggiungere la felicità occorre rinunciare ai piaceri e alle ricchezze e dedicarsi alla pratica della virtù, per cui è meglio subire l'ingiustizia che commetterla. La filosofia è l’unica via sicura per giungere alla giustizia e al bene. All'incontro con le cose di questo mondo, copie delle Idee, nell'anima umana si risve- glia il ricordo delle ‘Idee che aveva contemplato in una vita prece- dente (mito della caverna). Anche la concezione politica di Platone è ideale e si fonda sulla divisione dei compiti e del lavoro tra le classi dei lavoratori, guerrieri e magistrati che corrispondono alle anime concupiscibile, irascibile e razionale dell'individuo. Dall'’armonia di queste tre classi nasce il raggiungimento del Bene, del Giusto, del Vero. Per lui lo Stato ha origine dal fatto che l'individuo non può bastare a se stesso. 326 Opere principali: a) Dialoghi giovanili (Apologia di Socrate; Critone; Ipparco; Protagora; Menesseno); b) Dialoghi della matu- rità (Gorgia; Menone; Cratilo; Repubblica; Fedone; Fedro); c) Dia- loghi della vecchiaia (Teeteto; Parmenide; Sofista; Timeo; Crizia); Lettere. Plotino (205-270) Nato a Licopoli (Egitto), entrò nella scuola di Alessandria diretta da Ammonio Sacca e partecipò a una spedizione bellica contro i per- siani. Poi si trasferì ad Antiochia e infine a Roma, dove fondò una scuola. Morì in Campania, nella sua villa. Fu l'ultimo grande espo- nente del pensiero classico e il principale esponente del neoplato- nismo, movimento che opera una sintesi tra la filosofia di Platone e le religioni pagane orientali. Per inclinazione naturale e dato una certa conoscenza dell'ebraismo e del cristianesimo in Roma, ha con- centrato la sua speculazione sul problema religioso, in particolare sul rapporto dell'anima con Dio. Plotino accentua i concetti di semplicità e di trascendenza ri- guardante l'Assoluto che chiama Uno. All’Uno quindi: non si può attribuire nessuna qualità positiva (teologia negativa). Dall'Uno trag- gono origine tutte le altre realtà mediante emanazione, secondo un ordine: il Nous o intelligenza, la vita, l’anima universale, le anime, la materia. La missione dell'anima umana è di ristabilire l'unità originaria delle cose, riconducendole all’Uno, attraverso tre tappe: ascetica e catarsi, contemplazione, estasi. Opere principali: i suoi scritti furono ordinati dal discepolo Porfirio e sono noti sotto il nome di Enneadi. Popper Karl Raimund (1902) Nacque a Vienna, dove studiò fisica, matematica e poi filosofia. Data la sua origine ebraica nel 1937 emigrò in Nuova Zelanda dove insegnò a Christchurch. Nel 1945 si trasferì a Londra, iniziando ad insegnare alla London School of Economy. Popper fu, in un primo tempo, uno degli esponenti più qualificati del Circolo di Vienna e del neopositivismo, ma poi abbandonò questo sistema e sviluppò una concezione originale dei fondamenti della scienza e del metodo scientifico, che può essere definita come razionalismo critico, in forte contrasto con la Scuola di Francoforte a cui rimprovera, oltre la dialettica, lo « storicismo », per cui si fan- no previsioni della storia nella totalità del suo corso che viene con- siderato essere diretto in modo ineluttabile verso una meta prefis- sata, come la società senza classi prevista da Marx. I punti qualificanti della sua concezione in campo epistemologico sono due: il carattere sostanzialmente deduttivo (anziché induttivo) della scienza; e il criterio di demarcazione tra teorie scientifiche e non scientifiche, che viene chiamato criterio di falsificabilità. Que- sto stabilisce che una teoria può considerarsi scientifica soltanto se è falsificabile, ossia se si può indicare dei casi in cui risulterebbe 327 falsa, cioè smentita in linea di principio e non per essere stata consta- tata falsa di fatto. Notevole anche l'apporto di Popper alla filosofia politica con la sua appassionata difesa della « società aperta », vale a dire la difesa di una società che non solo tolleri, ma stimoli la cri- tica dei singoli e dei gruppi in vista della soluzione razionale dei problemi più gravi come quello delia fame e dell'ignoranza. Opere principali: La logica della scoperta scientifica (1934); Che cos'è la dialettica (1937); La ‘società aperta e i suoi nemici (1945); Miseria dello storicismo (1957); Congetture e confutazioni (1962); Conoscenza oggettiva (1972). Frotagora (490, morto tra il 410 e il 400 a.C.) Filosofo greco, massimo esponente della sofistica. Dalla sua natia Abdera (in Tracia), si trasferì ancora in giovane età ad Atene, dove insegnò ad una folta schiera di studenti entusiasti. Si guadagnò la stima e il favore di Pericle, il quale lo incaricò di stendere la costituzione della colonia di Thurii. Data e luogo della sua morte sono incerti, e ja causa sembra sia stata un naufragio. L'attenzione precipua della riflessione filosofica di Protagora non è più voita come nella maggior parte dei presocratici allo studio della natura e della causa o principio primo, bensì verso l’uomo ed è tesa, soprattutto, a scoprire quali sono le possibilità umane in or- dine alia conoscenza e alla morale. In entrambi i casi Protagora sposa una tesi sostanzialmente relativistica: non esistono verità asso- lute nell'ordine gnoseologico né leggi universali nell'ordine etico; sia le verità sia le leggi sono relative. Questa tesi è espressa nel ce- lebre detto di Protagora: « L'uomo è misura di tutte le cose; di quelle che sono perché sono e di quelle che non sono perché non sono ». È la stessa condizione naturale dell’uomo, la sua struttura corporea a non consentirgli di raggiungere né il vero né il bene in maniera assoluta e definitiva: «La materia — afferma Protagora — è flut- tuante, e fluendo essa ininterrottamente, si verificano aggiunte al posto delle perdite, e le sensazioni mutano e variano secondo l'età e secondo le altre costituzioni dei corpi ». Opera principale: La verità o Discorsi sovvertitori. Renouvier Charles (1815-1903) Filosofo francese, nato a Montpellier e morto a Prades, nei Pirenei Orientali. Nella sua opera del 1903, I/ personalismo, ha fornito spunti fondamentali al personalismo contemporaneo offrendo addirittura la denominazione che lo caratterizza e che è desunta da una indagine filosofica centrata sull'uomo concreto e sulla sua dimensione dia- logica. ‘ Per Renouvier il carattere specifico della persona umana è Îa conoscenza da intendersi come apertura verso il mondo e verso l'as- soluto e capace di portare l’uomo a riconoscere l’esistenza di una Persona prima e creatrice. Il riconoscimento della sua esistenza è imposto al nostro assenso dal carattere di unità armonica delle leggi 328 che regolano l’intendimento degli esseri intelligenti e reggono il mondo. È favorevole ad una specie di religione filosofica. Opere principali: Saggi di critica generale (1854-1864); La nuova monadologia (con L. Prat, 1899); Il dilemma della metafisica pura (1901); Il personalismo (1903). Rickert Filosofo tedesco, nato a Danzica, fu docente di filosofia ad Heidel- berg dove morì e direttore delia scuola di Baden; sviluppò la « fiia- sofia dei valori », distinguendo la scienza delio spirito dalle scienze della natura. Critico del positivismo, distingue due forme di conoscenza e due logiche ad esse correlate: 1) la logica delle scienze spirituali o sto- riche da un lato; 2) la logica delle scienze naturali dall'altro. 'La realtà per Rickert è quella che ci rivelano le scienze spirituali o che i loro giudizi valutativi determinano. La natura, invece, è solo un'immagine astratta e abbreviata della realtà, creata per il bisogno che l'uomo ha di dominare, classificandola e uniformandola, l'infi- nita varietà degli individui, di cui consta l’esperienza., Le scienze naturali, pertanto, tendono all'astrazione; mentre le scienze spirituali o storiche tendono a determinare il valore dei fatti, che sono il presupposto stesso della storia. Opere principali: L'oggetto della conoscenza (1892); Scienze della cultura e scienze della natura (1899); La filosofia della vita (1920); Sistemi di filosofia (1921); La logica del predicato e il problema dei- l’ontologia (1930); Problemi fondamentali della filosofia (1934). Ricoeur Paul (1913) Filosofo francese, nato a Valence, docenie di filosofia ciella storia prima alla Sorbona e poi all'università di Parigi-Nanterre, può essere annoverato sia tra i fenomenologi che tra gli esistenzialisti e i personalisti. Assertore di una interessante visione antropologica, Ricoeur la fonda sul concetto di fallibilità, che la storia delle religioni docu- menta aîtraverso i simboli del male e dei peccato. La fallibilità è una prerogativa dell’uomo, realtà essenzialmente progettuale, che può fallire nella realizzazione dei proprio progetto. La persona per Ricoeur è un progetto di umanità. Attività fonda- mentali della persona sono il conoscere, il cui oggetto è il vero; il volere, il cui oggetto è il bene; il sentire, il cui oggetto è l’affettività. Alla sfera del sentimento appartengono l'amicizia (apertura verso i propri simili) e la deiezione (apertura verso il mondo delle Idee, la Trascendenza, Dio). Opere principali: G. Marcel e K. Jaspers (1947); K. Jaspers e la filosofia dell'essere (1947); Filosofia della volontà (1950-1960); Finitu- dine e colpa (1960); Il conflitto delle interpretazioni {1969); La sfida semiologica (1974); Metafora viva (1975). 329 Rosmini Antenio (1797-1855) Nacque a Rovereto e fu ordinato sacerdote nel 1821. Nel 1828 fondò la congregazione religiosa dei « rosminiani »; morì a Stresa sul Lago Maggiore; Nel 1848 fu ambasciatore a Roma di Carlo Al- berto presso Pio IX; suo compito era quello di cercare un accordo col Pontefice per una confederazione di stati italiani, ma la missione fallì. In quella stessa occasione, furono messe all'indice due opere in cui egli propugnava il rinnovamento della Chiesa. Amareggiato, si ritirò a Stresa, dedicandosi esclusivamente alla filosofia. Rosmini tentando di porre un freno all'estensione del sensismo e dell’empirismo, riconosce come elemento a priori oggettivo della co- noscenza l'idea dell'essere, che non è l’idea dell'Essere reale (Dio) ma dell'essere ideale, astratto, indeterminato che deriva dall’Essere reale. L'essere ideale è forma di ogni conoscenza, ma in se stesso non rappresenta nessun oggetto determinato. Deve incontrare e unire qualche dato della sensibilità. La conoscenza si sviluppa in diversi gradi: intuizione, affermazione, astrazione. Opere principali: Nuovo saggio sull'origine delle idee (1830); Principii della scienza morale (1831); Antropologia in servigio della scienza morale (1838); Trattato della coscienza morale (1839); Filo- sofia della politica (1839); Filosofia del diritto (1845); Teodicea (1845). Opere postume: Saggio storico-critico sulle categorie e la dialettica; Antropologia soprannaturale; Teosofia. Rousseau Filosofo svizzero di lingua francese, nacque a Ginevra. Orfano di madre, a soli sedici anni iniziò una vita di vagabondaggi. A Parigi frequentò gli ambienti dell'Enciclopedia. Si attirò molti nemici. Fuggì in Svizzera e in Inghilterra. Rientrato in Francia, passò gli ultimi anni nella solitudine e nella povertà, continuando a scrivere fino alla morte. Massimo esponente dell'illuminismo francese, Rous- seau scrisse moltissimo occupandosi degli argomenti più disparati: dalla storia alla musica, dalla pedagogia alla politica, dalla metafisica alla religione. Nel Contratto sociale espone la sua concezione politica in cui, pur assegnando allo Stato un'origine convenzionale, non gli si ascri- ve mai poteri assoluti e definitivi, ma ogni decisione dello Stato sotto- stà all'approvazione dei cittadini. Altre due sue opere espongono la dottrina pedagogica. Questa si caratterizza per una completa fiducia nelle capacità autoeducative del fanciullo: alla scuola della natura egli ritiene di ottenere un'educazione assai migliore di quella che somministra normalmente la società ai suoi membri. Opere principali: Discorso sulle scienze e le arti (1750); Discorso sull'origine e i fondamenti della diseguaglianza tra gli uomini (1755); Lettera sulla provvidenza (1756); Lettera sugli spettacoli (1758); Emilio o dell'educazione (1762); Contratto sociale (1762); Lettera a 330 Christophe de Beaumont (1763). Opere postume: Dialoghi: Rousseau giudice di Jean-Jacques; Meditazioni di un viandante solitario. Russell Nacque (e vi morì anche) nel Galles da famiglia nobile. A 23 anni entrò nel « Trinity College » di Cambridge, dove fece gli studi di ma- tematica e filosofia. Scienziato e filosofo tra i più celebri del no- stro secolo. Scrisse moltissimo. Russell fu uno spirito profondamente inquieto, mai soddisfatto delle soluzioni acquisite, in continua evoluzione di pensiero. Egli aderì successivamente all’idealismo, al realismo, al neopositivismo, alla analisi linguistica, al fenomenismo. Tuttavia, nonostante la perenne instabilità e icambiamenti, talora radicali, di vedute, di teo- rie, di sistemi, c'è una prospettiva di fondo cui egli ha mantenuto sempre fede durante la sua quasi centenaria esistenza: è la prospet- tiva empirista propria della filosofia inglese, la quale è caratterizzata da un forte attaccamento alla esperienza ed uno spiccato interesse per le questioni di ordine epistemologico e morale, anziché metafisico e teologico. In logica sono importanti le considerazioni svolte da Russell intorno alla definizione degli individui, delle classi, dei tipi e delle « descrizioni ». In gnoseologia finì per professare un empiri- smo radicale, riducendo la conoscenza ad un fascio di sensazioni, ch'egli preferisce chiamare « una classe di particolari »; il filosofo ha proposto sia una concezione « dualistica » della verità (corrisponden- za tra fatti e proposizioni) sia una concezione « umanistica ». Nella filosofia del linguaggio ci sono vari punti in comune con i neopositi- visti, dai quali si allontana circa il criterio di significazione, distin- guendo il senso dal significato. Russell nega alla morale la carat- teristica di vera scienza e circa la religione la sua posizione è agno- stica. Opere principali: Saggio sui fondamenti della geometria (1897); Principi della matematica (1903); Principia Mathematica (1910- 1913); Sulla conoscenza del mondo esterno (1914); Elementi di etica (1910); Analisi della mente (1921); Atomismo logico {1924); Perché non sono cristiano (1927); Libertà e organizzazione (1932); Educa- zione e ordine sociale (1932); Storia della filosofia occidentale (1945); Il mio sviluppo filosofico (1959); Autobiografia (1967-1969). Saint-Simon Claude-Henry de (1760-1825) Di famiglia nobile nato a Parigi, dove morì, è un filosofo e stori- co francese. Allievo del d’Alembert, seguì dapprima la carriera mi- litare. Poi, dopo essersi proficuamente occupato di affari, nel 1798 si dedicò totalmente alla filosofia, rovinandosi ben presto finanzia- riamente fino a cadere nella più squallida miseria, pur non cessando per questo gli studi. Rappresentante del positivismo, Saint-Simon fu tra i primi a sottolineare l’importanza del fattore economico nella costituzione e 331 nella trasformazione delia società. A suo parere il problema eco- nomico soverchia, per imporianza, tutti quanti gli altri, compresi quello palitico e quello religioso. La crisi profonda che sta attraver- sando ia società moderna è dovuta soprattutto a ragioni economiche, e non poeîirà essere superata se non ponendo a capo della società i grandi industriali e gli womini di scienza. Nei nuovo sistema d'orga- nizzazione della società ia direzione spirituale deve passare dal clero agli scienziati, Ia cura degli interessi materiali dalla nobiltà alla bor- ghesia, dalla corona alie banche. Queste teorie del Saint-Simor: eser- sitarono un profondo influsso su alcuni grossi nomi della filosofia dell'Ottocento, in particolare su Comte e su Marx. Opere principali: /miroduzione «i lavori scientifici del XIX se- celo (1808); Ricrganizzazione della società europea (1814); Nuovo cristianesimo (1825), che però fu incompiuto. Santeyana George {1863-1952} Filosofo e scrittore statunitense d'origine spagnola, nacque a Madrid. Fu professore alla università di Harvard dove aveva fatto gli studi di filosofia, fino al 1912. Cessato l'insegnamento si trasferì in inghilterra, quindi in Francia e infine in Italia dove morì a Roma. Santayana professa un realismo di ispirazione platonica, basato su un dualismo esasperato tra « essenze » ed « esistenze ». L'esistenza è la materia, i'essenza è lo spirito. L'anima è la vita di un organismo in cui è incarnato lo spirito e funge pertanto da mediatore tra la materia e le essenze. I due mondi delle essenze e delie esistenze co- stituiscono un dualismo irriducibile; ia vita è divisa, scissa tra questi due regni; e l’aitività umana non è che lo sforzo assurdo, grottesco e tragico di conciliare l'essenza (l’idea) con l’esistenza e l'esistenza con l'essenza (l’idea). Tutto quanto gli uomini fanno e pensano (istituzioni sociali, riti religiosi, sistemi filosofici ecc.) nen è che un immenso, vano tentativo di accordare la vita animale e la contemplazione spirituale, quasi una condanna imposta all'uma- nità. Opere principali: La vita della ragione (5 voll., 1905-1906); Soli- loqui in Inghilterra (1922); Scetticismo e fede animale (1923); Dia- loghi nel Limbo (1925-26); I regni dell'essere (4 voll., 1927-1940); Dominazioni e poteri (1951). Sartre Jean-Paul (1905-1980) Nacque e morì a Parigi, dove, all’« École Normale Supérieure », studiò filosofia che insegnò poi per diversi anni nei licei di Le Havre e Parigi. Iniziò la carriera letteraria come giornalista, romanziere, saggista, drammaturgo e sceneggiatore cinematografico. Dopo il 1945 viaggiò moltissimo, anche per motivi politici, data la sua mili- tanza nel Partito Comunista francese, di cui poi assunse dall'esterno il ruolo di critico. Negli anni del dopoguerra fu la personalità più popolare in Francia e più discussa in Europa. 332 Sartre, come Heidegger, concentra la sua analisi filosofica sul- l'essere ai fine di coglierne il significato profondo e di svelarne la natura. Però per Sartre l'essere, che egli chiama essere-in-sé per distinguerlo dalla coscienza (essere-per-sé) è una massa inerte, gon- fia, qualcosa di ripugnante. Ma la caratteristica sua particolare è l'assurdità: nell’assurdità sta la chiave della esistenza di ogni cosa. L'uomo si distingue dagli altri esseri perché ha la coscienza che è l'opposto dell'essere. Per vivere, la coscienza ha bisogno di nulli- ficare l'essere, in quanto è per sua natura il non-essere, il vuoto, il nulla. L'attività nullificatrice della coscienza ha come sbocco neces- sario la « nausea ». Questa nasce dal fatto che la coscienza trova sempre davanti a sé qualche cosa di troppo. Ma ciò che è il dato costitutivo essenziale dell'uomo non è la coscienza ma la libertà, senza limiti e non vincolata da nessuna legge morale. L'uomo desi- dera fondamentalmente di essere in sé, poiché il per sé (o essere della coscienza) è un puro nulla. Questo ideale è ciò che può essere chia- mato Dio, il quale perciò è una semplice ipostatizzazione di questo ideale. Opere principali: La trascendenza dell’Ego (1936-1937); L'imma- ginazione (1936); La nausea (1938); Abbozzo di una teoria delle emo- zioni (1939); L'immaginario (1940); L'essere e il nulla (1943); Il muro (1943); Le mosche (1943); A porte chiuse (1945); Materialismo e rivo- luzione (1946); Questioni di metodo (1957); Critica della ragione dia- lettica (1960); Le parole (1964); Kierkegaard vivo (1966); Conversa- zione sull'antropologia (1966); L'idiota di famiglia (1971-1972); Ri- bellarsi è giusto (1974). Scheler Max (1874-1928) Filosofo tedesco, nato a Monaco e morto a Francoforte. Già di- scepolo di Dilthey, Eucken e Simmel ed influenzato da Nietzsche, subì in seguito fortemente l’influsso di Husserl, dal quale apprese il metodo fenomenologico, di cui fece ampio uso nel suo studio del- l'uomo, della persona, dei suoi atti, della conoscenza (intenzionalità ed oggettività) ed in particolare della esperienza morale. Importante il suo tentativo di uscire dall’'etica formalistica di ispirazione kan- tiana, conferendole un contenuto materiale desunto dai valori. La sua opera principale porta per titolo // formalismo in etica e l'etica materiale dei valori (1916), « l'opera di gran lunga più signifi- cativa apparsa da molto tempo » (Hildebrand). Mediante l’elabora- zione di un'etica dei valori, in cui si rivendica a queste entità una dimensione ontologica propria che sfugge a tutte le minacce dello psicologismo, Scheler sottrae la morale oltre che al formalismo kantiano anche a tutte quelle visioni soggettivistiche e positivistiche che erano diventate di moda alla fine dell'Ottocento (nominalismo, psicologismo, positivismo, pragmatismo ecc.). Scheler definisce i valori come « oggetti autenticamente ogget- tivi, disposti in ordine eterno e gerarchico ». La sua assiologia si ca- 333 ratterizza pertanto come realistica, come gerarchica ed inoltre come personalistica (in quanto tutti i valori dei gradi inferiori sono subor- dinati alla persona) e teocentrica (in quanto al vertice di tutti i va- lori, come valore supremo, viene posto Dio). Scheler si sottrae al rischio immanentistico presente nel metodo fenomenologico distin- guendo la fenomenologia dei valori dalla filosofia della religione. Senonché questa distinzione viene abbandonata negli ultimi scritti, dove Scheler assume una visione immanentistica e pertanto pan- teistica della realtà. Opere principali: Il formalismo in etica e l'etica materiale dei valorî {1916); Essenza e forme della simpatia (1923); Le forme del sapere nella società (1926); La posizione dell'uomo nel cosmo (1927); La visione filosofica nel cosmo (postuma). Schelling Friedrich Wilhelm (1775-1854) Nacque a Leonberg, nel Wiirttemberg, studiò a Tubinga dove ebbe come condiscepolo Hegel. Nel 1799 fu chiamato a sostituire Fichte a Jena, poi passò ad insegnare a Wiirzburg, a Monaco e a Berlino. Schelling ha una concezione dell’assoluto come sintesi degli op- posti: dell'io e della natura, del soggetto e dell'oggetto, dello spi- rito e del mondo. L'assoluto origina la natura, forma oggettiva, per acquistare per mezzo di essa maggiore coscienza della propria sog- gettività. Quindi la natura è preistoria della coscienza, pensiero pie- trificato. L'uomo è l'essere in cui l'assoluto acquista coscienza di sé diventando spirito. La comprensione dell'universo in cui natura e spirito non sono più contrapposti ma armonizzati si attua nell'attività estetica. L'opera d’arte è manifestazione dell'infinito sotto forma finita. Opere principali: Sui miti, le leggende storiche e i filosofemi del mondo antico; Lettere filosofiche sul dogmatismo e sul cri- ticismo (1795-1796); Nuova deduzione del diritto naturale (1796- 1797); Sistema dell'idealismo trascendentale (1800); Esposizione del mio sistema di filosofia (1801); Filosofia e ragione (1804); Ricerche’ filosofiche sull'essenza della libertà umana (1809). Opere postume: Filosofia dell'arte; Le età del mondo. Schlegel Friedrich (von) (1772-1829) Critico e filosofo tedesco, nacque ad Hannover e studiò giurispru- denza dedicandosi allo studio «della letteratura greca. Insegnò priva- tamente a Parigi e poi a Colonia. Fu a Vienna, dove si impegnò in un movimento tardo romantico fiancheggiato dalla rivista Concordia. Morì a Dresda. Dopo una fase in cui Schlegel si distinse per i suoi contributi di natura storico-filologica, egli cominciò a orientarsi verso gli studi filosofico-estetici. I suoi primi contributi in questo senso, appaiono, a partire dal 1797, nella rivista Atheneum, organo del Circolo di Jena, 334 raccolti più tardi col titolo Lezioni filosofiche del 1804-06. Dopo la conversione al cattolicesimo, avvenuta nel 1808, Schlegel orientò il suo pensiero verso un nuovo spiritualismo fondato sull'esperienza cristiana. Opere principali: Sul valore dello studio dei greci e dei romani (1797). Schleiermacher Friedrich Daniel Ernst (1768-1834) Filosofo e teologo tedesco. Nacque a Breslavia e morì a Berlino. Studiò teologia all'università di Halle, che era il centro dell’illumi- nismo tedesco. Come Kant, ricevette una formazione religiosa di stampo pietistico. Amico di Schlegel, si aprì per il suo tramite al romanticismo. Durante l'occupazione napoleonica con Fichte fu uno dei più ardenti difensori del nazionalismo tedesco. Dopo la ca- duta di Napoleone riprese l'insegnamento alla università di Berlino dove fu anche preside della facoltà di teologia per oltre un ventennio. Schleiermacher è più teologo che filosofo; i suoi argomenti pre- feriti sono la ‘Scrittura, la fede, il cristianesimo, la religione, ai quali si accosta da una prospettiva che fonde insieme istanze ra- zionalistiche, romantiche e idealistiche. Il suo apporto maggiore riguarda la natura della teologia e il metodo teologico e il suo inse- gnamento in questo campo avrà un influsso rimarchevole dando origine a quel movimento che porta il nome di protestantesimo li- berale. Notevole anche il suo insegnamento relativo all'essenza della religione. Due sono i principi su cui egli fonda il suo concetto della religione: 1) la religione è una determinazione del sentimento; 2) l'essenza della religiosità sta nel fatto di essere coscienti della propria dipendenza da Dio. Il sentimento, come lo concepisce Schle- iermacher è qualcosa di più della comune accezione dello stesso. È una facoltà che si colloca tra la ragione e la volontà. Per lui il cristianesimo è superiore alle altre religioni « non per il valore ra- zionale dei suoi contenuti dottrinali, ma per il maggiore grado di ade- guatezza con cui questi contenuti attestano e suggeriscono il senti- mento fondamentale della nostra dipendenza da Dio ». Opere principali:. Discorsi sulla religione (1798); Monologhi (1800); La fede cristiana (1821-1822). La maggior parte dei suoi corsi accademici vennero pubblicati postumi nell'edizione delle Opere complete (1834-1864). Schopenhauer Arthur (1788-1860) Nacque a Danzica da famiglia agiata. Costretto dal padre a se- guire la carriera commerciale, l’abbandonò nel 1805 alla morte del padre e studiò a Gottinga e poi a Jena, dove, nel 1813, si laureò in filosofia. Ottenne la libera docenza all'università di Berlino, ma le sue dottrine pessimistiche come risultavano nella sua opera Il mondo come volontà e rappresentazione, pubblicata nel 1819, non trova- 335 rono molta fortuna. Nel 1833 si stabilì a Francoforte ove risied&tte fino alla morte. Schopenhauer, opponendosi alla tesi idealistica della razionalità della storia, evidenzia gli elementi negativi della natura e della storia. Movendo dalla distinzione kantiana fra fenomeno e noumeno, ma rovesciandone i significati, identifica il mondo dei fenomeni (della rappresentazione) col mondo della ragione e il mondo noumenico (reale, vero) con quello della volontà, una volontà cieca e irrazio- nale, da cui traggono origine tutte le cose e tutti gli avvenimenti. Gli individui non sono altro che l’oggettivazione della volontà. Tutto nel mondo è volontà, desiderio di ciò che non si possiede, perciò l’u- manità è in preda a un continuo dolore nato dall’insoddisfazione dei suoi desideri. L'unico modo per liberarci da queste dolorose volontà di vivere è quello consistente nella noluntas, nella rinuncia alla pro- pria individualità. Essa avviene in tre momenti: arte, simpatia, a- scesi. Opere principali: Sulla vista e i colori (1816); Il mondo come vo- lontà e rappresentazione (1814-1818); Sulla volontà della natura (1836); Sulla libertà del volere (1839); Sul fondamento della morale (1840); I due problemi fondamentali dell'etica (1841); Quadruplice radice (1847); Parerga e paralipomena (1851). Scoto Duns (1265-1308) Nacque a Maxton in Scozia. Entrò giovanissimo nell'ordine fran- cescano. Fece gli studi ad Oxford e a Parigi. A Parigi ottenne il ti- tolo di magister theologiae. Nel 1298 tornò in Inghilterra dove com- mentò le Sentenze di Pietro Lombardo. Poi ancora a Parigi. Finì la sua vita nello studentato francescano di Colonia. Scoto si sforzò di operare una sintesi fra la corrente francescana e quella aristotelica. Le dottrine più originali della sua metafisica so- no l'univocità dell'essere, l’ecceità e la distinzione formale tra essenza ed esistenza. L'oggetto della metafisica è l'essere in quanto perfe- zione massimamente indeterminata. L'« ecceità » (0 « questità ») è una forma particolare che conferisce l’individuazione. Tra essenza ed e- sistenza non vi è distinzione reale, ma « formale ». L'esistenza di Dio deve essere dimostrata: la prova più convincente è quella della causalità. Sia in Dio sia nell'uomo la volontà ha priorità rispetto al- l'intelletto. L'uomo è essenzialmente composto di anima e di corpo. Intelletto e volontà sono formalmente distinte dall'anima, pur costi- tuendo con essa una sola realtà. Distanziandosi da s. Tommaso, Scoto afferma la priorità della volontà sull’intelletto. Opere principali: Commentari ad Aristotele; Opus oxoniense; Re- portata parisiensia; De primo rerum principio. Seneca Lucio Anneo (4 a.C.-65) Nacque a Cordova, ma si trasferì a Roma sin da fanciullo. Qui ebbe come maestri di filosofia gli stoici Attalo e Sozione. Assimilò 336 in modo personale le loro dottrine e divenne il massimo rappresen- tante dello stoicismo nel mondo latino. Diventò massimo consigliere di Nerone. Ma, caduto in disgrazia di questi, si ritirò dalla vita pub- blica. Accusato di aver partecipato ad una congiura contro Nerone, fu da questi indotto al suicidio. Secondo Seneca l'universo è composto di due principi: uno passi- vo, la materia, e uno attivo, Dio. Questi è l’anima dell'universo, ra- gione (logos) diffusa in tutte le cose, fonte immanente di vita, legge suprema che connette in un'unica catena di cause tutti gli eventi e condiziona l'unità organica del cosmo. Seneca è il filosofo pagano che maggiormente ha compreso il valore della libertà come diritto costitutivo fondamentale di ogni uomo. La lotta di Seneea eontro la schiavitù è incondizionata. L'uguaglianza è un diritto naturale. Fine ultimo della vita umana è l'autonomia della persona di fronte ad uo- mini ed eventi: è la libertà dello spirito da tutto ciò che può pro- fanare la divina serenità dell'animo. Opere principali: 9 Tragedie; De clementia; De beneficiis; Dia- logorum libri; 124 Lettere a Lucilio; Naturalium quaestionum libri VII. Socrate (469-399 a.C.Nacque e visse ad Atene nell'epoca del suo maggior splendore arti- stico e della maggiore potenza militare ed economica. Condusse una vita molto semplice e frugale. Nel 400 a.C. venne accusato di empietà e corruzione della gioventù. Non volle salvarsi andando in esilio pri- ma del processo. Condannato a morte, morì bevendo la cicuta. Eser- citò una grande influenza sulla filosofia greca. La missione a cui si sentì chiamato dall’oracolo di Delfi fu di in- citare gli uomini a preoccuparsi degli interessi della loro anima con l'acquisto della saggezza e della virtù. Contro i Sofisti si preoccupò di definire i concetti universali di bene, giustizia, felicità e virtù, iden- tificando la conoscenza con la moralità e la felicità con la pratica del- la virtù. Infatti per lui è essenziale la distinzione di male e di bene. Il metodo ‘da lui usato nelle conversazioni con i discepoli fu quel- lo dell'ironia che spinge l'interlocutore a porsi nuovi problemi (maieutica). Non ha lasciato alcuno scritto. Spencer Herbert (1820-1903) Nato a Derby, Inghilterra, compì studi scientifici e avanzò la tesi dell’evoluzionismo scientifico dalla iettura delle opere di Lyell. Successivamente, trasferendo l'evoluzione dal campo scientifico a quello filosofico, ne ha fatto una vera e propria visione del mondo sia cosmico che biologico, sia umano che sociale. Valendosi dell’evo- luzione anche per spiegare l'ordine dell'universo, Spencer ascrive a tale ordine un'origine meccanica e non intenzionale {o finalistica). Non per questo egli ritiene di dover negare l’esistenza di Dio, che 337 anzi egli ammette, perché sfugge alla ragione. Questa realtà assoluta è l’Inconoscibile, l'essere assoluto che l'uomo chiama Dio. Opere principali: Statica sociale (1850); Principi di psicologia (1855); Primi principi (1862); Principi di psicologia (1870-1872); Principi di etica (1879-1892); Individuo e Stato (1884); Autobiografia (1904, postuma). Spinoza Baruc (1632-1677) Nacque ad Amsterdam da una famiglia di ebrei profughi dal Por- togallo. Il padre lo avviò allo studio delle sacre Scritture e delle dottrine rabbiniche, ma Spinoza coltivò anche lo studio della filo- sofia e della teologia protestante. Asserendo che l’interpretazione tradizionale della sacra ‘Scrittura era errata, nel 1656 fu scomuni- cato dalla comunità israelita ed espulso per eresia. Abbandonò Am- sterdam e si trasferì a Leida dove visse nella riservatezza e nella povertà. Spinoza, quasi ignorato per oltre un secolo dopo la sua morte, avvenuta a l’Aia, fu messo poi in luce dai filosofi tedeschi come Lessing, Herder e gli idealisti che divennero suoi ferventi ammira- tori e gli assicurarono un posto tra i più grandi pensatori dell'uma- nità. Come Cartesio egli incentra tutta la sua riflessione filosofica su due realtà: Dio e l’uomo. Il suo obiettivo non è la conquista della verità ma il raggiungimento della felicità. Spinoza risolve il dualismo cartesiano di res cogitans e res extensa considerandole come i due attributi conoscibili dell'unica so- stanza esistente, Dio, costituita da infiniti attributi. Il mondo è iden- tico a Dio (Natura sive Deus): Dio è natura naturans, cioè infinita attività produttrice e il mondo è natura naturata, infinito prodotto. L'etica di Spinoza si risolve nell’amor intellectualis Dei, cioè nella conoscenza della sostanza divina che si ha quando è raggiunto il trionfo della ragione e il dominio delle passioni. In politica Spinoza è uno dei primi assertori della teoria dell’origine contrattuale dello Stato. Opere principali: Breve trattato su Dio, l'uomo e la sua feli- cità; Ethica more geometrico demonstrata; Tractatus de intel- lectus emendatione; Principia philosophiae cartesianae; Trac- tatus theologico-politicus (1670). Spirito Ugo (1896-1979) L'itinerario filosofico di U. Spirito, filosofo italiano nato ad Arez- zo e morto a Roma, iniziò con un'adesione piena ed entusiastica al- l’attualismo di Gentile, che lo Spirito difese contro le obiezioni che da varie parti sorgevano contro di esso. Ma poi proseguì su una linea autonoma, dando all’attualismo una piega marcatamente anti- intellettualistica oltre che fortemente immanentistica ed atea, cui viene dato il nome di problematicismo. Come spiega lo stesso Spi- rito, il problematicismo è « una concezione della vita come ricerca, 338 che non ha scetticamente rinunciato alla verità e che anzi sa bene quanto dogmatica e contraddittoria sia tale rinuncia, ma che non si illude d'averla già in suo possesso ». « Esso non si presenta come una filosofia bensì soltanto come un'aspirazione alla filosofia: non pretende di avere valore assoluto [...] ma non si definisce nep- pure come relativismo, perché non comprende come si possa rinun- ciare alla speranza dell’assoluto ». Al termine del suo movimentato itinerario filosofico Spirito si attestò su una posizione sostanzialmente neo-positivistica, assumen- do la scienza come principio chiave per la comprensione del mondo e come criterio supremo per decidere di qualsiasi problema, inclusi i problemi di ordine etico ed assiologico. In tale prospettiva marcata- mente scientista, Spirito affida alla scienza — e non più alla meta- fisica e alla religione — il compito di fungere da strumento connet- tivo della società e di fissare una nuova tavola di valori. Opere principali: Il pragmatismo nella filosofia contemporanea (1921); Scienza e filosofia (1933); La vita come ricerca (1937); Il pro- blematicismo (1948); Dall’attualismo al problematicismo (1976). Stalin (1879-1953) Pseudonimo di Josif Visarionovic Dzugasvili, nato in Georgia, uomo politico russo, fondatore, con Lenin e Trotzsky, del Politburo del Partito Bolscevico russo e collaboratore di Lenin nella fase di ricostruzione della Russia; stroncò le opposizioni interne con dure repressioni, facendo assassinare persino Trotzsky quando già si tro- vava in esilio in Messico (1940). Lo stalinismo è il frutto più specifico del dogmatismo ideologico di Lenin. Nei suoi brevi scritti, Stalin segue la linea del suo maestro Lenin, sforzandosi di dimostrare che questi era il più diretto e orto- dosso seguace di Marx e che la dottrina derivante messa a punto da Lenin, il marxismo-leninismo, era la più completa teorizzazione fi- losofica per lo sviluppo dell'umanità. Il XX Congresso del Partito comunista russo del 1956, quando era salito al potere Kruscev, rinnegò e condannò l’opera di Stalin, avviando il cosiddetto processo di « destalinizzazione ». Opere principali: Sul! materialismo dialettico e sul materialismo storico, Principi del leninismo {1924); Questioni del leninismo (1926). Stein Edith (1891-1942) Ebrea di razza e di fede, nata a Breslavia in Germania, fu disce- pola e assistente di Husserl. Convertitasi al cattolicesimo nel 1922, nel '32 entrò nel Carmelo di Colonia, dove fu arrestata dai nazisti nel 1942. Morì nel lager di Auschwitz il 9 agosto dello stesso anno. Carattere centrale del suo pensiero è l'impegno di rivedere tutto l'impianto della metafisica aristotelico-tomista in chiave fenomeno- logica. Nella sua tesi di laurea Sul! problema dell'empatia sviluppa uno studio pregevole e originale sul sentimento dell’empatia, con cui l'io « percepisce condividendola » la realtà dell'altro. 339 ILa Stein intende approfondire la riflessione avviata da Lipps e Husserl: pur avendo quaicosa in comune sia con la percezione ester- na, sia con la memoria, sia con l'immaginazione, l’empatia è un'espe- rienza sui generis: è l’esperienza che un Io in generale ha di un altro Io. Con l’empatia, considerata come atto di compartecipazione, si entra nel « regno dello spirito », che è il regno dei valori. Opere principali: Su! problema dell'empatia (1917); La fenome- nologia di Husserl e la filosofia di san Tommaso d'Aquino (1929); Essere finito ed eterno (1950, postuma); La scienza della croce (1950, postuma). Suarez Francisco (1548-1617) Nacque a Granada. Fu filosofo e teologo. Mentre studiava nel- l'università di ‘Salamanca entrò nell'ordine dei gesuiti. Insegnò filosofia a Segovia e teologia a Valladolid. Tra il 1580 e il 1585 insegnò a Roma al « Collegio Romano ». Poi rientrò in Spagna e continuò a insegnare. Suarez è il pensatore più profondo e originale della Controri- forma. Col suo tentativo di conciliare il tomismo con le dottrine do- minanti dopo Occam e con le nuove teorie che lo sviluppo della scienza moderna andava evolvendo, egli inaugura un nuovo tipo di filosofia scolastica, il cui obiettivo principale è di operare una sin- tesi tra le posizioni di san Tommaso e il pensiero moderno. La sua opera principale, Disputationes metaphysicae, è la prima trattazione sistematica completa delle questioni discusse dalla filosofia scola- stica, in forma indipendente sia dalla teologia che dalle opere di Aristotele. In tal modo Suarez costituì la metafisica nella sua spe- cificità e totalità. In una prima parte tratta dell'essere in generale e delle sue cause, nella seconda dei vari enti esistenti: Dio, l’uomo e il mondo. Opere principali: De Verbo incarnato (1590); Disputationes me- taphysicae (1597); Varia opuscola theologica (1599); De vera intel- ligentia (1605); De legibus ac Deo legislatore (1612). Talete (624-562 a.C.) Matematico, astronomo e filosofo di Mileto. Fondatore della Scuo- la ionica. Descritto nell'antichità come una personalità poliedrica. A lui sono attribuiti numerosi teoremi di geometria e la scoperta del- la formula per misurare l'altezza delle piramidi attraverso la misu- razione dell’ombra da queste proiettata. Pone l’acqua come prin- cipio da cui traggono origine tutte le cose, per condensazione o ra- refazione. Telesio Bernardino (1509-1588) Originario di Cosenza, studiò fisica, medicina e filosofia a Padova dal 1527 al 1535. Si ritirò poi, per circa dieci anni, in un convento benedettino. 340 È il primo importante esponente di una nuova filosofia della na- tura che scorge in essa solo forze naturali che si devono spiegare con i suoi principi. L'indagine sulla natura deve procedere non dalla ragione ma dal senso. Ed è quest’ultimo a rivelare che nella natura non agiscono principi astratti come le forme o le cause finali, ma le forze, che sono cause meccaniche, principi agenti. I due principi agenti sono il caldo e il freddo. Dal loro contrasto deriva la realtà dei fenomeni fisici. Con questi due principi Telesio spiega anche la conoscenza umana, ridotta a sensazione. Telesio riconosce, comunque, la presenza nell'uomo anche di un'anima soprannaturale, divina e infusa da !Dio, la cui presenza non è testimoniata solo dalla rivelazione, ma anche dal bisogno innato che l’uomo ha di iDio e di una giustizia, ultraterrena. Conse- guentemente quest'anima è immortale. Opere principali: De rerum natura juxta propria principia (1586); Varii de rebus naturalibus libelli (1590, postumi). Tommaso d'Aquino (1225-1274) Nato a Roccasecca, presso Aquino (Frosinone), ricevette la pri- ma educazione dai benedettini di Montecassino. Studiò a Napoli ed entrò nell'ordine dei domenicani. Imprigionato dai fratelli perché contrari alla sua scelta religiosa, quando uscì di prigione lasciò l’Ita- lia e andò in un convento domenicano di Parigi, sotto la guida di Alberto Magno. Insegnò teologia alla Sorbona e fu teologo papale presso la corte pontificia. Passò gli ultimi anni nel convento di Na- poli componendo la Summa theologiae e predicando al popolo. Nel gennaio 1274, papa Gregorio X lo invitò al Concilio di Lione. Durante il viaggio si ammalò e fu trasportato nell'abbazia cistercense di Fossanova (in provincia di Latina) e qui morì il 7 marzo dello stesso anno. Tommaso d'Aquino, una delle maggiori figure della filosofia occi- dentale, portò a compimento quella straordinaria sintesi tra la gran- de eredità classica e la metanoia cristiana, che pone l’uomo al centro della creazione. Nella sua filosofia la conciliazione tra cristianesimo e aristo- telismo avviene in seno ad una altissima concezione dell'Essere se- condo cui l’Essere è la perfezione assoluta; l'origine degli enti è dovuta alla creazione; la creazione è una partecipazione per somi- glianza della perfezione dell'essere da parte degli enti; tra i singoli enti e l’Essere c'è solo analogia. In tale prospettiva, fede e ragione sono modi di conoscere diver- si, che non si contraddicono ma si completano reciprocamente: 1) la ragione accetta una verità nell'ordine delle cose naturali in base alla loro evidenza; 2) la fede accetta una verità nell'ordine del sopranna- turale sulla base dell'autorità di Dio rivelante. 341 Filosofia e teologia sono di conseguenza due scienze diverse, che non si contraddicono poiché Dio è il loro autore comune. (Circa la concezione antropologica, Tommaso considera l’uomo come un composto {sinolo) di anima e corpo, in cui l’anima è l'unica forma del corpo. La conoscenza umana è autosufficiente per cui non abbisogna di interventi straordinari per avere luogo. L'anima è im- mortale, di immortalità personale perché essa è « forma assoluta, che non dipende dalla materia ». Pur riconoscendo all'anima un più elevato grado di perfezione ri- spetto al corpo nella gerarchia degli esseri, egli crea una antropologia integrale, nella quale al corpo viene restituita tutta la sua dignità nell'ordine della creazione. Tommaso considera la conoscenza dell'uomo autonoma da un intervento diretto di Dio e risultato di un processo che l'intelletto compie a partire dall'esperienza. Definisce inoltre la coscienza quale « ritorno completo del soggetto in se medesimo »: la coscienza, in virtù dell'intenzionalità, pone se stessa in relazione con le cose e, confrontandosi con esse, conquista la propria identità. iLa consapevolezza di Tommaso della dignità dell’uomo è tale che sia l’esistenza di Dio (cinque prove) che l'immortalità dell'anima ven- gano dimostrate dalla ragione. In Tommaso trova spazio anche il problema politico, in relazione al quale egli asserisce l'origine naturale dello Stato, che considera una società perfetta poiché ha un fine proprio, il bene comune, e mez- zi sufficienti per realizzarlo. Nel conflitto tra i due poteri, tipico del suo contesto storico, egli fu assertore della dipendenza indiretta dello Stato dalla Chiesa, che è una società più perfetta in ordine ai fini e ai mezzi che le sono propri: lo Stato dipendente indirettamente dalla Chiesa nell'ordine dei fini soprannaturali dell’uomo. È opportuno sottolineare come oggi molti noti studiosi, ca- me ad esempio Jaspers, hanno riconosciuto che le analisi sulla volontà, la libertà e le passioni umane fatte da Tommaso sono pro- fonde e precise, valide anche per la filosofia contemporanea. Opere principali: De ente et essentia; Commentari alle principali opere di Aristotele; Summa contra gentiles (1269-1273); Summa theo- logiae (iniziata nel 1269 e rimasta incompiuta); De unitate intellectus contra averroistas (1270); De veritate; De potentia; De malo; De spiritualibus creaturis; Expositio super Job; De regimine princi pum; Compendium theologiae; De substantiis separatis. Vico Gianbattista (1668-1744) Nato a Napoli, studiò filosofia presso i gesuiti, sotto la guida di padre Rissi. Dal 1699 fu professore di retorica all'università della stessa città. Visse poveramente fra incomprensioni e ostilità. Nel 1732 gli fu conferito l’incarico di storiografo regio. L’intuizione fondamentale di Vico dal punto di vista filosofico è 342 espressa nella formula « verum est factum », cioè per conoscere ve- ramente una cosa è necessario essere in grado di farla. In base a questo criterio l’uomo non può conoscere la natura perché creata da Dio, non può conoscere il proprio essere in quanto non si è auto- creato. Oggetto della conoscenza umana è la storia in quanto opera dell’uomo. La legge universale che regola la storia è una legge di sviluppo attraverso la ritmica ripetizione delle tre epoche del corso storico (età degli dei, degli eroi, degli uomini). Questa legge della ripetizione dei corsi non sopprime la libertà umana, non è un ostacolo al proces- so della civiltà, è necessaria e voluta da Dio per riportare l’uomo cor- rotto dalla ragione alla religione. Oltre alla dimensione storica, Vico riabilita, in sede filosofica, quella estetica. Per lui l’arte ha una funzione metafisica, in quanto è l'espressione profonda delle cose da parte di un essere intelligen- te, in cui la ragione non ha ancora raggiunto la piena maturazione e che perciò riesce a esprimersi per mezzo del sentimento e della fantasia. . Opere principali: De nostri temporis studiorum ratione (1708); De antiquissima Italorum sapientia; Liber physicus; Liber moralis; Il diritto universale; De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno; De constantia iurisprudentis; Principi d'una scienza nuova dintorno alla natura delle nazioni (Scienza nuova prima, 1725; Scienza nuova seconda, 1730; Scienza nuova terza, 1744). Voltaire (soprannome di Frangois Marie Arouet) (1694-1778) Nato a Parigi, studiò presso i gesuiti della stessa città. Fre- quentò l’ambiente libertino di Parigi e si prese un anno di prigione per il suo spirito dissacratorio e anticonformista. Tra il 1726 e il 1729 fu in Inghilterra. Tornò in Francia per un decennio circa, riti- rato in un castello della Lorena, poi andò a Berlino alla corte di Fe- derico II. Trascorse gli ultimi venti anni a Ferney, in Francia, impe- gnato a far conoscere le sue idee sulla tolleranza religiosa e sulla libertà. Massimo esponente dell'illuminismo francese, tentò di operare una sintesi tra il razionalismo di Cartesio e l'’empirismo di Newton. Dalla contingenza del mondo egli argomenta a favore dell’esistenza di Dio, ma resta profondamente agnostico per quanto concerne la sua natura e i suoi attributi. Anche riguardo all’immortalità dell'ani- ma sostiene che bisogna credervi anche se non esistono argomenti probativi per dimostrarla. In conformità con le esigenze dell’illumi- nismo Voltaire è massimamente critico di ogni religione istituziona- lizzata, in particolare del cristianesimo. Egli attacca con critica spietata, ingiusta e beffarda tutte le dottrine e le strutture della Chiesa cattolica. Opere principali: Edipo (1718); Lettere filosofiche (1729-1732), Trattato di metafisica (1734); Elementi della filosofia di Newton 343 (1737); Il secolo di Luigi XIV (1753); Dizionario filosofico (1753); Candido (1759); Trattato sulla tolleranza (1763); Questioni sui mira- coli (1765); Filosofia della storia (1765); Filosofo ignorante (1766); Bisogna prendere partito (1772); Questioni sull’Enciclopedia (1776). Whitehead Alfred North (1861-1947) Matematico e filosofo inglese, nato nel Kent, a Ramsgate e mor- to negli U.S.A. a Cambridge, nel Massachusetts. Giunse tardi alla filosofia, dopo avere insegnato per molti anni geometria e mate- matica all'università di Londra. Dal 1924 al 1937 occupò la cattedra di teoretica all'università di Harvard. In collaborazione con Russell scrisse i famosi Principia mathematica, opera volta a dimostrare che le matematiche pure (compresa la geometria pura) sono un ramo del- la logica e le loro proposizioni sono analitiche e non sintetiche a prio- ri come aveva sostenuto Kant. Sulie orme di Peano e Frege, White- head pone come proposizioni iniziali pochi principi logici, rappresen- tati da simboli formali, da cui, con un calcolo logico, si deducono al- tre proposizioni. Con questo metodo vengono man mano introdotti e dimostrati principi e teoremi. Il processo è puramente analitico e a priori, indipendentemente dalle cose e dallo spirito. Non per questo Whitehead sposa una visione idealistica della realtà: il mondo non emerge dal soggetto come per gli idealisti, ma piuttosto il soggetto dal mondo. Ma questo non significa che il soggetto procede dalla ma- teria come insegnano i materialisti. La realtà è concepita come un processo, costituito da eventi in connessione reciproca. Oltre che dagli eventi il processo è costituito da forme e struiture ricorrenti che Whitehead chiama « oggetti eterni ». Al più alto grado gli og- getti eterni costituiscono i valori {il bene, il bello, il vero) che si rea- lizzano occasionalmente nel processo. Di qui la singolare concezione del divino proposta da Whitehead: Dio è insieme ia « natura origi- naria », in quanto contiene in sé la totalità degli oggetti eterni, e la « natura conseguente », come realizzazione progressiva, interna al processo, di tutti i possibili valori dell’esistenza. Dio, principio del bere e degli altri valori supremi, è in lotta con ii male. Egli soffre per iiberarsene insieme a quanti vivono e soffrono ia vicenda della vita. Alia filosofia del processo di Whitehead si è ispirato un impor- tante movimenio teologico statunitense, chiamato « teologia del processo » {Process theology). Opere principali: L'organizzazione del pensiero (1917); Ricerca sui principi della conoscenza naturale (1919); ii concetto di natura (1920); La scienza e ii mondo moderno (1525); Processo e realtà (1929); Avventure delle idee (1933); Modi di pensiero (1938); Scienza. e filosofia (1947). Wittgenstein Ludwig (1889-1952) Logico e filosofo del linguaggio, massimo esponente prima del neopositivismo e poi dell'analisi linguistica. Nato a Vienna, compì gli 344 studi in Germania e in Inghilterra. Qui svolse anche la sua attività accademica a partire dal 1939 operando con B. Russell, a Cambridge, dove morì. Le due opere Tractatus logico-philosophicus e Osserva- zioni filosofiche rappresentano due diverse concezioni della filosofia del linguaggio, per cui si è soliti parlare di un Wittgenstein I e di un Wittgenstein II. il primo (che è quello del Tractatus) concepisce il linguaggio come rappresentazione delle cose, privilegia il linguaggio scientifico su tutti gli altri e assume come criterio di significazione la verifica sperimentale. Il secondo (che è quello delle Philosophical Investigations) considera il linguaggio come un gioco le cui regole so- no fissate arbitrariamente. Riconosce molti giochi linguistici validi, purché siano regolati da un preciso e stabile gruppo di norme. Ri- tiene che la funzione di linguaggio-guida, criterio di verifica per ogni altro linguaggio, non spetti al linguaggio scientifico bensi al linguag- gio ordinario. Opere principali: Tractatus logico-philosophicus (1918); Osser- vazioni filosofiche (1964); Quaderno blu (appunti del 1933-34); Qua- derno marrone (1934-1935); Osservazioni sui fondamenti della mate- matica (1956); Grammatica filosofica (1969); Della certezza‘(1969). Wolff Christian (1679-1754) Nacque a Breslavia e nel 1706 fu nominato professore nell'uni- versità della stessa città. Il re Federico, convinto dai suoi avversari, gli tolse l'insegnamento per il suo razionalismo religioso. Il succes- sore Federico II, però, lo riconiermò nell'insegnamento. Discepolo di Leibniz, è l'autore di una sintesi poderosa tra il pensiero filosofico tradizionale di stampo razionalistico e le scoperte scientifiche del suo tempo. Egli divide tutta la filosofia in sette parti principali: /ogica, antologia, cosmologia, psicologia empirica, psicologia razionale, teo- fogia naturale, filosofia moraîe. Questa divisione verrà regolarmente seguita dalla maggior parte dei filosofi dei secoli successivi. Riguardo aì contenuto la filosofia di Wolff è sostanzialmente leibniziana. Come Leibniz, Wolff elabora una spiegazione della realtà partendo da tre principi: ragion sufficiente, armonia prestabilita, ottimismo. Offre, però, due importanti novità: abbandono del concetto della monade, come sostanza semplice costituente lo spirito e la materia; riduzione del principio di ragion sufficiente al principio di non contraddizione. Opere principali: Philosophia rationalis sive Logica (1728); Philo- sophia prima sive Ontologia (1729); Philosophia moralis sive Ethica {1750-1753); Oeconomica (1750). Zenone (336-274 a.C.) Nato a Cizio, nell'isola di Cipro, si trasferì ad Atene dove fre- quentò le scuole di diversi filosofi. Tenne ie sue lezioni sotto il Portico Dipinto (Stoà Poikilé) di Atene. Da qui prese il nome ia sua dottrina filosofica: lo « stoicismo ». La sua dottrina è essenzialmente di ordine morale, ma comprende 345 anche importanti elementi di metafisica e cosmologia. E i suoi inse- gnamenti morali, estremamente rigorosi (soppressione delle passioni e degli istinti, eliminazione del piacere, pratica della virtù) sono in perfetta armonia con la sua visione metafisica. Questa pone al vertice di tutte le cose il Logos (la ragione), il quale irradia la sua forza sulla materia a modo di semi (/ogoi spermatikoi); questi germi svi- luppandosi danno origine agli individui. I semi irradiati dal Logos non sono altro che frammenti del Logos stesso. Anche l'uomo, come tutti gli altri esseri, è costituito da un frammento del Logos (l’anima) e da una parte di materia (il corpo). L'uomo può essere immortale solo in quanto cerca di identificarsi col Logos, cioè in quanto cerca di superare la sua individualità, distaccandosi dalla materia. Opere principali: La repubblica; I segni; Il discorso; La natura; La vita secondo natura; Le passioni, 346 Parte quarta: GUIDA ALLA LETTURA DI ALCUNE OPERE DI FILOSOFIA" « Il Fedone », di Platone « Il discorso sul metodo », di Cartesio « La missione del dotto », di Fichte « Manifesto del partito comunista », di Marx- Engels « Introduzione alla metafisica », di Heidegger Non c'è via migliore alla conoscenza del pensiero dei filosofi della let- tura diretta delle loro opere. Ma è evidente che per uno studente di liceo (e non soltanto per lui) questa è un'impresa impossibile, dovendo egli, nel breve giro di tre anni, prendere contatto con tutta la folta schiera di pen- satori che va dal primo sorgere della filosofia fino ai giorni nostri. Cio- nondimeno, per ogni epoca della storia della filosofia, i programmi gover- nativi prevedono che lo studente effettui una lettura accurata e critica di almeno un'opera di un grande autore. La scelta dell'opera è general- mente affidata al professore. Quando insegnavo storia della filosofia in liceo ai miei studenti facevo leggere tre opere, le quali oltre che importanti e significative in se stesse, e per il nome dei loro autori, sono anche singolarmente adatte ad intro- durre lo studente alle tre grandi epoche della storia della filosofia: an- tica, moderna e contemporanea. Tali opere sono: — Il Fedone, di Platone — Il discorso sul metodo, di Cartesio — La missione del dotto, di Fichte Per venire incontro alle richieste di diversi insegnanti e per una mi- gliore completezza storica del pensiero filosofico contemporaneo, abbia- mo aggiunto poi due opere, che riteniamo significative, dei secoli XIX e XX: — Manifesto del partito comunista, di Marx-Engels — Introduzione alla metafisica, di M. Heidegger. * Le traduzioni di cui si siamo serviti sono le seguenti: PLATONE, Fedone, tr. di M. VALGIMIGLI, Laterza, Bari 1946. CARTESIO, Il discorso sul metodo, tr. di G. BONTADINI, La Scuola, Brescia 1957. FICHTE, La missione del dotto, tr. di C. MAZZANTINI, Società ‘Editrice Interna- zionale, Torino 1957. MARx-ENGELS, Il manifesto del partito comunista, tr. di E. CANTIMORI MEZZA- MONTI, Laterza, Bari 1974. HEIDEGGER, Introduzione alla metafisica, tr. di G. Masi, Mursia, Milano 1979. 347 Le accuse a Socrate Difesa di Socrate: educazione del giovani all'esercizio della virtù I. «IL FEDONE » Platone (427-347 a.C.) 1. Ambientazione storica dell’opera Nel 399 a.C. Socrate viene condannato a morte dai governanti di Atene sotto l'imputazione di empietà e corruzione delia gioventù, due accuse che gli erano state mosse da varie parti già da molto tempo. Ancora nel 423, nella commedia Le Nubi, Aristofane aveva attaccato Socrate proprio in quanto, col suo spirito critico, incitava i giovani a considerare con di- sprezzo la tradizione etico-politica della città, e in quanto con i suoi inse- gnamenti si metteva fuori della stessa tradizione religiosa seguita da tutti i cittadini. Alcuni anni più tardi ii poeta tragico Meleto aveva dichiarato: «Commette reato Socrate, non ritenendo dèi quelli che considera tali lo Stato e tentando inoltre di introdurre altri enti demoriaci nuovi; com- mette ancora reato corrompendo i giovani ». In questo clima si spiega la denuncia contro Socrate, che appariva a molti non soltanto l'avversario più accanito della cultura allora impe- rante (quella sofista) ma anche come l'esponente intellettuale più te- mibile per gli aristocratici che governavano la città. Probabilmente l'o-biettivo dei suoi avversari era che egli se ne andasse in esilio e in effetti gli proposero questa soluzione; ma Socrate volle affrontare il pro- cesso, in cui respinse entrambe ie accuse: il suo obiettivo non era quello di corrompere la gioventù, ma di sollecitarla alla pratica della virtù e al ‘perseguimento dei più elevati valori morali; quanto alla religione, egli non avversava affatto la tradizione, ma cercava di ‘adeguarla alle esi- genze di una maggiore razionalità. In tribunale, i più dovettero avere ia chiara impressione che Socrate non intendeva affatto modificare ii suo atteggiamento; ed i voti di coloro che si pronunciarono per la sua asso- luzione furono inferiori a quelli necessari. Quando si trattò di definire il tipo di pena che gli sarebbe stata inflitta, Socrate chiese ironicamente che gli venisse decretata una pensione a vita, come benemerito dello Stato. La cosa suonò come una provocazione e come un insulto alle isti- tuzioni cittadine; anche parecchi di quelli che avevano votato a favore della sua assoluzione gli furono infine contrari; ed egli fu condannato a bere la cicuta. L'esecuzione della pena capitale, che di per sé doveva aver luogo im- mediatamente, fu rimandata d'un paio di settimane, perché in quei giorni sì stavano celebrando le Delie (le feste in commemorazione della impresa di Teseo) e pertanto non si potevano eseguire pene capitali. In attesa dell'esecuzione della sentenza Socrate fu rinchiuso in prigione. È ap- punto questo il luogo e il momento in cui si svolge il dialogo tra Socrate e i suoi discepoli circa il destino ultimo dell'uomo, 348 2. Ii dialogo, metodo dell’opera La metodologia filosofica ai tempi di Platone è ancora in fase di gesta- zione e assestamento. Î primi pensatori greci avevano dato espressione poetica alle loro meditazioni filosofiche. Più tardi Aristotele introdurrà quelia che diventerà la forma definitiva: quella sobria e rigorosa del trattato. Per esporre il suo pensiero Platone si vale di una via di mezzo: meno libera ed alata di quelia poetica, ma anche meno arida e sistema- tica di quella del trattato, ia via del diaiogo. Il dialogo e il trattato perseguono lo stesso obiettivo ma cercano di raggiungerlo in maniera diversa. Tutt'e due svolgono una tesi; ma mentre nel trattato il discorso è sviluppato da una sola mente, la quale prima di accoglieria con certezza definitiva, vaglia tutti i pro e contro della tesi, i! cialogo è tun discorso tra due o più persone, le quali di fronte ad una tesi particolare, assumono ciascuna una posizione perso- nale, Diversamente che nel trattato, dove le obiezioni rimangono pure difficolrè. astratte da superare, nel dialogo le tesi contrastanti si inca: nano in personaggi vivi: esse rappresentano il loro modo di intendere le cose e di vivere ia vita. uesto è vero in rarticolare del Fedone, del quale il Valgimigli scrive a ragion veduia che « quì non abbiamo a che fare con un’opera filosofica pura e semplice, la quale possa essere considerata esclusivamente nella sua astrattezza razionale, sia pure nel vivo diaiettizzarsi del pensiero; qui abbiamo a che fare con un'opera ci filosofia che si concreta s si avvia in una vera azione, che anche dai punto di vista formale esterno si sviluppa in un vero dialogo, cioè in una scena che si muove tra persone vere, non tra simboli, tra persone le quali, sì, ragionano, ma anche sono agitaie e travagliate e conimosse e hanno un’ansia di ricerca che non ie interessa solc intellettualmente, ma ie prende e conquide nella loro più profonda umanità. Lo stesso Socrate avverte più volte, e scherzando se ne giustifica, che questo ragionare lo tocca assai da vicino; e ci sono intorno a lui il giovanetto Fedone e il vecchio Critone, e i due ospiti te- bani, e Apollodoro che meno degli altri, guando Socrate beve il far- maco, riesce a frenare il pianto; e tutti infine si velanc il capo e si traggo- no da parte, e nella stanza ormai fatta oscura e silenziosa biancheggia ii iettuccio dov'è disteso il maestro, il compagno e l’amico, con gli occhi e le labbra appena chiusi per sempre dal pio atto di Critone ».i 3. Divisione e sintesi dell’opera Ii dialogo si divide in due grandi parti (separate da un breve ma splendido intermezzo), costruite in perfetta simmetria tra di loro. La prima comprende i capiîci! 1-34; la seconda i capitoli 36-66. Entrambe le parti si articolano in tre tempi: primo, annotazioni biografiche (nella prima parte Socrate è seduto sui suo lettuccio, accanto a iui è Santippe, intorno gli amici, e Critone com ia sua premura affettuosa e le sue rac- comandazioni un poco inopporiune; nella seconda parte Socrate si trova nuovamente sul suo Jettuccio con intorno gli amici piangenti); secondo, ! M, VALGIMIGLI, intrcduzione a PLATONE, Fedone, Laterza, Bari 1946, pp. 1-2. 349 La metodologia platonica dei dialogo Distinzione tra dialoge e trattato Il ‘“Fedone’”: un’opera di pensiero e concretezza Struttura simmetrica del dialogo Un dialogo tra amici su Socrate Gli ultimi istanti della vita di Socrate La sopravvivenza dell'anima dopo la morte Filosofia e musica: aftinità tra mitologia e filosofia dimostrazione dell'immortalità dell'anima (nella prima parte con le pro- ve della reminiscenza e della affinità dell'anima con la sfera delle Idee: nella seconda parte con la prova dei contrari e della partecipazione del- l'anima al mondo delle Idee); terzo, miti (nella prima parte, il mito della metempsicosi; nella seconda parte, il mito della condizione delle ani- me dopo la morte). Il dialogo .tra Socrate e i suoi amici, in :particolare con Simmia e Cebete, due pitagorici, è collocato in un contesto più vasto, che ha come interlocutori Echecrate e Fedone. Questi, ritornando ad Atene dopo il volontario esilio che si era imposto dopo la morte del maestro, passa da Fliunte patria di Echerate, il quale coglie l'occasione per chiedere all'amico come Socrate avesse trascorso i giorni del carcere. Echecrate domanda informazioni a Fedone riguardo agli ultimi mo- menti della vita di Socrate; più esattamente gli chiede due notizie: — Come mai passò tanto tempo tra ‘la condanna e l'esecuzione della pena? — Chi era presente alla morte di Socrate? ‘Alla prima domanda Fedone risponde che la ragione del lungo inter- vallo fu la coincidenza della condanna a morte di Socrate con la celebra- zione delle Delie, durante le quali non si poteva dare esecuzione a nes- suna pena capitale. Alla seconda domanda risponde che erano presenti alcuni ateniesi, tra cui Critone, due forestieri, Simmia e Cebete, che pro- venivano da Tebe {cc. 1-2), e la moglie di Socrate, Santippe. Poi Fedone passa a descrivere le prime vicende dell'ultimo giorno: l'allontanamento sofferto ma deciso di Santippe da parte di Socrate dalla prigione, e lo scioglimento di Socrate dalle catene. Quest'ultimo fatto offre a Socrate lo spunto per introdurre il tema che gli sta a cuore, la sopravvivenza dell'anima dopo la morte. Stropicciandosi la gamba indo- lenzita, Socrate pensa al singolare caso di due esseri i quali, pur essendo tra loro contrari, piacere e dolore, non possono stare separati; e chi fa per inseguire l'uno e lo prende, ecco che gli viene subito dietro anche l’altro, quasi ‘che fossero legati insieme a un unico capo: cosicché, dice, se Fisopo ci avesse posto mente, certo ne avrebbe composta una del. le sue favole. Allora si introduce Cebete il quale chiede a Socrate: a proposito, com'è che da quando sei qui, ti sei messo a musicare favole di Esopo e un poema ad Apollo? Me l’ha domandato più volte anche l’amico Eveno. E tu digli la verità, gli risponde Socrate: più volte nella vita passata mi apparve un sogno, ora in questo, ora in quell’aspetto, e sempre mi di- ceva la stessa cosa: — O Socrate, componi ed esercitati nella musica. — Ed io credevo in verità che il sogno mi incitasse a quello che già facevo, ossia a filosofare, ritenendo appunto che la filosofia fosse la più alta350 musica. Ma venuto qui sono stato assalito dal dubbio che il sogno volesse intendere musica proprio nel significato usuale e comune del termine; e allora mi parve bene obbedire comunque al sogno; e così composi un inno ad Apollo e ho messo in musica alcune favole di Esopo? Dì, dunque, all'amico Eveno, conclude Socrate, che questa è la ragione della mia applicazione alla musica e alla poesia; e digli inoltre che « se è savio, mi venga dietro al più presto ». Queste mie parole, insiste Socrate, non devono sorprendere nessuno, perché tutti i veri filosofi desiderano di morire, anche se non è loro consentito procurarsi la morte con ila propria mano. A questo punto Cebete obietta: « Come dici, o Socrate, che far vio- lenza a se stessi non è lecito, e d'altra parte che chi è filosofo possa avere desiderio di andare dietro a chi muore? » L'obiezione interessa molto Socrate, anche perché, a chi è sul punto di intraprendere il viaggio per il mondo di là, niente si addiceè meglio che meditare intorno a questo viaggio. SEZIONE SECONDA (cc. 6-13) 2. Immortalità dell'anima è Tesi di Socrate: Al filosofo è lecito desiderare la morte Prima formulazione della tesi — Socrate risponde all’obiezione di Cebete che per certi uomini e in certe circostanze è meglio morire che vivere, però è loro vietato procurarsi la morte da se stessi perché « noi uomini siamo come in una specie di carcere, e quindi non possiamo libe- rarci da noi medesimi e tanto meno svignarcela », infatti: « Dei sono coloro che hanno cura di noi uomini e noi siamo una delle cose in pos- sesso degli Dei » (c. 6). Obiezione di Cebete — Appunto perché siamo nelle mani degli Dei non è lecito al filosofo desiderare di morire. Si tratta infatti di una cosa assurda che una persona saggia come il filosofo desideri sottrarsi al ser- vizio di coloro che sono i migliori dominatori, dato che gli è impossi- bile provvedere meglio a se stesso divenendo libero (c. 7). Seconda formulazione della tesi — Socrate risponde a Cebete dando una formulazione più completa della sua tesi. Afferma che è lecito desi- derare di morire perché egli crede che dopo la morte si va presso altre divinità savie e buone, insieme a uomini morti migliori dei vivi. « Data questa speranza, io non ho ragione di rammaricarmi alla pari di chi eguale speranza non abbia; e anzi io sono pieno di fede che per i morti ? Platone accenna ad una teoria che gli è molto cara: quella delle affinità tra mitologia e filosofia: « C'è un “fare miti” o poetare che non contraddice propriamente al “fare logoi” 0 filosofare, e anzi sono ambedue, in vario senso, più compiuto o più limitato, un “fare musica”; e codesto far miti o poetare può dar luogo esso al filosofare, e anche concludere il filosofare, quando in questo far logoi il logos sia giunto a un punto estremo oltre il quale non può più avere svolgimento senza mutarsi in mito » (Ibidem, pp. 4-5). Questo spiega perché Platone accompagri sistematicamente le sue argomentazioni filosofiche con immagini mitiche. Nel Fedone alle dimostrazioni dell'immor- talità dell'anima, fa seguire il mito della metempsicosi e il mito della con- dizione delle anime dopo la inorte. 351 I veri filosofi desiderano la morte Non è lecito ad alcuno procurarsi la morte La vita Immortale in La vita ascetica del filosofo puro ragionamento si rivela la verità Astrazione e contemplazione La morte è indispensabile al raggiungimento della sapienza, verità e virtù qualche cosa ci sia, e come anche si dice da tempo, assai migliore per i b i che per i cattivi» (c. 8). Dimostrazione della tesi (cc. 9-13) — Al filosofo è lecito deside- rare la morte, anzi, durante tutta la vita non si cura di nient'altro se mon di morire ed essere morto, perché la morte è la separazione dell'anima dal corpo, e questa separazione è desiderabile per tanti motivi: Primo motivo. Durante la vita non vale la pena interessarsi del corpo, e questo per quattro ragioni: 1) I piaceri del corpo sono troppo caduchi. Perciò « il filosofo in tutte le cose sopra dette (mangiare, bere, vestire...) cerca di liberare quanto più può l’anima da ogni comunanza col corpo, a differenza degli altri uomini » {c. 9). 2) Il corpo impedisce l’acquisto della sapienza. Vista e udito, che sono i sensi più perfetti, non ci fanno conoscere niente di preciso e di sicuro, e invece di farci conoscere la verità ci tirano in inganno. È solo nel puro ragionamento che si rivela all'anima la verità. « L'anima ragiona con la sua migliore purezza quando non la conturba nessuna di cotali sensa- zioni. Né vista, né udito, né dolore e nemmeno piacere; ma tutta sola si raccoglie in se stessa, dicendo addio al corpo; e, nulia più partecipando del corpo, né avendo contatto con esso intende con ogni suo sforzo la verità » (c. 10). 3) Le idee di giustizia, bontà, ecc. non possono essere percepite dal corpo; esse possono essere percepite solo da chi « con purità perfetta massimamente si adoperi di avvicinarsi a ciascun oggetto col solo pensie- ro, senza né aiutarsi, nel suo meditare, con la vista o con altro senso [...] anzi astraendo, per quanto può, da occhi e da orecchi e insomma da tutto il corpo, come quello che perturba l'anima e non le permette di acqui. stare verità e intelligenza, quando abbia comunanza con esso » (c. 10). « Fino a quando abbiamo il corpo e la nostra anima è mescolata e con- fusa con un male di tal natura, noi non saremo mai capaci di conqui- stare compiutamente quello che desideriamo e che diciamo essere la verità » (c. 11) o « sapienza » (cfr. c. 11 più avanti). 4) I) corpo stesso è causa delle inquietudini che lo tormentano: « Infinite sono le inquietudini che il corpo sì procura per le necessità del nutrimento [...] Guerre, rivoluzioni, battaglie, chi altri ne è cagione se non il corpo e le passioni del corpo? » (c. 11). Secondo motivo. La morte è desiderabile perché completa quella separazione tra anima e corpo che è indispensabile per il raggiungimen- to della sapienza; separazione che il filosofo ha cercato di attuare du- rante tutta la sua vita con l’ascesi di purificazione. La purificazione con- siste nell'adoperarsi « in ogni modo a tener separata l’anima dal corpo e abituarla a raccogliersi e a racchiudersi in se medesima fuori da ogni elemento corporeo » (c. 12). Se il filosofo non desiderasse la morte com- metterebbe una grande contraddizione, perché il filosofo è per ogni ri- spetto in discordia con il corpoe ha desiderio di essere solo con la propria anima e solo con la morte questo diviene possibile (c. 11; cfr. la bellis- sima finale). Terzo motivo. La morte è necessaria non solo per raggiungere la verità (o sapienza), ma anche per raggiungere le altre virtù: giustizia, fortezza e temperanza. Solo i filosofi considerano la morte un bene; tutti gli altri la mettono nel numero dei grandi mali. Per cui, fatta eccezione per 352 il filosofo, tutti gli altri sono coraggiosi perché sono vili e hanno paura, sono temperanti per la loro intemperanza, per paura di restar privi di certi piaceri. Tutto quello che Socrate ha detto sulla desi- derabilità della morte è vero solo a patto che l’anima sia immortale, ma molti uomini temono che, « quand’ella sia distaccata dal corpo, non esista più in alcun luogo, e si guasti e perisca il giorno stesso in cui l’uomo muore » (c. 14). :Perciò affinché sia possibile accettare quello che Socrate ha detto sulla desiderabilità della morte e sulla vita futura è necessario che Socrate provi prima che l’anima seguita ad esistere quando l’uomo è morto, e poi che ella conserva potere e intelligenza (c. 14). Socrate accetta la richiesta e adduce vari argomenti a favore dell'immortalità dell'anima. 1) Il primo argomento è basato sulla dottrina dei contrari — I con- trari (piacere-dolore, buono-cattivo, vita-morte, caldo-freddo, etc...) si avvicendano in modo ciclico. Perciò i vivi si generano dai morti e i morti dai vivi. Aspetto religioso dell'argomento. Dottrina della metempsicosi: « C'è una antica dottrina che esistono colà anime giuntevi di qui e che di là nuovamente tornano qui e che si rigenerano dai morti nuovi esseri » {c. 15). Aspetto filosofico dell'argomento. Ogni essere che ha il suo contrario, non da altro si genera se non da quello appunto che è il suo contrario. « Ebbene, disse, al vivere c'è qualcosa di contrario, come all'essere sveglio è contrario il dormire? Certamente, disse. E che cosa è? L'essere morto, disse. E, dunque, questi due stati, se è vero che sono contrari fra loro, non si generano così l’un dall'altro? [...] Senza dubbio » (c. 16). « Dunque da ciò che è morto, o Cebete, si genera ciò che è vivo, e insomma dai morti si generano i vivi? » — È chiaro, disse. — Dunque le nostre anime sono nell’Ade. — Così pare (c. 16). Necessità di un perpetuarsi ciclico nel passaggio da un contrario al- l'altro. « Perché non ci fosse tra gli esseri, nel loro generarsi, una corri- spondenza perpetua degli uni con gli altri, come se ruotassero in cerchio; e invece il processo generativo si svolgesse esclusivamente da un essere al suo opposto, come in linea retta, e non girasse più all'indietro verso il primo punto e non compisse il suo giro, tu capisci bene che tutti gli esseri finirebbero con l'assumere la stessa forma e si troverebbero nelle stesse condizioni e insomma cesserebbero di generarsi » (c. 17). « Se tut- te le cose che muoiono rimanessero in tale forma e non più riprendessero il corso verso la vita, sarebbe necessario che alla fine tutto fosse morto e più niente vivesse » (ib.). 2) Il secondo argomento è tratto dalla dottrina della reminiscenza — Senza la preesistenza dell'anima la reminiscenza è impossibile. La remi- 353 Argomenti a favore dell’immortalità dell’anima I contrari si generano l’uno dall'altro Ciclicità della generazione dei contrari Resistenza e reminiscenza: prove di immortalità fl ricordo delle idee come criterio di giudizio Reminiscenza e perdita delle conoscenze alla nascita Tutto ciò che è vivo si genera da ciò che è morto x niscenza non « è possibile se l'anima nostra non esistesse già in qual. che luogo prima di generarsi in questa nostra forma umana. Cosicché anche per questa via appare che l’anima è qualcosa di immortale » (c. 18). Socrate distingue due modi di reminiscenza: a) reminiscenza per contiguità; per esempio, vedendo la lira dell’innamorato ci si ricorda del- la sua figura; b) reminiscenza per somiglianza; per esempio, vedendo i’im. magine di Simmia, ci si ricorda della sua persona. Poi, esaminando il se- condo tipo di reminiscenza {quello fondato sulla somiglianza) trova che non è possibile giudicare della somiglianza tra varie cose senza avere una idea universale di eguaglianza, dell’eguale in sé. Ma questa idea dell’egua- le in sé non può essere ricavata dall'esperienza. Infatti, nell'esperienza, le cose che giudichiamo eguali sono sempre difettose, non sono perfette come l’eguale in sé. Ora per giudicare di questa discrepanza tra l’eguale in sé e le cose eguali, colui che giudica « ha da essersi pur fatta dapprima in qualche modo un'idea di quel tale essere a cui dice che la cosa veduta s'assomiglia, ma rispetto alla quale è difettosa » (c. 19). « Dunque prima che noi cominciassimo a vedere e a udire, insomma a far uso degli altri sensi (cioè prima di nascere) bisognava pure che già ci trovassimo in possesso della conoscenza dell’eguale in sé, che cosa realmente esso è, se poi dovevamo, gli eguali che ci risultavano dalle sensazioni, ripor- tarli a quello, e pensare che tutti quanti hanno una loro ansia di essere come quello, mentre poi gli rimangono al di sotto » (c. 19). Questo si- gnifica che « prima di nascere e subito dopo nati conoscevamo già non so- lo l’eguale e quindi il maggiore e il minore, ma anche tutte insieme le al- tre idee; perché non tanto dell’eguale stiamo ragionando ora, quanto anche del bello in sé e del buono in sé e del giusto e del santo [...] » (c. 20). Il meccanismo della reminiscenza viene spiegato nel modo seguente: « Acquistate delle conoscenze prima di nascere noi le perdiamo nascendo; e poi, valendoci dei sensi relativi a certi dati oggetti, veniamo recupe- rando di ciascuno di essi quelle conoscenze che avevamo già anche pri- ma » (c. 20). Poi Socrate mostra che la reminiscenza è l’unico modo di spiegare il fatto che noi non conosciamo immediatamente le idee appena nati (cfr. c. 21). In conclusione: la reminiscenza delle idee postula la preesistenza dell'anima. « Se veramente esistono questi esseri di cui an- diamo ragionando continuamente e il buono, e il bello e ogni altro si- mile e a ciascuno di questi riportiamo e compariamo tutte le impressioni che ci vengono dai sensi riconoscendo che essi sono gli esemplari prima già posseduti dal nostro spirito, non è necessario, per la stessa ragione onde questi esistono, che anche esista la nostra anima prima ancora che noi siamo nati? » (c. 22). Dimostrazione che l'anima continua ad esistere anche dopo la morte del cor po. All’argomentazione di Socrate Simmia obietta: « Che cosa vieta che ella si generi e si formi da qualche altra parte ed esista anche prima di giungere nel corpo umano; ma che poi, quando vi sia giunta e se ne distacchi, allora finisca anch'ella di esistere e si perda compiutamente? » (c. 23). Risposta di Socrate. « Ebbene, o Simmia e Cebete, disse Sacrate, è dimostrato fin d'ora anche questo: purché vogliate congiungere insieme il nostro presente argomento con l’altro sul quale già ci mettemmo d'ac- cordo prima, e cioè che tutto ciò che è vivo si genera da ciò che è morto. Infatti, se l’anima esiste anche prima, ed è necessario che, entrando 354 essa per la sua generazione nella vita, non da altro si generi se non dalla morte e dall'essere morti; come non è parimenti necessario che ella seguiti ad esistere anche dopo la morte, se è vero che deve poi nuova- mente rinnovarsi? Ed ecco dunque che anche questo secondo punto ri- mane dimostrato senz'altro » (c. 23). (Digressione sul fanciullo dentro di noi [la parte irrazionale dell'anima che non vede il bene e tende solo al piacevole], che si spaventa davanti alla morte) (c. 24). 3) Il terzo argomento a favore dell'immortalità dell'anima è basato sulla semplicità del suo essere — L'anima non è soggetta a decompo- sizione perché il suo essere non è composto, ma semplice. Ora solo gli esseri composti sono soggetti a corruzione. L'anima è semplice perché è costante, invariabile e invisibile. L'anima ha queste doti perché è « congenere alle idee che sono costanti, invariabili e invisibili ». Le idee sono invariabili. « L'eguale in sé, il bello in sé e insomma ogni data cosa che è in sé, l'ente, c'è mai caso che patisca mutazione veruna? — No » (c. 25). Le idee sono invisibili. « Quelle che rimangono costanti non c’è altro mezzo col quale le possa apprendere se non col pensiero e con la medita- zione: perché quelle di questa specie sono invisibili e non si possono per- cepire con la vista » (c. 26). Il corpo invece è mutevole e visibile perché è simile alle cose sensibili. Per cui l’anima soggeita al cotpo « va errando qua e là e si conturba e barcolla come ebbra » mentre l'anima indipen- dente dal corpo « se ne va colà dov'è il puro, dov'è l’eterno e l’immuta- bile e l’invariabile... e cessa dal suo errare, e rimane sempre invariabil- mente costante » (c. 27). fondato sulla fun- 4) Il quarto argomento a favore dell'immortalità è è padrona del corpo. zione dell'anima nei riguardi del corpo — L'anima Ora questa è una funzione divina {(c. 28). 5) Il quinto argomento si basa sul fatto che neppure il corpo, pure appartenendo alla sfera del corruttibile, si corrompe immediatamente, perciò tanto meno potrà essere distrutta l'anima dalla morte, che appar- tiene alla sfera dell'incorruttibile. « Ebbene dunque, se tale è l'anima, non se n’andrà ella a ciò che le è simile, cioè, dico, all’invisibile, al divino, al- l'immortale, all’intelligente, dove giunta potrà essere in realtà felice [....]? » (c. 29)? 4. Metempsicosi Dopo aver provato l'immortalità dell'anima del filosofo, Socrate espone la sorte che tocca ai filosofi e agli altri uomini dopo la morte. ? Gli studiosi sono in disaccordo circa il numero delle prove che Platone elabora nel Fedone: chi ne conta tre, chi cinque, chi otto. Però se si tiene conto della struttura dialettica dell’opera, la quale esige che si considerino le singole argomentazioni non come qualcosa di autonomo, completo e defi- nitivo, ma come elemento di un unico tutto, allora si può ‘dar ragione a chi ritiene che Platone, alla fin fine, sviluppi un'unica grande prova. Non figura peraltro nel Fedone la prova della semovenza (cioè la prova fondata sulla proprietà che ha l’anima di muovere se stessa e d’essere causa del proprio agire), a cui Platone dà ampio risalto nel Fedro (cfr. B. Monpin, Corso di storia della filosofia, cit., pp. 90-91). 355 Semplicità e immortalità dell'anima L’anima Incontaminata ritorna agli dei L'arnlma contaminata è nuovamente “incaîenata al corpo” La filesofia conduce agli dei La morte non è per Socrate una sventura L'anima che durante la vita non è stata contaminata dal corpo, cioè l'anima del filosofo, ritorna fra gli Dei. Quest'anima « si diparte pura dal corpo; nulla del proprio conpo traendo seco, come quella che nulla in vita, per quanto poté, volle avere in comune con esso e anzi fece di tutto per fuggirlo e starsene tutta raccolta in sé medesima. L'anima che in questa vita è stata contaminata dal corpo, alla morte « si parte dal corpo contaminata e impura, come quella che fu sempre assieme col corpo e lo servì e Io amò e si lasciò affascinare da esso, e cioè dalle sue passioni e dai suoi piaceri » (c. 30). Quest'anima non può ritornare tra gli Dei, ma, vinta dalla sollecitudine del corpo, « sarà tratta di nuovo in giù verso la ragione visibile, per paura dell’invi- sibile, o, come dicono, dell’Ade; e se ne andrà girando intorno alle tombe e ai sepolcri [...] fino a che, per l’insaziabilità di quel corporeo che sempre l’accompagna, non è di nuovo incatenata in un corpo» (c. 30). « Queste anime che durante la vita furono contaminate dal corpo, si reincarneranno e assumeranno forme corporee diverse secondo le con- suetudini diverse che ebbero in vita: così per esempio, quelli che furono dediti a gozzoviglie o a violenze carnali, ecc. diventeranno asini e simili bestie; altri che furono ingiusti o rapaci, diventeranno lupi e sparvieri e così via » (c. 31). Conclusione. Per raggiungere gli Dei occorre mettersi sotto la guida della filosofia. « La filosofia, prendendo ad educare la loro anima in tali condizioni (la condizione di essere «incollata al corpo e costretta ad indagare la verità attraverso questo, come attraverso un carcere »), cerca a poco a poco di guidarla e addirittura si adopera di liberarla dal corpo » (c. 33). Sotto la guida della filosofia «l'anima cerca di conquistare la propria serenità da codeste passioni, seguendo il razio- cinio e in esso persistendo ininterrottamente, attendendo alla contem- piazione del vero, del divino e di ciò che non è soggetto all'illusione dei sensi. Quando Socrate ebbe finito di parlare domandò se ci fosse qualche manchevolezza nei suoi ragionamenti. Simmia risponde che ha dei dubbi, ma non osa manifestarli « per la preoccupazione che potesse riuscirgli fastidioso questo domandare in un momento così malaugurato ». Socrate protesta che se è così, cioè se è vero che hanno paura di fargli delle do- mande, vuol dire che non è ancora riuscito a convincere i suoi amici che egli non reputa sventura la sua condanna a morte, e che essi lo riten- gono da meno dei cigni, i quali, con un canto più lungo e più bello, sanno predire, quando si avvicina la morte, che andranno al Dio, di cui sono devoti. Ma « anch'io credo di essere compagno di servizio coi cigni e sacro al medesimo Iddio (Apollo) e di avere avuto dal Dio Signore non meno di loro l'arte della divinazione; e perciò anche credo di potermi allontanare dalla vita con non minore letizia » (c. 35). 356 SECONDA PARTE (cc. 36-66) SEZIONE PRIMA (cc. 36-40) 1. Le obiezioni di Simmia e Cebete Obiezione di Simmia — Simmia osserva che tutto quello che Socrate ha detto riguardo all'anima e al corpo si può ugualmente dire dell’ac- cordo e della lira; anche l'accordo, come l’anima, è invisibile, incorporeo, bello, divino; anche la lira come il conpo è visibile, corporea, terrena, e insomma congenere del mortale. Possiamo noi ammettere, secondo il tuo ragionamento, che, rotta la lira, possa seguitare ad esserci l'accordo? Ora, l’anima è una specie di accordo degli elementi che costituiscono il corpo; e dunque se il corpo, che è condizione indispensabile per l’esistere dell'anima, verrà meno, anche l’anima necessariamente, per quanto di- vinissima, dovrà venir meno; e anzi verrà meno prima del corpo, che durerà ancora per qualche tempo, fino a che non sia arso dal fuoco o consumato dalla putredine. Obiezione di Cebete — Cebete dice che Socrate, con l'argomento della reminiscenza non ha fatto un passo avanti nella dimostrazione dell'immortalità. Ha dimostrato che l’anima esiste già prima del nostro nascere; ma che ella seguiti a vivere eternamente, questo non pare an- cora dimostrato. Non già che egli sia d'accordo con Simmia, perché crede che l'anima è più resistente del corpo: ma questo non basta a dimostrarne l'immortalità. Facciamo un esempio: chi dura più a lungo, il tessitore o il suo mantello? Chiaro, il tessitore. Infatti egli consuma diversi mantelli e rispetto a questi mantelli si può dire che egli è morto dopo. Però se il tessitore è morto non si può provare che egli è ancora vivo portando come prova che l’ultimo mantello che si era tessuto e portava non è ancora consumato. Applichiamo questo esempio alle relazioni tra l'anima e il corpo. L'anima può via via consumare e ritessere sopra di sé più corpi, come il tessitore più mantelli; e un giorno che ella venga a morire avrà sopra di sé l’ultima sua tessitura e morirà prima di questa. Si può quindi concedere che sopravviva a più corpi, ma chi potrà mai avere coscienza che il proprio corpo non sia precisamente l’ultima tessi- tura della propria anima, e con codesto, anzi prima, muoia anche la sua anima? Ecco perché io dico che sulla soglia della morte ognuno ha ragione di temere che in quel momento avvenga anche per la sua anima l'estrema dispersione e distruzione (c. 37). Gli argomenti di Simmia e di Cebete fanno molta impressione sugli astanti che sono presi da un certo senso di scoraggiamento e temono che la immortalità dell'anima non sia dimostrabile (c. 38). Allora Socrate li ammonisce contro la malattia della misologia (cioè dell’avversione al ragionamento) e raccomanda Îoro di « non diventare misologi come si diventa misantropi. Perché non può capitare a uno peggior guaio di questo, che gli vengano in odio i ragionamenti » {c. 39. Vedi la bellissima spiegazione dell’origine della misantropia). Se un argomento appare una volta vero e un'altra falso non è colpa sua: il ragionamento rimane sempre lo stesso, o vero o falso. La colpa è solo di chi ragiona o meglio della sua imperizia nell'arte del ragionare. E sarebbe molto pietoso se « per piacere di liberarsi dal tormento di si- 357 Argomento di Simmia: l’accordo e la lira come l’anima e il corpo Argomento di Cebete: l’anima è più resistente del Corpo, ma non necessariamente eterna; il tessitore e il suo mantello Sopravvivenza, ma non eternità Socrate contro la misologia che distrugge il sano ragionamento L’imperizia nell’arte di ragionare La tesi di Simmia non spiega il vizio e la virtù C'è contrasto tra anima e corpo Socrate e i naturalisti; come spiegare l’eguale esito dei processi contrari? mile alternativa, egli finisse col respingere da sé quella che è unicamente sua colpa e la gettasse addosso ai ragionamenti stessi, e così ormai seguitasse tutto il resto della sua vita, odiando e maledicendo ogni ra- gionamento, e si privasse della conoscenza e della verità di ciò che real- mente esiste » (c. 39). Quindi, conclude Socrate, le obiezioni di Simmia e Cebete « non devono scoraggiare più voi di quello che turbino me, e io non ne sono certamente turbato perché non mi preoccupo tanto di fare apparire vero a voi quel che dico, quanto che apparisca vero a me prima che ad ogni altro, diversamente dai sofisti che non si curano già dove sia la verità in ciò di cui stanno ragionando bensì di fare apparire vere a chi discute con loro le questioni che essi stessi pongono » Secondo Socrate l’obie- zione di Simmia, basata sulla concezione dell'anima come epifenomeno del corpo, non regge per tre motivi: a) Essa mette Simmia in contraddizione con se stesso, perché egli accetta l'argomento della reminiscenza e sostiene allo stesso tempo che l’anima non è altro che l'accordo degli elementi del corpo. Ora chi accetta l'argomento della reminiscenza deve ammettere che l’anima esi- ste prima del corpo mentre chi concepisce l'anima come accordo deve negare che l’anima esista prima del corpo (come l’accordo non può esi- stere prima delle corde della lira) (c. 41). b) L'anima non può essere concepita come accordo, perché in tal caso non si potrebbe spiegare cos'è il vizio e la virtù; perché, in tal caso si dovrebbe dire che la virtù è un accordo di un accordo ed il vizio un di- saccordo di un accordo. Se l’anima è per definizione un accordo, « nessu- na anima pcetrà avere più di un'altra né disaccordo né accordo [...] e an- cora se questa è la sua condizione, nessun'anima potrà avere più di un’altra né vizio né virtù, ammesso che vizio è il disaccordo e virtù è accordo » (c. 42). c) L'anima non può essere concepita come accordo, perché tra anima e corpo non c'è accordo, ma disaccordo, contrasto, lotta, guerra. « Per esempio, nel corpo c’è arsura e sete, e l’anima lo tira, ai contrario, a non bere; c'è fame, e l’anima lo tira a non mangiare, e così in mille aitri casi in cui vediamo che l’anima si oppone alle passioni del corpo » (c. 43). Risposta all'’obiezione di Cebete — Passando alla obiezione di Cebete, Socrate dice che in sostanza Cebete domanda che sia dimostrato che l'anima nostra è indistruttibile ed immortale {c. 44). « Non è cosa da poco, o Cebete, quello che cerchi; bisognerà rifarsi a ricercare in genere la causa della generazione e della corruzione delle cose. Ora io ti dirò a questo proposito, se vuoi, quello che è capitato a me e se qualche cosa di quello che sono per dirti ti sembrerà utile potrai usarne [...] » (c. 45). All’inizio Socrate seguì i naturalisti. « Quand’erc giovane fui preso da una vera passione per quella scienza che chiamano indagine della na- tura ». Ma poi « finii col persuadermi che a questa specie di indagini io 358 ero nato assai meno di ogni altro. E a persuadertene basterà questo. Che quelio che già prima sapevo con chiarezza [...] ecco che allora, per effetto di queste ricerche mi si abbuiò totalmente cosicché disimparai anche quello che prima credevo di sapere [...] » {c. 45). Il problema che tormen- tava Socrate e a cui i naturalisti erano incapaci di dare una risposta era come sia possibile con due processi contrari (per es., sottrazione e addi- zione) ottenere lo stesso risultato (per esempio si può ottenere con l'addizione di due unità e con la divisione di 4 in due parti eguali) e come una stessa cosa possa essere chiamata a volte grande e a volte piccola. Poi si entusiasmò per Anassagora. « Ma udito una volta un tale leggere da un libro, come egli diceva, di Anassagora, e dire che dunque c'è una Mente ordinatrice e causa di tutte le cose, io mi rallegrai di questa causa, e mi parve, secondo un mio modo, che questo porre Ja Mente come causa di tutto, convenisse sommamente. Presi con grande sollecitudine quei suoi libri, mi misi a leggerli con la maggior rapidità, perché volevo, con la maggior rapidità, conoscere il meglio e il peggio » {c. 46). Ma Socrate restò deluso da Anassagora, quando si accorse che anziché attribuire alla causalità della Mente l'origine delle cose, la attribuiva alle cose mate- riali. « Ed ecco, invece, o amico, che da così alta speranza io mi sentivo cadere giù e portar via man mano che, procedendo nella lettura, vedevo quest'uomo non valersi affatto della Mente, non assegnarle alcun prin- cipio di causalità nell'ordine dell'universo, bensì presentare come cause e l’aria e l'etere e l’acqua e altre cose, e tutte quante fuori di luogo; e mi parve fosse proprio lo stesso che se uno, pur dicendo che Socrate tutto quello che fa lo fa con la mente, quando poi si provasse a determi- nare.le cause delle cose che io faccio, incominciasse col dire che ora, per esempio, io sono qui seduto per il fatto che il mio corpo è composto di ossa e nervi [...] senza curarsi affatto di dire quelle che sono le cause vere e proprie: e cioè che, siccome agli Ateniesi parve bene votarmi contro, per questo anche a me è parso bene restarmene a sedere qui, e ho ritenuto mio dovere non andarmene via [ ...]}. Ma chiamar cause ragioni di questo genere non ha a che fare assolutamente. Ché se uno dice che io, senza avere di codeste cose e ossa e nervi e tutto quello che ho non sarei capace di fare quello che mi sembra di dover fare, sta bene, costui dirà il vero. Ma dire che queste sono la causa per cui io faccio quelio che faccio, e dire ai tempo stesso che io opero con la mente, ma senza che ci sia per mia .parte la scelta dei meglio, questo in verità è il più grossolano e insensato modo di parlare. Questo significa essere incapaci di discernere «che altro è la causa (aition) vera e propria, altro quella cosa senza cui la causa non potrà mai essere causa » (c. 47), ossia altro è la causa e altro è la condizione necessaria. Ora questa è precisamente una distinzione che Anassagora non era riuscito a vedere. La ricerca della vera causa condusse Socrate alla scoperta della dot- trina {ipotesî) delle « idee »  Disgustato di Anassagora, Socrate abban- donò la filosofia dei naturalisti e si mise alla ricerca della vera causa, e disse che per trovarla dovette rifugiarsi nei concetti (logoi) e « consi- derare in essi la realtà delle cose esistenti » {c. 48). «Io mi misi dunque per questa via; e assumendo caso per caso come vero quel concetto che io giudicassi più sicuro e più saldo, ie cose che a questo concetto mi par- vero accordarsi, queste ritenevo come vere, sia rispetto alla causa, sia rispetto a tutte ie altre questioni; quelle che no, io ritenevo come non 359 Socrate come Anassagora: le cose sono originate dalle cose materiali e non dalla mente Distinziene tra causa e origine delta causa in quanto fale La ricerca della vera causa nei concetti La presenza 0 comunanza delle cose al suo concetto La dottrina delle Idee spiega l’essere e il divenire Apparente contraddizione della tesi sulla teoria delle idee con l'argomento contro Cetete Occorre distinguere i contrari nelle cose dai contrari in sé Le cose nartecipano dei contrari, ma non sono necessariamente contrarie in sè vere. Ma voglio chiarirti meglio ciò che intendo dire, perché penso che tu ora non capisca » (c. 48). Socrate passa quindi a dimostrare apertamente qual è la specie di causa che si è costruita. « Poniamo dunque che esista, (si tratta quindi di un'ipotesi) un bello in sé, un buono in sé, un grande in sé, e così via: le quali cose se tu mi concedi e ammetti che esistano realmente io ho speranza, movendo da queste di scoprire la vera causa e di dimostrarti che l’anima è immortale ». Infatti, ammesse le Idee, Socrate trova che esse sono la vera causa. « A me pare infatti che, se c'è cosa bella all'infuori del bello in sé per nessuna altra ragione sia bella se non perché partecipa di codesto bello in sé. E così dico naturalmente di tutte le altre cose [....]. Niente altro fa sì che quella tale cosa sia bella se non la presenza o comu- nanza di questo bello in sé (e ekeinu tu kalù eite parusia eite koinonia) o altro modo qualunque onde codesto bello le aderisce. Perché io non insisto affatto su questo modo, e dico soltanto che tutte le cose belle sono belle per il bello » (c. 49). La dottrina delle Idee spiega non solo l'essere delle cose finite, ma anche il loro divenire. Infatti, dice Socrate, una data cosa si genera in quanto viene a partecipare di quella essenziale realtà che è propria di quella data idea onde essa partecipa; e così nei casi sopraddetti, tu non hai altra causa da addurre di codesto diventar due, se non la parteci- pazione alla dualità, e che di questa dualità bisogna che partecipino tutte ie cose che sono per diventare due e dell'unità le cose che sono per diventare uno » {c. 49). C'è però una difficoltà: come si spiega con la teoria delle Idee che la stessa cosa è chiamata grande e piccola (ad esempio, Socrate è chia- mato grande rispetto a Cebete e piccolo rispetto a Simmia)? Socrate ri- sponde che ia difficoltà è puramente verbale. In realtà « non solo la grandezza non vuole mai essere grande e piccola al medesimo tempo, ma altresì la grandezza che è in noi non vuole mai accogliere la picco- lezza e tanto meno esserne superata: e allora delle due l'una o fugge o cede il posto, quando il suo contrario, la piccolezza, le si avvicina, o addirittura quella sopravvenendole perisce; ma di restar ferma aì suo posto e ricevere in sé la piccolezza, e essere diversa da ciò che era prima, questo non vuole assolutamente » {c. 50). Qui pare però che Socrate si contraddica con quello che aveva affer- mato prima riguardo ai contrari, cioè che un contrario genera l’altro e Cebete fa presente a Socrate la difficoltà. Socrate chiarisce la difficoltà facendo vedere che essa deriva da un semplice malinteso: « Prima non si ragionava dei contrari, ma delle cose che hanno in sé i contrari (alle quali per questo si dà pure il nome di contrari). Ora parliamo dei con- trari in sé che noi riteniamo non vorranno mai accettare di generarsi gli uni dagli altri » (c. 50). Ultima dimostrazione dell'immortalità dell'anima (cc. 52-56) — Ora Socrate applica la dottrina che due contrari non possono partecipare l’uno dell'altro, (perché si oppongono e si escludono; e nel caso che so- pravvenga l’altro contrario il primo deve allontanarsi o perire) a quelle cose che non sono contrarie (solo le Idee si possono chiamare propria- mente contrarie) ma partecipano essenzialmente dei contrari {per esem- pio la neve e il fuoco non sono contrari, ma partecipano essenzialmente del freddo e del caldo che sono contrari). Tali cose quando sopravviene l’altro contrario non possono riceverlo, 360 ma'devono 0 allontanarsi o perire. Così, per esempio, la neve partecipa essenzialmente del freddo. Se sopravviene il caldo essa deve o allontanarsi o perire. Infatti, poiché partecipa essenzialmente del freddo, essa non può più essere neve se perde il freddo. Ciò che è essenziale non può essere ab- bandonato senza perire. Questo è precisamente il caso dell'anima. L'anima non è un contrario (perché non è un'Idea) ma partecipa essenzialmente ad uno dei contrari (la vita). Per cui l’anima, quando sopravviene l’altro contrario (la morte), deve o allontanarsi o perire. Secondo Socrate l’anima non può perire perché incorruttibile. Cebete concede che bisogna am- mettere non solo che l’anima è immortale (cioè non soggetta al contrario della vita, la morte) ma anche che è imperitura, perché se si ammette che « l'immortale che è eterno si corrompa » sarebbe impossibile poter cre- dere che nel mondo esista alcunché di incorruttibile (cc. 52-55 a). 3. Conclusione Non solo Dio e l’Idea della vita sono incorruttibili e imperituri, ma anche l’anima. « E quindi se la morte si abbatte sull'uomo, la parte di lui che, come sembra, è mortale, muore: la parte che è immortale, se ne va via salva e incorrotta sfuggendo la morte » (c. 56). ; Simmia però non è completamente pago della dimostrazione di So- crate. Questi gli dà ragione perché « quelle nostre prime ipotesi (le Idee), se anche non sono a te e agli altri cagione di dubbio, gioverà in ogni modo, per ragione di sicurezza, riesaminarle da capo » (c. 56). Però Socrate ritiene che se anche le prove non sono del tutto convincenti, l’a- nima è senza dubbio immortale. Dopo l'esposizione del mito meraviglio- so del giudizio delle anime dei morti e la descrizione della terra ideale, Socrate conclude: « Certo, ostinarsi a sostenere che le cose siano proprio così come io le ho descritte non si addice a uomo che abbia senno; ma che sia così o poce diverso da così delle anime nostre e delie loro abitazioni dopo che s'è dimostrato che l’anima è immortale, sostenere questo mi pare che si addica e anche si possa avventurarsi a crederia » (c. 63). Quanto a sé. conclude Socrate serenamente e solennemente, egli non ha nulla da temere perché « timori per la propria anima non deve avere chi nella vita disse addio ai piaceri del corpo e ai suoi ornamenti, sa- pendo che gli sono estranei, e persuaso che più gli possono far male che bene; e si curò invece dei piaceri deli'apprendere, e l'anima adornando non di ornamenti a lei alieni, ma di quelli suoi propri, temperanza, giu- stizia, fortezza, libertà, verità, attende così preparato l'ora del suo viaggio all’Ade, pronto a pigliare la sua strada appena il! destino lo chiami » {c. 63). SEZIONE TERZA (cc. 57-66) 4. Il mito delle anirne dopo la morte « Ebbene, o amici, questo se non altro, sarà bene sia chiaro nella mente: che se l’anima è immortale essa ha il diritto che se ne abbia cura; né solo per questo spazio di tempo che chiamiamo vita, ma per sempre e che ormai, dopo quel che s'è detto, anche il pericolo, a chi non ne abbia 361 L’anima partecipa a uno dei contrari: la vita Incorruttibilità e immortalità Non teme ia moris chi ha vissuto bene la vita Avere cura per l’anima che è immortale Sosmogratia pitagorica, dicotomia plaionica e mito della caverna Ultime parole dii Socrate cura, dovrà apparire assai grave. Infatti, se la morte fosse una libera- zione da ogni cosa, gran fortuna sarebbe per i trisii, morendo, sentirsi liberi non solo dai corpo, ma, nello stesso tempo, insieme con l'anima anche delia loro tristezza. Ma ora che l’anima ci si è rivelata immor- tale, nessuno scampo essa potrà avere dai mali, né alcuna salvezza, se non in quanto diventa il più possibile virtuosa ed intelligente. Perché nient'altro l'anima ha seco, andando all’Ade, all'infuori della sua cul- tura e dei suo costume, che è ciò appunto come dicono che grande- mente giova o nuoce a chi muore, subito al principio del suo viaggio all’al di là » (c. 57). 5. Figura e dimensione delia terra (cc. 58-61) Questi capitoli sono importanti per tre motivi: a) sono un docu- mento molto interessante per la conoscenza cella cosmografia pitagorica: ia terra non è piatta (come dicevano gli Ionici), ma sferica; è molio gran- de ed è collocata nel mezzo dell'universo; b) Platone vi espone la distin- zione fondamentale tra mondo sensibile ed intelligibile, tra la nostra terra e la terra ideale; c) c'è infine una chiara allusione al mito della caverna (cfr. c. 58, 109c - ii0 Db). 8. La morte di Socrate (cc. 64-66) Ultime parole di Socrate: « O Critone, disse, noi siamo debitori di un gallo ad Asclepio: dateglielo e non ve ne dimenticate » (c. 66). Il significato di questa ingiunzione è il seguente: chi guariva da una malattia, in segno di gratitudine usava offrire un gallo ad Asclepio (detto anche Esculapio), il dio della medicina. Ora, essendo per Socrate l’esistenza corporale una malattia e la morte una guarigione ed una liberazione, è quindi giusto che morendo si mostri grato ad Esculapio. Intanto la cicuta che Socrate aveva bevuto da poco, comincia a produrre il suo effetto letale. Tutti intorno scoppiano in lacrime. Socrate si corica sul suo lettuccio e poco dopo muore. Critone gli chiude le labbra e gli occhi. « Questa, o Eche- crate — soggiunse Fedone — fu la fine dell'amico nostro: un uomo, noi possiamo dirlo, di quelli che allora conoscemmo il migliore; e senza paragone il più savio e il più giusto ». QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE + Che senso ha la vita per Socrate? . Che valore assegna Platone alla conoscenza intellettiva? . Come giustifica il valore assoluto della conoscenza intellettiva? . Quali sono le principali prove dell'immortalità dell'anima? . Come formula la prova basata sulla reminiscenza? . Come formula la prova basata sulla « parentela » o affinità dell'anima con il mondo delle Idee? 7. Come formula la prova basata sulla partecipazione dell'anima all’Idea della Vita, ossia al contrario dell’Idea della Morte? 8. Quali sono le obiezioni di Simmia e Cebete alla tesi di Socrate? 9. Che valore annette Socrate alle sue argomentazioni? 10. Confrontare le prove del Fedone con quella del Fedro. SAAWwWNA 362 11. Che rapporto pone Platone tra immortalità dell'anima e la teoria delle Idee? 12. In che cosa consiste il mito della metempsicosi? Sviluppare la conce- zione platonica dei rapporti tra mito e filosofia. 13. Su quali ragioni fonda Platone la dottrina delle Idee nel Fedone? 14. Quali sono le implicazioni etiche della dottrina della immortalità del- l'anima? — Illustrare l'ascesi platonica: rapporti tra teoria e prassi.363 A Cartesio si deve l'impostazione della filosofia moderna Le quattro caratteristiche presentate nell’opera sono: autonomia, gnoseologia, metodo e antropocentrismo Obiettivo di realizzare una scienza universale e rigorosa li. IL « DISCORSO SUL METODO » Cartesio (René Descartes, 1596-1650) 1. Origine dell’opera Cartesio è universalmente riconosciuto come il padre della filosofia moderna. A lui in effetti spetta il merito d'aver dato a quest'ultima i li- neamenti che la caratterizzano: autonomia della filosofia rispetto alla teologia; orientamento spiccatamente gnoseologico anziché metafisico: il primo e massimo problema da risolvere è quello della conoscenza, del suo valore e della sua portata; preoccupazione per il metodo: per dare solidità e organicità alla ricerca filosofica occorre valersi di un metodo sicuro e rigoroso; attenzione per l’uomo, che ora viene posto al centro di tutte le ricerche e di tutte le cose: dal teocentrismo si passa all’antro- pocentrismo. Il « manifesto » della nuova filosofia è la prima importante opera filo- sofica di Cartesio, Discorso sul metodo. In questo breve e tuttavia ri- voluzionario saggio, si annunciano chiaramente i quattro lineamenti ca- ratteristici della filosofia moderna: autonomia della filosofia, orientamento gnoseologico, interessamento per il metodo, antropocentrismo. Cartesio aveva avvertito la necessità di rinnovare lo studio e l'insegna- mento della filosofia ancora quando frequentava la scuola dei gesuiti a Parigi. Ma un piano preciso di revisione gli si presentò alla mente per la prima volta nel 1619 durante una visione. Allora Cartesio, che si era arruolato con le schiere degli imperiali (era scoppiata da poco la Guerra dei Trent'anni), si trovava in Germania. All’inizio dell'inverno, dove si erano fermati a svernare, « non trovando alcuna conversazione che lo svagasse, e non avendo d'altronde né preoccupazioni né passioni che lo turbassero, restava tutto il giorno solo accanto ad una stufa, dove aveva tutto l’agio di intrattenersi con i suoi pensieri ». Ed ecco, appunto, a risultato della assidua e profonda meditazione, la visione. Gli comparve l'Angelo della Luce e gli fece comprendere che il metodo matematico che aveva adoperato con tanto profitto nelle studio dell'algebra e della geometria era un metodo valido per tutte le scierize, compresa la filo- sofia. Di qui la risoluzione di Cartesio di tradurre in realtà la « scoperta mirabile »: si propose di elaborare una scienza universale dotata di quella rigorosità, certezza e precisione tipiche della matematica. Per alcuni anni lavorò all'applicazione della matematica alla fisica, facendo vedere che « la fisica, la quale fino al suo tempo era ancora unita alla medicina e alla filosofia si poteva tradurre in numeri ». Più tardi cercò di compiere la stessa impresa anche per la filosofia: Dio e gli angeli, i misteri del tempo e dello spazio, delle piante e degli animali, le complicate relazioni sociali, anche quella creatura complessa e sfuggente che è l’uomo, dove- vano essere tradotte in idee chiare e distinte come se si trattasse di quan- 364 tità matematiche. « Tutte le scienze », scrive Cartesio, « sono legate tra loro da una catena; non è possibile afferrare alcuna di loro senza aver compreso le altre e pertanto senza abbracciare contemporaneamente tutta l'enciclopedia del sapere ». E ancora: « Tale scienza dovrebbe in- cludere tutti i primi rudimenti della ragione umana, e il suo dominio dovrebbe estendersi fino a comprendere la conoscenza di tutte le cose ». Pertanto, il mondo e qualsiasi conoscenza sono raggiungibili col nuovo metodo. Per quanto Cartesio ascriva la sua « mirabile scoperta » ad una visione (a qualcosa di imprevisto, subitaneo e in certa misura soprannaturale), in effetti non si trattava di un'idea priva di precedenti. Uno dei suoi pro- fessori al collegio dei gesuiti, padre Clavius, ch'egli stimava e apprezzava moltissimo se n'era fatto già da tempo convinto assertore. Nelle sue Opere matematiche; stampate nel 1611, aveva scritto: « Le discipline matematiche dimostrano e giustificano con le più solide ragioni tutto ciò che è oggetto di discussione, cosicché esse producono effettivamente la scienza e scacciano dalla mente dello studente qualsiasi dubbio. La stessa cosa non si può assolutamente affermare delle altre scienze, nelle quali molto spesso la mente resta incerta e dubbiosa circa il valore delle con- clusioni, talmente numerose sono le opinioni e contrastanti i giudizi [...]. I teoremi di Euclide come pure quelli degli altri matematici, oggi sono ancora così veri, sicuri nei loro risultati, solidi nelle loro dimostrazioni, come erano molti secoli orsono [...] Ora, siccome le discipline matema- tiche sono così completamente assorbite dall'amore e dal culto della verità, che nel loro ambito nulla di falso viene recepito e neppure ciò che è meramente probabile [...] non si dà alcun dubbio che tra le varie scienze il primo posto spetta alla matematica ». Queste teorie del padre Clavius erano certamente note a Cartesio, il quaie le fece sue. Un po’ alla volta esse fermentarono nella sua mente fino ad esplodere nella celebre visione del 1619. Come s'è detto, Cartesio in un primo tempo effettuò l’applicazione del metodo matematico alle scienze sperimentali e poi, in un secondo tempo, alla filosofia. Dopo una decina d'anni di ricerche ininterrotte un nuovo sistema cominciò a delinearsi con chiarezza nella sua mente, un sistema che si distingueva nettamente sia da quello di Platone come da quello di Aristotele e degli Scolastici. Nel 1628 Cartesio si sentiva ormai così sicuro di sé che non esitò a prendere parte ad una discussione pub- blica, tenuta a Parigi alla presenza del nunzio pontificio, il cardinale Berulle, e di padre Mersenne, con alcuni dei massimi filosofi e scienziati del tempo. Con le sue istanze di chiarezza, rigorosità e precisione in materia di metodo, Cartesio impressionò profondamente il Berulle, il quale lo invitò a mettere per iscritto le sue teorie per controbattere gli argomenti degli scettici e degli atei. Cartesio aveva portato a compimento una vasta opera di fisica e di filosofia, intitolata /l Mondo, ma la notizia della condanna di Galileo lo indusse a non procedere alla sua pubblicazione. Da essa stralciò tre trattati (Diottrica, Meteore e Geo- metria), ai quali appose come introduzione il Discorso sul metodo, e li consegnò alle stampe nel 1637. Il piano di quest’ultima opera era già stato definito l’anno precedente. Nel marzo del 1636 Cartesio ne aveva dato l'annuncio all'amico Mer- senne con queste parole: « L’opera comprenderà quattro trattati, tutti in francese, e il titolo generale sarà: Progetto di una scienza universale che 365 La connessione tra le scienze Primato epistemologico delle discipline matematiche Metodo matematico dalle scienze sperimentali applicato alla filosofia La chiarezza cartesiana a servizio del dibattito teologico Il ‘‘Discorso’’ come proposta e come pratica Divisione dell’opera in sei parti possa elevare la nostra natura al più alto grado di perfezione. Più la Diot- trica, le Meteore e la Geometria: in cui le più curiose materie, scelte per prova della Scienza universale proposta dall’Autore, sono spiegate in modo che possano essere intese anche da coloro che non le hanno mai studiate ». Seguiva un sommario delle materie studiate nei tre saggi. Quando Cartesio così scriveva a Mersenne, non aveva ancora steso tale parte preliminare. La compose invece alcuni mesi dopo, nello stesso anno, in autunno, secondo l'attestazione ch'egli ci fornisce alla fine della III Parte del Discorso. 'In una sua lettera al padre Vatier confessa ch'egli finì di scrivere il Discorso mentre, essendo già composto tutto il resto, il libraio pressava perché gli mandasse quella parte. La quale, è da sup- porre, soltanto allora venne fuori col titolo, che poi mantenne, di Discorso sul metodo. Intanto, quando nel marzo del 1637 Mersenne ricevette il pacchetto delle bozze del volume completo, dovette meravigliarsi di non trovare il preannunciato « quarto trattato », ma semplicemente un « discorso » e ne scrisse a Cartesio, il quale così gli rispose: « Non capisco bene ciò che voi obiettate riguardo al titolo: io non ho messo Trattato, ma Discorso, ch'è come dire Prefazione o Avvertenza, e ciò perché fosse chiaro ch'io del metodo non pretendo di offrire una trattazione da insegnare agli altri ma soltanto di parlarne (come di esperienza personale): perché, come si vede anche da ciò che vi ho detto, esso consiste più nella pratica che nella teoria, e vi ho inserito qualcosa di metafisica, di fisica e di medicina per mostrare che tal metodo si estende a ogni sorta di materie ». Ottenuta l'autorizzazione del re per il libraio, il volume poté finalmente uscire recando nel frontespizio la dicitura stabilita: « Discours de la Méthode pour bien conduire la raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences ». 2. Divisione e sintesi dell’opera In apertura del Discorso Cartesio stesso fornisce al lettore una lucida divisione dell'opera. Essa consta di sei parti le quali trattano nell'ordine: I. L'esperienza scolastica di Cartesio e il suo giudizio sulle varie di- scipline studiate al collegio dei gesuiti. II. Le principali regole del metodo. III. I principi fondamentali della morale. IV. II dubbio metodico e i fondamenti della metafisica, Dio e l’anima umana. V. Il corpo umano, spiegazione del movimento del cuore, la differenza che passa fra l’anima umana e quella delle bestie. VI. Considerazioni sul progresso delle scienze e motivazioni per la pubblicazione dell’opera in lingua francese anziché in latino. Gli uomini, che pure sono tutti eguali in fatto di intelligenza (che Car- tesio chiama « buon senso » o « ragione »), ottengono tuttavia risultati diversi a seconda del metodo adoperato. Di qui l’importanza capitale del metodo. Ma i metodi finora usati non sono affatto buoni; per questo i ri- sultati conseguiti sono stati quasi sempre meschini. Cartesio informa il lettore di avere scoperto un metodo particolarmente efficace e perciò ha deciso di renderlo pubblico, non con lo scopo di insegnare a tutti come devono condurre la propria ragione ma soltanto per mostrare agli altri come egli abbia condotta la sua (pp. 7-10). 2. La storia della propria educazione e l'utilità dello studio delle materie sco- lastiche (pp. 10-20) Cartesio racconta che aveva iniziato gli studi dai gesuiti con la per- suasione che per mezzo delle varie discipline scolastiche avrebbe potuto acquistare una cognizione chiara e sicura di tutto ciò che è utile alla vita. Ma dopo alcuni anni di studio si accorse che sebbene l'istruzione scola- stica gli avesse insegnato molte cose utili ed interessanti, perché tutte le discipline (storia, poesia, retorica, filosofia, teologia, ecc.) gli avevano fatto apprendere qualche cosa, non aveva tratto altro profitto... se non quello di aver scoperto sempre più la sua ignoranza (p. 10). Infatti nessuna disciplina è capace di insegnare tutto quello che è utile alla vita. Non la storia che ci dà del passato notizie sempre impre- cise e talora false e ci lascia completamente ignoranti della situazione presente e futura. Non la retorica e l’arte poetica, che sono del tutto su- perflue dato che la stessa cosa si può benissimo dire senza retorica e senza arte poetica. Non le matematiche, perché « non vedevo ancora il loro vero uso » (p. 16) sebbene lo dilettassero per la certezza ed evidenza delle loro ragioni. Non l'etica naturale degli antichi, perché « fabbricata sulla sabbia e sul fango » (p. 17). Non la teologia, perché non è necessaria per andare in cielo: « la via di esso non è meno aperta ai più ignoranti che ai più dotti» (p. 18) e non riesce a dissipare il velo del mistero. Non la filosofia, perché fino ad oggi non è riuscita a dirci niente di indiscu- tibilmente vero. Non le altre discipline, perché « siccome esse prendono i loro principi dalla filosofia, giudicavo che non si poteva aver fabbricato nulla di solido su basi così poco ferme » (p. 20). 3. Lo studio del mondo attraverso i viaggi (pp. 20-22) Per queste ragioni non appena l’età gli permise di uscire dalla sog- gezione dei suoi genitori, Cartesio abbandonò interamente lo studio delle lettere e si mise a viaggiare con lo scopo di imparare dal libro della na- tura quello che non aveva imparato sui libri di carta. Però, viaggiando trasse l'impressione che, per quanto riguarda la morale, le cose stessero come in filosofia: considerando «i costumi degli altri uomini [...] vi notavo quasi tanta diversità quanta ne avevo rilevata prima tra le opi- 367 . Esigenza del metodo per il conseguimento del fine Studio e consapevolezza della propria ignoranza Nessuna disciplina insegna tutto ciò che è utile alla vita Lo studio di se stesso riesce meglio che non attraverso viaggi e libri Un solo autore costruisce meglio Necessità della revisione della propria mente e della propria cultura nioni dei filosofi » (p. 22). Così « imparavo a non credere troppo ferny mente a ciò di cui non ero persuaso che a cagione dell'esempio e del. l'usanza; e così mi liberavo a poco a poco da molti errori che possono offuscare la nostra luce naturale e renderci incapaci di intendere la ra- gione » {(p. 22). 4. Lo studio di se stesso  « Dopo che ebbi impiegato alcuni anni a studiare così nel libro del mondo e a procurare d’acquistare un po’ di esperienza io presi un giorno la risoluzione di studiare anche me stesso, e di impiegare tutte le forze della mia mente a scegliere le vie che dovevo seguire. Il che mi riuscì assai meglio, mi sembra, che se non mi fossi mai allontanato né dal mio paese né dai miei libri » . Terminati gli studi al « La Flèche » (il collegio dei gesuiti), Cartesio si era arruolato nell’esercito degli Imperiali. Questo tuttavia non gli impediva di continuare ad occuparsi di filosofia. In particolare, durante la sosta forzata che l'inverno imponeva alle azioni militari in quei tempi, aveva tutto l’agio di dedicarsi alla riflessione filosofica, trascorrendo il tempo accanto ad una stufa, immerso nei suoi pensieri. 2. Prima considerazione Le opere composte di molti pezzi e fatte da molti maestri sono spesso più imperfette di quelle cui ha lavorato uno solo. Così si vede che gli edifici che un architetto ha iniziato e compiuto da solo sogliono essere più belli di quelli che molti hanno cercato di riadattare, servendosi di vecchie muraglie, che erano state costruite per altri fini. Altrettanto si può dire delle scienze e della politica. La ragione per cui c'è tanta im- perfezione nelle scienze e nelle costituzioni è che esse :sono il prodotto di molte mani diverse (pp. 25-27). 3. Seconda considerazione È vero che non si buttano giù tutte le case di una città, allo scopo di rifarle in un altro modo e di rendere le vie più belle; ma si vede che molti demoliscono le proprie case per ricostruirle, e che anzi talvolta vi sono costretti, quando esse sono in pericolo di cadere da sé, e le loro fonda- menta non sono ben ferme. Da questo esempio Cartesio trae la conclusione che sarebbe stato completamente inverosimile proporsi di riformare tutto il corpo delle scienze e l'ordine stabilito nelle scuole per inse- gnarle; tuttavia avrebbe potuto riformare la sua mente e la sua culturà, togliendo via tutte le opinioni raccolte nel passato, per rimetterne in seguito delle altre migliori o anche le medesime, quando le avesse ag- giustate al livello della ragione {pp. 27-29). 368 4. Ammonimento Cartesio avverte il lettore che non intende consigliare a nessuno il suo esempio. Infatti ci sono due specie di ingegni ai quali non conviene affatto seguirlo: quelli che quando si sono presi una volta la libertà di dubitare dei principi che hanno ricevuto e di allontanarsi dal cammino comune non potrebbero mai tenere il sentiero che bisogna prendere per andare più diritti e resterebbero sviati per tutta la loro vita; e quelli che, essendo meno capaci di altri di distinguere il vero dal falso, hanno sufficiente modestia per mettersi alla scuola di altri. 5. Decisione di procedere alla ricerca di un nuovo metodo, essendo la logica e la matematica metodi insufficienti — Lalogica serve solo a spiegare ad altri quello che già sanno. — La matematica è troppo complicata. In entrambi i casi si tratta di discipline che si riferiscono a materie astrattissime appesantite da una montagna di regole che ne hanno fatta « un'arte confusa e oscura che imbarazza la mente, invece, che una scien- za che la coltivi ». 6. Le regole del nuovo metodo (pp. 35-36) Così finalmente Cartesio si decide a cercare un nuovo metodo, sem- plice, facile, basato su pochissime regole. E trova finalmente un metodo che consta solo di quattro regole. Ecco le quattro famose regole: a) Non accogliere mai nulla di vero, che non si conosca evidentemen- te come tale: « Non comprendere nei miei giudizi niente di più di quello che si presentasse così chiaramente e distintamente alla mia mente che io non avessi alcuna possibilità di metterlo in dubbio ». In questa regola Cartesio indica il criterio di verità che egli intende adottare: è il famoso criterio della chiarezza e distinzione. Nei Principia philosophiae esso viene così precisato: chiamo chiara un'idea che è presente e manifesta a uno spirito attento: come quando diciamo di vedere chiaramente gli oggetti, allorché essendo presenti agiscono assai fortemente sui nostri occhi disposti a guardarli. E distinta, quella che è talmente precisa e diffe- rente da tutte le altre, che non comprende in sé che ciò che sembra ma- nifestamente a chi la considera come conviene (Princ. phil. 1, n. 45). b) Dividere ciascuna difficoltà che si incontra in tante parti quante è possibile... per meglio risolvere le difficoltà stesse. c) Condurre con ordine i propri pensieri, cominciando dagli oggetti più semplici per salire a poco a poco, come per gradi, sino alla cono- scenza dei più composti. d) Far dappertutto delle enumerazioni così complete e delle rassegne così generali, da non omettere nulla. 7. Fecondità del nuovo metodo (pp. 37-38) Col nuovo metodo si possono conoscere tutte le cose, purché soltanto ci si astenga dall'accoglierne alcuna per vera che non lo sia e si serbi sempre l'ordine che occorre per dedurre le une dalle altre. 369 Cartesio denunzia i rischi della sua scelta critica Le regole del nuovo metodo: — chiarezza e distinzione — divisione delle difficoltà — ordine nel pensieri — completezza delle enumerazioni 8. Applicazione del nuovo metodo alla matematica Cartesio fa la prima applicazione del nuovo metodo alla matematica per due ragioni. Anzitutto perché era necessario partire dalle verità più semplici e più facili. E poi perché tra tutti gli scienziati solo i matematici erano riusciti fino ad allora a trovare delle dimostrazioni convincenti, « cioè delle ragioni certe ed evidenti ». 9. ‘Primi risultati Esiti positivi del ‘L'esatta osservanza di questi pochi precetti che Cartesio aveva scelto, nuovo metodo gli procurò tale facilità di risolvere tutti i problemi a cui si estendono quelle due scienze (algebra e geometria), che nei due o tre mesi che impiegò ad esaminarli, non soltanto venne a capo di molti di essi, che altra volta aveva giudicato difficilissimi, ma gli parve anche, verso la fine, che poteva determinare in quelli stessi che ignorava, con quali mezzi e fin dove fosse possibile risolverli (p. 39). 10. Applicazione del nuovo metodo alla filosofia Cartesio allora si propone di applicare lo stesso metodo anche alle altre scienze. «Ma avendo notato che i loro principi dovevano essere at- tinti dalla filosofia, nella quale non ne trovavo ancora di certi, pensai che bisognava prima di tutto che io cercassi di stabilirvene LE MASSIME DELLA MORALE PROVVISORIA E L'ESERCIZIO DEL METODO 1. Necessità di una morale provvisoria Necessita una Come uno che, dovendo ricostruire in modo diverso la casa dove abi- morale provvisoria: ta, si provvede di un'altra casa dove abiterà mentre si lavora alla nuova, — diversità di così occorre al filosofo trovarsi una morale provvisoria con cui regolarsi comportamento circa fino alla scoperta della vera. Infatti non è possibile comportarsi verso le È opimiani porca azioni allo stesso modo come ci si comporta verso le opinioni. Si possono REAZIONE sospendere le opinioni, ma non si può essere irresoluti nelle azioni. « E così, giacché spesso le azioni della vita non tollerano nessuna dilazione, è x una verità certissima che, quando non è in nostro potere discernere le opinioni più vere, dobbiamo seguire le più probabili » (p. 49). ! Delle quattro regole: la prima fissa il criterio di verità. Le altre si riferi- scono al metodo, i cui momenti principali sono due: l’analisi {seconda regola); la sintesi (quarta regola). i L'originalità di Cartesio sta nella sua preoccupazione di dare ampio svi- luppo al primo momento, quello dell'analisi, in modo da preparare alla sin- tesi un terreno solido. Al momento dell’analisi appartiene la critica laboriosa di tutte le opinioni incerte, accettate dalla tradizione e dall'ambiente e la di- mostrazione di come si arriva ai primi principi e alle definizioni (Cartesio rimanda questa dimostrazione alle Meditazioni). Per Cartesio l'unica intuizione che ha valore è quella intellettuale; l’in- tuizione sensitiva è fonte di innumerevoli errori e perciò va scartata. 370 2. | principi della morale provvisoria Primo. Obbedire alle leggi e ai costumi del proprio paese, praticando la religione nella quale si è stati istruiti sin dall'infanzia, e regolarsi in ogni cosa secondo le opinioni più moderate. A giustificazione di questo principio Cartesio adduce la seguente ragione: « cominciando da allora a non contare per nulla le mie proprie perché volevo sottoporle tutte all'esame, ero sicuro di non poter far meglio che seguire quelle dei più assennati ». Egli sottolinea peraltro il carattere provvisorio di tale accet- tazione: « Fra parecchie opinioni ugualmente ammesse, io non sceglievo che le più moderate, e anche queste solo in modo provvisorio, e avrei pensato di commettere un grande delitto contro il buon senso, se, per il fatto che approvavo allora qualche cosa, mi fossi obbligato di prenderla per buona, anche dopo che avesse forse cessato di esserlo o che io avessi cercato di stimarla come tale » (p. 48). Secondo. Essere fermo e risoluto nelle azioni e opinioni a cui si fosse determinato. « Imitando in ciò il viaggiatore che trovandosi smarrito in qualche foresta non deve errare girando da una parte e dall'altra e ancora meno fermarsi in qualche posto, ma camminare sempre quanto più diritto è possibile in una sola direzione [...] almeno si arriverà così in qualche parte » (p. 49). : Terzo. Sforzarsi sempre di vincere se stesso piuttosto che la fortuna, e di cambiare i propri desideri piuttosto che l'ordine del mondo; e gene- ralmente di abituarsi a :credere che non c'è nulla che sia interamente nostro tranne i nostri pensieri e perciò non bisogna affannarsi troppo per le cose esterne. Né questo riesce difficile se noi « consideriamo tutti i beni che sono fuori di noi come ugualmente lontani dal nostro potere ». Allora « non avremmo maggior rammarico di mancare di quelli che sembrano esser dovuti alla nostra nascita, allorché ne saremo privati senza colpa, di quel che ne abbiamo per non possedere i regni della Cina e del Messico ». « Ma confesso che c’è bisogno di un lungo esercizio e d'una meditazione spesso reiterata per abituarsi a guardare da questo punto di vista tutte le cose » (pp. 49-50). 3. Rassegna delle varie azioni per scegliere la migliore Cartesio trova che la cosa migliore è « impiegare tutta la vita a coltivare la ragione e progredire quanto più è possibile nella conoscenza della verità ». Questa è la migliore occupazione per due ragioni: a) Perché la vita intellettuale è piena di soddisfazioni. « Avevo provato così elevate soddi- sfazioni da quando avevo cominciato a servirmi di questo metodo che non credevo se ne potesse ricevere delle più dolci e delle più innocenti in questa vita » (p. 51). 9) Perché progredendo nella conoscenza si progre- disce nelle virtù, « infatti, siccome la nostra volontà non si determina a seguire né a fuggire alcuna cosa se non secondo il nostro intelletto gliela rappresenta buona o cattiva, basta ben giudicare per ben fare e giudicare meglio perché si possa fare anche tutto il proprio meglio » (p. 52). 4. Esercizio del metodo viaggiando e studiando Dopo essersi così rassicurato di queste massime e di averle messe da parte insieme alle verità della fede, Cartesio giudica che, per tutto il 371 — obbedienza alle leggi e ai costumi del proprio paese — scelta delle opinioni moderate — risolutezza nelle azioni e nelle opinioni determinate — vincere se stessi piuttosto che l’ordine del mondo — valore della vita intellettuale Distruggere per arrivare alla verità; conservare ciò che può dare cognizioni certe Il dubbio metodico come sospensione della conoscenza umana in generale resto delle sue opinioni, poteva liberamente cominciare a disfarsene. E poiché sperava di poter venire meglio a capo conversando con gli uo- mini... si rimise a viaggiare. Intanto, mette in pratica il nuovo metodo, guidato da due norme: a) non distruggere per distruggere (come gli scet- tici), ma per arrivare alla verità; b) non distruggere tutto, ma conservare quello che può servire per arrivare a cognizioni certe. Dopo nove anni di viaggi, per applicare il nuovo metodo alla filosofia si ritira nella solitudine in Olanda.? Il dubbio metodico Per uscire dall’incertezza in cui era stato gettato dalla diversità delle opinioni e costumi, Cartesio decide di rigettare come assolutamente falso tutto quello in cui potesse immaginare il minimo dubbio, allo scopo di vedere se gli restasse dopo ciò qualche cosa che fosse interamente indubitabile. Così decide di scartare: tutta la conoscenza sensitiva, « siccome i no- stri sensi qualche volta ci ingannano »; tutta la conoscenza razionale, « poi- ché ci sono uomini che si ingannano ragionando »; tutta la conoscenza umana in generale: « considerando che tutti i medesimi pensieri che ab- biamo da svegli ci possono venire anche quando dormiamo, senza che ve ne sia allora alcuno che sia vero, risolvetti di fingere che tutte le cose che mi erano mai entrate nella mente non fossero più vere delle illusioni dei miei sogni » (pp. 60-61).3 ? a) Morale provvisoria e morale definitiva - La morale definitiva, che Cartesio esporrà più tardi nel libro Les passions de l’àme è in sostanza iden- tica alla morale provvisoria. L'una e l'altra sono di marca stoica. Unica diffe- renza: la prima legge della morale definitiva non è di obbedire alle leggi e costumi del proprio paese, ma di obbedire alla ragione e adoperarla costan- temente per scoprire quel che è doveroso fare. Inoltre nella morale defini- tiva è aggiunta qualche precisazione alla terza legge con l'intento di indi- care quello che è necessario fare per vincere se stessi (e le proprie passioni) e rendersi completamente indipendenti dal mondo. Per raggiungere un com- pleto dominio sulle cose e su se stessi (cioè sulle passioni) serve molto medi- tare su due verità fondamentali: presenza e provvidenza di Dio e immortalità dell'anima. Facendo questo si può raggiungere il fine ultimo, la contempla- zione di Dio. b) Errore e male - Cartesio riduce la questione del male a quella dell'er- rore. Il male consiste nell'errore. Egli però risolve il problema dell'errore. adoperando i principi tomistici per la risoluzione del problema del male. Così l'errore come il male è una « carentia perfectionis debitae » (responsa- bile di tale carenza non è Dio, ma l'uomo). L'errore però non è causato dal- l'intelletto, ma dalla volontà. Infatti per Cartesio affermare, dubitare, negare non sono atti della ragione, ma della volontà. In definitiva l'errore è dovuto a un cattivo uso del libero arbitrio... :(cfr. E. GIiLson, La doctrine cartésienne de la liberté et la théologie, pp. 211-235). ? Il dubbio metodico - Il dubbio metodico di Cartesio non è un dubbio universale, ma è un dubbio parziale. Non è un dubbio universale anzitutto perché un dubbio universale non è possibile; di fatto poi risulta chiaro che 372 2. La prima verità indubitabile: il « cogito ergo sum » Ma, mentre cercava di dubitare di tutto, Cartesio s'accorge di una verità: « mentre in tal modo volevo pensare che fosse tuito falso, biso- gnava necessariamente che io che lo pensavo fossi qualche cosa. E no- tando che questa verità: IO PENSO DUNQUE SONO era così ferma e così sicura che tutte le più stravaganti supposizioni degli scettici non erano capaci di scuoterla, giudicai che potevo riceverla senza scrupolo come il principio della filosofia che io cercavo » (pp. 60-63).* Cartesio non intende adottare il dubbio universale. Nella parte terza ha detto che applicando il metodo del dubbio non bisogna scartare tutto e che esa- minando criticamente le proposizioni che costituivano il sapere del suo tempo, « non ne incontrava alcuna sì dubbia che non ne traesse sempre qualche con- clusione abbastanza certa, non fosse altro che questa: che non conteneva nulla di certo » (p. 54). Cartesio quindi non intendeva dubitare di tutto, ma solo tentare di dubitare quanto più fosse possibile per potere con più sicurezza raggiungere la verità. Così inteso il dubbio è legittimo. Si tratta infatti solo di una sospensione prov- visoria della nostra conoscenza ordinaria per arrivare ad una giustificazione critica della medesima; non è perciò negazione, svuotamento, annullamento del pensiero, ma solo sospensione dell’assenso. « Ciò che Cartesio già sa, ciò che forma il suo patrimonio mentale, ricco o povero che sia, è l'immediato, dal quale egli parte, come ogni uomo, ogni filosofo, parte dal suo. Egli è filosofo precisamente in quanto si propone di rivederlo criticamente, di discuterlo, di fondarlo, di meditarlo. L'atteggiamento implicito nel dubbio cartesiano, visto nelle sue giuste dimensioni, non esagerato, non fatto slittare sul viscido di qualche espressione del testo, è l'atteggiamento filosofico come tale: non SA cata del pensatore 'di La Haye » (G. BoNTADINI, Discorso sul me- todo, p V Nelle Meditazioni la fondazione del dubbio metodico prenderà molto più rilievo: essa occupa tutta la prima Meditazione. Anche la formulazione verrà radicalizzata per mezzo del genio maligno. Nelle Meditazioni il dubbio meto- dico rischia di diventare dubbio scettico. Sulla validità di un dubbio metodico spinto fino a questi punti l'ermeneutica cartesiana è discorde, Comunque se si può riportarla alla interpretazione che abbiamo data alla formulazione del Discorso sul metodo noi riteniamo che sia un procedimento valido. Se, invece, il dubbio diventa un autentico dubbio positivo (e non sem- plice negativo) universale, esso porta necessariamente allo scetticismo, e costituisce quindi un procedimento invalido. ‘ Significato del cocito — A proposito del Cogito è necessario notare che non si tratta di una dimostrazione ma di una intuizione. Il dunque (ergo) non ha valore di conseguenza, ma è semplicemente pleonastico. Se il Cogito fosse la conclusione di una dimostrazione, ossia un entinema, allora sarebbe neces- sario sottintendere una premessa universale (per esempio: dovunque c'è co- noscenza c’è esistenza) e non sarebbe quindi più possibile considerare il Cogito come la prima verità metafisica. Quanto all'esistenza provata dal Cogito non si può trattare che del. l'esistenza del pensiero, della realtà pensante (res cogitans) non già della realtà distinta dal pensiero. Così per la sostanza intuita nel Cogito, si deve dire che essa non è altro che il pensiero stesso e non già qualche cosa di di- stinto dal pensiero e soggiacente ad esso. Dicendo del pensiero che esso è una sostanza Cartesio viene ad affermare che il pensiero è qualche cosa che sta da sé, indipendentemente dalla realtà corporea. Infatti questo « star da sé » è la sostanzialità. Ecco il motivo della sostituzione alle espressioni « cogito » e « cogitatio » di queste altre: « Sub- stantia cogitans» o «res cogitans» («res cogitans» che è contrapposta alla « res extensa » 0 sostanza corporea). Non solo l'esistenza provata dal Cogito riguarda soltanto il pensiero ma ha anche carattere momentaneo, contingente, riguarda l’hic et nunc. Nulla è provato della sua esistenza nel passato e nel futuro. ‘Perciò il Cogito è un cri- terio universale di verità solo in un senso molto ristretto. Anzi più che criterio 373 Prima verità indubitabile: dal dubbio all'evidenza del pensare e dell’esistere Esame della natura del ‘‘sum’’ (l’esistenza) Chiarezza e distinzione come criterio di verità 3. L'essenza dell'uomo consiste nel pensiero Dal Cogito Cartesio passa a considerare la natura del « sum » (= l'esi- stenza) che vi aveva intuito e osserva che poteva fingere di non aver alcun corpo..., ma che non per questo poteva fingere di non esistere e che, al contrario, dal fatto stesso che pensava a dubitare della verità delle al- tre cose, seguiva evidentissimamente e certissimamente che egli era: laddove se appena avesse cessato di pensare, ancorché tutto il resto di ciò che aveva immaginato fosse stato vero, non avrebbe mai avuto nes- suna ragione di credere che esisteva; conobbe da ciò che era una sostanza della quale tutta la essenza o la natura non è che di pensare e che, per, non ha bisogno di alcun luogo e non dipende da alcuna cosa materiale. « Di modo che questo io, vale a dire l’anima, per la quale io sono ciò che sono, è interamente distinta dal corpo ed anzi è più facile a conoscere di questo e dato pure che questo non fosse non cesserebbe di essere tutto quello che è» (pp. 63-64)5 4. Il criterio di verità: chiarezza e distinzione Conseguiti questi risultati sensazionali, Cartesio passa a considerare che cosa è necessario ad una proposizione per essere vera e certa; perché dal momento che ne aveva trovata una che sapeva essere tale, pensava che doveva altresì sapere in che cosa consisteva questa chiarezza. Edavendo notato che non vi è niente in questo « 10 PENSO DUNQUE SONO » che ci assicuri di dire la verità se non il fatto di vedere chiarissimamente che per pensare bisogna essere, ritenne di poter prendere per regola generale che le cose che noi concepiamo ben chiaramente e ben distin- di verità esso è una illustrazione del criterio di verità. Infatti per Cartesio il criterio di verità è la chiarezza e distinzione. Come esemplificazione, il Cogito ha valore, ma non un valore così esclusivo come credeva Cartesio. Ci sono molti altri principi (per esempio, il principio di non-contraddizione) in cui la verità risplende immediatamente e possono essere presi come illustrazione del criterio di verità. Spesso si paragona il Cogito di Cartesio al si fallor di S. Agostino. Tanto Cartesio come S. Agostino hanno fatto uso del dubbio metodico, ma in modo diverso e per questo il Cogito ha una portata diversa del si fallor. Il si fallor mira soprattutto al superamento dello scetticismo e per S. Agostino, esso non costituisce la prima e unica certezza. Il Cogito non mira tanto al supera- mento dello scetticismo quanto al fondamento della verità e costituisce la pri- ma certezza metafisica. 5 Dualismo di spirito e materia, anima e corpo - Questa distinzione è il ri- sultato di un paralogismo. Cartesio commette un passaggio illecito quando dal fatto che l'anima può essere conosciuta senza che sia richiesta la conoscen- za del corpo conclude che essa esiste senza che sia richiesta l’esistenza del corpo. Dalla constatazione che l’anima è distinta dal corpo è illecito concludere che essa è un ente diverso dal corpo e capace di esistere senza di esso. Cartesio « ha fuso e confuso il fatto gnoseologico col fatto ontologico, ha modificato il cogito nella res cogitans, ha sostituito alla proposizione vera « io sono nell'atto della mia coscienza » la proposizione non vera « io sono l’atto della mia co- scienza » (F. MEI, La filosofia del concreto, Marzorati, Milano, p. 48). Cartesio eviterà di ripetere questo paralogismo nelle Meditazioni, dove svolge una trat- tazione a parte per provare la teoria del dualismo tra spirito e materia. Ad ogni modo, il dualismo tra spirito e materia, anima e corpo è insostenibile non solo dal punto di vista ontologico (anima e corpo formano una unità sostanziale), ma anche dal punto Si vista’ psicologico, perché l'anima non conosce direttamente se stessa senza l'uso del corpo. 374 tamente sono vere, ma che vi è soltanto qualche difficoltà nel ben discer- nere quali siano quelle che concepiamo distintamente (pp. 65-68)$ 5. Dimostrazione dell’esistenza di Dio Trovato il principio fondamentale della metafisica e il supremo criterio di verità, Cartesio passa a dimostrare l’esistenza di Dio, e la prova in quattro modi: a) Dal fatto che abbiamo l'idea di perfetto e non possiamo essere noi la causa di tale idea — « Riflettendo sul fatto che io dubitavo e che per conseguenza il mio essere non era tutto perfetto, perché vedevo chiara- mente che era una più gran perfezione conoscere che dubitare, mi proposi di cercare donde avessi imparato a pensare qualche cosa di più perfetto che io non fossi, e conobbi con evidenza che doveva essere da qualche natura che fosse in realtà più perfetta [...j poiché non vi è meno ripu- gnanza che il più perfetto sia una conseguenza e una dipendenza del meno perfetto di quel che dal nulla proceda qualche cosa [...] di ma- niera che restava che essa fosse stata messa in me da una natura che fosse veramente più perfetta di quel che io non fossi e che anzi avesse in sé tutte le perfezioni delle quali potevo avere qualche idea, vale a dire per spiegarmi in una parola che fosse Dio » (pp. 68-69). b) Dal fatto che non mi sono dato io stesso la mia esistenza — Se è vero che io, pur avendo l'idea di perfetto, non sono perfetto, vuol dire che non mi sono dato l'esistenza da me, perché altrimenti mi sarei data un'esistenza perfetta; cioè conforme all'idea che posseggo; solo Dio dun- que, cioè l'essere perfettissimo, può aver creato me avente l'idea di per- fetto (p. 70). A questo punto Cartesio fa una breve digressione sulla natura divina: « Di tutte le cose di cui trovavo in me qualche idea (consi- deravo) se fosse perfezione o no il possederle, e ero sicuro che nessuna di quelle che denotavano imperfezione era in Lui, ma che tutte le altre vi erano » (p. 71). c) Dall'idea di perfetto — « Tornando ad esaminare l’idea che avevo di un essere perfetto, trovavo che l’esistenza vi era compresa allo stesso modo che è compreso nell’idea di triangolo che i suoi tre angoli sono uguali a due retti, o in quella di una sfera che tutte le sue parti sono equidistanti dal centro, ed anche più evidentemente; e che per conse- guenza è altrettanto certo che Dio, che è questo Essere perfetto, è o esiste, quanto potrebbe esserlo qualunque dimostrazione di geometria » (p. 72). d) Dalle conseguenze disastrose che la negazione dell'esistenza di Dio implica, cioè dal fatto che in tal caso qualsiasi certezza diviene impos- sibile. « Infatti donde si sa che i pensieri che vengono in sogno sono più falsi degli altri, visto che spesso non sono meno vivi e precisi? E anche se i migliori ingegni vi studino quanto più loro piacerà non credo che pos- sano dare alcuna ragione che sia sufficiente a togliere questo dubbio, se non presuppongono l’esistenza di Dio. Giacché [...] anche quella che io testé ho presa come regola, cioè che le cose che noi concepiamo in modo $ Il criterio di verità proposto da Cartesio suscitò aspre critiche da parte di molti autori, in particolare da parte di Pascal (che lo tacciò di raziona- lismo: «ci sono verità che soltanto il cuore può capire ») e del Vico (che lo accusò di soggettivismo e di superficialità. Al criterio cartesiano del verum est certum il Vico contrappose il suo verum est factum). 375 Dio causa dell’idea di perfezione Prova ontologica dell’esistenza di Dio Dio garante della conoscenza Dio garante della verità Dalla metafisica alla cosmologia chiarissimo e distintissimo sono tutte certe, non è accettata che dal fatio che Dio è o esiste, che Egli è un Essere perfetto e che tutto ciò che è in noi viene da lui » {p. 76) . Funzione psicologica dell’esistenza di Dio Dopo che la conoscenza di Dio e dell'anima l’ha reso certo di questa regola (chiarezza e distinzione), Cartesio dice di poter accettare con indu- bitabilè certezza tutte le altre idee che si presentano col carattere della chiarezza e distinzione, « perché non è possibile che Dio, che è somma- mente perfetto e verace » ce le abbia messe in mente per ingannarci (pp. 77-78).8 QUINTA PARTE VERITÀ DI ORDINE FISICO - NATURA DELL'ANIMA UMANA 1. Il corpo degli animali e dell’uomo Cartesio ora deduce dalle verità metafisiche dimostrate nella quarta parte (Cogito ergo sum, ed esistenza di Dio) alcune verità circa il mondo, adoperando sempre il criterio di verità della chiarezza e distinzione ed ? a) Dimostrazione dell’esistenza di Dio — La più conosciuta delle prove di Cartesio è la terza, che è spesso chiamata argomento ontologico. Si chiama argomento ontologico perché parte dal concetto di Dio per provarne l’esi- stenza. L'argomento ontologico di Cartesio come quello di S. Anselmo (Deus est esse cuius maius concipi nequit) è ritenuto invalido dalla maggior parte dei filosofi, perché l'uomo non ha un'idea adeguata del perfetto, ma solo un concetto negativo, ricavato dalle cose per viam mnegationis et eminentiae. Cartesio però sosteneva che l’idea di perfetto non è ricavata dalle cose, ma è un’idea innata, prodotta da Dio nella nostra mente, perciò capace di rappre- sentare Dio adeguatamente. Le prime due prove sono cogimolo siche, partono cioè da fatti che noi espe- rimentiamo. La prima è un’esemplificazione della prova agostiniana delle verità eterne. b) La natura di Dio — Una delle dottrine più caratteristiche di Cartesio circa la natura divina è quella che riguarda la volontà di Dio. Secondo Car- tesio in Dio non v'è alcuna distinzione tra intelletto e volontà, altrimenti la volontà dovrebbe dipendere dall’intelletto e non sarebbe più libera. La vo- lontà divina invece è assolutamente libera e tutto quello che essa fa è un pro- dotto della sua libertà. La conseguenza più grave di questa dottrina è che anche le verità eterne, per esempio, le verità matematiche, sono creazione della libera volontà di Dio. Esse tuttavia sono eterne e immutabili perché la volontà di Dio è eterna e immutabile. * Il circolo vizioso — Cartesio prima dimostra l’esistenza di Dio valendosi della regola della chiarezza e distinzione; poi dice che il valore di tale regola dipende da Dio. Chi garantisce la chiarezza e distinzione, cioè la verità del mio pensiero? L’esistenza di Dio. Ma chi garantisce l’esistenza di Dio? La chiarezza e distinzione. Si tratta chiaramente di un circolo vizioso. Cartesio ha certato di difendersi da questa accusa sostenendo che la veracità di Dio è invocata solo per dare valore alla memoria. Ma non pare che sia una risposta soddi- sfacente, perché, nella dimostrazione dell’esistenza di Dio, Cartesio deve ap- poggiarsi su vari principi che sono accettati adoperando il criterio della chia- rezza e distinzione (cfr. F. CopLESTONn, History of Philosophy, IV, pp. 105 e ss.; tr. it., Storia della filosofia, 5 voll, Paideia, Brescia). 376 il metodo geometrico. Si tratta però solamente di un riassunto del libro Il mondo o Trattato sulla luce. Le due dottrine più importanti esposte in quel libro sono quella della duce e quella della circolazione del sangue. Esse vengono riportate per esteso nella quinta parte del Discorso sul metodo. Dal punto di vista filo- sofico la cosa più interessante di questa parte è la dottrina della na- tura del corpo animale ed umano. Rispetto al corpo Cartesio afferma che non c'è alcuna differenza tra uomini ed animali: essi sono tutti degli automi o macchine semoventi. Il movimento è causato dagli spiriti ani- mali, « che sono come' un vento sottilissimo o piuttosto come una fiamma purissima e vivissima che, salendo continuamente in grande abbondan- za dal cuore nel cervello, si reca di lì attraverso i nervi nei muscoli e dà il movimento a tutte le membra ». Ciò che distingue l’uomo dagli altri animali è l'anima. Gli animali non hanno l’anima, nessun’anima; l’uomo invece ha un'anima creata da Dio. In pratica, dato che l’anima è invisibile, l'uomo si distingue dagli animali per due caratteristiche: il linguaggio e la libertà. 1) Gli animali mai potrebbero usare parole né altri segni compo- nendoli come facciamo noi per comunicare agli altri i nostri pensieri (p. 98). 2) Anche se essi facessero parecchie cose bene o forse anche meglio di alcuni di noi, essi « sbaglierebbero infallibilmente in certe altre, me- diante le quali si scoprirebbe che non agiscono iper coscienza, ma solo per disposizione degli organi » (p. 99). 2. Natura dell'anima Al termine della quinta parte Cartesio indica brevemente qual è la natura dell'anima. Essa in nessun modo può essere tratta dalla potenza della materia, così come le altre cose delle quali aveva parlato, ma essa deve espressamente essere creata; e non basta che sia posta nel corpo umano come un pilota nella sua nave, se non forse per muovere le sue membra, ma bisogna che essa sia congiunta ed unita più strettamente con esso per avere, oltre a ciò, sentimenti ed appetiti simili ai nostri e così comporre un vero uomo (pp. 101-102)? ? a) L'universo cartesiano — L'universo cartesiano è costituito da due tipi di realtà profondamente diverse: realtà pensante (res cogitans), e realtà estesa (res extensa). La realtà pensante costituisce il mondo spirituale; quella estesa costituisce il mondo fisico. I due mondi si incontrano nell'uomo, ma senza compenetrarsi: essi si toccano appena nella glandola pineale. b) La definizione di sostanza — Tanto il mondo fisico come quello spi- rituale contengono molte sostanze, ma sono tutte imperfette, perché per esistere dipendono da Dio. L'unica sostanza perfetta è Dio e solo a Lui si può applicare in modo proprio la definizione che Cartesio dà di sostanza: Res quae ita existit ut nulla re alia indigeat ad existendum. c) Il mondo fisico — L'essenza del mondo materiale è l'estensione. Il mo- to dà all’estensione diverse forme. Così dall’estensione, per mezzo del moto, si ottiene l'origine di tutte le cose. Delle varie proprietà che noi attribuiamo alle cose solo quelle primarie (spazio, figura e numero) appartengono effettiva- mente ad esse; quelle secondarie sono dovute ai sensi. (Esempio di un pezzo di cera odorosa colorata messa sul fuoco: l'odore se ne va, il colore cambia... Resta solo qualche cosa che occupa spazio, ha qualche figura ed è capace di essere divisa) (cfr. /I° Meditazione, in Meditazioni filosofiche, Pa- ravia, Milano, p. 30). Nel Metodo questa dottrina è appena accennata (vedi Parte V, p. 83). 377 Meccanicismo e animismo | caratteri peculiari dell’uomo: linguaggio e libertà L’anima espressamente creata e strettamente congiunta al corpo cempone un vero uomo SESTA PARTE RAGIONI DELLA MANCATA PUBBLICAZIONE DE « J{ Mondo » In questa parte Cartesio dà le ragioni che lo hanno portato a differire la pubblicazione de Il Mondo già terminato prima del Discorso. Le ra- gioni principali sono due: timore che il libro potesse essere condannato dalla Chiesa; il fatto che l'opera non era molto progredita e poteva dare origine a molte controversie tra gli scienziati. QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE I. Di quante parti si compone il Discorso sul metodo? 2. Cosa intende Cartesio per « buon senso »? 3. Che giudizio dà Cartesio della storia e della teologia? 4. Quali sono le quattro regole del metodo cartesiano? 5. Confronta il metodo di Cartesio con quelli di Aristotele, Galilei, Bacone e Hegel. Quali sono le somiglianze e le differenze? 6. Cosa intende Cartesio per « chiarezza e distinzione »? 7. Il criterio delle idee chiare e distinte che valore ha? 8. Cosa si intende per dubbio metodico? 9. Che differenza passa tra il dubbio metodico e il dubbio scettico? 10. Che cosa sono le idee innate? Quali sono le idee innate secondo Carte- sio? Che differenza c’è tra l'innatismo cartesiano e quello leibniziano? 11. Che funzione svolge il Cogito nel sistema di Cartesio? 12. Qual è la concezione cartesiana dell'uomo? Che rapporti pone Cartesio tra anima e corpo? Paragona la dottrina di Cartesio cor quelle di Platone, Ari- stotele, San Tommaso d'Aquino e Spinoza. 13. Quali sono i quattro argomenti con cui Cartesio prova l'esistenza di Dio? 14. Metti a confronto l'argomento vniologico di Cartesio con quelli di Sant'Anselmo e Leibniz e con la quarta via (quella dei gradi di perfezione) di san Tommaso d'Aquino. 15. Quale considerazione ha Cartesio per îa religione? Pone sullo stesso piano la religione « filosofica » e le varie religioni positive? 16. Quali sono i fondamenti della morale cartesiana? 17. Quale è l'essenza del mondo materiale secondo Cartesio? 18. Tra qualità primarie e secondarie che distinzione pone Cartesio? 19. Quali sono, a parere di Cartesio, gli elementi che distinguono il corpo dell'anima da quelio degli animali? 20. Perché si dice che Cartesio è un razionalista e quali sono i limiti di tale posizione? d) Relazione tra anima e corpo — L'anima muove il corpo mediante la volontà. Il corpo eccita le sensazioni dell'anima mediante gli stimoli mec- canici che arrivano al cervello (glandola pineale). Tuttavia le sensazioni sono atti della sola anima; esse sono innate, sono prodotte dall'anima stessa in cor- rispondenza a quanto avviene nel corpo. e) Facoltà dell'anima — Nelle Meditazioni Cartesio ascrive all'anima tre facoltà: sensazione, immaginazione (fantasia) e ragione. Inoltre divide le idee in tre classi: avventizie (quelle che dipendono dai sensi}; fattizie (quelle che dipendono dalla fantasia); innate (quelle che dipendono esclusivamente dalla ragione). Nei Principi Cartesio ritiene ancora verbalmente le tre facoltà del. l'anima, ma elimina la classificazione delle idee innate, fattizie e avventizie, a favore delle sole idee innate. Così però rende inutili anche due facoltà: la sensazione e l'immaginazione. 378 III. « LA MISSIONE DEL DOTTO » Fichte (Johann Gottlieb, 1762-1814) 1. Origine e importanza dell’opera La missione del dotto (Einige Vorlesungen iiber die Bestimmung des Gelehrten), composto nel 1794, allorché Fichte contava appena 32 anni, è uno dei suoi primi scritti. Fu preceduto soltanto da Kritik aller Offen- barung (1792), un saggio che, pubblicato anonimo, in un primo momento era stato attribuito erroneamente a Kant, ma poi, dopo la smentita e la rettifica di quest’ultimo, aveva fatto segnalare il nome di Fichte all’at- tenzione del mondo filosofico. La missione del dotto occupa un posto di capitale importanza non solo nello sviluppo del pensiero del suo giovane autore, ma.anche nello sviluppo della stessa storia della filosofia, in quanto segna il distacco di Fichte da Kant, e il superamento del criticismo in direzione dell’idealismo. A grandi pennellate Fichte vi traccia tutto il quadro della sua visione idealistica della realtà e vi enuncia chiaramente tutte le tesi fondamentali del suo idealismo: la negazione della cosa in sé, l'affermazione del pri- mato assoluto dell’autocoscienza, la derivazione della realtà materiale dall’Io assoluto come momento dialettico di quest'ultimo, il ruolo essen- ziale della scienza e della filosofia nello sviluppo della storia dell'uma- nità, l'impegno etico, politico e sociale del filosofo. La missione del dotto appartiene ad un gruppo di scritti abbastanza consistente, in cui Fichte si rivolge ad una vasta cerchia di lettori, con intento divulgativo. Di qui il suo stile semplice, chiaro, immediato, fa- cilmente comprensibile anche a studenti di liceo. L'opera comprende cinque lezioni (Voriesungen) che Fichte tenne agli studenti dell’Università di Jena, durante l'estate del 1794, ogni domenica mattina dopo il rito religioso. Gli argomenti trattati nelle cinque lezioni sono i seguenti: 1) la mis- sione dell'uomo in sé; 2) la missione dell'uomo in società; 3) la distin- zione fra gli stati sociali in società; 4) la missione del dotto; 5) critica della tesi di Rousseau circa i rapporti tra cultura e moralità. 379 Questa opera segna il distacco di Fichte da Kant Intento divulgativo dell’opera Senso della struttura dell’opera e il rapporto dotto- società Ciò che è e non è l’uomo Confutazione dei materialismo trascendentale L’uomo come fine a se stesso 2. Divisione e sintesi dell’opera PRIMA LEZIONE LA MISSIONE DELL'UOMO IN SÉ 1. Introduzione Fichte esordisce enunciando il programma delle sue lezioni. Esso comprende quattro argomenti principali: a) la missione dell'uomo consi- derato in se stesso; b) la missione dell'uomo in società; c) la missione del. l'uomo nelle singole classi sociali; d) la missione del dotto. Alla tratta- zione di questi quattro argomenti sono destinate le prime quattro lezioni. :In una quinta lezione esaminerà la teoria del Rousseau circa i rapporti tra cultura e moralità. A giustificazione dell'ordine indicato, che a prima vista potrebbe sem- brare poco opportuno, dato che l'obiettivo primario del breve corso di lezioni è illustrare la vocazione e la missione del dotto (ossia del filosofo), Fichte dice che siccome il dotto è pensabile soltanto in una società, oc- corre anzitutto chiedersi quale sia la missione dell'uomo nella società. E poiché a quest'ultima domanda non si può rispondere, se non si cono- sce qual è la missione dell'uomo in se stesso, è necessario premettere una lezione sullo studio della missione dell’uomo considerato in se stesso, come singolo individuo. Nella parte conclusiva dell’introduzione (pp. 76-77), Fichte mette in risalto l'importanza del suo argomento. Egli afferma che la missione del- l'uomo in generale è il primo problema della filosofia, e la missione del dotto « è l’ultimo problema d'ogni ricerca filosofica ». 2. Natura e missione dell’uomo in se stesso Prima Fichte spiega quello che l’uomo non è, poi quello che è. L'uomo, il suo principio spirituale, non è causato dal Non-io. Il materialismo tra- scendentale, che sostiene il contrario, è falso. Il principio spirituale del- l'uomo è invece causa del Non-io. Però il principio spirituale dell'uomo (l'Io puro) non può esistere senza essere qualche cosa (un Io empirico) e l'Io empirico non può essere qualche cosa senza essere determinato dal Non-io. Conclusione: « Dicendo perciò che si vuol considerare l’uomo in se stesso e isolato, non si vuol intendere di considerarlo [...] semplicemente come Io puro, senza rapporto alcuno con nessuna cosa che sia estranea a questo suo Io puro. S'intenderà soltanto pensarlo fuori di ogni rapporto con esseri ragionevoli simili a lui » (p. 79). Tuttavia la natura dell'uomo appare ben diversa a seconda che si consideri come ragione o come qualche cosa. L'uomo in quanto ragione è fine a se stesso, è indipendente e attivo: è assolutamente, è perché è. L'uomo in quanto è qualche cosa è passivo (senziente) e dipendente, non è fine a se stesso ma ha per fine l’Io puro. Rapporti fra ragione e sensi- bilità: ambedue devono sussistere l'una accanto all'altra. La ragione non dev'essere annullata dalla sensibilità. Ma a sua volta non deve sopprimere quest'ultima. 380 Conclusione: « L'uomo deve essere ciò che è soltanto per questa ra- gione, che egli è. In altri termini tutto ciò che egli è, deve essere riferito al suo Io puro, al suo semplice essere come Io, o Iità. Tutto ciò che egli è, dev'esserlo esclusivamente per questo, che egli è un Io; e ciò che egli non può essere per questa sola ragione, egli non deve assolutamente essere » (pp. 81-82). 3. La legge morale dell’uomo considerato in se stesso Dato che il fine dell'Io empirico è l'Io puro, da questo Fichte deriva le regole della condotta dell'Io empirico. Dalla natura dell'Io puro egli ri- cava la condotta dell'uomo considerato in se stesso e le seguenti leggi: a) L'uomo deve essere sempre uno (coerente) con se stesso, perché l'Io puro è perfetta e assoluta unità. Ossia, l’uomo non deve contraddirsi, non si deve mai lasciar determinare da qualcosa di estraneo, cioè dalle cose esterne, perché nell’Io puro non c'è diversità e perciò non può es- sere determinato da alcuna cosa estranea, ma è sempre uno ed identico con se stesso. In altre parole, che Fichte riprende da ‘Kant, l’uomo deve essere determinato in quel. modo, nel quale avrebbe potuto eternamente essere determinato, cioè senza nessun riguardo per le cose che lo circon- dano nel tempo, perché l'Io puro agisce come se non ci fosse il Non-io. Quindi, « agisci in modo che tu possa pensare la massima della tua volontà come legge eterna per te » (p. 83). b) L'uomo deve cercare di modificare le cose (che nella loro molte- plicità sembrano irriducibili all'unità e all'identità), e portarle ad accor- aarsi con la forma pura dei suo Io. Per questo non basta la sua volontà. Ci vuole anche una certa abilità, e questa si acquista solo con l'esercizio e la cultura. c) L'uomo deve estirpare le cattive inclinazioni, dovute all’influsso delia natura quando la ragione non si era ancora destata. Anche per questo non basta la sola volontà e occorre abilità, e, perciò esercizio e cultura. La cultura « è l’ultimo e più alto mezzo per il fine ultimo del- l'uomo, ossia, la sua perfetta coerenza con se medesimo » (p. 86). 4. Il fine ultimo, il sommo bene, ia perfezione Il fine ultimo dell'uomo, che Kant chiama Sommo Bene, e Fichte preferisce chiamare perfezione, è « la perfetta coerenza dell’uomo con se stesso, e, appunto perché egli possa raggiungere questa coerenza, anche la perfetta coerenza di tutte le cose esterne a lui (con la sua volontà) » (p. 86). Il fine ultimo, considerato come coerenza dell'uomo con se stesso {della sua volontà con la volontà dell'Io puro, cioè del suo vero essere), costituisce il bene morale. Il fine ultimo, considerato come accor- do delle cose fuori di noi con la nostra volontà, costituisce /a felicità. Però, osserva Fichte, l’ultimo fine è qualcosa di assolutamente irraggiun- gibile per l'uomo: è un Sommo Bene, una perfezione che rimarrà eter- namente irraggiungibile. La missione dell'uomo consiste in questo: avvi- cinarsi all'infinito, al suo uliimo fine, perfezionarsi all'infinito. « Egli esi- ste per divenire egli stesso sempre moralmente migliore, e per rendere tutto ciò che trova intorno a. sé riigliore sensibilmente e anche [...] moral. mente; e in questo modo fare se stesso sempre più felice. Questa è la missione dell'uomo in quanto lo si consideri isolato, e cioè senza relazione con nessun essere ragionevole simile a lui » (p. 88). 381 L’io come dover essere dell’uomo L’uomo non deve contraddire la sua identità La cultura come mezzo alla perfetta coerenza dell’uomo a se stesso ll bene morale come perfetta coerenza dell’uomo a se stesso Ls felicità: accordo delle cose fuori di noi con la volontà La missione dell’uomo: perfezionarsi sempre più La società: rapporto reciproco tra gli esseri ragionevoli | due presupposti della società: la presenza di esseri ragionevoli fuori di noi — la possibilità di distinguerli dagli esseri irragionevoli tra coscienza interiore e coscienza esteriore Finalità e libertà: criterio di distinzione degli esseri ragionevoli LEZIONE MISSIONE DELL'UOMO IN SOCIETÀ 1. Introduzione — La soluzione dei problemi filosofici non può essere basata sul buon senso come pretendono i filosofi popolari (Nicolai, Mendelsohn, ecc.), ma su ragionamenti rigorosi. — Scopo della seconda lettura: « stabilire quale sia la missione del- l'uomo nella società » (p. 95). — Definizione di società: « Col termine società intendo designare il rapporto reciproco di esseri ragionevoli tra loro » (p. 96). 2. Esistenza della società Fichte enumera anzitutto le cose che la società presuppone per poter esistere e poi formula i problemi riguardo all'esistenza della società, I presupposti della società sono due: 1) « Che vi siano esseri ragione- voli fuori di noi »; 2) Che « noi li possiamo distinguere da tutti quegli altri esseri che sono invece irragionevoli » (p. 96). Perciò due sono i pro- blemi che riguardano la società: 1) Problema del fondamento razio- nale della credenza nell'esistenza di altri uomini; 2) Problema del criterio per distinguere gli esseri ragionevoli dagli esseri privi di ragione. Quindi Fichte passa a risolvere il problema del fondamento razio- nale della credenza nella esistenza di altri uomini. Scarta anzitutto una soluzione ch'egli giudica errata, quella fondata sulla esperienza. Secondo Fichte tale soluzione è errata per due ragioni: 1) anche i solipsisti (gli egoisti) hanno l’esperienza di altri esseri ragionevoli, ma non credono alla loro esistenza; 2) l'oggetto dell'esperienza è la rappresentazione, non la cosa in sé (vedi pp. 96, 97, pagine chiarissime!). Al posto della soluzione fondata sull'esperienza, Fichte propone una soluzione basata sulla esigenza della esistenza di altri esseri ragio- nevoli perché l'uomo possa raggiungere il suo ideale di perfetta coe- renza con se stesso. L'uomo, argomenta Fichte, non può raggiungere l'ideale della coerenza interiore senza mantenere la coerenza esteriore. Ma, affinché ci sia perfetta coerenza esteriore, per « ciascun concetto che si trova nell’fo, deve trovarsi nel Non-io l'oggetto corrispondente ». Ora « nell'uomo si trova anche il concetto di ragione, e di un agire, e di un pensare alla ragione conforme ». Perciò per tale concetto è necessario che nel Non-io si trovi l'oggetto corrispondente, cioè è necessario che si trovino degli esseri ragionevoli. « Tra le sue esigenze (dell'Io) va anno- verata anche questa: che si trovino, nella realtà a lui esterna, esseri ra- gionevoli simili a lui » (p. 100). 3. Il criterio per distinguere gli esseri ragionevoli dagli esseri privi di ragione. Il criterio è duplice: finalità e libertà. Quello della finalità, da solo, è insufficiente e va integrato con quello della libertà. Primo criterio: finalità — « Il primo carattere che subito ci si presenta per riconoscere la ragionevolezza è quello della finalità ». Infatti, « tutto ciò che porta impresso il carattere della finalità può avere un autore ra- gionevole » (ib.). Però la finalità è un criterio insufficiente perché è equi- 382 voco. « L’unificazione del molteplice in un tutto coerente è certo carattere della finalità ma vi sono parecchie specie di unificazioni consimili che si lasciano spiegare con semplici leggi naturali (non certo meccaniche, ma organiche) (pp. 101-102) ». Dove c’è ordine, c'è finalità. Ma l'ordine può avere cause naturali. Secondo criterio: libertà — Questo è un criterio sicuro: « qualsiasi unificazione di un molteplice in un tutto coerente, la quale fosse operata mediante la libertà sarebbe una caratteristica sicura e non equivoca, che il fenomeno stesso ci offrirebbe della ragionevolezza » in quanto « la na- tura anche là dove opera secondo fini, opera però secondo leggi neces- sarie; la ragione invece opera sempre con libertà » (p. 102). Ma, in pratica, è possibile distinguere se un effetto si produce per mezzo della necessità o per mezzo della libertà? A questa difficoltà Fichte risponde che non è possibile avere esperienza della libertà perché la libertà è presupposta a qualsiasi esperienza. Si può avere esperienza del- l'assenza di costrizione e « questa non consapevolezza di una cosa esterna si potrebbe anche chiamare consapevolezza della libertà » (p. 103). Per- tanto, ogni volta che per una azione io non conosca altra causa, non riesca anzi a supporne nessuna ali'infuori di una volontà libera, che si decida per motivi ragionevoli corrispondenti a quelli che hanno guidato la mia volontà libera, allora :potrò concludere con certezza che si tratta di un'azione prodotta da un essere ragionevole come me, 4. Società e Stato Secondo Fichte, tra società e Stato vi è differenza profonda. Lo Stato è qualcosa di contingente e transitorio mentre la società è qualcosa di necessario e permanente. Quindi «la vita nello Stato... non può dirsi uno dei fini dell'uomo. Essa è piuttosto un mezzo... per la fonda- zione di una perfetta società » (pp. 105-106). Quando si arriverà alla costituzione di una società perfetta allora «saranno divenuti superflui tutti quei vincoli i quali costituiscono lo Stato » (p. 106). 5. Fine e missione della società La società è fine a se stessa (p. 107). Però più avanti (cfr. p. 113), riprendendo lo stesso tema, Fichte dirà che « l’ultimo e più alto fine della società è la totale unificazione e concordia di tutti i possibili suci membri ». La missione della società è il perfezionamento della specie umana per rendere sempre più vicino l'ideale della unificazione. Questo progressivo perfezionamento è inevitabile. Infatti, « ciascun individuo ha il suo proprio ideale dell’uomo in genere; tutti questi ideali sono di- versi non per materia, ma per grado. E ciascun individuo valuta ogni altro, che egli riconosca conìe uomo, secondo il proprio ideale dell'uomo. Ciascuno desidera in virtù di quella aspirazione fondamentale di trovare ogni individuo simile al proprio ideale dell'uomo; lo mette alla prova perciò e lo esperimenta in tutti i modi. Nel caso poi che lo irovi inferiore a quell’ideale cerca di sollevarlo alla medesima altezza. in questa iotta tra spirito e spirito vince sempre colui che è uomo in senso migliore e più elevato » {p-p. 107-108). Con- clusione: « L'uomo [...] ha la missione di vivere per la società [...]. Questa missione per la società in generale è [...], tuttavia, in quanto mero im- 383 La ragione opera secondo libertà Volontà libera: causa dell’azione dell’essere ragionevole Stato, mezzo per giungere ad una società perfetta Missione della società: perfezionamento della specie umana Rapporto tra morale sociale e morale individuale Coordinazione delle volontà Unità perfetta degli uomini come dell’uomo pulso, subordinata a quella legge più alta della stabile coerenza con noi stessi » (p. 109). 6. La morale sociale fondamentale è la coerenza dell’uomo con se stesso. Da questa legge su- prema della morale individuale Fichte deduce le seguenti leggi della morale sociale: a) L'impulso alla socievolezza non deve entrare in contraddizione con se stesso. Questo accadrebbe se l'uomo trattasse gli esseri ragione- voli da schiavi. Infatti la ragionevolezza consiste nella relazione reciproca, e quindi l'impulso alla socievolezza è rivolto alla relazione reciproca. Ma se ci comportiamo verso gli altri uomini da padroni « mettiamo il nostro impulso alla socievolezza in contraddizione con se medesimo » (p. 110). Quindi la nostra condotta non deve mirare alla subordinazione degli altri, ma alla coordinazione della nostra volontà con quella dei no- stri simili. « Chiunque si ritiene padrone degli altri uomini è egli stesso uno schiavo » (p. III). b) Non adoperare mai gli altri esseri ragionevoli come mezzi per i propri fini. « È lecito all'uomo usare le cose irragionevoli come mezzi per i suoi fini; ma non gli è lecito agire nello stesso modo con gli esseri ragionevoli » (p. III). c) Adoperarsi perché tutti gli altri uomini raggiungano l’ideale della perfezione. 7. Il fine ultimo e la missione dell'uomo nella società Il fine ultimo dell’uomo in quanto essere socievole è l’unità perfetta’ con gli altri individui. Però anche questo fine, come anche quello della perfetta coerenza con se stesso, è irraggiungibile. « Se tutti gli uomini potessero diventare perfetti e raggiungere così il loro più alto e supremo fine, essi sarebbero allora totalmente simili l'uno all’altro; formerebbero anzi un solo essere, un solo soggetto », cesserebbero di essere uomini per essere Dio (p. 113). La missione dell'uomo in società è il progressivo avvicinamento al- l'ideale dell'unità. Fichte chiama questo indefinitivo avvicinamento uni. ficazione. 8. L'educazione alla socievolezza Per realizzare la missione dell’unificazione occorre una duplice abi- lità: abilità nel dare ossia nell’agire sugli altri in quanto esseri liberi; abilità nel ricevere. LA DISTINZIONE TRA GLI STATI SOCIALI 1. Introduzione Dopo aver studiato la missione dell’uomo in se stesso e nella società, Fichte dovrebbe ora passare allo studio della missione del dotto. Però, 384 poiché il dotto non è solo uno dei membri della società, ma è altresì un membro di un determinato stato sociale, Fichte deve premettere allo. studio della missione del dotto, lo studio dell'origine della diseguaglianza tra gli uomini, che è il presupposto della distinzione tra gli stati sociali. 2. La diseguaglianza tra gli uomini Nella lezione precedente Fichte ha mostrato l’esistenza di fatto della molteplicità degli esseri ragionevoli, ma non la possibilità di tale fatto. Ora, nella terza lezione, egli mostra che la molteplicità e la diversità degli Io empirici si fonda, in ultima analisi, sull'influsso che il Non-Io finito esercita sopra gli esseri ragionevoli finiti: « Il Non-Io, come quel fonda- mento dell'esperienza che è indipendente da noi, e che può anche chia- marsi natura, è molteplice; nessuna sua parte è perfettamente simile a nessun'altra [...]. Quelle parti diverse agiranno perciò sullo spirito umano in modo diversissimo e non potranno mai sviluppare in egual modo le capacità e le disposizioni. Da questi diversi modi di agire della natura nascono gli individui, e vien formata quel che in ciascuno di essi so- gliamo chiamare la loro semplice natura empirica individuale » (p. 126). Si tratta perciò di una diseguaglianza inevitabile: 1) perché non dipende dalla nostra volontà essendo causata dal Non-Io; 2) perché l'ideale della coerenza, il quale, come s'è visto, riporterebbè gli esseri ragionevoli all'unità, è irraggiungibile. Tuttavia mediante la socievolezza si deve fare tutto il possibile per ridurre le diseguaglianze ed eliminare le differenze. « E qui si presenta l'efficacia dell'impulso alla socievolezza, il quale è diretto al medesimo fine e diventa mezzo per quell’avvicinamento all'infinito che la legge da noi pretende ». L'impulso alla socievolezza comprende sia l'impulso alla partecipazione, cioè l'impulso a dare, sia l'impulso a ricevere (pp. 128-129). Conclusione: « Così, per opera della ragione e della libertà viene corretto l'errore che la natura ha commesso » (p. 129). « La ragione si tro- va impegnata in una lotta senza tregua con la natura; né questa guerra potrà mai avere termine, se pure non dovremo diventare iddii. Tuttavia potrà e dovrà diventare sempre più debole l'influsso della natura e sem- pre più forte invece quello della ragione » (pp. 130-131). Questa lotta con- tro la natura fa nascere una nuova solidarietà tra gli uomini e li stringe assieme come a formare un nuovo corpo (p. 131). 3. La scelta dello stato [La natura fornisce ogni uomo di particolari impulsi, o attitudini. Si sceglie uno stato quando si sceglie di sviluppare una certa attitudine. Facendo questa scelta « io stabilisco una volta per tutte di non tener più conto da allora in poi di certe opportunità che la natura forse potrebbe fornirmi, e di applicare invece esclusivamente tutte le forze e le qualità naturali allo sviluppo di una sola, o magari di parecchie, ma sempre ben determinate attività » (p. 133). 4. La scelta dello stato non è obbligatoria, ma jibera La scelta dello stato non è obbligatoria, ma libera perché se fosse ob- bligatoria, allora dovrebbe essere possibile « dedurre dalla suprema 385 Molteplicità e diversità degli ‘‘lo’’ fondate sul “non-lo”’ Gli individui originati dai diversi modi di agire della natura La socievolezza come riduzione Libertà e ragione in lotta contro l’errore della natura Scelta di uno stato di vivere e sviluppo di determinate attitudini Scelta nella libertà Scelta di uno stato: atto di libertà e restituzione alla società di quanto Partecipazione al perfezionamento dell'umanità e immortalità legge razionale l'impulso il quale spinga alla scelta di uno stato allo stes- so modo con cui abbiamo dedotto riguardo alla società un impulso ana- logo ». Ma la legge suprema dice soltanto: « Educa tutte le tue attitudini completamente ed uniformemente per quanto ti è possibile. Essa non arriva a determinare se io debba esercitare quelle mie attitudini imme- diatamente sulla natura o solo attraverso la mediazione degli altri uo- mini: la scelta perciò si trova, a questo riguardo, interamente lasciata alla mia prudenza » (pp. 134-135). « La legge non vieta di scegliere uno stato; neanche però comanda [...]. Mi trovo sul terreno del libero arbitrio: mi è semplicemente lecito di scegliere uno stato » (p. 135). Tuttavia la scelta dello stato è consigliabile perché ogni uomo ha il dovere di restituire alla società quanto ha da essa ricevuto. Questo è facile se si sceglie uno stato. Nessuno ha diritto di lavorare per la propria soddisfazione soltanto. « Questo non è lecito. Egli deve almeno sforzarsi di pagare alla società il suo debito; deve occupare il proprio posto; deve fare almeno ogni tentativo per elevare in qualche modo il grado di perfezione della specie che tanto ha lavorato per lui » (p. 136). Per raggiungere questo fine, due vie gli si aprono davanti: o cercherà di elaborare la natura in ogni sua parte, ma questa è un'impresa impos- sibile. Oppure affronterà solo una porzione determinata della natura: quella della quale gli sia forse più accessibile tutta la elaborazione prece- dentemente compiuta, quella per la elaborazione della quale egli forse dalla natura e dalla società fu già nel tempo anteriore specialmente for- mato. Questa seconda via è senz'altro la migliore. Quando uno si dedica a questa speciale porzione, egli ha scelto il proprio stato. Conclusione: « La scelta di uno stato è una scelta per mezzo della libertà; perciò nessuno deve essere costretto ad abbracciare uno stato, come nessuno deve essere escluso da uno stato. È però una scelta consi- gliabile perché la particolare abilità che uno ha è in un certo senso un prodotto, un legittimo possesso della società, e ognuno ha il dovere di restituire alla società quello che da essa ha ricevuto secondo le proprie possibilità ». 5. La partecipazione al perfezionamento dell'umanità assicura come premio l'immortalità Qualcuno si chiederà: che vantaggio ha l'individuo a lavorare per il perfezionamento dell'umanità? Secondo Fichte ha due vantaggi: è di utilità agli altri: «il felice pro- gresso di un membro è infatti non meno felice progresso degli altri » (p. 140); è di utilità a se stesso: si assicura infatti l'immortalità. Ogni uomo è « un anello necessario della catena, la quale dalla generazione del primo uomo, avanza verso la piena consapevolezza della sua propria esi- stenza nell’eternità » (p. 140). Ogni uomo può avvicinare di più alla sua perfezione quel tempio di- vino che i suoi predecessori furono costretti a lasciare interrotto. È vero che ogni individuo morirà. Ma se egli partecipa a questa sublime im- presa non si estinguerà completamente, perché la morte non può inter- rompere la sua opera, giacché la sua opera, mentre deve essere terminata, non può essere terminata nel tempo. Egli è eterno. LA MISSIONE DEL DOTTO 1. Introduzione È ora necessario passare a parlare della missione del dotto, « una missione molto onorevole, molto elevata, nettamente superiore a quella degli altri stati » (p. 148). Forse, il fatto che sia un dotto innanzi a dotti in via di formazione, a parlare della missione del dotto, potrebbe causare imbarazzo (timore di offendere gli altri stati, di apparire superbo ecc.). Ma se questo ci trattenesse dal nostro compito, peccheremmo di falsa modestia. Non c'è infatti nessun pericolo di insuperbirsi, né di offendere gli altri se l'esposizione della missione del dotto viene fatta in modo oggettivo e si tiene presente che « non lo stato, ma la degna afferma- zione di esso, nobilita l’individuo ». Non lo stato, ma il perfetto compimento del proprio dovere è quello che importa. Dopo questo preambolo Fichte mostra la necessità di uno stato speciale, d'una professione particolare, quella del dotto, muovendo dalla definizione di società perfetta. A suo giudizio è perfetta quella so- cietà in cui si è provveduto « allo sviluppo e alla soddisfazione di tutti i bisogni, e anzi al loro uguale sviluppo e alla loro uguale soddisfazione » {p. 151). Questo non è possibile senza la professione del dotto. 2. La società perfetta richiede lo stato (la professione) del dotto La società perfetta ha bisogno di tre cose cui può provvedere una sola professione, quella del dotto: 1) Perfetta conoscenza dell'uomo nella sua interezza, delle sue atti- tudini, di tutti i suoi impulsi e bisogni (perché senza tale conoscenza è im- possibile provvedere allo sviluppo uguale di tutte le attitudini). Questo è l'oggetto della filosofia. 2) Conoscenza dei mezzi per sviluppare Ie attitudini e soddisfare i bisogni (perché la semplice conoscenza delle attitudini e dei bisogni, senza la conoscenza dei mezzi sarebbe vuota e inutilissima). « Con quella conoscenza dei bisogni deve dunque andare unita la conoscenza dei mezzi per soddisfarli; e questa conoscenza dovrà legittimamente essere posse- duta dal medesimo stato sociale, dato che una conoscenza senza l’altra non può mai arrivare ad essere perfetta, né tanto meno viva ed efficace » (p. 153). La conoscenza dei mezzi è l'oggetto della scienza filosofico- storica. 3) Conoscenza del grado di cultura in cui si trova in un determinato momento storico una società e quale grado essa dovrà raggiungere per primo partendo da quello che ora occupa; e infine di quali mezzi essa possa disporre per questo fine. Questo è l'oggetto della scienza storica. Conclusione: «La sintesi di queste tre forme di conoscenza costi- tuisce quella che si chiama, o almeno ciò che esclusivamente dovrebbe chiamarsi dottrina » (pp. 154-155), e lo stato di coloro che si dedicano allo studio della dottrina, si dovrebbe chiamare stato (o professione) dei dotti. 3. Definizione del dotto « Dotto si chiama colui che all'acquisto di tali conoscenze (filosofica, filosofico-storica e storica) dedica la sua vita» (p. 155). 387 Lo stato del dotto e la società perfetta La missione del dotto e la dottrina: — filosofia — scienza filosotico- storica - — scienza storica Il dotto e le sue regole di vita: elevare il grado delle scienze; agire con piena moralità; sviluppo della socialità; essere maestro dell'umanità; essere guida nelle circostanze particolari; essere modello eccellente II dotto sacerdote della verità 4. La missione del dotto « Così ci si rivela finalmente la vera missione dello stato dei dotti; tale missione consiste nella suprema vigilanza sopra il progresso reale della stirpe umana in genere e nell'attività continuamente diretta a promuovere questo progresso » (p. 155), specialmente il progresso delle scienze: infatti « dal progresso delle scienze dipende in modo immediato il progresso del genere umano. Chi ferma quello, ferma questo » (p. 156). 5. La morale del dotto (La morale professionale) Le principali leggi che regolano la vita del dotto sono le seguenti: — « Sforzarsi per portare a un grado più elevato le scienze, e in parti- colare quel ramo della scienza che egli ha prescelto », altrimenti il dotto si mette in contraddizione con la sua missione che consiste appunto nel promuovere il progresso delle scienze. Questa legge è dedotta dalla suprema legge della morale individuale (non-contraddizione, unità- coerenza). — Nella propria attività non deve adoperare mai mezzi che non siano perfettamente morali; il dotto non cadrà mai nella tentazione di far ac- cettare agli uomini le convinzioni proprie con mezzi coercitivi, con l'uso della violenza fisica. Questa legge è dedotta dalla suprema legge della morale sociale (coordinazione e non-subordinazione). — « Sviluppare in se stesso quanto più gli è possibile le disposizioni socievoli, la capacità di ricevere e quella di comunicare » (p. 160), perché il dotto è destinato alla società, « esiste in virtù della società e per il vantaggio della società » (ib.). Questa legge è dedotta dalla missione del- l'uomo nella società (che consiste nel perfezionamento della società attra- verso la politica del dare e del ricevere). — « Deve portare gli uomini alla consapevolezza dei loro bisogni, alla conoscenza dei mezzi atti a soddisfarli » (p. 161). È possibile attuare que- sta legge? Sì, perché gli uomini hanno fiducia nella dottrina e abilità degli altri; inoltre tutti gli uomini hanno un certo senso di verità. Da questa legge il dotto è costituito maestro dell'umanità. Si può dunque affermare che il dotto, secondo quel concetto di lui che finora è stato sviluppato, è per la sua missione stessa maestro dell'umanità. — « Il dotto non deve soltanto istruire gli uomini sopra i loro bisogni e sopra i mezzi necessari per soddisfarli in generale. Deve anche guidarli, in particolare, in un determinato tempo e in un determinato luogo, a prendere coscienza dei bisogni che si presentano in quelle particolari circostanze e a scoprire quei mezzi particolari che servono per raggiun- gere i fini in certo modo imposti dalla situazione presente » (p. 163). Da questa legge il dotto è costituito educatore (guida) dell'umanità. — Il dotto infine deve dare buon esempio, deve essere un modello perché il dotto « deve essere l'uomo moralmente migliore della sua età » {p. 167). Da questa legge il dotto è costituito modello dell'umanità. Conclusione: Fichte conclude la quarta lezione col seguente pane- girico sulla missione del dotto: « Questo è l'ufficio a cui sono chiamato, a rendere testimonianza della verità. Nulla importano [...] la mia vita e la mia sorte, ma l'ufficio che io compio ha un'importanza infinita. Io sono un Sacerdote della verità. Appartengo alla sua milizia; ad essa ho prestato giuramento di fare, di osare, di soffrire tutto fedelmente per lei! » (p. 168). 388 QUINTA LEZIONE (CRITICA DELLE AFFERMAZIONI DI ROUSSEAU ÌNTORNO ALL'INFLUSSO DELLE ARTI E DELLE SCIENZE SOPRA LA FELICITÀ DELL'UOMO 1. ìntroduzione ‘Per la scoperta della verità, dice Fichte, la confutazione degli errori opposti non è di considerevole importanza. La critica degli errori, però, è sempre di grande utilità per mettere meglio a fuoco la verità già sco- perta: « Il confronto della verità con gli errori costringe ciascuno di noi ad osservare i caratteri distintivi dell'una rispetto agli aitri; e ci conduce a formare un concetto più perspicuo e meglio definito della verità stessa » (p. 136). 2. L'errore di Rousseau Secondo Rousseau il fine dell'uomo è raggiungibile solo nello stato di natura. La civiltà, la cultura (lo stato dei dotti) « costituiscono se- condo lui la sorgente e nello stesso tempo la espressione più completa della corruzione umana » (p. 177). Questo è in diretta e completa con- traddizione con tutto l'insegnamento di Fichte, che « ha riposto la mis- sione della umanità nel progresso continuo della cultura e nello sviluppo parallelo e continuo di tutte le sue attitudini e dì tutti i suoi bisogni » (p. 177). 3. Critica dell'errore di Rousseau Fichte fa dell'errore di Rousseau una duplice critica. Anzitutto egli rileva che, nonostante la sua dottrina secondo cui la felicità è raggiungibile solo nello stato di natura, Rousseau ha educato le proprie attitudini in un grado molto raffinato; e coll'educazione che ha ricevuto da questo alto grado di cultura egli si adopera quanto può a convincere l'umanità della giustezza delle sue affermazioni. Quindi, « le sue azioni contraddicono in modo flagrante i suoi principi ». Poi, fichte svolge una critica molto dettagliata della dottrina di Rousseau. Gli argomenti principali sono i seguenti: — La dottrina di Rousseau non è dedotta « per via meramente razio- cinativa, da un principio più fondamentale ». Infatti « su nessuna que- stione il Rousseau ha approfondito la sua ricerca fino a raggiungere gli ultimi fondamenti di tutto il sapere umano » (pp. 178-180). — Tutto quello che dice Rousseau si fonda sul sentimento e non sulla ragione e quella del sentimento è una conoscenza malsicura, in cui il vero si trova commisto al falso, « perché ogni giudizio fondato sul sen- timento greggio e immediato presenta come equivalenti cose che non sono punto tali » (p. 180). — Tuttavia la deduzione delle conseguenze non viene fatto da Rous- seau secondo le leggi del sentimento, ma secondo quelle della ragione: « Se egli avesse lasciato al sentimento un influsso anche sulla deduzione delle conseguenze, il sentimento l'avrebbe poi riportato sulla strada giu- sta, dalla quale prima l’aveva sviato » (p. 181). — La dottrina di Rousseau anziché avere una base razionale ha una motivazione psicologica: la constatazione che il suo alto ideale del dotto 389 Confutazione degli errori e focalizzazione delle verità scoperte Critica a Rousseau: — non raggiunge i fondamenti primi del sapere — deduce secondo le leggi della ragione e nor del sentimento La dottrina dello stato di natura ha conseguenze disastrose Due incompatibilità:stato di natura e indipendenza dai Bisogni Con il ‘’non-lo’’ si ha l’ideale di perfetta coerenza Rousseau: energia gel sopportare, fiuttosto che energia dell’agire non trovava alcuna attuazione nella realtà tra i suoi contemporanei; an- zi, i dotti del suo tempo mettevano il loro ingegno a servizio dei soldi, degli onori, e delle ricchezze, e cercavano di far passare come virtù la corruzione degli uomini. Questa dolorosa constatazione spiega la sua avversione per la cultura e il suo odio per l'umanità (pp. 180-185). « Ecco donde sorge nel Rousseau l'aspirazione allo stato di natura. Nello stato di natura, così come egli lo intendeva, le attitudini proprie della umanità non dovrebbero ancora essersi sviluppate; non dovrebbero anzi nep- pure essersi manifestate. L'uomo non dovrebbe avere nessun bisogno oltre a quello della sua natura animale; dovrebbe vivere come le bestie vivono nei campi sotto i suoi occhi. E certamente in uno stato simile non troverebbe posto nessuno di quei vizi che avevano acceso l'ira del Rousseau. L'uomo, in quello stato, mangerà quando avrà fame e berrà quando avrà sete. Una volta saziato non avrà nessun interesse a pri- vare gli altri di quel nutrimento che egli non può in quel momento utiliz- zare » (p. 186). — La dottrina dello stato di natura come stato ideale è inaccettabile per le sue disastrose conseguenze. « Certo il vizio viene in questo staio di- strutto totalmente, ma col vizio viene distrutta la virtù e senz'altro la ragione. L'uomo diventa allora un animale » (p. 187). — Lo stato di natura rende impossibile il conseguimento del fine che Rousseau si propone, quello di « riflettere sopra la sua missione e sopra i suoi doveri per poter così nobilitare se stesso e i suoi fratelli in uma- nità » (p. 189). — Rousseau vuole due cose incompatibili: a) il ritorno allo stato di natura; b) l'indipendenza dell'uomo dai bisogni della sensibilità. Queste due cose sono incompatibili perché si trovano in proporzione inversa. Infatti, «quanto più la ragione estenderà il suo dominio, tanto meno l'uomo avrà di bisogno » (p. 190). — ‘Rousseau si raffigura come qualche cosa che noi siamo già stati quello che invece dobbiamo diventare; si rappresenta il fine che noi dob- biamo raggiungere corne qualche cosa che noi abbiamo perduto (p. 191). — Rousseau dimentica che l'umanità si può, anzi si deve avvicinare a questo stato soltanto attraverso la sollecitudine, la fatica, il lavoro. È attraverso la progressiva, laboriosa conquista del Non-io (natura) che l’uomo realizza il suo ideale di perfetta coerenza, «l'aspirazione di essere simile a Dio » (p. 192). Ma l'uomo è, quanto alla sua natura, pigro e inerte. Ecco come nasce la dura battaglia tra il bisogno e la pigrizia naturale; il primo vince, ma la seconda si lagna amaramente, non il biso- gno è l'origine del vizio; il bisogno è invece lo stimolo che spinge alla attivita e alla virtù. L'origine del vizio è nell'inerzia naturale. « Non v'è per l'uomo nessuna salvezza, finché questa sua inerzia naturale non sia stata combattuta e sconfitta; finché l'uomo non riponga nell'attività, e soltanto nell'attività, tutte le sue gioie e tutto il suo piacere » (pp. 192-193). — «In definitiva lo sbaglio di Rousseau è il seguente: aveva anche lui urna certa energia, ma era piuttosto l'energia del sopportare che non l'energia dell'agire (l'energia di piangere invece di operare). Egli è l'uomo della sensibilità sempre sofferente, ma non è nello stesso tempo l’uomo dell’attività in lotta. « La lotta della ragione contro le passioni, la vittoria strappata a poco a poco [...] tutto questo egli lo nasconde ai nostri oc- chi » (p. 195). 390 Conclusione: Fichte conclude la quinta lezione con una infuocata esortazione a fuggire l'esempio di Rousseau: « Agire! agire ancora. Questa è Ja ragione per la quale noi esistiamo » {D. 196). QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Per chi fu scritto La missione del dotto? 2. Quante e quali sono le parti di La missione del dotto? 3. Con quali argomenti Fichte respinge il materialismo e fonda l'idealismo? . Tra Io-puro e Io-empirico che rapporti pone Fichte? Confronta la dot- trina fichtiana con quelle di Schelling e Hegel. 5. Che cos'è il non-Io? Che atteggiamento assume Fichte nei confronti del non-Io? Metti a confronto il pensiero di Fichte su questo punto cor quello di Spinoza. 6. Quali sono secondo Fichte gli elementi caratteristici, essenziali del. l’uomo? 7. A parere di Fichte, è possibile esperire la libertà degli aitri? 8. Da che cosa deduce la necessità degli stati sociali, ossia delle vatie pro- fessioni? Confronta la dottrina fichtiana sull'origine della società con guelie di Aristotele, Hobbes, Spinoza, Rot:sseau. 9. Su che cosa fonda Fichte il progresso deila società? 40. Cosa intende Fichte per scienza filosofica, filoscfico-storica e storica? Cosa insegna sullo stesso argomento nelle altre opere? 11. Chi è il dotto e quali sono i suoi compiti? 12. Quali sono le principali leggi dell'etica individuale, sociale e professio» nale? Confronta i principi etici di Fichte con: quelli di Kant. 13. Secondo Fichte a quale immortalità può aspirare l'individuo? Può spe- rare nell'immortalità individuale? Paragona la dottrina jichtiana sull’immor- talità con quelle di Platone, Spinoza e Kant. 14. Quali sono le critiche più acute che Fichte muove a Rottsseati? LS 391 Rivoluzioni e trasformazioni socio- politiche agli inizi del XIX secolo L’opera nasce in occasione del primo Congresso internazionale della ‘Lega dei Giusti” (1847) Engels invita Marx a formulare l’opera come un catechismo IV. il « MANIFESTO DEL PARTITO COMUNISTA » K. Marx (1818-1883) e F. Engels (1820- 1895) 1. Origine dell’opera Quando nel 1848, Marx e Engels scrissero il Manifesto tutta l'Europa sì trovava in stato di agitazione: una nuova ondata rivoluzionaria la scuoteva da capo a piedi dopo quelle del 1789, del 1821 e del 1830. In conseguenza delle precedeni rivoluzioni le strutture politiche della società avevano già subito profonde trasformazioni: in varie nazioni l'assolutismo aveva dovuto cedere il posto al parlamentarismo e alla de- mocrazia e quasi ovunque l'aristocrazia era stata soppiantata dalla bor- ghesia. Solo il proletariato continuava ad essere oppresso e sfruttato come per il passato, anzi più ancora che nel passato. In effetti verso la metà dell'Ottocento !e sue condizioni di sfruttamento e asservimento avevano toccato il punto estremo. Ma l'atmosfera rivoluzionaria che stava attraversando l'Europa fece credere a Marx e a Engels che l'ora fosse propizia anche per la libera- zione del proletariato, mediante la soppressione del capitalismo e l’avven- to del comunismo. Essi erano del parere che « la rivoluzione borghese in Germania, compiendosi in condizioni di grande progresso della civiltà europea e con un proletariato più progredito che non ci fosse stato nella rivoluzione inglese e francese, avrebbe rapidamente preparato la rivo- luzione proletaria » (E. Cantimori Mazzomonti), la quale si sarebbe conclusa con la conquista del potere da parte della classe operaia. La circostanza storica immediata che indusse Marx e Engels a com- porre il Manifesto fu il primo congresso internazionale della Lega dei giusti (un movimento operaio d'origine inglese, ma che contava seguaci in tutta l'Europa) ai primi di giugno del 1847. In quella occasione, Engels aveva proposto di cambiare la denominazione della Lega in « Lega dei comunisti ». Il suo suggerimento venrie accolto. Presidente della nuova comunità di Bruxelles fu eletto Karl Marx. Nella seconda metà di ottobre Marx fu invitato a partecipare personalmente al secondo congresso, nel quale sarebbe stata discussa anche la professione di fede politica della Lega. Di questa professione di fede, nei mesi che intercorsero ira i due ‘congressi si occupò soprattutto Engels, ma senza poriare a compimento la stesura del saggio. Poco prima della partenza per il congresso egli scriveva a Marx: « Pensaci un po’ tu alla professione di fede. Credo sia la miglior cosa abbandonare la forma di catechismo e intitolare la cosa: Manifesto comunista ». Verso la fine di novembre Marx raggiunse Engels a Londra per partecipare al secondo congresso della Lega. { principi pro- grammatici e tattici suoi e di Engels furono accettati, e il congresso in- caricò entrambi di stendere il Manifesto. Appena tornato a Bruxelles e cioè a metà dicembre del 1847, Marx si mise al lavoro. Verso la fine di gennaio il manoscritto era pronto e fu spedito a Londra. La stampa del 392 Manifesto si protrasse per quasi tutto il mese di febbraio. Pochi giorni prima dello scoppio della rivoluzione, il Manifesto del partito comunista uscì dalla stamperia di J.E. Burghard, in Londra, in 30 pagine di formato 8°. Sul frontespizio non figura nessuna indicazione dei nomi degli au- tori: solo il titolo, l’indicazione « febbraio 1848 » e il motto: « Proletari di tutto il mondo unitevi ». Il Manifesto, come del resto tutti gli altri scritti di Marx e Engels, ebbe poca diffusione e poca influenza in questi anni; cominciò a esser largamente letto, diffuso e tradotto solo dal 1870 in poi. 2. Divisione e sintesi dell’opera Il Manifesto si articola in quattro parti, precedute da una breve in- troduzione. Le quattro parti portano i titoli seguenti: 1) Borghesi e pro- letari; 2) Proletari e comunisti; 3) Letteratura socialista e comunista; 4) Posizione dei comunisti di fronte ai diversi partiti di opposizione. INTRODUZIONE :Nell’Introduzione Marx e Engels tratteggiano con brevi ma vigorose pennellate la situazione di guerra ingaggiata dalla « vecchia Europa » contro il comunismo. Contro questo sono scesi in campo « papa e zar, Metternich e Guizot, radicali francesi e poliziotti tedeschi » (p. 51). Ma la lotta, argomentano gli autori, è anche un indizio positivo: si- gnifica che « il comunismo è di già riconosciuto come potenza da tutte Je potenze europee » (p. 52). Perciò, concludono Marx e Engels, « è ormai tempo che i comunisti espongano apertamente in faccia a tutto il mondo il loro modo di vedere, i loro fini, le loro tendenze, e che contrappongano alla favola dello spettro del comunismo un manifesto del partito sîesso » (p. 52). PRIMA PARTE BORGHESI E PROLETARI In questa parte Marx e Engels enunciano i principi fondamentali della loro concezione della storia, una concezione in cui si assegna il primato assoluto alle strutture economiche; espongono la storia della borghesia e del proletariato; e, infine, mostrano che i tempi sono ormai maturi per l'abbattimento della borghesia e ia conquista del potere da parte del proletariato. JI punti più salienti della loro trattazione sono i seguenti: 1) La storia dell'umanità concepita come storia di lotte di classe. Muovendo dal postulato secondo cui « la storia di ogni società esistita fino a questo momento, è storia di lotte di classi » (p. 54), e valendosi di tale postulato quale principio ermeneutico per ia comprensione delle vicende storiche, Marx e Engels ricostruiscono schematicamente la storia dell'umanità come una sequenza ininterrotta di antagonismi tra le classi 393 Prima edizione a Londra Nella ‘‘vecchia Europa’’ i nemici del comunismo Storia della borghesia e del proletariato La storia dell'umanità come di lotta tra le classi sociali politico e potere economico La concezione Qorghese dell’uomo la dignità deila persona Trasformazione sociale e irasformazione economica La sovrapproduzione la causa delîa crisi della borghesia il proletariato è una creazione del di classe e prospettiva : in Grecia tra liberi e schiavi, a Roma tra patrizi e plebei, nel Medioevo tra feudatari e servi della gleba, nell'epoca moderna tra borghesia e proletariato {pp. 54-55). 2) Storia della formazione della borghesia: i suoi inizi sono fatti risa- lire aila fine del Medioevo (pp. 55-56). Coincidenza dell’accrescimento del potere politico cella borghesia con l'aumento del suo potere econo- mico. Così alla fine dello sviluppo della classe borghese « dopo la crea- delle grandi industrie e del mercato mondiale, la borghesia si è con- quistata il dominio politico esclusivo nello Stato rappresentativo mo- derno. TI potere stataie moderno non è che un comitato che amministra gli affari comuni di tutta ia classe borghese » (p. 57). Anche la borghesia come qualsiasi altra classe sociale è salita al potere con la lotta, la rivoluzione (pp. 57-58). 3) Le aberrazioni della concezione borghese dell’uomo e della società: nella concezione borghese sono stravolti ia dignità personale, la libertà de} singolo (p. 58), il significato delle professioni, i rapporti familiari so- ciali e nazionali (pp. 59-62). 4) Il dinamismo di trasformazicne della società: un tipo di società si qualifica in forza dei rapporti economici esistenti tra i suoi membri, ossia secondo la distribuzione dei inezzi di produzione. Una società si trasforma allorché i rapporti economici subiscono un cambiamento so- stanziale. Così, alla società feudale è subentrata la società borghese allorché, «a un certo grado di sviluppo dei mezzi di produzione e di scambic, le condizioni nelle quali la società feudale produceva e scam- biava, l'organizzazione feudale dell’agricoltura e della manifattura, in una parola i rapporti feudali della proprietà, non corrisposero più alle forze produttive ormai sviluppate. Essi inceppavano la produzione invece di promuoverla. Si trasformarono in aitrettante ‘catene. Dovevano essere spezzate e furono spezzate. Ad esse subentrò la libera concorrenza con la confacente costituzione sociale e politica, con il dominio economico e ‘politico della classe borghese » (pp. 62-63). 5) Crisi della società borghese: « La società borghese moderna che ha creato per incanto mezzi di produzione e di scambio così potenti, ras- somiglia al mago che non riesce più a dominare le potenze degli inferi da lui evocate. Sono decenni ormai che la storia dell'industria e del commercio è soltanto storia della rivolta delle forze produttive moderne contro i rapporti moderni della produzione, cioè contro i rapporti di proprietà che costituiscono le condizioni di esistenza della borghesia e del suo dominio » (pp. 63-64). La causa principale della crisi della società borghese è « l'epidemia della sovraproduzione » (pp. 64-65). 6) La svolta verso il comunismo: essa è preparata dallo stesso capita- lismo mediante la creazione di una nuova classe sociale, la classe del pro- letariato (p. 65). Questa classe sta ingrossando vieppiù mediante l'assor- bimento di tutte le classi intermedie (pp. 67 e 72). 7) Le cause della ribellione del proletariato: la disumanizzazione del lavoro, l'ingiusta retribuzione, lo sfruttamento, l’asservimento (pp. 66-67). 8) La dialettica della lotta di classe: da lotta di piccoli gruppi un po' alla volta essa si sta trasformando in lotta massiccia dell'intera classe operaia contro la classe dei padroni (p. 68); da lotta nazionale in lotta internazionale (p. 74). 9) Definizione del proletariato: « Il proletario è senza proprietà; il suo rapporto con moglie e figli non ha più nulla di comune con il rapporto 394 familiare borghese; il lavoro industriale moderno, il soggiogamento mo- derno al capitale, identico in Inghilterra e in Francia, in America e in Germania, lo ha spogliato di ogni carattere nazionale. Leggi, morale, religione sono per lui altrettanti pregiudizi borghesi, dietro i quali si nascondono altrettanti interessi borghesi » (p. 73). 10) La via al comunismo: consiste nella eliminazione dell’attuale si- stema di appropriazione e nella conquista delle forze produttive della società « attraverso il violento abbattimento della borghesia » e la sop- pressione della proprietà privata: «I proletari non hanno da salvaguar- dare nulla di proprio, hanno da distruggere tutta la sicurezza privata e tutte le assicurazioni private che ci sono state fin qui » (p. 74). 11) Certezza della vittoria del proletariato sulla borghesia: perché quest’ultima contiene in se stessa i germi della sua dissoluzione. Essa e- sige infatti la moltiplicazione incessante del capitale, ma ciò non si può ottenere che con uno sfruttamento sempre più iniquo della classe operaia. E questo conduce inevitabilmente alla reazione violenta da parte del proletariato e alla rivoluzione PROLETARI E COMUNISTI In questa parte Marx e Engels, dopo una breve dilucidazione dei rapporti tra proletariato e comunismo, prendono in esame e respingono con fermezza, ad una ad una, tutte le critiche più gravi che vengono sollevate contro la visione comunista della società. 1) Distinzione tra proletari e comunisti: anche i comunisti sono dei proletari, ma non si identificano con essi; se ne distinguono come ii partito di punta del proletariato nella lotta contro i! capitalismo (p. 78). 2) Obiettivo immediato ‘del comunismo: « Abbattimento delia bor ghesia e conquista del potere da parte de! proletariato » {p. 78). 3) Obiettivo ultimo del comunismo: abolizione della proprietà pri- vata (p. 79). 4) Legittimazione della soppressione della proprietà privata: questa è un'istituzione che è essenzialmente incompatibile con la giustizia so- ciale. Infatti, nel sistema borghese, «il lavoro dei proletario crea il capitale, ossia quella proprietà che sfrutta il lavoro salariato, che può moltiplicarsi solo a condizione di generare nuovo lavoro salariato, per sfruttarlo di nuovo » (p. 80; ofr. anche p. 83). 5) Ingiustizia del lavoro salariato: nella società borghese esso è ap- pena sufficiente a garantire all’operaio « la sua nuda esistenza » (p. 81). 6) Funzione del lavoro nella società borghese e nella società comu- nista: « Nella società borghese il lavoro vivo è soltanto ur: mezzo per mol. tiplicare il lavoro accumulato. Nella società comunista il lavoro accu- mulato è soltanto un mezzo per ampliare, per arricchire, per far pro- gredire il ritmo d'esistenza degli operai » (p. 81). 7) Diversità tra concezione borghese e concezione comunista della libertà e della persona umana (pp. 82-84). 8) Diversa funzione della cultura, del diritto, della religione, della morale nella società comunista e nella società borghese {p. 85). Subordi- 395 Legge, morale e religione: pregiudizi borghesi La via al comunismo: sconfitta della borghesia, fine della proprietà Lo sfruttamento conduce alla rivoluzione del proletariato Alsune importanti affermazioni di principio risultano dall'esame delia situazione La tradizione del socialismo in Europa Adesione dei comunisti ad ogni forma di rivoluzione contro il sistema in atto. nazione della cultura, del diritto, della religione e della morale alla strut- tura economica (p. 85). 9) Storicità delle espressioni culturali (p. 85). 10) Subordinazione dell'educazione al sistema economico vigente in una determinata società. Superiorità dell'educazione comunista nei con- fronti di quella borghese (p. 86). 11) Le diverse concezioni della famiglia e della nazione (p. 86). 12) Approfondimento del tema dei rapporti tra struttura economica e sovrastrutture culturali (pp. 88-90). 13) Dieci provvedimenti riguardanti l’abolizione della proprietà pri- vata (pp. 91-92). 14) Abolizione della divisione della società in classi: «Il proleta- riato [...] facendosi classe dominante attraverso una rivoluzione, ed abo- lendo con forza, come classe dominante, gli antichi rapporti di produ- zione, abolisce insieme a quei rapporti di produzione le condizioni di esi- stenza dell'antagonismo di classe, cioè abolisce le condizioni di esistenza delle classi in genere, e così anche il suo proprio dominio in quanto clas- se » (p. 93). TERZA PARTE LETTERATURA SOCIALISTA E COMUNISTA In questa parte Marx e Engels presentano una rassegna critica della letteratura socialista e comunista del loro tempo, soffermandosi in par- ticolare sul « socialismo cristiano » dei romantici cattolici francesi (Lam- menais e Montalembert) (pp. 97-98), sul « socialismo piccolo borghese » di Sismondi {pp. 99-102), sul « socialismo tedesco » di Bauer e Hess (pp. 103-109), sul « socialismo borghese » di Proudhon (pp. 109-113), e sul «‘comunismo critico-utopistico » di Saint-Simon e iFourier (pp. 113-120). QUARTA PARTE POSIZIONE DEI COMUNISTI DI FRONTE AI DIVERSI PARTITI DÌ OPPOSIZIONE In questa parte conclusiva gli autori delineano brevemente la posi- zione dei comunisti di fronte ai diversi partiti operai già costituiti e ai movimenti rivoluzionari già operanti in Francia, Svizzera, Polonia e Ger- mania. Particolare attenzione riservano a quest'ultima nazione perché, a loro giudizio, la Germania offre le condizioni socio-politiche più pro- pizie per la lotta e per la vittoria del proletariato contro il sistema bor- ghese. Le linee direttrici indicate da Marx e Engels sono le seguenti: «I comunisti appoggiano dappertutto ogni movimento rivoluzionario diretto contro le situazioni sociali e politiche attuali. Entro tutti questi movimenti essi mettono in rilievo, come problema fondamentale del movimento, il problema della proprietà, qualsiasi forma, più o meno svi- luppata, esso possa avere assunto. Infine, i comunisti lavorano dappertut- to al collegamento e all’intesa dei partiti democratici di tutti i paesi. I 396 comunisti sdegnano di nascondere le loro opinioni e le loro intenzioni. Dichiarano apertamente che i loro fini possono esser raggiunti soltanto col rovesciamento violento di tutto l'ordinamento sociale finora esistente. Rovesciamento Le classi dominanti tremino al pensiero d'una rivoluzione comunista, Violento del sistema I proletari non hanno da perdervi che le loro catene. Hanno un mondo anto: da guadagnare. PROLETARI DI TUTTI Ì PAESI, UNITEVI » (p. 124). QUESTIONARIO DI VERIFICA E DISCUSSIONE 1. Che cosa è la « Lega dei giusti » e dove sorse? 2. Quando e dove sorse la « Lega dei comunisti »? 3. Chi ne fu il primo presidente? 4. Il libretto « Manifesto del partito comunista» quando e dove venne pubblicato? 5. Marx come concepisce la storia dell'umanità? 6. Dalla concezione borghese della società che cosa deriva? 7. Quale era la crisi della borghesia che Marx intravvedeva? 8. Questa crisi, a distanza di un secolo, era reale? 9. Come vengono considerate da Marx le leggi, la morale e la religione? 10. Che distinzione c'è tra proletari e comunisti? . 11. Per quali motivi Marx giustifica la soppressione della proprietà privata? 12. Quale funzione ha il lavoro nella società comunista? 13. Quale è la posizione dei comunisti rispetto agli altri partiti operai sorti in Europa? 397 Obiettivo della metafisica: risposte esaustive agli interrogativi ultimi Nei secoli XVIII e XIX la scienza come sapere assoluto Attualità della metafisica, ‘‘inattualità’’ dei suoi risultati Denunciati gli errori del passato e nuove soluzioni per il futuro Organicità e maturità delia trattazione V. « INTRODUZIONE ALLA METAFISICA » Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) 1. Premessa I limiti della scienza, i pericoli della tecnologia, la caducità delle cose, la finitudine del mondo, il non-senso della storia, il nichilismo che ci circonda e assedia da ogni parte, hanno conferito nuova attualità (tanto da farne secondo alcune previsioni il sapere del futuro) a quella che già fu per molti secoli regina di ogni sapere, la metafisica. Definita già da Aristotele come studio delle cause ultime oppure come studio « dell’ente in quanto ente », l’obiettivo della metafisica è stato sempre quello di esibire una risposta esaustiva agli interrogativi ultimi, gli interrogativi che riguardano il senso della vita, l'origine del mondo, il valore della conoscenza, il problema del male e della libertà, la verità, la morte, ecc. Con l'avvento della scienza e con l'illusione che questa potesse affer- marsi come un sapere assoluto, si è creduto di poter dichiarare il tra- monto della metafisica. Il XVIII e il XIX secolo hanno espresso una cul- tura essenzialmente antimetafisica; ma la scienza, che si è sempre più perfezionata nel calcolare i fenomeni per poterli controllare e dominare, si è invece arrestata davanti alla porta dei problemi ultimi. Così il loro esame e possibilmente la loro soluzione sono oggi nuovamente demandati alla metafisica. L'uomo, diceva Schopenhauer, è essenzialmente un essere metafisico: lo è in forza della sua natura spirituale, lo è grazie al suo conoscere intel- lettuale. Come essere metafisico egli è da sempre chiamato ad interro- garsi su se stesso, sul proprio essere e sugli enti che lo circondano con l'obiettivo e la speranza di pervenire ad una risposta soddisfacente e conclusiva. Il suo oggetto e il suo compito rendono, pertanto, la meta- fisica sempre attuale, anche se i suoi risultati sono costantemente messi in crisi dall'inarrestabile tensione di ricerca della mente umana. 2. Origine e obiettivi dell’opera Dei filosofi del nostro secolo nessuno come M. Heidegger — che molti studiosi considerano il più grande di tutti — si è occiipato con altrettanto impegno e costanza della metafisica, denunciando, da una parte, gli er- rori in cui sono incorsi i filosofi del passato e proponendo, dall'altra, nuo- ve impostazioni e soluzioni per il futuro. Dei molti scritti in cui Heidegger affronta il problema della metafisica la Einfiihrung in die Metaphysik (Introduzione alla metafisica) si racco- manda in modo particolare per la organicità, completezza e maturità della trattazione. Questo saggio occupa « una posizione centrale e peculiare nel- lo svolgimento del pensiero di Heidegger [...] tanto che esso si può col. 398 locare accanto a Seiti und Zeit (Essere e tempo) come seconda cpera chia- ve per la comprensione dell’intero suo pensiero » {Vattimo). Concepita e scritta nel 1935 — a quasi dieci anni di distanza da Essere e tempo — nello sviluppo del pensiero heideggeriano Introduzione alla metafisica è il documento principale della grande svolta (Kehre) in dire- zione dell'essere. In Essere e tempo, per risolvere la questione ontolo- gica (quella dell'essere), Heidegger aveva seguito il cammino ascendente (dagli enti all'essere), assumendo come punto di partenza quell’ente pri- vilegiato che è l’uomo, che è colui in cui l'essere si interroga e si mette in questione. Ma questa strada Jo aveva condotto in un vicolo cieco: anziché alla sponda dell'essere approdava a quella del nulla. Così, in Introduzione aila metafisica, Heidegger segue il cammino inverso: dal- l'essere agli enti. L'essere è il punto di partenza, è il fondamento, la sor- gente da cui tutto discende. Gli enti o essenti sono le parole, il raccogli- mento, la non-latenza, la verità, l’epifania, il disvelamento dell'essere. In taì modo Heidegger ritiene di sfuggire alla trappola in cui — a suo avviso — è caduta tutta la metafisica tradizionale {greca, medioevale, moderna), che assumendo come punto di partenza questo o quell’ente o questa o quella modalità dell'essere non era mai riuscita ad oltrepas- sare l'orizzonte degli essenti ossia l'orizzonte della fisica e finiva rego- larmente nella identificazione dell'essere con l'Ente supremo. (Kehre), oltre che un nuovo cominciamento della comprensione dell'essere, comporta anche la ricerca di un nuovo lin- guaggio, « adatto », cioè adeguato al contenuto di un pensiero che non in- tende più avvalersi delle categorie metafisiche tradizionali e vuol met- terle in discussione nelia loro stessa radice. Anche di questo sforzo arduo e grandioso la Introduzione costituisce il primo importante documento e, fino a Cammino verso il linguaggio, resterà l'unico saggio di una certa ampiezza ed organicità. Introduzione alla metafisica consta di quattro capitoli che trattano 399 in ‘‘Essere e îempo’’ cammino ascendente: dail’ente al nulla in questa opera cammino discendente: dall'essere agli enti La storia dischiude l'essenza dell’essere Le quattro delimitazioni dell’essere: divenire, apparire, pensare, dovere La grande svolta: nuovo sominiciamento e nuovo linguaggio Le tre priorità della domanda metafisica fondamentale: ampiezza, profondità, origine La domanda fondamentale: evento, salto, non suscettibilità di verifica La filosofia come sapere: inattuale inutile ambiguo fecondo difficile rispettivamente di: 1) La domanda metafisica fondamentale; 2) Gram-. matica ed etimologia della parola « essere »; 3) La domanda sulla es- senza dell’essere; 4) La limitazione dell'essere. 3. Divisione e sintesi dell’opera LA DOMANDA METAFISICA FONDAMENTALE 1. La domanda metafisica fondamentale È la seguente: « Perché vi è, in generale, l’essente e non il nulla? ». Questa è la domanda metafisica per eccellenza e gode su qualsiasi altra domanda di una triplice priorità: in ordine all'ampiezza « è la più vasta »; in ordine alla profondità: « è la più profonda »; in ordine all'origine: « è la più originaria ». L'interrogativo riguarda tutti gli enti senza nessuna distinzione: « In ragione della sua portata illimitata tutti gli enti per essa si equivalgono ». Perciò « bisogna evitare di porre in primo piano un ente particolare, anche l’uomo [...]. Non sussiste nessun motivo perché, per entro l’essente nella sua totalità, si debba porre in primo piano quel- l'essente chiamato uomo, alla cui specie noi stessi per caso appartenia- mo » (pp. 15-16). Ta domanda metafisica fondamentale, già singolare in se stessa, as- sume capitale e vitale importanza per colui che la solleva: è un evento nella sua esistenza. L'evento consiste in un salto, che comporta l’abban- dono di tutte le precedenti certezze; ma si tratta di un salto singolaris- simo, che si esplica più in maniera passiva che attiva, è un salto origi- nario (Ur-sprung). La domanda metafisica non è suscettibile di verifica; perciò non si può stabilire con certezza se essa è autentica oppure inautentica. Tuttavia, almeno una cosa è certa: non è autentica quando si presta a ricevere una risposta sicura, precisa, definitiva; per esempio, la risposta biblica: c’è l'essente perché Dio l’ha creato. D'altronde questa è una di quelle do- mande che si colloca fuori dall’orizzonte della fede: l’interrogarsi sul- l'essente in rapporto al suo fondamento per il credente è « una follia » (p. 19). 2. Caratteristiche della filosofia i- sica. Ma se si risale al significato originale del termine physis, il quale voleva dire « ciò che si dischiude da se stesso (come, ad esempio, lo sbocciare di una rosa), l’aprentesi dispiegantesi e in tale dispiegamento l’entrare nell’apparire e il mantenersi in esso, in breve: lo schiudentesi- permanente imporsi », allora si può ben dire che oggetto della filosofia è nient'altro che la physis, in quanto «la physis è lo stesso essere, in forza del quale soltanto l'essente diventa osservabile e tale rimane » (p. 26); « l'essente come tale nella sua totalità è physis, cioè ha come essenza caratteristica lo schiudentesi-permanente imporsi » (p. 28). Per- tanto studiare la physis e studiare l'essere è la stessa cosa. Senonché non è a questo studio dell'essere come tale che ha atteso la metafisica tradizionale: volendo scavalcare la physis essa ha fallito il suo obiettivo, l'essere, sin dall'inizio. « Per chiunque si ponga dal nostro punto di vista, diviene chiaro che l'essere come tale risulta in realtà na- scosto alla metafisica, resta obliato, e ciò in maniera così radicale che la dimenticanza dell’essere, col cadere essa stessa in oblio, viene a costi- tuire l'impulso, ignoto ma costante, che sollecita il domandare metafi- sico » {p. 30). 4. Il ricominciamento deila filosofia Per fare autentica filosofia occorre ricominciare da capo, sollevando di nuovo la domanda fondamentale: « Perché vi è, in generale, l'essente e non il nulla? ». Questa domanda ha ‘carattere fortemente personale. Per affrontarla non ci sono né maestri, né guide, né compagni, né sostituti: « è un andare avanti domandando [...] che non comporta nessuna com- pagnia » (p. 31). Essa ha, inoltre, carattere di ri-soluzione, di impegno: « interrogare significa voler-sapere. Chi vuole, chi pone tutto il suo es- sere in un volere, è risoluto » (p. 32). Infine, ha anche carattere di eser- cizio: l'atteggiamento interrogativo dev'essere sviluppato, fortificato con l'esercizio (p. 33). 5. Svolgimento della domanda fondamentale AI fine di chiarirne meglio il senso, Heidegger vi distingue tra l'inter- rogato {l'essente) e ciò su cui verte l'interrogazione: il fondamento (Grund) dell'essente. A prima vista, si ha l'impressione che la domanda sia tutta rinchiusa in « perché l’essente?» e che l'aggiunta « e non il nulla » abbia una funzione meramente pleonastica. Tuttavia, se si fa mag- 401 straordinario La ‘‘physis’’ oggetto della filosofia: è studiare l’essere Carattere personale e carattere di risoluzione della dumanda fondamentale sull’essente Il nulla è legato alla logica del pensare Priorità del sapere filosofico e dei psetare sui sapere scientifico Distinzione dell’essere dall’essente La crisi dell'Occidente: oblio dell’essere e frenesia dell’essente Ripetizione del cominciamento e ricollocazione dell’esistenza storica dell’uomo gior attenzione si vede che c'è almeno urna ragione storica per integrare la dorranda cor l'espressione « e non il nulia »: il fatto che la filosofia si è posta sin dall'inizio insieme alla domanda sull’essente anche la doman- da sul non-essente, sul nulla. Ma c'è di più: il divieto di interpellare il nulla, perché il nulla è nulla, è sì legato alla logica del pensare, ma si tratta di una logica che opera all’interno di una determinata precom- prensione dell'essente, e potrebbe essere che « ogni pensiero che obbe- disce solamente alle regole della logica tradizionaie si trovi fin da prin- cipio neli'impossibilità anche solo di comprendere, in generale, la do- imanda circa l’essente, e tanto più nella impossibilità di svilupparla real- mente e di pervenire ad una risposta » (p. 36). Solo la logica del pensiero scientifico vieta il discorso sul nulla. Ma (e questa è tesì assai cara a Heidegger) il sapere filosofico e il poetare godono di un'assoluta priorità sul sapere scientifico (pp. 36-37). Ci sono pertanto delle buone ragioni (storiche e teoretiche) per includere nella domanda fondamentale la frase «e non il nulla ». Questa aggiunta conferisce alla domanda un più ampio respiro e le apre un orizzonte diverso. Nella forma abbre- viata l'orizzonte e il respiro restano sempre quello dell’essente; così, si è tentati di rinvenire il fondamento nello stesso ordine {un essente su- periore}. Invece, includendo il riferimento al nulla, ciò che si vuol scoprire è la ragione deila ‘vittoria dell’essente sui nulla (pp. 38-39). 6. La differenza ontologica tra essente ed essere Di che natura è questa differenza basilare, primaria? Non è soltanto una differenza logica, concettuale, bensì una differenza reale. Anche se inafferrabile, l'essere rimane sempre distinto dall’essente, è altra cosa rispetto all’'essente. E ciò implica una qualche comprensione dell’es- sere: solo grazie a tale comprensione noi possiamo interrogare l’essente a proposito del suo essere (p. 43). L’essere non è incluso nella definizione dell’essente (del cavallo, del- l’uomo, del gesso, ecc.) eppure senza l'essere nessun essente è. E, tut- tavia, l’essente non è percepibile immediatamente, non è qualcosa che si vede (pp. 44-46). Ma tutto questo non giustifica la tesi nietzschiana secondo cui l'essere è « fumo, esalazione, errore ». Quella sull'essere è domanda estremamente seria, che tocca direttamente il destino del. l'Occidente. Dal rapporto che l'umanità assume nei confronti dell’es- sere ne va del suo destino, della sua storia. in effetti, l'oblio dell'essere e la frenesia per l’'essente sono la causa vera e profonda della crisi e della rovina dell'Occidente e del mondo intero {pp. 48 ss.). Del tutto singolare è la responsabilità del popolo tedesco che « è il popolo metafi- sico per eccellenza » (p. 49), nei confronti dell'essere. 7. La ripetizione del cominciamento, superando gli errori della ontologia Dopo la « morte dell'essere » sentenziata da Nietzsche, solo un co- minciamento nuovo, originario, può restituire all'interrogativo « che cosa è dell'essere », quella forza, quella rilevanza, quel peso che gli è proprio come interrogativo fondamentale. La ripetizione del fondamento riguarda anzitutto e soprattutto il concetto di « essere », sottraendolo a quell’appiattimento che l’ha ridotto a « concetto più generale di tutti », come è stato normalmente inteso dalla ontologia (pp. 49-51). Per realiz- 402 zare la ripetizione del cominciamento occorre « ricollocare l'esistenza storica dell'uomo [...] nella potenza dell'essere da rivelarsi in modo ori- ginario: tutto ciò, beninteso, solo nei limiti del potere concesso alla filosofia » (p. 52). Porre questo nuovo cominciamento è una « decisione storica » per l'Europa e per tutto il globo terrestre (p. 53). 8. Urgenza del ricominciamento Esso è indispensabile per vincere quel depotenziamento dello spirito che si registra ovunque oggi nel mondo (pp. 56 ss.). Definizione dello spiri- to come « dischiudimento (ent-schlossenheit) originario verso l'essere ». Ed è per questo che l'interrogarsi sull’essente come tale nella sua totalità, «il proporre la domanda sull’essere, costituisce una delle condizioni fondamentali, essenziali, per un risveglio dello spirito, per il porsi di un mondo originario dell'esserci storico, per arrestare il pericolo di un oscuramento del mondo e per una assunzione della missione storica del nostro popolo considerato come centro dell'Occidente » (p. 60). Il rico- minciamento — che ha luogo quando si instaura un autentico rapporto con l'essere — è anche condizione essenziale per restituire al linguaggio la sua funzione e il suo significato SULLA GRAMMATICA E SULLA ETIMOLOGIA DELLA PAROLA « ESSERE » 1. Condizioni preliminari all'esame grammaticale ed etimologico :Si impone anzitutto un'autentica rivoluzione del nostro rapporto con la lingua; anche se è vero che la determinazione dell'essenza del lin- guaggio e il nostro stesso modo di interrogarci si conformano alla nostra concezione dell'essenza dell’essente e dell'essere, tuttavia è pur vero che « l'essenza e l'essere parlano nelia lingua ». Di qui la necessità « di chia- rire l'essenza stessa dell'essere, per quanto riguarda la sua essenziale implicazione con la natura del linguaggio » (pp. 64-65). 2. La grammatica della parola « essere » « Come sostantivo “l'essere” deriva dal verbo. Per questo si dice che la parola “l'essere” è un sostantivo verbale. Con questa forma gram- maticale si può considerare esaurito quanto c'è da dire, sul piano lin- guistico, delia parola “essere” » (p. 66). E tuttavia rimane aperto e sco- perto un problema: «il problema di sapere se la forma originaria della parola come sostantivo e come verbo rappresenti effettivamente il ca- rattere originario del dire e del parlare. Tale questione include in sé, in pari tempo, quella dell’origine del linguaggio » {p. 66). Ma non ci si può accontentare di questa indicazione assai generica. Per verificare quale sia stato in origine il rapporto linguaggio-essere occorre esplorare come siano andate le cose nella lingua greca, la quale «è accanto alla tedesca la più potente ed insieme la più spirituale » (p. 67). Heidegger si sofferma anzitutto sulla distinzione tra onoma e rema: onoma è manifestazione ed espressione della cosa, rema dell’azio- ne; il primo corrisponde al sostantivo, il secondo al verbo. Ma questa 403 Lo spirito: dischiudimento verso l’essere Necessaria una autentica rivoluzione de rapporto con la lingua La parola ‘‘essere’' e l’origine del linguaggio Analisi dei termini greci: ‘“onoma”’ (manifestazione della cosa), ‘‘rema”’ (dell’azione) L’‘‘emergenza dell’essente come lotta: ‘“polemos”’ Essere come vivere: dischiudersi, permanere L’inafferrabilità dell’essere analisi dice ancora poco. Perché la ricerca approdi a qualche risultato apprezzabile occorre spingersi più avanti, e cercare di comprendere come i greci concepivano il linguaggio (pp. 68-69). Heidegger fa vedere che nella lingua greca l’essente è concepito come qualche cosa che si rende presente assumendo un limite (telos), una forma (morfé), un aspetto (idea), una natura (physis), una verità {a-letheia), cioè come « un fuoruscire dalla latenza » (pp. 70-72). L'emergenza dell’essente come qualcosa di distinto e determinato è concepita come polemos (lotta). Quando la lotta cessa l’essente perde la sua identità, e viene ridotto a mero oggetto di considerazione teorica, di calcolo, di produzione: « resta pur sempre l’essente [...] ma l'essere si è ritratto da lui » (p. 73). In conclusione, « per i greci “essere” significa stabilità (Stàndigkeit), e ciò in duplice senso: 1) Lo stare in sé nel senso del prodursi, del pro-cedere (Ent-stehen): physis. 2) Lo stare in sé come tale, come qual. cosa di “stabile”, che rimane, di permanente (Verweilen): ousia. Non-es- sere, per conseguenza, significa l’uscire da tale stabilità proceduta da se stessa: existasthai. “Esistenza” ed “esistere”, significano quindi per i Greci precisamente: non-essere » (p. 74). A questo punto Heidegger fa seguire una sottile disquisizione sulla forma infinitiva delle parole (pp. 77 ss.). 3. Etimologia della parola « essere » Le tre radici del verbo « essere » (che si possono cogliere nelle pa- role indogermaniche, greche e latine), determinano i tre significati prin- cipali che questa parola ha avuto sin dalle origini nella lingua greca: vivere, dischiudersi, permanere. « Ma a questo punto ci si presenta una domanda decisiva: come si accordano e in che cosa convergono le tre radici citate? Cosa è che regge e dirige il dire dell'essere? Su che cosa si fonda il nostro dire dell'essere secondo le varie flessioni della lingua? Questo dire e la comprensione dell'essere sono o no la stessa cosa? Come è presente (west), nel dire dell'essere, la differenza fra l'essere e l’essente? » (p. 82). 4. Questioni pendenti ‘A questo punto Heidegger segnala una serie di importanti questioni ancora aperte ed irrisolte, in particolare: 1) Quale tipo di « astrazione » era in gioco nella formazione della parola « essere »? 2) Qual è il signifi- cato fondamentale predominante (dei tre significati iniziali) che può avere presieduto alla fusione verificatasi? 3) Il senso dell'essere che, stando alle interpretazioni puramente logiche e grammaticali, ci si pre- senta come « astratto » e come qualcosa, per conseguenza, di puramente derivato, può essere in se stesso pieno e originario? (pp. 82-83). Conclusione: Quando si tenta di spiegare il significato della parola «essere » ci si trova subito in imbarazzo, perché è un voler cogliere l'inafferrabile. « Con tutto ciò, noi siamo continuamente attratti dall’es- sente, inseriti in esso, portati a considerare noi stessi come degli “es- senti”. “L'essere”, per ora, non è per noi che un semplice vocabolo, un termine frusto. Se non altro, bisogna che cerchiamo almeno di impadro- nirci di quest'ultimo resto rimasto in nostro possesso » (p. 83). È quanto 404 si è tentato di fare nel secondo capitolo mediante la ricerca grammati- cale e filologica intorno alla parola « essere ». CAPITOLO III :LA DOMANDA SULL’'ESSENZA DELL'ESSERE 1. La strategia da seguire per determinare l'essenza dell’essere Chi vuole realizzare un effettivo « cominciamento » ed ha constatato che l’essere è diventata la parola più generica e più vuota di tutte, può essere tentato a Jasciare in disparte questa parola e rivolgersi ai vari ambiti dell’essente. Senonché a questo punto sorge un grosso problema: come stabilire che qualche cosa è davvero un essente? « E come stabilire, d’altra parte, che in un certo tempo, in un certo luogo, un supposto es-. sente non è, se non siamo già in grado di distinguere con chiarezza fra essere e non essere? E come compiere questa decisiva distinzione, se non sappiamo, in modo altrettanto decisivo e determinato, che cosa signi- fichino l'essere e il non essere che vengono qui appunto distinti? Come può, nel caso specifico e in generale, un essente essere per noi un essente, se prima non comprendiamo che cosa significhino “essere” e “non esse- re”? » {p. 87). 2. Il significato della parola « essere » « Essere », questa parola apparentemente tanto vaga ed indeterminata, tuttavia è così densa di significato da fornire una sicura e decisiva linea di demarcazione sia nell'ordine del pensiero sia in quello del linguaggio. « Riflettendo più attentamente su questa parola risulta alla fine questo: malgrado ogni obliterazione, mescolanza, genericità del suo significato, noi pensiamo in essa qualcosa di determinato. Questo qualcosa di deter- minato è così determinato ed unico nel suo genere che occorre fare la seguente aggiunta: quell’essere che tocca a qualsiasi ente e che si sperde in ciò che vi è di più comune, è, per eccellenza, quanto vi è di più unico » (p. 88). Pertanto « proporsi di abbandonare l’“essere”, come parola vuota di senso, per rivolgersi all’essente in particolare, è cosa non solo avventata ma oltretutto eminentemente incerta » (p. 89). ‘Heidegger illustra questa tesi ricorrendo all'applicazione di un con. cetto generale (per esempio, albero) ai casi singoli e mostrando che questi sono identificabili (come alberi) solo grazie al concetto generale. Ma, si potrebbe obiettare che il caso dell'essere è molto diverso da quello del- l'albero, perché l’essere non è un genere. Tuttavia, risponde Heidegger, « la necessità di comprendere già in anticipo la parola “essere” è la più alta ed ineguagliabile » (p. 91). Ciò che ‘va approfondito (« erigere in sa- pere ») è la particolarità, unica nel suo genere, di questo nome. 3. Accertamento della conoscenza dell'essere Che si dia una certa cognizione dell'essere lo si può provare quanto meno indirettamente. ‘Infatti, senza una cognizione dell'essere risulte- rebbe impossibile qualsiasi dischiudersi dell’essente in quanto tale, e ri- sulterebbe impossibile anche il linguaggio, perché parlare è sempre dire 405 Capire ‘‘essere’’ e “‘non-essere'’ per giungere all’essente L’unicità dell’essere Parlare è sempre dire l’essere L'uomo è l’essere capace di ‘‘dire’’ La necessità di interrogare l'essere Il linguaggio luogo del dischiudimento dell'essere Determinazione del senso dell’essere: presenza presenzialità consistenza sussistenza permanenza avvenire e Il fatto che noi comprendiamo l'essere, anche se in modo indetermi- nato ed opaco, « ha per il nostro esserci il più alto valore, in quanto vi si manifesta una forza nella quale si fonda tutta la possibilità essen- ziale del nostro esserci. Non si tratta di un fatto qualunque, ma di qual- cosa che per il suo peso esige la più alta valutazione, a patto che il no- stro esserci, che è sempre qualcosa di storico, non rimanga per noi qual- cosa di indifferente. D'altronde anche perché il nostro esserci possa ri- manere per noi un'entità indifferente, occorre comprendere l'essere. Sen- za questa comprensione non saremmo neanche in grado di dire di no al nostro esserci » (p. 92). Interrogare l’essere (non il rispecchiarlo o rap- presentarlo c l'apprenderlo) è l'unica via da seguire per sottrarlo al suo nascondimento. E « il nostro interrogare risulta tanto più autentico quan- to più ci atteniamo con aderenza e costanza a ciò che più merita di essere investigato, e precisamente al fatto che l'essere è ciò che per noi risulta compreso in modo completamente indeterminato e tuttavia eminente- mente determinato » {(p. 93). L’interrogare verte sul senso dell'essere cioè sulla sua « apertura ». 5. La filosofia come accesso all'essere Il dischiudersi dell'essere è un evento ed un evento è anche la filosofia in quante cerca di ri-effettuare taje dischiudimento. La via però che la filosofia ha da percorrere nen è quella ascendente della metafisica tradi- zionale {dall'essente verso l'essere), bensì quella discendente: « dall’es- sere a ciò che si deve problematizzare della sua apertura » (p. 95). La « di- scesa » da seguire è quella tracciata dalia lingua, perché il dischiudersi dell'essere ha luogo nel linguaggio: « l'essere stesso è legato alla parola in un senso del tutto diverso e più essenziale di qualunque altro ente » (p. 97). 6. L'orizzonte del senso deli’essere . Mediante una vasta esemplificazione ed esplorazione dei vari sensi dell'essere, Heidegger perviene alla conclusione che essi si inscrivono tutti dentro un certo orizzonte, che corrisponde a quello del pensiero greco: « C'è una certa linea unitaria che li percorre tuiti. Essa orienta la com- prensione dell'essere verso un determinato orizzonte dal quale trae il suo significato. La determinazione dei senso dell’essere si circoscrive nell'am- bito della presenza (Gegenwartigkeit) e della presenzialità {(Anwesenheit), 406 della consistenza {(Bestehen) e deila sussistenza (Bestand), della perma- nenza (Aufenthait) e dell'avvenire (Vor-kommen) LA LIMITAZIONE DELL'ESSERE In questo capitolo Heidegger tenta un’altra via per raggiungere il di-schiudersi dell’essere (oltre a quella ciel linguaggio: grammatica ed eti- mologia), quelia di mettere a confronto e di contrapporre l'essere con slcune sue modalità fondamentali: l'apparire, il divenire, il pensare e il dever-essere, modalità queste che hanno trovato espressione nelia sto- ria della filosofia {per cui il dischiudersi dell'essere coincide, come vuole iIeidegger, con la storia della filosofia), le prime due modalità nella filosofia greca, le ultime due nella filosofia moderna. 1, Fsssre e divenire Storicamente questa è la prima distinzione e contrapposizione presa in considerazioni dai filosofi (Parmenide, Eraclito, ecc.). Contropposto al divenire « l'essere si mostra come la solidità propria dello “stabile in sé raccolto” » (p. 106). Qui Heidegger introduce una importante osservazio- ne concernente la storia della filosofia: che non è semplice altalena di affermazioni e negazioni, di tesi e antitesi, come si suol credere, bensì un discorso unitario intorno alla stessa cosa la quale « possiede in realtà come sua interna verità l’inesauribile ricchezza di essere ogni giorno come al suo primo giorno » (p. 107). 2. Essere e apparenza ro 407 Le modalità fondamentali deli’essere: apparire, divenire, pensare, dover essere La filosofia: discorso unitario intorno alia stessa cosa L’unità recondita di essere e apparenza L’apparenza come possibilità intrinseca dell’essere La lotta dei greci per la conquista dell’essere Tre vie per un giusto rapporto dell'essere con l’'essente: la via dell'essere, del nulla, dell'apparenza Il pensare: modalità dell'essere Carattere prospettico del pensare e valore prospettico del conoscere sembrare è conseguenza dell'essere stesso come sua possibilità intrin- seca in quanto — come physis — consiste nell'apparire, nell'emergere per prospettive (p. 114). a sperimentato, sulla via del- l'essere, la tempesta capace di trascinarlo via, a colui cui lo spavento della seconda via, quella che conduce all’abisso del nulla, non è rimasto estraneo, e che pure ha saputo accettare il rischio sempre incombente della terza via, quella della apparenza » (p. 122). vo del Dasein, è anzitutte modalità dell'essere. ia distinzione esse- re-pensiero va studiata con la massima attenzione, in quanto precede tutte ie altre distinzioni e, per intenderla rettamente occorre ricondurla alle origini: anche per essa è necessario il « ri-cominciamento », di modo che la verità primigenia venga restituita nei suoi propri limiti e con ciò nuovamente fondata (pp. 125-126). Occorre anzitutto prender nota del ca- rattere prospettico del pensare: esso accade sempre dentro un determina- to orizzonte, un determinato campo di osservazione. Non tenendo conto del valore prospettico del conoscere — assolutizzandolo — la gente in- 408 corre spesso in gravi errori e deviazioni, talché « non riconosciamo più guono tre tipi principali di a. predicativa: di attribuzione, di proporzionalità propria e di proporzio- nalità metaforica. L'a. è una categoria fondamentale per la verifica del linguaggio metafisico e religioso. Anima - Deriva secondo i filologi o dal greco anaigma (senza sangue) o dal greco dnemos (soffio, vento). Il termine viene universalmente ado- perato per significare il principio primo della vita. I pensatori antichi e medioevali solevano distinguere tre a. vegetativa, sensitiva e razio- nale. Secondo molti scolastici nell'uomo le tre a. sono formalmente di- stinte; invece secondo san Tommaso si dà nell'uomo soltanto l’a. razio- nale la quale svolge anche le attività delle a. inferiori. A. si distingue dalla parola spirito, sia in quanto contiene l'idea di una sostanza’ spiri- tuale, sia in quanto è più comprensiva, dal momento che la parola spirito si applica soprattutto alle operazioni intellettuali. Antropologia - È lo studio dell'uomo {dal greco anthropos = uomo, logos = studio). Si danno tre tipi principali di a.: culturale (o scienti- fica), filosofica e teologica. La prima studia l'uomo con criteri scienti- 416 fici e si propone di ricostruire gli elementi costitutivi delle culture pri- mitive o tradizionali. L'a. filosofica cerca di risolvere col puro ragiona- mento l'enigma umano in tutti i suoi molteplici aspetti: ontologico, etico, politico, religioso, storico, ecc. Infine l'a. teologica procura di ottenere un'intelligenza approfondita e sistematica del mistero dell'uomo alla luce della «Parola di Dio. Arte - L’a. è ogni produzione di bellezza da parte di un essere co- sciente. L'oggetto dell’attività artistica (o estetica) è la bellezza, come oggetto di quella scientifica è la verità, di quella etica la bontà, di quella religiosa il sacro, di quella tecnologica l'utile. Perciò l'a. si distin- gue dalla tecnica. L'artista facendo un'opera d'a. si propone anzitutto di dare espressione sensibile alla bellezza (in un disegno, un edificio, un quadro, ecc.). L'opera d'a. non è mai una semplice riproduzione di fatti naturali. Perché si dia opera d'a. occorre originalità, genialità, creatività. Aseità - Indica la condizione dell'essere che esiste di per sé. Il con- cetto di a. è presente nella patristica in relazione alla natura di Dio. In Cartesio e Spinoza riguarda la sostanza. Nell’assiologia di Nicolai Hart- mann l'a. è riferita alla sussistenza dei valori. Assiologia - È lo studio filosofico dei valori (dal greco arxios = degno, valido; e logos = studio). È una disciplina che deve le sue origini, al- meno indirettamente, a Nietzsche con la sua aspra critica dei valori tradizionali e il tentativo di capovolgerli in valori « mondani », terrestri. Ma il suo vero fondatore fu Rudolf H. Lotze {1817-1881), un contempo- raneo di Nietzsche. Egli distingueva tre regni di ricerca: regno dei fatti, regno delle leggi universali e regno dei valori. I primi due sono studiati dalla ragione con il metodo analitico e possono essere considerati in prospettiva meccanicistica, il terzo è appreso dal sentimento e implica necessariamente una prospettiva spiritualistica. Infatti, secondo Lotze, fondamento ultimo di tutti i valori e valore assoluto esso stesso è Dio. Astrazione - Denota l’attività con cui l'intelletto (agente) ottiene la conoscenza delle idee universali. La loro conoscenza, secondo la teoria dell’a. (che fu elaborata per primo da Aristotele e fu ripresa nel Medio- evo da san Tommaso), non avviene né per anamnesi, cioè il ricordo di quanto l'anima ha contemplato nell'Iperuranio prima di entrare nella prigione del corpo (Platone), né per illuminazione divina (Agostino), ben- sì mediante l’azione dell'intelletto, che ricava dai dati della fantasia ciò che è fondamentale, essenziale, trascurando ciò che è accidentale, pe- culiare di un fenomeno particolare. Così, per esempio, dal fantasma (immagine) di questo colore (bianco, verde, ecc.) l'intelletto ricava l’idea di verde. Ateismo - È la negazione di Dio (dal greco a-theòs = senza Dio). Fe- nomeno già noto nell’antichità, ha acquistato vasta diffusione soltanto dopo la rivoluzione francese. Si distinguono due forme principali di a.: teorico e pratico. Il primo è il risultato di una speculazione più o meno sistematica e rigorosa (e viene anche chiamato a. scientifico), il secondo corrisponde all’indifferenza religiosa, ed è la negligenza di ciò che riguarda Dio nella vita quotidiana. Atto - Categoria fondamentale della metafisica aristotelica insieme al 417 suo correlativo, la potenza. A. designa tutto ciò che è perfezione, com- pletezza, realizzazione, definizione, mentre la potenza indica ciò che è imperfetto, incompleto, indefinito. Nelle cose materiali l’a. non si iden- trascendentale dell'essere. Bene - Secondo la classica definizione di Aristotele, il b. è tutto ciò che è oggetto di appetizione, di desiderio. Il b. interessa sia la metafisica sia l’etica. Dalla prima è visto come una delle qualità trascenden- tali dell'essere (insieme all'uno, al vero e al bello). Dalla seconda è considerato come il fine a cui l'uomo indirizza costantemente le proprie azioni. Categoria - Significa classe di predicati (o predicamenti). Aristote- le, che fu il primo a fissarne la classificazione, definisce le c. come idee generali che non sono riconducibili a nessun'altra. Sono dieci: sostanza, «qualità, quantità, azione, passione, relazione, tempo, luogo, posizione e rivestimento (abito). Per Kant e la scuola kantiana, le c. sono i concetti fondamentali dell'intelletto puro, forme a priori della nostra conoscenza, che rendono possibili tutte le funzioni del pensiero discor- sivo. Causa - È tutto ciò che in qualche modo contribuisce alla produ- zione di qualche cosa. È di Aristotele la classica divisione delle c. in quattro specie: materiale, formale, efficiente e finale. Le prime due de- signano la materia e la forma, e per questo sono dette c. intrinseche, mentre la c. efficiente indica l'agente e la c. finale lo scopo per cui una cosa viene prodotta o un'azione compiuta. Non rientrando tra gli ele- menti costitutivi di ciò che viene prodotto, le c. agente e finale sono dette c. estrinseche. Molto si è disputato nella filosofia moderna sia intorno alla c. agente come a quella finale, 418 Concetto - Denota una conoscenza universale, astratta ed è pratica- mente sinonimo di idea universale. Le diverse scuole filosofiche differi- scono profondamente sia nella spiegazione dell'origine dei c. sia nell’as- segnazione del loro valore. Quanto all'origine, Platone propone la teoria dell’anamnesi, cioè del ricordo; Aristotele la teoria dell'astrazione; Ago- stino la teoria dell’illuminazione e Kant quella della struttura a priori dell'intelletto. Quanto al valore, si sono proposte tre soluzioni: i c. non hanno nessun valore, essendo dei puri nomi (flatus vocis); hanno valore totalmente oggettivo e rispecchiano realtà sussistenti in rerum natura: le Idee dell’Iperuranio; hanno un valore parzialmente oggettivo e par- zialmente soggettivo: oggettivo quanto al contenuto, soggettivo quanto alla forma (l'universalità esiste solo nella mente). La prima è la soluzio- ne dei nominalisti e degli empiristi; la seconda è la soluzione di Platone e dei suoi discepoli; la terza è la soluzione di Aristotele, di san Tom- maso e dei loro rispettivi seguaci. Conoscenza - Il termine è usato sia per designare l'attività con cui si diviene consapevoli di qualche cosa, di qualche oggetto, sia l’infor- è usato per quella parte che stu- dia la realtà materiale (dal greco cosmos = mondo e logos = studio). Aristotele questa parte l'ha chiamata Fisica. Il suo obiettivo non è sem- plicemente quello di spiegare la costituzione fondamentale dei corpi (ma- teria e forma), la ragione della loro individuazione, le condizioni del loro esistere (spazio e tempo), ma anche l'origine prima e il fine ultimo del mondo materiale. Creazione - In senso lato indica ogni genere di produzione; in senso stretto designa l'azione con cui Dio trae dal nulla tutte le cose. Secondo la definizione latina la c. è productio rei ex nihilo sui et subiecti: è pro- durre una cosa dal nulla rispetto sia alla forma, sia alla materia (su- biecti). Mentre gli uomini nelle loro « creazioni » traggono le cose dal nulla rispetto alla forma (in effetti l’uomo può soltanto trasformare ma- teriali già esistenti) e non rispetto alla materia; è privilegio di Dio trarre le cose dalla condizione di totale inesistenza. Insegnata dalla Bibbia (Gn. 1,1 ss.) questa verità è stata ripresa sul piano razionale dalla filosofia cristiana, della quale è divenuta una delle dottrine emblema- tiche. Cultura - Della c. si danno tre accezioni principali: elitaria, pedago- gica e etnologica. Secondo la prima accezione, c. significa erudizione (ha c. chi possiede molte cognizioni, o in generale o in un campo ristretto, come l’arte, la musica, la filosofia, ecc.). Secondo la seconda accezione, c. significa educazione: è la c. del corpo {c. fisica) o dell'anima (c. morale e spirituale), c. degli istinti o degli affetti, ecc. Di questa c. si occupa la pedagogia. Secondo la terza accezione, la c. è la forma spirituale di una società, tutto ciò che la unisce all’interno e la distingue dalle altre so- cietà all’esterno (come fa la c. italiana per gli italiani, quella francese per i francesi, quella cinese per i cinesi, ecc.). La c. intesa in questo ultimo senso costituisce l'oggetto sia dell’antropologia culturale sia della filosofia della c. Deduzione - È un procedimento raziocinativo con il quale da prin- cipi o proposizioni generali o universali si discende verso conclusioni meno universali o particolari. La forma ideale e perfetta della d. è il sillogismo, il quale è un ragionamento che consta semplicemente di due premesse e di una conclusione. Creatore della scienza della d., cioè della Logica, fu Aristotele. Kant denomina « deduzione trascendentale » il suo procedimento con cui cerca di stabilire quali sono i concetti a priori (cioè le categorie) che vengono applicati agli oggetti dell'espe- rienza nei vari tipi di giudizi. Definizione - Secondo Aristotele, la d. è « l'enunciato che esprime la quiddità, cioè l'essenza di una cosa ». La filosofia moderna si rifiuta di dare alla d. un senso così marcatamente ontologico e metafisico e per d. intende semplicemente un’operazione logica mediante la quale si de- zzo filosofico chiamato nuova ermeneutica (Gadamer, Ricoeur), il termine e. ha acquisito un significato più esteso e più profondo e sta ad indicare una prospettiva di pensiero che asse- gna sia alla filosofia che alla teologia il compito di interpretare, poiché l'uomo stesso è un essere che vive nella precomprensione e nell’inter- pretazione delle cose e della storia. Esistenza - Nel linguaggio più comune il termine denota semplice- mente il fatto che qualche cosa è. In filosofia ha acquisito valenze se- n sono distinguibili fisicamente ma sol- tanto metafisicamente. Secondo san Tommaso, e. ed esistenza si trovano nel rapporto di potenza e atto: in effetti è l’esistenza (più esattamente l'atto dell'essere, actus essendi) che conferisce attualità ad un'e. In Dio e. ed esistenza si identificano. Essere - Da sempre il termine e. è plurisemantico e, secondo i casi, varia da un minimo di comprensione (quando si limita a significare la presenza o posizione di una cosa, come dice Kant) ad una comprensione 422 sconfinata, che « abbraccia tutte le perfezioni », come afferma san Tom- maso. Secondo Aristotele, Tommaso e Heidegger studiare l’e., le sue proprietà e le sue manifestazioni è compito primario della metafisica. Estetica - Termine tratto dal greco aisthesis {= sensazione), e creato da Baumgarten come titolo della sua opera Aestetica (1750), che aveva per oggetto l’analisi e la formazione del gusto. Di solito la si adopera per denominare quella parte della filosofia che si occupa dell'arte: della sua natura, principi, funzioni e distinzione dalle altre attività dello spirito. Etica - Dal greco ethos = costume. È la scienza che ha per oggetto il fine della vita umana e i mezzi per raggiungerio. Storicamente la pa- rola e. è stata applicata alla morale sotto tutte le sue forme, sia come scienza del comportamento effettivo degli uomini, sia come arte di guidare il comportamento. Propriamente l’e. si dovrebbe occupare del bene quale valore primario da assumere dalla libertà come guida delle proprie scelte. Fede - In generale si intende la disposizione del credente ad abban- donarsi fiduciosamente nelle mani di Dio e ad accettare umilmente la sua parola. In modo ulteriore, la f. è definita come assenso della mente e della volontà alle verità rivelate da Dio e proposte dalla Chiesa come tali e accettate non in forza della loro intrinseca evidenza, bensì sull’au- torità di Dio stesso il quale non inganna né può ingannare. Come dice sant'Agostino, la f. consiste nel credere, nell'accettare ciò che non è manifesto alla ragione. Il suo oggetto proprio sono i misteri. Felicità - È la condizione di completo soddisfacimento di tutte le proprie aspirazioni, soprattutto di quelle che assecondano maggiormente la piena realizzazione del proprio progetto di umanità. A seconda dei ‘vari progetti di umanità proposti dai filosofi (eroe, ‘filosofo, gaudente, santo, ecc.), di volta in volta, la f. è stata riposta nella forza, nella con- templazione, nel piacere, nell'unione beatificata con Dio, ecc. Fenomeno - Dal greco phainomenai = apparire. Il termine è usato so- prattutto da Kant, Hegel e Husserl e dai loro seguaci, con valenze se- mantiche distinte. Per Kant il f. è l'oggetto del nostro conoscere, un pirito? 429 E in che rapporto si trova lo spirito con la materia? Il corpo è prigione dell'anima (Platone), strumento dell'anima (Agostino, Cartesio), compo- nente essenziale ma subordinata all'anima (Tommaso) o in qualche altro rapporto? Quello gnoseologico si preoccupa di verificare se questioni come questa, della natura profonda dell'essere dell'uomo e della sua pos- sibile sopravvivenza dopo la m. siano questioni alla portata della ragione umana o enigmi insolubili. Una cosa comunque è certa: anche per chi il problema di tutti i problemi, il problema principe della ricerca filosofica. È disci- plina importante anche per la teologia perché l'intelligenza della fede (che è l’obiettivo della teologia) si opera al massimo livello, quando si ricorre al più alto grado di intelligibilità, e questo è appunto quello onto- logico o metafisico. Pace - La p. è quella tranquillitas ordinis (ordine tranquillo) di cui 430 gode una società quando tutto funziona bene al suo interno e non pa- venta pericoli dall'esterno. Due sono pertanto le principali espressioni della p.: internazionale e sociale. La prima riguarda i rapporti di uno Stato con gli altri Stati, mentre la seconda riguarda i rapporti tra le classi e gli individui di uno stesso Stato (nazione). Passione - In generale significa una inclinazione veemente, un senti- mento forte, prepotente, difficilmente controllabile. Nonostante una certa connotazione negativa del termine, la p. può essere sia buona sia cattiva: è buona se è volta ad uno scopo, un oggetto moralmente buono; è cat- tiva nel caso contrario. Le p. hanno costituito argomento di studio da parte di moltissimi filosofi, in particolare di Aristotele, Tommaso d'Aqui- gli educatori » (Lalande). Pensiero - Comunemente si dice di tutti i fatti cognitivi, in oppo- vidua substantia incommunicabilis (una sostanza individua e inco- municabile di natura ragionevole). iPer i medioevali, fondamento della p. è l'essere, più esattamente il possesso di un proprio atto d'essere, in- vece per i moderni fondamento è l’autocoscienza, mentre per i contem- poranei fondamento è l’intersoggettività oppure l’autotrascendenza. In tutte queste tesi c'è qualche cosa di vero e, per questo, come definizione adeguata della p. si può proporre la seguente: un essere sussistente dotato di autocoscienza, intersoggettività e autotrascendenza. Politica - È lo studio dei fatti politici, cioè dei fatti che riguardano lo Stato e il governo, in opposizione ai fatti economici, culturali e so- ciali. La filosofia politica studia principalmente la questione dell’origine’ dello Stato, la sua strutturazione e la sua forma migliore, la questione dei rapporti tra lo Stato, le classi sociali, i partiti e la persona singola, la questione dei rapporti tra politica e morale, politica e cultura, poli- 431 tica e religione ecc. E in effetti, tutti questi problemi sono stati affron- tati dai filosofi nel corso dei secoli a partire da ‘Platone e da Aristotele. Potenza - Nel suo significato più comune il termine indica la ca- pacità e l'abilità di compiere un'azione. Denota pertanto l’idea di at- tività e di efficacia. Nella metafisica aristotelica e scolastica p. si Studiare e risolvere i p., cioè le questioni aperte, è compito sia della scienza (Popper) sia della filosofia. Compito specifico della filo- sofia è affrontare e risolvere i problemi ultimi (cfr. « Filosofia » e « Me- tafisica »). Prospettiva - È il punto di vista che si assume nel vedere, nel consi- derare, nello studiare una cosa. La filosofia contemporanea vede in tutte le conoscenze umane, compresi i sistemi scientifici e ‘filosofici, semplice- mente delle prospettive più o meno allargate; in tal modo rifiuta ogni forma di olismo, cioè di visione e spiegazione totale, completa, esaustiva perfetta della realtà. Prova - Operazione mentale con cui si cerca di stabilire la verità di un’asserzione o la validità di una tesi. Normalmente si tratta di qualche forma di ragionamento (induttivo o deduttivo), ma può trattarsi anche di semplice ostensione dei fatti, allora si chiama p. ostensiva. . Ragione - Comunemente oggi si intende la facoltà conoscitiva propria dell’uomo e di cui lui solo è dotato. Sostanzialmente questo è il senso che ha il termine anche nella filosofia scolastica e moderna fino a Kant. È una facoltà discorsiva, che raggiunge la verità non immediatamente,432 per intuizione (come fa invece l'intelletto), ma mediante qualche forma di ragionamento. Kant restringe l'uso del termine r. {Vernunft) alla co- noscenza dell'eterno e dell’assoluto, che però sortisce risultati estrema- mente deludenti, in quanto la r. in questo campo può soltanto avvertire e impostare dei problemi senza essere in grado di risolverli. Relazione - È sostanzialmente sinonimo di rapporto. :È un concetto fondamentale per molte scuole filosofiche. Nella filosofia hegeliana la r. è la categoria primaria; in effetti, per Hegel, tutta la realtà non è altro che una vastissima trama di r. Nella filosofia aristotelica è una delle dieci categorie, e di tutte sembra la più debole, fragile, povera, dato che non esiste in se stessa e neppure può vantare una consistenza ontologica analoga a quella della quantità, della qualità o dell’azione. Per acquisire consistenza ontologica la r. richiede quanto meno due real- tà, perché si tratta di una specie di ponte, che si regge soltanto quando ci sono almeno due enti a farle da sostegno. Eppure, la r. è un veicolo potentissimo di realtà, soprattutto quando si tratta della r. di causalità, cioè della r. tra causa ed effetto, perché l’effetto in quanto effetto deve tutta la sua realtà, tutto il suo essere alla causa: questa è causa soltanto nella misura in cui è in r. con l’effetto e gli comunica qualche cosa del proprio essere. Si è soliti distinguere tra r. reali e logiche: le prime sono quelle che influiscono sull'essere dei termini rapportati, le seconde non influiscono. La categoria di r. riveste, infine, una importanza fondamen- tale nel personalismo contemporaneo, che, centrato sulla struttura dia- logica della persona umana, ne coglie come costitutiva la r. io-tu, fonda- mento di ogni possibile forma di comunicazione. Una sintesi concettuale che accomuna i personalisti è quella relativa all'uomo come essere-di- relazione. Religione - Dal latino religare = legare insieme. È l'insieme dei miti (racconti, testi sacri) e dei riti (preghiere, azioni, sacrifici) con cui l’uo- mo esprime e attua i suoi rapporti con Dio. La r. è l’espressione spon- tanea, naturale della condizione di finitezza e creaturalità dell’uomo. Ogni popolo, sviluppando la propria cultura, si crea anche una r. (che nella maggior parte dei casi, storicamente, assume un carattere animi- stico, politeistico, mitologico, magico). Oltre alle r. « naturali » esistono anche tre r. « storiche » o rivelate: l’ebraismo, il cristianesimo e l’isla- mismo, a cui forse va aggiunto anche il buddismo, se lo si considera una r. e non una semplice filosofia. Riflessione - Vedi « Autocoscienza ». Rivoluzione - R. è «lo sviluppo di nuove forme di potere che divi- dano ed indeboliscano il vecchio ordine e facciano posto al sorgere del nuovo, e che nello stesso tempo siano in grado di stabilizzare il nuovo al suo sorgere in mezzo al vecchio » (R. Schaull). È una categoria che si applica a qualsiasi ordine di cose, così si può parlare di r. religiosa, filosofica, scientifica, letteraria, economica, politica, ecc. Ma più comu- nemente si usa per l'ordine socio-politico. In tutti i casi, la r. è un valore strumentale e non assoluto, ed è un valore positivo quando serve la causa dell'uomo {della società, della nazione, del popolo) non gli inte- ressi di una sola classe, di un partito e tanto meno di una sola persona. 433 Sacro - In senso generale e più proprio, questo termine denota un ordine di cose separato, riservato e inviolabile, che deve essere oggetto di rispetto religioso da parte di un gruppo di credenti. È correlativo di profano. Il s. è la qualità specifica che caratterizza la dimensione religiosa (questa è per definizione la dimensione del s.), come il vero è la qualità specifica della dimensione gnoseologica e il bene della dimen- sione appetitiva. È una qualità analogica che ha per analogato principale Dio (che è il s. per eccellenza) e per analogati secondari tutte le cose o persone che si trovano o vengono messe in rapporto con Lui: come libri (libri s.), attività (arte s., musica s., ecc.) persone (persone consa- crate). Scienza - Termine polivalente, la cui gamma semantica va dal conosce- re in generale alla conoscenza metodica più rigorosa e sofisticata. Di soli- to, comunque, si intende una conoscenza sistematica intorno ad un deter- minato oggetto, condotta con rigore ed obiettività. È un concetto essen- zialmente analogico, in quanto sia il rigore sia la obiettività variano da oggetto ad oggetto. Grazie alla sua metodologia assai precisa e al- l'obiettività facilmente verificabile nell'epoca moderna e contempora- nea non solo si è visto nella scienza sperimentale il tipo ideale del sapere scientifico, ma spesse volte si è identificato la s. con esso sic et simpli- citer (così l’illuminismo, il positivismo, il neopositivismo, il materiali- smo, ecc.). Oggi che le ambizioni della s. sono state fortemente ridimen- sionate sia quanto alla portata sia quanto al rigore e all’obiettività, si ritorna a riaffermare il valore analogico del termine s. Segno - Tutto ciò che ha il potere di richiamare l’attenzione oltre che su se stesso anche su un'altra cosa. Così, il fumo in quanto richiama l'idea del fuoco, le nubi in quanto richiamano l’idea dell’acqua, la co- lomba in quanto richiama l’idea della pace, un suono vocalico in quanto richiama l’idea di un determinato significato, ecc. Il regno dei s. è va- stissimo, infinito. Se ne distinguono molti generi: naturali e conven- zionali, iconici e arbitrari, vocalici e scritti, ecc. Area massimamente importante è quella dei s. linguistici. In effetti, il linguaggio non è altro che un insieme di s. volto alla comunicazione tra gli uomini. Due sono le discipline principali che si occupano dello studio del linguaggio: la linguistica che studia i s. dal punto di vista fonetico, grammaticale e sintattico e la semantica che studia il linguaggio dal punto di vista del significato. Simbolo - Dal greco symballo = comporre, mettere insieme. Il ter- mine si adopera per significare tutto ciò che si collega intenzionalmente con qualche altra cosa e perciò serve a richiamarla. In genere viene con- siderato come sinonimo di segno; ma qualche autore (per esempio, Tillich) assegna al s. una pregnanza semantica più forte, in quanto, mentre i segni possono essere prodotti puramente convenzionali, ciù non si avvera nel caso dei s., in quanto questi comportano una partecipa- zione nella realtà della cosa di cui sono simboli (così, per esempio, l’ac- qua battesimale, s. della purificazione dell'anima). Nel linguaggio eccle- siastico la parola s. è stata adoperata sin dalle origini per indicare una formula di fede ufficiale, che serve come carta di identità, come tessera distintiva anzitutto di appartenenza alla Chiesa e in secondo luogo di 434 ortodossia (per esempio, il Simbolo apostolico, il Simbolo costantino- politano, ecc.). Sintesi - In generale significa composizione: il mettere insieme ele- menti dapprima separati. In particolare e in senso tecnico, s. indica quel processo logico — tipico delle scienze sperimentali — per cui si passa da nozioni più semplici o da dati particolari per ottenere asserzioni più complesse e universali. Società - Qualsiasi gruppo di individui che si riuniscono per il con- seguimento di determinati obiettivi. In questo senso il termine s. ha un'estensione vastissima: si applica alla famiglia, alla Chiesa, allo Stato, ai gruppi sportivi, culturali, economici, ecc. In senso proprio, il termine designa un « insieme di individui i cui rapporti sono consolidati in isti- tuzioni nonché, per lo più, garantiti dall'esistenza di sanzioni, sia codi- ficate sia diffuse, che fanno sentire all'individuo l’azione e la costrizione della collettività » (Lalande). Sociologia - Termine di accezione recente nel linguaggio filosofico e delle scienze umane e risale alla filosofia positivistica di Augusto Comte (metà del sec. XIX), il padre della s. Egli l’ha considerata la forma di sapere positivo per eccellenza, essendo lo studio del predotto proprio della natura umana: la società. Anche successivamente il termine ha continuato a mantenere il significato di scienza dell’« attività sociale » e, poiché questa attività è sempre orientata a sistemi sociali, si può anche dire che la s. è la scienza dei sistemi e dei gruppi sociali (piccoli e grandi). Sostanza - In filosofia questo termine ha un significato tecnico ben preciso: secondo la classica definizione che ne ha dato Aristotele, la s. « è ciò che è in sé e non in un'altra cosa ». S. è qualsiasi realtà dotata di un proprio atto di essere e ha quindi una sua consistenza ontologica. È il contrapposto di accidente, che non ha un proprio atto di essere, ma per esistere, deve appoggiarsi, deve inerire (inesse) alla s. di cui è un frutto più o meno avventizio (per questo si distingue tra « accidenti propri» e « accidenti accidenti » o « accidenti puri»). Nella filosofia moderna, a partire da Locke, il termine s. è stato svuotato di questa densità ontologica e ridotto a mero sustrato, inattingibile dall'intelletto umano, in quanto questo, ristretto ai dati dell'esperienza sensitiva, non può andare oltre i fenomeni. Spazio - Nel linguaggio filosofico questo termine significa il luogo o ambiente illimitato e indefinito in cui gli oggetti reali appaiono collo- tati. Questo concetto è stato variamente inteso dalle scuole filosofiche antiche e moderne. Le soluzioni proposte si possono ridurre a tre: quel- la ultrarealistica o realistica che vede nello s. una realtà interamente oggettiva sussistente in se stessa, come un grande recipiente che con- tiene tutte le cose materiali (Platone, Newton); una idea puramente sog- gettiva, una forma a priori della sensibilità, che mette ordine ai feno- meni materiali (Kant); una costruzione mentale con fondamento nelle cose (Aristotele). Speranza - Il termine indica un atteggiamento fondamentale dello spirito umano: quello di fiducia verso il futuro, più precisamente di 435 attesa fiduciosa di qualche futuro evento. C'è una s. umana, quando è fondata su calcoli umani; c’è una s. cristiana o religiosa quando è fon- data sulla parola di Dio, le sue promesse, la sua grazia. Generalmente trascurata da tutta la riflessione filosofica antica e moderna, la s. è diventata argomento fondamentale nelle riflessioni e nei « sistemi » di Bloch (Il principio speranza), Marcel (Homo viator), «Pieper (Speranza e storia). SPIRITO. Con questo termine si denota qualsiasi realtà immateriale, cioè superiore alla materia e indipendente da essa, quanto meno nel- l'ordine ontologico. Con riferimento all'uomo si dice dell'anima, in con-trapposizione al corpo; con riferimento all'universo si dice di Dio in contrapposizione al mondo e alla materia. La parola s. viene adoperata spesso e volentieri anche da una cultura fortemente sensistica e mate- rialistica qual è la nostra. Pur negando Dio e tutto il mondo della tra- scendenza, che — in sede ontologica — è l'unico mondo che meriti effet- tivamente il nome di s., la cultura laica, e talvolta ostentatamente atea del nostro tempo, non esita a parlare con rispetto di « valori spirituali », ad esaltarne l’importanza e a invocarne la riabilitazione per salvare la nostra società. Ma è chiaro che tutto questo è vaniloquio se nell'uomo e al di sopra dell’uomo stesso non esiste una dimensione, una realtà effet- tivamente spirituale. Storia - È l'insieme degli eventi di cui l’attore principale è l'uomo. Analogicamente il termine si applica anche alla natura e perciò si parla anche di s. naturale. La s. nel senso che si è detto è un concetto squisi- tamente biblico e cristiano, ignoto alla filosofia greca, anche se come sequenza di eventi il concetto è già presente nei narratori greci (Tuci- dide, Erodoto). Sulla natura, senso, periodizzazione della s. e sulla co- scienza storica la riflessione filosofica s'è concentrata soltanto nell'epoca moderna a partire da Vico, dando luogo a tre soluzioni principali: cri- stiana (che fa intervenire nelle vicende umane anche la Provvidenza di- vina), idealista (che fa della s. una manifestazione diretta dello Spirito Assoluto), atea, che esclude totalmente Dio dal processo storico e lo con- sidera esclusivamente un'opera dell'uomo. I due orientamenti più re- centi circa l’interpretazione della s. sono quelli dell’Historie e della Geschichte: il primo considera la storia solo in relazione al fatto nella sua contingenza e relatività; il secondo considera la storia come « tempo- ralizzazione » dei valori (o degli anti-valori), che contrassegnano la condotta umana. Tecnica - È l'insieme di procedimenti ben definiti e trasmissibili de- stinati a conseguire un risultato utile. In altre parole: sono i procedi- menti e gli strumenti escogitati dall'uomo per dominare la natura e as- servirla ai propri bisogni. È una delle componenti.fondamentali della cultura insieme al linguaggio, ai costumi e ai valori: costituisce in un certo qual modo la sua esteriorizzazione. La t. rappresenta il risvolto pratico, applicato, della cultura: è l'applicazione al mondo della natura delle acquisizioni simboliche. Per questo, scienza e t. camminano di pari passo. Man mano che progredisce la conoscenza teorica delle leggi della natura, avanza anche la capacità dell'uomo di sfruttare le sue risorse. Così la storia della t. coincide sostanzialmente con la storia della scienza. Alle conoscenze prescientifiche corrispondono t. estremamente 436 elementari di tipo manuale ed artigianale. Poi, col sopraggiungere della conoscenza scientifica, ha inizio l'invenzione di i. sempre più complesse, che trasformano l’uomo da semplice homo faber in homo tecnologicus (vedi anche « Lavoro »). Tempo - In generale per t. si intende una durata infinita di momenti, simile all'estensione spaziale, entro la quale durata trovano posto tutte le altre durate più o meno lunghe degli anni, delle stagioni, dei mesi, dei giorni, delle ore, ecc. La riflessione dei filosofi sul tempo ha camminato di pari passo con la riflessione sul t. e ha dato luogo sostanzial- mente alle stesse soluzioni: ultrarealistica o realistica (Platone, New- ton), concettualistica (Kant) e logico-realistica (Aristotele). È di Aristo- tele la celebre definizione: « Il tempo è la misura del movimento secondo il prima e il poi ». Intendiamo, infine, per « tempo cronologico » quello segnato dagli eventi inconsapevoli della natura e per « tempo storico » quello che è oggetto della coscienza riflessa dell’uomo, che contrassegna il t. cronologico con l'incidenza delle sue azioni consapevoli e libere. Teodicea - Termine coniato da Leibniz e che etimologicamente signi- fica « difesa di Dio » (dal greco dîìke = difesa e theòs = Dio). Si dice di quella parte della filosofia che si occupa dell’esistenza di Dio, della sua natura e dei suoi attributi. Questa parte si chiama anche « teologia na- turale ». Intorno alla possibilità di questa disciplina i filosofi sono di- visi in due grandi partiti: quelli che, assegnando alla conoscenza razio- nale un valore obiettivo, la ritengono possibile (e sono quasi tutti i filo- sofi antichi, medioevali e moderni fino a Kant) e quelli che, riconoscendo al conoscere un valore puramente soggettivo, la giudicano impossibile (questa è la tesi di molti filosofi dopo Kant). TEORIA. Dal greco theoria = visione di uno spettacolo, oppure visione intellettuale. Nel linguaggio filosofico ha due valenze semantiche prin- cipali, una in opposizione alla conoscenza volgare e l'altra in opposizione a quella pratica. Nel primo caso, significa una concezione metodica organiz- zata sistematicamente e rigorosamente (e ciò vale sia per il campo scienti- fico sia per quello filosofico); nel secondo, t. significa ciò che è oggetto di una conoscenza disinteressata, indipendentemente dalle sue applica- zioni. Tradizione - Comunemente il termine t. significa ciò che in una so- cietà, piccola o grande, si irasmette in maniera viva, sia per mezzo della parola sia della scrittura e dei modi di agire. In questo senso, la t. rappresenta la vita stessa di una cultura, la sua storia. Pertanto non ci può essere cultura senza t. né t. senza cultura. Il valore di una t. va controllato con la bilancia del valore-uomo. Questo controllo consen- tirà di constatare che, analogamente alle culture, nessuna tradizione è un valore interamente positivo sotto ogni aspetto in tutte le circostanze, perché in nessuna t. si realizza pienamente quel valore o quei valori in cui una cultura intende specializzarsi e tanto meno tutto l'universo dei valori. Per questo, nessuna t. dal punto di vista della ragione appare divina, assoluta, perfetta, sacra e intoccabile. Per contro, ci sono culture e anche t. molto povere e talvolta anche gravemente difettose ed er- rate. Colui che le possiede ha il diritto e il dovere di rivederle, criticarle, correggerle e, se necessario, anche abbandonarle. 437 Trascendentale - In filosofia questo termine conosce due usi princi- pali, quello aristotelico-scolastico e quello kantiano. Nella filosofia ari- stotelico-scolastica sta ad indicare le proprietà fondamentali dell'essere, che secondo alcuni autori sono tre: l'uno, il vero e il bene, secondo altri sono quattro (ai tre precedenti aggiungono anche il bello). Nella filosofia kantiana t. sta ad indicare le condizioni a priori del conoscere e il loro studio (estetica t., analitica t. e logica t.). Trascendenza - Dal latino trans-ascendere = salir su, valicare. Il con- cetto di t. è attinto dall'esperienza sensibile e in tale ambito denota una relazione spaziale: di superamento, sconfinamento, oltrepassamento, ecc. Successivamente questo concetto dalle cose materiali è stato tra- sferito a quelle spirituali e astratte. Così si è potuta, dire che il mondo dello spirito trascende quello della natura, che Dio trascende il mondo, ecc. In termini recenti in filosofia, ha acquisito un significato tecnico e sta ad indicare la realtà divina; la t. è Dio. Però, oltre che per parlare di Dio, il termine t. viene adoperato oggi anche per parlare dell’uomo e lo si adopera soprattutto per indicare la capacità che l’uomo ha di superare costantemente se stesso in tutto ciò che fa, che dice, che pensa e che è. È questa, dell'autotrascendenza, una delle proprietà specifiche dell'uomo e più ricche di significato al fine di una comprensione del suo essere profondo. Umanesimo - Questo termine è usato sia come nome proprio sia come nome comune. Nel primo caso indica quel movimento spirituale rappre- sentato dagli « umanisti » del Rinascimento (Ficino, Valla, Pico della Mi- randola, Erasmo, ecc.) e caratterizzato dallo sforzo di sollevare la dignità dello spirito umano e di rimetterlo in valore richiamandosi all’antichità classica greca e romana. Come nome comune significa qualsiasi dot- trina che esprime e sottolinea il valore dell'uomo. Ciò si può fare asso- lutizzando il valore dell’uomo con l'esclusione di Dio e allora si parla di u. ateo, o affermando il valore dell'uomo in coniugazione e subordina- zione al valore di Dio e allora si parla di u. religioso o cristiano. Univocità - È la funzione semantica propria di un termine che viene applicato a molti soggetti sempre con lo stesso significato. Per esempio, l'applicazione del termine « uomo » a Pietro, Paolo, Giovanni, Marco, ecc. Utopia - Dal greco ou = non e topos = luogo e pertanto significa una realtà che non esiste in nessun luogo. Il nome fu introdotto da Tom- maso Moro nel titolo della sua famosa opera De optimo reipublicae statu, deque nova insula Utopia, nella quale descrive un popolo perfettamente saggio, forte e felice grazie alle istituzioni ideali di cui gode, il quale abita appunto nell'isola di Utopia. Organizzazioni ideali ed immaginarie della società umana, sull'esempio di Moro, furono escogitate da Cam- panella, da Fénelon e, con pretese più scientifiche, da Comte e da Marx. Del ruolo dell’u. nella dinamica sociale e culturale la filosofia ha co- minciato ad occuparsi soltanto recentemente. A questo riguardo occorre evitare sia la posizione di rifiuto categorico come se l’u. fosse soltanto un fattore alienante, sia quello di approvazione incondizionata, come se l’u. fosse la panacea di tutti i mali. Valore - « Il senso esatto di valore è difficile da definire rigorosa- mente perché il più delle volte questa parola esprime un concetto instabile, un passaggio dal fatto al diritto, dal desiderato al desiderabile » (Lalande). In italiano v. possiede tre significati principali: economico, etico, ontologico. In economia significa « danaro », in etica la virtù con cui si affrontano gravi pericoli e si compiono grandi imprese; in ontolo- gia la qualità per cui una cosa possiede dignità ed è quindi degna di stima e di rispetto. La scienza dei v. — cioè l'assiologia — si occupa del concetto di v. inteso secondo il terzo senso e cerca di comprendere qual è la sua natura effettiva, le sue caratteristiche essenziali, i suoi rapporti con gli altri trascendentali dell'essere e di fissare l'ordine e la gerarchia dei v. Verità - Questo termine assume in filosofia un significato veramente fondamentale, perché il sapere filosofico si configura anzitutto come amore e ricerca della v. Secondo la definizione più classica, la v. è la conformità della mente, cioè della conoscenza con la realtà. Questa si chiama anche v. logica. Ad essa si contrappone la v. ontologica, che è la corrispondenza delle cose alla mente divina, che le ha ideate. C'è anche una terza forma di v. ed è la v. morale che è data dalla corrispondenza delle proprie intenzioni con le esigenze della moralità. Non c'è dubbio che la v. è un valore fondamentale anzitutto nell'ordine noetico, perché essa costituisce l’obiettivo principale di detto ordine, ma è valore primario anche per altri ordini: pedagogico, epistemologico, onto- logico e culturale. Della v. i filosofi si sono occupati da sempre sia per definirne l'essenza, sia per scoprire le vie per raggiungerla, come pure per determinare i criteri per identificarla. Due sono i criteri per deter- minare ia v.i quello oggettivo dell'evidenza e quello soggettivo della certezza. L'integrazione dei due criteri è proprio delle filosofie intellettua- listico-realiste (da Aristotele a S. Tommaso a Maritain, ecc.). Il primato del criterio della certezza è proprio delle filosofie idealistico-dogmatiche (da Plaione a Cartesio ad Hegel, ecc.). Virtù - Con questo termine generalmente si intende un'abitudine, cioè una disposizione ferma e costante, ad agire bene: è un'’inclinazione al bene che si è consolidata, tanto che il virtuoso è portato ad agire bene (per esempio, ad essere casto, generoso, coraggioso, umile, ecc.) con spontaneità, anzi con veemenza. La v. è oggetto primario dell'etica, in quanto questa studia il fine dell'uomo e i mezzi per raggiungerlo e la v. è appunto il mezzo principale. La ‘v. si può dividere e classificare in tanti modi. Importante è la divisione tra v. etiche e v. dianoetiche: le prime sono le disposizioni ad operare bene nell'ordine morale; le seconde nell'ordine speculativo o intellettuale. Vita - È la qualità per cui un essere è capace di muovere se stesso. Dal punto di vista della biologia molecolare la v. consiste esclusivamente in una singolare e più complessa strutturazione delle molecole rispetto alla strutturazione che si incontra nella sostanza inorganica. Fenome- nologicamente la v. si manifesta come un movimento che diversamente da quello meccanico è immanente (cioè va a vantaggio del soggetto che lo produce) e spontaneo (è prodotto direttamente dal soggetto stesso grazie alla sua costituzione intrinseca). Le caratteristiche principali della v. sono: potere di crescere, di rispondere all'ambiente e di riprodursi. Si è soliti distinguere tre gradi di v.: vegetativa, sensitiva, razionale; la prima è propria delle piante, la seconda degli animali, la terza dell'uomo. 439 Vocazione - Con questo termine generalmente si intende la chiamata che una persona sente dentro di sé a svolgere determinate attività e ad assumere un certo ruolo nella società. Nella concezione secolarizzata della vita la v. è semplicemente siffatta inclinazione. Invece nella vi- suale cristiana, la diversità di attitudini fa parte del piano provviden- ziale che Dio ha concepito per ogni singolo uomo e la v. non è altro che il modo con cui Dio fa sentire a ciascuno la chiamata alla realizzazione del suo piano o progetto. Tema raramente trattato nella storia della filosofia, quello della v. ha acquisito rilevanza speculativa soprattutto per merito dei personalisti e degli esistenzialisti cristiani (Marcel). Volontà - È il nome che si dà alla facoltà che ha l'uomo di tendere verso il bene; si dice anche appetito razionale, per distinguerlo dall’ap- petito sensitivo che è proprio degli animali. Mentre l'appetito sensitivo è una tendenza istintiva, quello razionale cioè l'inclinazione della v., è un appetito guidato, calcolato, libero. Il privilegio della v. è in effetti quello di essere libera: cioè padrona dei propri atti e quindi anche degli oggetti verso cui si porta con le sue decisioni. In filosofia due sono le grosse questioni che sono state dibattute in ogni tempo a proposito della v.: una riguarda proprio la libertà. La questione è di sapere se, nono- stante tutti i condizionamenti cui viene sottoposta la v. umana, essa può dirsi veramente libera (è la controversia tra i deterministi e gli inde- terministi). La seconda è se nell'uomo conta maggiormente la cono- scenza o la v. {è la controversia tra intellettualisti che assegnano il primato alla conoscenza e volontaristi che per contro assegnano il pri- mato alla v.). Battista Mondin. Keywords. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Mondin” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Mondolfo: la ragione conversazionale della filosofia romana – antica filosofia italica – la scuola di Senigallia -- filosofia marchese -- la filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Senigallia). Filosofo italiano. Senigallia, Ancona, Marche. Grice: “Mondolfo is one of the few who have focused on ‘gli eleati’ as involving a locus – pretty much as I do when I talk of Oxonian dialectic.” Grice: “Mondolfo’s study of the politics of Risorgimento is good; especially since every Englishman seemed to endorse it!” -- essential Italian philosopher. Like Grice, Mondolfo believed seriously in the longitudinal unity of philosophy and made original research on the historiography of philosophy, especially during the Eleatic, Agrigento, and later Roman periods. Figlio di Vito Mondolfo e Gismonda Padovani, una famiglia benestante di commercianti. Aderisce alle idee marxiste e socialiste. Studia a Firenze. Si laurea con F. Tocco, discutendo una tesi su Condillac dal titolo: "Contributo alla storia della teoria dell'associazione", un saggio da cui saranno poi tratti alcuni dei suoi primi saggi di storia della filosofia. Frequenta un gruppo socialista. Insegna a Potenza, Ferrara, Mantova, Padova, Torino, e Bologna. Consigliere comunale nelle file del Partito Socialista. Collabora con la rivista "Critica Sociale" fino a quando viene soppressa dal regime fascista.  Compone "Saggi per la storia della morale utilitaria" di Hobbes ed Helvetius”; "Tra il diritto di natura e il comunismo", "Rousseau nella formazione della coscienza moderna", "Il materialismo storico in F. Engels" (Formiggimi, La Nuova Italia) "Sulle orme di Marx". E  tra i firmatari del manifesto degli intellettuali anti-fascisti, redatto da Benedetto Croce. Si dedica alla filosofia italica antica. Ciò nonostante, pur in questo periodo, grazie alla politica di Gentile che volle coinvolgere filosofi di diverso orientamento nell'impresa, collabora con l'Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Compone la voce Socialismo. In seguito alle leggi razziali fasciste che vietavano agli ebrei di ricoprire cariche pubbliche, Mondolfo scrisse il proprio curriculum di benemerenze e vi inserì lo stesso Gentile come testimone il quale ha a propormi per il Premio Reale di filosofia presso i lincei". Gentile autorizza Mondolfo a citarlo tra i testimoni e tenta inutilmente di farlo ri-entrare tra gli esclusi dalle leggi razziali. Costretto a lasciare l'Italia Gentile scrive ad Alberini e lo aiuta a trovare lavoro in Argentina. Il suo archivio personale è depositato in parte a Firenze presso la Fondazione di Studi Storici Filippo Turati ed in parte presso Milano.  Altre saggi: Sulle orme di Marx,” – Grice: “Whitehead used to say that metaphysics has been but footnotes to Plato; and Strawson used to say that to rob peter to pay paul you must show first that pragmatics is but footnotes to Grice!” --  Grice: “But of course a footnote is not a footprint – only similar!” – Grice: “While ‘footprint’ involves Roman pressum, ‘orma’ obviates that!” --  Cappelli); “L'infinito nel pensiero dei greci, Felice Le Monnier, La Nuova Italia); “Problemi e metodi di ricerca nella storia della filosofia” (Zanichelli, La Nuova Italia, Firenze, Milano, Bompiani, “Gli albori della filosofia in Grecia,” «La Nuova Italia», Editrice Petite Plaisance, Pistoia,. La comprensione del soggetto umano nella cultura antica, La Nuova Italia (Milano, Bompiani ). Alle origini della filosofia della cultura, Il Mulino, “Il pensiero politico nel Risorgimento italiano,” Nuova accademia, Cesare Beccaria, Nuova Accademia Editrice,. “Moralisti greci: la coscienza morale da Omero a Epicuro,” Ricciardi, “Da Ardigò a Gramsci,” Nuova Accademia, “Il concetto dell'uomo in Marx,” Città di Senigallia, “Momenti del pensiero greco e cristiano,” Morano, “Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici, Einaudi, “Il contributo di Spinoza alla concezione storicistica, Lacaita, Polis, lavoro e tecnica, Feltrinelli, Educazione e socialismo, Lacaita, “Gli eleati,” Bompiani,. Note  Vedi Paolo Favilli, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, riferimenti in.  Fu una delle prime donne italiane a conseguire la laurea (cfr. Le donne nell'Firenze). Sposò civilmente a Firenze in Palazzo Vecchio Cesare Battisti. La sorella di Ernesta, Irene, sposerà Giovanni Battista Trener, per anni collaboratore di Cesare.  Amedeo Benedetti, L'Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani e la sua biblioteca, "Biblioteche Oggi", Milano, Enciclopedia Treccani, vedi alla voce futuro di Cesare Medail, Corriere della Sera, Archivio storico.  «SOCIALISMO» la voce nella Enciclopedia Italiana, Volume XXXI, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana; Paolo Simoncelli41.  Paolo Simoncelli42.  Paolo Simoncelli43.  Vedi Fabio Frosini, Il contributo italiano alla storia del PensieroFilosofia, riferimenti in.  Archivio, Inventari Stefano Vitali e Piero Giordanetti. Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali. Ufficio Centrale per i beni archivistici.  Archivio Rodolfo Mondolfo. Inventari, Stefano Vitali e Piero Giordanetti, Roma, Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali. Ufficio Centrale per i beni archivistici, Paolo Simoncelli "Non credo neanch'io alla razza" Gentile e i colleghi ebrei, Le Lettere, Firenze,  L. Vernetti, R. Mondolfo e la filosofia della prassi, Morano,  E. Bassi, Rodolfo Mondolfo nella vita e nel pensiero socialista, Tamari); A. Santucci, Pensiero antico e pensiero moderno in Mondolfo, Cappelli, Bologna); Bobbio, Umanesimo di Rodolfo Mondolfo, in Maestri e compagni, Passigli Editore, Firenze 1984. M. Pasquini, Del Vecchio, il kantismo giuridico e la sua incidenza nell'elaborazione di Rodolfo Mondolfo (Alfagrafica, Città di Castello); C. Calabrò, Il socialismo mite: tra marxismo e democrazia, Polistampa, Firenze); E. Amalfitano, Dalla parte dell'essere umano. Il socialismo di Rodolfo Mondolfo, L'asino d'oro, Roma. TreccaniEnciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. su siusa.archivi.beniculturali, Sistema Informativo Unificato per le Soprintendenze Archivistiche.  Opere su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl. Opere Fabio Frosini, MONDOLFO, Rodolfo, in Il contributo italiano alla storia del Pensiero: Filosofia, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana,. Vita opere e pensiero Diego Fusaro, sito "filosofico.net". Fondo Rodolfo Mondolfo Università degli Studi di Milano. Biblioteca di Filosofia. Fondo Rodolfo Mondolfo Fondazione di Studi Storici Filippo Turati.  Italiani emigrati in Argentina – Antica filosofia italica. La filosofia italica sin dai tempi antichi era cosi deita, e quel che più monta, dai Greci stessi, e l'autorità non sospetta di un Platone e di un Aristotele, che non la chiamarono con altro nome, ci sembra dar peso alle ragioni di quanti la vogliono originaria, contro l'opposta opinione di chi tra noi la dice portata dalle colonie greche. Comunque sia, certo è che in questa seconda supposizione, l'Italia non perde tutto il suomerito, perchè la scienza quisorse più splendida mercè il concorso del genio e il sussidio delle tradizioni italiane. Le scuole di cui essa può menar vanto sono due, la di Crotone/Ponto/Taranto e la dei velini. La setta di Crotone e fondata da Pitagora, di cui si tiene incerta così l'origine come iltempo della nascita; l'origine, perchè è dubbio s'ei nascesse à Samo della Ionia od a Samo della Magna Grecia; il tempo, perchè chi lo vuol nato nell'anno 584 av. C.,chi nel 608,e chi ancor prima, ai tempi di Numa, il quale, come ciè noto, mori nel 672, dopo quarantatrè anni di regno. Tra i filosofi che vi appartennero, chiamati ancor essi pitagorici, con un ARCHITA di TARANTO (il più celebre di tutti), che capitana più volte gl’eserciti, e non fu mai sconfitto, si ricordano un FILOLAO, probabilmente di Crotone, un TIMEO di LOCRI, ed un OCELLO di LUCANIA. Taciamo i minori o dimen nota dottrina, come LISIDE, CLINIA, EURITE, ZELEUCO, e CARONDA -- i quali due ullimi, legislatori entrambi, di Locri l'uno, l'altro di CATANIA, insigni rese l'efficacia che, per loro opera specialmente, ha allora la filosofia negl’ordini civili, quando, mutata la forma, i governi regi si convertirono in popolari. La setta di CROTONE ha vita dal bisogno di una scienza, che, professata da uomini austeri e ornati di grandi virtû, e con giunta all'operosità civile -- in ciò la consorteria pitagorica, chè tale fu veramente, distinguesi dalle indiane -- serve di criterio per una riforma riconosciuta necessaria in mezzo al guasto ognor crescente della religione, dei costumi e della libertà; lo che ci spiega le persecuzioni a cui andò soggetto.  Scuola pitagorica. -Nuovo affatto è nella scienza il metodo recatovi dai CROTONESI. Questo metodo -- e lo stesso dicasi del linguaggio --  è il matematico; il quale consiste nell'applicare le idee di quantità alla natura interna ed esterna, ed al principio sommo della medesima; metodo che, tutto essendo nel mondo capace di numero e di misura, non sarebbe forse tanto strano quanto a prima vista appare, se non fosse che i Crotonesi all'esperienza, che la verità ci rivela nell'ordine dei contingenti, il più delle volte preferirono il ragionamento a priori, error palese a chi consideri che dal concetto, per esempio, di circolo, di triangolo, di pentagono, non si può argomentare che questi tipi si effettuino in natura, e chi lo fa si espone al pericolo manifesto di costruire da sè un mondo fantastico, un mondo che non esiste fuori della sua mente. Ma i crotonesi sono educati allo studio delle matematiche; perciò non è meraviglia cheil metodo di queste scienze trasportassero nelle regioni della filosofia. Il gran problema metafisico dei CROTONESI riducesi adunque al seguente: trovare la legge mentale della quantità effettuate nella realtà, e con queste salire alla prima cagione. Ed ecco perchè tutto è numero nel loro sistema. I principi delle cose sono i numeri. Un numero, una unità parziale è ogni cosa. Un numero, una unità generale il loro complesso, cio è l'universo o mondo, il quale comprendendo in sè tutti i numeri od unità parziali, à in sè la pienezza d'ogni grado di entità, epperciò è decade; e la prima cagione, il principio di tutti iprincipi delle cose, la causa che ad ogni altra causa antecede, è numero essa pure, ma il numero per antonomasia, e quindi può chiamarsi l'unità, la diade, la triade, il quadernario (o solido), il settenario e la decade. Ma lasciamo da banda questo gergo simbolico, e vediamo che di sostanziale si peschi in fondo alla dottrina dei Crotonesi, e come s'abbia a intendere la sua formula. Ogni cosa è un numero. Che cosa è il numero per eccellenza, la Monade somma, infinita, il divino dei Crotonesi? E che sarà l'essere individuo? Che cosa il mondo od universo? Il divino èl'ente che in sè contiene la propria essenza e quella di tutti gl’esseri, epperò tutti i contrari, cioè le cose più opposte e disparate (inito ed infinito, dispari e pari, uno e più, positivo e negativo, quiete e moto, luce e tenebre, bene e male, ecc.), ed inoltre la moltiplicità loro insieme concilia, risultandone una suprema unità, un'armonia universale. Il divino, insomma, è l'unità suprema di tutti icontrari. Le cose particolari, gl’esseri derivati da lei sono immagini sue, epperò consteranno anch'esse di elementi contrari, a unità ed armonia ridotti; dunque ogni essere è un numero ed armonia parziale. Poni assieme tutti questi numeri, tutti gl’esseri finiti, e in modo che i contrary non cozzino, ma formino un solo numero, una sola unità vastissima, immagine essa pure della monade divina. Tale il mondo od universo dei crotonesi, il quale e l'assieme dei contrari, non già nell'unità somma inesistenti, ma in atto e dal divino ridotti ad armonia. Ora, in qual modo la generalità dei contrari, cioè la decade, il mondo in esi steva nell'unità per eccellenza, nel divino? Qui crotenesi tacciono, di modo che nulla di positivo e certo può rilevarsi dalla loro dottrina. Bensi e'ci apprendono come l'universo o mondo si venisse formando per ispirazione od aspirazione.La monade universale e suprema, contenente in sè le unità particolari, da principio e una, continua, indivisa, ma non indivisibile, e da ogni parte circondata da un vuoto immenso; il quale, aspirato da essa,come l'aria entra nei polmoni, si introduce fra i contrari,ossia fra le monadi particolari, e cosi separandoli, individuolli, e produsse la grande moltiplicità delle cose mondiali. La formola esprimente l'armonia universale (tuttoènumero) per la scuola pitagorica può dirsi il principio di tutta la filo sofia, dappoichè essa l'applicò in tutti tre gl’ordini --metafisico, logico e morale. Che cosa è l'anima umana, la quale, dice Filolao, giace nel corpo come in un sepolcro? Risponde il crotonesi: un numero, un'armonia, insieme conciliando essa due contrari, cioè i sensi e la ragione, che sono ilnegativo ed il positivo, l'irragionevole ed il ragionevole. E la verità, la co gnizione che cosa è mai ? Un numero, un'armonia, come fuor dell'armonia è l'errore, essendo che per l'acquisto della medesima cooperano gli stessi contrari, quantunque la ragione si spinga più oltre dei sensi, i quali non escono dalla sfera dei contingenti o fenomeni. E che sarà, infine, la virtù? Un numero, un'armonia, che risulia anch'essa dall'accordo dell'irragionevole col ragionevole, essendo la virtù riposta nella soggezione dei sensi all'impero della ragione, toltalaquale, all'armonia sotten traladisarmonia, alla virtû il vizio. Vadasè che la virtù ci rimena alla monade suprema, all'ordine od armonia universale, che d'ogni essere è principio e fine. Critica. Bene esaminando la dottrina dei crotonesi, si scuopre nella medesima un error capitale, che à per sorgente l'abuso del metodo trascendentale, come quello che li condusse a trasportare nell'ordine delle realtà le astrazioni della matematica, e a concepir il divino quasi unità generica o numero per eccellenza, che è come dire quale un'essenza in cui si contengono e si immedesimano le cose tutte quante. Nè a salvarli dal panteismo implicito bastano le alte verità frammischiatevi, eladichia Senofane, schernitore dei politeisti, i qualiammettono più dei, e degli antropomorfisti, che li fingono a loro immagine e somiglianza, insegna che il divino è potentissimo, uno ed eterno; potentissimo, perchè egli è l'ente (entità, forza, energia e potenza per la scuola italica sono termini sinonimi). Uno, perchè, tra più dèi uguali, nessuno è potentissimo per l'uguaglianza, e se inferiori, nessuno è potentissimo per inforiorità; eterno, perchè l'ente non può non essere, e il non ente non può divenire. Si fosse egli qui arrestato! ma fra gli altributi divini ne annovera un quinto, dal quale poi con falsa logica deduce una (1) Colonia ionica di Elea. (2) Velia ha un'altra scuola, fondatavi da Leucippo e Democrito, i quali spiegavano la formazione del mondo con ammettere nel vacuo immenso una infinità di atomi eterni, il cui fortuito accozzamento avrebbe dato origine a tutte cose (atomismo). Questa scuola,chiamata fisica,non siconfonda coll'eleaticasemplicemente detta, e denominata anche metafisica per distinzione. Uno razione di Filolao, Dio essere imperatore e duce sommo, ed eterno, potentissimo, supremo e diverso dalle altre cose; per chè d'uopo è che accetti le conseguenze chi non rinunzia al l'erroneità dei principi. E l’erroneità del principio pitagorico sta appunto nel far di Dio un tutto, un numero che comprende in sè ogni altro numero.  Il sentimento religioso e morale, scri ve il dottissimo Bertini (Idea d'una filosofia della vita) induce va i Pitagorici a collocare Dio molto al dissopra del mondo;ma il fato della logica li forzava sovente ad immedesimarli in una sola sostanza, e ricacciavali nel panteismo . La scuola eleatica ebbe tal nome da quello della città dove sorse, poco dopo la di Crotone, per opera di Senofane, che, nato a Colofone della Ionia tardi migra di là per l'invasione della patria,e venuto nella Magna Grecia, prenfr stanza in Velia, e vi morì nella grave età di oltre a cent'an ni.- SenofaneebbediscepoloParmenide,eParmenideZenone, buon patriota, che, condannato a morte da un tiranno, corag giosamente sostenne ilsupplizio.Questi due,d'Elea entrambi, con Melisso di Samo, il quale capitano gl’Italioti contro Pericle, continuarono la dottrina del primo, e vi dettero forma più rigorosa, se non incremento. D'altri nomi più famosi non la menzione la storia della filosofia eleatica. Una dottrina si ripugnante al senso comune non poteva menarsi per buona; perciò si levarono a impugnarla e combat terla gli empiristi, o fautori del metodo a posteriori, sostenendo contro gli Eleati el'esistenza reale di sostanze finite, e la loro contingenza e varietà, e la mutabilità loro, attestata dall'evidenza dei fatti. Zenone, quel valente Zenone che Aristotele riconobbe quale inventore della dialettica -- scienza ed arte di ragionare e disputare -- come lo fu senza dubbio tra gli Occidentali, a sua volta non lascia senza difesa la filosofia della sua scuola e del suo maestro, anzi incalzò gliavversari con molta lena e con buona copia d'argomenti diretti a dimostrare, per una parte la fallacia dei sensi e l'autonomia della ragione, per l'altra, e con sofismi ad homincm, che l'empirismo, ilquale all'autorità della ragione oppone quella dei sensi, contiene in sè contraddizioni ben più gravi di quelle che si dicevano implicite nella metafisica eleatica. Ed allora, se la memoria non ci falla, sorse la prima delle po lemiche che, per la loro importanza, ànno meritato una pagina nella storia della scienza. ~ Famoso argomento di Zenone deyto l'Achille.  strana conseguenza: l'ente è tutto od intiero, epperò nulla a lui può aggiugnersi; donde segue che nulla può incominciare ad essere.Qui l'error di illazione, il sofisma del conseguente è manifesto; quanto viene all'esistenza è forse un che d'aggiunto all'infinitudine divina? D'altronde, se nulla può nascere o di venire, che pensare degli esseri contingenti e mutabili, cosi detti perchè nei vari momenti del tempo sono e non sono, e mutano continuamente ? Senofane se la spicciò nettamente con negare a dirittura l'esistenza delle sostanze finite, e sentenziò:  Tali cose non ànno altra vita fuorchè l'apparenza, ed appartengono all'opinione. O che! sarà dunque menzognera sempre la voce dei sensi ? E ci ingannerà di continuo l'intimo sentimento ? Che si, rispondono in coro gli Eleati, quanto ci rilevano i sensi altro non è che illusione; e la ragione è il mezzo unico per giungere al vero; e il vero è che tutto è uno, e l'uno è tuito. Critica. Ma l’arte dei Zenoni, che con sofismi strani pro pugnano la falsità del vero, e quel che è più, l'incertezza del l'evidente, e, prova non dubbia di grande acume, perfin riesco no a dimostrare, contro la possibilità del moto, che nella più rapida sua corsa il più celere cavallo non raggiungerà mai una tartaruga,quantochè tardissima, la quale anche di poco la preceda, tutta l'arte dialettica, ripeto, non sarà mai da tanto che possa collocare sopra una base solida isistemi della scuola   Filosofia presso i Greci antichi. Principio, mezzo e fine; infanzia,virilità e decrepitezza, o decadimento, ecco i tre stadi o periodi, le tre età dell'antica fi losofia greca. Tra il principio e la fine corrono ben sette secoli, all'incirca; ma noi li percorreremo in minor tempo, se non ci manchi lena. da l'alete a Socrate. La prima età della filosofia greca antica incomincia con Talete, e termina al comparire della filosofia socratica. Talete, già è delio, nacque 600 anni av. C. e Socrate nel 170 ; qui dunque abbiamo press'a poco un periodo di centotrenť anni, durante i quali sorsero due scuole, la ionica e la sofistica; le quali, aggiunte alla pitagorica ed all'eleatica, ci dànno in com plesso l'antica filosofia designata col nome di italo-greca. Scuola ionica. Fondata in Mileto della Ionia, sua patria, da Talete,primo tra i filosofi greci conosciuti, ma forse non tale veramente, que sta scuola è, come vedremo, la men filosofica di tutte le pre cedenti. Nè la ragione è difficile a comprendersi da chi sappia che la scienza ebbe allor contrari i voluttuosi costumi e la ser vitù di quelle cit tà, soggette ai Lidi ed ai Persiani, e che, a giudicarnedalsilenzioe dai pochi cenni della storia, coloroi quali la professavano erano ben lontani dalle virtù che adorna vano i pitagorici; virtù che col venir meno a poco a poco, pois  cleatica; e sono tre: l'idealismo logico, perchè si nega l'au torità dei sensi, per riconoscere soltanto quella della ragione; l'idealismo metafisico, perchè si esclude la materialità, ilmolte plice ed ogni mutamento; e, conseguenza di ciò, ilpanteismo, che ammette la sola esistenza dell'ente immutabile ed eterno, e cosi rimuove ogni concetto di creazione. Il primo nacque colla scuola pitagorica,mada Senofane fu recatoasistema ;ilsecon do venne accolto dagli Eleati per evitare le contraddizioni della medesima, che nell'uno identificava le cose più opposte; il terzo sidirebbe comune alle due scuole,se non fosse che nell'eleatica si lasciò da banda la parte corporea e mutabile, e così si riusci a un panteismo parziale, al panteismo idealistico. Grice: You have to love Mondolfo. As a Jew he was into Sartre’s existentialism, and the rest of it – when Gentile inhibited Jews from teaching Italians, M. had to stream his energy into the study of ‘antica filosofia italica’! for our glory!” -- o ABBAHU di Cesarea Rabbi Abraham educazione, in Filone) Achei Acheronte Acherusia, vedi Acheronte Achille Adamo Adamson Ade AEZIO Africa, africani Afrodite Agamennone ACATARCO AGATONE Agostino agostiniana corrente filosofia Aiace Albertelli ALCEO Alcibiade ALCMEONE ALESSANDRINA FILOSOFIA ALESSANDRINI MATEMATICI Alessandro, vedi Paride. ALESSANDRO  Afrodisia  Alessandro Magno ALESSIDE Alfieri Altamura Ambrogio Amerio Amicizia Amleto Amore ANACARSI di Scizia ANACREONTE Ananke ANASSACORA DISCEPOLI di - ANASSIMANDRO ANASSIMENE Anfione Anima universale Anselmo ANTICHI POETI E SAGGI ANTICHITÀ CLASSICA antica scienza, cultura, antico spirito, pensiero, etc. ANTICO TESTAMENTO ANTIFANE ANTIFONTE Antigone ANTIcoNo di Caristo ANTISTENE Apatia stoica Apocalissi di Pietro Apollo Apollo Lairberos (santuario di) Aquitania ARCAICo pensiero ARCESILAO ARCHELAO ARCHILOCO ARCHIMEDE ARCHITA Ardizzoni AREIOs DIDYMOS Areopago Aridea, vedi Thespesio. ARISTARCO ARISTIPPO ARISTOCLE ARISTOFANE ARISTOSSENO ARISTOTELE Armstrong Arnauld Arnim ARTE  Artemide ASCLEPIO commentatore di Aristotele Asclepio (dio) Asia minore Asiatico principio AssIoco  Atarassia epicurea Atargatis (dea) Ate Atena Atene, ateniesi ATENIONE di Atene ATOMISMO, ATOMISTI Atreo Atride Augusto Aulide Aymard Baccanti Вассо Bacone Bacone Baeumker Bailey Baius Barbari del nord Barth BASILICA PITACORICA della Porta  Maggiore a Roma Battaglia F. Bauch B. Beare  Becker 0. Behaviourismo Bello Bene Bergk Berkeley BIANTE BIBLICA tradizione Bignone Bill A. Billeter Binder Blanchet Blankert Blondel Boas Lovejoy Boemia Bolland Bossuet Bovis Bréhier Breier Brochard Brune Buccellato Buonaiuti Burnet Bywater CARNEADE CARONDA Carteron H. Cartesio, cartesiano Cassandra  Cataudella Cattolicesimo  Cattolici filosofi, storici  Cefalo CELSO CENSORINO Centimani Ceramone Cerbero Cesarea Charisio Charu Cherecrate CHEREMONE Cherniss Chimera Chronos Ciaceri Cibele CICERONE, ciceroniano Ciclopi Caino Cairo Calcidio Callahan CALLICLE CALLIPPO Calogero Calvino Cameron A. Campanella Campidoglio Canosa Cantarella Carcopino Carlini Cilento Cilonidi CINICI CIRENAICI Classicista concezione CLASSICO spirito, mondo,  CA cultura Claudio CLEANTE CLEIDEMO CLEMENTE alessandrino Clitennestra Clodd Cohn CoLòTE di Lampsaco Colchide Combarieu COMMEDIA DI MEZZO COMMENTATORI DI ARISTOTELE Comparetti Comte Condillac E.  B. de CoNoNE di Samo Contese Croiset Croce Cusano Cypselo arca di Dahlmann Daimon Dal Pra M. DAMONE Danaidi Dante Dardania, Dardano Daremberg Ch. e Saglio E. Dario Dedalo Controriforma Copernico Coribanti Corinto, corinzi Conford CORPUs HIPPOCRATICUM COSMOLOGHI (primi) Couissin Cousin Covotti CRATETE CRATILO Credaro Creso Creta Crimine oggettivo CRISIPPO Cristianesimo, cristiano spirito,  pensiero, cristiana era, na, filosofia, etc. Cristo CRITIA Criticismo kantiano Critone Ctesibio Delatte DELFICA religione, DELFICO  «ePto, le a Delfi Del Grande Del Re R. Delvaille Demetra DEMETRIo cinico DEMETRIO LACONE DEMOCRITO DEMOCRITEA tradizione DEMOCRITEO-ARISTOTELICA  stinzione di Demoni del cristianesimo 401.  DEMOSTENE Deonna W., vedi De Ridder A.  Derenne De Ridder A. e Deonna Derketo Ruggiero Descartes, vedi Destino De Strycker Deucalione Dewey Dialettica moderna Diano DICEARCO Diderot Diela Diels Diès Dieterich Dike Diller Dimenticanza Dio natura persona DIODORO CRONO DIODORO SICULO DIOGENE di Enoanda DIOGENE  DIOCENE LAERZIO Dione DIONE CRISOSTOMO DIONISIACO culto, spirito Dioniso Discordia Discorsi menzogneri Aiacol Royor Divinazione Doering Dornseiff Fr. Dostoiewski DRACONE 430.  Ducati Dümmler Dupréel EBRAICO-CRISTIANE eredenze, reli-  gione, tradizione EBRAISMo, ebrei EBRAICA religione EBRAICHE suggestioni ed ispirazioni EBRAICE elementi Ecabe Ecate EcATEo d'Abdera EcATEo di Mileto Eden Edipo Efesto EcESIA di Cirene Egisto Egitto Egizi EGIZIANO tradizionalismo ELEATI, ELEATISMO,  scuola, dottrina  Elena Elettra Eleusi Eleutherna ELLENICO  genio, spirito, pensiero, etc. ELLENISMO ELLENISTICA eredità ELLENISTICA ROMANA filosofia 2ELVIDIO PRISCO EMPEDOCLE, EMPIRISTICHE correnti Empusa Endimione Enea  ENESIDEMO Enoanda Enoch pentimento, in Filone Enos speranza, in Filone  Enriques EPICARMICO principio EPICUREI, EPICUREISMO EPICURO Epidamno Epifanio EPIMENIDE Epimeteo EPITTETO Erarmeno (mito di) Era Eracle ERACLIDE PONTICO ERACLITO FRACLITEA dottrina esigenza proposizione ERACLITISMO BRASISTRATO BRATOSTENE Brinni ERMIPPO ERMOTIMO Ernout Erodico di Selimbria ERODOTO ERoFILo di Calcedone Eros Esaminatore interno (elenchos) ESCHILO ESCHINE Esculapio ESICHIO EsIoDo ESIODEO principio Espero Età post-omerica Eteocle  ETICA ANTICA, CLASSICA cristiana e moderna GRECA morale moderna STOICA Etiopi Ettore Eucken EUDEMO EuDosso Eumenidi Eumeo Euromo di Polignoto EURIPIDE Euristeo Eusebio Eva Evangeli evangelico messaggio  Fabre Falaride, toro di, Farrington B. Fatica Fato Fedra FERECRATE Festa Festugiere Feuerbach Fichte Ficino Fidia Fiere FILEMONE FILISCO Fränkel Frazer Friedländer Frigia Frinide Furie GALENO Galileo Callavotti Gallia Ganter 201.  Gassendi Gea Geffcken Geiger GELLIO AULO Gelosia degli dei Genius malignus di Cartesio Gentile GEREMIA Germani Сет FILODEMO FILOLAO FILONE FILONIANO testo Filoponia FILOSOFIA NATURALISTICA (ionica)  FILOSOFIA OCCETTIVISTICA FILOSOFIA PRESOCRATICA FILOSSENO FILOSTRATO FISICI ANTICHI Fitzralph Flegias Flint FoCILIDE Fougères Frank Gerusalemme GesÚ figlio di Sirach GIAMBLICO Giansenio Gige, anello di, Gigon Gileon GIMNOSOFISTI indiani GIoBBE Giovanni di Rodington GIOVANNI FILOPONO Giove GIOVENALE GIUDAISMO, giudaica chiesa, etc.  Giuliano imperatore Giuliano di Eclano pelagiano Giussani Glaser Glauco di Chio Glotz GNoMIcI poeti CNOMICA saggezza GNOSEOLOGIA ANTICA GRECA medievale NEOPLATONICA Goedeckemeyer Gomar Gomperz Gomperz  Goodenough GORCIA Gorgoni Gottschalk Grande Anno GRECA morale GRECA tragedia, vedi TRAGEDIA.  GRECI, greco pensiero, popolo, spirito, etc.; greca anima, arte, cultura, filosofia, etc.  Grecia Greene Grilli Grousset Guthrie Guyau Halbfass Harnack Hegel Heidel W. A. Heinemann Heinze Henz Herbertz Herder Hermann Hermes Hildebrand Himeros Hirzel  Hobbes Hoffmann Howald E. Hume Hus Huyghens Hybris Ida Idealismo assoluto cristiano GRECO postkantiano Idealisti Idra IEROCLE Ifigenia Ilio ILLUMINISMO, ILLUMINISTI, etc.  Musionismo Indiani Inferi (Enfers) Inganno Inge  Innocenzo III Intelletto Invidia degli dei Lo Ionia, ionico mondo, ionica civil-  ta, etc. JONICA poesia IONICI poeti IONICI Glosofi IONICA filosofia scienza Ipermestra IPPIA (sofista)  IPPOCRATE, IPPOCRATICI, ippocrati-  ci scritti, trattati, Ippolito Ippolito  Iris Isaac (= natura, in Filone) Isaac (Abn Jacob Jsaac?) ISAIA Isdoso scolastico Isis isiaco  culto ISOcRATE, pseudo Issione Jaeger Jago Jacob ascetismo e perfezione, in Filone Janet  Jardé Jehova Jeat Kaibel Kant Kêr, Kêres Kern Kierkegaard Kirk Kitto Kleingünther Klimke  Kock Kranz Krokiewicz Kronos Laas Laberthonnière Labriola Lachesi Lachete Laconia Laio Lamennais Lamenti Laminette auree Lana Langerbeck Latini Lattanzio Latzarus Laurent Lavagnini Leibniz Leonardo da Vinci Leone Ebreo Leonte di Salamina Leonzio Leroux Lesky LeuCIPPO Levi Levi Lévy-Bruhl Licurgo Lidia, Lidi Liénard E.  IONICO-EOLICA LISIA Locke Lodge LOGICA ANTICA Logos divino Loisy Losacco Lotte Lovejoy LUCIANO Lucido Lucifero Lucilio LUCREZIO Lugdunum (Lione) Luria Lusitania Lutero Maddalena Magalhães Vilhena Y. De Magia Maieutica Maier Malcovati Mancini Manetti MANICHEISMO Marbach Marchesi Marchesini MARCO AURELIO Mario Vittorino Marouzeau Marsia Martin Martinazzoli Marx MASSIMO TIRIO Mazziotti M., vedi Enriques F.  Meautis MEDICI EMPIRICI O METODICI  IPPOCRATICI mediche scuole Medievale gnoseologia, scienza, filosofia, teologia — coscienza Medio Evo MECARICA teoria MECARICI Meineke MELIsso di Samo MENANDRO Menelao Menzel MENONE Mercier Messaggio evangelico, ellenizza-  zione del METRODoRo di Chio Milesi Mill Milton Minucio MISTICA, MISTICA soggettività, MI-CORRENTI,  CRECO  (medievale) MITOLOGIA ANTROPOMORFICA CRECA, mitologiche rappresentazioni OMERICO-ESIODEA Mitre Modernismo Moderni, moderno spirito, pen-  cultura, hlosofia,  sia, etc. Ix,  Moeller  Moira Momigliano Mondo classico cristiano greco precristiano ionico arcaico orientale, greco, romano, germanico M. A. M. vedi Zel-Monoteismo cristiano e greco  MORALISTI GRECI Morrison MOSCHIONE Mose Mullach Murray MUSoNIo RUFo 5Nardi Natorp NATURALISMO PRESOCRATICO, NATURALISTI PRESOCRATICI Nauck Nausicaa Neikos Nekyia omerica Nenci NEOACCADEMICI Neohegeliani NEOPITAGORICI NEOPLATONICI, NEOPLATONISMO, NEOPLATONICA teoria, etc. Nestle Nestore Newmann Nicia di Atene Nietzsche  Noè (- giustizia, in Filone) Norden NUMENIO Nuovo Testamento Occhio di Zeus Occhio vendicatore degli dei Oceanidi OCCETTIVISMO ANTICO Olimpica religione Olimpo, olimpici dei Olimpo  Olivieri OMERO  OMERICHE concezioni Ontologica prova ontologico argomento ORACOLO DELFICO, lemma dell',  vedi DELFico precetto.  Oratorio ORAZIO Oreste Orfeo ORFICI, ORFICO  misticismo, religione, etc oRFISMO Oriente, orientali Origene Otium Otto OVIDIO Pacioli PAGANESIMO, PAGANI FILOSOFI, etc.  Palamede Pan PANEZIO Paolo Paratore Parche Paride PARMENIDE DISCEPOLI di parmenideo ente mondo parmenidea Pascal Pascal Pasquali Patristica patristica  eredità  Pearson Peipers Pelagio, pelagianismo Pelasgo Pelope Penía Pericle PERIPATETICI, PERIPATETICA teo-ria, etc. Пері téXvNS Perrotta Perse Persiani Pesce Petelia Petersen Petrarca Pettazzoni Philippson Piat Pico della  Mirandola Pieper Pilade  PINDARO Piriflegetonte PIRRONE PITAGORA PITAGORICI, PITACORISMO, etc. Pittura greca etrusca PLATONE PLATONICO mito PLATONISMO PLAUTO Pleiadi PLINIO PLOTINO PLUTARCO POETI COMICI TEOCONICI TRAGICI Pohlenz PoLIBIO Policleto POLICRATE Polignoto di Taso Polinice POLITEISMO PoLo Poppe PORFIRIO Puech Póros Porzig Posidone PoSIDONIO POSTARISTOTELICA  epoca, filosofia, etc., POSTARISTOTELICI FILOSOFI  Praechter K., vedi Ueberweg Pragmatismo, pragmatisti Predestinaziani 424.  Positivismo, positivisti 29, 578.  PRESOCRATICI FILOSOFI, NATURALI-STI, etc., PRESOCRATICA filosofia Priamo PRIMI FILOSOFI Primitivi popoli PROCLO PRODICO Prometeo PROTAGORA PROTAGORISMO  Protestanti, protestantesimo protestante storiografia Provvidenza PSICOLOGIA « behaviourista, del comportamento platonica Radamanto Radermacher RAFFINATI del Teeteto Ragione divina Regenbogen Regnum hominis Reinach Reinhardt Reminiscenza platonica ReyRinascimento rinascimentale  distinzione  rivoluzione rinascimentali  celebrazioni  — innovatori scrittori Ritter Rivelazione Rivaud Robin Rohde Roma Romanticismo Rosmini Ross Rossi Rosei Rostagni Rousseau Rudberg Ruvo Saffo Saglio E., vedi Daremberg Ch.  Saitta SALLUSTIO SALOMONE Satana Saturnia età Saturno SCETTICI, SCETTICISMO SCETTICA critica Schaerer Schiller Schleiermacher Schmid Schuhl Sciacca Scilla Seiti Scolastica, etc. Scrittura, Scritture Sacre  Segni indicativi, teoria dei, Segni memorativi, utilizzazione  dei SENECA SENOFANE SENOFONTE Senso comune aristotelico Senso interiore agostiniano Serse Sertillanges SESTIO, SESTIL,  scuola  dei EMPIRICO Sette savi Shakespeare Shorey Sibari Sibilla SIMONIDE di Ceo SIMPLICIO SINESIO Siri Sisifo Snell SOCRATE SOCRATICA esigenza esperienza predica SOCRATICI, SOCRATISMO Sofferenze 86.  SOFISTI, SOFISTICA SOFOCLE Sofronisco Soggettivismo cristiano-moderno Sogni Solari Soliman SOLONE Sorley Sparta Spencer Spengel Spengler SPEUSIPPO Spinoza  Spirito classico antico cristiano moderno greco classico Spiritualisti cristiani, spiritualismo cristiano Stefanini TEOCONIE, TEOGONICI POETI Teologi di Oxford Teone Stein Stenzel Stige STILPONE SToBEo STOICI, STOICISMO, etc. Sroic, HOMAN Storicismo, storicistica concezione Stragi STRATONE di Lampsaco Strycker TALETE Tannery Tantalo Tarozzi Tartaro tartareo abisso Tatto interno Taylor Tebe Teeteto Teggart Temesa TEMISTIO Tempo Tenebre TEODETTE TeodoretoTeodoro di Beza TEOFRASTO TEOGNIDE TERENZIO Тевео Thamus Thaumante Theiler Thespesio Theuth Thurii Tieste Tifeo Tifone Tilgher TIMEO TIMONE TIMOTEO Tindaro Tiresia Tiro TISIA Titani Titano Tizio Tommaso Tomismo, etc. Traci TRADIZIONE DEMOCRITEO-EPICUREA Traducianismo TRAGEDIA TRAGICI POETI TRASIMACO Traversari Treves Trieber Troia, troiani Tuchulca TUCIDIDE Türk Tylor Tzetzes Uccisioni Ueberweg Ulisse 4Uno Untersteiner Usener Uxkull Vaihinger Weil Wendland Wilamowitz Windelband Wundt Wycliffe algimigli Vangelo Vangelo Vaso arcaico di Palermo Vespasiano Vico Vidari Vlastos Walzer Wehrli Zafiropulo  ZALEUCO ZARATHUSTRA ZENONE ZENONE Zeller. L'eredità in T. Tasso, in «Archivio di psichiatria, scienze penali ed antropologia criminale, Torino, Memoria e associazione nella scuola cartesiana (Cartesio, Malebranche, Spinoza), con appendice per la storia dell'inconscio, M. Ricci, Firenze. Per le relazioni fra genialità e degenerazione: Guerrazzi, in «Archivio di psichiatria, scienze penali ed antropologia criminale, Torino, Spazio e tempo nella psicologia di Condillac, in «Rivista filosofica, Pavia, Scienza e opinioni di B. Varisco, in «Scienza sociale, Palermo, Uno psicologo associazionista: E. B. de Condillac, R. Sandron, Palermo.  In esso viene riportato anche lo scritto sullo spazio e il tempo in  Condillac precedentemente citato Il concetto di bene e la psicologia dei sentimenti in Hobbes, in Rivista di filosofia e scienze affini, Bologna, L'educazione secondo il Romagnosi, in Rivista filosofica, Pavia, Ora anche in Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti a cura di R. Medici, CLUEB, Bologna  Ancora a proposito di refezione scolastica: il pensiero di Romagnosi, in Critica Sociale, Milano, Saggi per la storia morale utilitaria: I - La morale di Hobbes, Drucker, Padova Saggi per la storia morale utilitaria: II - Le teorie morali e politiche di Helvétius, Drucker, Padova La politica degli insegnanti, in Critica Sociale, Milano, Il dubbio metodico e la storia della filosofia, Prolusione a un corso di storia della filosofia nell'Università di Padova, con appendice storico-critica, Drucker, Padova. Per una filosofia naturale, in Rivista di filosofia e scienze affini, Bologna, Recensione a G. Marchesini, La funzione dell'anima, Laterza, Bari 1905, in Critica Sociale, Milano, L'insegnamento liceale della filosofia. Considerazioni pratiche, in Rivista di filosofia e scienze affini, Bologna L'insegnamento della filosofia nei licei e la riforma della scuola media al congresso di Milano, in Rivista di filosofia e scienze affini, Bologna, Per la riforma della scuola media: la scuola unica, in Critica Sociale, Milano, Anche in Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del 900 alla Riforma Gentile), a cura di T. Pironi, Laicata, Manduria Ancora per la riforma della scuola media: polemica fra colleghi, in Critica Sociale, Milano, Di alcuni problemi della pedagogia contemporanea, in Rivista di filosofia e scienze affini, Bologna, Anche in Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del '900 alla Riforma Gentile), Dalla dichiarazione dei diritti al Manifesto dei comunisti, in Critica Sociale, Milano, Con alcune variazioni è stato inserito da Mondolfo anche nella raccolta Tra il diritto di natura e il comunismo: studi di storia  =  •archive.org INTERNET  ARCHIVE  e filosofia, parte I, Tip. degli operai, Mantova Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti Intorno al convegno filosofico di Milano, in Rivista di filosofia e scienze affini, Bologna Politica scolastica: per la riforma della scuola media, in Critica sociale, Milano, Questioni varie: il problema della laicità nella scuola media, in Rivista di filosofia e scienze affini, Bologna Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del '900 alla Riforma Gentile), Ancora Mazzini e il socialismo, in La fiaccola», Senigallia Altre obiezioni alle idee di Salvemini sugli esami, in Nuovi doveri», Palermo Il contratto sociale e la tendenza comunista in J. J. Rousseau, in Rivista di filosofia e scienze affini», Bologna, Tra il diritto di natura e il comunismo: studi di storia e filosofia, parte II, Tip. degli operai, Mantova Il pensiero di Ardigo, Mondovì, Mantova. La dottrina della proprietà del Montesquieu, in Rivista filosofica», Pavia Tra il diritto di natura e il comunismo: studi di storia e filosofia, parte II, cit.  30. La filosofia della proprietà alla Costituente e alla Legislativa nella rivoluzione francese, in Rivista di filosofia e di scienze affini», Bologna, Pubblicato anche in Tra il diritto di natura e il comunismo: studi di storia e filosofia, parte II, cit.  Sulla laicità della scuola, in Critica sociale», Milano Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del '900 alla Riforma Gentile), Religione, fanciulli, educazione, in Nuovi doveri», Palermo, Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del '900 alla Riforma  Gentile), La fine del marxismo?, in Critica sociale», Milano, Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici a cura di N. Bobbio, Einaudi, Torino Roberto Ardigò nelle scuole di Mantova. Notizie e documenti, Tip.  Operai, Mantova.  Studi sui tipi rappresentativi. Ricerche sull'importanza dei movimenti dell'immaginazione, nelle funzioni del linguaggio, nelle pseudoalluci-nazioni e nella localizzazione delle immagini, in Rivista di filosofia», Roma, I, 2, marzo-aprile, pp. 38-92. Tra il diritto di natura e il comunismo: studi di storia e filosofia, parte I, Tip. Operai, Mantova. La filosofia di Feuerbach e le critiche del Marx, in La Cultura filosofica», Firenze Accolto in Sulle orme di Marx. Studi di marxismo e di socialismo a partire dalla prima edizione (Cappelli, Bologna con il titolo Feuerbach e Marx. È stato poi successivamente integrato di due capitoli, precisamente il sesto e il settimo, nella terza edizione (Cappelli, Bologna Ora anche disponibile, sempre con il titolo Feuerbach e Marx, in Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici La filosofia della storia di Ferdinando Lassalle (Per nozze Mondolfo-Sacerdote), Pirola, Milano. Poi nelle prime due edizioni de Sulle orme di Marx: Cappelli, Bologna Cappelli, Bologna  Recensione a G. Vidari, L'individualismo nelle dottrine morali del secolo XIX, in Cultura Filosofica», La riforma della scuola media: fra la Commissione Reale e il congresso della federazione, in Critica sociale», Milano, Politica scolastica: il dovere presente della federazione degli insegnanti, in Critica sociale», Milano La vitalità della filosofia nella caducità dei sistemi, Prolusione all'Università di Torino Cultura filosofica», Firenze Rovistando in soffitta, in Critica sociale», Milano, Pubblicato anche in Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Fra l'ideale e l'azione: per l'unità di teoria e praxis, in Critica sociale», Milano Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici La filosofia di Bruno e l'interpretazione di Felice Tocco, in La Cultura filosofica», Firenze, V, n. 5-6, aprile, pp. 450-482. Pubblicato poi a sé: La filosofia di Giordano Bruno e l'interpretazione di Felice Tocco, Tip. Collini e Cencetti, Firenze Sul concetto di plus-valore, in Critica sociale», Milano La pretesa antieticità del materialismo storico - il sopravalore e il passaggio dalla necessità alla libertà) de Il materialismo storico in Federico Engels, Formiggini, Genova Nell'edizione del (La Nuova  Italia) Il concetto di necessità nel materialismo storico, in Rivista di filosofia II fatalismo materialistico o dialettico e il concetto di necessità storica) de Il materialismo storico in Federico Engels La Nuova Italia, Firenze Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Il materialismo storico in Federico Engels, Formiggini, Genova. I ginnasi magistrali, in Unità», Firenze, Partiti politici e generi letterali, in Unità», Firenze Intorno alla filosofia di Marx, in Critica sociale», Milano, Presente anche in Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici La crisi magistrale, in Unità», Firenze, La preparazione dei maestri elementari, in Unità», Firenze, Intorno alla morale sessuale, in Critica sociale», Milano, Ancora la morale sessuale, in Critica sociale», Milano, Rousseau nella formazione della coscienza moderna, in Rivista pedagogica», Roma Saggio che Mondolfo ripropone nel volume Per il centenario di Rousseau (Formiggini, Genova) e poi con alcune modifiche nell'Introduzione alle opere di Rousseau (Discorsi e il Contratto sociale, a cura di R. Mondolfo, Cappelli, Bologna Rousseau e la coscienza moderna (La Nuova Italia, Firenze, di cui si ha una precedente edizione in lingua spagnola (Rousseau y la consciencia moderna, Imán, Buenos Aires Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica.  Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti   Socialismo e filosofia: I. La crisi e la necessità di un orientamento filosofico; II. Materialismo, realismo storico e lotta di classe; III. La necessità della filosofia della praxis, in Unità», Firenze, Ristampato nelle prime due edizioni di Sulle orme di Marx, Cappelli, Bologna Nella terza edizione in due volumi (Cappelli, Bologna) fu pubblicato privato della prima parte (La crisi e la necessità di un orientamento filosofico) e con qualche aggiunta. Anche in La cultura italiana del '900 attraverso le riviste, a cura di Golzio e Guerra, Einaudi, Torino Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Personalità e responsabilità nella democrazia, in La Cultura filosofica», Firenze Per l'amore della moralità e per la moralità dell'amore, in Critica sociale», Milano La preparazione degli insegnanti, in Unità», Firenze, La crisi della scuola media e il compito delle Università, in Nuova Antologia», Roma, Ripubblicato da Mon-dolfo, con alcune modifiche, in Libertà della scuola, esame di stato e problemi di scuola e di cultura, Cappelli, Bologna Discutendo di materialismo storico, in Rivista di filosofia neoscolastica», Milano, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Zur soziologie der Geschlechtsmoral, in Archiv für Sozialwis-senschaft und Sozialpolitik», Tübingen, Mohr, Per la biografia di Bruno, Rivista d'Italia», Roma, Appunti di Storia della filosofia La filosofia di Giordano Bruno, R. Università di Torino, Facoltà di Lettere e filosofia, Torino Acri e il suo pensiero, Discorso tenuto nella R. Università di Bologna, Zanichelli, Bologna. Il pluralismo nell'etica, in Rivista d'Italia», Roma Acri, in Rivista pedagogica», Roma La filosofia in Belgio, Rivista di filosofia», Genova La crisi del socialismo e l'ora presente, in Unità», Firenze La cultura italiana del '900 attraverso le riviste, vol. V, a cura di Golzio e Guerra, Einaudi, Torino Revolutionärer Geist und historischer Sinn, in Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, her-ausgegeben von Prof. Carl Grünberg Hischfeld Verlag, Leipzig. Successivamente in italiano: Spirito rivoluzionario e senso storico, in  Nuova Rivista Storica Roma, Le matérialisme historique chez F. Engels, Trad. de l'Italien par S.  Jankelevitch, Giard et Brière, Paris.  72. Chiarimenti sulla dialettica engelsiana Rivista di filosofia Genova Sulle orme di Marx con il titolo La dialettica di Engeis (Cappelli, Bologna Cappelli, Bologna Il materialismo storico in Federico Engels. Ristampato anche in Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti Spirito rivoluzionario e senso storico, in Nuova rivista storica, Roma, Revolutionärer Geist und historischer Sinn, in Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, herausgegeben von Prof. Carl Grünberg, Hischfeld Verlag, Leipzig. Nella versione italiana è apparso anche nella prima edizione di Sulle orme di Marx (Cappelli, Bologna e nelle successive. Presente anche in Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Dai sogni d'egemonia alla rinuncia della libertà. Discorso letto per la solenne inaugurazione degli studi nell'Università di Bologna il 5 novembre 1917, Zanichelli, Bologna. Confluito con una nota introduttiva e con il titolo La teoria della egemonia tedesca in Filosofi tedeschi: saggi critici, trad. di L. Bassi, Cappelli, Bologna Mondolfo e la guerra delle idee. Scritti a cura di G. Ferrandi, Museo storico del Trentino e Società aperta di Trento, Trento Imperialismo e libertà, in Unità  Il primo assertore della missione germanica: Herder, Rivista delle nazioni latine  Mondolfo e la guerra delle idee - Scritti Tra il primato d'un popolo e la missione universale delle nazioni, in Nuova rivista storica, Milano, Mondolfo e la guerra delle idee - Scritti Leninismo e marxismo, in Critica sociale, Milano,Poi in Sulle orme di Marx, a partire dalla seconda edizione (Cappelli, Bologna Studi sulla rivoluzione russa, a cura del Centro Studi di Critica Sociale, Morano, Napoli Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Leninismo e socialismo, in Critica sociale, Milano Sulle orme di Marx, Ristampato anche in Studi sulla rivoluzione russa Il socialismo e il momento storico presente, in Energie Nove, Torino, Poi inserito nelle prime due edizioni di Sulle orme di Marx: Cappelli, Bologna Cappelli, Bologna Il socialismo dopo la guerra): Cappelli, Bologna Recentemente anche in M. e la guerra delle idee - Scritti  L'insegnamento di Marx, in Critica sociale, Milano, Saggio apparso anche come Prefazione alla prima edizione di Sulle orme di Marx. Studi di marxismo e di socialismo,  Cappelli, Bologna Sulle orme di Marx. Studi di marxismo e di socialismo, Cappelli, Bologna. Per una coscienza realistica della storia e della rivoluzione sociale, in Critica sociale, Milano Sulle orme di Marx, Cappelli, Bologna Visioni realistiche e utopie rivoluzionarie. Presente anche in Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Problemi concreti: la scuola: I. L'azione pro schola» e la difesa della coscienza laica, in Critica sociale, Milano, Campane d'allarme, in Il Progresso, Bologna Problemi concreti: II. Il proletariato e la scuola media. La difesa dellafunzione sociale della finalità educativa della scuola di Stato, in Critica sociale, Milano Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del '900 alla Riforma Gentile Problemi concreti: III. Linee di un programma d'azione scolastica: Premesse generali; il concetto di servizio pubblico e la scuola, in Critica sociale, Milano Problemi concreti:L'amministrazione della scuola, in Critica sociale, Milano Problemi concreti: d) La partecipazione del proletariato alla cultura, in Critica sociale, Milano, Riportato anche in Libertà della scuola, esame di stato e problemi di scuola e di cultura, Gli adulatori del proletariato, in Cultura popolare, Milano Libertà della scuola, esame di stato e problemi di scuola e di cultura Intorno al progetto Rignano, in Critica sociale, Milano, Recensione a E. di Carlo, Ferdinando Lassalle, in Critica sociale, Milano, Ardigò, in Critica sociale, Milano, Bevilaqua, C'è uno spettro in Italia, Modernissima, Milano Critica sociale, Milano Ardigò, in Il Tempo Socialismo e lezioni della realtà, intervista con Rodolfo Mondolfo, in Il piccolo della sera, Trieste, 24 settembre. Il marxismo e la crisi europea, in Scientia Il problema sociale contemporaneo, relazione al IV congresso italianodi filosofia, in Rivista di filosofia, Bologna, Sulle orme di Marx, Cappelli, Bologna Parte di questo articolo apparve con il titolo Le condizioni della rivoluzione, in Critica sociale, Milano, Anche in Umanismo di Marx.  Studi filosofici Le condizioni della rivoluzione, in Critica sociale Sulle orme di Marx, 2ª edizione accresciuta di nuovi saggi, Cappelli, Bologna. La rivoluzione e il blocco, in La Giustizia, Reggio Emilia, 11 dicembre, p. 1. Per la realtà del socialismo, in La Giustizia, Reggio Emilia Le condizioni della rivoluzione, in La Giustizia, Reggio Emilia,  1 gennaio, p.1.  Martoff contro Zinovieff e l'antitesi fra socialismo e bolscevismo, in Critica sociale, Milano Sulle orme di Marx, Cappelli, Bologna Studi sulla rivoluzione russa Introduzione a F. Turati, Le vie maestre del socialismo, Cappelli, Bologna. Forza e violenza nella storia, Introduzione a S. Panunzio, Diritto, forza e violenza. Lineamenti di una teoria della violenza, n. III della Biblioteca di Studi sociali diretta da R. Mondolfo, Cappelli, Bologna. Pubblicata con l'aggiunta di alcune note in Sulle orme di Marx, II vol., Cappelli, Bologna Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici 1 corsi di esercitazione nelle Università, in Educazione nazionale, Roma funzione sociale della finalità educativa della scuola di Stato, in Critica sociale, Milano, Più recentemente in Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del  '900 alla Riforma Gentile Problemi concreti: III. Linee di un programma d'azione scolastica: a) Premesse generali; b) il concetto di servizio pubblico e la scuola, in Critica sociale, Milano, Problemi concreti: c) L'amministrazione della scuola, in Critica sociale, Milano Problemi concreti: La partecipazione del proletariato alla cultura, in Critica sociale, Milano, Riportato anche in Libertà della scuola, esame di stato e problemi di scuola e di cultura, Gli adulatori del proletariato, in Cultura popolare, Milano Libertà della scuola, esame di stato e problemi di scuola e di cultura, Intorno al progetto Rignano, in Critica sociale, Milano, Recensione a E. di Carlo, Ferdinando Lassalle, in Critica sociale, Milano, Ardigò, in Critica sociale, Milano, Recensione a G. Bevilaqua, C'è uno spettro in Italia, Modernissima, Milano Critica sociale, Milano,Ardigò, in Il Tempo, 16 settembre. Socialismo e lezioni della realtà, intervista con Rodolfo Mondolfo, in Il piccolo della sera, Trieste, 24 settembre. Il marxismo e la crisi europea, in Scientia Il problema sociale contemporaneo, relazione al IV congresso italiano= • archive. di filosofia, in Rivista di filosofia, Bologna Sulle orme di Marx, Cappelli, Bologna Parte di questo articolo apparve con il titolo Le condizioni della rivoluzione, in Critica sociale, Milano Umanismo di Marx.  Studi filosofici Le condizioni della rivoluzione, in Critica sociale Sulle orme di Marx, 2ª edizione accresciuta di nuovi saggi, Cappelli, Bologna. La rivoluzione e il blocco, in La Giustizia, Reggio Emilia, Per la realtà del socialismo, in La Giustizia, Reggio Emilia, Le condizioni della rivoluzione, in La Giustizia, Reggio Emilia,  1 gennaio, p.1.  Martoff contro Zinovieff e l'antitesi fra socialismo e bolscevismo, in Critica sociale, Milano Sulle orme di Marx, Cappelli, Bologna Studi sulla rivoluzione russa, cit., pp. 55-63. Introduzione a F. Turati, Le vie maestre del socialismo, Cappelli, Bologna. Forza e violenza nella storia, Introduzione a S. Panunzio, Diritto, forza e violenza. Lineamenti di una teoria della violenza, n. III della Biblioteca di Studi sociali diretta da R. Mondolfo, Cappelli, Bologna. Pubblicata con l'aggiunta di alcune note in Sulle orme di Marx, II vol., Cappelli, Bologna Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici 1 corsi di esercitazione nelle Università, in Educazione nazionale, Roma Il proletariato e la scuola, in La squilla Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del '900 alla Riforma Gentile La scuola e i partiti, in Il Progresso, Bologna, marzo. I discorsi di F. Turati ai Congressi Socialisti, in Critica sociale, Milano,  Il saggio corrisponde ad alcuni paragrafi tratti dalla prefazione di R. Mondolfo a F. Turati, Le vie maestre del socialismo, Cappelli, Bologna Collaborazione e lotta di classe, in Critica sociale, Milano Sulle orme di Marx, Cappelli, Bologna Per la comprensione storica del fascismo, in Critica sociale, Milano, Il saggio corrisponde ad alcuni paragrafi (in particolare il IV e parte del V) dell' introduzione alla raccolta Il fascismo e i partiti politici italiani, I volume, Cappelli, Bologna Significato e insegnamento della rivoluzione russa, in Critica sociale, Milano, La contraddizione iniziale; La conquista compiuta; La nuova contraddizione risultante e la progressiva consapevolezza del problema. Ristampati con alcune modifiche e aggiunte in Studi sulla rivoluzione russa, cit., pp. 67 ss. Estratto poi in edizione Benporad, Firenze Significato e insegnamento della rivoluzione russa, in Critica sociale, Milano, La rivincita della realtà; L'inevitabile soluzione: dal libero commercio al capitalismo;  La lotta e l'immediato rapporto delle forze L'anello e la catena; Le nuove condizioni del proletariato e la sua scissione in gruppi concorrenti; I nuovi problemi del Governo: la rivalutazione della moneta; Gli insegnamenti: a) non il dissolvimento ma lo sviluppo è condizionato dalla rivoluzione; on ne détruit que ce qu'on substitue; Le condizioni di un regime socialista: produzione e distribuzione;  I limiti dell'azione politica: forza ed economia. Ristampato con alcune modifiche in Studi sulla rivoluzione russa, La libertà della scuola, in Critica sociale, Milano, Riportato in Libertà della scuola, esame di stato e problemi di scuola e di cultura, cit., pp. 9-23. Recentemente in Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del  '900 alla Riforma Gentile Scuola e Stato. Lettera a Luigi Miranda, in Il Tempo, Roma Libertà della scuola, esame di stato e problemi di scuola e di cultura, La libertà e la scuola, in Il Tempo, Roma, 16 giugno, p. 3. L'esame di Stato, in Critica sociale, Milano, Libertà della scuola, esame di stato e problemi di scuola e di cultura, La formazione storica delle arti e dello spirito umano in Vitruvio, in L'Arduo, Bologna Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti Sempre nuove opposizioni al progetto su l'esame di Stato, in L'istru-zione media, Perugia-Bologna-Firenze, Lettera a Gobetti, in La Rivoluzione liberale, Torino Ricostruire, in La Giustizia Per la comprensione storica del fascismo, introduzione alla raccolta Il fascismo e i partiti politici italiani, I volume, Cappelli, Bologna. Per la difesa della libertà, in Critica sociale, Milano, Il problema della cultura popolare, in Critica sociale, Milano Il comunismo è la negazione del marxismo, in La Giustizia, Milano, 1 ottobre. Libertà della scuola, esame di Stato e problemi di scuola e di cultura, Cappelli, Bologna Prefazione a S. Diambrini Palazzi, Il pensiero filosofico di Antonio Labriola, Zanichelli, Bologna. Educazione e rinnovamento sociale in Mazzini e in Marx, in Rivista di filosofia Con alcune modifiche anche in Sulle orme di Marx, Cappelli, Bologna Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti Mazzini e Marx, in Critica sociale, Milano, Poi confluito in Sulle orme di Marx, Cappelli, Bologna, Il monito delle tradizioni del Risorgimento nazionale, in Istruzione media Scuola, patria e libertà, in La Giustizia, quotidiano del Partito Socialista Unitario, Milano, n. 52, 2 marzo 1923, p. 2. Più recentemente anche in Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del 900 alla Riforma Gentile Scuola, patria e libertà, in La Giustizia, quotidiano del Partito Socialista Unitario, Milano, Il materialismo storico: conferenza all'Università Proletaria di Milano, in L'Avanti!, Milano, 13 marzo. Volontà e necessità nella storia, scambio di lettere con Longobardi L'Avanti!, Il materialismo storico, in La Rivoluzione liberale, Torino Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Mentre la riforma si compie, in L'istruzione media, I punti oscuri, in L'istruzione media La riforma della scuola, in Critica sociale, Milano Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del '900 alla Riforma Gentile Il problema sociale in Mazzini e Marx, in Critica sociale, Milano, Con alcune modifiche confluito in Sulle orme di Marx, Cappelli, Bologna Scuola e libertà (Note polemiche), in Critica sociale, Milano,196. Risposta all'inchiesta tra scrittori italiani: Dove va il mondo?, Libreria politica moderna, Roma. Aspetti della crisi contemporanea, in Studi politici La riforma universitaria, in Critica sociale, Milano Libertà e funzione sociale della scuola nella riforma Gentile, in Cultura popolare Educazione e socialismo. Scritti sulla riforma scolastica (dagli inizi del 900 alla Riforma Gentile Si chiedono dati statistici, in L'istruzione media L'esperimento russo, in La Rivoluzione liberale, Torino, Verso la scuola confessionale?, in L'istruzione media Si chiedono dati statistici, in L'istruzione media La lotta di classe in Russia, in La Rivoluzione liberale, Torino Le attività del bilancio, in Critica sociale, Milano Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici  Contadini e proletariato nella Rivoluzione russa, in Nuova rivista storica, Milano Sulle orme di Marx, 3ª edizione in due volumi, Cappelli, Bologna: vol. 1 Studi sui tempi nostri, vol. Il Lineamenti di teoria e di storia critica del marxismo. La filosofia e l'insegnamento di Francesco Acri (commemorazione nel decennale della sua morte), in Rivista di filosofia Significato e insegnamenti della rivoluzione russa, con prefazione di C. Treves, Bemporad, Firenze Contributo a un chiarimento di idee, in Critica sociale, Milano Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Il rispetto dei diritti acquisiti e l'interesse della nazione, in L'istruzione media Marxismo e revisionismo, in Libertà, quindicinale della gioventù socialista, Milano La filosofia politica in Italia Raccolta sulla Storia d'Italia a cura dell'Istituto superiore di perfezionamento pergli studi politico sociali e commerciali in Brescia, Litotipo editrice, Padova Dal naturalismo di Feuerbach allo storicismo di Marx, in Rivista di psicologia, Bologna Estratto da Feurbach e Marx Sulle orme di Marx. Si trova anche in Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti Ricordando Antonio Labriola, in Critica sociale, Milano Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici  L'esame di Stato professionale, in L'istruzione media Rousseau, Discorsi e Contratto sociale, cur. M., Cappelli, Bologna. L'idealismo di Jaurés e la funzione storica delle ideologie, in Cri-tica sociale, Milano, Ristampato in Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti Dopo il primo esperimento, in Istruzione media Le cose più grandi di lui (i programmi degli esami di Stato), in Istruzione media Momigliano, in Rivista di filosofia, Torino Prefazione a F. Dal Monte, Filosofia e mistica in Bonaventura da Bagnorea, Libreria di scienze e lettere, Roma. Sintomi premonitori in Russia. Nuove forze politiche in vista, inCritica sociale, Milano, Studi sulla rivoluzione russa, Opere scelte di Beccaria, con introduzione e note a cura di  Mondolfo, Cappelli, Bologna La questione istituzionale, in La Rivoluzione liberale, Torino Fiorentino, in Nuova rivista storica, Milano, Da Ardigò a Gramsci, Nuova Accademia, Milano Discussioni marxiste, in La Rivoluzione Liberale, Torino Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Intorno ai nuovi concorsi, in L'Istruzione media I punti del problema: per definire la discussione marxista, in La Rivoluzione Liberale, Torino Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Liberalismo della vecchia destra, in Critica sociale, Milano, L'opera di Ferdinande Lassalle, in Critica sociale, Milano, Il problema delle classi medie, in Critica Sociale, Milano, Uscito anche come opuscolo con un preambolo di Filippo Turati nell'edizione La Giustizia, Milano 1925.  Il pensiero di Engels e la prassi storica della classe lavoratrice, in Critica sociale, Milano Proletariato e ceti intellettuali, in La Giustizia Beccaria e Kant, in Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia del Di-ritto, Genova Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti La negazione della realtà dello spazio in Zenone di Elea, in Rendiconti dell'Istituto Marchigiano di scienze, lettere ed arti Problemi del pensiero antico, Zanichelli, Bologna Per la serietà dell'esame di Stato, in Istruzione Media, Parma Critiche esagerate?, in L'istruzione media, Parma Veritas filia temporis in Aristotele, in Scritti filosofici per le onoranze nazionali di Bernardino Varisco, Vallecchi, Firenze. Presente anche in Momenti del pensiero greco, Morano, Napoli 1964,  pp. 1-20.  185. Das Problem der Mittelklassen in seiner Bedeutung für den  Sozialismus in Italien, in Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, herausgegeben von Carl Grünberg,  XII, p. 1 ss.  186. Beccaria filosofo, in Rivista di filosofia, Torino, XVI, n. 1, dicembre, pp. 1-11 ss. Tratto dall' introduzione a Opere scelte di Cesare Beccaria, Cappelli, Bologna Risposta a un'inchiesta sull'idealismo, in Il Baretti, Torino, Un cervello maschile, un cuore materno. In memoria di Anna Kuliscioff, in Critica Sociale, Milano Moto e vuoto, in Il Baretti, Torino. Il problema etico e culturale del socialismo nei rapporti col movimento socialista, in Critica sociale Materialismo, idealismo, realismo critico-pratico, in Il Quarto Stato, Milano Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Per la revisione del bilancio idealistico, in Il Quarto Stato, Milano Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Primum intelligere..., in Il Quarto Stato, Milano Umanismo di Marx. Studi filosofici Dall'esperienza agricola russa al problema contadino occidentale, in Critica sociale, Milano Studi sulla rivoluzione russa Diderot, D'Alambert e il Trattato delle sensazioni, in L'idealismo realistico, Roma Condillac contro Condillac. Critica della prima parte del Trattato delle sensazioni, in Rivista di Psicologia, n. 1. Sulla nozione di progresso, sintesi di una comunicazione al Congresso della Società per il progresso delle Scienza (sezione scienze filosofiche), in Atti del Congresso di Bologna. Il trattato delle sensazioni di Condillac, con introduzione su L'Opera di Condillac, Cappelli, Bologna. Spinoza e la nozione del progresso umano, in Rivista di filosofia. Anche in Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti La polemica di Zenone di VELIA contro il movimento, Rivista di Filologia e d'istruzione classica, Torino, Confluito poi con alcune aggiunte in R. Mondolfo, Problemi del pensiero antico, Der Faschismus in Italien (sotto lo pseudonimo di Rerum italicarum scriptor), in Internationaler Faschismus, herausgegeben von C. Landauer und H. Honegger, Karlsruhe. La polemica di Zenone di VELIA contro il movimento, parte II, in Rivista di Filologia e d'istruzione classica Problemi del pensiero antico, Zanichelli, Bologna Fichte, in Dizionario di scienze pedagogiche Vallardi, Milano, Confluito poi nella raccolta Filosofi tedeschi: saggi critici, trad. di L. Bassi, Cappelli, Bologna Il realismo di Roberto Ardigò, in Rivista di filosofia Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti Nel primo centenario di Roberto Ardigò, in Rivista internazionale di filosofia del diritto, Roma Romagnosi, in Dizionario di scienze pedagogiche, vol. II, Vallardi, Milano, Il pensiero antico. Storia della filosofia greco-romana, esposta con tesi scelti dalle fonti, Società Editrice Dante Alighieri, Roma-Genova-Milano-Napoli. Sintesi storica del pensiero antico, Società Editrice Dante Alighieri, Roma-Genova. Rassegne di storia della filosofia: I. Filosofia del Rinascimento, in Rivista di filosofia, XX, Torino L'antinomia fondamentale nella visione della vita e della storia di F. Nietzsche, in L'idealismo realistico Die Anfänge der Arbeiterbewegung in Italien bis 1872 und der  Konflikt zwischen Mazzini und Bakunin, in Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, herausgegeben von  Prof. Carl Grünberg, Hischfeld Verlag, XIV, heft 3, Leipzig Il superamento dell'utilitarismo e la coscienza morale nella dottrina epicurea, in Rendiconto delle sessioni della R. Accademia delle scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna, vol. 3, Azzoguidi, Bologna.  Confluito poi in Problemi del pensiero antico, c Responsabilità e sanzione nel più antico pensiero greco, in Civiltà moderna, Firenze Problemi del pensiero greco Razionalità e irrazionalità della Storia: per una visione realistica del problema del progresso, in Nuova Rivista Storica, Milano Collaborazione alla Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences della Columbia University di New York; voci: T. Campanella, A. Costa. I primordi del movimento operaio in Italia avanti il 1872 e il conflitto tra Mazzini e Bakunin, in Nuova Rivista Storica Die Anfänge der Arbeiterbewegung in Italien bis 1872 un Konflikt zwischen Mazzini und Bakunin Riproposto poi da Mondolfo in una rivista argentina Nella versione italiana, anche in Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti  Collaborazione alla Enciclopedia Italiana (Istituto Treccani); voce: Giordano Bruno, vita ed opere, religione e filosofia, dio e l'universo: il monismo, l'etica Nella sua versione rielaborata Mondolfo ripropone questo articolo in Figure e idee del Rinascimento, trad. di L. Bassi, La Nuova Italia, Firenze Tarozzi, L'esistenza e l'anima, in Nuova Rivista Storica Enciclopedia Italiana (Istituto Treccani); voci: Comunismo (esposizione critica della dottrina e della storia Filone di Alessandria, Helvétius Collaborazione alla Encyclopedia of the social Sciences della Columbia University di New York; voci: Epicure and epicureanism, Giuseppe Ferrari, Gaetano Filangeri, Pasquale Galluppi, Melchiorre Gioia, Gian Vincenzo Gravina, Theodor Karl Grün, Peter Alexeyevitch, Antonio Labriola. Collaborazione a Pedagogia (Enciclopedia delle Enciclopedie, Formiggini, Roma); voci: Didattica della filosofia Libertà e Laicità della scuola Entrambi riportati in Educazione e cultura come problemi sociali, Cappelli, Bologna Comunicazione al Congresso della Società Italiana per il progresso delle scienze su Criteri di studio del problema riguardante le origini della filosofia greca. Germi in Bruno, Bacone e Spinoza del concetto marxistico della storia, in Civiltà moderna, Firenze Germania nel 1932 (cfr. n. 228) e, successivamente, nel sulla rivista argentina Dialéctica Tra teoria sociale e filosofia politica. Rodolfo Mondolfo interprete della coscienza moderna. Scritti Un educatore scomparso: Marchesini, in La Cultura popolare Rapporti tra la speculazione religiosa e la filosofia nella Grecia antica, I, in La Nuova Italia, Firenze, II, dicembre, pp. 463-468. Intorno al contenuto dell'antica teogonia orfica, in Rivista di Filologia e d'istruzione classica Rapporti tra la speculazione religiosa e la filosofia della Grecia antica, II, in La Nuova Italia, Firenze Il concetto della umwälzende Praxis e i suoi germi in Bruno e Spinoza, in Grünbergs Fetschrift, C. L. Hirschfeld, Leipzig, pp. 365-376.  I Discorsi e il Contratto sociale di Rousseau, trad. con introduzione e commento, 2ª edizione, Cappelli, Bologna. Collaborazione alla Enciclopedia Italiana (Istituto Treccani); voci: Labriola Internazionale e Internazionalismo Il Giansenismo in Italia di Jemolo, in Rivista di Filosofia, Torino. Discutendo il problema dei caratteri differenziali tra filosofia antica e moderna, in Rivista di filosofia, Milano Nota sul genio ellenico, inserita nell'edizione italiana di E. Zeller-R.Mondolfo, La filosofia dei Greci nel suo sviluppo storico, I Presocratici; vol. 1: Origini, caratteri e periodi della filosofia greca, La Nuova Italia, Firenze  Arte e religione in Grecia secondo gli schemi del neoumanesimo, in Civiltà moderna, Firenze Tratto da M., Nota sul genio ellenico in E. Zeller-R. Mondolfo, La filosofia dei Greci nel suo sviluppo storico, Parte I: 1 Presocratici, vol. I: Origini, caratteri e periodi della filosofia greca, Nota sulla divisione in periodi della filosofia, in Archivio di storia della filosofia Zeller-R. Mondolfo, La filosofia dei Greci nel suo sviluppo storico, 1 presocratici, Origini, caratteri e periodi della filosofia greca, La Nuova Italia, Firenze La filosofia dei Greci nel suo sviluppo storico, Parte I: I presocratici, vol. II: lonici e Pitagorici, La Nuova Italia, Firene Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences della Columbia University di New York; voci: Lucretius, Karl Geory  Winkelblech (Karl Marlo).  E. Zeller-R. Mondolfo, La filosofia dei Greci nel suo sviluppo storico, Parte I: 1 Presocratici, vol. I: Origini, caratteri e periodi della filosofia greca, traduzione e aggiornamenti, La Nuova Italia, Firenze. Studi sopra l'infinito nel pensiero dei Greci, in Memoria della R. Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna, classe di scienze morali, serie 3, tomo 6, Gamberini e Parmeggiani, Bologna Azzoguidi, Bologna Eternità e infinità del tempo in Aristotele, in Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana, Firenze Il contributo di Zenone di VELIA alla scoperta dell'infinitesimale, in Archivio di storia della filosofia La preparazione dei greci alla comprensione dell'infinito, in Civiltà moderna, Firenze La concezione dell'Empireo in Platone, in La Nuova Italia, Firenze, marzo.  242. Il passaggio dal teleologismo al determinismo nella dottrina peripatetica dell'eternità del mondo, in Rivista di filosofia, Milano L'infinito nel pensiero dei Greci, Le Monnier, Firenze  L'infinità divina nelle teogonie greche presocratiche, in Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, Roma L'infinito nel pensiero dei greci, Le Monnier, Firenze L'infinità della potenza divina in Aristotele (Dal concetto negativo al concetto positivo dell'infinito), in Ricerche religiose, Roma L'infinito nel pensiero dei greci, Le Monnier, Firenze 1934. L'infinità dell'essere in Melisso di Samo (contributi a un processo di riabilitazione), in Sophia, Padova L'infinità divina da Filone ai neoplatonici e ai suoi precedenti, in Atene e Roma, Firenze, Le Monnier L'Infinito nel pensiero dei greci, Le Monnier, Firenze L'infinità del numero dai Pitagorici a Platone e ad Archimede, in Archivio di filosofia, Roma Prassi che rovescia o Prassi che si rovescia?, in Rivista internazionale di filosofia del diritto, Roma, XIII, fasc. VI, pp. 743 ss. Scritto che viene successivamente inserito da Mondolfo in Il materialismo storico in Federico Engels Collaborazione alla Enciclopedia italiana; voce: Materialismo storico Il contratto di lavoro nella voce Il lavoro Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences della Columbia University di New York; voce: Paruta. Lezioni di storia della filosofia svolte da M., a cura di Bortolotti e Wittig, Bologna, Facoltà di filosofia, Bologna La genesi storica della filosofia presocratica, in La Nuova Italia, Firenze, 20 marzo, pp. 82-94. Prefazione al libro di G. Fontanesi, Il problema filosofico dell'amore nell'opera di Leone ebreo, Libreria Emiliana, Venezia, pp. I-XIII. Problema umano e problema cosmico nella formazione della filosofia greca, Memoria presentata all'Accademia delle Scienze di Bologna nella sessione del 17 marzo, Azzoguidi, Bologna Problemi del pensiero antico Note sull'eleatismo di VELIA: a proposito degli Studi sull'eleatismo di G.  Calogero, in Rivista di filologia e d'istruzione classica, Torino Problemi del pensiero antico, Zanichelli, Bologna I problemi dell'infinità numerica e dell'infinitesimo in Aristotele, in  Rivista di filosofia, Milano L'infinito nel pensiero dei greci, Le Monnier, Firenze  1934.  Caratteri e sviluppi della filosofia presocratica, in Sophia, Roma, luglio-settembre, pp. 274-288. La giustizia cosmica secondo Anassimandro ed Eraclito, in Civiltà moderna, Firenze L'infinito nel pensiero dei Greci, Le Monnier, nella Collezione di Studi filosofici diretta da G. Gentile, Firenze. Recensioni in Pan: A. Rosemberg Storia del bolscevismo da Marx ai giorni nostri, Sansoni, Firenze, in Rivista internazionale di filosofia del diritto; N. Festa, I frammenti degli stoici antichi, vol. I, Laterza, Bari 1932; G. Della Valle, Tito Lucrezio Caro e l'epicureismo campano, Accademia Pontaniana, Napoli 1933; Id., Dove nacque T. Lucrezio Caro?, Stab. industrie editoriali meridionali, Napoli 1933, in Sophia; G. Pasquali, Pagine stravaganti di un filologo, Carabba, Lanciano 1933; Conte di Gobineau, Il rinascimento, trad. di F. Gentile Tarozzi, Cappelli, Bologna Civiltà moderna; G. Mayer, Friederich Engels: Eine Biographie, M. Nijhoff, Haag 1934; Marx-Engels, Historische, Kritische, Gesamtausgabe Werke Schriften, Briefe, Berlin, in Rivista di filosofia; C. Ottaviano, Joachimi abbatis liber contra Lombardorum, Reale Accademia d'Italia, Roma 1934.  261. Collaborazione alla Enciclopedia italiana; voce: Movimento  Operaio Fiorentino e il positivismo, in AA.VV, Onoranze a F.  Fiorentino nel cinquantenario della sua morte, Morano, Napoli Infinità dell'istante e infinità soggettiva nel pensiero degli antichi, in Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, Firenze Problemi del pensiero antico L'infinito nel pensiero dell'antichità  classica, cit.  264. La genesi e i problemi della cosmogonia di Talete, in Rivista di filologia e d'istruzione classica, Torino Physis e theion: intorno al carattere e al concetto centrale della filosofia presocratica, in Atene e Roma, Firenze, Le Monnier Il principio universale di Anassimandro, in Civiltà moderna, Firenze Questioni di storia della scienza greca, in Rivista di filosofia, Torino L'infinito e le antinomie logiche nel pensiero greco, relazione al Congresso della Società italiana per il progresso delle scienze, tenutosi a Palermo il 12-18 ottobre, Società italiana per il progresso delle scienze, Roma. Confluito poi in R. Mondolfo, I problemi del pensiero antico, Zanichelli Enciclopedia italiana: Sindacalismo, Socialismo Scienza (classificazione delle scienze e storia della scienza Problemi del pensiero antico, Zanichelli, Bologna 1935. Lezioni di storia della filosofia, a cura di Zambrini, Università di Bologna, Facoltà di lettere e filosofia, Bologna. Lezioni di filosofia moderna: Benedetto Spinoza, tenute dal Chiar.mo Prof M., a cura di Cavalli, GUF G. Venezian, Bologna Gli albori della filosofia in Grecia, in La Nuova Italia, Firenze, gennaio. Feuerbach y Marx. La dialéctica y el concepto de la historia, trad. di M. P. Alberti, Claridad, Buenos Aires.  Su una presunta affermazione antica della sfericità terrestre e degli antipodi, in Archeion Anaximenea, in Rivista di Filologia e d'istruzione classica, Torino Gérmenes en Bruno, Bacon y Espinoza de la concepción marxista de la historia, in Dialéctica, Buenos Aires, abril. Per Diogene d'Apollonia, in Rivista di filosofia, Torino Gli atomisti antichi, in Il Lavoro Formes et tendences actuelles du mouvement philosophique en Italie (in collaborazione con il Prof. Limentani della R. Università di Firenze), in Revue de Synthèse L'utopia di Platone, in Il Lavoro, 17 novembre, p.3. Aristotele ed Epicuro, in La Nuova Italia, Firenze Echi del centenario di Romagnosi, in Il Lavoro La vitalità di Aristotele, in Il Lavoro. La filosofia antica in terra d'Africa e le tendenze del soggettivismo. Estratto da Atti della XXV Riunione della SIPS a Tripoli, Raduno coloniale della scienza italiana, 1-7 novembre 1936. Relazione  Congresso della Società per il progresso delle scienze (Tripoli).  Problemi della cosmologia di Anassimandro, in Logos, Napoli Nota sulla cosmologia e la metafisica di Anassimandro introdotta come aggiornamento nel Il vol. dell'edizione italiana de E.Zeller-R. Mondolfo, La filosofia dei Greci nel suo sviluppo storico, Parte I: I Presocratici, Il vol.: lonici e Pitagorici, La Nuova Italia, Firenze, 1938, pp. 190 ss. Ancora sull'infinito e gli antichi, in Sophia La prima affermazione della sfericità della terra. Nota dell'accademico effettivo prof M., comunicata il 12 dicembre, in Rendiconti delle sessioni della R. 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L'attrattiva della bellezza poetica, con cui Lucrezio adorna la sua esposizione della teoria del progresso nella filosofia dell’orto intensifica il potere suggestivo di questa sulla mente dei filosofi romani. Cooperano, a Roma verso la visione ottimistica del progresso, altri influssi, come quelli del lizio e del portico che si riconosceno nella celebrazione da Cicerone del divino potere creatore dell'intelligenza dell’uomo. L'influsso democriteo si ripercuoteva in Diodoro Siculo attraverso Ecateo di Abdera. Quello dell’Orto agiva non solo sul grande poema di Lucrezio, ma anche (attraverso questo) sulla filosofia di Virgilio, Orazio, e Vitruvio. Certo, a Roma ci si mostrano due orientamenti opposti. Quello ottimistico, assertore ed esaltatore del potere creatore dello spirito umano e del progresso. Quello pessimistico, ispirato all'idea di una inferiorità naturale dell'uomo rispetto agl’animali, ovvero di una sua caduta dalla perfezione e felicità primordiali della mistica età saturnia alle miserie, alle fatiche e ai conflitti dell'epoca storica. Queste voci tetre risuonano in Ovidio e Plinio, come già anteriormente in quella di Sallustio (Catilina).  Ovidio, in Metamorph.-, influsso di Cicerone (De natura deorum), esalta la nascita dell'uomo (« natus est homo »), come dell'animale piú savio e di maggior capacità mentale tra tutti, dominatore della natura, di figura simile a quella degli dèi, l'unico che per la sua posizione eretta possa contemplare il Cielo. Ma Ovidio limita l'epoca beata dell’uomo all'età d’oro, quando non ancora l'uomo aveva scoperto i metalli, né inventato la navigazione, né le armi, né le fortificazioni, e neppure l'aratro e iutte le altre creazioni tecniche che sono per Ovidio fonti di pene e di danni per il loro inventore. La creatività della mente dell’uomo ha cosí un riconoscimento in Ovidio, ma come causa lamentevole d'infelicità. “Contra te sollers, hominum natura, fuisti, et nimium damnis ingeniosa tais Amores). D'altra parte Plinio (Natur. hist.) vuole umiliare l'orgoglio di coloro che - come Cicerone in De natura deorum, — affermano che il mondo fu creato *per* l'uomo; e li richiama alla considerazione di tutti gli elementi d'inferiorità che ha l'uomo rispetto agli altr’animali, e dei motivi della sua infelicità: un'anticipazione del pessimismo del “De miseria hominis.”  Ma nell'atteggiamento di Ovidio il riconoscimento (fatto a denti stretti) del potere creatore dell'intelligenza dell’uomo, rivela la forza con cui, nonostante ogni pessimismo, tale idea s'imponeva allo spirito dell'epoca. Aiutata certo nella sua diffusione dalla condizione storica, cioè dall'espansione trionfale del potere di Roma.  Ma ispirata nella sua affermazione da suggestioni teoriche derivanti da filosofi. Dall’orto attraverso l'affascinante esposizione poetica di Lucrezio, e da Cicerone. Influenze combinate si devono riconoscere appunto in Cicerone, nella sua celebrazione dell'eccellenza dell'uomo, del potere creatore dello spirito umano, del lavoro, dell'industria e della co-operazione tra gl’uomini, come fonti delle grandi conquiste della civiltà, che troviamo in “De natura deorum”, “De finibus bonorum et malorum”, “De legibus”, e “De officiis”. L'uomo, dice Cicerone in “De legibus,” questo animale previdente, sagace, molteplice, acuto, dotato di memoria, pieno di ragione e di prudenza, ha da dio la sua natura privilegiata, anzi partecipa con la sua ra-  lavor dichiarate alle he Coceo in “De officis”, L, s, dove ri  corda che Panezio ha sviluppato molto ampiamente e con numerosi esempi ciò che i capitoli 3-5 sintetizzano, specialmente intorno alla co-operazione tra gli uomini, indispensabile per la creazione di tante arti --  “senza le quali la vita non meriterebbe d'esser vissuta” . . Modernamente l'influenza di Panezio è  sione di richiamare l'attenzione nel saggio L'infinito nel pen siero dell'antichità classica, Firenze, La Nuova Italia] gione alla natura e alla comunità divine 7. Seminato sulla terra, ha ricevuto il dono divino dell'anima e la capacità della virtú, che è la natura perfezionata in se stessa ed elevata al suo grado sommo (“in se perfecta et ad summum perducta natura”); e, mediante l'imitazione della natura maestra, la ragione umana, usando la sua capacità industriosa (“sollerter”), è pervenuta all'invenzione di un numero infinito di arti (“artes innumerabiles  repertae sunt”).  La natura diede all'uomo — mediante i sensi messaggeri, la rapidità della mente e la luce dell'intelligenza -- i fondamenti della scienza (“quasi fundamenta quaedam scientiae”), di modo che, per se stessa, la natura umana sempre piú progredisce ed avanza (“ipsam per se natu-ram longius progredi”) e, da sé, senza aver bisogno di maestri (“etiam nullo docente”), arriva a consolidare e a perfezionare la ragione, partendo dalle cose le cui specie ha conosciuto per mezzo della intelligenza primordiale ed iniziale (“ex prima et inchoata intelligentia”) 3.  In tal modo — ripete Cicerone alla fine dell'Hortensius (come riferisce Agostino, De trinit.), con Aristotele, Protrept. fr. c Walzer (Rose), l'intelligenza è forza visiva e sforzo attivo della mente (“mentis aciem”), animata dal desiderio attivo dell'investigazione (“ratione et investigandi cupiditate”). E come la sua attività è rivolta ugualmente e congiuntamente  [Eredità di ARISTOTELE, Protreptico, fr. c Walzer = 61 Rose  (che Anoke qul Cierone a apia al concet aristotelice dele  potenza che per se stessa tende all'atto. La potenza fondamentale dell'intelligenza (“inchoatae intelligentiae”) considerata qui, è tanto teorica (argumentamur, etc.) quanto pratica (conficimus), e non è privilegio di pochi eletti, ma possesso di tutti (“communis omnium”). E Cicerone aggiunge ciò che già diceva Sofocle nel coro dell'Antigone e tornerà a dire nel rinascimento Pico nel suo “De hominis dignitate”, cioè che l'uomo ha nella sua natura la doppia possibilità, d'elevarsi verso la sommità del bene o di sprofondare negli abissi del male alla conquista della scienza e alla creazione delle arti, cosí — ripete Cicerone, “De finibus”, con lo stesso Protreptico di Aristotele - si deve riconoscere che l'uomo è nato per una doppia finalità, mentre ogni animale è nato per un unico compito: il cavallo per la corsa, il bue per arare, il cane per cercare, ma l'uomo, come un dio mortale, per due attività creatrici, intendere ed operare (“ut ad cursum equum, ad arandum bovem, ad investigandum canem, sic hominem ad duas res, ut ait Aristoteles, ad intelligendum et agendum esse natum, quasi mortalem deum”).  Queste idee hanno piú ampio sviluppo in “De natura deorum”, dove la superiorità dell'uomo sugli animali è affermata da Cicerone, seguendo le orme di Panezio, negli aspetti seguenti. La costituzione del suo corpo, la cui posizione eretta gli permette la contemplazione del cielo e gli dà la possibilità di conoscere il corso degli astri, di determinare le divisioni del tempo, di prevedere i fenomeni astronomici per tutto l'avvenire (“in omne posterum tempus”) e di trarre dall'ordine di essi la nozione della divinità legislatrice e governatrice del mondo. I sensi che alla percezione associano i giudizi di distinzione e di valutazione delle impressioni, e si fanno pertanto ispiratori della creazione di arti rivolte a cogliere e ad usare le sensazioni (“ad quos sensus ca-piendos et perfruendos, plures etiam quam vellem artes repertae sunt”); l'intelligenza che comprende, definisce, connette le cose e crea una scienza di tale potere ed eccellenza, che neppure in dio c'è qualcosa di superiore (“qua ne in deo quidem est res ulla prestantior” § 59). E per questa via l'uomo crea anche le arti, le une per le necessità della vita, le altre per il diletto (secondo la distinzione tradizionale di Democrito e Aristotele); e a questi risultati coopera anche il linguaggio che, come mezzo di comunicare le conoscenze e di influire sul sentimento e la volontà altrui, e il vincolo sociale che trasse l'umanità fuori della vita ferina primordiale (“haec nos iuris, legum, urbium societate devinxit: haec  a vita immani et fera segregavit”).  Ma nella creazione delle arti Cicerone torna a far notare, con Anassagora, l'opera della mano, la cui conformazione e agilità permettono all'uomo di operare tanto nelle arti di diletto (pittura, scultura, musica), quanto in quelle di necessità (agricoltura, edilizia, tessitura, cucitura, confezione di strumenti di metallo, etc.). «Per cui si comprende che noi abbiamo conseguito tutto ciò che concerne le cose scoperte dallo spirito e percepite dai sensi, mediante l'applicazione delle mani degli operai, per poter essere protetti, vestiti e salvi, e avere città, difese, domicilii, templi ». Possiamo prendere l'ali-mento e conservarlo; allevare e utilizzare animali per il trasporto e per l'agricoltura; estrarre i metalli nascosti dalle profondità della terra e forgiarli in strumenti e decorazioni; tagliare alberi per riscaldamento, cottura di alimenti, edificazione di case, costruzione di navi, che a noi — unici al mondo — permettono di dominare la forza del mare e dei venti. In conclusione, l'uomo si converte in inventore delle arti e in dominatore della natura, cioè in creatore di una nuova realtà, quella del mondo della cultura.  «Noi usufriamo dei campi, noi dei monti; nostri sono i fiumi, nostri i laghi; noi seghiamo le messi, noi tagliamo gli alberi; noi, mediante l'immissione di acque, diamo fecondità alle terre; noi chiudiamo i fiumi tra dighe, li inalveiamo, li deviamo; insomma cerchiamo di creare con le nostre mani una specie d'altra natura nella natura delle cose ».  Non seguiremo Cicerone nella sua dimostrazione successiva della tesi che il mondo fu creato al servizio dell'uomo, che è la tesi contro cui polemizza Plinio, ma che non interessa il nostro tema. Ciò che ci importa è la celebrazione menzionata del potere creatore dell'umanità, che si può considerare un eloquente commento esplicativo della citazione che il “De finibus” trae dal Protreptico aristotelico, la quale dichiara che l'uomo è nato per la doppia attività, conoscitiva e creativa, come un dio mortale. L'uomo contemplato qui da Cicerone è appunto quello che crea il mondo della cultura e lo sovrappone al mondo della natura; e Cicerone offre una formula efficace per esprimere tale creazione: « nostris denique manibus in rerum natura quasi alteram naturam efficere conamur».  Formula che, insieme alla ricordata definizione (“dio mortale”) tratta da Aristotele, ispira le 'linee memorabili dello Spaccio della bestia trionfante di Bruno, che sintetizzano il contenuto essenziale della dimostrazione ciceroniana: « gli dèi avevano donato a l'uomo l'intelletto e le mani, e l'avevano fatto simile a loro, donandogli facultà sopra gli altri animali; la qual consiste non solo poter operar, secondo la natura ed ordinario, ma, ed oltre, fuor le leggi di quella; acciò, formando o possendo formar altre nature, altri corsi, altri ordini con l'ingegno.... venesse a serbarsi Dio de la terra »  (Gentile, Dialoghi morali, Bari, Laterza). Anche quello che segue nella pagina bruniana, sulle necessità che acuiscono gli ingegni e fanno inventare le arti — di modo che « sempre piú e piú.... allontanandosi dall'esser bestiale, piú altamente s'approssi-mano a l'esser divino › poteva ispirarsi alle frasi di Cicerone relative all'uomo che « se segregavit a vita immani et fera »; frasi che, tuttavia, esprimevano un concetto comune ad altri filosofi antichi, da Democrito a Lucrezio, i quali insieme a Cicerone influiscono sulle celebrazioni della dignità dell'uomo e della creatività dello spirito, rinnovate dagli scrittori rinascimentali, da Manetti a Bruno e Campanella ?.  Ma in un particolare caratteristico il luogo citato dello Spaccio bruniano poté ispirarsi alla I Georgica di Virgilio, vale a dire nel considerare la mitica età dell'oro come epoca di pigrizia e di stupidità umane, e nel celebrare invece la dura necessità come causa del risveglio dell'intelligenza e della creazione delle arti. « Ne l'età de l'oro,” dice Bruno, “per l'Ocio gl’uomini non eran piú virtuosi, che sin al presente  cultadi, risorte le necessitadi, sono acuiti gl'ingegni, inventate le industrie, scoperte le arti; e sempre di giorno in giorno, per mezzo de l'egestade, dalla profundità de l'intelletto umano si eccitano nove e maravigliose invenzioni. Onde, sempre piú e piú per le sollecite ed urgenti occupazioni allontanandosi da l'esser bestiale, piú altamente 'approssimano a l'esser divino » Senza dubbio il mito dell'età aurea o saturnia, pertamente svalutato qui da Bruno, e motivo di sogni nostalgici per i filosofi dell'epoca d’Ottaviano, quando Ovidio lo evoca in Metamorph., collegandolo con l'altro mito esiodeo delle cinque età della degradazione umana, e lo stesso Virgilio torna a sognare un ritorno del regno di Saturno (« redeunt Saturnia regna ») nella profezia della Sibilla nell'Egloga IV.  Tuttavia questi miti si trovavano già in Esiodo in conflitto con la celebrazione del lavoro condizionante la dignità della vita, oltre che ogni acquisizione di beni.  3 Cfr. anche Gentile, «Il concetto dell'uomo nel rinascimento › ne Il pensiero del rinascimento, Firenze. E il problema torna a porsi per Virgilio, che lo risolve nella I Georgica in un modo che precorre Bruno. L’abbondanza e la facilità di vita della mitica età saturnia significano ozio e letargo mentale; e Giove, che nel detronizzare Saturno introduce le difficoltà, l'indigenza e la necessità del lavoro, da agli uomini per questa via il dono inestimabile dell'attività dell'intelligenza, creatrice delle arti e trionfatrice di tutte le avversità per mezzo del lavoro. «Giove, il padre (pater ipse), volle che non fosse facile la via della coltivazione, e dapprima fa lavorare i campi per mezzo dell'arte, e acuí per mezzo delle preoccupazioni gli spiriti dei mortali, e non permite che il suo regno s'intorpidisse in un pesante letargo », come accadeva prima del suo governo, quando nessuno lavora la terra, e questa concede tutto senz'esser sollecitata dal lavoro umano. Giove cancella totalmente le facilità e comodità, « affinché la necessità suscitasse le diverse arti, a poco a poco, mediante la meditazione ».  Cosí nasce l'agricoltura. Si scopre il modo di accendere il fuoco con la pietra focaia. Si incanalano i fiumi. Si inventa la navigazione, e il navigante impara a conoscere e nominare le stelle. Si inventano gl’artifici della caccia e della pesca. Si forgia il ferro e se ne fanno strumenti come l'ascia e la sega. «Allora vennero le varie arti; trionfano di tutte le difficoltà il lavoro instancabile e l'indigenza che assilla [gli uomini] nell'asperità delle condizioni di esistenza »:  Tum variae venere artes; labor omnia vicit improbus, et duris urguens in rebus egestas.  In tal modo, per Virgilio, la necessità e il lavoro, che Ovidio lamenta come una maledizione per la vita umana, sono una vera benedizione, perché risvegliano l'intelligenza e l'attività creatrice dell'uomo, e stimolano quella meravigliosa creazione delle arti e della cultura, i cui momenti e aspetti Virgilio sintetizza ispirandosi alla ricostruzione storica tracciata nel V libro di Lucrezio. Certo, Virgilio s'allontana da Lucrezio nell'accettare il mito dell'età saturnia, pur valutandolo negativamente rispetto a ciò che è piú essenziale e nobile nell'umanità, vale a dire, l'intelligenza e la creatività dello spirito. Ma un'eco piú fedele della concezione lucreziana sulla condizione primordiale dell'umanità risuona in Orazio (“Satyr.”) con la descrizione dei primi uomini che, come gl’altri animali, formano un gregge muto e turpe (mutum et turpe pecus), lottano tra loro con unghie e pugni, poi con bastoni e piú tardi con altre armi per soddisfare i primordiali bisogni di cibo e di riparo, finché non creano il linguaggio, desistendo dalle guerre, edificando città e creando leggi che impediscano i delitti. In una generazione successiva Giovenale (“Satyr.”, VI e XIII) ripresenta una descrizione analoga dello stato bestiale dell'umanità primitiva, satirizzando l'idea dell'età saturnia: anch'egli, probabilmente, influenzato da Lucrezio e dalla concezione epicurea della storia dell'umanità. Tuttavia, l'eco piú importante, teoricamente, di tale concezione ci si presenta nell'età d'Ottaviano (come oggi si torna a riconoscere da parte della critica storica) con Vitruvio, il quale sembra raccogliere dagli ambienti colti della sua epoca o compiere lui stesso una fusione delle idee esposte da Lucrezio con altre di varia provenienza, relative al progresso umano, derivanti da Cicerone, al cui insieme aggiunge l'intuizione dell'importanza che hanno per il progresso due fattori, apparentemente contrari, ma connessi da lui in una dipendenza mutua, che sono la divisione del lavoro e l'unità organica della cultura umana. Vitruvio mette in rilievo, nella sua concezione del progresso storico dell'umanità e della creazione della cultura, una molteplicità di fattori cooperanti: la durezza primordiale della vita; le esperienze fortuite che suggeriscono qualche mezzo per mitigare tale durezza; le capacità e potenze congenite negli uomini, che sono stimolate al loro esercizio dai due fattori suddetti, e sono avviate cosí ad uno sviluppo progressivo e alla produzione di risultati crescenti; la ripercussione che hanno i fattori citati sulla formazione di raggruppamenti umani permanenti, a partire da quelli temporanei primordiali, e sulla creazione del linguaggio; l'effetto prodotto da tali innovazioni, che non solo permettono l'assommarsi delle capacità individuali, ma provocano il loro acerescimento progressivo, dovuto sia al mutuo aiuto e all'esperienza dei vantaggi della cooperazione, sia allo stimolo reciproco derivante dall'attrito degli ingegni; il sussidio poderoso, che dà a tale processo l'uso di due strumenti meravigliosi, che sono il linguaggio, generato dalla convivenza sociale, e il possesso della mano, organo naturale incomparabile per afferrare ed elaborare le cose, la cui efficacia, già intuita da Anassagora, ha di nuovo posta in rilievo Cicerone; e infine l'imitazione e trasformazione della natura effettuate dalle arti, dove il conoscere è un fare e l'esperienza è un esperimento. Questo fare e sperimentare  воло геві  possibili precisamente dal possesso e dall'uso  delle mani, che rendono capace l'uomo di tentare i piú vari modi di combinazione ed elaborazione dei mezzi naturali, di modo che, a partire da principi minimi, le arti si elevano nel loro sviluppo verso risultati sempre maggiori e progressivi affinamenti delle loro capacità creative. Tutti questi elementi sono messi in rilievo da Vitruvio nel cap. I del libro II del De Architectura: Sulla vita degli uomini primitivi e sugl’inizi e incrementi della civiltà e dell'architettura.” La prima esperienza che, secondo Vitruvio, ha una funzione decisiva per togliere gli uomini dalla vita ferina primordiale e generare la convivenza sociale permanente, fu quella dell'incendio di selve prodotto da qualche tempesta. L'impressione di terrore iniziale è seguita dalla curiosità, per la quale gli uomini, dopo esser fuggiti, tornano ad avvicinarsi e, sentendo il calore del fuoco, intuiscono la sua utilità per la vita. Attratti dallo spettacolo, gl’uomini si riuniscono, concepiscono la possibilità di continuare ad alimentare il fuoco. E cosí iniziano la loro convivenza ed una comunicazione mutua delle loro impressioni mediante voci, che a poco a poco, con il tempo, si convertono in linguaggio. La posizione eretta e il possesso delle mani, che permettono il maneggio di qualunque oggetto, portano gl’uomini alla prima creazione di ripari e di tetti, mediante escavazione di tane o costruzioni di rami e fango che imitano quelle dei nidi di rondini. Lucrezio e  Cicerone insieme suggerivano a Vitruvio questa concezione delle fasi e dei fattori del processo. Vitruvio aggiunge l'idea di un'analogia generale di questo sviluppo storico presso i diversi popoli, allegando i documenti offerti da resti di costruzioni primitive che si trovavano in paesi civili come sul Campidoglio di Roma, e dalle edificazioni che continuavano a farsi in paesi barbari (Gallia, Aquitania, Colchide, Frigia, etc.). Queste osservazioni comparate, che presentano il passato dei popoli civili come analogo al presente dei barbari, potevano suggerire l'idea di un futuro progresso dei barbari verso uno sviluppo analogo al presente dei popoli civili, tanto piúin quanto Vitruvio rileva l'impulso che danno al progresso le relazioni mutue nell'interno d'ogni popolo. L'osservazione reciproca (egli nota) desta non solo la capacità d'imitazione, ma anche l'emulazione, per cui si perfezionano con il tempo i prodotti e si affinano la stessa intelligenza e la facoltà di giudizio dei produttori. Allora con l'osservazione delle costruzioni altrui e l'aggiunta di novità per mezzo delle riflessioni proprie, di giorno in giorno andavano migliorando il tipo delle costruzioni. Ed essendo gli uomini capaci d'imitazione e d'istruzione, nel celebrare giornalmente le loro invenzioni, si mostravano tra di loro i risultati delle loro costruzioni; e in tal modo, nell'esercitare i loro ingegni in competizioni, di giorno in giorno si facevano di giudizio piú raffinato ». Quest'ultima frase, “in dies melioribus iudiciis efficiebantur,” anticipa l'idea di Bruno, che gli uomini acquistano progressivamente giudizio « piú maturo »; il che si determina, secondo Bruno per tre fattori: l'accumulazione delle osservazioni, l'attività riflessiva e inventiva del pensiero, e la varietà delle cose osservate. Ma Vitruvio aggiunge un altro fattore piú importante: l'esercizio attivo del potere dell'ingegno, stimolato dalla emulazione (exercentes ingenia certationibus). In ciò Vitruvio raccoglie la suggestione di Aristotele relativa all'affinamento progressivo del giudizio per via del suo esercizio costante. Ma in Aristotele tale esercizio nasce dall'insoddisfazione e dalla critica delle idee altrui. In Vitruvio dallo sforzo d'emulazione. In entrambi, tuttavia, il processo si realizza tanto nello spirito individuale quanto in quello collettivo; e Vitruvio riconosce cosí la formazione storica dello spirito dell'umanità, considerando il vincolo e l'azione reciproca tra il perfezionamento dei prodotti dell'arte e lo sviluppo dello spirito produttore.Vitruvio esprime cosí u concetto tipicamente storicistico, nel riconoscere che lo spirito umano è in sé e per sé storia e sviluppo; concetto considerato abitualmente « tutto proprio dell'età moderna», come lo define Gentile (Il pensiero del rinascimento, cit.), nel trovarlo espresso da Bruno. Vitruvio riconosce e spiega tale carattere storico dello spirito in rapporto con la storia dell'architettura, che nel suo sforzo di perfezionamento progressivo, per rispondere sempre piú alle esigenze umane, si fa, secondo lui, generatrice di altre arti e discipline, per via dell'esercizio continuo cui obbliga la mente, che in tal modo si potenzia e sviluppa in se stessa nuove capacità, madri di arti e scienze nuove.  « Come, dunque, con l'attività costante (quotidie faciendo) avevano [gli uomini] rese piú esperte ed abili le loro mani per ogni costruzione (tritiores manus ad aedificandum perfecissent), e mediante l'esercizio instancabile dei loro ingegni (solertia ingenia exercendo) erano giunti con l'uso incessante alla creazione delle arti, allora l'attività industriosa aggiunta da essi ai loro spiriti (industria in animis eorum adiecta) fece sí che quelli che erano piú ben disposti e diligenti (studiosiores) si convertissero in artefici professionali (fabros se esse profiterentur) ».  Nasce in questo modo, dal progresso delle capacità intellettuali e pratiche, la divisione del lavoro; ma nasce e si mantiene legata all'unità organica della cultura, affermata già, con notevole vigore, da Vitruvio nel I cap. del libro I. Dove si fa notare per l'architettura il vincolo reciproco dell'attività pratica (fabrica) e di quella teorica (ratiocinatio), che non permette di raggiungere la perfezione dell'arte né al puro homo faber né al puro homo sapiens, ma solo a chi riunisce in sé entrambe le condizioni; e aggiunge Vitruvio che l'architetto ha bisogno di conoscenze di letteratura, disegno,  geometria, storia, filosofia, musica, medicina, diritto, astronomia, cioè di possedere una cultura organica: « tutte le discipline hanno tra loro un vincolo ed una comunicazione mutua e la [cosí detta] disciplina enciclica come un corpo unico è costituita di tali  membri ».  Certamente, come tecnico e teorico dell'architettura, convinto e preoccupato dell'importanza preminente della sua arte, Vitruvio nel I cap. del libro II, che stiamo analizzando, sembra che spieghi l'unità e connessione reciproche di tutte le arti e discipline come dovute ad un germinare di tutte dalla radice comune dell'archi-tettura, che per le sue esigenze ed i suoi sviluppi genererebbe le altre arti e scienze, e ne determinerebbe i progressi. « Dalla costruzione degli edifici progredendo gradualmente verso le altre arti e scienze (e fabrica-tione aedificiorum gradatim progressi ad ceteras artes et disciplinas) e utilizzando le armi del pensiero e la riflessione deliberativa', con cui la natura rafforzò le loro menti (cum natura cogitationibus et consiliis arma-visset mentes), essi trassero l'umanità dalla vita ferina e selvaggia a quella civile (e fera agrestique vita ad mansuetam perduxerunt humanitatem) ».  Allora si genera negli uomini la capacità di prepararsi nel loro spirito, e di guardar lontano per mezzo dei pensieri piú grandi, che nascono dalla varietà delle arti (tum autem instruentes animo se et prospicientes maioribus cogitationibus ex varietate artium natis); il che Vitruvio applica, indubbiamente, ai progressi del-l'architettura, ma è un concetto che s'estende da sé ad ogni sviluppo culturale. « Poi con le osservazioni degli  1 Se leggessimo, con qualche edizione, conciliis anziché con siliis, dovremmo pensare che Vitruvio rilevasse qui non già l'importanza della riflessione deliberativa (consilia), bensi quella della convivenza e della cooperazione sociale (concilia). Ma queste  ul-  time sono per Vitruvio creazione umana e non dono della natura.    studi portarono [le loro opere] dai giudizi errati ed incerti alle ragioni certe delle simmetrie. Quindi mediante le loro cure alimentarono e adornarono di piaceri l'eleganza della vita, accresciuta dalle arti (trac-  tando nutriverunt et auctam per artes ornaverunt vo-  luptatibus elegantiam vitae) ».  Si presenta pertanto, nella concezione di Vitruvio, tutto un processo storico nel quale l'uomo, spinto dai bisogni, guidato dalle esperienze, rafforzato dall'eserci-zio, sviluppa e traduce progressivamente in atto le sue potenze naturali, creando le arti e le scienze; ma in questo processo i prodotti reagiscono sul produttore; l'esercizio intensifica i poteri dello spirito e genera nuove capacità; i risultati realizzati si convertono in mezzi e impulsi per creazioni ulteriori; e in questo modo l'umanità progredisce e si sviluppa, creando il mondo della cultura e creando nello stesso tempo spiritualmente se stessa per mezzo del suo lavoro, come causa ed effetto insieme dei suoi progressi. La concezione della creatività dello spirito appare, dunque, raggiunta in pieno da Vitruvio. Lo scambio d'azione che Vitruvio vedeva effettuarel tra lo spirito produttore e i suoi prodotti nella creazione e nello sviluppo progressivo delle arti e delle scienze, significava per se stesso un processo storico di autocreazione e d'autosviluppo incessanti dello stesso spirito umano, che logicamente doveva presentarglisi come un processo infinito. Ma Vitruvio non segnalò, e forse non intuí neppure questa conseguenza della sua conce-  ' (Appare in questa visione un barlume del processo chiamato da Marx il processo della umwälzende Praxis, cioè dell'attività dell'uomo che si rovescia su se stessa e sull'uomo, trasformandolo nel trasformare se stessa.    zione, cosí come non l'aveva espressa né vista Aristotele, benché riconoscesse che il potere intellettuale dell'uomo va aumentando sempre, quantitativamente e qualitativa-  mente, con l'esercizio attivo delle sue capacità di indagine e di riflessione critiche.  La prima affermazione esplicita dell'infinità del progresso spirituale umano ci appare nell'antichità classica con Seneca, che tuttavia era stato precorso parzialmente da Filone ebreo, come diremo. Ma mentre nella concezione di Vitruvio l'infinità potenziale del progresso è in rapporto con il processo di creazione e sviluppo delle arti, a cui egli collegava la scoperta delle scienze, Seneca invece nella polemica contro Posidonio ripudia l'unità e identità tra l'homo faber e l'homo sapiens, che quello aveva affermato (cfr. Epist.).  Contro la celebrazione del progresso tecnico, inserito da Posidonio nello sviluppo stesso della saggezza, Seneca nella sua polemica sembrava ripudiare la creazione umana delle arti, accusandola di complicare e render difficile la vita, e sembrava ritornare, con l'evocazione di Diogene, all'ideale cinico-stoico della semplicità primordiale della vita conforme alla natura, che facilmente soddisfa le sue esigenze minime.  «Non fu tanto nemica la natura, da concedere la facilità della vita agli altri animali e volere che solo l'uomo non potesse vivere senza tante arti.... Siamo noi che ci rendemmo tutto difficile per la nostra tendenza a stancarci (fastidio) delle cose facili. Tutte queste arti, per le quali la città si eccita e rumoreggia, lavorano per il corpo, a cui prima si imponeva ogni [sa-crificio] come ad uno schiavo, mentre ora gli si prepara ogni [godimento] come ad un padrone » (epist. cit.).  Tuttavia questa posizione polemica non rappresenta integralmente l'orientamento spirituale di Seneca. Seneca è ben lungi dall'identificare la saggezza nel cui culto vede l'unica attività che possa render degna la vita umana - con la supposta felicità primordiale dello stato di natura. « Per quanto egregia e priva di inganni fosse la vita di quelli (primitivi), essi non furono savi.... non avevano ingegni perfezionati (consum-mata).... La natura non dà la virtú, e il diventar buono è un'arte.... Quelli erano innocenti per ignoranza; ma c'è una gran differenza tra il non volere e il non saper peccare (multum interest utrum peccare aliquis no-lit an nesciat). Mancava loro la giustizia, mancava loro la prudenza, la temperanza, la fortezza. La loro vita incolta aveva qualcosa di simile a tutte queste virtú; ma la virtú non è conseguita se non da uno spirito edu-cato, istruito e portato mediante l'esercizio assiduo fino al vertice. Certo nasciamo per questo, ma senza que-sto; e anche negli uomini migliori, prima che posseggano l'educazione, esiste la materia della virtú, ma non la virtú stessa » (ibid.).  In tal modo, la virtú torna a presentarsi connessa alla cultura in questa stessa Epistola 90, dove la critica a Posidonio sembrava portare ad una rivendicazione della natura primordiale, simile a quella dei cinici. La virtú, dunque, per Seneca non è un'ingenuità ignorante, ma deve avere chiara coscienza del male e del vizio per trionfare di essi. Seneca fa in certo senso presentire il concetto che ispira in tempi moderni la filosofia della storia di Fichte (Caratteri fondamentali dell'epoca con-  temporanea), secondo cui l'umanità, dopo di essere uscita dalla sua primitiva rettitudine incosciente, abbisogna della piú profonda coscienza ed esperienza del peccato, per elevarsi alla sua cosciente redenzione.  Con la rivalutazione della cultura come condizione e fondamento dell'etica e della filosofia, tornano ad essere pertanto rivalutate da parte di Seneca anche le arti, ed è riaffermato il concetto del Protreptico aristotelico,    della doppia e indivisibile funzione che incombe al-  Q  l'uomo, cioè quella di esercitare tanto l'attività intellettuale quanto quella pratica. Aristotele aveva affermato, secondo la testimonianza di Cicerone (De finibus), che l'uomo nacque per due cose: intendere e operare («ad duas res, ad intelligendum et agendum esse natum »); e Seneca (De otio) ripete che la natura volle che facessimo le due cose: operare e coltivare la contemplazione. « Natura autem utrumque fa-cere me voluit, et agere et contemplationi vacare ». Anzi, aggiunge che egli le fa entrambe, perché sono insepa-rabili, giacché neppure la contemplazione può esistere senza azione: « utrumque facio; quoniam ne contem-platio quidem sine actione est »'. Nessuna virtus è un bene reale, finché non passa all'azione (“in otium sine actu proiecta”). «Chi potrebbe negare che essa deve comprovare nelle opere i suoi progressi, e non limitarsi a pensare ciò che si deve fare, bensí esercitare anche le sue mani e portare a realtà le sue meditazioni? » (* sed etiam aliquando manum exercere, et ea quae meditata sunt ad verum perducere? »).  Questa rivalutazione dell'attività pratica, a causa del legame che l'attività teorica ha con essa, doveva portar seco anche un apprezzamento delle creazioni delle arti, che per questa via tornano ad inserirsi nel processo creativo della cultura, dove si afferma il potere e il valore dello spirito umano. Una celebrazione caratte ristica di questa creatività dello spirito, applicata alle opere della civiltà e delle arti, merita di esser segna-  É evidente la derivazione da Seneca del noto luogo dello  Spaccio bruniano (ed. Gentile): « e per questo ha determinato la providenza, che vegna occupato ne l'azione per le mani, e contemplazione per l'intelletto; de maniera che non con-temple senza azione, e non opre senza contemplazione. Ne l'età dunque de l'oro per l'Ocio gli uomini non erano piú virtuosi, che sin al presente le bestie son virtuose ». lata nell'Epistola, relativa all'incendio che in una sola notte aveva distrutto la città di Lione (Lugdunum), che era per la sua bellezza la gloria della Gallia. Seneca si rende conto che le opere dei mortali sono. condannate a perire e che noi viviamo tra cose caduche: « omnia mortalium opera mortalitate damnata sunt. Inter peritura vivimus». Ma questo carattere mortale delle opere è superato dall'imperitura energia creatrice del-l'umanità, che ricostruisce sempre ciò che è caduto e lo ricostruisce piú bello e perfetto, di modo che le distruzioni si convertono in fattore di progresso. « Multa cecide-runt ut altius surgerent et in maius ». Come Roma sempre risorse piú bella e potente dalle ceneri degli incendi subiti, cosí anche a Lione tutti competeranno per ricostruirla in forma piú grande e piú solida di quella per-duta: « ut maiora certioraque quam amisere restituant. Ciò che caratterizza l'uomo, dunque, consiste per Seneca nell'esigenza e nello sforzo costanti di superamento; per il loro mezzo lo spirito immortale dell'umanità si sovrappone al carattere mortale delle sue creazioni. Sono mortali - sembra dire Seneca — le creazioni partico-lari; ma è immortale la creazione progressiva della cul-tura, per essere immortale e inesauribile lo spirito creatore. In questo sforzo interminabile di superamento, le attività pratiche delle arti e della tecnica in generale si unificano, per Seneca, con le attività teoriche della scienza e della filosofia. Possiamo dire che Seneca precorre Lessing nel considerare che questo sforzo spirituale costituisce il valore della vita, che pertanto si afferma solo in quanto l'uomo amplia progressivamente il suo orizzonte e le sue aspirazioni. Se mai l'umanità potesse giungere ad un possesso pieno della scienza, e non avesse piú davanti a sé un cammino ulteriore da percorrere e difficoltà nuove da superare, non avrebbero piúsignificato la vita e il mondo in cui si sviluppa l'attività umana. È lo sforzo ciò che costituisce il valore della vita; la sua persistenza inestinguibile e il suo rinnovamento incessante presuppongono l'impossibilità perenne di raggiungere il fine ultimo; ma questa condizione non significa per l'uomo una maledizione o condanna ad una tensione vana che non può mai essere soddisfatta, bensí alimenta e mantiene il valore della vita come milizia ' ed aspirazione dignificatrice, che sono nello stesso tempo perfezionamento spirituale progressivo.  Quest'idea, dell'infinità dello sforzo e del progresso umano, derivante dall'impossibilità di conseguire il fine supremo, era stata intuita ed espressa parzialmente, prima di Seneca, da Filone ebreo. La posizione degl’uomini in qualsivoglia delle loro attività, dice Filone, sta sempre nel mezzo tra l'inizio e la fine: « Noi siamo trattenuti nell'intervallo tra la fine e l'inizio nell'impa-rare, nell'insegnare, nel lavorare la terra, nell'operare in ciascuna delle altre cose » (Quis rerum divin. heres sit); ma questa inferiorità che caratterizza la nostra imperfezione costante in confronto alla perfezione assoluta di Dio, non significa ristagno e immobilità spi-rituali, bensí movimento e progresso incessanti: « A misura che uno avanza nelle scienze e si pone stabilmente sul loro terreno, si fa tanto piú incapace di raggiungere i loro limiti.... La scienza per i piú capaci è una sorgente sempre in movimento, che produce sempre nuovo afflusso di idee» (De plantat. Noë).  In tal modo per Filone ogni approfondimento della nostra conoscenza è nello stesso tempo un approfondi-  [Cfr. Epist.: Atqui vivere, Lucili, militare est. Itaque qui iactantur et per operosa atque ardua sursum ac deorsum eunt, et expeditiones periculosissimas obeunt, fortes  viri sunt, primo-  resque castrorum; isti, quos putida quies, aliis laborantibus, mol-  liter habet, turturillae sunt, tuti contumeliae causa. mento della coscienza della nostra ignoranza: dalla conoscenza acquisita spuntano sempre problemi nuovi; ma dai problemi nasce il movimento progressivo dell'intel-ligenza, in un processo che non finisce mai a causa dell'impossibilità di raggiungere, con il pensiero, il termine ultimo. Questo, per Filone, si raggiunge certo nel rapimento dell'estasi, che è estinzione di ogni movimento attivo della mente; ma fuori della soluzione mistica, c'è solo un processo infinito, conseguenza dell'infinita di-  stanza, che ci divide dall'irraggiungibile oggetto supremo.  Vero è che di questi pensieri di Filone non ebbe alcuna notizia Seneca, il quale giunse per una via parzialmente analoga all'idea dell'infinito progresso conoscitivo, cou-  siderandolo determinato dall'infinita distanza, che ci separa sempre dal fine supremo delle nostre aspirazioni e dai nostri sforzi. Ci sono delle realtà — osserva Seneca in Natur. quaest., a proposito dell'igno-ranza del suo tempo riguardo alle orbite e alle. leggi di movimenti delle comete:  - che non possono essere colte dai nostri occhi, o perché permangono in luoghi sottratti alla nostra vista, o perché la loro sottigliezza è irraggiungibile per la nostra acutezza visiva, o forse anche perché non abbiamo la capacità di percepirle, nonostante che riempiano i nostri occhi. Tutte queste realtà sono accessibili unicamente allo spirito (animo) e debbono essere contemplate con il pensiero (cogitatione). Ma lo stesso pensiero che ci porta fino all'idea dell'esistenza di Dio, che creò tutto l'universo intorno a sé e lo governa, ed è la parte mag-  derlo nella  giore e migliore della sua opera, non arriva a comprenderlo nella sua essenza. « Non possiamo sapere che cos'è ciò, senza di cui nulla esiste, e ci stupiamo per non conoscer bene certi piccoli fuochi (le comete), mentre ci resta celata la parte maggiore dell'universo, dio. Quid sit hoc, sine quo nihil est, scire non possumus, et miramur si quos igniculos parum novimus, cum maxima pars mundi, deus, lateat »).  Ma da questa situazione nasce in noi uno stimolo all'indagine, che si intensifica con l'esperienza dei pro-gressi già realizzati. Ci sono conoscenze che abbiamo acquisito di recente, altre in gran numero che ancora non abbiamo raggiunto; ma - aggiunge Seneca - verrà un tempo in cui queste cose, che ora permangono occulte, le porterà alla luce un giorno futuro ed una indagine assidua di piú lunga durata.... Verrà un tempo in cui i nostri posteri resteranno stupiti che noi igno-rassimo cose che per essi saranno tanto evidenti. Multa venientis aevi populus ignota nobis sciet; multa saeculis tune futuris cum memoria nostri exoleverit reservantur. Pusilla res mundus est, nisi in illo quod quaerat omnis mundus habeat. Questa inesauribilità dell'indagine e delle scoperte supera con la sua infinità la gradualità progressiva. ma limitata, del processo delle iniziazioni ai misteri, a cui Seneca la paragona. Certo che, come ad Eleusi non si mostrano tutte le cose sacre al novizio, riservandosi le piú importanti per gli iniziati, cosí si può dire che la natura non concede in una sola volta ed a chiunque tutti i suoi sacri segreti, e anche quando ci crediamo iniziati, siamo ancora nel vestibolo del tempio e gli arcani rimangono chiusi nel sacrario interno. Ma nelle cerimonie mistiche gli iniziati pervengono, alla fine, a veder tutto; e nella scienza, invece, il processo di sco-perta non finisce mai. Dei suoi segreti, alcuni potrà sco-prirli la nostra età, altri le età successive (« aliud haec aetas, aliud quae post nos subibit aspiciet »); ma ri-marrà sempre campo per le investigazioni di « tutto il mondo ». E anche nell'ipotesi che gli uomini si dedi-chino completamente all'indagine e alla comunicazione reciproca delle conoscenze acquisite, Seneca dice che a  mala pena (vix) si giungerebbe a quel fondo dove è collocata la verità che ora cerchiamo alla superficie e con leggerezza (ibid., cap. 32); e l'esplorazione di questo fondo, secondo le dichiarazioni precedenti, esigerebbe sempre uno sforzo investigativo infinito.  La sospensione dello sforzo e del lavoro, dunque, non solo ritarda o impedisce del tutto le grandi conquiste ulteriori (« tarde magna proveniunt, utique si labor ces-sat »: ), e impedisce che si trovi alcunché di ciò che gli antichi indagarono in modo insufficiente, ma fa perdere anche le stesse scoperte già realizzate (« adeo nihil invenitur ex his quae parum investigata antiqui reliquerunt, ut multa quae inventa erant obliterentur »:  cap. 32). Donde la necessità e l'obbligo morale, per cia-scuno, di mantenere attivo lo sforzo incessante e di cooperare attivamente alla grande opera di conquista collettiva dell'umanità. Coloro che rimangono soddisfatti delle acquisizioni già realizzate dagli antecessori, non si rendono conto dell'immenso cammino da percorrere, che si estende davanti a noi. «Non si troverebbe mai nulla, se restassimo contenti con ciò che è già stato trovato. Inoltre, chi si limita a seguire un altro, non trova nulla per conto suo, anzi, non cerca neppure. Ma coloro che hanno promosso queste investigazioni sono per noi guide, non padroni. [Il cammino del]la verità è aperto a tutti, non è ancora occupato, anzi gran parte di esso resta ancora da percorrere agli uomini del futuro › (Epist.). Confidiamo pertanto e molto nel giudizio dei grandi uomini, ma rivendichiamo anche l'uso del giudizio nostro. Forse neppur essi ci han lasciato scoperte effettuate, ma indagini da compiere » (* Num illi quoque non inventa, sed quaerenda nobis reliquerunt »:  Epist.).  «Non mi sembra che i predecessori si siano impadroniti con la forza (praeripuisse) di ciò che si poteva    dire, ma che ce lo abbiano solamente mostrato (ape-ruisse). Se non che c'è molta differenza tra l'avvicinarsi ad una materia esaurita (consumptam) e ad una solamente preparata (subactam): questa va crescendo giorno per giorno, e le invenzioni effettuate non sono ostacoli per chi realizzerà invenzioni ulteriori (« crescit in dies, et inventuris inventa non obstant »: Epist.). Anzi, chi ha qualcosa da insegnare agli altri, deve spargerlo come semente feconda (« seminis modo spargenda sunt»), la quale, per quanto piccola, cadendo in terreno adatto sviluppa le sue forze, e dalla sua piccolezza originaria, crescendo fino alle sue dimensioni massime, si diffonde (« ex eo minimo in maximos auctus diffunditur»). Gli insegnamenti son come le sementi: ancorché siano limitati (angusta), possono sviluppare una grande efficacia, purché una mente idonea li accolga e li raduni in se stessa; e a sua volta questa mente ne genererà molti altri e ren-    derà piú di quello che ricevette » (Epist. 38).  Naturalmente questo processo storico di accrescimento progressivo della cultura, nella successione delle generazioni e delle comunicazioni da maestri a disce-poli, esige l'attività vivente degli spiriti ricettori. Quindici secoli piú tardi G. Bruno dirà che se « di questi alcuni, che son stati appresso, non siino però stati piú accorti, che quei che furon prima.... questo accade per ciò che quelli non vissero.... gli anni altrui, e, quel che è peggio, vissero morti quelli e questi negli anni pro-prii » (Cena delle Ceneri, ed. Gentile).  Una esigenza analoga aveva affermato Seneca nella  Epist. 84, dichiarando che gli insegnamenti devono, come alimenti digeriti, trasformarsi in forze e sangue di chi li assimila in vires et sanguinem transeunt. Le conoscenze ingerite non debbon lasciarsi tali e quali sono (integra), affinché non restino come cose estranee (alie-na): dobbiamo digerirle (concoquamus), affinché sianonutrimento dell'ingegno e non peso della memoria. I discepoli o le generazioni successive devono assomigliare ai loro maestri e padri come figli viventi e attivi, non come immagini morte: « imago res mortua est »; e nella trasmissione della cultura, invece, occorrono spiriti viventi che (come dirà Bruno) vivano attivamente gli anni dei predecessori e non vivano morti gli anni propri, bensí progrediscano sempre piú. Si deve imprimere la forma della propria personalità a tutti gli elementi di cultura che si raccolgono, affinché confluiscano in una unità (in unitatem illa competant) come le voci di un coro. Tale voglio che sia il nostro spirito, che abbia in se stesso molte arti, molti precetti, gli esempi di molte generazioni, ma facendoli confluire tutti in una unità», vivente e attiva (« ut multae in illo artes, multa praecepta sint, multarum aetatum exempla, sed in unum conspirata).  L'Epistola 84 integra pertanto l'affermazione del-l'Epistola 80, che lo spirito (animus) non è come il corpo, che abbisogna dall'esterno di molto alimento, di molta bevanda, di molto olio e di lunghe cure; lo spirito invece (continua l'Epistola 80) cresce da se stesso, si alimenta e si esercita da sé, ed abbisogna solo della volontà per il suo perfezionamento. L'Epistola 84, dunque, riconosce che anche lo spirito abbisogna del suo alimento, che consiste nella cultura che riceve dalle generazioni precedenti e dall'ambiente sociale in cui si sviluppa, e che anch'esso deve, non meno del corpo, assimilare il suo alimento e trasformarlo in proprio sangue e forza attivi.  Certamente egli deve avere in sé l'energia della volontà richiesta dall'Epistola 80: ossia deve, secondo il paragone dell'Epistola 39, essere come una fiamma che s'innalza in linea retta e che non può essere inclinata e oppressa, né tanto meno aver tregua: cosí lo spirito    è in movimento ed è mobile e attivo tanto piú quanto piú è energico. Ma questa energia, questa attività, questo movimento spirituali non si esercitano nel vuoto,    bensí nel mondo della cultura, che è creazione dello spirito; nel qual mondo si forma cosí la tradizione vivente e attiva, che è conservazione e accrescimento in-cessanti.  Seneca ha visto che questo doppio aspetto della tradizione implica un doppio atteggiamento spirituale: di dipendenza e d'indipendenza rispetto al passato. I diritti del passato devono essere riconosciuti, ma come condizione e mezzo di salvare e assicurare i diritti dell'avve-nire, che sono diritti di un progresso infinito. Venero pertanto — dice l'Epistola 64 - le invenzioni della sapienza e i loro inventori; bisogna avvicinarsi ad essi come ad una eredità collettiva. A nostro beneficio sono state effettuate queste acquisizioni e questi lavori. Ma comportiamoci come buoni padri di famiglia; rendiamo piú ampia l'eredità ricevuta, cosi che questa passi da noi alla posterità fatta maggiore. Molto lavoro resta ancora da compiere, e molto ne resterà poi; né a nessuno, anche se nasca dopo migliaia di secoli, sarà preclusa l'occasione di aggiungere ancora qualcosa di piú ». Anche nell'ipotesi assurda, che gli antichi avessero inventato tutto, resterebbero sempre nuove l'utilizzazione, la scienza e la disposizione delle invenzioni altrui. Ma siamo ben lungi dalla possibilità di ammettere l'ipotesi citata. Quelli che esistettero prima di noi « multum ege-  runt, sed non peregerunt ».  Certamente dobbiamo ammirarli e onorarli come dei, e professare verso « i precettori del genere umano, da cui ci vennero i principi di un bene tanto grande, la stessa venerazione che dobbiamo ai nostri maestri personali ». Tuttavia l'onore migliore, anzi l'unico onore degno ed efficace che i discepoli possano rendere ai mae-    stri e i figli ai padri, consiste, secondo le affermazioni esplicite di Seneca già citate, nel far viva e operante la loro eredità, nel proseguire le vie che essi ci aprirono, cioè nel compiere per ciò che possiamo il progresso della cultura, la cui infinità esige sempre l'attività creatrice di ogni generazione nel trascorrere infinito del tempo.  In questo senso devono intendersi le affermazioni della Epistola 102, relative allo spirito: « Lo spirito umano è una realtà grande e generosa, che non tollera gli si pongano mai limiti che non gli siano comuni anche con Dio»; cioè afferma la sua esigenza di infinità e vuole tradurla in atto nel doppio aspetto spaziale e temporale. Lo spirito pertanto non accetta che gli si attribuisca una patria umile e limitata, come sarebbe la città natale di ciascuno, e reclama come propria patria tutto l'universo; e «non permette che gli si assegni un'epoca limitata: tutti gli anni sono miei (dice); nessun tempo è inaccessibile al pensiero ». Ma questa doppia esigenza di infinità - che significa coscienza di un potere infinito, e che, quanto al tempo, si estende ugualmente verso il passato e verso il futuro — vale, secondo il pensiero espresso di Seneca, tanto per la contemplazione quanto per l'azione creativa. La contemplazione si realizza per mezzo dell'investigazione e (come vedemmo)   piccola cosa sarebbe il mondo se in esso non avesse sempre tutto il mondo qualcosa da investigare  (Nat.  quaest.); ma d'altra parte (come vedemmo) neppur la contemplazione può darsi senza azione: ne con-  templatio quidem sine actione est › (De otio).  Talché lo spirito deve effettuarle entrambe ad un tempo, nella loro mutua correlazione, e considerare l'infinita estensione dell'universo in tutte le sue dimensioni, e del tempo nella sua doppia direzione di passato e futuro, non solo come oggetto di contemplazione conoscitiva, ma anche come campo d'azione creativa. Per questa via, nellaconcezione delineata da Seneca, lo spirito riconosce ве stesso nell'infinita creazione della cultura, opera del suo infinito passato e compito del suo infinito avvenire 1.  m). In tal modo, nell'affermare esplicitamente e mettere in evidenza sotto vari aspetti l'infinità del processo storico di creazione della cultura e d'accrescimento dello spirito umano, Seneca portava la teoria del progresso al suo piú alto grado di compimento nell'antichità. Dopo di lui, nonostante l'attivismo della gnoseologia e della pedagogia di Plutarco e di Plotino, il predominio crescente dell'orientamento mistico nella filosofia non favorí certo nuovi sviluppi della teoria del progresso; la cui tradizione, tuttavia, lungi dal perdersi, appare conservata — come abbiamo visto a proposito di Aristotele  anche in scrittori tardi come Asclepio e Giovanni  1 Meritano di essere ricordate alcune altre dichiarazioni signi-  Epansa (Sice rel Eple 65) Eaar dee appreanere ne che a  riferisce alle cose divine e alle umane, alle passate e alle future, alle caduche e alle eterne, al tempo, etc.»; e qui Seneca cita esempi delle « innumerabiles questiones» che si pongono per la conoscenza di ogni sfera e di ogni aspetto della realtà universale.  Ma il De otio, mostra che all'infinito numero dei problemi corrisponde l'infinita curiosità (curiosum ingenium) dell'uo-  mo: il desiderio di conoscere lo sconosciuto (cupiditas ignota no-scendi) ci spinge ai viaggi ed alla navigazione, alle investigazioni naturali ed agli scavi, alle ricerche storiche relative all'umanità  ad che poe eseri al dd a del come o aire dacueione dei  probiem pelaurs ar ateria dd ale epifio)  relativi alla materia ed allo spirito, etc. Nello stesso  capitolo del “De otio” aggiunge (come abbiamo già ricordato) che la contemplazione non può mai essere senza azione, e che le cose meditate esigono la loro realizzazione mediante l'esercizio della mano; di modo che il processo infinito di creazione della cultura è inteso nell'unità di teoria e pratica. Filopono; e la loro fonte al riguardo, Aristotele, ci attesta che tale teoria si è trasmessa senza soluzione di continuità. Ma Plutarco ci fa udire l'eco tanto di idee provenienti da Archita e Democrito, intorno alla funzione che spetta alla necessità nel processo storico delle creazioni umane, quanto dell'ordine cronologico in cui Democrito e Aristotele distribuivano la creazione progressiva delle arti di necessità, di quelle di abbellimento e delle scienze. E nello stesso II secolo cui appartiene Aristocle, un documento caratteristico ci dimostra la diffusione raggiunta dall'idea del progresso umano nella coscienza pubblica dell'epoca; documento che consiste nell'utilizzazione che fa Luciano (“Erotes”) di questa idea con fini satirici. L'apologia paradossale dell'amore per gli efebi, che Luciano fonda sul principio che, essendo creazione piú recente dell'amore per le donne, deve costituire un progresso rispetto a questo, poteva avere significato come satira solo in un clima spirituale dove l'idea del progresso figlio del tempo fosse divenuto generale e dominante.  Nella sua esposizione di questa teoria, Luciano dipende specialmente dalla tradizione democriteo-epicurea, ma con infiltrazioni della tradizione platonico-ari-stotelica relativa al rinnovamento ciclico successivo alle catastrofi, e con derivazioni anche da altre fonti. Da Democrito ad Epicuro deriva la descrizione della vita ferina primordiale: « i primi uomini nati dovevano cercare un rimedio per la fame d'ogni giorno, e per il fatto che erano preda della indigenza presente e che la pe-  o chi il ato  nuria non permetteva loro alcuna scelta del migliore, dovevano mangiare le erbe che trovavano, e le radici tenere che dissotterravano, e soprattutto le ghiande delle querce. Mentre la loro vita permaneva cosí incolta e   non concedeva loro ancora la comodità per esperimenti giornalieri al fine di trovare il meglio, essi dovevano accontentarsi di quelle stesse cose necessarie, poiché il tempo, incalzandoli, non permetteva loro l'invenzione di un buon regime». Anche per ciò che concerne la necessità di difese, gli uomini subito, all'inizio della vita, avendo bisogno di coprirsi, 'avvolgevano nelle pelli delle fiere scorticate ed escogitavano come rifugio contro il freddo le grotte delle montagne o le cavità disseccate di radici o alberi antichi».  piú che democritea, poiché è scomparsa in essa, come  pia wete  Questa descrizione è evidente eredità epicurea ancor  tra gli epicurei, la distinzione introdotta da Democrito tra i momenti successivi della prima fase di vita del-  l'umanità. Manca inoltre in Luciano ogni allusione all'introduzione della convivenza sociale e del linguaggio e alla scoperta del fuoco, già considerati dall'epicurei-smo; ma la suggestione epicurea si riconosce nella spiegazione che dà tanto dell'uscita dallo stato primordiale mediante l'agricoltura, quanto delle invenzioni della tessitura e dell'edilizia per via di un'imitazione dei ripari naturali (pelli e caverne) usati primordialmente. La capacità di un'imitazione dei processi naturali, che ripro-ducendoli li modifica e li adatta alle proprie esigenze e finalità, era già per gli epicurei un carattere che differenziava l'uomo dagli altri animali, incapaci di uscire dalla loro condizione naturale originaria. Tuttavia sembra che in Luciano si perda la comprensione della funzione attribuita dagli epicurei alla necessità come forza stimolante dell'intelligenza umana; Luciano la considera piuttosto un ostacolo alla ricerca del meglio. Solamente (dice) « dopo che le necessità urgenti ebbero fine, le intelligenze (zoyouo) delle generazioni successive, liberate dalla necessità, trovarono l'occasione d'inventarequalche miglioramento, e di lí a poco a poco s'accreb-bero al tempo stesso le scienze. E questo ci è possibile congetturarlo dalla considerazione delle arti piú perfezionate ».  Può esservi in queste linee un'eco (certo confusa) della distinzione democriteo-aristotelica dei tre momenti successivi di creazione progressiva: delle arti di neces-sità, di quelle d'ornamento e delle scienze disinteressate; certo Luciano -- utilizzando l'esempio dell'arte tessile, preso dagli epicurei, e quello dell'architettura, derivante forse da Vitruvio - insiste specialmente sul carattere graduale e quasi insensibile dei progressi, dicendo che «le arti presero per maestro il tempo » e progredirono « segretamente». E questa idea di un processo graduale sembra associarsi a quella di un rinnovamento ciclico, cioè alla teoria platonico-aristotelica della rinascita progressiva della cultura dopo le catastrofi distruttrici -  idea rievocata nel II secolo da Aristocle - poiché Luciano scrive che « ciascuna di queste arti e scienze, che giaceva muta e coperta in molto oblio, come da un lungo tramonto a poco a poco si levò nella sua luce raggiante ». Questa confluenza di elementi di derivazione tanto diversa è un indice interessante della conservazione di differenti rappresentazioni del progresso nell'epoca di Luciano, che le mescola senza preoccuparsi molto dei loro eventuali contrasti. E cosí, nonostante la sua apparente accettazione della teoria ciclica platonico-aristote-lica, Luciano delinea un processo di sviluppo della cul-tura, che per se stesso gli si presenta infinito, cosí come era apparso a Seneca. « Poiché ciascuno che faceva qualche scoperta la trasmetteva alla posterità; e quindi la successione di quelli che ricevevano l'eredità, facendo aggiunte a ciò che avevano appreso, continuò a riempire le lacune esistenti ». E cosí ‹ le scienze varie... mediante    sforzi (uoris) si preparano per arrivare (EUENOV 7ÇELV)  alla loro chiara manifestazione, spinte dal tempo infinito (úò To aiovos), che non lascia niente senza indagare. Ma ciò che agisce attivamente sugli uomini attraverso il corso del tempo è (per dichiarazione esplicita di Lu-ciano) « l'intelligenza (ppóvnois), che si accompagna alla scienza e trae dal frequente sperimentare la possibilità di scegliere l'ottimo ». Pertanto « dobbiamo considerare necessario lo studio dell'antico, ma onorare come migliore ciò che la vita seppe trovare poi, dopo aver raggiunto la possibilità di dedicarsi alla riflessione razionale  (поугомоїс) ».  Torna cosí in Luciano il concetto della tradizione vivente, che non è conservazione cristallizzata, bensí creazione progressiva continua realizzata dalla vita; torna l'idea dell'infinità di questo processo, che si estende dal passato e dal presente verso l'avvenire.  Riassumendo, possiamo dire che per tutti gli assertori antichi dell'idea del progresso umano la natura offra il punto di partenza allo sviluppo dell'attività creatrice dell'intelligenza dell'uomo; quindi le conquiste compiute da ogni generazione offrono alle successive i mezzi e gli stimoli per nuovi incessanti esperimenti e nuove acqui-sizioni; e in tal modo la creazione della cultura progredisce insieme con l'intelligenza creatrice. L'antichità dichiara con Cicerone ciò che tornerà a dichiarare il rinascimento con Bruno; cioè che l'umanità è caratterizzata dal suo sforzo incessante di creare, mediante l'opera della sua intelligenza e delle sue mani, un'altra natura, altri corsi e altri ordini al di sopra di quelli che le furono dati naturalmente; e per questa creatività del suo spirito l'uomo merita d'esser considerato  «come un dio mortale» o « dio della terra. Dai presocratici e dai poeti tragici fino a Seneca innegabilmente l'idea della creatività dello spirito si afferma e si sviluppa nell'antichità, e si ripercuote poi sugli ultimi secoli della cultura classica, da Luciano ed Aristocle ad Asclepio e Giovanni Filopono. Per negare agl’antichi il raggiungimento di tale intuizione, occorre chiudere gli occhi alla realtà storica e cancellare l'ampia documentazione che conferma la sua esistenza. Rodolfo Mondolfo. Mondolfo. Keywords: antica filosofia italica. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice, Mondolfo, e la filosofia greco-romana," per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia. Mondolfo

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Monferrato: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – la scuola di Casale Monferrato -- filosofia piemontese -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Casale Monferrato). Filosofo italiano. Casale Monferrato, Alessandria, Piemonte. Autore di opere di teologia e scienza e legato pontificio. Entra nell'ordine francescano nella provincia genovese. Docente presso lo studio francescano di Assisi. Compone il saggio. “Quaestio de velocitate motus alterationis, Venezia. In esso presenta un'analisi grafica del movimento dei corpi uniformemente accelerati. La sua attività di insegnamento in fisica matematica influenza gli studiosi che operarono a Padova e Galilei che ri-propose idee simili. ‘Giovanni da Casale’, Treccani. Filosofia Filosofo del XIV secolo Teologi italiani Casale Monferrato Storia della scienza. Grice: “Casali dicusses the velocity of motion of alternation. He wisely remarks that if one takes the example of the quality of hotness, one may conceive of a UNI-FORM hotness throughout – ‘just as a rectangular parallelolgram is formed between two equidistant lines, such that any part you wish is equally wide with another. ‘Let there be throughout a UNIFORMLY DIFFORM hotness, such that it is a triangle!” -- Giovanni da Casale Monferrato. Monferrato. Keywords: corpi inanimati, corpi animati, inerzia, un corpo animato non e un missile guidato – Grice. La liberta dei corpi animati, uniform, uniformly difform, difformly difform. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Monferrato” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Monimo: all’isola – la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- Roma – filosofia siciliana -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Siracusa). Filosofo italiano. A former slave. Wrote two books. Monimo.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Montanari: la ragione conversazionale -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Cf Mazzino Montanari. Massino Montanari.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Montani: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale e il debito del segno – implicatura riflessiva – la scuola di Teramo -- filosofia abruzzese -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Teramo). Flosofo italiano. Teramo, Abruzzo. Allievo di GARRONI (si veda), è Professore di Estetica alla Sapienza Roma, è stato Directeur d'Études Associé presso all'EHESS di Parigi e ha insegnato Estetica al Centro sperimentale di cinematografia di Roma. La sua ricerca si concentra oggi principalmente sui temi di filosofia della tecnica.  Allievo di Emilio Garroni, per M. l'estetica non va considerata come filosofia dell'arte, ma come una teoria della sensibilità umana, che ha la peculiarità di essere aperta agli stimoli del mondo esterno. La riflessione di M. si snoda in diversi passaggi e attraverso il confronto con alcuni dei protagonisti della filosofia, della linguistica, della semiotica e della teoria del cinema del Novecento, avendo sempre come punto di riferimento la filosofia critica di Kant.  Pensiero Ermeneutica e filosofia critica. Pubblica Il debito del linguaggio, in cui, partendo dal confronto con le teorie strutturaliste, in particolare quelle di Jakobson e Mukarovsky, mostra come la questione del significato del testo poetico non possa essere risolta mediante l'individuazione del codice linguistico o semiotico di riferimento, ma rimandi ad una condizione estetica della significazione. Questo tema viene ulteriormente approfondito in Estetica ed ermeneutica. Prendendo le mosse dalla filosofia critica kantiana, propone di ripensare la verità nel senso heideggeriano dell’ “a-letheia”, del “dis-velamento” dell'essere come una situazione ermeneutica strettamente legata all'effettiva esperienza del soggetto, seguendo la rilettura della filosofia di Heidegger proposta da Gadamer.La formazione e il pensiero di M. sono stati segnati dal suo interesse per il cinema e in particolare per Vertov e Ėjzenštejn. Di entrambi ha curato l'edizione  degli scritti.  Nel testo “L'immaginazione narrative” (Guerini) coniuga l'interesse per il cinema con quello più strettamente filosofico per il tema dell'immaginazione. Propone di considerare l'immaginazione nei termini in cui, in Tempo e racconto, Ricœur parla della narrazione, ovvero come di un processo di “rifigurazione” dell'esperienza del tempo da parte dell'uomo. Per Ricoeur la narrazione ha il potere di far fare al lettore esperienza di un tempo propriamente umano. Montani fa propria la tesi di Ricoeur, applicandola però, all'ambito della narrazione cinematografica. M. ritiene che il territorio dell'immaginazione in cui lavora il cinema sia quello dell'intreccio tra finzione e testimonianza, tra la costruzione dell'intreccio narrativo e la documentazione del reale. La trasformazione dell'esperienza del tempo avviene, così, ad un livello più profondo e creativo. Tecnica ed estetica Con Bioestetica si inaugura la fase più recente del pensiero di M., dedicata all'approfondimento del rapporto tra tecnica e estetica. Attraverso il paradigma della bioestetica M. propone di leggere i fenomeni di biopotere che caratterizzano l'epoca contemporanea a partire dalla loro natura innanzitutto tecnica ed estetica, cioè a partire dal fatto che la sensibilità dell'essere umano viene sempre più orientata ed organizzata tecnicamente. Il biopotere consiste proprio nella capacità di canalizzare la sensibilità umana. In L'immaginazione intermediale Montani prende in analisi i modi in cui il cinema risponde alle forme di anestetizzazione. Prendendo le mosse dalla spettacolarizzazione della politica emersa in seguito all'attentato delle Torri Gemelle, Montani introduce il concetto di "autenticazione dell'immagine", che non consiste nell'accertamento del referente fattuale dell'immagine (il vero, il reale) ma nella rigenerazione di un orizzonte di senso condiviso, la capacità di riferimento dell'esperienza e del linguaggio, in un'epoca caratterizzata da crescenti fenomeni di “indifferenza referenziale” La riflessione sul rapporto tra estetica e tecnica continua in “Tecnologie della sensibilità”, in cui viene teorizzata l'esistenza di una terza funzione dell'immaginazione: accanto a quella produttiva e riproduttiva vi è una funzione inter-attiva. L'immaginazione inter-attiva diventa il paradigma attraverso cui leggere l'epoca contemporanea, attraversata profondamente da fenomeni dell'inter-attività digitale e dalla proliferazione di ambienti virtuali. Saggi: “Il debito del linguaggio: l'auto-riflessività nel discorso,” – Grice: “There is the ‘debito’ and there is the ‘credito’ or ‘price’ of semiosis, too!” -- Marsilio, Venezia; -- Grice: “Actually, Montani uses ‘aesthetic self-reflection,’ using ‘aesthetic’ etymologically, as per what he calls ‘ermeneutica sensibile’ --  Fuori campo: studi sul cinema e l'estetica, Quattroventi, Urbino; Estetica ed ermeneutica: senso, contingenza, verità, Laterza, Roma);  L'immaginazione narrativa: il racconto del cinema oltre i confini dello spazio letterario, Guerini, Milano); Arte e verità dall'antichità alla filosofia contemporanea: un'introduzione all'estetica, Laterza, Roma); L'estetica contemporanea: il destino delle arti nella tarda modernià,  Carocci, Roma; Lo stato dell'arte: l'esperienza estetica; Carboni e M., Laterza, Roma); Bioestetica: senso comune, tecnica e arte” (Carocci, Roma; L'immaginazione intermediale: perlustrare, ri-figurare, testimoniare il mondo visibile, Laterza, Roma); Tecnologie della sensibilità. Estetica e immaginazione interattiva, Cortina, Milano. M., Il senso, Rai Scuola, su raiscuola.rai.  I percorsi dell'immaginazione. Studi in onore di M., Pellegrini, Censi, Cine-occhi e cine-pugni: due modi di intendere il cinema, su Nazione Indiana,  L'immaginazione estatica. Estetica, tecnica e biopolitica, su giornaledifilosofia.net. 2 lAlessandra Campo, Biopolitica come an-estetizzazione. Il significato estetico della biopolitica, su sintesidialettica. Montani, L'immaginazione intermediale, Laterza,, M., L'immaginazione intermediale, Laterza, Anna Li Vigni, Gli occhiali per immaginare, Il Sole 24 Ore. La vita immersa nell’estetica del virtuale, su ilmanifesto. Pietro Montani. Montani. Keywords: il debito del segno, Narciso e la reflexione. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Montani” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Montinari: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del sovrumano – torna a Surriento – la scuola di Lucca -- filosofia toscana -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Lucca). Filosofo toscano. Filosofo italiano. Luca, Toscana. Grice: “If I were asked to identify the main difference between the Italian philosopher and the Oxonian philosopher is that the Italian philosopher takes Nietzsche seriously! But then he lived at Torino!”  «Nelle istituzioni esistenti, sostenute da immani forze di produzione e di distruzione, viene assimilata e mercificata ogni e qualsiasi protesta, persino quella dei Lumpen, ogni tentativo di lasciare la «nave dei folli». Se il metodo di Nietzsche può ancora aiutarci, allora l'unica forza che ci è rimasta è quella della cultura, della ragione.»  Considerato uno dei massimi editori e interpreti di Nietzsche. Ha definitivamente dimostrato che Nietzsche non ha mai scritto un'opera dal titolo “La volontà di Potenza” e che le cinque diverse compilazioni che la sorella del filosofo e altri editori dilettanti hanno pubblicato sotto questo titolo sono testi del tutto inaffidabili per comprendere il pensiero di Nietzsche. Si era formato alla Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa e all'Pisa, presso la quale si laureò con una tesi, “I movimenti ereticali a Lucca.” Caduto il fascismo, divenne un attivista del Partito comunista, presso il quale si occupava della traduzione di scritti dal tedesco. Mentre visitava la Germani a Est per motivi di ricerca, fu testimone della rivolta. Successivamente, in seguito alla repressione della Rivoluzione ungherese del 1956, si allontanò dall'ortodossia marxista e dalla carriera nel partito. Mantenne tuttavia la sua iscrizione al PCI, e rimase fedele agli ideali del socialismo. Collabora con le Edizioni Rinascita, e per un anno fu direttore dell'omonima libreria in Roma. Dopo averne rivisto la raccolta di opere e manoscritti in Weimar, Colli e M. decisero di iniziarne una nuova edizione critica. Essa divenne lo standard per gli studiosi, e fu pubblicata in da Adelphi. Per questo lavoro fu preziosa la sia abilità nel decifrare la scrittura a mano (praticamente incomprensibile) di Nietzsche, fino a quel momento trascritta solo da "Gast“ (Köselitz).  Fonda la rivista Nietzsche-di cui fu coeditore. Attraverso le sue traduzioni ed i suoi commenti di Nietzsche, diede un contributo fondamentale alla ricerca storica e filosofica, inserendo Nietzsche nel contesto del proprio tempo.  Saggi: “Che cosa ha detto Nietzsche”  Roma, Ubaldini, ripubblicato come  “Che cosa ha detto Nietzsche,” [Grice: “I convinced Montinari that ‘veramente’ is a trouser word and should be avoided!” -- Campioni, Milano, Adelphi. Su Nietzsche, Roma, Riuniti,  Teoria della Natura, Torino, Boringhieri, Milano, SE,  F Nietzsche, Lettere a Rohde, Torino, Boringhieri, Nietzsche, Opere, (Milano, Adelphi,  Nietzsche, Il caso Wagner: Crepuscolo degli idoli; L'anticristo; Scelta di frammenti, S. Giametta, Ferruccio Masini, Giorgio Colli, Milano, Mondadori Editore, Ecce homo; Ditirambi di Dioniso; Nietzsche contra Wagner; Poesie e scelta di frammenti postumi, Milano, A. Mondadori, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer come educatore, Milano, Adelphi, Epistolario di Nietzsche, Pampaloni Fama, Milano, Adelphi,  Nietzsche, Scritti, Milano, Adelphi, Schopenhauer, La vista e i colori Carteggio con Goethe,Abscondita,  Nota introduttiva a Genealogia della morale, Nietzsche e Van Gogh, due cardini del pensiero occidentale moderno di  Bettozzi (Liberal democaratici), su liberal democratici..  «Tant qu'il ne fut pas possible aux chercheurs les plus sérieux d'accéder à l'ensemble des manuscrits de Nietzsche, on savait seulement de façon vague que La Volonté de puissance n'existait pas comme telle (...) Nous souhaitons que le jour nouveau, apporté par les inédits, soit celui du retour à Nietzsche.» (Deleuze)  Aveva infatti ottenuto una borsa di studio della Scuola Normale Superiore a Francoforte sul Meno.  Rinascita Che era stato il suo maestro. Giuliano Campioni, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani stituto dell'Enciclopedia italiana Treccani Giuliano Campioni, Giuliano Campioni, Lanata, Esercizi di memoria, Bari, Levante, (notizie su M. M. nell'articolo su Colli anche a proposito dell'Enciclopedia di autori classici, Boringhieri, progettata e diretta da Colli e a cui M. M.collaborò). Paolo D’Iorio, L'arte di leggere Nietzsche, Firenze, Ponte alle grazie,Giuliano Campioni, Leggere Nietzsche. Alle origini dell'edizione critica Colli-Montinari. Con lettere e testi inediti, Pisa, M.: l'arte di leggere Nietzsche Paolo D'Iorio, Pubblicato da Ponte alle grazie, Studi germanici — Di Istituto italiano di studi germanici — Pubblicato da Edizioni dell'Ateneo, Originale disponibile presso la l'Università della Virginia — "M., Nietzsche", di Tuca Giuliano Campioni, Da Lucca a Weimar: M. e Nietzsche in Nietzsche. Edizioni e interpretazioni,  Fornari, ETS, Pisa, Die "ideelle Bibliothek Nietzsches". Von Charles Andler M. Pensiero di Schopenhauer Roscani Torino#Filosofi Giuliano Campioni, M., in Dizionario biografico degl’italiani,  Istituto dell'Enciclopedia. Opere di M., Centro interdipartimentale di studi Colli-M. su Nietzsche e la Cultura Europea — Pisa, Lecce, Padova e Firenze (Centronietzsche.net), su centronietzsche.net. Grice: “Montinari is right that ‘la volonta di potenza’ ‘n’existe pas’ – vacuous name. Torna a Surriento.   Umano, troppo umano, uscito cento anni fa, più precisamente nel 1878, e dedicato al centenario della morte di Voltaire, è tra le opere di Nietzsche quella che ha avuto il più lungo periodo di gestazio-ne, dall'estate del 1875 all'inverno 1877-78. Nella mighore e più attendibile biografa di Nietzsche che mai sia stata scritta e che troppe volte non viene presa sul serio, voglio dire in Ecce homo, leggiamo:  « Umano, troppo umano è il monumento di una crist. Dice di essere un libro per spiriti liberi: quasi ogni frase vi esprime una vittoria - con quel libro mi sono liberato da ciò che non apparteneva alla mia natura... qui il termine " spirito libero" deve essere inteso solo in un senso: uno spirito diventato libero, che ha ripreso possesso di se stesso ». Ciò che non apparteneva alla natura di Nietzsche era la speculazione metafisica di Schopenhauer, il pensiero mitico di Wagner (più in generale il • pensiero impuro » dell'artista). L'approdo alla liberazione dello spirito è dunque un processo; esso — per il Nietzsche del 1878 - doveva essere compreso in una sorta di tirocinio, al cui inizio stavano le Memorie di un'idealista (1872-76) di Malwida von Meysenbug e alla fine l'Origine dei sentimenti morali (1877) di Paul Rée. Tra i due nomi, che sembrano in contrasto tra loro, si compie una parabola tipica per la situazione spirituale di un gruppo importante di intellettuali del tardo Ottocento, cui anche Nietzsche appartiene. La vecchia quarantottarda Malwida (an-no 1816) acquisisce negli anni della rivoluzione e dell'esilio (Herzen, Mazzini, Kinkel) una concezione del mondo intrepidamente materialistica ed ateisti-ca, anche se illuminata dall'idealismo pratico-poli-tico e poi sostenuta (dopo l'incontro con Wagner)  dalla pessimistica (e consolatoria) metafisica schopen-haueriana. Ciò spiega, tra l'altro, l'entusiasmo concui ella nell'inverno 1876-77 a Sorrento accolse, per il tramite di Nietzsche, l'‹ ottimismo del temperamento » coniugato al • pessimismo della conoscenza », secondo la formula adoperata da Jacob Burck-hardt per definire il carattere dei Greci. (Questa formula doveva avere fortuna particolare da noi in Italia, nel passaggio dalla Meysenbug a Romain Rolland, e da costui a Antonio Gramsci).  Quindi Paul Rée (anno 1849): il giovane filosofo positivista si era educato alla scuola di Schopenhauer (e di Eduard von Hartmann, al quale anche il giovane Nietzsche doveva qualcosa), ma anche di Darwin e dei nuovi moralisti inglesi, con una considerevole aggiunta di nichilismo russo (Turgenev). Non mi sembra casuale che nel 1877 sia proprio Rée a scoprire (per regalarlo poi alla Meysenbug e a Bay-reuth) il giovanissimo Heinrich von Stein (anno  1857, allievo di Eugen Dühring, filosofo della « realtà »), anche lui schopenhaueriano (e poi wagneria-no) e autore di un libro dedicato agli « ideali » del  « materialismo ».  Questa schiera di personaggi, spiriti più o meno li-beri, tra i quali si trovavano amici e ammiratori di Nietzsche, vive la crisi di un'epoca satura di scienza, che può essere solo onestamente materialistica ed è al tempo stesso intimamente insoddisfatta, perché non riesce a scaldarsi al pallido, nordico agnosticismo königsberghiano, né ad entusiasmarsi per la « nuova fede » ottimistica e scientista del senile D.F.  Strauss. Le rimangono tutt'al più i paradisi artificiali e neoromantici del dramma musicale di Ri-  chard Wagner.  Dopo il grande tentativo wagneriano della Nascita della tragedia, la serie delle Considerazioni inattuali e più ancora la grande massa dei frammenti postumi stesi tra il 1872 e il 1876 si presentano ai nostri occhi come la preparazione del Nietzsche nuovo di Umano, troppo umano. Al di là della predicazione e dell'invettiva del Nietzsche inattuale è possibile infatti cogliere quel processo di intellettualizzazione radicale e di distruzione di ogni convinzione che è uno degli aspetti fondamentali della libertà di spi-rito, come viene enunciata nelle ultime pagine di Umano, troppo umano. Le illusioni e le consolazioni dell'arte, della metafisica, della religione cadono « in balia della storia», e solo la storia può rievocarle - e questa è ancora la nostra fortuna: poter mantenere in noi la possibilità della rievocazione storica dell'umanità passata. L'importanza della conoscenza storica è sottolineata da Nietzsche proprio in rapporto alla fine della metafisica, quando nell'aforisma 37 di Umano, troppo umano scrive:  * Qual è comunque la proposizione principale a cui giunge, attraverso le sue penetranti e taglienti analisi dell'umano agire, uno dei più arditi e freddi pensatori, l'autore del libro: Sull'origine dei sentimenti morali [cioè Paul Rée]? " L'uomo morale" egli dice "non è più vicino al mondo intelligibile (metafisico) dell'uomo fisico". Questa proposizione, temprata e affilata sotto i colpi di martello della conoscenza storica, potrà forse un giorno, in un qualche futuro, servire come l'accetta che reciderà alla radice il " bisogno metafisico" degli uomini: se più a benedizione che a maledizione del benessere gene-rale, chi saprebbe dirlo? ma in ogni caso come una proposizione dalle più importanti conseguenze, feconda e terribile insieme, e che scruta il mondo in quel modo bifronte, proprio di tutte le grandi co-noscenze». Dieci anni più tardi Nietzsche citerà ancora una volta in Ecce homo la proposizione di Rée, presentandola come il preannuncio della sua « trasvalutazione di tutti i valori ». Ho l'impressione che nessuno degli esegeti di Nietzsche abbia preso sul serio quel ritorno estremo a Paul Rée.  A Rée mancano tuttavia la disciplina e l'esercizio del senso storico che troviamo invece in tutta l'opera di Nietzsche, a partire proprio da Umano, troppo umano. Né il nome del massimo rappresentantedell'età dei lumi, di colui che Goethe chiamava la  • luce di noi tutti » si trova sul frontespizio della prima edizione del « libro per spiriti liberi » a celebrare la casualità di un giubileo. Esso rappresenta invece il nuovo programma di Nietzsche, che consiste nel risuscitare e lo spirito dell'Illuminismo e dello sviluppo progrediente » contro lo spirito di Rousseau, padre ambiguo delle « mezze verità » della Rivoluzione francese e del romanticismo. Nel  1876-78 l'antagonismo Voltaire-Rousseau rientra per Nietzsche in una sorta di schema storico, che vale per l'età moderna nei due momenti dell'Umanesi-mo-Rinascimento e dell'Illuminismo. L'Umanesimo-  Rinascimento è un movimento di civiltà che viene interrotto da una rivoluzione (la Riforma) e da una reazione (la Controriforma), così come l'Illuminismo è stato interrotto dalla Rivoluzione francese e dalla reazione romantica. Dalla reazione romantica maturano però risultati imprevisti: da un lato il senso della storia, come forma superiore e prosecuzione dell'Illuminismo, dall'altro, - come prodotto diret-to, secondo Nietzsche, del senso storico, - il socialismo (rivoluzione) e l'oscurantismo moderno (in Germania nelle forme ideologiche del conservatorismo cristiano degli Junker e dell'antisemitismo).  Nietzsche è dalla parte del Rinascimento, dell'Illu-minismo e del senso storico, a cui si contrappongono di volta in volta le coppie rivoluzionario-reazionarie che abbiamo visto.  I valori positivi del passato non sono di coloro che hanno combattuto o reagito contro la Riforma e contro la Rivoluzione francese, come nel presente non è la reazione antisocialista (nel 1878 si hanno le leggi antisocialiste di Bismarck) a cui Nietzsche senta di aderire. La pacata riflessione storica dello spirito libero si colloca piuttosto nella vita contempla-tiva; questa comporta non tanto la rinuncia all'immediatezza vitale dell'azione, quanto e soprattutto il dominio dello « spirito » sulla pienezza e ricchez-za della « vita » (e quel dominio avrà significato in proporzione diretta a questa ricchezza e pienezza).  Un modello di questo dominio è il classicismo illu-ministico, tollerante e cosmopolitico di Goethe, che è il saldo punto di riferimento di tutto il libro.  guerra, bensi come la constatazione del definitivo crepuscolo degli « ideali » metafisici (Schopenhauer)  e mitici (Wagner), a cui secondo lui avrebbero dovuto approdare per onestà della ragione anche i suoi amici e seguaci. Tranne alcune rilevanti eccezioni (Overbeck, in particolare, ma anche Burck-hardt e Karl Hillebrand, che tuttavia non erano propriamente né amici né seguaci) gli amici (Richard e Cosima Wagner, Erwin Rohde, Malwida von Mey-senbug) rimasero costernati e, anzi, si sentirono attaccati e provocati, abbandonati e traditi. Così Nietzsche stesso, che pochi mesi prima aveva scritto cpistole dedicatorie di Umano, troppo umano a Ri-chard e Cosima Wagner, una di esse persino in (brutti) versi, dovette rendersi conto dell'abisso che lo separava non solo dai suoi vecchi amici, ma anche dal suo proprio passato: « Quell'offuscamento metafisico di tutte le cose vere e semplici, la lotta condotta con la ragione contro la ragione, con la mira di vedere in ogni e qualsiasi occasione chissà quali immense meraviglie, per giunta un'arte barocca di ipereccitazione e esaltazione della smodera-tezza, intendo dire l'arte di Wagner: queste due cose messe insieme avevano finito per rendermi sempre più malato e quasi ad estraniarmi dal mio buon temperamento... Mi resi pienamente conto di tutto ciò nell'estate di Bayreuth [1876]: fuggii via, dopo le prime rappresentazioni a cui avevo assistito, e mi rifugiai sui monti, e là in un piccolo villaggio in mezzo alla foresta, nacque il primo schizzo, all'incirca un terzo del mio libro, allora sotto il titolo del Vomere ». Cosi scriveva Nietzsche all'inconsola-bile Mathilde Maier, un'amica di Wagner, nel luglio del 1878, e nella stessa epoca a Rée: « I miei conoscenti ed amici (con pochissime eccezioni) si comportano come se gli avessi rovesciato il pentolino del latte. Dio li aiuti - io non posso fare altrimenti ».  Umano, troppo umano non era nato come libro po-lemico, lo ripetiamo, ma come superamento di una crisi, che non era solo di Nietzsche. Perché non vada perduto, nella presente pubblicazione che non ha commento, riproduciamo qui ciò che l'autore volle premettere nel 1878 alla prima edizione, ‹ in luogo di una prefazione », affinché serva come avviamento alla lettura della prima grande opera veramente sua. Si tratta della traduzione di un brano tratto dalla versione latina del Discorso del metodo di Cartesio:  *- per un certo tempo considerai le occupazioni disparate alle quali gli uomini si dedicano in questa vita, e feci il tentativo di scegliere la migliore tra queste. Ma non è necessario qui raccontare quali pensieri mi vennero nel far ciò: basti dire che, per parte mia, nulla mi sembrò essere meglio che attenermi rigidamente al mio proposito, vale a dire: impiegare tutto il tempo della vita a sviluppare la mia ragione e a seguire le tracce della verità così  come i mi re proponi queche i ri che gali  che, secondo il mio giudizio, non si può trovare in questa vita nulla di più gradevole e di più in-  nocente; oltre a ciò, da quando mi ero giovato di quel modo di considerare le cose, non passava giorno senza che io non scoprissi qualcosa di nuovo, che era sempre di un qualche peso e niente affatto conosciuto dalla generalità degli uomini. La mia anima finalmente divenne allora cosi piena di gioia, che tutte le altre cose non potevano più offenderla in alcun modo ›.Mazzino Montinari. Montinari. Refs. Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Montinari: l’implicatura di Nietzsche” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Monte: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – la prospettiva e la filosofia della percezione – la scuola di Pesaro -- filosofia marchese -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Pesaro). Filosofo italiano. Pesaro, Marche. Grice: “I like to illustrate a ‘scientific revolution’ with Del Monte’s refutation on the equilibrium controversy, since it involves a lot of analyticity that only a philosopher can digest!” -- essential Italian philosopher. Il marchese Guidubaldo Bourbon Del Monte (Pesaro), filosoMecanicorum liber, Suo padre, Ranieri, originario da un famiglia benestante di Urbino, discendente dalla schiatta dei Bourbon del Monte Santa Maria, fu notato per il suo ruolo bellico e fu autore di due libri sull'architettura militare. Il duca di Urbino, Guidobaldo II della Rovere, gli attribuì, per meriti, il titolo di Marchese del Monte, dunque la famiglia divenne nobile solo un generazione prima di Guidobaldo. Alla morte del padre, ottenne il titolo di Marchese. Studia matematica a Padova. Mentre era lì, strinse una grande amicizia con Tasso. Combatté nel conflitto in Ungheria, tra l'impero degli Asburgo e l'Impero Ottomano. Al termine della guerra, torna nella sua tenuta a Mombaroccio, vicino Urbino, dove passava i giorni studiando matematica, meccanica, astronomia e ottica. Studia matematica con l'aiuto di Commandino. Divenne amico di Baldi, che fu anch'esso studente di Commandino. Ispettore delle fortificazioni del Granducato di Toscana, pur continuando a risiedere nel Ducato di Urbino.  In quegli anni, corrisponde con numerosi matematici inclusio Contarini,  Barozzi e Galilei  e con alcuni di loro si dice abbia avuto anche relazioni più che professionali.  L'invenzione per la costruzione di poligoni regolari e per dividere in un numero determinato di segmento qualsiasi linea fu incorporata come caratteristica del compasso geometrico e militare di Galileo. Proprio fu fondamentale nell'aiutare Galilei nella sua carriera, che e un promessa ma disoccupato. Raccomanda il toscano al suo fratello Cardinale, che a sua volta parla con il potente Duca di Toscana, Ferdinando I de' Medici. Sotto la sua protezione, Galileo ha una cattedra di matematica all'Pisa. Guidobaldo divenne un amico fidato di Galileo e lo aiutò nuovamente quando dovette necessariamente fare domanda per poter insegnare matematica all'Padova, a causa dell'odio e della macchinazione di Giovanni de' Medici, un figlio di Cosimo de' Medici, contro Galileo. Nonostante la loro amicizia, M. fu un critico di alcune teorie di GALILEI, come quella relativa alla legge dell'isocronismo delle oscillazioni. Compone un importante saggio sulla prospettiva, “Perspectivae Libri VI”, pubblicato a Pesaro che ha ampia diffusione. E sicuramente, anche secondo il parere di Galileo, uno dei massimi studiosi di meccanica e matematica. “Mechanicorum liber”. Pisauri. Saggi: “Mechanicorum” (Pisauri, Girolamo Concordia – Venezia, Deuchino -- Mecanicorum); “Plani-sphaeriorum universalium theorica” (Pisauri, Girolamo Concordia); “De ecclesiastici calendarii restitutione" (Pisauri, Girolamo Concordia); “La prospettiva” (Pisauri, Girolamo Concordia -- Roma); “Problematum astronomicorum” Venezia, Giunta); De cochlea,” Venezia, Deuchino);  “Le mechaniche nelle quali si contiene la dottrina di tutti gl’istrumenti principali da mover pesi grandissimi con picciola forza”  (Venezia, Franceschi); “Lettere” (Venezia); “La teoria sui planisferi universali” (Firenze). Galileo (che nel frattempo era stato molto probabilmente anche suo ospite) puo occupare la cattedra di Padova, grazie anche all’intervento delduca., che nell’ambiente veneto poteva contare, oltre che sull’amicizia di un Contarini e di un Pinelli, sull’autorità e l’influenza di M., generale delle fanterie della Repubblica": Fondazione cardinal Francesco maria delmonte -- guidobaldo-del-monte. A. Giostra, La stella o cometa nelle lettere a Giordani, Giornale di Astronomia. Galilei. Guidobaldo II della Rovere Mombaroccio, Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Grice: “There possibly is no equivalent to perspective for the other senses. Prospettiva, as the Italians call it. They are obsessed with it. Consider the human body. Consider Apollo del Belvedere – it is not just a body perceiving another body, there is a perspectival side to it!” Giambattista del Monte. Guido Ubaldo de’ marchesi Del Monte; Guidobaldo Del Monte. Monte. Keywords: implicature, perspective in statuary. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e del Monte," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Monterosso – filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza  (Roma). Filosofo italianno. Roma, Lazio. Vede le stampe a Buenos Aires il progetto di M.,  denominato neo-latinus. I casi fin qui esaminati non esauriscono la moltitudine di quelli che vedeno la luce. Si ricordino pertanto anche i contributi di Tommaso Valperga di Caluso (grammatica universale,  1800), ROVERE (vedasi), Proposta del provenzale come lingua internazionale, CONSOLI (vedasi), Lingua nazionale della terra; PORTALUPI (vedasi), Sten.ling.; FACCIOLI (vedasi), Lingue de nazioni e lingua universale; MAGLI (vedasi), Anti-Babele; ALLIONI (vedasi) BOELLA (vedasi) Boella (999  Cod.: codice di corrispondenza amichevole internazionale), HERPITT (vedasi), Niuspik; CALABRESI (vedasi), Omni-Lingua; ARGENTERI (vedasi), Lingua Euratlantica; PELLEGRINI (vedasi), Grammatica de lingua italiane semplificate; CIARLANTINI (vedasi), Metodo tachigrafico. I progetti ivi citati non sono stati esaminati perché le informazioni che li concernono sono, per ora, di difficile reperimento. Antonio da Monterroso. Monterosso. Keywords: implicatura, lingua universale. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Monterosso.” Monterroso.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Moramarco: la ragione conversazioane e l’implicatura conversazionale della tradizione massonica filosofia emiliana – filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Reggio nell’Emilia). Filosofo italiano. Reggio, Emilia. Grice: “Unlike Moramarco, what most people know about massoneria is via “Il flauto magico”!” Grice: “Moramarco analyses massoneria aa a philosophical cult, talking about ‘brotherly link’ ‘vincolo fraterno’ – he has unearthed a few fascinating details about massoneria in Italy. Esponente della Massoneria te assertore di una sintesi religiosa tra Mazdeismo e Cristianesimo. Discende da un'antica famiglia di Altamura, di ascendenze latino-germaniche, cresciuta e ramificatasi durante il dominio dei Farnese. Studioso di Massoneria, ha scritto la Nuova Enciclopedia Massonica in tre volumi, importante testo di ricerca massonologica. Un suo precedente volume, La Massoneria ieri e oggi fu tra i primi, sull'argomento, pubblicati in Russia dopo il crollo del regime sovietico, che aveva proscritto le Logge.  Iniziato nel Grande Oriente d'Italia, divenne Maestro Venerabile della Loggia Intelletto e Amore, ricevette la decorazione all'Ordine di Bruno, conferita a quanti si distinguono nello studio e nella diffusione degli ideali massonici. Coordinatore scientifico del Convegno Internazionale anni di Massoneria in Italia, al quale parteciparono studiosi quali Paolo Ungari, Alessandro Bausani, Mola, Basso, Roversi Monaco, Ricca. Il convegno fiorentino costituì la prima risposta pubblica, da parte della Comunione massonica di Palazzo Giustiniani, alle degenerazioni della P2.  Nello stesso anno, in qualità di Garante d'Amicizia tra il Grande Oriente d'Italia e la Grand Lodge of South Africa, richiese, d'accordo con il Gran Maestro Armando Corona, che tutte le Logge sudafricane, peraltro già avviate in tale direzione  (quando un gruppo di Liberi Muratori della Massoneria Prince Hall era stato ammesso nella Loggia "De Goede Hoop" di Cape Town), abrogassero l'apartheid, scelta che esse fecero, qualificandosi tra le prime associazioni bianche a superare la segregazione razziale. Uscì dal Grande Oriente d'Italia, rigettandone il laicismo, per ravvivare i nuclei massonici di impronta cristiana e spiritualista, che assunsero la denominazione Real Ordine degli Antichi Liberi e Accettati Muratori. Su tale concezione della Massoneria ha scritto La via massonica. Dal manoscritto Graham al risveglio noachide e cristiano (), un testo dal quale emerge, fra l'altro, l'importanza della devozione alla Vergine Maria, come madre del Cristo ed espressione umana della divina Sophia, nella genesi della spiritualità massonica.  Ha ricostruito le vicende della Gran Loggia d'Italia, l'altra associazione maggioritaria di Liberi Muratori in Italia, nel volume Piazza del Gesù. Documenti rari e inediti della tradizione massonica italiana, contribuendo in seguito alla realizzazione di programmi tematici per varie emittenti televisive, tra le quali Rossija 24, Reteconomy e È TV Rete7.  Ha conseguito il 33º grado del Rito scozzese antico ed accettato e il VII del Rito filosofico italiano, che nel secondo decennio del Novecento vide tra le sue fila i neopitagorici Arturo Reghini e Amedeo Rocco Armentano. Fonda in Italia l'Antico Rito Noachita su patente ricevuta presso il British Museum dall'ex Maestro Venerabile della Loggia "Heliopolis" di Londra.  Ha realizzato una colonna sonora per i rituali massonici, dal titolo Masonic Ritual Rhapsody. presso la Loggia "Gottfried Keller" di Zurigo, è stato ricevuto come membro nell'Independent Order of Odd Fellows.  Già attivo con Joseph L. Gentili,  editore del newsletter Brooklyn Universalist Christian, in un progetto di restaurazione della Chiesa Universalista d'America, contro la deriva liberal di quel movimento, ha ricevuto il navjote zoroastriano. Nel volume Il Mazdeismo Universale propone una visione eclettica di tale religione, collegando ad essa elementi del misticismo ebraico, del dualismo platonico e cristiano, del buddhismo Mahāyāna, e riconoscendo in Gesù il saoshyant (divino soccorritore, messia) profetizzato dall'antica religione iranica, in una prospettiva teologica di tipo mazdeo-cristiano, intorno alla quale si è formata una Fraternità Mazdea Cristiana.  Si è avvicinato alle correnti latitudinaria e mistica dell'Anglicanesimo e al percorso religioso di Loyson, confluendo in una comunità religiosa di orientamento eclettico, ove ha potuto conservare la doppia appartenenza, cristiana e zoroastriana. Entro tale gruppo, che nel gennaio  ha assunto la denominazione Reformed Cloister of the Holy SpiritUnione Riformata Universalista, è un oblato di San Pellegrino delle Alpi, secondo la Regola che, ispirandosi alle tradizioni fiorite intorno alla vita di quell'eremita del Cristianesimo celtico, contempla almeno un atto quotidiano "di giustizia, o di soccorso fraterno" anche nei riguardi di animali e piante.  Laureatosi cum laude in Filosofia presso l'Bologna,, con una tesi sul pensatore indiano Sri Aurobindo (relatore il noto indologo e sanscritista Giorgio Renato Franci), nella seconda metà degli anni Ottanta si è formato in Training autogeno e Psicoterapia con la procedura immaginativa sotto la guida di Luigi Peresson.  Ha trattato dei nessi tra Zoroastrismo e Cristianesimo nei libri La celeste dottrina noachita (e I Magi eterni, di fenomenologia del sacro ne L'ultima tappa di Henry Corbin e di tanatologia in Psicologia del morire. Ha scritto sulle esperienze di autogestione dei lavoratori nel mondo e sui rapporti tra socialismo e religione per Azione nonviolenta, la rivista fondata da Aldo Capitini. Con il saggio Per una rifondazione del Socialismo partecipò al simposio "Marxismo e nonviolenza" (Firenze) nel quale intervennero, tra gli altri, Bobbio e Garaudy. -- è un sostenitore della lingua ausiliaria internazionale Esperanto. Ha aderito al gruppo esperantista bolognese "Achille Tellini".  In ambito narrativo, ha scritto Diario californiano e Torbida dea. Si è occupato di storia dello spettacolo, scrivendo I mitici Gufi, sul celebre quartetto di cabaret degli anni sessanta, e partecipando all'allestimento del programma Gufologia per Rai Sat; con l'ex "Gufo" Roberto Brivio ha collaborato sia nella riproposta del repertorio del gruppo in teatri e circoli culturali, sia nella realizzazione di un laboratorio teatrale e musicale che vide attivamente coinvolti numerosi alunni portatori di disabilità, presso l'Istituto medio superiore in cui insegnò psicologia.  Ha inciso quattro CD, Allucinazioni amorose (meno due), Gesbitando, Come al crepuscolo l'acacia e Existenz, che contengono sue canzoni e brevi suites strumentali, ricevendo il plauso, tra gli altri, di critici come Maurizio Becker, Mario Bonanno (Musica et Parole) e Salvatore Esposito (Blogfoolk), di autori come Bruno Lauzi, Ernesto Bassignano, Giorgio Conte e dei jazzisti Giulio Stracciati e Shinobu Ito.  Nel dicembre  è stato chiamato da Luisa Melis, figlia e continuatrice dell'opera di Ennio Melis, il patron della RCA Italiana, a far parte della giuria del Premio De André.  Saggi: “La Massoneria” (Vecchi, Milano), “La Massoneria: cronaca, realtà, idee (Vecchi, Milano), “Per una rifondazione del socialismo, in: Marxismo e non-violenza (Lanterna, Genova) – PARTITO SOCIALISTA ITALIANO --; “La Libera Muratoria” (Sugar, Milano); “La Massoneria. Il vincolo fraterno che gioca con la storia” (Giunti, Firenze) Diario (Bastogi, Foggia) Grande Dizionario Enciclopedico POMBA (Torino); Antroposofia, Besant, Cagliostro, Radiestesia, ecc.). L'ultima tappa di Henry Corbin, in Contributi alla storia dell'Orientalismo, Franci (Clueb, Bologna) “La Massoneria in Italia” (Bastogi, Foggia) Enciclopedia Massonica (Ce.S.A.S., Reggio E.; Bastogi, Foggia); Psicologia del morire, in  I nuovi ultimi (Francisci, Abano Terme) Piazza del Gesù. “Documenti rari e inediti della tradizione massonica italiana” (Ce.SA.S. Reggio Emllia); Sette Lodi Massoniche alla Beata Vergine Maria (Real Ordine A.L.A.M., Reggio Emilia) La celeste dottrina noachita (Ce.S.A.S, Reggio E.) I mitici Gufi (Edishow, Reggio Emilia); “Torbida dea. Psicostoria d'amore, fantomi et zelosia (Bastogi, Foggia); Il Mazdeismo Universale. Una chiave esoterica alla dottrina di Zarathushtra (Bastogi, Foggia ) I Magi eterni. Tra Zarathushtra e Gesù (Om, Bologna ) La via massonica. Dal manoscritto Graham al risveglio noachide (Om, Bologna ) Massoneria. Simboli, cultura, storia (consulenza scientifica di M.M.) (Atlanti del Mistero/Giunti-Vecchi, Firenze ) Introduzione alla Libera Muratoria (Settenario, Bologna ) Musica Allucinazioni amorose (meno due)  (Bastogi Music Italia) (Bastogi Music Italia) Gesbitando, (Bastogi Music Italia ) Come al crepuscolo l'acacia  (Heristal Entertainment, Roma ) Existenz ((Heristal Entertainment, Roma ). Note  Aplogruppo Mola, Un valido impulso per una Massoneria "à parts entières", in 250 anni di Massoneria in Italia, F. Ferrari, La Massoneria verso il futuro (una conversazione con Michele Moramarco) v. )  Una breve rassegna di testi fondamentali sulla Massoneria si trova sul sito del Cesnur diretto da Massimo Introvigne. Vedi anche le recensioni di E. Albertoni ne Il Sole 24 Ore, inserto domenicale, e di G. Caprile ne La Civiltà Cattolica, Il volume fu pubblicato nell’anno della dissoluzione dell'URSS, dalla casa editrice Progress, V. Brunelli, Massoneria: è finito con la condanna della P2 il tempo delle logge e dei "fratelli" coperti, in Corriere della sera, Il Corriere della Sera dedicò un lungo articolo allo "scisma" (v. ). Del Real Ordine A.L.A.M. si è occupato anche il centro di ricerca Cesnur, diretto dal noto storico e sociologo delle religioni Massimo Introvigne, v.//cesnur.org/religioni_italia/a/ appendice_02.htm. Il termine Real non aveva alcun riferimento alla storia italiana, ma si richiamava alla leggenda, contenuta negli Antichi doveri, secondo cui l'Ordine Massonico ricevé le sue proto-costituzioni dal re Atelstano d'Inghilterra (Æðelstan); recentemente il Real Ordine ha assunto la denominazione di Unione Cristiana dei Liberi Muratori  Rito filosofico italiano  Antico Rito Noachita  Masonic Ritual Rhapsody, Bastogi Music Italia, youtube.com/watch?v=rSs0 4kpA36U. A questa esperienza è collegata la sua iscrizione alla SIAE come autore musicale  Del percorso che lo ha condotto verso la visione di Zoroastro (Zarathushtra) si è occupata la rivista parsi di Bombay, Parsiana, così come il quotidiano torinese La Stampa v. mazdeanchristian.wordpress.com/  latitudinarismo, in Dizionario di filosofia, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana,  v. riformati universalisti.wordpress // In questa comunità si ritrovano, su vari temi, idee tratte dal Manicheismo, dall'Arianesimo, dal Quaccherismo, dall'Unitarianismo, dal Giurisdavidismo e dall'universalismo hindu-cristiano del movimento Navavidhan fondato da Keshab Chandra Sen. Frequenti e significativi sono altresì i riferimenti al pensiero di aint-Martin e alla "religione aperta"o della "compresenza dei morti e dei viventi"elaborata da Capitini, Stracciati  Ito  E. Albertoni, Tante fedi, nessun dogma (recensione della Nuova Enciclopedia Massonica, Il Sole 24 Ore,I, inserto culturale domenicale) M. Chierici, Nasce la Lega dei Venerabili (Corriere della Sera) S. Esposito, Dalle radici del Mazdeismo all'Alleanza Mazdea CristianaIntervista con M. (in Secreta Magazine S. Esposito, Gesbitando: intervista con M. (Blogfoolk) F. Ferrari, La Massoneria verso il futuro (una conversazione con M.) (Bastogi, Foggi8) S. Semeraro, Tra la via Emilia e l'Est. Così parlò Zoroastro (La Stampa, Torino) S. Sari, Unico e plurimo al contempo, Dio secondo gli Zoroastriani [intervista a M.M.](Libero) G. Giovacchini, Cultura e spiritualità della Massoneria italiana [prefazione di M.] (Tiphereth, Acireale-Roma )  Zoroastrismo Universalismo Massoneria Rosacroce michelemoramarco.  blog del Real Ordine A.L.A.M., su realordine.wordpress.com. Pagina sul sito di Heristal Entertainment, su heristal.eu. blog degli anglicani latitudinari, su riformatiepiscopali.wordpress.com. Grice: “The Romans are obsessed with what Moramarco calls ‘paganesimo romano’ – the word ‘pagano’ only makes sense in opposition to Christ. It would be very inappropriate of the greatest Italian philosopher ever, Antonino, to consider his self pagan!” -- Michele Moramarco. Moramarco. Keywords: la tradizione massonica italiana. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Moramarco” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Morandi – la lingua di Firenze – filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Firenze). Filosofo italiano. Firenze, Toscana. Trabalza cita. REGOLE  DELLA  LINGUA  FIORENTINA  C ["kabalza. A quanto dico del notevolissimo documento che qui esce pella prima volta alla luce, sono in grado, per speciale favore usatomi dal mio illustre maestro ed amico  senatore Morandi, d’aggiungere alcune notizie di grande importanza storica, anticipando le conclusioni a cui egli è giunto, com'è suo costume, dopo largo e profondo studio, e che illustra col noto suo magistero di dottrina e di stile in un saporitissimo saggio. Nella Antologia M. segnala l'importanza della grammatichetta vaticana, narrando le vicende del manoscritto; e poiché egli stesso  m'esorta a pubblicarlo per intero, annunzia fin d'allora ch'io la mette come appendice ad ogni grammatica razionale o ragionata. Continuando però le sue indagini con rigore di metodo intorno ai primi vocabolari e alle prime grammatiche della nostra lingua, M. puo ha tra le altre cose provare che la nostra grammatichetta e molto probabilmente opera di Lorenzo il Magnifico, non  certamente d’ALBERTI (si veda), com'e stato supposto; e che anche Vinci abbozza una grammatica della lingua d’Italia, dimettendone forse il pensiero, quando ha notizia, come apparisce da due suoi ricordi, della grammatichetta del magnifico. Lo studio di M. s’occupa poi distesamente dei materiali raccolti da VINCI per fare il vocabolario italiano, il  latino-italiano  e una specie di   dizionario illustrato dell’armi  Prefazione antiche, pel quale sa attingere d’una fonte classica sfuggita ai lessicografi latini suoi contemporanei. Per tutto questo M. adduce fatti fin qui ignorati o fraintesi; ed attorno alla grammatichetta vaticana e all'opera filologica di VINCI tratteggia e documenta i traviamenti degl’altri primi come de'posteriori grammatici e vocabolaristi, italiani e  latini, e ha occasione di ri-parlare, sotto nuovi aspetti, de'punti più capitali della questione della lingua, dimostrando, in concordia e in conferma del principio che egli viene sostenendo da tanti anni, come il Magnifico, VINCI (vedasi) e MACHIAVELLI (vedasi) hanno criteri linguistici assai più giusti di’altri loro contemporanei e di molti moderni. Sicché il suo saggio, mentre, integrando  le sue ben note trattazioni precedenti, prende un cospicuo posto nella secolare letteratura della questione dell'unità della lingua, viene a colmare, sotto il rispetto storico, una vera lacuna. Ed ora poche parole sull'edizione della grammatichetta; poche, perchè i criteri da noi tenuti appariranno ben chiari dal testo che qui segue. S'è cercato di conservarlo in tutta la sua integrità anche sotto  il rispetto puramente materiale: quindi nessuna sostanziale modificazione nel sistema ortografico e di punteggiatura, che qui poi ha un maggior valore, mancando nella grammatichetta qualunque principio d'interpunzione e d'ortografìa; nessuna sostituzione di corsivo, anche là dove forse pella chiarezza del testo sarebbe stato di qualche utilità. Anche l'incertezza nell'uso delle maiuscole  e delle minuscole s'è lasciata. Per Yu e il v, benché sempre  rappresentati dall’autore coll'?^,  s'è adottata la distinzione grafica dell'ordine delle lettere. Si sono conservati i più e i cosi e simili, senz'accento, di contro all'a, preposizione, accentata. S'è mantenuta anche la disposizione dei titoli de'capitoli. Si sono invece sciolti i pochi nessi, anche perchè si son trovati di non i1 In  536,36  dopo e,  537,8  dopo O,  537,38  dopo come,  540,10 dopo o, 543.2  dopo amiamo e amiate,  545,10- dopo compositione,  546,22  avanti a che il punto o la virgola sono stati cancellati,  533 incerto intendimento; i dubbi sono stati accennati in nota. Ma le comuni abbreviature grammaticali, come di pir. per plurale,  dov'erano, si son mantenute, senza per altro tener conto di qualche  /.'per  plr.,  che è il più frequentemente adoperato. Frantendimenti e lacune del copista, che certo non mancano, sono stati corretti e colmati nel testo colle parentesi quadre o nelle note.  All'evidente (l) spostamento subito nella rilegatura dal foglio 11  (si ricordi che la grammatichetta e il De Vulgari Eloquentia hanno scambiato nel nostro codice le  guardie: v.  qui,  pp.  13-14  u)  s'è  provveduto  col dare questo foglio risolutamente nel luogo dove deve stare, ma lasciandogli la numerazione che ha nel codice. Qualche altra particolarità è stata descritta in nota. Poiché, infine, i segni delle lettere e degl’accenti ortografici adoperati nell'ordine delle lettere e nello specchietto delle vochali non erano riproducibili coi tipi  comuni, abbiam creduto opportuno, benché solo pochissimi  siano adoperati poi nel testo, dare un facsimile delle due pagine in cui si trovano: alle quali rimandiamo i lettori per ogni altra cosa che ad esse si riferisca. Uno di quei pochissimi segni è Ve articolo e pronome che il nostro A. scrive con un apostrofo non a destra, ma postogli sopra perpendicolarmente. Non valendo la spesa il farlo fondere appositamente, potevamo renderlo coll'apostrofo  laterale; ma abbiam preferito di renderlo coll'accento acuto, che pur è meno esatto, perchè  quell'<?  ricorre anche in casi, come in elio, dove l'apostrofo non si sarebbe potuto più mantenere. Evidente non solo pell'ordine che richiede la trattazione, ma anche pel segno del fine (una croce tratteggiata negli angoli) posto all'ultima parola della e. 11 B.  Dobbiamo qui esprimere i nostri più  vivi ringraziamenti all'egregio amico nostro Zucchetti che ha compiuto per noi la diligente fatica di collazionare la nostra copia e le prime bozze sull'originale vaticano. urJM  / SV et ' tfftmtme  U  ImmniAftm  tvn  efitrr  fktn  cvtwmt'  ti  '  tum  ?»t?w  ijtfini  y  mti  st*  <   brtpriA,  di' c<rh   datti  yoUjbet ',  cerne '?*tP  wuwdmo   /"  / f  ff  ' '   f   m  irteli  ;  erta*  d?t*rrt*n*  Mttìl*  crtvrr  :  nette** aiu/h  tufJhf  tyu(t»ou>  in  (tinaie  ut  racwi  [ufi  id  [a  unntA  rwjVto  tn  unnwmc-  (lunata-turni  ;  omì  cof*  #mU'  -futre  otiti*  1W  (r<*n4'   t'  ) ìtuA0S%    frvfs*  t*   vrect  prima,  e'  fa  «rifa  <tc   ì-lMimi:  Crchtflnifiif  * i  t  i    \,  «^_   tfnejfc' sunti*  ammanitimi  .wtr* i  jerù/erc' V  fonai**  atre/  scnzA   ecmmeia.    $uc  nmc  urwti.ihes  nur'  jm  Afte'  anale' e >U  S{&   rn  ia  .tnoiiA  y^Avi    Ufticr  ttm  e'  intende  mv.fr  '   Ovài  ne    ae'.ie  it*Hrc' .  i r t d b n   H m e r* 0   et <   r   L   >  / /V C crj   M Tav. I.  \roc^M   *  e'  e  i  o  0  h  e'    e   e"   r7  -  -»  /  CónmniTte  vermi*   Arftculns  c't  <nro   tir/   fiUw     ci  -zembe   H-  iirolfr'  fora   a  perei  aneti*   cyr  f  piiUfdtc'.   QlSl    bnmU  e    dilhvnc'  Tcfiiwii    fini/ce  '   (  '  f      f  (    '  '  f  (>  (,"  '  w  KoCfi*c  .-  scis fiixyhM   ArHchoa    acromi   L  C  c\)c(c  ' iti  molH  pnrtt'  \)WHq   in    mmis.  tifimi,   4%c'  mzwhni    nomi,  v/m  Utmo  -  tfen^tuj   e-tvjmujrci  e  rum    attrfi  cf  majiuliiict   c'i&mwitut;    t  nSHtri  Ufim  fi  -fmo  wdcww.  f  iflfa/l 'in  orni  nmf  ' (rtino   l*  Mnm*  shmltret   ffitfto  /tifi  iti  cgr>    cdf   S^^<:  «fi."?!»*4  

 Importante. Morandi. Keywords: linguaggio, Alberti, storia della grammatica razionale. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Morandi.”

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Moravia: la ragione conversazionale -- l’implicature conversazionali dei ragazzi – la scuola di Bologna -- filosofia emiliana -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Bologna). Filosofo italiano. Bologna, Emilia-Romagna. Grice: “I like Moravia: he has philosophised on what makes us ‘human,’ (“il pungolo dell’umano”) – his analysis of ‘il ragazzo selvaggio’ is sublime – and he has played with ‘reason,’ hidden and strutturata – and the universi di senso with which I cannot but agree! – provided we don’t multiply them ad infinitum!” --  Grice: “I like Moravia’s idea of ‘la ragione nascosta’ – you have indeed to seek and thou shalt find!” -- “Il Nietzsche che prediligo è il Nietzsche terreno, umano, presente nel tempo. È il Nietzsche intrepido esploratore del sottosuolo dell'uomo e dei disagi della civiltà. È il Nietzsche che fertilmente e sofferentemente (non narcisisticamente) vive e pensa il nichilismo: ma per andare oltre il nichilismo. È soprattutto il Nietzsche cheneo-illuminista forse malgrado luivuole conoscere, capire, dare un (nuovo) senso alle cose.” Professore a Firenze.  Allievo diGarin, si è formato in ambiente fiorentino conseguendovi la laurea in filosofia nel 1962 con tesi su Gian Domenico Romagnosi. Professore incaricato, è poi diventato ordinario di Storia della Filosofia all'Firenze.  Nel corso della sua carriera, si è interessato particolarmente dell'illuminismo francese e del pensiero del Novecento, della storia e dell'epistemologia delle scienze umane, con particolare attenzione all'antropologia, la filosofia della mente e l'esistenzialismo. I suoi studi e le sue ricerche hanno aperto nuove prospettive interdisciplinari fra pensiero filosofico e scienze umane.  Attualmente, le sue attenzioni sono rivolte verso l'opera e il pensiero del filosofo tedesco Friedrich Nietzsche del quale pubblica già una celebre antologia dal titolo La distruzione delle certezze e, nel 1985, una raccolta di saggi intitolata Itinerario nietzscheano. Proprio un nuovo modo di avvicinarsi e concepire il pensiero del filosofo tedesco lo hanno reso uno dei suoi interpreti più originali e più discussi.  Grazie ai suoi studi e contributi filosofici, è stato visiting professor presso l'Università della California a Berkeley, l'Università del Connecticut a Storrs e il Center for the Humanities della Wesleyan University.  Conferenziere presso altre sedi universitarie americane (fra le quali, Harvard, UCLA, Boston) ed europee (Francia, Belgio, Germania), è cofondatore della “Società italiana degli studi sul XVIII secolo”, nonché membro del Comitato direttivo delle Riviste filosofiche “Iride” e “Paradigmi”. Collabora ai giornali Corriere della Sera, Quotidiano nazionale, La Repubblica. Saggi: “Il tramonto dell'Illuminismo -- filosofia e politica” (Laterza, Roma); “La ragione nascosta” (Sansoni, Firenze); La scienza dell'uomo” (Laterza, Roma); “L’antropologia strutturale” (Sansoni, Firenze); “Esistenziale” (Laterza, Roma); “La teoria critica della società” (Sansoni, Firenze); “Gl’idéologues -- scienza e filosofia” (Nuova Italia, Firenze); “La distruzione delle certezze” (Nuova Italia, Firenze); “Linguaggio, scuola e società not ‘storia’! -- Guaraldi, Firenze); “Filosofia e scienze umane nell'età dei Lumi” (Sansoni, Firenze); “Pensiero e civiltà” (Monnier, Firenze); “Il ragazzo selvaggio dell'Aveyron.” Pedagogia e psichiatria nei testi di Itard, Pinel e dell'anonimo della "Décade" (Laterza, Roma); “Itinerario nietzscheano, Guida, Napoli); Educazione e pensiero, Monnier, Firenze, Filosofia: storia e testi, Monnier, Firenze, “L'enigma dell’animo” Laterza, Roma); Compendio di filosofia,  Monnier, Firenze, L'enigma dell'esistenza -- soggetto, morale, passioni nell'età del disincanto, Feltrinelli, Milano, L'esistenza ferita -- modi d'essere, sofferenze, terapie dell'uomo nell'inquietudine del mondo, Feltrinelli, Milano, Filosofia dialettico-negativa e teoria critica della società, Mimesis, Milano; “Ragione strutturale e universi di senso” (Lettere, Firenze); “La Massoneria. La storia, gli uomini, le idee, Mondadori, Milano); “Firenze e l’Umanesimo. Arte, cultura, comunicazione” (Lettere, Firenze); Lo strutturalismo, Lettere, Firenze); “Filosofia e psicoanalisi (POMBA, Torino); “L'universo del corpo, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma,  “Animo e realtà psichica” (Borla, Roma, "L'esistenza e il male", in:  "Mysterium iniquitatis", Gregoriana, Padova, Linterpretazione personologico-esistenziale dell'uomo", in:  La questione del soggetto tra filosofia e scienze umane, Monnier, Firenze) – PERSONOLOGIA – PIROTOLOGIA – Grice, persona -- Lettura Magistrale" al Convegno Dalla riabilitazione psicosociale alla promozione della salute(Montecatini), "S.I.R.F. News", "Mente, soggetto, esperienza nel mondo", in La filosofia italiana in discussione -- La filosofia italiana in discussione, Società Filosofica Italiana, Firenze), Bruno Mondadori, Milano, "Crisi della cultura e relazioni generazionali nel mondo contemporaneo", in Giovani e adulti: prove di ascolto, Sansepolcro (AR), "La filosofia degli idéologues. Scienza dell'uomo e riflessione epistemological, Letteratura italiana tra illuminismo e romanticismo, Convegno, Italianistica, Padova,  "Libertà, finitudine, impegno -- genesi e significato della responsabilità nel mondo", in: V. Malagola Giustizia e responsabilità (Convegno, Firenze), Giuffré Milano,  "Dal soggetto persona alla relazione interpersonale", Maieutica, De-mitizzazione e de- valorizzazione. La crisi della 'forma famiglia' nella società", in: Interazioni, "Illuminismo e modernità", Hiram, "Prove d'ascolto. Crisi della cultura e relazioni generazionali nel mondo contemporaneo", Studi sulla formazione, "La guerra giusta", Hiram,  "La filosofia, la conoscenza dell'umano, il dialogo col pensiero religioso", Hiram, "Esistenza e felicità", Hiram, "L'Occidente e la pace. Luci e ombre all'alba del terzo millennio", Hiram,"La filosofia e il suo 'altro'. La riflessione metafilosofica di Adorno in 'Dialettica negativa'", Iride,  "L'uomo: una storia infinita", in:  Per una scienza dell'umano, Arezzo,  "L’'interpretazione personologico-esistenziale dell'uomo" – PERSONALOGIA – Grice, PERSONA. in: L. Neuro-fisiologia e teorie della mente, Vita et Pensiero, Milano, "La scoperta dell'inconscio, l'ambiguità del freudismo e il lavoro della psicoanalisi sull'animale, Convegno "Meta-psicologia”, Napoli, La Biblioteca, Bari, "Un mondo negato. L'assolutizzazione del corpo nella psico-umanologia contemporanea", UMANOLOGIA – ibrido -- Hermeneutica, Corpo e persona, "Complessità, pluralità, confini", in: Dal coordinatore al coordinamento,Coordinatori pedagogici in Emilia-Romagna, Assessorato Servizi Sociali, Bologna, Bruno Maiorca, Filosofi italiani contemporanei. Parlano i protagonisti, Bari, Dedalo,  su sapere, De Agostini. Gran Loggia del GOI dal titolo "Tu sei mio fratello" Registrazione video della Lectio Magistralis "Al di qua del bene e del male Nietzsche esploratore dell'umano" Modena e Reggio Emilia Tavola rotonda del GOI "Pedagogia delle libertà Libertà civili" Convegno del GOI "La scienza non sia ostacolata dall'ideologia, dalla politica e dalla religione" tavola rotonda della Comunità Oasi "Significato e funzione della pena, della punizione e della penitenza nella promozione umana e sociale"  "Catturati dall'effimero?" all'interno del Convegno Giovanile alla Cittadella di Assisi" dsu arcoiris. Sergio Moravia. Moravia. Keywords: ragazzi, personologia. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Moravia” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Mordacci: l’implicatura convresazionale e la norma – la scuola di Milano -- filosofia lombarda -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Milano). Filosofo italiano. Milano, Lombardia. Grice: “I like Mordacci – in a way, like I did with J. L. Mackie, Mordacci opposes both ‘assolutismo’ and ‘relativismo’ – and tries to ‘construct’ an ‘inter-personal’ reason out of a full-fledged personal reason. Whereas it would seem that we enjoin the principle of conversational helpfulness out of altruism, there is this balance between conversational self-love and conversational other-love; and we only ‘respect’ the other that respects us as ‘pesonal;’ against Apel, the logic of the inter-personal reduces, in a complex way, to the logic of the personal; without it, we would be annihilating the autonomy of the will.” Grice: “I like Mordacci’s emphasis on reason for normativity – interpersonal reason, as he calls it!” È preside della Facoltà di Filosofia dell'Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele dove è Professore di Filosofia Morale.  È Direttore del Centro Internazionale di Ricerca per la Cultura e la Politica Europea.  Laurea in filosofia presso l'Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano; Dottorato in bioetica presso l'Università degli Studi di Genova. Ha svolto attività di ricerca e insegnamento presso la Scuola di Medicina e Scienze Umane dell'Istituto Scientifico Ospedale San Raffaele. Insegnato presso l'Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, prima presso la Facoltà di Psicologia e dal 2002 presso la Facoltà di Filosofia che ha contribuito a fondare insieme con Cacciari, Edoardo Boncinelli, Michele Di Francesco, Andrea Moro. Ha contribuito a progetti di ricerca ed è stato membro del Consiglio d'Europa per l'insegnamento della bioetica. Dal  è preside della Facoltà di Filosofia dell'Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, essendo stato rieletto nel giugno  per il secondo mandato.  Membro del Comitato Nazionale per la Biosicurezza, le Biotecnologie e le Scienze per la Vita della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri.  Dal al è stato membro del Comitato Scientifico per EXPO  come delegato del Rettore dell'Università Vita-Salute San Raffele.  Dal  è membro della Commissione per l'Etica della Ricerca e la Bioetica del consiglio nazionale delle ricerche e del consiglio direttiva della Società Italiana di Filosofia Morale. Si è dedicato in particolar modo dei temi: "Etica e ragioni morali", "Etica pubblica e rispetto", "Neuroetica". Attraverso l'indagine delle "ragioni morali" e dell'"identità personale" e ispirandosi alla filosofia kantiana, propone una forma di "personalismo critico" in base alla quale il fondamento dell'esperienza morale viene individuato nella ricerca, che ognuno compie, delle "buone ragioni" che danno forma alla propria individualità personale attraverso l'agire. Riconoscere ogni persona come autrice della propria identità fonda un'etica del rispetto delle persone in quanto a ogni individuo viene riconosciuto il diritto e il dovere di esprimere le proprie abilità e costruire la propria personalità.  Si è inoltre occupato di bioetica essendo anche stato coordinatore del progetto Bioetica della genetica: questioni morali e giuridiche negli impieghi clinici, biomedici e sociali della genetica umana del Miur (FIRB, Tra i suoi interessi più recenti, la disciplina della Film and Philosophy: la riflessione su come i film possono fare filosofia e se possono argomentare vere e proprie tesi filosofiche. In questo contesto ha dato vita al Laboratorio di Filosofia e Cinema presso la Facoltà di Filosofia dell'Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, conduce il sabato pomeriggio la rubrica "Al cinema col Filosofo" su TgCom24 (stagioni - e -) e la rubrica "Imparare ad amare i film" all'interno di Cinematografo Estate () su Rai 1.  Riviste È membro del comitato scientifico dell'Annuario di Etica (ed. Vita e Pensiero), dell'Annuario di Filosofia (ed. Mimesis) e della rivista online Etica et Politica.  Dalla sua fondazione è membro del Comitato Scientifico della rivista scientifica a cura del Comitato Etico della Fondazione Umberto Veronesi.  Attività teatrale Romeo e Giulietta: nascita e tragedia dell'io moderno, Eloisa e Abelardo: passione e negazione, Occidente, o identità fragile: Auster e le Follie di Brooklyn, analisi filosofiche con letture sceniche, ciclo "Aperitivi con Sophia", Teatro Franco Parenti,La violenza e l'ingiustiziaGorgia, ciclo "Filosofi a teatro" M., Teatro Franco Parenti, L'individuo, la libertà e il perdono. Hegel legge Dostoevskij, lettura scenica di M. e Sorel, ciclo l'Intelligenza e la Fantasia, Teatro Strehler,L'isola della verità. Divagazioni fotografiche e filosofiche, lettura scenica di M., Traini e Stepparava, Cluster Isole, Mare e Cibo, Padiglione P03-Expo Milano  (Rho-Fiera), Kant e il mare, lettura scenica di Roberto Mordacci e Francesca Ria, agosto  Saggi:“Bio-etica della sperimentazione,” Angeli, Milano; “Salute e bio-etica,” Einaudi, Milano); “Una introduzione alle teorie morali,” Feltrinelli, Milano,  La vita etica e le buone ragioni, Mondadori, Milano, “Ragioni personali, ragione inter-personali: Saggio sulla normatività morale,” Carocci, Milano, Elogio dell'Immoralista, Mondadori, Milano; Rispetto, Cortina, Milano. Bioetica, Mondadori, Milano. L'etica è per le persone, San Paolo, Cinisello Balsamo. Al cinema con il filosofo. Imparare ad amare i film, Mondadori, Milano. La condizione neomoderna, Einaudi, Torino,. Ritorno a utopia, Laterza, Bari,. Note  Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, su unisr. Governo/bioetica, su governo.M., su Le Università per Expo,Commissione per l’Etica della Ricerca e la Bioetica, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, su cnr.  Organi della società | SIFM, su sifm. Intervista a L'accento di Socrate, su laccentodi socrate.  Rai 1, Cinematografo estate, su rai.tv.  Scienza e etica: in uscita la nuova rivista della Fondazione Veronesi, su Fondazione Umberto Veronesi.  Chi siamo  su scienceandethics. fondazioneveronesi. Feeding the Mind: Expo-Bicocca Conversation Hour, su unimib. Lettura scenica de "I Sensi del Mare", su//elbareport. 1 Pearson Imparare sempre su pearson. 1º agosto.  Bioetica Mordacci Robertoe Book Mondadori BrunoSai cos'è?FilosofiaePubIBS, su ibs. L'etica è per le personeEdizioni San Paolo, su edizionisanpaolo.  Riflessioni sul senso della vita intervista di Ivo Nardi, sito "Riflessioni", settembre. Ci vuole più rispetto intervista a Roberto Mordacci, Famiglia Cristiana. Ma l'etica non è un'intrusa, intervista a Roberto Mordacci, Avvenire, Ora smettiamola di parlare inglese, intervista a Roberto Mordacci, Il Giornale. La storia costituisce per la filosofia contemporanea un ambito di indagine  costante e pervasivo: quasi tutta la filosofia dopo Hegel ha pensato il proprio  oggetto, cioè l’uomo, la conoscenza, l’agire e l’essere stesso, come  essenzialmente storico. Questa “svolta storica”, che ha preceduto e favorito la  cosiddetta “svolta linguistica”, ha significato per buona parte della filosofia  contemporanea l’adozione di un metodo in cui la storia di un concetto e delle sue  incarnazioni storiche sono dive nu te rilevanti almeno quanto la definizione  teorica di esso. Tuttavia, in questo diffuso storicismo, che attraversa la filosofia  dall’hegelismo all’ermeneutica, si è in parte persa di vista la specificità del  l’ambito di riflessione che si può chiamare filosofia della storia. La specifica  interpretazione dell’agire storico suggerita dallo storicismo, come svolgimento  di un «destino» dello spirito, ha infatti occultato gran parte della riflessione  che la tradizione filosofica ha prodotto, nel corso dei secoli, sull’agire storico  in quanto tale.   Questa preminenza del paradigma storicista ha inoltre favorito la nascita delle  tesi circa la cosiddetta «fine della storia»: una percezione che, dalle riflessioni di  Spengler sul «tramonto del l’Occidente» alle provocazioni del postmoderno, ha  finito per estendersi ad ampi settori della cultura contemporanea. Quest'ultima  appare per questo in estremo disagio, oggi, nel progettare il futuro: pensando  l’intero dell’essere come contenuto nella storia «fino al momento presente», la  cultura odierna rifugge dai tentativi di prefigurare un fine della storia come compimento, soprattutto perché questo tentativo appare come intrinsecamente    ideologico e, quindi, non più credibile. Si può quindi ancora pensare la storiaa  venire?   Mettere in discussione questa precomprensione storicista della storia è uno  degli obiettivi di questo volume. La filosofia della storia è oggi un’area vasta di  riflessioni sul senso dell’agire storico che non può essere affatto ridotta all’idea  di un «destino» immanente dell’Occidente o del mondo. Anche una semplice e  non pregiudiziale ricognizione di alcune concezioni filosofiche della storia che si  rintracciano nella tradizione mostra come l’interpretazione di essa sia assai varia  e più aperta alla possibilità di pensare il futuro in modo non ideologico e  soprattutto aperto al cambiamento, pur senza che esso sia abbandonato alla  completa anomia. In questo senso, il volume mira a riabilitare una disciplina che, a volte  affrettatamente, si è considerata così intrinseca alla pratica filosofica da non  esserne distinguibile come un ambito di studi specifico. Si tratta, innanzitutto, di  contribuire a rimuovere l’identificazione della filosofia della storia con il  racconto di un «destino» ineluttabile. Questa interpretazione è stata resa  canonica anche attraverso la preziosa ricostruzione condotta da Karl Lòwith in  Significato e fine della storia,1 un libro che è stato, di fatto, il più autorevole e  pressoché unico manuale di filosofia della storia dalla fine degli anni quaranta,  quando fu scritto, a oggi.   Lòwith ha una tesi tanto affascinante quanto riduttiva sulla vicenda della  filosofia della storia. Definita essenzialmente come secolarizzazione  dell’escatologia cristiana, essa evidentemente può esistere solo in certe  condizioni culturali: in sostanza, quelle che si sono date da Gioacchino da Fiore  a Marx. Si tratta di una lunga epoca, che pensa il tempo interamente in rapporto  a un fine che, al suo apparire finale, svela l’autentico significato di tutto il  movimento storico. Prima di quel momento finale, il cui modello è 1° Apocalisse  cristiana ma che nella modernità si traduce in varie forme di realizzazione di un  programma filosofico o sociale, le vicende storiche mostrano il loro senso solo a    colui che si è elevato al punto di vista della fine. Quest’ultima è dunque il    criterio di valore grazie al quale si possono giudicare tutti i momenti della storia. A partire dai movimenti millenaristi, di cui Gioacchino da Fiore è interprete,  quella fine è comunque posta all’interno del tempo, vuoi come apparire dell’ Alfa  e Omega che apre e chiude la storia, vuoi come luogo di inizio di una nuova  epoca, contraddistinta dalla conoscenza, dalla società senza classi, dalla libertà  pienamente realizzate. Il negativo, l’orrendo e il tragico che affligge la storia  presente è comunque destinato a sciogliersi in quella sintesi finale, che mentre  svela il senso del passato apre un futuro di armonia e libertà. La potenza di  questa immagine ha tenuto prigioniera più di un’epoca, eppure non è stata senza  rivali, nemmeno nello stesso Occidente, il quale, pur pensandosi forse  inconfessata men te come il luogo di quella realizzazione, ha saputo anche tenere  aperte interpretazioni diverse dei corsi dellastoria.   Nell’interpretazione di Lòwith, l’idea di “senso” della storia diviene sinonimo  di ciò che la parola “fine” nomina nella tradizione ebraico-cristiana. La chiave di  volta è la speranza, la promessa di un avvenire di salvezza o di vita piena. È  questa speranza ad aprire il futuro, perché esso non sarà la ripetizione del già  visto da sempre, come invece può solo essere in una concezione ciclica. La  promessa, inoltre, non è determinata nei dettagli e apre su un oltre della storia:  per questo è possibile progettare un futuro diverso dal presente. Al tempo stesso,  il compimento della promessa è certo, atteso e desiderato, e questo anima le  coscienze più efficacemente dell’idea della ripetizione di cicli sempre ritornanti.  Questa concezione, dunque, rimanda a una profondissima responsabilità  individuale, sociale e universale per l’uomo, giacché quella destinazione non si  può compiere, ricordano queste filosofie della storia, senza la partecipazione  attiva degli individui, senza l’impegno soprattutto di coloro la cui coscienza ha  scorto quella fine all’orizzonte e per questo deve operare per realizzarla. Simili  filosofie della storia sono dunque vere e proprie concezioni morali del mondo e  del tempo, capaci di mobilitare le energie individuali e di costituire cause ideali  di grandi rivoluzioni attese o annunciate. La previsione dell’avvento necessario    dell’epoca finale è pensato come compatibile con il riconoscimento della piena libertà umana, ma questa ipotesi di conciliazione è fonte di tensioni irrisolte sul  piano sia concettuale sia pratico: la necessità di un “destino” mal sopporta il  riconoscimento di un’autentica libertà personale. Così, la concezione moderna della storia è tesa fra la ricerca di leggi storiche e  il riconoscimento della responsabilità dell’uomo, basato sulla tesi irrinunciabile  dell’autonomia del volere. Questa oscillazione è visibile in Tocqueville (La  démocratie en Amérique è del 1835-1840; la democrazia come destino e come  missione), in Spengler (Der Untergang des Abendlandes è del 1918-1923:  Zivilisation come tramonto, come fato naturale e decisione storica), in Toynbee  (A Study of History, 1934-1961: nascita e crollo delle civiltà, attesa di una nuova  chiesa). Il destino è segnato ma è nelle nostre mani farlo accadere; come Lòwith  riassume efficacemente in una domanda: «Lo storico classico si chiede: come si  è giunti a ciò? Quello moderno si chiede: come andrà a finire?».2 Così la storia  diviene universale: mentre il movimento che ha condotto alla costituzione di una  specifica cultura, di un particolare modo di vita, si può ricostruire limitandosi a  concentrare i fattori causali in formazioni peculiari, che contingentemente si  sono intrecciati in un luogo e in un tempo, l’idea di una fine, specialmente di una  ‘fine di tutte le cose”, non può che avere un respiro totalizzante, universale  appunto, perché a esso contribuiscono tutti i fattori storici e culturali in grado di  influenzare la storia. Si guarderà quindi non alla storia locale ma ai grandi  movimenti storici, agli spostamenti di assi epocali, da Est a Ovest, da Nord a  Sud (come è di moda fare ora), cercando di rintracciare la legge necessaria di  questi spostamenti e, quindi, di rendere possibile una ‘futurologia”, una  previsione scientifica del corso della libertà umana. Ora, i tentativi di ricostruire questi movimenti e le loro leggi sono apparsi a  buona parte della cultura contemporanea come sostanzialmente fallimentari. Le  utopie del futuro si sono spesso rivelate come ideologie politiche che, in nome  del progresso, della società post-classista, del trionfo degli spiriti forti, hanno  mobilitato le masse verso strutture politiche e forme del potere che hanno causato tragedie mondiali lungo tutto il XX secolo. La consapevolezza del pericolo che si cela dietro a una filosofia della storia ha così motivato molta  parte della reazione contemporanea contro questo tipo di prospettive, fino a  revocare in dubbio non solo la modernità, bensì l’intera storia come luogo  dell’accadimento di eventi umani dotati di senso. Uno dei nomi di questa  reazione è “postmoderno”, un movimento di pensiero che, fra molto altro,  include la tesi secondo cui della storia non si deve anzitutto dare  un’interpretazione complessiva, che anzi in tal senso non vi è affatto una  “storia”, bensì una costellazione di eventi frammentaria e casuale: cercare di  ordinarla tramite un significato è una forma di violenza, una contraddizione  rispetto alla libertà che si pretende di veder realizzata proprio in quella necessità  del movimento storico. La liberazione da questa immagine è uno degli obiettivi  che l’arte, la filosofia e la letteratura postmoderna perseguono come un modo di  riaprire il movimento storico alla creatività, alla possibilità e all’effettiva  eguaglianza. In questo movimento non ci sono criteri di valore, secondo questa  tesi non c’è una direzione e per questo non vi è un metro di giudizio: la storia è  costituita da accadimenti che ci si rifiuta di valutare se non in un’ottica  pragmatica o meramente descrittiva. Si può giudicare più o meno bella una data  composizione dei fatti, ma nessuna di esse è né assolutamente reale né  definitiva: ogni rotazione del tempo crea una nuova immagine. Tuttavia, si potrebbe avanzare la tesi secondo cui il postmoderno non sia in  fondo altro che una patologia del moderno. Proprio il rifiuto di un senso della  storia incluso nel tempo, e al tempo stesso la rinuncia a un criterio di giudizio  sulla storia in nome della liberazione dalle filosofie ideologiche della storia,  mostrano che l’ideale di libertà tipico della modernità, rinunciare al quale è per  noi impossibile e ingiusto, è ancora l’anima del tempo presente. Si può piuttosto  interpretare la reazione postmoderna più semplicemente come la fine  dell’idealismo storicista, il quale è in sé un movimento profondamente anti-  moderno: la pretesa di imbrigliare la storia nel movimento dell’idea o dello  spirito assoluto è in fondo incompatibile tanto con la ricerca illuminista di un criterio di sviluppo cognitivo e morale che prevede espressamente la possibilità di progressi e regressi, quanto con la rivendicazione romantica di parametri di  valore legati al genio, all’apparire improvviso del senso anche nel mezzo delle  crisi più profonde e perfino con la coscienza cristiana di una dimensione  trascendente del tempo, di un rapporto con l’eterno che non è la fine della storia  bensì la sua dimensione ortogonale, l’asse su cui si colloca l’attesa dell’avvento  ultimo, improvviso e non prevedibile tramite alcuna dialettica storica. Questa patologia è stata diagnosticata con chiarezza già da Nietzsche a partire  dalla seconda Inattuale, ma con l’errore (che molti ripetono) di omologare  idealismo e Illuminismo, di considerare l’idea di un progresso morale e sociale  sullo stesso piano della postulazione di un incessante Auffeben, di un  movimento necessario e prevedibile. In realtà, sotto questo profilo fra Kant e  Hegel vi è un’assoluta discontinuità. L’unilateralità idealistica ha poi il suo  contraltare nel positivismo estremo e nell’empirismo radicale e proprio nel  rifiuto, in nome della libertà dal pregiudizio storicista, di ogni canone di  valutazione degli eventi storici. La delegittimazione diviene così pratica  universale, perché non si è distinto, a partire dall’idealismo, il portatore dal  messaggio, l’agire dal significato che attraverso di esso gli individui cercano di  realizzare limitatamente alle condizioni in cui si trovano e secondo le loro  capacità.   Per uscire da questa impasse occorre allargare la visuale sulle filosofie della  storia. Contrariamente a quanto pensava Lòwith, pur con la sua grande capacità  di sintesi, avere una filosofia della storia non comporta affatto leggere tutta la  storia in base a un fine che le dia significato, soprattutto se questo fine è pensato come un punto preciso del corso del tempo che, giungendo alla fine, ne sveli  l’intero senso. L’idea di un giudizio sugli eventi storici non richiede  necessariamente che si pensi una “fine” e nemmeno uno “scopo”. Vi sono anzi  state nella storia del pensiero numerose interpretazioni dello svolgersi del tempo  come anzitutto regolato da proprie leggi, da ritmi ciclici o alternati e dinamiche  di continuità e ripetizione che non presuppongono una fine nel tempo bensì    magari solo, come nel caso del cristianesimo, del tempo. Non si tratta solo della concezione greca del tempo come di un ciclo incessante e non orientato a un fine  (che qui non è trattata ma che è per altro ben nota), bensì anche di concezioni  cristiane e moderne in cui, senza rinunciare a porre un criterio di giudizio sulla  storia, si è però posto tale criterio non in un fine bensì in una dimensione per   così dire verticale del tempo, che è coinvolta nel suo movimento orizzontale  come paradigma del valore, del senso e della possibilità sempre presente di  perdere il contatto con essi. Possono essere interpretate in questo senso, per esempio, la dicotomia fra città  di Dio e dell’uomo in Agostino, il rapporto fra corsi e ricorsi da un lato e  Provvidenza dall’altro in Vico, l'ideale regolativo della pace perpetua in Kant, la  dialettica fra vita e storia in Nietzsche. Oltre alla lettura “lineare” del progresso  bisogna dunque riconoscere anche nel cuore della modernità almeno anche  una lettura “ondulatoria”, secondo cui il rapporto fra tempo e verità non si  dipana lungo una direttiva ascendente ma conosce alti e bassi, vertici e abissi, il  cui canone di riferimento è il rapporto con l’assoluto, con la pienezza vitale, con  la promessa salvifica o con la realizzazione di una società armonica e pacificata.  Riaprire la molteplicità degli sguardi sulla storia di cui l'Occidente è stato ed è  capace è un’esigenza imprescindibile per il tempo presente: la capacità di  progettare un futuro dipende esattamente, da un lato, dalla denuncia di  concezioni chiuse della storia e, dall’altro, dalla ricerca di un criterio di  valutazione reale, obiettivo sugli eventi storici, che non rinunci alla volontà di  giudicare del tempo per animare l’azione di valore umano e soprattutto  dell’impegno delle libertà personali verso qualcosa che mostri di meritare la  nostra dedizione. Questo volume si presenta dunque un utile strumento per l’introduzione alla  comprensione filosofica dell’agire storico e del tema della storicità  dell’esistenza. Scritto pensando anzitutto a chiarire le concezioni della storia che  emergono dai principali autori della tradizione filosofica, il volume non intende  però dare un panorama completo ed esaustivo di tutta la disciplina, troppo vasta e dispersiva. La selezione dei temi ha seguito il criterio della rilevanza degli    autori trattati, con una chiara inclinazione verso il moderno e il contemporaneo.  Gli autori dei testi sono docenti universitari noti per la competenza sull’autore  trattato e dottorandi del Corso di dottorato in Filosofia della storia (l’unico di  questo genere in Italia) istituito congiuntamente dall’Istituto Italiano di Scienze  Umane di Firenze e dalla Facoltà di Filosofia dell’Università VitaSalute San  Raffaele di Milano. L’esperienza di collaborazione che ha portato a questo  volume si è concentrata soprattutto nell’attività didattica e per questo ha ricevuto  uno speciale contributo dalla discussione con gli studenti, ai quali molti dei testi  qui raccolti sono stati presentati in una prima stesura. Anche questa genesi del  testo ne spiega la vocazione e l’ambizione esplicita: quella di essere la porta di  accesso a una disciplina che, nell’epoca di una presunta quanto fallace “fine  della storia”, ha più che mai bisogno di rinascere.   Note   1K. Léwith, Significato e fine della storia [1949], trad. it. di F. Tedeschi Negri,  Einaudi, Torino. Roberto Mordacci. Mordacci. Keywords: la norma, filosofia dela storia, Vico.  Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Mordacci” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Morelli: la ragione conversazionale, l’implicatura conversazionale e la filosofia del digiuno – filosofia lombarda -- italiana – Luigi Speranza (Milano). Filosofo italiano. Milano, Lombardia. Grice: ‘I once told Austin, I don’t give a hoot what the dictionary says;’ ‘And that’s where you make your big mistake,’ his crass response was!” -- Grice: “I once told Ackrill, ‘should there be a manual of philosophy, must we follow it?’ He replied, “One thing is to know the manual, another is to know how to abide by it!”  Si laurea a Pavia  e l'anno dopo assolve all'obbligo di leva a Trieste dove presta attenzione alle problematiche relazionali dei militari nello svolgimento delle proprie mansioni; si è poi specializzato in Psichiatria presso l'Università degli Studi di Milano. Direttore dell'Istituto Riza, gruppo di ricerca che pubblica la rivista Riza Psicosomatica ed altre pubblicazioni specializzate, con lo scopo di "studiare l'uomo come espressione della simultaneità psicofisica riconducendo a questa concezione l'interpretazione della malattia, della sua diagnosi e della sua cura". Inoltre è direttore delle riviste Dimagrire e Salute Naturale.  Dall'attività dell'Istituto Riza è sorta anche la Scuola di Formazione in Psicoterapia ad indirizzo psicosomatico, riconosciuta ufficialmente dal Ministero dell'università e della ricerca scientifica e tecnologica. Vicepresidente della Società Italiana di Medicina Psicosomatica. Partecipa a numerose trasmissioni televisive sia per la RAI sia per Mediaset (Maurizio Costanzo Show, Tutte le mattine, Matrix, ecc.) e per la radio.  Nelle sue opere ci sono molti riferimenti alle dottrine orientali. Saggi: “Verso la concezione di un sé psico-somatico. Il corpo è come un grande sogno della mente (Milano, UNICOPLI, Milano, Cortina); La dimensione respiratoria. Studio psico-somatico del respiro, inspiro, expiro – spiro --  Milano, Masson Italia, Dove va la medicina psico-somatica (Milano,  Riza); Il sacro. Antropoanalisi, psico-somatica, comunicazione, Milano, Riza-Endas, Convegno internazionale Mente-corpo: il momento unificante. Milano, Atti, Milano, UNICOPLI, Riza, I sogni dell'infinito, Milano, Riza, Autostima. Le regole pratiche, Milano, a cura dell'Istituto Riza di medicina psicosomatica, Il talento. Come scoprire e realizzare la tua vera natura, Milano, Riza, Ansia, Milano, Riza, Insonnia, Milano, Riza, Cefalea, (Milano, Riza); Lo psichiatra e l'alchimista. Romanzo, Milano, Riza, Le nuove vie dell'autostima. Se piaci a te stesso ogni miracolo è possibile, Milano, Riza, Conosci davvero tuo figlio? Sconosciuto in casa. Dal delitto di Novi Ligure al disagio di una generazione, Milano, Riza, Come essere felici, Milano, Mondadori, Cosa dire e non dire nella coppia, Milano, Mondadori, Come mantenere il cervello giovane, Milano, Mondadori, Come affrontare lo stress, Milano, Mondadori, Come amare ed essere amati (Milano, Mondadori); Come dimagrire senza soffrire (Milano, Mondadori); Come risvegliare l'eros, Milano, A. Mondadori, Come star bene al lavoro, Milano, Mondadori, Come essere single e felici, Milano, A. Mondadori,  Cosa dire o non dire ai nostri figli, Milano, A. Mondadori, La rinascita interiore, Milano, Riza, Volersi bene. Tutto ciò che conta è già dentro di noi (Milano, Riza); L'amore giusto. C'è una persona che aspetta solo te, Milano, Riza, Vincere i disagi. Puoi farcela da solo perché li hai creati tu, Milano, Riza); Felici sul lavoro. Come ritrovare il benessere in ufficio, Milano, Riza, I figli felici. Aiutiamoli a diventare se stessi, Milano, Riza, La gioia di vivere. Scorre spontaneamente dentro di noi, Milano, Riza, Essere se stessi. L'unica via per incontrare il benessere, Milano, Riza, Accendi la passione. È la scintilla che risveglia l'energia vitale, Milano, Riza, Alle radici della felicità. Editoriali dpubblicati su Riza psicosomatica, rivista mensile delle Edizioni Riza, Milano, Riza, Ciascuno è perfetto. L'arte di star bene con se stessi, Milano, Mondadori, Il segreto di vivere. Aforismi, Milano, Riza, Realizzare se stessi, Milano, Riza, Vincere la solitudine, Milano, Riza, Dimagrire senza fatica, Milano, Riza, Amare senza soffrire, Milano, Riza, Guarire con la psiche, Milano, Riza, Superare il tradimento, Milano, Riza, Dizionario della felicità, 6 voll, Milano, Riza, Non siamo nati per soffrire, Milano, Mondadori,L'autostima. Le cinque regole. Vivere la vita. Adesso, Milano, Riza, Conoscersi. L'arte di valorizzare se stessi. Via le zavorre dalla mente, Milano, Riza,  I figli difficili sono i figli migliori, Milano, Riza, Il matrimonio è in crisi... che fortuna!, Milano, Riza, Autostima, I consigli di M. per un anno di felicità, Milano, Riza, Le parole che curano, Milano, Riza, Perché le donne non ne possono più... degli uomini, Milano, Riza, Le piccole cose che cambiano la vita, Milano, Mondadori, Come trovare l'armonia in se stessi, Milano, Mondadori,  Ama e non pensare, Milano, Mondadori, Curare il panico. Gli attacchi vengono per farci esprimere le parti migliori di noi stessi, con Vittorio Caprioglio, Milano, Riza, Non dipende da te. Affidati alla vita così realizzi i tuoi desideri, Milano, Mondadori, L'alchimia. L'arte di trasformare se stessi (Milano, Riza); Il sesso è amore. Vivere l'eros senza sensi di colpa, Milano, Mondadori, Puoi fidarti di te, Milano, Mondadori, La felicità è dentro di te, Milano, Mondadori, L'unica cosa che conta (Milano, Mondadori); La felicità è qui. Domande e risposte sulla vita, l'amore, l'eternità, con Luciano Falsiroli, Milano, Mondadori, Guarire senza medicine. La vera cura è dentro di te (Milano, Mondadori); Lezioni di autostima. Come imparare a stare beni con se stessi e con gli altri (Milano, Mondadori); Il segreto dell'amore felice, Milano, Mondadori, La saggezza dell'anima. Quello che ci rende unici (Milano, Mondadori); Pensa magro. Le 6 mosse psicologiche per dimagrire senza dieta (Milano, Mondadori); Vincere il panico. Le parole per capirlo, i consigli per affrontarlo, cosa fare per guarirlo (Milano, Mondadori) Nessuna ferita è per sempre. Come superare i dolori del passato (Milano, Mondadori); Solo la mente può bruciare i grassi. Come attivare l'energia dimagrante che è dentro di noi (Milano, Mondadori); Breve corso di felicità. Le antiregole che ti danno la gioia di vivere (Milano, Mondadori); La vera cura sei tu (Milano, Mondadori); Il meglio deve ancora arrivare. Come attivare l'energia che ringiovanisce (Milano, Mondadori); Il potere curativo del digiuno. La pratica che rigenera corpo e mente (Milano, Mondadori). Segui il tuo destino. Come riconoscere se sei sulla strada giusta (Milano, Mondadori); Il manuale della felicità. Le dieci regole pratiche che ti miglioreranno la vita (Milano, Mondadori); Pronto soccorso per le emozioni. Le parole da dirsi nei momenti difficili (Milano, Mondadori). Movie. Grice: “Should there be a ‘dizionario della felicita,’ I would perhaps follow Austin’s advice and go through it!” –. Raffaele Morelli. Morelli. Keywords: la dimensione respiratoria, inspirare, respirare, spirare, spirito, il corpo animato spira – il corpo spira – corpo spirante, corpo animato --. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Morelli” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Moretti: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale e la segnatura romantica – i romantici di roma – filosofia lazia -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Roma, Lazio. Grice: “I like Moretti – he uses a good metaphor, ‘the wounded poet,’ unless we mean Owen, but he was more than wounded, even if that implicature is cancellable --.” Grice: “I like Moretti also because he wrote on ‘ermeneutica sensibile,’ which is exactly what I do.” Grice: “I like Moretti also because he uses ‘segnatura’ etymologically, when he writes of the ‘la segnatura romantica’ – talk of tokens!” Nasce nel borghese quartiere Trieste, primo di due fratelli. Ottiene il diploma di maturità classica presso il Liceo Giulio Cesare. Successivamente consegue una prima laurea in Giurisprudenza, con una tesi in filosofia del diritto, e, nel una seconda in filosofia, con una tesi in filosofia morale, entrambe presso l'Roma La Sapienza. È poi borsista presso l'Friburgo in Brisgovia, dove imposta un progetto di ricerca che, partendo dall'interpretazione di Heidegger, mira ad un'analisi critica delle categorie filosofico-estetiche del “romantico” in Germania, con particolare attenzione alle opere di autori del romanticismo di Heidelberg, quali Creuzer, Görres, i Fratelli Grimm e Bachofen, che contribuisce a tradurre e a far conoscere in Italia. Al suo rientro insegna dapprima materie letterarie nelle scuole medie e, in seguito, filosofia presso la Scuola germanica di Roma.  La sua ricerca si amplia poi al pensiero estetico di Novalis, di cui cura la prima edizione completa in lingua italiana della Opera filosofica; durante questo periodo consegue il dottorato di ricerca in Estetica presso l'Bologna. Vince la cattedra di professore associato di Estetica all'Bari; Professore a Napoli L’Orientale.  Redattore di Itinerari e Studi Filosofici, collabora con varie altre riviste filosofiche (Agalma, Rivista di Estetica, Studi di Estetica, aut aut, Nuovi Argomenti, Filosofia e Società, Filosofia Oggi, Estetica) e ha spesso partecipato a trasmissioni RAI su temi filosofici e a numerosi convegni.  Saggi: ”Il romantico: poesia, mito, storia, arte e natura” (Itinerari, Lanciano); -- roma – romantico -- “Anima e immagine: sul poetico” (Aesthetica, Palermo); “Nichilismo e romanticismo -- estetica e filosofia della storia” (Cadmo, Roma); La segnatura romantica (Roma, Hestia); “Interpretazione del romanticismo” (Ianua, Roma); “Estetica: analogia e principio poetico nella profezia romantica” -- Rosenberg et Sellier, Torino); “La segnatura romantica -- filosofia e sentimento” (Hestia, Cernusco L.); “Il genio” (Mulino, Bologna); “Il poeta ferito.” Hölderlin, Heidegger e la storia dell'essere” (Mandragora, Imola); “Anima e immagine.” Studi su  Klages, Mimesis, Milano, Heidelberg romantica. Romanticismo e nichilismo” Guida, Napoli, Introduzione all'estetica del Romanticismo, Nuova Cultura, Roma,  Il genio, Morcelliana, Brescia. Per immagini. Esercizi di ermeneutica sensibile” (Moretti et Vitali, Bergamo); Heidelberg romantica. Romanticismo tedesco e nichilismo europeo, Morcelliana, Brescia, Novalis. Pensiero, poesia, romanzo Morcelliana, Brescia, Romano Guardini, Hölderlin, Morcelliana, Brescia. Novalis, Scritti filosofici, Morcelliana, Brescia. J. J. Bachofen, Il matriarcato (Marinotti, Milano); Novalis, Opera filosofica,  I, Einaudi, Torino, Un video con una trasmissione RAI. Un video con un intervento di Moretti. Giampiero Moretti. Moretti. Keywords: roma, romanzo, romanzare, romanzato – non vero. Romanticismo filosofico, I filosofi romantici italiani  Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Moretti: il romanticismo romano” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Mori: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale e la coerenza dell’intransigenza – la ripproduzione sessuata fra i antici romani – la scuola di Cremona -- filosofia lombarda -- filosofia italiana -- Luigi Speranza (Cremona).  Filosofo lombardo. Filosofo italiano. Cremona, Lombardia. Grice: “I like Mori; he wrote a treatise on Stephen, better known as Virginia Woolf’s father; which reminded me of Bergmann who once called me an English futilitarian!” -- Professore a Torino e presidente della Consulta di Bioetica Onlus, un'associazione di volontariato culturale per la promozione della bioetica laica. L’etica e la bioetica con le varie problematiche connesse sono le tematiche al centro dei suoi interessi filosofici e teorici.  Mori ha studiato all’Università degli Studi di Milano, dove ha conseguito la laurea (con Bonomi e Pizzi) e il dottorato sotto Scarpelli e Jori. Insegnato ad Alessandria e Pisa, prima di essere chiamato a Torino. Studia i temi della meta-etica e della logica dell’etica con le problematiche della teoria etica. Tra i primi a occuparsi di bioetica, nella quale ha dato contributi in tutti i principali settori, con particolare attenzione all’aborto e alla fecondazione assistita. Sollecitato dai casi Welby e Englaro ha dato contributi anche sul fine-vita a difesa dell’autonomia individuale. Per primo teorizza la contrapposizione paradigmatica tra bioetica laica e bioetica cattolica, derivante dal fatto che quest’ultima propone un’etica della sacralità della vita caratterizzata da divieti assoluti, mentre l’altra avanza un’etica della qualità della vita senza assoluti e soli divieti prima facie. Presta grande attenzione al problema della liberazione animale. Fonda Bioetica. Rivista interdisciplinare (Ananke Lab, Torino). Membro di numerosi comitati, tra cui il comitato scientifico di Notizie di Politeia, di Iride del Journal of Medicine and Philosophy e altre. Saggi: “Manuale di bioetica: verso una civiltà bio-medica secolarizzata” (Lettere, Firenze); “Introduzione alla bioetica. temi per capire e discutere” (Piazza, Torino); Il caso Eluana Englaro. La “Porta Pia” del vitalismo ippocratico ovvero perché è moralmente giusto sospendere ogni intervento, Pendragon, Bologna, Aborto e morale. Per capire un nuovo diritto” (Einaudi, Torino); “La fecondazione artificiale. Una forma di riproduzione umana” (Laterza, Roma-Bari); “La fecondazione artificiale: questioni morali nell'esperienza giuridica Giuffrè, Milano); “Utilitarismo e morale razionale. Per una teoria etica obiettivista, Giuffrè, Milano, La legge sulla procreazione medicalmente assistita. Paradigmi a confronto, Net, Milano, Laici e cattolici in bioetica: storia e teoria di un confronto, Le Lettere, Firenze, La fecondazione assistita dopo 10 anni di legge 40. Meglio ricominciare da capo!, Ananke editore, Torino, Questa è la scienza, bellezze! La fecondazione assistita come novo modo di costruire le famiglie, Ananke Lab, Torino.   Mori ha rappresentato, nella nostra infernale esperienza di famiglia, un riferimento grazie al quale trovare un senso agli eventi che si succedevano, i qua-Ii, ai nostri occhi, un senso proprio non lo possedevano.  Ho avuto in lui un osservatore attento, un interlocutore profondo, un contestatore intelligente.  Come direttore di «Bioetica. Rivista interdisciplina-re» è stato il primo a dare rilievo pubblico alla vicenda di mia figlia, e ha sollecitato in vari modi la riflessione sul caso Eluana. Gli sono inoltre debitore di numerose conversazioni chiarificatrici, di lezioni private concesse in esclusiva, e lo considero il filosofo che meglio di ogni altro è stato in grado di tenere testa ai miei, notoriamente poco accomodanti, modi e argomenti.  Auspico che questa lettura possa sortire lo stesso effetto in tutti coloro i quali insieme a lui si apprestano, ora, a partire per questo viaggio nel ragionamento etico.  Nel panorama bioetico italiano la sua posizione non mi pare sia assimilabile ad alcuna predefinita corrente di pensiero, anche perché i suoi maestri e amici hanno manifestato originalità e indipendenza. Credo che il libro vada considerato e letto per le argomentazioni che adduce senza schemi precostituiti.  Può darsi che in alcuni passaggi sia un libro scomo-do. Di questo non c'è da stupirsi, ma da prenderne atto.  Scomodo, dunque. Come mia figlia. Come me. Una scomodità che suscita dibattito e stimola la riflessione. Invece di gridare allo scandalo, si deve cogliere l'impegno a riflettere, sempre e senza compromessi. Così è stato nello sforzo compiuto, alla ricerca di una modalità per farrispettare la legittima volontà espressa da mia figlia. La riflessione seria comporta anche scontri, ardenti e auten-tici, che restano per sempre vivi nella memoria. Essere grandi amici non implica certo un accordo incondizionato di vedute. La franchezza delle nostre collisioni dialettiche mi rimane, indimenticabile, nel cuore. La condivisione dei valori di fondo, comunque, rafforza la sintonia e la stima reciproca.  Questo libro propone una riflessione filosofica di ampio respiro sui problemi sollevati dal caso Eluana. Ma oltre a questo contiene la storia di Eluana ripercorsa nelle sue principali tappe, una cronaca precisa degli eventi noti e meno noti che si sono verificati in questi ultimi mesi di continuo travaglio e logorio. Al trionfo dello stato di diritto, rappresentato dai pronunciamenti della Corte di Cassazione prima e della Corte d'Appello dopo, è succeduto un orrore. Non mi è nota, al momento, altra fonte in cui la narrazione dei fatti, la ripresa del dibatti-to, la ricostruzione degli avvenimenti si sia così fedelmente attenuta ai nostri effettivi trascorsi. Il lettore rimarrà certamente colpito dalla presentazione lineare e puntuale degli eventi, e forse, in qualche caso, ne resterà anche perplesso.  In questo testo è inoltre dimostrata la possibilità di difendere gli stessi valori, di reclamare gli stessi diritti, a partire da percorsi differenti: quello che la mia famiglia ha sempre sentito come un insopprimibile bisogno, connaturato e viscerale, di poter decidere riguardo se stessi - tanto più quando in gioco è la fine della propria vita -, Maurizio  Mori lo dimostra come il risultato di una esigente, legittima e rigorosa riflessione etica. Vi sono argomentazioni morali che sono sostenute da così poderose ragioni da apparire dotate di evidenza. Egli ci costringe al ragionamento leale sui nostri sentimenti e pregiudizi più profondi.  E lui più degli altri ha compreso che non mi può cambiare nessuno.Come i magistrati hanno capito questo di Eluana.  Oltre ai giudici che hanno avuto il coraggio di andare fino in fondo, in favore di una delle nostre libertà fonda-mentali, Eluana avrebbe ringraziato anche lui, Maurizio: per la riflessione filosofica compiuta, per il tempo speso, per il mutuo soccorso, per le andate e i ritorni in mille iniziative, per avere lanciato il sasso ed aver mostrato la mano.  In attesa di sapere quale direzione prenderanno gli eventi, mi fa piacere vedere che la vicenda di Eluana e della nostra famiglia sia stata presentata in un testo così autorevole e umanamente ricco. Maurizio Mori. Mori. Keywords: la coerenza dell’intransigenza.

 

Luigi Speranza – GRICE ITALO; ossia, Grice e Moriggi: la ragione conversazionale e la stretta di mano – Ercole e Cerbero – le tre implicature conversazionali – la scuola di Milano -- filosofia lombarda -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Milano). Filosofo italiano. Milano, Lombardia. Grice: “I like it when Moriggi does substantial metaphysics; he has edited a collection on ‘why is there something rather than nothing?” – hardly rhetoric – and the subtitle is fascinating: the vacuum, the zero, and nothingness! All in Italian, to offend Heidegger!” Specializza in teoria e modelli della razionalità, fondamenti della probabilità e di pragmatism. Insegna a Brescia, Parma, Milano e presso la European School of Molecular Medicine è conosciuto al grande pubblico attraverso la trasmissione TV E se domani di Rai 3 e per alcuni interventi ad altre trasmissioni. Saggi: “Le tre bocche di Cerbero” (Bompiani. Perché esiste qualcosa anziché nulla? Vuoto, Nulla, Zero, con P.Giaretta e G.Federspil (Itaca) Perché la tecnologia ci rende umani  (Sironi) Connessi. Beati quelli che sapranno pensare con le macchine (San Paolo) School Rocks! La scuola spacca, con A. Incorvaia (San Paolo, ), con prefazione rap di Frankie Hi-nrg. Stefano Moriggi. Moriggi. Keywords: le tre bocche di Cerbero. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Moriggi” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza – GRICE ITALO!; ossia, Grice e Morselli: la sistematicita della filosofia – la scuola di Vigevano – la filosofia della ligua – parola, ragione, segno, comunicazione -- filosofia lombarda – filosofia italiana -- Luigi Speranza (Vigevano). Filosofo italiano. Vigevano, Pavia, Lombardia. Grice: “What I like about Morselli is that his is mainstream (Lombardia) and that he approached philosophy systematically. Only Morselli could conceive of a ‘dictionary’ – and he also wrote a ‘storia della filosofia’!” – Per li scettici antichi, l’afasia, Osn!:d P*%r OdMi WHMJOTECA CAPWvj|a£.  dico) = Il silenzio, fllos., il tacere, è il risultato della sospensione di qualsiasi giudizio o affermazione circa la vera natura dello cose. L’uomo conosce soltanto ciò che appare, và 9aiv6jj.Eva, la pura apparenza: se si vuolo oltrepassarla, ci si trova di fronte a ragioni contrarlo e d'uguale forza; perciò il saggio, se vuol conservare l’impassibilità e l’equilibrio dell’anima (derapala), non afferma nuLa, neppure l’impossibilità della scienza. (psicol.): l’afasia ò la perdita totale o parziale dello funzioni del linguaggio. Affettivo (lat. a/Hccrc. p. 0. dolore, laeiiiìa addolorare, rallegrare) (psicol.): si dico delle modificazioni e dei modi di essere dei soggetto, dei processi essenzialmente soggettivi, come il niacore, il dolore, le emozioni, 1 sentimenti, lo passioni, io inclinazioni, che formano una dello tre grandi attività in cui si distribuisce solitamente, per comodità d’analisi, la vita psicologica, cioè l’intelligenza, il sentimento, la volontà. Affezione (affectio) (psicol.): in generale designa una disposizione, uno 0 stato, un mutamento dovuti a causo esterne o Interne, sempre con un carattere di passività. In senso più particolare esprime il piacere, il doloro e lo emozioni elementari. A fortlorl (logica): ò la forma di prova che, dimostrando vera una proposizione, afferma che un’altra proposizione, di quella più 1 meno estesa, più o mono generalo, ò vera con più forte ragione; p. es.: se il santo pecca, a /ortiori pecca la comune umanità; so ò immorale la menzogna, tanto più è Immorale la calunnia, clic è una menzogna diretta consapevolmente a recar danno. Agatologia (gr. rò àyaflóv = 11 bene, e Xóyo; = discorso : scienza del bene) tfilos.): termine usato da SERBATI per indicare la dottrina del bene, che viene considerato come il principio primo della filosofia ; tale esso è nel sistema platonico, in cui l’idea del Bene è l’idea più alta, dalla quale tutto lo altre idee ricevono luce e alimento. Agnosticismo (gr. éc-yvcooto; = non conoscibile) (fllos.): ò un termine creato dal naturalista Inglese Huxley; si applica a quelle dottrine che, corno l’cvolnzionismo di Spencer, ammettono bensì al di là dei fenomeni e delle loro leggi un ordine superiore di realtà, ma lo dichiarano inconoscibile per la mento umana, considerando cosi insolubili i problemi metafisici, o relativo il sapere umano. Agorafobìa Anagogia Agorafobia: vedi fobìa. Agostlnismo (fllos.): designa Io spirito della dottrina di S. Agostino o l’ispirazione mistica comune allo filosofie di AOSTA, FIDANZA, Pascal, Malebranche e, in misura inferiore, ad altri sistemi. 11 presupposto fondamentale ò l'atto di adesione alTordine soprannaturale, a Pio che libera la volontà dal senso mediante la grazia e la mente dallo scetticismo mediante la rivelazione; Pio. che è verità© amore, costituisco il centro della dottrina, della quale sono principii essenziali il primato della volontà, la debolezza peooumiuo.su dcH’iiomo, la metafisica delTespcrlenza interiore e della conversione, la prescienza divina o la predestinazione, cec. Agrafia, gr. a priv. o YPtt?» scrivo) ( psicol., è quella forma particolare di perdita della memoria, che colpisce, sopprimendoli, i movimenti necessari! alio scrivere. Allucinazione ilat. alucinaiio, da alueinor = agisco vanamente, sogno) (psicol.): consiste nel percepii*© come presenti esseri, oggetti, fonomeni che in realtà non sono presenti. Si osserva nel delirio, nella febbre alta, ma anche in stuti apparentemente normali. Alogico (gr. a priv. o XÓyo$) {topica): si dice di ciò che é estraneo, indifferente alla logicu, di ciò clic aucora si sottrae olle leggi della logica, come è di sentimenti, passioni, fatti accidentali, cec. Non ò da confondersi con illogico, che si applica a ciò che ò contrario alle leggi logiche. Alterità (gr. éTepórv)^; opposto: identità) (logica): ò il carattere di ciò che ò altro, cioè differente o distinto. Nel Sofista di Platone l'altro, conio categoria, è diverso dall’essere; e così vicn ristabilita, contro Parmenide, resistenza del non essere. Nicola ( Tjìano all’unità divina fa corrispondere Taltcrità (e cioè la. varia molteplicità) delle cose del mondo. Altruismo (opposto: egoismo) (morale): comprendo le tendenze o 1 sentimenti che hanno per oggetto il bene o l’interesso dei nostri simili. La dottrina di Bentham o di G. Mill vuole spiegare, con l’associazione delle idee, il passaggio, nella vita sociale, dal sentimenti egoistici a quelli altruistici, dalla considerazione dell’utile proprio a quella dell'utile altrui, che ò poi il fine più alto della morale, secondo Tuffi»tarismo. Amnesìa (gr. a priv. c {iva, tema di {UfJLvy) croco = ricordo) (psicol.): è la perdita totale o parzialo della memoria, che ora annulla o riduce la capacità di fissare i ricordi, ora sopprimo la facoltà di richiamarli, ora cancella tutto il passato o una data classe di ricordi (p. e. una lingua straniera, le nozioni di musica, eco.). Amorale = ò ciò che non è né morale né immorale, ciò elio non ha rapporto con la morale, ò indifferente di fronte alla distinzione di bene o di mule. Amore (in generale): comprendo lo tendenze elio portano verso un oggetto o una persona, quando non mirano esclusivamente alla soddisfazione d’un bisogno materiale o d’uu fino egoistico. (filos.) : Empedocle vuol spiegare il divenire con Tumore (q>tXiÓT7)£), grazie al qualo il molteplice tende n costituirsi in unità, mentre la discordia (vetxoc) scioglie l'unità per dar luogo alla pluralità degli clementi o delle cose. per Platone l'amore è un'os pi raziono al mondo divino delle Idee, cui l’anima, tratta dui desiderio della bellezza, ascende, per gradi, da un corpo bello a due, da due a tutti, c da tutti i corpi belli alle belle istituzioni, alle belle scienze, finché perviene alla stessa idea del bello (Conrito); l'amore è pertanto la forza che determina il passaggio da una conoscenza più povera a una conoscenza più ricca. con S. Agostino l’umore non ò più un movimento dal basso verso l’alto, dal mondo reale verso il mondo Ideale e divino, ma un movimento che dall’alto scende verso gli esseri inferiori per elevarli a sé; è puro, non mescolato con interessi, timori o speranze, è la perfetta carila, umore del prossimo in Pio, è un amore che viene da Pio o porta verso Pio. per Spinoza dalla conoscenza intuitiva, per cui la mente umana abbraccia tutta la molteplicità delle cose come uno sviluppo della sostanza infinita e divina, sorge un infinito amore di Dio (amor inUUcctualis dei) e la beatitudine perfetta corno effetto della conoscenza più adeguata, in cui lo spirito coglie Pio stesso e ne gioisco; però « chi ama veramente Pio non pretenderà elio Pio ricambi il suo umore . Anagogìa (gr. àvaYCoyq = elevazione) (rclig.): ò detto anagogico II significato più profondo e simbolico delle sacre Scritture, quello iu cui sono adombrato le cose del mondo divino, Analisi  10  Anamnesi (/iloti. ) : è adoperato da Leibniz tome sinonimo di induzione. Analisi (dal greco ava aG eo = «dolgo, separo; opposto: sintesi) (in generale ): è un procedi mento del pensiero eh© consiste nei risolvere un composto negli clemeuti che lo costituiscono. (/ ilos.): si procedo per analisi quando, per còglierò la realtà ultima delle cose, si vuol giungere agli elementi piti semplici che la compongono; p. oh.: - a) Vatomistica di Democrito, che scioglie i corpi in atomi indivisibili; è) Vcmpirismo, eh© tende a scoprii© gli elementi più semplici della coscienza, gli atomi psichici (cioè sensazioni, sentimenti, volizioni), costruendo o ricostruendo con questi lo operazioni più ulte della mente: la memoria, la fantasia, il ragionamento, eoe. (Locke, Uuare, Taixjb); d) la dottrina di Kant, che, per chiarire l’attività conoscitiva, la scioglie nel suoi elementi (forma e materia) e nei suoi fattori ( sensibilità, intelletto, ragione). -(psicol.): la mente analitica considera e rileva nelle cose i loro elementi ; la mente sintetica le vede nel loro insieme. Pascal denomina lo spirito analitico esprit de géomitric, che ò penetrante, scorge i particolari, ricerca l'esattezza nell’osservazione dei fatti, segue uu principio fin nello sue ultime conseguenze; mentre lo spirito sintetico, detto da lui esprit de finesse, ama, più che il rigore del ragionamento astratto, la visione unitaria e complessiva delle cose, l’intuizione dei rapporti che le uniscono. la filosofia dell’i nfuizione considera l’analisi un procedimento che si arresta all'osservazione esteriore, si lascia sfuggire la vita interiore o l’essenza dello cose e considera un tutto vivente come un meccanismo da smontare pezzo per pezzo. Chi vuol conoscere c descrivere un essere vivente, ne trae prima fuori lo spirito; allora ha in sua mano le parti, ma, ahimè l non c’è più la vita che unifica (Goetite, Faust). Analitica trascendentale (filos.)Kant designa con questo termine quella sezione della ('ritira della fingi(m para, clic espone la dottrina dello categorie, cioè delle forme a priori deWiutrillilo, intendendo per intelletto la fa colta di pensare o ridurre a scienza gli oggetti dell'Intuizione, ossia i fenomeni, collegandoli o ordinandoli, appunto mediante le categorie. Analitici (filos.): Aristotele chiamò analitici i libri nei quali studia le leggi formali del pensiero o *rà àvaXuTtxà il complesso delle sue ricerche logiche fondamentali. Kant denomina analitico il giudizio in cui il predicato è contenuto implicitamente nel soggetto e si rendo esplicito con ranalisi del soggetto; è a priori e non aggiungo alcuna conoscenza nuova; p. cr. i corpi sono estesi, V. sintetico. Come proprietà delle cose, analogia, gr. àva-Xoytx rapporto, proporzione, logica ì, indica una somiglianza di rapporti fra oggetti differenti; p. ee. sono analoghi gli organi che, pur non avendo la stessa forma o appartenendo a due classi di esseri distinti, compiono però le stesse funzioni: cosi per Platone l’anima razionale (vou^) nell'uomo c la classe dei filosofi nello stato sono analoghe. per AQUINO e i suoi sequaci gl’attributi applicati a Dio, come potenza, bontà, sapienza ecc., debbono essere intesi in significato analogico, cioè non sono applicabili nello stesso senso e misura all’uomo e a Dio, come, per es. t l’aggettivo ridente non ha lo stesso significato se riferito a un viso umano e ad un paesaggio. come procedimento di ricerca runalogia è un ragionamento che da una somiglianza fra due cose in alcuni punti deduce una somiglianza su altri punti; p. e. : « se la Temi e Marte hanno comuni le note a, b, c, si può inferire che anche la nota d, la vita, si trova in Marte. Il procedimento analogico non dà certezza, ma solo probabilità. Anamnesi (gr. àvàjxvyjoriq =reminlscenza, ricordo alquanto vago) (filos.): per Platone il vero sapore (èTriOTi^fjLV)* cioè la scienza delle idee) è ricordare, c reminiscenza, c Ignorare è aver dimenticato. L’anima, prima di nascere, è vissuta nello spazio sopracoleste (TÓ7TO£ ur:spoupàvio£) contemplando la realtà vera, lo idee, la giustizia, la saggezza, la scienza; cadendo poi in un corpo sulla terra, l’anima dimentic a ciò che ha veduto; ma alla presenza delle cose sensibili, copie imperfette e sbiadite delle idee, degli esemplari sopmeelesti (rrapa$siy(AaTa), questi ritornano davanti alla niente in modo più o meno confuso. [X7}Ttx4v); e. intenneillnrin fra i dm'. l’appetito irascibile (tò  Per Mostotele l'aninm è la /ormo del corpo, al uuaic dà la Illuni, il movimento, l’armonia, e sta ad esso come la visione, oyte. all'occhio ; è vegetativa nelle piante, in più è tensilira midi animali razionale nell 'uomo, vii Khituiìi, seguendo l’atomismo democriteo, pensano l’anima materialisticamente formata d’atomi e mortale, mentre gii Stoici. ispirandosi ad Eraclito, la credono un fuoco sottile, un sodio x{a): termine ndoperato da Leibniz per designare «dò cho fa sì che un corpo è impenetrabile a un altro » ( aUribulum per quod vialeria est in spatio). Antropocentrismo {/ilos.): ò la concezione antropomorfica cho pone l’uomo come il centro o lo scopo di tutta la realtà, corno se Lordine universale delle cose fosse creato o disposto per l’uomo o le sue esigenze, ft por lo più Antropologia 13 A posteriori legata al geocentrismo (yyj = terra), cioè alla teoria, comunemente detta tolemaica, cho poneva la terra nel centro dell’universo, e die cadde per opera di Copernico, di Galileo e di Giordano Bruno. Antropologia (gr. £v9porito? »= uomo, o Xóyog = discorso) Un generale); è la scienza che tratta della storia naturale dell’uomo, ricercandone le origini e descrivendone le diverso rozze. -( filos,.): Kant distingue un 'antropologia teorica, che cuna psicologia empirica o tratta delle facoltà umane; un'nn* tropologia pragmatica, eh© studia l’uomo per aumentarne e perfezionarne l’abilità; uu’antropologia morale, che ha per line la saggezza della vita in modo conformo ai prindpii della Metafisica dei costumi e della morale. Antropomorfismo (gr. àv9pco-oc = uomo o (j.op(py;= forma, liguri») (psicol.): è la tendenza spontanea dell’uomo a rappresentarsi le cose, gli esseri, Dio stesso sul modello delia propria natura ; p. e. attribuire alia divinità forma corporea e passioni umane. Skxojane, fondatore dolla scuola identica, è uno del primi elio condannano l’antropomorfi•smo religioso. Apatia (gr. àrriOcia. da a prlv. o 77x9-, tema di TTarryco = io soffro) (in generute): s’intendo una specie d’insensibilità, d’indolenza, che si rileva dalla lentezza delle reazioni, sia psicologiche, sia morali. (filos.): per gli Stoici l’apatia è lo stato in cui viene a trovarsi l’uomo quando vive operando in modo conformo alla ragione, ossia quando non si lascia turbare dagli affetti Irragionevoli, dalle passioni, dai beni eslcriorl, e diviene uuo spirito sereno, eguale, imperturbabile. Apodittico (gr. i-oSeiy.Tiy.óc, da SEty.vupu = mostro, provo) (logica) : si dico di ciò che si afferma incondizionatamente come necessario, certo, inconfutabile, sla per una dimostrazione deduttiva, sia per la sua intrinseca evidenza. Apologetica (gr. àrroXoyÉo|iai = mi difendo) (retto.): l’apologetica cristiana comprendo l’arto dialettica e gli scritti aventi por line la difesa della religione cristiana eoutro gli attacchi della (ilo80 lia antica, dei potere politico e delia religione pagana,, e miranti a ottenere per i Cristiani la tolleranza delle leggi, nonc hé a dimostrare che la vera religione è la cristiana. Apologeti sono: Tertulliano, Giustino, Minucio Felice, Ireneo, eoo. (II e III soc. d. Cr.). Aporèma (gr. x-ópy)|zx, da àrtopéto = sono In dubbio) (logica): è un sillogisnio dubitativo, che vuol dimostrare Pugnai valore di due ragionamenti opposti. Aporia (gr. à Tropea = imbarazzo, situazione senza uscita) (logica): è il dubbio logico proveniente da difficoltà insolubili. Sono famose le aporie di Zenone D’Elea, che mirano a ridurre all'assurdo le tesi contrarie all’idea deli’Dno immobile di Parmenide e affermanti l’esistenza reale della pluralità e del movimento. I filosofi scenici sono detti anche aporetici, per lo stato di dubbio in cui alla fine vengono a trovarsi dopo aver ricercato la verità, e per cui sospendono ogni giudizio (èizoyjr) o asseti tUrnie rclcntio, come ilice Cicerone). A posteriori (opposto: a priori) (filos.): le due espressioni « a priori  e • a posteriori », assai importanti nel linguaggio filosofico, derivano tini procedimento arlstotclieo, per il quale il concetto, l'i/n iversale, i> designato corno logicamente anteriore, il particolare come posteriore : ' non è lo stesso ciò che ò primo per natura ( 7 tpÓTSpov Ty (juierst) e ciò che è primo per noi (7tpè; fyjtà; TCpórepov); è primo per natura l’universale, il concetto; è primo per noi, o per opera del senso, il particolare, il singolo ».  Questi termiul diventano comuni nella Scolastica : per Alberto di Colonia provare ex priori bus significa dimostrare partendo dui principi!, dalle cause; provare ex posterioribus significa dimostrare partendo dalle conseguenze, dagli effetti; per S. Tommaso non si può dimostrare a priori l’esistenza di ilio, perché questi è causa prima: occorre partire dagli ottetti (p. e., il movimento) o di qui risalire alla causa prima. -Nei tempi moderni, quando l'indagine filosofica si sposta, e dalla ricerca delle cause dell'» essere » si trascorre a indagare le cause o le fonti dei « conoscere -, si ha un notevole cambiamento : a priori è ciò che è dovuto alio sviluppo spontaneo della ragione, ciò che questa trae da sé, dalla sua interiorità, in maniera, Indipendente dall’esperienza, o quindi lia, por Kant, i caratteri dell'unfversalità e delia necessità: a posteriori è ia conoscenza che proviene dall'osperienzu o ha il suo fondamento mdl'osperienza o manca perciò di quei caratteri, Perché è ristretta ai casi effettivamente sporlmentati. Appercezione Arianesimo _ Nella teoria dell'evoluzione (Spencer) 6 « priori per l'Individuo ciò che si trova In lui come un prodotto dell'esilerienza della aporie, trasmesso per ereditò, e che per la. spedo, quindi, è a posteriori ; « posteriori per l’Individuo è ciò che egli acquista con la sua esperienza: si tratta dunque (l'un’anteriorlrìv cronologica o psicologica, non logica o razionale. In realtii per l'evoluzionismo, che è una forma di empirismo, la conoscenza è interamente a posteriori. perché tutta, originariamente, deriva dall'esperienza. Appercezione (in generale): b il prender possesso d'un’idea eon un lavoro attivo della mente che la rende piu chiara e meglio definita. -(/«os.) per Leibniz è la conoscenza chiara odistinta, clic differisce di grado dalla percezione oscura e confusa; è rrprarsr n/al io multi liuti tris in imitate. Ka.N 1 distingue Vnpitercezionc empirica ila quella trasreintentate: la prima è in sé dispersa, senza legame col «oggetto, di guisa clic I fenomeni psichici percepiti non sono vissuti come facenti parte d’nn’unità superiore, d'un io. ma rimangono isolati e disgregati a guisa di atomi: la seconda è l'atto di riferire una rappresentazione, una conoscenza alla coscienza pura, originaria, superiore al senso e da questo distinta, cioè aìVitmtUa. cho accompagna c stringe i-ln un tutto, in una sintesi, le varie rappresentazioni, ed è in ogni coscienza una e identica, non derivata da altro; p. e. il senso percepisce due fenomeni « c b isolati, senza collegamento: Vinlelletta quando dice: •Alt raggi solari) è causa (j.aT0S = incorporeo, da a prlv. c eròica, corpo) (fibui.): secondo gli Stoici sono asomatlci il vuoto, il tempo c gli oggetti del pensiero. Assenso (il lat. assensvs traduce 11 termino stoico auv-xaTaftsaic il norie, raffermare) (logica): in generale ò l’atto col quale l’intelletto accoglie o fi) sua un’idea o uu’affeminzlono altrui. per gli Stoici si dà l’assenso a una rappresentazione, la si accoglie come vera, quando questa, quasi impressa, suggellata in noi da un oggetto, s’impone allo spirito por la sua forza, la chiarezza, l'evidenza,Ci tira per i capelli, come essi dicevano. Assertorio (giudizio) (logica): b quello elio esprime la realtà, l’esistenza, con la copula: «è, «non è ", senza Implicare la necessità, essendo possibile il contrario. Assioma (gr. àjicojxa = dignità, postulato; da &£toc degno; hit. munfiatimi) (logica): è in generale in affermazione, un principio considerate come vero per la sua evidenza e accolto come vero senza bisogno di dimostrazione. -i matematici greci l'applicarono pei primi alle proposizioni evidenti: p. e.; tra due punti la linea più breve è la retta. con AniITOTELE si è esteso ni principjt logici: al ] trincipio di identità, di contraddizione, ccc. Spinoza denomina assiojni alcuni principi! fondamentali della sua Etica « more geometrico i/cmonstratu », Associazione delle idee  16  Astrazione Associazione delle idee ( psicol. ): designa la tendenza comune ai processi psichici a collegarsi fra loro, in modo r-lie, quando uno di essi risorge nella coscienza, tende a richiamare altri stati psichici, o per coni ignita, cioè per essere entrati contemporaneamente nella coscienza, ^ per ragioni di somigliansa, o anche per ragioni di contrasto. Si può ricondurre a due leggi generali :  a) la legge Cinica razione, per cui un processo psichico tende a ricostituire il complesso mentale di cui ha fatto parte ;  b) la legge dell* interesse, per la quale fra gli stati psichici richiamati si opera una selezione dovuta all’interesse attuale clic offrono pel soggetto. L'associazione delle idee è descritta per la prima volta da Platone noi Fedone (cap. 18 ), per spiegare l’idea del1 ’ anamnesi . Humk sviluppa e determina la teoria dell’associazione e la pone a fondamento della vita psicologica. Associazionismo ( filos è la dottrina sostenuta dagli inglesi H ARTLKY, Hv; me, Stuart Mill, Bàin, ecc., secondo la quale l’associazlono delle idee ò la leggo fondamentale della vita dello spirito e del suo sviluppo. È collegata a una concezione atomistica della vita spirituale, per cui un numero determinato di elementi psichici, analoghi agli atomi della chimica (cioè sensazioni, sentimelili, immagini), associandosi, danno origine alle funzioni superiori (memoria, intelligenza, fantasia, ragione) © le spiegano. Assoluto (dal lat. absolvcrc = separare, perfezionare ; quindi assoluto = ciò che è indipendente e perfetto ; opposto : relativo) (/ ilo 8 .): esprime l’essere cho è sciolto da ogni limite, relazione o condizione, indipendente da ogni altro essere o cosa, e a un tempo perfetto ; quindi l’easere che esiste in só e per sé. l’assoluto può essere inteso come il fondamento primo di tutte le cose, che per il materialismo è la materia, per lo spiritualismo lo spirito pensato come sostanza, per l’idealismo il pensiero nel suo più ampio significato, ecc. Newton pone a fondamento della sua meccanica il tempo assoluto e lo spazio assoluto, che cioè hanno esistenza in sé, mentre ]>er Kant tempo e spazio sono attività della nostra sensibilità, c, quindi, dipendenti da questa, ad essa relative (v. spazio e tempo). Assurdo (Ionica): si dice d’un’hlea o d’un giudizio che viola le leggi fondamentali del pensiero, perché contiene elementi incompatibili fra loro o contraddittori. la dimostratone per assurdo (o riduzione all’assurdo, deducilo ad absurdum) è quella che vuol dimostrare o confutare una determinata tesi, esponendo la falsità evidente e la contraddittorietà delle conseguenze che no derivano. Astratto (dal lat. abs-trahcrc = trarre fuori; opposto; concreto) (psicol.): si dice della parte n dell'elemento che venga tratto fuori (abstrachim) da un tutto o considerato separatamente, p. e. la forma, il colore d’un oggetto; perciò prende il senso di pensato \ * concettuale », in opposizione a ciò che ò dato immediatamente nell’intuizione. Astrazione (gr. d^aeCpsot?, da à = traggo fuori, lat. abstraho ): questo tonnine passa per due fasi principali (Euoken): 1 . fase logico-metafìsica: per Arisi oTELE è il procedimento che, omessi i caratteri accidentali cruna cosa, ne rileva le qualità essenziali c le considera per so stesso; quindi sono astratte (è5 àcpaipéoEox; XsyójjLeva) lo forme separate dalla materia, come lo grandezze matematiche, l'idea della statua separata dal masso di marmo. Nello stesso senso è intesa nel Medio evo: abstrahere. formam a materia int dicchi  separare la forma dalla materia mediante l’intelletto. Nella logica astrarre consiste generalmente nel passare, mediante la soppressione d’una o di più note d’un concetto, a un concetto più generalo; p. e. togliendo ai concetti di quercia, olmo, pioppo ecc. alcune note, cioè quelle che li differenziano, si salo al concetto più generale di albero, cosicché quanto più l’astrazione procede, tanto più diminuisce il contenuto del concetto, cioè la sua comprensione (che ò il numero dello note che esso include), e cresce invece l'estensione (che è il numero degli individui che esso abbraccia), come si vede passando, p. e., dal mammifero al vertebrato, àlTanimale, all’essere vivente ecc. 2 . fase psicologica (con Locke, Berkeley ecc.): è l'operazione spontanea per cui il pensiero isola progressivamente, nella massa dei fenomeni, le qualità comuni ai singoli oggetti e le esprime mediante un nomo comune, un concetto, un’idea generale, trascorrendo dall osservazione dei singoli individui alla specie e al genere, grazio a quell 'al* Atarassia 17  Autarchia tra operazione spontanea che è la generalizzazione, per cui si estende a tutta una classe, a una specie, a un genere ciò eho si osscrra in uno o più individui. Atarassia (gr. àrapaSta, da a prlv. e rapaOCTtij = turbo, agito) (filos.): è la serenltù dello spìrito che per K Pier no è l’ideale del saggio; è una conquista della ragione mediante la saggezza (, c vede in questo atto la prova Intuitiva della propria esistenza. _per Kant Invece l'io conosce so stesso non come sostanza, ma come « soggetto », corno attività; ossia l'io è il termine comune a tutti i processi di coscienza, quasi il ilio invisibile ohe 11 tiene collegati; separato da essi, è pura astrazione., Autoctisi (gr. auró? e etici!.?  creazione di se stesso) (/ilos.): termine usato dal Gentile per esprimere che lo spit rito, pensandosi, prendendosi come oggetto, creo se stesso, si sviluppa incessantemente, grazio a una. vivente | dialettica del pensiero (v. dialettica). Automatico (gr. aÙTÓ[.taTO? = che s muove da Bé) (in generale): si dice di ciò che si muove da sé in maniera meccanica, senza l’intervento di forze psichiche o di una volontà intelligente, psicol.: si applica all’attività incosciente, cioè a quegli atti che si ripetono in maniera indipendente dalla volontà. Autonomia (gr. coìtó? e vólto? = il dare a se stesso lo legge, il reggersi con proprio leggi; opposto: eteronomia, dal gr. c~po? = altro, e vópio?= legge; che significò: il reggersi con leggi date da altri) (morale): per Kant consiste nel fatto che la volontà umana 6 una volontà legislatrice universale, in quanto l'uomo nell’ordine morale obbedisco a una legge che emana non da una volontà a lui esteriore (sia questa Dio, la società, la naturo, come avviene nella morale eleronoma), ma dalla sua volontà di essere ragionevole, dalla suo coscienza. Autorità (principio di) ) (in generale): consiste ncll'accogliere come vera una cognizione da una persona cui si riconosce una superiorità intellettuale o morale, rinforzata spesso dalla tradizione, /ilos.: nel Medio Evo Aristotele gode d'un'autorità assoluta nella scienza e nella filosofia, donde il detto: ipse dirit (traduzione del greco aùvò? 2pY)Tlx6?), cioè della piena esplicazione delle tor-,c spirituali, della vita contemplativa che offre la conoscenza più alta, quella del macrocosmo e delle sue leggi eterne. per B u Stoici si raggiunge nell apatia ànà&Eia, nel dominio della ragionc sulle passioni e sul dolore; per TOPI ceno nell’atorossla, che e data dal1 l’assenza del dolore, da una scelta Bapiente'del piaceri e dall’armonia della vita. per Spinoza 1 ’uomo raggiunge la beatitudine, la quiete definitiva, solo nella conoscenza del terzo grado, cioè nella «conoscenza intuitiva», per cui la ragiono vede le cose In Dio, nel loro aspetto eterno (sub specie acf erri itati»), che è poi un conoscerò Dio stesso nella sua unità, quasi un coincidere con lui. Beavlorlsmo (inglese: behariour comportamento, condotta) (psicol.): ts il metodo di ricerca psicologica, che consiste nell’indagare 11 modo di reagire alle impressioni esterne, la maniera di comportarsi, di condursi nelle differenti circostanze della vita. Questo metodo, applicato dapprima agli animali, s’è poi esteso all'nomo. Bello (/ ilos.): nell'antichità: per Platone il hello è ciò che offre all’occhio e alla, mente proporzione e armonia, ordine e misura. In modo cho la varlotà degli elementi si disponga In gradi e si componga in un tutto plasmato o ordinato dalla vita dello Bpirito, il quale,. liberandosi gradatamente da tutto ciò cho è corporeo e sensibile, può essere tratto verso il bello In sé, verso l’idea del bello eterna, perfetta, immortale (v. dialettica). L’arte dell’uomo non ò altro che un’imitazione della natura, che alla sua volta c un’imitazione dell’idea, quindi un'imitazione dell’imitazione, non un'cspressione dirotta del hello. Per Aristotele gli elementi del hello sono: l’ordine (Tpia|.iévov); la fonte del bello è nel senso innato del ritmo e dell’armonia e nell’istinto d’ìniitazione, raffinato dalle due facoltà del genio ellenico: veder le cose con meravigliosa chiarezza; rappresentarsele con perfetta obbiottività. _per Plotino il bello con è nella simmetria, ma « è ciò cho rispleudc nolla simmetria »; una statua è bella « per In forma che l’arte vi ha introdotto », i-apà top stSou?, 2 èvfixvjv 7] t éyvv)). È l 'intuizione dell’artista, il suo genio che cren l’unità fra le parti molteplici d’un oggetto e dona a questo ciò che lo spirito ha di più profondo, mediante una raffinata elaborazione tecnica; l’arte non è più imitazione, come per Piatone o Aristotele, ma creazione dell’intelligenza, del voù?. Questa teoria viene ripresa nel Hinascinicnto. nei tempi moderni : per KANT è hello ciò che procura una soddisfazione di carattere universale, non esprimibile mediante concetti, libera da qualsiasi fino uti itarlo o morale: le coso non sono belle perla loro intima costituzione, che In se stessa rqpta a noi sconosciuta, ma perché sono capaci di eccitare c tendere In maniera armoniosa le nostre forze spirituali. per CROCE il bello non è un fatto fisico, non ha nulla da vedere con rutile, col piacere, col dolore, con la morale. non è oggetto di conoscenza concettuale; è dunque ciò ohe produce uno stato d’animo libero da ogni interesse pratico o logico, un’impressione che si esprime in una pura Immagine, oggetto di intuizione, ebe è conoscenzaimme¬diatao fantastica d’un momento della vita dello spirito considerato nella sua singolarità. Intuizione cui dà coerenza e unità il sentimento. Bene (in generale): ò tutto ciò cne ri* spondo o si crede che risponda a un bisogno e porta n un fine voluto o desiderato. morale: è ciò che nell’ordine dell azlone ò oggetto d’approvazione, ciò il cui possesso è causa di soddisfazione e avvia alla perfezione. -_il gommo bene (summutn bollimi) è, per la filosofia antica, l’oggetto ultimo al quale deve tendere la volontà morale • quindi un bene bastante a so stesso, cui tutti gli altri beni sono subordinati e rispetto a cui son da considerarsi come mezzi. _ gli scolastici, Cartesio, Spinoza, Leibniz seguono la tradizione antica. Kant giudica che 11 dovere è anteriore al bene morale, che questo deriva da quello e gli è subordinato ; giacché li bene è ciò che si fa per dovere: ossia l’asione morale trae U suo valore non Biogenetica  20  Carattere dallo scopo al quale tende, non dal bene che attua, ma dal principio cui la volontà obbedisce, apendo unicamente por rispetto olla leppo morale : perciò la lepgo morale incondizionata determina il bene, non il beno determina il dovere. Biogenetica (legge) (gr. (Uos = vita, yeveatS = origine): ò la legge, oggi contestata, che ebbe questo nome dal naturalista tedesco K. Haeckkl, per la quale le fasi dello sviluppo individuale ricapitolano in breve le fasi dello sviluppo della specie. La formula è: Yontogenesi ripete la filogenesi (v. ontogenesi). Biologia (gr. plot; = vita, Xóyos = discorso). È la scienza dei fenomeni generali della vita, comuni agli animali e alle piante. Comprende la morfologia, la f isiologia, la patologia, secondochó si considerano lo forme, le funzioni, i fenomeni anormali degli organismi viventi. Bisogno, psicol – GRICE NEEDS --: è la consapevolezza che qualche cosa manca al nostro organismo, o anche, in senso più alto ameno usato, alla vita intellettuale, giacché ogni essere per vivere, svilupparsi o raggiungere 1 fini che gli sono proprii deve prendere al mondo esteriore lo materie e gli elementi necessari all’esistenza. Si distinguo dal desiderio, perché il bisogno ò indeterminato nel suo oggetto, mentre il desiderio si dirigo verso un oggetto determinato: ho bisogno di nutrirmi o desidero un determinato cibo. Buon senso: per Cartesio ò sinonimo di ragione, intesa come facoltà di diBcernere il vero dal falso; quindi ò la capacità di ben giudicare, che non viene concessa a tutti gli uomini nella stessa misura. L’asino di Buridano, filos., cosi s’intititola rargomentazione attribuita a Burlo ano» rettore dell’università di Parigi; ossa consiste ncH’affcrmarc, a proposito del libero arbitrio, che un asino affamato, posto davanti a duo socchi d’avena perfettamente uguali, si troverebbe nell’impossibilità di faro una scelta fra duo cose che lo sollecitano in ugual misura, o morrebbe di fame, (V. anche ALIGHIERI, Paradiso. L'argomentazione non si trova negli scritti di Buridano; ed ò forse dovuta ai contemporanei, per deridere il suo determinismo psicologico, secondo cui la volontà si decide, tra più beni, pel bone maggiore; donde l’indecisione di fronte a due boni uguali. c Cabala (dall’ebraico Kabbalah = tradizione) (rclig.): opera di filosofìa religiosa, che si considera un’interpretazione segreta della Bibbia, trasmessa per tradizione da Adamo ad Àbramo, attraverso una serie ininterrotta di iniziati. Tratta dello sviluppo di Dio, che prendo coscienza di sé generando tutto lo coso dalla propria sostanza per via d’emanazioni; contiene l’enumerazione dello milizie celesti, il simbolismo dei numeri ecc. Campo della coscienza (psicol.): designa l’insiemo dei processi psichici (idee, sentimenti, emozioni), cho in un determinato momento sono presenti nella coscienza d’uu individuo. Campo visivo (psicol.): ò l’insieme degli oggetti cho sono percepiti simultaneamente dall’occhio in un dato momento; mentre il punto visivo è l’oggetto cho nel campo visivo si presenta con maggior chiarezza. Canonica (dal gr. xavtóv = regolo, regola, norma) (logica): ò cosi detta da Epicuro la parte introduttiva della sua dottrina, che tratta del criterio di verità, cioè della validità obbiettiva dello nostre cognizioni, che egli fa consistere noU’immediata evidenza delle percezioni sensibili. Carattere (dal gr. x a pacrcrco = scalfisco, donde '/apaxTyp = impronta) (in generale): indica la qualità propria, la « impronta » che serve a distinguere o a definire un oggetto. -(psicol.): ò l’unità stabile, costante dello disposizioni intellettuali, sentimentali e volontario che distinguono un individuo dagli altri, il nucleo permanente che dirige la sua evoluzione psicologica, Vimpronta che egli lascia nei suol atti, tenendo presente che le qualità costitutive del carattere, le quali formano un fascio di energie diretto verso un fine, si manifestano nelle contingenze della vita, soprattutto in quelle arduo e gravi. (metafisica) : Kant concepisce l’uomo come cittadino di due mondi: del mondo fenomenico e di quello noumcnico; come parte del mondo sensibile l’uomo ha un carattere empirico, che si inserisco nella catena delle cause naturali, di guisa che le sue azioni sono sempre determinate, o cioè non sono libere; invece come parte del mondo nouraenico ha un carattere intelligibile, sottratto alla serie delle cause naturali, e quindi libero .Caratterologia  21  Categoria _ (morale): aver un cara’lere morale significa possedere stabilmente quelle qualità del volere per cui il soggetto tien fermo a principi o a norme pratiche c morali determinate, che egli si ò prescritto con la ragione. Caratterologia (psicol.): neologismo che servo a indicare la scienza del carattere, la quale studia l’essenza, l’evoluzione del carattere, mira a fissarne i tipi fondamentali. Cardinali (virtù): v. virili. Carità (tcol.): è la maggioro dello tre virtù teologali (lede, speranza e carità) ed eeprime l’amore di Dio e l’amore del prossimo in Dio; è il principio d’ognl virtù. (morale): consiste nel far del bene al prossimo senza mira alcuna di vantaggio proprio. Cartesianismo: si può Intenderò: 1 ” la filosofia di Cartesio nello sue tesi fondamentali: l'idea di sostanza, 11 dualismo fra anima o corpo, il meccanicismo del mondo fisico, l’evidenza corno criterio di Terità eoe.; 2» la filosofia dei discepoli o dei successori di Cartesio, cioè ili Malebranche, Oeclinx, Bpinossa, occ., benché non sia facile stabilire ciò che del pensiero di Cartesio ò divenuto pensiero comune dei cartesiani, i quali mirano a risolvere i problemi posti ma non risolti da Cartesio: i rapporti fra pensiero ed estensione, fra anima e corpo, fra Dio c 11 mondo. Casistica (morale): è quella parto della morale pratica che tratta dei « casi di coscienza *, cioè dell'applicazione di norme morali olle circostanze particolari, o ancho nei loro rapporti con la religione, Bpeelalmcnte quando rincontro o l’intreccio fortuito degli avvenimenti della vita umana portano a conflitti di doveri di non facile soluzione. -in senso peggiorativo, s’usa per indicaro distinzioni sottili o abili con cui si vuol giustificare un atto che spesso la inoralo non approva. Caso (gr. ’M/tj, slitapirivi)) (fn generale): si dico elio un fatto è dovuto al caso, quando è fortuito, inaspettato o so ne ignorano le causo. ( Hlos .): già Aristotele intorpreta il caso corno un avvenimento dovuto al fatto che due o più serie di fenomeni s’incontrano in un punto in maniera imprevedibile, o dà l’esempio dello scavatore che trova un tesoro. in senso più comprensivo il caso si ha ciuando una modificazione insensibile e impercettibile nello cause d’un avvenimento produce una modificazione nell’effetto; p. e. il ritardo d’un attimo di un fatto qualsiasi può produrre o far evitare un accidente gravissimo per lo sue conseguenze. Catalettica (fantasia) (gr. cpavvaota y.xTaXvjTTTixr,, lat. risum impressum e//ictumque: t ic.): è per gli Stoici una rappresentazione che ei si presenta, con tale evidenza (èvàpysia) o forza, riproducendo lutto le qualità dell’oggetto. elio ci afferra (y.aTaXa|j.[ 3 àvet) o ci costringe ad accoglierla come vera. 10 il fondamento del criterio stoico di verità. Catarsi (gr. xdt&apot Q, da xaDmpio = purifico) (Hlos.): per Platonf., come più tardi per Plotino, consisto « nel separar-, e rimovore (ytopi) quanto più è possibile l’anima dal corpo c assuefarla a raccogliersi in só medesima, rimanere sola, sciolta dai vincoli del senso > (Fedone). La catarsi ha por fine di preparare l'anima allo più olevate attività spirituali. Per i Neo pi, atonici è un avviamento alla mistica, aH’unione con Dio. (estetica): Aristotele parla d’una calarsi traffica, che sarebbe l’effetto prodotto dalla tragedia sopra gli uditori: raziono tragica, suscitando la compassione e il terrore, compio la funziono di purificare da tali sentimenti l'animo dello spettatore, sollevandolo dalle angustie dolln vita quotidiana. (psicol.): nella psicanalisi la catarsi consiste nel richiamare un’idea o un ricordo, che, represso, produce perturbazioni fisiche e psichiche, mentre, conosciuto e chiarito, diviene innocuo. Categoria (gr. xanj-fopta, da xccrv)yopEtv = affermare; lai. praedicament avi : Boezio) (logica): per Aristotele le categorie sono lo affermazioni, i predicati più generali delle cose, le differenti classi di predicati che si possono affermare d’un oggetto qualsiasi, c quindi 1 sommi generi del reale (xanjYOptòcl toO Svuoi;); ne distingue dicci, traendole, forse, dallo parti del discorso: sostanza, qualità, quantità, relazione, luoao, tempo, situazione, avere, lare, patire. -per Kant le categorie sono le /orme a priori del conoscere, con le quali l'intelletto unisco il molteplice offerto dalVintuizione sensibile: c cioè I fenomeni che il senso percepisce slegati, isolati, sono dall 'intelletto collegati in una sintesi per mezzo delle categorie: p. e. gli organi di senso percepiscono duo fono meni isolati, il calore e la dilatazione d'un corpo; l’inteUetto li unifica con la categoria di causa : il coloro ò causo della dilatazione. lCont. enumera dodici categorie: tre della quantità (unità, pluralità, totalità), tro dello qualità {realtà, negazione-, limitazione), tro dello relazione ( sostanza, causa, reciprocità (iasione), tro della modalità (possibilità, esistenza, necessità). -Schopenhauer ammette la sola categoria di causa: il mondo come semplice rappresentazione è una molteplicità di fenomeni disposta nello spazio e nel tempo, ordinata o pensata secondo il principio di causa. -per Rosmini la categoria unico e suprema è l'idea dell’essere in universale, cioè di quella vj(n?= il sentire) (psicol.): designa il complesso delle sensazioni provenienti dagli organi interni del corpo, lo stato psichico totale risultante dall’azione simultanea e complessiva dolio impressioni interne. Certezza (opposto: dubbio ) (jwricoZ.): è lo stato dello spirito intimamente persuaso di possedere la verità, o por via immediata, dovuta all 'evidenza, o per dimostrazione, o anche per fede; iu questo terzo caso s'accost-’. olla credenza (V. credenza). Cinestetiche  23  Compositivo _ (logica): è il carattere di ciò che non lascia aperta alcuna via al dubbio ed è dovuto al fatto che i principi! logici sono osservati. Cinestetiche (sensazioni) (dal gr. xtvéo>= muovo, atat>r,a'.; = sensazione) ( psicol.): sono le sensazioni che provengono dai movimenti degli organi corporei. Circolo vizioso = vedi diallelo. CI inamen (è la traduzione, luereziana del greco exxXtai:, da èxxXivetv = devìai-e, declinare) (filos.): Emerito ammette che gli atomi, invece di cadere dall’alto al basso in linea retta (ché in tal caso non potrebbero incontrarsi, né, quindi, formare i mondi c i corpi composti). subiscono, per un Impulso interiore, una deviazione dalia linea verticale (che è appunto il clinamcn), la quale ne tende possibile l'urto. Por tale tendenza spontanea la necessità meccanica cedo nell'uomo il posto ulla volontà libero, essendo anche l'anima formata di atomi. Cogito ergo sum  (8 . Tojimaso). Contingentismo o filosofia della contingenza (filos.): servo a designare il complesso dello dottrino che nella spiegazione dell’universo assegnano ima parto più o meno grande alia contini gema. _ il francese Emilio BoCTROOX ha dato particolare rilievo a questa dot1 trina; egli pensa infatti che a mano a Contraddittorio  26  Cosa in sè mano che si sale dalle formo Inferiori degli esseri alle forme superiori, dalla chimica alla biologia o da questa alla psicologia, si introducono nuovi modi di realtà (la qualità, la rtta, la coscienza, l’auto-coscienza), In cui il ferreo con catcnamento di causa od effetto ohe si osserva nel mondo tìsico si viene atte nuando, fino a scomparire nella libertà spirituale umana; perciò la vita del ponsiero è una novità continua, In cui il nuovo non si può spiegare col vecchio. Il superiore con l’Inferiore, perché contiene qualcosa di più e di nuovo (contingente), che nella realtà inferiore non c'era. Contraddittorio (logica): due giudizi, due concetti dloonsl contraddittoril, quando l'affermazione del primo irnpllI ca la negazione del secondo ; ò contraddittoria anche una proposizione in cui il predicato affermi una qualità o modo di essere opposta a quella espressa dal soggetto. Contraddizione (logica): il principili di contraddizione ò cosi formnlnto da Aristotele: «due giudizi, dei quali l’uno nega quello stesso che l’altro afforma (A è B, A non è B), non possono essere veri nel medesimo tempo e otto il medesimo rispetto, poiché non ò possibile ammettere che alcuno pensi cho la stessa cosa sia o non sla» (àSuvavOV Ù7TOAaupàvetv vaùv&v elvat xal (xv) elvoci). -Leibniz lm dato di questo principio una formula più semplice: «A non ò non A», cioè un giudizioò falBO quando ' soggetto e predicato si contraddicono. (filos.): Hegel pone la contraddiziono nel cuore della realtà vera, ossia nel pensiero: ogni idea contiene in sé la sua negazione, ciò' un’idea opposta che spinge a un nuovo concetto più alto comprendente e conciliante in sé i due primi : il primo concetto ò la tesi, il secondo ’ antitesi, il erzo la sintesi. Quest'ultimo subisce lo stesso destino, c cosi il movimento dello spirito i recede sempre più oltre, finché tutta la realtà è trasformata in puro ponsiero, in una « reto di concetti »: l’attività pensante diviene processo cosmico, che abbraccia tutte lo cose e tutte da sé lo produce (V. coincidcntia oppositorum). Contradictio in adiecto (logica): è la contraddizione fra un termino e ciò che vi si aggiunge ( adiectum ), aggettivo o sostantivo; p. e.: legno ferreo. Contrario (logica): sono contrarie due proposizioni opposte e universali, l'una affermativa e l'altra negativa; p. e.: 1  ogni uomo è mortale ; nessun uomo ò mortale » ; sono contrari due concetti, quando l’aiiermazione dell’uno implica la negazione dell'altro; p. e.: bianco, non bianco. Contrattualismo (diritto): è la teoria dell’origine contrattuale dello Stato, che ebbe la sua forma più perfetta e famosa nel Contratto sociale di G. G. Rousseau ( 1762). Il principio è: lo Stato si fonda sulla volontà individuale dei consociati, i quali l’hanno costituito per mezzo di un contratto. Se si pensa con I’Hobbes che, nel dar vita allo Stato, l’Individuo rinunzia a ogni suo diritto, si ha il governo dispotico, so con Locke si stabilisce ina rapporto bilaterale fra individuo e Stato, si ha il governo liberale ; so col Rousseau si considera innlicnaliilo ogni diritto individuale, cosicché i singoli, riuniti in assemblea, possono, con un semplice atto di volontà, far tabula rasa d’ogni governo e magistrato esistente, si ha il governo radicale. Corpo (filos,): per Cartesio e Spinoza ò corpo ciò che ha estensione o moto, il quale non è altro che una successione di luoghi occupati da un corpo nell’estensione; per Berkeley o Hume, negata resistenza della materia, il corpo è un complesso di idee o sensazioni associate. Corsi e ricorsi (filos.): è la legge universale che per il Vico regge la vita dei popoli e rispecchia le fasi di sviluppo dello spirito individuale: il senso, la fantasia, la mente pura, corrispondenti, nella vita pratica, alla passione ferina, alla soggezione a una legge di forza e arbitrio, alla libera osservanza dei dettami della ragione. Cosi ogni popolo trascorrenecessariamente dalla violenza dolio stato ferino alla vita civile, e, in conformità dell'eterna natura umana, dove ripercorrere il suo corso, ricadere, per un processo degenerativo, nel senso o nella violenza, e dalla barbarle riprenderò il moto ascensivo, iniziare 11 ricorso. Vico trasse questa sua dottrina dalle indagini sulla storia di Roma, generalizzata e integrata, qua e là, con quella di Grecia. Cosa in sè (opposto: fenomeno): esprime il carattere dello coso considerate por sé, fuori dei soggetto che le conosce, o in maniera da questo indipendente. per Kant è il quid inconoscibile che si cela dietro ai fenomeni e no è il fondamento; è posta fuori del tempo e dello spazio, non vi si possono appi!-Cose e persone  27  Creazione care lo categorie, valido solo poi fenomeni. Schopenhauer vedo la cosa in so nella volontà metafisica, fondamento ultimo o immanente del divenire cosmico: volontà ili vivere, for/.a cieca, inconscia, elio « si accendo ima lampada noi corvello umano », cioè si fa consapevole solo nell’uomo. --corno concetto limite la cosa in sé stabilisco, per Kant, il confine fra il conoscibile o l incomiscibile £ è ciò che ó al di là dell’esperienza, oggetto di una intuizione non sensibile, ma solo intellettuale, elio è negata all’uomo. Cose o persone (morale): per Kant lo cose sono mezzi, oggetti per i nostri bisogni (in linguaggio economico: beni materiali ); lo persouo sono non mezzi ma /ini in si, hanno un valore assoluto che si misura non dall’uso oho so ne può fare, corno avviono delle cose, ma dal rispetto che si deve all’esscro ragionevole. in ciò che ha di intimo o inviolabile. Coscienza (lat. conscirc = sapere insieme, detto di più persone che conoscono le stesse cose; gr. erjvei8r, = giudico, esamino): in generale consiste nel sottoporre ad esame un principio, un’asserzione, un fatto, per stabilirne il grado di credibilità o il valore prima di accoglierli come veri; cosi avviene, p. e., nella critica storica. -per Kant ò una ricerca intorno alla ragione umana in tutto le sfere della sua attività (nel conoscere, nelPoperare moralmente, nel sentimento del bello). La critica tende a separare ciò che allo spirito umano proviene passivamente Criticismo  29 Deismo dal mondo esterno, ossia ciò che ò empirico, a poste riori, e che Kant denomina materia, da ciò che ù un’attività oiternaria della stessa ragione, ossia da ciò che ò puro, a priori, o che vien detto forma. Cosi nel conoscere sono a priori le intuizioni dello spazio o del tempo e lo categorie; nella condotta morale la leggo morale non deriva dall’esperienza ma è un fatto della ragione, è pura forma; nel giudizio estetico l’essenziale non è la realtà empirica dell’oggetto che si dice bello, ma la rappresentazione, cioè un’attività dello spirito. Infine, per spiegare certe produzioni della natura, non spiegabili col meccanismo, si ricorro alla finalità Interna, cioè si afferma che nella natura l’idea del tutto ò In ragiono dell’esistenza e dell’accordo delle parti, corno avviene negli esseri viventi, nei quali la natura s’organizza grazio a un’arte tutta intcriore, non per una causa esterna, qual è quella, ad es., che agisce in un orologio. Criticismo (filo»-)' ò la dottrina di Kant o della sua scuola, fondata su questi principi!: a) lo spirito umano impone ai fenomeni le sue forme, le sue attività costitutive, vaio a dire le intuizioni puro dello spazio e del tempo c le categorie; b) lo categorie, cioè i concetti puri dell’intelletto, non possono applicarsi a oggetti posti fuori dell'esperienza (l’anima, il mondo, Dio); l’uomo conosce solo fenomeni e l’assoluto gli sfugge. Cruciale (dal lat. crux = croce, come segno indicatore della via da prendere) (logica): per Bacone instantiac crucis (fatti cruciali) sono le esperienze risolutive che decidono fra due ipotesi contrarie. D Darwinismo; è la dottrina di C. Darwin che, accolto il principio della variabilità dello specie animali, vugl spiegarlo mediante: 1) la lotta per l esistenza che dà la vittoria ai meglio adatti; 2) l’ambiente elio crea modificazioni organiche o qualità; 3) 1 ereditarietà, per cui i caratteri acquisiti dall’individuo si fissano nella specie, e si accrescono grazie anche alla correlazione di sviluppo, per cui i mutamenti In una parto del corpo determinano mutamenti anche nelle altre parti. Dato (s’oppone a ciò che ò costruito, elaborato, dedotto) ( filos .): designai principi! generali, le condizioni, i fatti che sono una premessa necessaria per rispondere a una questione o risolvere un problema. Deduzione (opposto: induzione) (logica): è il procedimento logico che va daH’universale al particolare, dai principi! allo conseguenze, o anche da una o più proposizioni a una o più altre proposizioni,come necessarie conseguenze. (.'osi nella fisica da una legge ottenuta per via Induttiva si possono dedurre altre leggi subordinate o applicazioni di essa; CARTESIO, dalla proposizione: « Dio ò un essere verace », trae quest'altra: «egli non può ingannarci quando ci fa credere all’esistenza reale d’un mondo esterno ». La forma tipica della deduzione ò data dal sillogismo aristotelico. Vedi Sillogismo. Deduzione trascendentale (filos.): ò per Kant il procedimento che ricerca se le categorie possono applicarsi ai fenomeni, so sono la condiziono necessaria e sufficente dell'esperienza. La soluzione ò data dall 'immaginazione creatrice, « funziono cieca dell’anima ma indispensabile », facoltà Intermediarla fra la sensibilità e l’intelletto, per la quale l’io si realizza, entra in rapporto con la molteplicità delle cose sensibili, le unifica, dando l’oggettività alle leggi della natura; quindi non solo cogito ergo sam, ma anche cogito, ergo rea sunt (v. schema). Definizione (logica): ha per fine di determinare l’essenza d'una cosa, d'un’idea, enumerandone lo note essenziali. La Scolastica dice: definitio fit per genus proximum et per differcntiam specif icam, intendendo per genere prossimo la classe di cui una cosa è parte, e per differenza specifica i caratteri propri! della cosa stessa: p. es., definendo l’uomo un mammifero bimane, il termine mammifero ò il genere prossimo, il termino bimane la differenza specifica. Degnità: tormino usato dal Vico nella Scienza nuova ; equi vaio ad assioma, (gr. à^o>|Aa, da (z^ioc  degno) e sorve a indicare le idee fondamentali intorno alla fantasia, all’intelletto, al mito, alla religione ecc. Deismo: è l’idea della divinità ottenuta per opera della sola ragione, senza l’ausilio della fede rivelata e dei dogmi, e resistenza. Questa concezione domina Demiurgo 30  Determinismo soprattutto nell'ILLUMINISMO (sec. XVII e XVIII): è pure la religione del Mazzini. Demiurgo (gr. SmuoopYÓG, da = popolo e rad. épy = opero, lavoro; quindi: chi lavora pel pubblico, artefice); ( filo8 .): con questo nome vicn designato nel Timeo di Platone il dio artefice dell'universo, che plasma il cosmo dando forma all’informe, regola c ordine a ciò che ò senza regola o ordine, tenendo l’occhio fisso alle idee, come a modelli perfetti ed eterni di tutte le cose. Il cosmos, opera del demiurgo, è por Platone un essere vivente, fornito di ciò che v’ò di più nobile ed essenziale in un essere vivente, l'amma, che ò poi l’anima del viondo. Democrazia (gr. $7)(jtoxpaT(a = potere del popolo) (filos.): per Platonf. ò il governo dei molti (ol 770 XX 0 O, avente per fine la libertà, la quale può, per eccessivo desiderio d’uguaglianza, degenerare facilmente in anarchia e tirannide. -Aristotele, nella sua celebro teoria delle forme di governo, considera le forme pure, cioè quelle che hanno por fine d’attuare la giustizia, o sono la monarcàia, Varistocrazia, la democrazia (secondoché governa uno solo, una minoranza o la generalità dei cittadini). A queste corrispondono tre formo corrotte: la tirannide, 1 Oligarchia, la demagogia, quando il governo ò esercitato a Bolo beneficio di chi lo tiene. -oggi è la forma di governo in cui la sovranità risiede nella volontà popolare, intesa come l’espressione della maggioranza numerica dei cittadini riuniti in assemblea (Rousseau). Demone (gr. Sat(jL6>v) {filos.): è un segno o uno spirito o, meglio, una voce ammonitrice, cosa al tutto intima e personale di Socrate, non una personificazione divina: « è come una voce che io ho in me fin da fanciullo, la quale ogni volta che mi si fa sentire, sempre mi dissuade da cosa che io sia per fare, e non mai ad alcuna mi persuade; è questa che mi vieta d’occuparnii delle cose dello Stato e mi pare faccia ottimamente a vietarmelo ». Questo Satjj.6vióv ti è dunque un segno personalissimo, come ognuno In certi casi e momenti della vita può sperimentare più o meno sensibilmente per conto proprio (Valgimigli). Deontologia, tò Séov = il dovere, e Xóyogica, è la divisione d’un concetto in due concetti generalmente contrarii, o anche la classificazione d’un genere in due specie che ne esprimono tutto il contenuto; p. o. gli animali in vertebrati o invertebrati. Dictum de omni et nullo (Zotica): esprime la nozione che tutto ciò che è affermato o negato d’un genero ò puro affermato o negato delle specie o degli individui contenuti nel genere. Differenza (metodo di  ) (logica): ò il secondo del metodi dello Stuart Mill per la ricerca della causa. La formula è: se un caso nel quale il fenomeno si verifica e un caso nel qualo non si verifica hanno in comune tutte lo circostanze meno una, che si presenta nel primo caso e non nel secondo, questa è la causa del fenomeno : p. e. la causa per cui la colonna del mercurio s'innalza nel barometro si può ricercare facendo II vuoto; ossia: sopprimendo la pressione atmosferica, mentre tutto I lo altre circostanze restano immutate, e vedendo il mercurio scendere, si concludo elio la causa ricercata è il peso dell’aria. SI riconnetto alla tabula ab sentine di Bacone. Gli altri metodi dello Stuart Mlll sono: di concordanza, delle variazioni concomitanti, dei residui (v. questi termini). Differenza specifica: v. definizione . Dignità (in generale): ò il sentimento di rispetto che l’uomo deve avere verso se stesso, come essere ragionevole. (morale): in opposizione a prezzo, per Kant esprime il valore assoluto dell’essero ragionevole, come fine in sé. Dilemma (gr. SiaXap^àvco = prendo da due parti) (logica): è un sillogismo composto, che pone due alternative, dalle quali vien tratta una conclusione identica, in modo da non lasciare una via d’uscita; p. e.; contro la tortura: « o il torturato è forte tanto da sopportare I tormenti, e dirà quel eli© vuole; o è debole da non poter resistere, e dirà quel che vogliono i giudici: in ambedue i casi la tortura non conduce alla verità ». Dinamico e dinamismo (dal gr. Suva(Xi£= forza; opposto: meccanico o meccanismo) (filos): si applicano tali denominazioni a quello dottrine che vedono nella forza o neW energia l’essenza dell’universo; forza che agisco non dall’esterno ma dall’intorno, con spontaneità e attività trasformatrice o creatrice incessante, quindi irriducibile alle leggi meccaniche. Lo teorio dinamiche pongono il tutto prima delle parti, ciò che è vivente prima di ciò che è privo di vita, ciò che ò superiore atto a spiegare ciò che è inferiore. In opposizione a statico si usa a Indicare ciò che si trasforma, si sviluppa, diviene senza tregua. Dio; GII aspetti e i significati principali di questo termino complesso e oscuro nel suo sviluppo storico si possono cosi riassumere : a) nelle religioni piii antiche l’Idea di Dio sembra sorgere da un antropomorfismo spontaneo, cioè si concepisce Dio sul modello dell’Uomo, sia che si colleghi con la fede nella sopravvivenza dei morti c col culto degli avi, sia che lo si pensi come il simbolo del gruppo sociale; si oscilla fra l’idea di Dio pensato come una forza, e l’idea di Dio concepito come Un essere più o meno personale ; b) per l’azione del pensiero filosofico e scientifico Dio è pensato come l’unità essenziale di tutti gli elementi dell’universo: unità della sostanza prima, come nei Presocratici; idea dell’essere puro, come in Piatone o in Aristotele; superiore a tutte le categorie logiche e ad ogni idea di persona, ineffabile, come in Plotino; costituente la realtà essenziale del mondo, col quale si identifica, come nel panteismo (v. panteismo). Dio essere morale, giusto e buono, rispondente all’esigenza che ha l’uomo di credere al valore della propria azione. Dio 33 Discorsivo e discorso a un essere che sia garante dei nostri fini più alti, cioè dei valori spirituali. -Tra gli altri, 11 francese M. Blondel vede nell’idea di Dio tre aspetti, ciascuno dei quali tendo a predominare In tempi e mentalità diverse: il Dio del* TAntico Testamento, il rigido dominatore che riferisce tutto a sé. oggetto di rispetto e, più, di timore;è) il Dio intelligenza o tutto chiarezza e verità, dovuto alla tradizione ellenica; c) il Deus charitas, tutto amore per le creature, il Dio Cristiano. Dio (prove dell’esistenza di  ) ( filos .); "Te* principali sono: 1. la prova cosmologica, cho dall’esisten/.a del mondo, cioè del condizionato, del contingente o doll’imperfotto, conchiude all’esistenza d’una causa prima, d’un incondizionato, necessario o 1 l>erfetto. Cosi per Aristotele Dio, spirito puro, è la causa prima d’ogni movimento, è primo motore immobile ( 7TpcoTOV x.ivoOv àx(vT)TOV); è seguito dalla Scolastica (S. Tommaso ecc.). Oppone Kant cho dal fatto ohe noi affermiamo una causalità nel inondo dei fenomeni, non si può logicamente de| durre ohe v’è una causalità del mondo fuori del mondo, dato cho essa è al di fuori del campodellanostraesperienzaempirica, alla quulo soltanto può la nostia monto applicare la categoria di causa.  2. prova ontologica, eho dall'idea di Dio, come dell'essere più perfetto, deduce la sua esistenza, giacché un essere soltanto pensato, ma non esistente, non sarebbe l’essere perfetto; è concepita da S. Anselmo, respinta da S. Tommaso, seguita da Cartesio, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, occ. Kant nega che nel concetto d’una cosa sia contenuta Tesistonza corno nota essenziale: cento talleri reali non contengono più noto essenziali di conto talleri pensati. Ma, osserva Hegel, conto talleri non sono un concetto, e tanto mono paragonabili con l’idea di Dio; in questa resistenza è implicita, non come un'idea cho s’aggiunge a un’altra idea eterogenea: l’idea di Dio e 1'osistenza coincidono, come dove avvenire nel più alto principio cui possa giungere la filosofia; 3. prova teleologica o fisico-teologica: le cose della natura non solo rivelano ordine o regolarità, inspiegabili con la nozione di causa, ma formano un sistema. convergono verso un’unità suprema, come a un fine ultimo ; donde la necessità d’ammettere l’esistenza d’un essere cho pone e attua i fini manifestantisi nella vita della natura. È sostenuta da Socrate, Platone, Aristotele, dalla Scolastica occ. Kant fa osservare che, pur ammettendo essere lo opere della natura paragonabili a quello d’un artista, si giungo solo a un Dio artefice ordinatore della materia, non a un Dio creatore; per passare dalla considcraziono d’un ordino nel mondo all’eslstcuza d’un essere necessario o perfetto, bisogna far ricorso alla prova cosmofogica e ontologica, lo quali vanno inoontro  egli dice  ud altre obbiezioni non meno gravi (v. sopra); 4. prova morale o etico-teologica, che dall'esistenza della legge morale in noi trae la prova dell’esistenza di Dio fuori di noi. Kant, per accordare l’idea doV dovere con la felicità, ammette un pr cf grosso indefinito verso la santità, cioè verso la virtù perfetta che esigo la soppressione della sensibilità; na ciò è possibile solo se la nostra personalità persiste, ossia so ò immortale, grazie nH’uziouo sul mondo d’un essere in cni l'unione della santità o della felicità è attuata. Però questa prova non consento la conoscenza metafisica d’una sostanza divina, ma solo una credenza razionale, che s’accorda col risultati della Critica della ragion pura. Hegel oppone cho Kant, appoggiando la prova dell* esistenza di Dio alia credenza monile, presuppone implicita ncll'idqa di Dio 1 ’esistcnza; cade perciò in una gravo eoutraddizione, perché lia prima condannato tale identità, che ò il fondamento della prova ontologica, da lui respinta. Discontinuo (opposto: continuo) (/ posizione scompare. Dogma (gr. Sóyfxoc, da Soxéco: opinione. decreto) (relig.): esprimo il decreto d’un concilio, un principio religioso considerato verità inoppugnabile. ( filos .): designa comunemente un principio piii affermato che provato, o anche imposto da un’autorità o accolto senza esame critico. Dogmatismo (opposto: scetticismo) ( filos.): Kant chiama dogmatici i filosofi cho fanno uso di principii o di concetti senza ricercare per quale via e con che diritto si pervenga ad affermarli, ossia senza una critica preventiva del nostro potere di conoscere. Dolore ( psicnl .): ò uno stato affettivo indefinibile per la sua semplicità, che si presenta come dolore fisico, cioè come sensazione penosa più o meno localizzata, o come dolore morale (v. piacere), (filos.): il dolore è considerato dai Greci corno un ostacolo alla felicità cui l’uomo aspira naturalmente, come qualche cosa di ostile cho dovessero eliminato con ogni mezzo; mentre il Cristianesimo ha sublimato il doloro, che diviene mezzo di purificazione e di elevazione morale, soprattutto per l'azione dell'esempio di Gesù, che, assumendo corpo mortalo, ne ha preso tutto le infermità, è stato vinto, deprezzato, umiliato o ha subito il supplizio dello schiavo. Doppia verità (/ito.): ò la dottrina introdotta da Averrok, secondo la quale può essere vero nella filosofia ciò elio è ritenuto falso ed errato nella religione, e inversamente; donde nna scissione interiore dello spirito. Dovere (morale): in senso concreto è una norma determinata di condotta, un'obbligazione ben definita: p. e. i doveri verso la famiglia, la patria. in senso generale e astratto è l’obbligazione morale, considerata separatamente dal suo contenuto, ima legge, un comando, cui si deve obbedire. per Kant consiste ueirobbodiro a un comando, a un imperativo categorico, valido incondizionatamente por ogni essere ragionevole, che si può, ma non si deve trasgredire. Dualismo (opposto: monismo) (relig .): applicato per la prima volta da Hyde per designare un sistema religioso in cui a un principio buono s’oppone un principio cattivo, l’uno e l’altro eterni e in eterno contrasto fra loro, come nella religione di Zoroastro. (filos.): si applica alle dottrino che ricorrono a due principii opposti e irriducibili por spiegare l’universo o quindi Ri presenta, anzitutto, come dualismo cosmico: in Platone fra la materia, oscura, ostile, causa del perpetuo cangiamento e del perenne fluire di tutte le cose, c lo spirito, il mondo delle idee, essenze eterne, fuori del nostro pensiero, sostegno del mondo reale; in Aristotele fra la materia, docile alle esigenze dello spirito, plasmabile, o la forma, l’idea che s’inserisce nella materia, la, plasma e la perfeziona; in Cartesio fra la res cogitans, lo spirito, e la res extcnsa, la materia; in Kant fra il mondo dello cose in sé, inconoscibile, e il mondo dei fenomeni., aporto alla nostra conoscenza. dal dualismo cosmico discende un dualismo conoscitivo, che fissa e scinde duo formo di conoscenza, derivanti da due facoltà dello spirito, il senso e la Dualità  35  Edonismo ragione, donde la conoscenza sensibile o la razionale, e il loro opposto valore. -o’è un dualismo morale, che dori va dal contrasto fra senso e ragione, cioè fra il piacere e l'utile da una parte, posti a fondamento della morule dell’edonismo di Aiustippo di Cirene, di Epicuro e del moderno utilitarismo, e l'attività razionate dall'altra, caratterizzata dal disinteresse verso i boni sensibili e dall'obbedienza allo norme dettate dalla ragione, come nell’cticn di Platone e di Kant. Dualità: il Gioberti dà a questo termino un senso più generale che a dualismo: Ogni ordino di conoscibili, egli dice, ci si manifesta come una dualità, che è quanto dire che non possiamo ponsare un oggetto, senza che la cognizione di esso importi quella d’un oggetto congiunto e correlativo. Cosi l'idea di Dio inchiude quella dell'universo, il concetto dell'universo comprendo quella di Dio; essa si reitera in una successione indefinita, fino all’ultima specie materiale, e risplendo in tutti gli ordini della natura ». Dubbio (in generale): stato di Incertezza, di indecisione, in cui viene a trovarsi 10 spirito per la difficoltà grave, o anche Insormontabile, di giungere a un’afferinaziono conclusiva. (filos.): si distingue un dubbio metodico, cho consiste nel sospendere provvisoriamente il giudizio Intorno al valore d’un'Idea, d'una teoria, o anche della scienza (Cartesio), finché la ricerca non giunga a conclusioni sicure o a un principio certo; e un dubbio scettico, cho consiste nel pensare che né 11 senso né la ragiono siano capaci di cogliere la verità, la realtà vera delle cose, e cho l’uomo perciò apprenda solo apparenze. Durata ( filos .): pel francese E. Bergson 6, non il tempo matematico, quantitativo, concepito come una serie discontinua di momenti eguali, a somiglianzà dei punti d’una linea geometrica, ma il tempo vissuto, che sentiamo fluire nella coscienza, una successione continua di processi qualitativi., di esperienze spirituali, cho si compenetrano, si fondono in uno sviluppo continuo, imprevedibile, libero, passano l’una nell'altra come una corrente intcriore, ininterrotta, a guisa d’un fiume che trascini seco tutto le sue acque, cosicché il passato vivo nel presente e l'uno e l'altro si prolungano nel futuro, costituendo la vita profonda dello spirito, mascherata e deformata per lo più dalle abitudini meccaniche. Da durata vione colta nella sua purezza e semplicità dall’intuizione (vedi questo termine) per via immediata, cho perù esige preparazione o sforzo. E Ecceità (lat. scol. haecceitas, da haecce res, che traduce l’aristotelico rò róSe ti = questa cosa qui) (filos.): termino coniato da Duns Scoto per designare il principium individuationis, cioè i caratteri che distinguono un individuo da un altro e dei quali il più importante, ultima realitas, è la volontà. Il principio ildl’liaecceitas è perciò collegato ad una tendenza volontaristica (v. volontarismo) in contrasto con l'inlcUettualismo (V. questo termine) di S. Tommaso. Eclettismo (dai gr. èy.)dfsiv = scegliere) (filos.): in senso largo consiste nella tendenza a cogliere in tutte le filosofie le affermazioni positive (considerando che ogni sistema filosofico è falso in ciò che nega, vero in ciò che afferma), lo verità che l'esperienza dei secoli ha consacrate, a conciliarle o comporlo In una dottrina armonica o coerente, che sia quasi il credo filosofico del genere umano. Eclettica è, ad cs., la dottrina di Cicerone. in senso più preciso, eclettismo è la conciliazione di tesi diverso o anello contrarie, che si raggiungo subordinando quelle tesi a un principio superiore: p. e. Victor Cocsin, capo della Scuola eclettica francese, s’appoggia al fatto che in ogni uomo esisto un senso del vero, il quale contiene allo stato latente le verità filosofiche eterno cho si discoprono interrogando la coscienza e ricorrendo alla riflessione; la ragione è come una luce cho illumina l’anima umana, una specie di rivelazione universale. Economica (teoria) della conoscenza: v. teoria economica della conoscenza. Edonismo (dal gr. Y;Sovvj = piacere) (filos.): comprende lo dottrine che pongono come principio unico della morale il piacere, che e il bene più alto, mentre il suo opposto, il doloro, è da evitare come un male; in senso rigoroso si applica alla dottrina di Aiustippo di Cirene, meno propriamente all’epicureismo e all'utilitarismo di Bentham e di G. Stuart Mii.l (quest’ultimo Effetto  30  Empirico stabilisco tra i piaceri differenze qualitative, distinguendo piaceri più o meno elevati, mentre Aristippo, come poi Bentham, prendo come misura delle cose l’intensità dei piaceri). La calma dello spirito, l 'atarassia di Epicuro o la ricerca doU'utilc sociale dello Stuart MII 1, che arriva lino al sacrificio di sé pel fieno comune, sono perciò molto lontani dall'edonismo vero e proprio. Effetto = vedi causa. Efficente (dal lat. eflicere = produrre, gr. 7 toi 7 )Tiy. 6 v = efficiens, Ciò,) (lilos.): in senso generale si applica alla causa intesa nella sua piena ostensione. in senso piti ristretto: è il terzo significato dato da Aristotele al termino causa, cioè quella « donde è il principio del movimento » ( oi>£v 7 ) àp /.')) tt)S xiVYjfTEtoq): è la causa motrice. Egocentrismo (lilos.): letteralmento consiste nel fare del proprio io il centro doll’tiniverso, ossia nel riferirò tutte lo coso al proprio io, che divieue il centro del piccolo mondo elio ci sta intorno o poi anche del cosmo in generale; quindi, in un linguaggio più rigoroso, consiste ncU'identideare i valori personalI coi valori del mondo circostante o i valori del mondo circostante col mondo del valori in generalo. Egoismo (opposto: altruismo) (psicol.): è l’amore di se stesso, la tendenza naturale a protessero la propria esistenza e i propril fieni; «l'istinto fondamentale nell’uomo come nell'animale èl'egoismo, cioè l’impulso a vivere e a ben vivere « (Schopenhauer). (morale)-. 6 la tendenza a subordinare il beno e le esigenze altrui al fieno e alle esigenze proprie e ad applicare questo principio come criterio per giudicare gli atti altrui e i proprii. -(metafisica)-, l’egoismo metafìsico corrisponde a solipsismo, che è vocabolo più usato, o sta nel considerare l’esistenza degli altri esseri come illusoria o dubbia: soltanto il mondo della mia coscienza esiste o l’affermazione d’nna realtà fuori della mia coscienza è contraddittoria. (Per Schopenhauer ehi la pensa cosi non ha bisogno d’essere confutato, ma solo d’iuta cura medica). Egotismo (in generale)-. 6 la coltura esclusiva delVio, della propria personalità, l’educazione raffinata dei sentimenti egoistici, con tendenza estetica o creduta tale. Eidetico (gr. el&oq, tema i§, da cui vedere, idea) (psicol.): b! dice eidetica la tendenza, frequente nei fanciulli, a richiamare t ricordi recenti sotto forma di immagini visive, dette anche eidetiche, o a proiettarle all’esterno. (lilos.): nella Fenomenologia di Husserl, filosofo tedesco contemporaneo, l’aggettivo eidetico si riferisco all'essmza ideale, alla forma o idea nel senso platonico-aristotelico, o si oppone a empirico: le essenze pure, oggetto dello scienze eidetiche, sono strutture universali, extratemporali, indipendenti dai fatti empirici. Elemento: in generale gli elementi sono lo parti semplici cho compongono i corpi e in cui questi si possono risolvere. Acqua, aria, terra e fuoco erano 1 quattro elementi di cui si credeva composta la materia (Empedocle). Dieonsi elementi aueho i primi rudimenti delle arti o delle scienze. Emanazione (dal lat. emanare = scorrere fuoji; opposto: creazione) (lilos.): esprime il processo, affermato dagli Gnostici c dai Nkoplatonky, mediante il qualo la molteplicità delle cose, sia materiali, sia spirituali, cho forma l’universo, si svolge, esco fuori dall’essere uno cho no costituisce il principio, senza cho vi sia discontinuità in questo sviluppo, vi sia o no diminuzione dell’Essere uno in tale operazione. Il Cesano distingue due sensi di questo termine: imanatio in divini» duple» est, una genrratin, altera per nwdum ro- l untali», introducendo cosi nellYaumazione l’opera della volontà, che è propria della creazione, della generatili. Eminentiae via (lilos.): è una dello provo dell’esistenza di Pio, comune nella Scolastica: « Le cose belle della terra sono il segno rivelatore della bellezza più alta, le coso pure della purezza perfetta, le cose elevato della più elevata  (pulchra puìeherrimum, sublimili alti»simum, pura purisstmum ostendunt). Emozione (lat. emoveo = pongo in movimento, scuoto) (psicol.): in generale s’appllea ad ogni stato affettivo o sentimentale. in senso stretto s’applien agli siati affettivi, reazioni d’ima certa Intensità, d’apparizione brusca, spontanea, e di breve durata, a costituire i quali concorrono stati di piacere o di dolore accompagnati o seguiti (por W. James, invece, preceduti) da movimenti e reazioni fisiologiche. Le emozioni possono essere piacevoli o spiacevoli, eccitanti o deprimenti, forti o deboli. Empirico (gr. SjjLTretpoq = che sa per esperienza; opposto: razionale, puro)Empiriocriticismo Ent( scienza) : si applica all’osservaziono fondata sull'applicazione diretta dei sensi all‘oggetto della ricerca, all’esperienza metodica cui partecipa 1 intelligenza, • i ciechi solo hanno bisogno di guida, ma chi ha gli occhi nella fronte e nella mente di quelli si ha da servire per iscorta (Galileo); ò sinonimo di sperimentale. (filos.): per Kant ò ciò che ò dato nell’esperienza sensibile, ciò che giunge a noi dal mondo esterno per la via dei sensi; equipollente di a posteriori (vedi questo termine). in senso peggiorativo, è opposto a sistematico e si dice di ciò che ò frutto di osservazione superficiale, non guidata da principii e norme metodiche. Empiriocriticismo ( filos .): è la « filosofia dell'esperienza pura « concepita da Riccardo Avexariub, che vuole liberare l'idea d 'esperienza da tutte lo aggiunto del pensiero, dalle Ideo della speculazione metafisica e anche della vita pratica, fondando una teoria economica della conoscenza (v. teoria e. d. c.). L’esperienza pura sarebbe il semplice contenuto della percezione. Empirismo (gr. ètXTCEipta = esperienza; opposto: raziottftltàmo) (filos.): comprende lo dottrino che considerano l'esperienza sensibile, le Impressioni dei sensi come il fondamento e la fonte prima, essenziale, insostituibile del conoscere umano; vi appartengono: nell’antichità la scuola cirenaica, la cinica, 1* epicurea, la stoica, e, nel tempi moderni, la filosofia di Bacon e, di |v = eterno) (filos.): lo gnostico Valentino denomina Pone perfetto il principio primo dell’universo, Pio, donde escono trenta coni minori, cho sono esseri intelligibili e intermediari fra Pio e l’uomo; l’ultimo cono, Sofia, ò presa dalla curiosità o dal desiderio Inestinguibile di contemplare 11 Padre o di scoprire il segreto della sua natura (to Se tox&oc; elvat ^7)TY) = contendo; quindi: arte di contendere con la parola) (lavica): è l’arte di discutere, adoperando, por vincere nella disputa, argomenti sottili e ingannevoli ; è la degenerazione della dialettica al tempo dei sofisti. Eros (gr. £po>s = amore) (filos.): per | Plato.ve ò l'amore rivolto alle ideo, la i tendenza filosofica che trasporta Pani! ma dall'amore por il bello alla visiono del perfetto esemplare della bellezza, cioè all'idea del bello, e di qui all'idea più alta, a quella del Beno (v. amore). Errore (logica): in generale si distinguono due classi d’errori: 1. errori logici, che dipendono dalla violazione delle norme logiche del pensiero, p. e. del principio di contraddizione (v. coniraddizione); 2. errori reali, inerenti alle Idee stesse, quando queste non siano, in tutto o in parte, conformi allo cose che rappresentano come ut viene per gl ter rori de i sensi. -per gli Epicurei la possibilità dclTcrrore non ò nella sensazione presa in se stessa, ma nel giudizio che pronunziamo intorno allo cose percepite. per Cartesio un’idea presa in sé e per sé non è né vera, né falsa: lo diviene solo se viene posta in relazione con altre, cioè negata o affermata mediante il giudizio, che ò un atto della volontà, ed erra quando afferma o nega ciò che l’intelletto non vede in modo chiaro e distinto, essendo il potere volontario disposto, per la sua stessa natura libera, a varcare i limiti dell’intelletto, sul quale ò fondato il criterio di verità (vedi criterio c verità). per Spinoza Terrore non è nulla di positivo, è solo una privazione dovuta all’imperfezione del senso, che percepisco una realtà parziale e no fa una realtà totale, come quando si prende la distanza apparente del sole per la distanza reale. Escatologia (gr. Ict^octoc = ultimo o Xóyos = discorso) (filos.): è quella parte della filosofia che ha per oggetto l’esame dei fini ultimi dell’uomo e dell’imi* verso. Esistenza (filos.): è la proprietà attribuita a ciò che ò oggetto dell’esperienza attualo o dell’esperienza possibile. Quando si dice: questa cosa esiste, si esprime un giudizio sulla sua realtà. gli Scolastici oppongono essenlia ad existcntia: la prima ò la natura concettuale della cosa, l’idea costitutiva di essa; la seconda ò la piena attualità, ultima actualitas, un quid che, aggiungendosi all’essenza, la pone nel mondo della realtà. per S. Anselmo essenza od esistenza in Dio coincidono o anche Spinoza nella I definizione dell’Effco dice: 7 vr causata sui (cho è la sub stantia, sire Deus) intclligo id cuius essenlia invol vii existrnf iam. V. Gioberti distingue essere da esistere: « in latino cxsistcre, cho suona apparire, uscir fuori, emergere, mostrarsi, s’usa a significare la manifestazione d’una cosa che prima ora come avviluppata, Implicita in un’altra, e che, uscendo, si rende visibile di fuori; quindi prodotta da una sostanza che la contiene potenzialmente, in quanto è atta a produrla », giacché II verbo sistere e I suoi derivati, p. e. subsislcre t contengono puro il concetto metafisico di sostanza; quindi Fesisfen/e non può concepirsi senza VEnte che ne ò la causa creatrice, donde la formula ideale (come il Gioberti la chiama):  l’Ente crea Tesistento ». Esistenziale (giudizio) = (logica): è il giudizio che afferma o nega semplicemente Tesistenza d’una cosa o d’una classe di cose. Esoterico (gr. IdtoTSpixóq = interiore) (filos.): dicesi particolarmente dell'insegnamento cho Aristotele impartiva ai discepoli già istruiti; per estensione si dice, in generale, dell’insegnamento impartito a pochi, fino a raggiunEsperienza  40  Essere gere il significato di sapere occulto, accessibile a pochi iniziati (v. acroamatico ). Esperienza (dal lat. experior  pongo alla prova) (ingenerale): ò la conoscenza diretta,Immediata, omediata, elicsi può acquistare dei fatti o dei fenomeni che si succedono in noi o fuori di noi. Y’ò un'esperienza comune o vulvare che procede in maniera spontanea, incoerente, senza regola e precauzione, obbedendo a impulsi sentimentali o utilitari; e v’ò un’esperienza scienti fica, già detta dagli Stoici è[X“£tpta {jlsO’oSlxt) (esperienza metodica ), che nelle sue ricerche applica all’osservazione dei fatti, alla loro interpretazione e al loro coordinamento le norme suggerite dalla ragione nel suo sviluppo storico, c dall’esperienza passata. l’idea moderna d’esperienza si costituisce nel Hi nascimento soprattutto per opera di Galileo, seguito poi dall’empirismo inglese. Locke riconosce due fonti dell’esperienza: il senso esterno e il senso interno (cioè la riflessione ), e quindi vede già nell’attività dell’Intelletto una condizione importante dell’esperienza. (filos.): per Kant l’esperienza consta di due fattori: a) della conoscenza doi fenomeni, cioò delle impressioni clic ci pervengono dal mondo esterno per la via dei sensi o dal inondo interno per la via della coscienza: materia passiva; b) dello spirito, che elabora il rozzo materiale delle sensazioni, cioè dei fenomeni, con le intuizioni pure o a priori dello 6pazio e del tempo e con le categorie, cioò con le forme attive. Questi duo fattori sono intimamente e indissolubilmente fusi nel l’esperienza. Esperienza possibile (filos.): si ha quando, dice Kant, « io mi rappresento insieme tutti gli oggetti sensibili esistenti in tutti i tempi e in tutti gli spazi, ossia gli oggetti che si trovano in quella parte dell’esperienza verso la quale debbo ancora progredire ». Esperienza pura (ItTos.): è la dottrina che vuole liberare il pensiero da tutto le aggiunte artificiose e superflue, come causa, tempo, sostanza eoe. e costituire ' un’idea naturale del mondo mettendo nella sua vera luce il puro dato immediatamente vissuto, cioè la sensazione. Così R. Avkxarius c Vempirio-cri deismo. Esperimento (scienza): consiste nel riprodurre artificialmente fenomeni naturali col lino di poterli osservare  isolandoli, ripetendoli, « provando e riprovando »  nelle condizioni più favorevoli per l’indagine scientifica. Galileo è stato uno dei primi e più geniali sperimentatori. Essenza (lat. csscntia da esse) (logica): designa il complesso delle determinazioni, cioò dei caratteri che definiscono nelle sue note costitutivo un oggetto del pensiero. Aristotele Ja definisce: oùaCa àveo CXyjs, ossia la sostanza senza la materia; p. es.: l’essenza dell’albero ò data dallo qualità costitutive del concetto di albero, distinte dalla sua materia; forma c materia, unite, dànno la sostanza (oùoCa). (filos.): è ciò che costituisce il nucleo costanto d’una cosa in opposizione alle modificazioni che non lo toccano se non superficialmente e temporaneamente; così la intende Cartesio. Spinoza aggiunge che l’essenza d’una cosa ò ciò senza di cui questa non può né esistere né essere concepita e, viceversa, ciò che senza la cosa non può né esistere né essere concepita: id sine, quo res et vice versa quod sine re nec esse nec concivi potest. Essere (filos.): in opposto a divenire indica ciò che esiste o sussiste stabilmente, non ostante i mutamenti che può subire; è dunque una realtà permanente, costante, presente nell’esperienza o anche accessibile al solo pensiero; por gli uni (per cs.: Parmenide o Platone) l’idea dell’essere è la più ricca di contenuto; per gli altri (per es.: Hegel o Rosmini) è l'idea più semplice o più povera di contenuto; ma sempre di grande valore speculativo. Parmenide por primo pensa l'essere come la realtà vera, immutabile, perfetta, senza passato né futuro, posta In un eterno presente, unità del tutto omogenea, accessibile al solo pensiero logico; mentre il non essere ò apparenza mutevole o dipendente dall’esperienza ingannevole dei sensi. per Democrito l'essere è posto nella pluralità degli atomi, che si muovono nel vuoto, cioè nel non essere, il quale ò quindi una realtà anch’essa. per Platone ressero è nelle Idee. per Hegel, so ad una cosa si tolgono tutto le determinazioni e le qualità, rimane la pura affermazione* questa cosa è; ossia l’idea più semplice, più astratta, più povera di contenuto, che richiama alla mente l’idea opposta, cioè quella del non essere. È il punto di partenza (Iella logica hegeliana, e della diaEssoterico  41 Esterno lettica (v. questo termine) ; infatti « la verità dell'essere {tesi) e del non essere (antitesi) è la loro unità, la quale ò divenire ( sintesi ); l’essere, se vicn pensato nel divenire, è un formarsi, un incominciare ; invece il non essere ò un passare ». L’idea decessero è un’idea della ragione (v. qui sotto l’esempio citato nel Nuovo Saggio del Rosmini). -anche pel Rosmini se dall’idea concreta di M. nostro amico voglio rimovero ciò che ha di proprio e originale, non mi resta più l’idea del mio amico, ma solo l’idea comune di un uomo; se poi astraggo le qualità proprie dell’uomo, mi resta un’idea più generale, cioè l'idea d’un animale; io posso allo stesso modo colla mia mente astrane dalle qualità proprie dell’animale o mi resta allora l’idea d’un puro corpo privo di sensitività, dotato solo di vegetazione; voglio ancora colla mente togliere da lui ogni vegetazione, allora la mia Idea ò divenuta l’idea d’un corpo in genero; se infine non voglio badare a ciò che ha di proprio il corpo, rimane allora l’idea più universale di tutte, cioè l’idea d’un ente, senza che questo nel mio pensiero sia determinato da nessuna qualità cognita, l’idea dell’essere è dunque quella, tolta la quale, è tolto interamente il pensare ed è resa impossibile qualsiasi altra idea ». Però l’idea dell’essere « che è la verità prima e la ragione suprema, presuppone chi dia l’essere alle coso che esistono, ossia l’essere in sé, Dio, causa ». Essoterico (gr. èScoTepixò»; Xóyo|xv) = sentenza) (in pflBile): si usa a indicare la saggczzi^Riq s’esprime per mezzo di sentenze morali, proverbi, aforismi: filosofia gnomica, poesia gnomica (Solone, Focilide, Teognide). Gnoseologia (gr. yv&at? = conoscenza e Xóyo? = discorso) (filos.): ò quella parte della filosofia che studia il problema della conoscenza (vedi conoscenza). Gnosi (gr. yvcócu? = conoscenza, saggezza) (rch' 0 .): è lo stato del Cristiano illuminato che distinguo chiaramente la propria fèdo da quella dei pagani, le divinità dei quali gli appaiono pure finzioni. (filos. e rclig.): ò una forma di conoscenza che trasforma la fede in scienza; è però una conoscenza concreta, giacché per gli Gnostici conoscere Dio vuol dire possederlo, non per via discorsiva, dialettica, o per la certezza soggettiva della fede, ma per via mistica. che si complica con gli clementi provenienti dallo religioni orientali o dalla filosofia; giacché gli Gnostici, per superare l’antitesi fra Dio, principio del bene, e la materia, principio del malo, imaginano una serie di coni (alcove?), realtà intelligibili uscite dal Primo principio ineffabile, una delle quali, degenerando, ha prodotto la materia e il male. La creazione e 1 a redenzione cristiane sono episodi di quella lotta. Principali rappresentanti della gnosi sono Valentino e Marcione (II sec. d. Or.) (v. Eoni). Grazia ( relig .): è un dono gratuito fatto da Dio alle creature umane, senza che vi abbiano .alcun diritto; in questo senso non v’è cosa alcuna che non sia una grazia, poiché Dio basta a sé e dona liberamente e gratuitamente tutto ciò che dà. In un senso meglio determinato da S. Agostino la grazia ò un dono gratuito che Dio fa all’uomo (posto dal peccato originale nello stato di natura decaduta e pervertita) per rendere possiGusto  4ft  Idea bile la salvezza di pochi eletti, Bcelti dalla sua imperscrutabile volontà, giacché l’uomo da sé non può risollevarsi e lo Spirito Santo soffia dove vuole (spiriius sanctus apirat ubi vult, non merita seqiUns, sed merita facicns). _ Lo stato di grazia implica una partecipazione più o meno consapevole dell'anima alla vita soprannaturale, che oltrepassa l’ordine croato, cioè la natura o la conoscenza razionale; è oggetto di fede (v. natura). (estetica): La grazia è il sentimento, non beilo definibile» che nasce alla vista  idola tori, gli Idoli del mercato, cioè provenienti dai rapporti sociali: p C, gli errori per cui si prendono corno reali le coso fittizie designate da terminll del linguaggio; d) idola thratri, consistenti nell'azione esercitata sulla mente dai sistemi filosolidi, elio si succedono sulla scena della storia, come le rappresentazioni fantastiche della realtà si svolgono sulla scena d'un teatro. _ (teoria della conoscenza) : per E cicli HO tutto le coso reali emettono efflussi d'atomi. quasi Involucri vuoti isimularm. 11 dice Cicerone), i quali riproducono la struttura generalo e le qualità del^ corpi donde emanano e, movendosi con grondo velocità, pervengono attraverso 1 sensi fino al cuore, dove producono le sensazioni. Possono provenire audio da corpi non piti presenti ai sensi; di qui 1 fantasmi del sogno e del delirio. Ignava ratio (gr. ip-fòc; Xbyo r, = vita) (filos.): è la teoria comune ai più antichi filosofi greci, secondo la quale la materia è considerata non solo come attiva, ma come animata, vivente: materia e lotiche sono Indistinto. Immaginazione (psicol.): è l’attitudine mentalo a formare immagini c rappresentazioni ; si presenta sotto duo forme : --a) rappresentativa, o riproduttrice, che sta nel potere psicologico di riprodurre nella mente gli oggetti già percepiti, non presenti: li) creatrice, che consiste nei comporre, nel creare nuove immagini; è alliue a fantasia o ha una funzione importante nell’arte. (/ilo».): per Spinoza la imaainalio è il grado inferiore del conoscere, visione oonfusa, disordinata, incompiuta * delle" coso.  per Kant l’immaginasionc creatrice è « una funzione cieca ma indispensabile % che applica le categorie deU’in* folletto ai fenomeni, collognndo lo forine dell'intelletto con lo forme della sensibilità e rcndondo cosi possibile la costituziono doli'esperienza;  per FICHTE l’immaginazione creatrice produce il non io, che si oppone all'io puro o lo limita; opera In maniera Incosciente. Immagine (psicol.): In generalo ò la rappresentazlono montalo d'un oggetto percepito, o anche una nuova rappresentazione formata d’elementi psichici elio già si trovano nella coscienza, come le immagini poetiche. Immanente (opposto: trascendente ) (/»/os.): già nel soc. XIII immanens (opposto a transiens c transitiva) i> detta un’azione od una causa elio rimanga nell'Interno dol soggetto agente, mentre transitiva è dotta quando, uscendo dal soggetto, s'cserclta sopra un'altra cosa; cosi S. Tommaso: duplex est actio, una qua e transil in citeriorem materiam, ut calc/acerc et secare, alia quac manci in agente, ut intclligcre, sentire et rette (= duplice è l'azione; una che passa nella materia esterna, come riscaldare o tagliare, l’altra cho rimane nell’agente, come intendere, sentire e volere).  Spinoza Intende in questo senso il termine immanente, quando dice: Deus est omnium rerum causa immanens non vero transiens (Ilio è causa immanente di tutte le cose, non transitiva), perché, contenendo in sé il mondo (v. panteismo), non esco fuori di sé quando agisce, ma resta in so stesso. -per Kant è immanente ciò che sta entro i limiti dell’esperienza, trascendente ciò clic sta fuori deH'esperienza a non è conoscibile. Immanentismo Imperativo in dottrina eli Blondel (vedi: azione) ò detta una « trascendenza immanente », perché la divinità che è trascendente, può, per un atto della volontà individuale, consapevole della propria incompletezza e insuiHeionza. divenire immanente, entraro nella vita umana, compenetrarla, facendo cosi l’uomo partecipo della vita soprannaturale per un dono gratuito, cioè per tuia grazia, la quale però risponda a un appello interiore, a un’intensa aspirazione della coscienza. Immanentismo (relìg.): è la teoria attribuita al clero modernista cattolico e condannata dall’enciclica Pascendi, pei duo principi! di cui consterebbe : a) il sentimento religioso è un prodotto dell'attività interiore o incosciente dello spirito ed ò il germe d’ogni religione, che così apparo un frutto proprio o spontaneo della natura; b) Dio è immanente nell’uomo, perciò la sua aziono si confonde con quella della natura e 11 sovrannaturale viene eliminato. Immanenza (filosofia dell' )(filos.): ò la dottrina di G. Schuppe, secondo cui l’io, la coscienza ò il fatto primo, supcriore ad ogni dubbio, irriducibile, e la pluralità delle cose di cui l’io è conscio è l’oggetto inseparabile della coscienza, per cui ogni oggetto non pensato, non presente al soggetto e da questo indipendente, è inconcepibile; ogni cosa è solo in quanto è presente al soggetto, in quanto entra nella sfera della sua luce e della sua realtà (ossia è immanente nella coscienza). Ciò non vuol dire che il mondo sia nell'io, ma solo che l’io e il suo oggetto sono due momenti inscindibili d’uno stesso atto: • quando lo ho la sensazione d’un disco rosso posto a nna.corta distanza o d’una data grandezza, ciò non vuol dire altro so non che io ho coscienza di esso, clic esso è oggetto della mia coscienza ». La realtà è perciò il contenuto della coscienza. non dello singole coscienze!, ma d’unti « coscienza generica >, che è il soggetto pensato nella sua perfezione c nella sua purezza, avente un’esistenza concreta solo nello coscienze particolari. Immaterialismo (filo».): cosi denomina Berkeley la propria filosofia, clic, opponendosi al materialismo del suo tempo, vuol dimostrare resistenza reale delle sole idee e dell’anima e riduce la materia a un complesso di idee, intese nel senso di processi psichici. Immediato (opposto: medialo) (logica): ò immediata un’inferenza, quando il passaggio da un giudizio a un altro, da una proposiziono a un’altra avviene senza un termine medio, senza un terzo giudizio intermediario; p. e. dalla proposizione :  i triangoli sono poligoni », si deduce immediatamente: « alcuni poligoni sono triangoli ». (/ilo*.): è immediata la conoscenza che coglie un'idea, un sentimento per via dirotta, intuitiva, senza passare per un termine medio, come invece avviene nella conoscenza discorsiva e analitica; cosi Platone intuisce l’idea del Bello e del Bene, Cartesio il cogito ergo sum. Immoralismo (/ ilos .): per Nietzsche designa l'aspirazione verso nuovi valori morali, cho si dovrebbero concretare nelle virtù forti ed eroiche del superuomo (v. questo termine), e dovrebbero sostituirsi ai vecchi valori, soprattutto allo virtù umili e inclini alla rinunzia, esaltate dalla morale del Cristianesimo. Immortalità (filo*, o velia.): è il sopravvivere indefinito dcU’anima al corpo, conservando la propria individualità. La dottrina dell 'immortalità personale è por la prima volta affermata con prove da Platone (specialmente nel Fedone). per Aristotele. ò immortale solo l 'intelletto attiro (v. questo termine), che è la forma dell’anima ed entra in questa dall’esterno. per Kant l'immortalità dell’anima è un postulato della ragion pratica ; è fondata sopra l'esigenza, por l’essere umano finito, di attuai*© la perfezione morale In un progresso indefinito verso la santità. Imperativo (morale): ò un comando, una norma obbligatoria che l’uomo deve imporre a se stesso pel raggiungimento d’un fine. Kant distingue due specie di impè* rat ivi : a) ipotetici, che sono comandi condizionati, mezzi da servire a un determinato fine, e sono regole d’abilità o consigli di prudenza; p.e.: sii temperante se vuoi vivere a lungo ; categorici che comandano in modo assoluto, incondizionato, non sono subordinati ad altro fine ed esprimono la necessità dannazione, in quanto è buona in 60 stessa; sono norme razionali, che esprimono la forma che deve rivestire un'azione per essere giudicata Implicito  53  Indifferenza morale; provenendo dalla ragione, non dall'esperienza, sono universali e necessari ; p. e. : non mentire, avvenga olio può . Implicito (opposto; esplicito) {logica): un’idea o un giudizio sono impliciti.in un’altra idea o giudizio, se, affermati questi, sono affermati e sottintesi quelli ; p. e.: essere ragionevole 6 implicito in uomo. Impressione ( filos.): ò il principio fondamentale della dottrina di HUME, pel quale « Bono impressioni le sensazioni, lo passioni, le emozioni elio compaiono per la prima volta nella coscienza . mentre le idee e lo rappresentazioni sono copie dello impressioni, ma più tenui o meno vivaci. Per Humc non v’è idea senza impressione, non vi sono concetti a priori e non vi è metafisica. Impulsione e impulsivo (dal lat. impellere = incitale; opposto: inibizione) (psicvl.): esprime la tendenza spontanea e immediata all’azione. Un carattere è impulsivo quando passa dirottamente dalla concezione d’un atto alla sua esecuzione; allora il potere inibitorio agisce debolmente e noi casi patologici è annullato (v. inibizione). Imputabilità (da,, lat. imputare = mettere in conto, attribuire a qualcuno un atto) ( diritti> e morale): è 11 carattere d’un atto, die, trasgredendo la legge civile o la legge morale, può essere imputato a una persona. Ha un aspetto oggettivo, in quant o si considerano gli untecedenti deiratto imputabile, cioè la persona agente, la condiziono elio permette ad ossa di operare e la circostanza, ossia l’occasione più o meno favorevole ad agire; e ha un aspetto soggettivo, che è la libera decisione della volontà, l’aver agito consapevolmente e liberamente. La responsabilità e la pena non sono necessariamente connesse all'imputabilità, giacché le cause che diminuiscono il valore razionalo della persona agente (p. e. la passione c l’ignorau/a invincibile), ne diminuiscono pure e, in certi casi estremi, ne annullano la responsabilità. L’imputabilità morale esige pjù particolarmente l'apprezzamento morale dell’atto in relaziono col valore morale della persona agente. Incondizionato (filos.): è ciò che ha in sé la ragione del suo essere e, quindi, non sottosta ad alcuna condizione; può quindi essere inteso come assoluto. Inconoscibile {filos.): è ciò che, pur essendo reale, si sottrae ni nostri mezzi di conoscenza, ò un assoluto che sta dietro i fenomeni; lo Spencer lo pone a fondamento della sua dottrina (v. «gnosticismo). Incosciente (opposto: cosciente) (psi’col.): si dice dei processi psicologici (sensazioni, rappresentazioni, volizioni, ecc.) che, pur essendo reali e attivi nel nostro interno, non sono avvertiti dalla coscienza. -Leibniz pel primo ha richiamato l’attenzione su questi processi psichici oscuri (petites, insensitiva percepìurna), che costituiscono la vita delia monade nel suo grado più basso: p. e. il movimento d’ogni singola onda marina dà u na percezione debole, confusa, inavvertita, incosciente, e deve fondersi coi movimenti delle altre ondo per essere percepito distintamente. (filos.): pel tedesco Kdourdo Hahtmaxx rineosciento è l'essenza della realtà, un principio universale, dovunque presento, attivo, intelligente, manifostuntesi nella materia, nella vita, nel pensiero; In se stesso ò sopracosciente, per nói è incosciente; ò una sostunza operante, analoga alla volontà ili Schopenhauer, itila quale l’inconscio deH’Hnrtmann ò sostituito come principio primo dell'essere o del divenire. Indetenninismo (opposto: determinismo) (filos.): ò lu dottrina elio afferma la libertà del volere, per cui la volontà non dipende nelle sue decisioni né da forze esterne, né da processi interiori c mentali, non è determinata da cause, è dotata di spontaneità, lia la facoltà di decidersi senza causa. il Bol'tkoux o il Bergson estendouo questa spontaneità a tutta la realtà, nella quale si possono rilevare novità, creazioni, produzioni originali, elio il determinismo non riuscirebbe a spiegare (v. contingenza ). Indifferenza (filos.): per Aiustippo di Cirene è indifferente una sensazione clic non è né piacevole né dolorosa, paragonabile al mare in bonaccia.,  (morale): per gli Stoici sono indifrercnti, cioè prive di valore pel saggio, le cose che non dipendono da noi, come la vita, la morte, la salute, la malattia, la ricchezza, la povertà; la virtù è il solo bene c il vizio il solo male. per gli Scettici tutte le cose sono indifferenti (àSldccpopa, da a priv. o àiacpépco = distinguo), perché l’uomo conosco le coso come appaiono, non come sono in se stesse; quindi le cose sono Indifferentiae  51  Ineffabile (.ulte no» differenti, cioè uguali, sono pure apparenze. per sk'UKmxu l’indiffcreuza è il carattere del principio supremo dcll’universo, clic dove concepirsi indeterminato, comprendente in sé. Indistinti, l’oggetto o il soggetto, la materia e lo spirito, o conciliante in sé tutti 1 coulrasti e gli opposti: tale principio è la natura creatrice, natura naturimi!, spirito clic diviene. Materia 0 spirito sono per lo Schelling inni differenti, coincidono: la materia è spirito ohe sonnecchia, lo spirito è materia in formaziono (v. identità). Indifferentiae (libertini artritrium)  ): v. arbitrio. Individualismo (opposto: universalismo) ifilos.): consiste nel concepire l’individuo corno line a se stesso. Per questa dottrina tutte le forme sociali (la famiglia, l’associazione, lo Stato) sono mezzi creati dall’individuo per lo sviluppo dell’individuo, o la society non è altro die un uggrnppumento d’individui. (morale): è la dottrina per cui ciò che piu importa è la formazione e il perfezionamento morale dell'individuo, o la società ha valore in quanto favorisco lo sviluppo morale indefinito della persona umana, [ruiividualistica è la morale di Kant. Individuazione (principio di ) (Jat. mediev. : principi um individuai ionio) (filos.): nella Scolastica 6 ciò che conferisce a un essere l’esistenza concreta, determinata nel tempo c nello spazio, cioè individuale. Questo principio è la nuitcria per AQUINO, la e verità (haccccitas) per Duxs Scoto; per Leibniz è ciò che fa si che un essere possieda non solamente un tipo speci fico, ma un’esistenza singolare, concreta, determinata nel tempo o nello spazio e che lo distinguo da tutti gli altri : por SCHOPENHAUER è il tempo e lo spazio, grazie ai quali la volontà iti vivere, che ò il fondamento mota fisico della vita universale, sempre identico a se stesso, si manifesta come diverso e molteplice negli esseri individuali. Individuo (gr. &-to[AOV = indivisibile, che Cicerone traduce con in-dividuum) (in generale): 6 ciò cho costituisce un tutto determinato, concreto, distinto e distinguibile dagli esseri della stessa specie (Boezio: dicitur irui irido um quoil (minino secavi non potrai, ut unitas vet menu: dicitur id euiiis praedicatio in nllqua similia non convenit, ut Socrafes). (filos.): individuo ò l'uomo iu quanto rappresenta un mondo a parto o riflette in maniera particolare Putiiverso ; ò un microcosmo, cioò una concentrazione della realtà, del macris-osmo. Questa concezione risale a Plotino o ricompare in Nicola Cusano, in Giordano Bruno e in Leibniz. Induzione (Ionica): in generale ò l’operazione che consiste nel passare da fatti, affermazioni, proposizioni particolari o singolari a proposizioni e a principi! generali. L’induzione ha duo forme: a) induzione perfetta, quella aristotelica, detta enumeratio prr/ccta, che da ciò che ò stato provato dello singole parti d’un tutto procede al tutto stesso(v. epagoge): b) l’induzione moderna, o enumcralio imper/ecta, cho vu dalla parte al tutto, da ciò che si ò osservato in alcuni individui d’una classe a tutta la classe, è conclude con Un principio generalo, con una legge; ò divenuta un procedimento comune nella scienza dopo Bacone e Gallico; Mill vorrebbe che fosse riservato il uomo d’induzione a questo solo procedimento. (filos.): in che modo si giustifica l’induzione come passaggio dalla parto al tutto 1 Alcuni ricorrono al principio di causa: • qunudo lo stesso condizioni sono attuate in due momenti diversi del tempo c in duo punti diversi dello spazio, gli stessi fenomeni si riproducono, mutando solo lo spazio o il temilo  (PAINLEVÈ). pel Lacuki.ikh è fondata su duo principi, cioè sul principio di causa, In Virtù del quale i fenomeni formano serie in cui l’esistenza del precedente determina quella del seguente, e sul principio delle cause finali, per cui lo serie dei fenomeni formano sistemi (come, p. e., specie e generi), nei quali l’idea del tutto determina l'esistenza delie parti (p. e.; l'idea dell'uomo determina l’esistenza dei singoli uomini). Questo secondo principio assicura l’ordine nella natura, il quale alla sua volta assicura la costanza delle leggi meccaniche del movimento, ossia l'induzione stessa. il fisico K. MACH considera l iuduziono solo come un principio regolati co, un’ipotesi utile nello ricerche scientifiche, non un principio costitutivo e corto. Ineffabile (gr. SpprjTop. 7)11x4;). Che nasce, o muore col corpo, è illuminato dall’intelletto attivo, è materia rispetto a questo che è forma; Intellettualismo  56  Intelligibile  per Plotino emana direttamente dall’l/no, è intelletto universale, come poi per G. Bruno, pel quale « esso empie il tutto, illumina l'universo, è fabro del mondo », simile al demiurgo del Timeo platonico, che plasma il mondo sensibile con rocchio fisso alle idee. -per Spinoza è la facoltà che ha la nostra mente di collegare le idee in un ordine obbiettivo uguale per tutti, mentre 1’ associazione psicologica le ordina secondo le affezioni del corpo, collegato fra loro da rapporti nou necessari!, ma puramente accidentali e variabili ; -per Kant è la facolta di giudicare, cioè l'attività che subordina rappresen| tazioni diverse a un concetto unico, è l’organo delle categorie, che collega i fenomeni dati dalla sensibilità; per Schopenhauer ò l’organo che coordina le rappresentazioni mediante il principio di causa, la sola categoria da lui ammessa. Intellettualismo (opposto: volontarismo) ( filos .): il termine ò di recente formazione e risale a Schelling, ma l’idea è antica, e consiste nel subordinare alla ragione teoretica (vou? &so>p7)Tixós di Aristotele) la ragione pratica (voo£ 7rpax?ixó$); ossia nel porro il centro di gravità dell’esistenza umana nell'!zitelle tto, considerato come la sola funzione che le possa dare forza, calore, vita, giudicando l’azione pratica come secondarla e subordinata al conoscere, c affermando che le norme valide pel pensiero sono pure valide per le altre attività vitali, il sentimento e la t*olontà. -I filosofi greci ci diurno un esempio tipico dell’intellettualismo: convinti che l’uomo fa parte d’un cosmo retto da leggi immutabili che lo circonda con la sua certezza c il suo splendore, non vedevano nulla di più grande della conoscenza d’un tale mondo (D-eopCa) mediante l’intelletto (vouc). Con Socrate e Platone l’intelletto diviene anche la guida sicura della condotta morale: non è possibile fare il bene senza conoscerlo, né è possibile che, conoscendolo, non lo si faccia. -nei tempi moderni tipici rappresentanti dell’intellettualismo sono Leibniz, il qualo afferma essere il pensiero la potenza fondamentale dell’anima, ed Hegel, pel quale l’universo è la ragione realizzata, la realtà ultima è quella accessibile al solo pensiero, e « lo spirito è la causa del mondo « (v. volontarismn). -in senso peggiorativo ò 1 tendenza a rinchiudere la realtà vivente entro schomi rigidi e quadri artificiali, che invece di riprodurla fedelmente la deformano, toccando solo la superficie delle cose o disconoscendo le esigenze del sentimento e della volontà. Intelligenza (psicol.): in generale equivale a «organo della conoscenza» e quindi compie tutte quello funzioni psicologiche che contribuiscono al conoscere (percezione, associazione dello idee, memoria, immaginazione, ragione); suo operazioni importanti sono; distinguere e generalizzare. -(filos.): per S. Tommaso l'intelligenza è l’intelletto nella sua effettiva attività: inteUigentia significai ipsum actum inkllcclus qui est intelligcrc ; -per Hpinoza ò l’attività mentale, essenziale alla ragione: nulla est via rationalis sinc inteUigentia. il Bergson contrappone l’istinto e Tintuizione all’intelligenza : questa ha una funzione analitica, discorsiva, vuol comprendere ciò che si sottrae al meccanismi, ossia la vita e lo spirito, mediante le leggi meccaniche che governano i corpi solidi; perciò si lascia sfuggire il carattere profondo e originale della vita e dello spirito, che è divenire spontaneo, imprevedibile, creatore. Intelligibile (gr. voyjtó$, da voéo = penso, comprendo con la mente; opposto: sensibile) (filos.): in generale indica ciò che può essere soltanto pensato, conosciuto dall’intelletto. più particolarmente, l’ospresBione monito intelligibile (xó; il Logos è Gesù, Il Verbo mediante il quale tutto è stato creato, la luce che illumina ogni uomo, il figlio unico di £>io o Dio egli stesso; xal ò Xóyos vjv Tcpò? ateòv, xal ?)V 6 Xóyo^ (il Verbo era presso Dio: e Dio era il Verbo). La teologia cristiana interpreta il Logos come il verbo che s’ò fatto carne nel figlio di Dio; è un mutamento importante nella storia di questo termine e, anche, del Cristianesimo. per Filone d'Alessandria, il logos è intermediario fra Dio e il mondo; per mezzo del verbo Dio é creatore del mondo, ò il primogenito di Dio, un secondo Dio, forza cosmica ordinatrice del tutto; per Plotino ò in generale ogni attività spirituale, e più particolarmente l’immediata produzione dell’t’no, la seconda ipostasi, il V 0 U£» la ragiono che contiene in sé lo idee e da sé le produce: vosi và 6 vva xal ucplaT7] vento. questa ido» viene ripresa nei Rinascimento e per N. Cusano l'uomo ò un parvus munxtus, uno specchio, una quintessenza dell'universo, poiché fra il grande e il piccolo cosmo i termini si corrispondono e abbondano lo analogie. Magia: in gemcrale è una delle arti taumaturgiche occulte, assai diffusa anche nel Rinascimento, la quale insegna a conoscere le forzo segreto della natura eglispiritiche in questa agiscono, per trarli a vantaggio dell’uomo con mezzi 0 pratiche occulte. il poeta-filosofo tedesco Federico Novaus ò Fautore cl’un idealismo magico, per cui l’uomo può entrare in rapporto di simpatia o d'azione diletta con l’universo, compiere l'unione misteriosa dell’io con la natura per via intuitiva: « l’artista, simile all’uomo primitivo, ò un visionario; tutto gli apparo come spirito ». Maieutica (gr. (xatsuTiXY) TéyvY] = Forte dell’ostetrica) (filos.): è il metodo seguito da Socrate che, interrogando, fa scoprire a ciascuno la verità che egli porta in sé: « hai sentito dir© che io son figlio d’una levatrice molto valente e seria, Fenarete, o che m’occupo della stessa arte, ma con riguardo alle anime e non ai corpi * 1 (Platone, Teeteto), Male (il problema del  ) (filos.): deriva dalla difficoltà di conciliare resistenza d’un Dio buono o onnipotente con a presenza del male nell’universo, sia che si consideri come male morale nel peccato, sia come male metafisico nell’imperfezione di tutte ie cose, sia come male fisico. Tale problema si presentii soprattutto nelle religioni e nelle filosofie ottimistiche (v. manicheismo). per lo Stoicismo il male, se è osservato non in sé ma in relazione ool tutto, dipende da condizioni posto perii bene, o anche ò un mezzo per attuare un bene, oppure dipende dalla stoltezza dell’uomo che disconosce le leggi della ragione cosmica e Berve alle passioni. per Plotino, seguito spesso dalla Scolastica, il male ò pura apparenza, perché colpisce Bolo l’uomo empirico che vive tutto nel mondo esteriore e Manicheismo Meccanica por i boui materiali, non l’anima olio s’elevi, purificata, nella sfera della ragione o dell’Uno. Leibniz afferma la superiorità del bene sul male nel mondo, il quale nel 1 suo insieme ò un’opera buona, preferibile al nulla. Anche VIlluminismo ò ottimistico. Manicheismo (relig.): dottrina fondata da Mani, persiano del III sec. d. Or., che vuol spiegare il mondo con la lotta frtt duo potenze sovrane e infinite, di cui la prima ò il Principe della luce, la causa o l’essenza del bene, l’altra il Principe delle tenebre, la causa e la sostanza del male. s. Agostino professò tale dottrina nella sua gioventù. Massima {morale): per Kant ò il principio soggettivo del volere, norma di condotta elio l’uomo si dà come valida per la sua volontà, senza riferirsi ad altre persone. Materia (opposto: spirito) (, filos .): per Platone è qualcosa di rozzo, di rosistente e di ostile allo spirito, il quale non riesce a dominarla interamente. -per Aristotele ò una realtà Indeterminata e inerte, ohe riceve determinazione e vita accogliendo la forma (v. questo termine), alla quale si adatta e la, serve docile, essendo a ciò predispostadalla stessa natura: è la potenza di ciò che, grazie alla forma, è tradotto in atto; p. e. il marmo rispetto alla statua. -per Cartesio ò la rea extensa, essendo l’estensione la sola qualità del corpo la quale si presenti a noi chiara e distinta ; è retta da leggi meccaniche, e lo stesso corpo umano è una macchina, benché mirabilmente foggiata. nei tempi moderni o s’ammette resistenza d’uria materia distinta dalla forza e se ne ha una concezione meccanica, come in Cartesio; oppure materia ed energia si identificano, o allora se ne ha una concezione dinamica, come in Leibniz; nel primo caso la causa del movimento ò esteriore, nel secondo è interiore e opera dall’interno verso l’esterno. Materialismo (opposto: spirUualismoy {filos.): ò la dottrina che considera la materia come l’unic a sostanza o il principio primo dell’universo, concepito coinè una molteplicità di corpi posti nellospazio e accessibili ai sensi. Si presenta sot to diversi aspetti, per la difficoltà di spiegare* l’esistenza dello spirito: a) nella forma 'attributiva Io spirito è considerato un attributo, una qualità inerente alla materia,, che appare animata, come nei Presocratici, materialisti inconsapevoli; b) nella forma causale lo spirito è un effetto della materia, à un epifenomeno dell’attività cerebrale, o anche l’insieme dello reazioni clolTorganisnto corporeo: «E la coscienza, come il pensiero, è un prodotto della materia « (B Corner); c) nella forma equaliva i processi psichici sono pensati come materiali nella loro essenza, crjuali essenzialmente agli elementi materiali; per Democrito, mi cs., 1’anima consta di atomi lisci, rotondi. simili u quelli del fuoco. Materialismo storico (filos.): Marx ed Engels, asserendo che l'uomo, nella sua essenza, é un essere che ha fame e sete, ha bisogno di nutrirsi, di vestirsi, in una parola subisce un certo numero di necessità vitali e dipende in ogni istante dolla sua vita dai mezzi atti a soddisfarle, cioè dai mezzi cconsnnici, materiali, deducono che il fattore economico determina, in maniera pili o meno visibile, ina reale e decisiva, ogni ‘ nostra azione; quindi bisogna dire, contro Ìidealismo classico, specialmente di Hegel, che non l’attività dello spirito ma le condizioni materiali d’esistenza sono gli organic 1 motori della storia, elio la produzione economica genera e domina il fenomeno giuridico, politico, morale, e, iu qualche modo, anche quello religioso, intellettuale, artistico. Questa dottrina viene anello detta determinismo economico, che però non esclude un’azione dello spirito sulle condizioni materiali della vita. Meccanica (opposto: dinamica ; gr. rj (i.y)/avtx.7) 'ziyyrr = l'arte di compor macchine ponendo a profitto Io forze della natura): in venerale è là teoria che spiega la formazione della natura in maniera analoga dlle opere dell’uomo, benché la natura operi con mnggior finezza dell’uomo (Aristotele). (filos.): l’idea di meccanismo dalla fisica s’estende a tutti i gradi della realtà, dando luogo a una teoria meccanica del mondo, che appare per la, prima volta nell’. 4 tomTsfica di Democrito : Il mondo, così vario e mutabile, ò sempre e dovunque lo stesso, giacché ogni cangiamento dipendo dal fatto che il substrato materiale é soggetto a movimenti d’ogni sorta, c tutti i fenomeni si succedono obbedendo al principio di causa, non esclusi i fenomeni psichici, che, seguendo le leggi Mediato  (in  Metempirico dcHVwffWwciofli’ delle idee, si ntlrng-, sono o si respingono, veri àtomi psì-r. chic!, come irli atomi Usici ; questa teoria lia li carattere d'nn deiermintomo universale. •,_ n Laplacp: cosi formula la consegui n/.a di tale teoria: Un’intelligenza elio conoscesse tutto le forze onde è animata la natura c la posizione rispettiva degli esseri che la compongono, so poi fosso cosi vasta da poter nssoggettaro questi fatti all’analisi, comprenderebbe in un’unica formula i moti dei più grandi corpi dell’universo o quelli delPatomo più leggero; nulla sarebbe incerto o l’avvenire come il passato sarebbe presento ai suoi occhi ». Mediato (ragionamento) (Apposto: immediato) (logica): è la forma di ragionamento che consisto nel passare da un giudizio a un altro mediante un terzo giudizio; p. e. f il sillogismo. Medio (logica): è nel sillogismo il termino che serve per eollcgaro il termine maggiore col minore: p. e. mortale si collogu a Sacrale, mediante uomo, nel sillogismo: • l’uomo è mortalo; Socrate è uomo ; dunque Socrate è mortale », Memoria (psicol.): ò la funzione psicologica clic consiste nel fatto che i processi psichici giù vissuti si conservano e si ri presentano nella coscienza, quindi vengono riconosciuti come ricordi, o localizzati, cioè riferiti al passato non in generalo, ma in un punto preciso, (ora, luogo, circostanze); se quest’ultimo carattere manca, si ha solo una reminiscenza. si ha memoria affettiva quando con la rappresentazione si rivive più o meno intensamente lo stato affettivo, il sentimento che da essa fu determinato. : (filo 8 .): il Bergson distingue: a) una memoria abitudine, per la quale il passato sopravvive In un sistema di movimenti; s’acquista con la ripetizione, servo all’azione, è localizzata nel sistema nervoso; b) una memoria pura, in cui il passato sopravvive in ricordi indipendenti di fatti onici, che non sì ripetono mai nello stesso modo, perché neirintcrvallo fra il processo psichico originale e il suo richiamo l’io è mutato; il processo integrale non è quindi piìi lo stesso, perché rappresenta uno «tato d’animo unico, che non toma più. Questa memoria è indipendente dal corpo: la prima ha carattere meccanico, la seconda dinamico. Metafisica ffilos.): nella storia del (ormino è già abbozzato il significato: Andronico di Rodi (I sec. d. Cr.),nell‘ordinare Io opero d’Aristotelo, collocò gli scritti ri f cren tisi alla filosofia prima it:?cót 7] 91X0009ta) dopo quelli riferontisi alla filosofia naturale (và yvai'/.óc.): quindi la filosofìa prima (quella che ha per oggetto la realtà ultima e l’essenza immutabile di tutte le coso) fu detta và [xsvà và 9omxà, ossia u/7)v = al di là della psiche) ( psicol.) : è il nome dato da C. Richkt, nel 1911, a quel ramo della psicologia che tratta dei processi psichici rari e anormali, come la telepatia, la divinazione, la chiaroveggenza, che dovrebbero rivelare facoltà psichiche ancora ignorate 0 costituire una nuova scienza. Metempirico (film): è ciò che sta fuori dei limiti dell'esperienza. Metempsicosi 04  Mito Metempsicosi (gr.  lctt., trans-animazione;) (filos. o retiti.): ò la dottrina antichissima, sorta in Oriente, giti nota a Pitagora c accolta da Platone, la quale ammette il trapasso dell’anima da un corpo all’altro, per cui una stessa anima pn successivamente dar vita a pia corpi, sia umani, sia animali, o anche vegetali. Metessi (gr. [lébcV-t = partecipazione, da uET-é/m = partecipo) (/ilos.). e ! pensata dà Platone per spiegare 1 rapporto fra le idee c le cose sensibll, i che sarebbero una «partecipazione, di quelle. Viene usata anche dal GIOBERTI I ì u significato nillne per chiarire il rapporto fra l’Idea, l’Ente, la divinità, e l’esistente, il mondo; è intermediaria fra l’atto creatore c il suo effetto, è partecipazione degli esistenti alla realtà originaria dell’Ente, per cui gli esistenti imperfetti, cioè gli esseri umani, aspirano alla perfezione dell’Ente. Metodo (gr. uéDoSoc, da o 684 ? = via; quasi: in via) (ionica): esprime l’Indagine e audio i mezzi per compierla, i procedimenti col quali si ordinano e si estendono lo cognizioni; donde: il metodo sistematico (dal gr. cr'-> v fomiti = raccolgo con ordino), che indica lo norme con le quali il sapere viene ordinato; p. o. la dassWcazionc : _ 2) il metodo inventivo, che offre l procedimenti col quali dallo cognizioni note si passa a quello Ignorate; p. e. ) induzione. _ Il metodo inventivo si suddivido alla sua volta in: _n) metodo induttivo, che da le nonne per tra ire dall’osservazione dei fatti lo leggi che li reggono, per estendere a tutta una classe di fenomeni elo che si è constatato in alcuni casi ’ omerale e narrazione favolosa ta cui esseri Impersonali, p. e. 1# forzo del natura, vengono personificati per spiegare simbolicamente fenomeni e avModalità 85 Movimento veni menti ; noi tempi uniteli! costituì* scolio II fondo delie credenze religiose. -(filos.): per Platone è una narra* ziono fantastica di ciò clic può avvenire al .il li dei limiti dell'esperienza e della ragiono; p. e. le vicende dell'anima dopo la morte: dove termina l’ufficio delia ragione, supplisce li mito o il Himbolo, come nel (forvia, nel Fettoni’. nel Fedro, nella Repubblica: dimostrata razionai monto l’immortalità (loirauima, si può favoleggiare iito&oAoysìv) intorno al destino dell’uomo dopo la morte.  ()(rs | por mito s'intende anche un’idea fondata sull'intuizione o la fede, che può divenire il sostegno o il motore interno (l’un movimento politico, sociale o religioso (p. o. li mito della razza). Costruito, almeno in parte, su elementi fantastici, trae 11 suo valore dalle conseguenze più o meno buone, più o meno utili, non dal suo contenuto di verità, «Difforme alla dottrina pragmatistica (v. pragmatismo). Modalità {Ionica): b per Kant la funzione dei giudizi, fondata sul valore della copula; essi sono problematici, assertori, apodittici, serondocl»! la relazione «'enuncia come possibile, come esistente nella realtà, come necessaria: le formule rispettivo cono: può essere, è, deeVsscrc. Modo (filos.): per Spinoza i modi sono affezioni, cioè gli stati, le modi ttoazioni transitorie della sostanza, sono sii esseri particolari o Uniti; p. o. le idee sono modi della res rogitans, i corpi della res extensa, cioè degli attributi della sostanza.  per Locke 1 modi sono una classe di idee coniposte, che sono o idee di azioni umane (p. cs. : uccisione), o modi di comportarsi (p. c. gratitudine), oppure modi di essere (p. e. triangolo, che è un modo di essere dello spazio). Monade ter. uovi; = l’unità, il semplice) Oilos.ì: al dire d*Aristotele i Pitagorici pensavano i corpi composti di pimti, « di monadi che hanno posto nello spazio ». -per (ì. Bruno minimo, punto, atomo, monade dicono la stessa cosa, cioè un primum indivisibile delle cose, che è insieme corpo c anima, sostanza mateaie e centro di forze vivente e animato.  per Leibniz le monadi sono sostanze spirituali seni [ilici, chiuse in sé, senza porte nò fi nestr e -, dotate (l’appetizione e di percezione, veri punti metafisici, M'spn retiia nti ciascuna l'unlrcnp, disposti in gradi ascendenti, che vanno dalla più bassa, ancora inconscia, alla più alta, Dio, monade delle monadi. Monadismo "(/iTós.): si ilice dei sistemi dinamici cito pensano il mondo formato di monadi spirituali, in opposizione all’atomismo meccanico di Domocrito; tale la dottrina di (I. Bruno e di LeibNIZ. Monismo (gr. fióvo? unico) (opposti: dualismo c pluralismo) (filos. ) : è la dottrina checonsidera la natura e lo spirito. Il corpo e l’anima subordinati a un terzo principio o aliasi inseriti .in esso. Il Tooco ne distingue duo specie: a) monismo dell'essere: ammette un solo essere e considera la molteplicità delio cose un'illusione (corno gli KleaTtcì), o almeno come accidente fuggevole dell’unica sostanzaicomeSi’iNOZA) ; monismo della qualità.: all’essere unico sostituisce una pluralità originarla di esseri, tutti però della stessa natura, materiale per gli uni (gli Atomisti), spininole, per gli altri (Leibniz). Monoteismo (opposto: politeismo) (retiti.): indica lo religioni cito, come il Cristianesimo, il Giudaismo, il Maomettismo, ammettono un solo Dio, distinto dui mondo. In tllosotla il Dio di Platone e d’AiusTOTEt.E rientra in questo sistema. Morale = v. etica. Moralismo (filos.): si applica alle dottrine filoso Urbe che, come quella del FICHTE, considerano la legge morale e l’esigenza dell’azione pratica corno principio filosofico fondamentale. Motivo (dal lat. morrò) (morale): si dice (Fogni processo intellettuale o affettivo che muove la volontà a compiere ttu determinato atto. La norma indica una direzione da seguire, il motivo ngisee stilla porsona in modo più o meno imperativo, perché segua tale direzione e sia persuaso a seguirla. Motrice (causa) = v. efflcentc (causa). Movimento (in generale): è fi cambiamento di posizione d'ttn corpo nello spazio, considerato In funzione del tempo e, quindi, fornito d'una determinata velocità; fi semplice mutamento nello spazio è uno spostamento. (filos.): per .Aristotele è fi passaggio da uno stato a un altro, è ogni mutamento ((ArratpoXYj), elio suppone l’esistenza di una materia cnpnee di riceverò una forma. ; quindi è ugualmente fi passaggio dalla potenza (S'iva|Als) all'atto (ivépys tal. Nativismo  Cd  Neo-hegelismo -S. I ommaso accetta la concezione aristotelica (moneti est cri re de txilintiii '«tinnì e. conio Aristotele, voile nel movimento un tierstuiNlvo ui-gomcnto n prova dell'esistenza di Ilio: |.er spiegare il niovimontn c rieereurne la eati.su, bisogna passare di causa in causa, essendo ogni movimento prodotto da un altro movimento, ina è necessario arrestarsi tavàyxv; trrijvat) a un primo motore immobili cri y.tvoòv àz.tvyj-rov), a Din. che muovo l'universo come l'oggetto umilio attrae colui che l'ama, come il desiderio agisce sull'anima per una sollecitazione tutta interiore. N ' ' Nativismo v. innatismo. Natura (gì. (piiai.; da  = nascnr) (fylos.): nel senso piti antico esprime l'idea d una sostanza primordiale diesi determina e si sviluppa da sé. l’idea di dò che ò primario, persistente, in opposizione a ciò elle è derivato, secondario, transitorio. Tale significato ha nei tirimi filosofi greci: e di riui i significati sorti in seguito. è il complesso delle qualità o proprietà elio definiscono l’essenza d’una «•osa, quindi anche tutto ciò ohe è Innato: p. c. la natura d'un uomo, cioè il suo carattere e il suo temperamento. denota le cose conio sarebbero al di fuori d ogni intervento umano: cosi pel Rocsseai: lo „ stato di natura è quel fondo della lealtà umana elle resto dopo aver eliminate le deformazioni e le falsificazioni operatevi dalla civiltà, ossia ciò che è semplice, piano spontaneo, originarlo. denota 11 sistema totale delie cose con le loro proprietà, l'insieme di tutto Ciu die esiste, in una parola, l’universo in Kant natura è ciò che obbedisce al principio di causa nel mondo dei fenomeni, in opposizione al mondo dei lini in cui vige la liberto incondizionato. ~ ( rehy.): 1 ordine della natura, cioè I ordine delle cose terrene, accessibile alla sola indagine della ragione viene opposto all'ordine della prozio, che è 1 ordine delle cose soprannaturali e di\j n *' tvistotele adombra questa distinzione nelle parole: r, oótitc Szt[tovia aÀ>, oli lista = la natura è ammfrevole. ma non divina (v. prozio). Natura naturans e natura naturata ( film .): natura naturans è, in sostanza, Ulti come untore e principio d ogni cosa; natura naturata c l'Insieme delle creatura o di tutto ciò clic ò stato creato: espressioni adoperato dalia Nrolastira, da li. ltm .vi, e da Spinoza, chc le rese comuni: per naturalo naturatilem noèta intcìlìqenduiii est i,l (Juw i tn se est et im ise etnicipitur. tuu • est j> eU s quatcnu» ut causa libera eonsidrraturper naturatali t inielli,,,,... rrs, /uae ff * Dea sani et quac si,,,tira neiesse nec connpt possunt • Naturalismo (/Kos.): comprende le dottrine che non ricorrono a prlncipli trascendenti, ma rimangono entro la cerehia dell’esperienza e ilei fenomeni soggetti al principio di causa o concepiscono anche la vita dello spirilo come un prolungamento della vita organicasi oppone a spiritualismo, idealismo' eti e lift)no a positivi tot io. Necessario (opposto: conti geni) Ui • bis.): si dice di ciò che non può, senza contraddizione, essere altrimenti né essere pensato altrimenti da quello cUc o; cosi Hi applica ai fenomeni elio si succedono secondo il principio di causa,, alio proposizioni derivate, implicito In proposizioni piò generali', alle conseguenze di principi! posti come veri. per Spinoza Dio è un essere necessario, ma la necessità In virtù della quale egli esiste e produce io cose gli e essenzialmente Interiore e razionale. deriva didla sua, stessa essenza, e Dio e causa sui; ò determinalo ad agiredalia sua soia natura, o quindi la sua ò una • necessità libera», t ecessità, (opposto: eunt inpenza ) ( fi. bis.): e la qualità asti-alta di ciò elle è ruressario, di ciò che non può essere diverso da ciò elio è. Neo-criticismo o neo-kantismo i/ifos.t: ò la dottrina elio Iniziò in Oermunia il movimento tU ritorno alla Hlosotta di Kant, al criticismo, verso il ISOO, come reazione al materialismo allora dominante; riprende i principi della teoria kantiana delia conoscenza il relativismo, è ostile alla metafisica c all idea della rosa in . e vuol ilare alle /unzioni aprioristiche dello spirito un fondamento psicologico. In Italia furono neo-kantiani. In vario modo. ««• -rir:" .Ielle idee penerfllt. e.n n^ gplrlto; r„ a òn mtirskb^eoncepire^td^ di nò curvilineo, ne rettilineo, i nit0 '-srìxssns*nSTSU™  e ' si) Atomisti tutta la realtà Ita duo parti, lo kikizìo pieno occupato dagli atomi, o lo spazio vuoto eho rosi 6 concepito altrettanto renio quanto I corpi. --per Hegel il non essere è l'Idea eho nella prima triade dialettica (v. dialettica) fa da antitesi all'idea dell’essere (tesi) o con Questa si fondo nella sintesi del divenire; e poiché l'essere è l'idea più semplice, più astratta, indeterminatissima c priva ili contenuto, ma è pur sempre un’affermazione positiva del pensiero, è • in realtà non essere, non piti e meno di nulla ». cioè la negazione d’ogni qualità e d’ognl contenuto positivo (s. essere). Non io: v. io. Norma: modello concreto o anello regola che indica ciò eho si deve fare por raggiungete un dato line; vi sono nonno Illiriche, etiche, estetiche eoe. Normale: in generale designa ciò eho è conforme alla regola, ciò che è più comune in ogni singola categoria o classe, ciò che rappresenta in media in un dato tipo eli società e In un dato tempo; quindi ò un termine variabile e un po’ vago. Normativo: diconsl spesso normativo la logica, l’etica, l'estetica in quanto offrono una norma, cioè un modello ideale cui si guarda come a qualche cosa di perfetto, elle per la logica è il vero, per l'etica il bene, per l’estetica Il hello (WtiNPT). Noumeno (dal platonico voo>i(jtevov, part. di voéio = penso, quindi: ciò che è pensato) (/t'ios.): Platone lo applica al mondo delle ideo, in opposizione al mondo sensibllo. Kant l’adopera in due significati: a) negativo: ò ciò che sta a fondamento dei fenomeni, il loro substratum ; ma ò soltanto pensato, ed ò inaccessibile sia ai sensi, sia all’intelletto; perciò è un limite 'posto alla conoscenza umana, clic non può oltrepassare i fenomeni; b) positiva: è il sovrnsensibilc, l'incondizionato, posto fuori dell’esperienza; può essere oggetto d’ima intuizione intellettuale (v. intuizione), hi quale però è negata itll’uomo; ha un carattere metafisico, giacché 6 bensì la causa dei fenomeni, ma la causalità è qui non una categoria dell’Intelletto, sditene una causalità Intelligibile, cioè esistente solo nell’ordine metafisico, ni di là dei fenomeni. Nous (gr. voù; = la mente) (fitta.): per Anassagora è ciò che mette in moto, plasma e ordina le otneonicrie.; ò un principio lntelllgcnto, «la più sottile o più pura di tutte lo cose ». per Platone e Aristotele ò la parte razionale dell’anima umana; per Plotino è la prima emanazione dell’Ctno ( v. intelletto). Nulla (/ilos,): è la negazione doll'essere, lutto non essere (v. questo tcrmiue). Parmenide ha posto l’essere come principio primo della filosofìa o ha negato qualsiasi realtà al non essere: « soltanto l’essere è, il non essere non 6 ». Invece Platone ammette la realtà del non essere, eho per Itd è la materia soggetta al divenire; mentre per Democrito ò il vuoto (to xevóv), in cui avviene la caduta degli atomi. Numero ( filos .): per Pitagora e per i suoi seguaci è la vera essenza delle coso, per cui gli elementi dei numeri sono gli elementi dello cose, c il coseno é numero e armonia. Aristotele dico pure che pei Pitagorici i numeri sono i modelli che le cose imitano, e questo rapporto fra i numeri e le cose ita ispirato evidentemente Platone, clic considera la matematica conte propedoutiea noeossnria alla dialettica, cioè alla intuizione delle idee, modelli delle coso sensibili. per Galileo la matematica ò II linguaggio coi quale s’esprimo la natura: » 1 universo è scritto in lingua maternnt'ca e i caratteri sono triangoli, cerchi e altre figure, senza i quali mezzi ò difficile intenderne umanamente parola, ò un aggirarsi vanamente in un oscuro labirinto » (Il Saggiatore). La formula matematica divionc, dopo Galilei, l'espressione esatta dalia legge fisica. o Obbiettità (filos.): per Schopenhauer, che ha coniato questo termine ( Obiek■ tildi), i] corpo è l’obbiettivarsl, cioè la manifestazione esteriori?, visibile, e, per I uomo, (tura e semplice rappresentazione, della volontà che è concepita come forza c imput-n cieco, sempre attivo, non guidato da alcuna ragione, ed è poi il principio metafisico posto a fondamento dell’universo. Questo universo non è altro cito Voggcttità, l’ap1 mrire all’esterno  sotto forma di rappresentazioni coordinato dalla categoria di causa («il mondo ò la mia rappresentazione »)  della volontà cosi intesa. Obbligazione  69  Ontologia Obbligazione (morale): è il carattere imperativo che costituisco la forma della legge morale, donde la consapevolezza d’un'obbodieuza incondizionata ad una norma inorale, il sentirei interiormente legati a una determinata regola di condotta (sentimento del dovere), per cui si prova inquietudine e dolore quando essa viene in qualche modo contrariata o impedita nel suo libero svolgimento. Occasionalismo: v. cause occasionali. Occultismo: comprende le arti che, crome le divinatorie, apprendono a scoprire 11 futuro, o, come le taumaturgiche, apprendono il compimento di atti che si sottraggono al corso ordinario della natura (v. magìa). Oggettivo (opposto: soggettivo) (in generale): è ciò che ò posto di fronte o davanti allo spirito o ai sensi e può offrire materia alla loro attivi tei : ò impl cita pertanto una distinzione fra soggetto e oggetto, cioè fra l’atto del pensare o ciò che è peusato, fra chi percepisco e ciò che ò percepito. nella scienza ò oggettivo ciò che il lavoro elei pensiero trae dall'osservazione c dall’esperienza, seguendo 1 metodi del l’indagine scientifica; ò soggettivo ciò che l’individuo pensa e sente riferendosi alle sue Inclinazioni, alle sue preferenze, ai suoi interessi, in, modo più o mono consapevole. (filos.): per Duxs Scoto, Cartesio o Berkeley è oggettivo, esiste oggettivamente, ciò che costituisco un’idea, cioè l’oggetto di una rappresentazione dello spirito, non una realtà sussistente per sé e indipendente «mentre subiectimis e formalis corrispondo a reale, a ciò elio appartiene all’oggetto). -per Kant ha validità oggettiva tutto ciò che è fondato sui principi costitutivi dello spirito umano e comuni a tutti gli uomini, e cioè sullo forme pure della sensibilità (spazio e tempo) e su quelle dell’intelletto (categorie). Ogg e tt° (gràvTi-xsi{X£VOV, traduz. lat.: ob-iectum posto di fronte agli occhi o allo spirito, opposto: soggetto): ciò che si ha presente nella percezione esterna o nel pensiero, con un certo grado di consapevolezza. (filos.): ciò che possiede un’esistenza in sé, indipendente dalla conoscenza che esseri pensanti possono averne; in questo senso lo spazio per Newton è oggetto. come lo ò il mondo esterno per il realismo conoscitivo (v. realismo), e per Kant il noumeno positivo (v. noumeno). ò tutto ciò che è rappresentato o pensato solo in quanto lo si distinguo dall’atto col quale lo si pensa: donde la « logge UgUu coscienza » espressa dal Fichte e accolta da Schopenhauer: • senza soggetto non v*ò oggetto, senza oggetto non v’è soggetto ». Oligarchia; governo di pochi: è, per Aristotele, forma corrotta dell’aristocrazia (v. democrazia). Omeomerie (gr. ó{xoio(jtipeiat da 6{XOioc; = simile e [iipo$ = parte) (filos.): così denominò Aristotele lo particelle originarie, impercettibili, divisibili all’inttnito, clic Anassagora considera come gli elementi primi, tutti diversi di qualità, dapprima mescolati insieme, che costituiscono l’universo o le singole cose, essendo innumerevoli lo loro differenze qualitativo: « come il capello può derivare da ciò che non è capello e la carne da ciò che non è carne? ». Affinché l’animale abbia carne, ossa, capelli, bisogna che vi siano particelle di carne, ossa, capelli negli alimenti di cui esso si nutre. Il tutto ha, insomma, la stessa natura delle parti che lo compongono: di qui appunto il nome di ^)meomerle (= parti simili) dato agli elementi primi. Questi costituiscono l’Essere immutabile, eterno, che viene messo In moto, ordinato o distinto dall’inteUlgenza (voo^), «lapiu pura o la piu sottile di tutte le coso », con un’azione separatrice che si esercita sugli clementi, cioè sulle omeomerie. Omogeneo (opposto: eterogeneo) (filos.): ciò che consta di parti qualitativamente identiche. K. Spencer spiega l’evoluzione cosmica come un passaggio dall’omogeneo all ‘eterogeneo (v. evoluzione ). Ontogenesi (dal gr. 6v = ente o yévsai? = origine) (scienza): è lo sviluppo sia fìsico sia mentale dell'individuo, seguito dalla prima Infanzia fino al pieno sviluppo, mentre la filogenesi (gr. * 6 per gli stoici la rinvolta,eseguente aU’èxiwpcotn;, oioe alla conflagrazione del coamo (v. ritorno Panenteismo (gr. nàv b ta? = tutto in Dio) (/ilo».)', nome dato (lai tedesco ' KuitnsB alla sua musetta, e apnttcabile a quella di Spinoza, por Indiano che non Dio è nel inondo, come nel panteismo stoico, ma il mondo è in Dio. è contenuto In Dio. Panlogismo (gr. itSv = tutto. Xójo, ragione; tutto è ragiono) (/ito».). si applica alla tilosotla di HEGEL, pel quale l'universo è sviluppo totero-,rione Immanente in esso, e la uglui è una metafisica. Se Vè ancora dell ir razionale, ossia qualche cosa che non sia ancora penetrato dalla ragione*) organizzato In concetti, esso è trans! torio; dondo la formula; ciò che t razionale è reale, e ciò che è reale è ramo naie (vedi razionale). _ Panpsichismo (gr. Ttav = tutte, e .S.jyr, = anima; tutto ò anima) V'tos.)dottrina alquanto vaga, seoondola quale tutto è animato in divorai grad e fornito d'un'attivitè. analoga alla vita psicologica dell'uomo, comprendendovi anche i processi incoscienti,. si la questo nome alla dottrina dogli /tocoisti onci (che però non fanno :ancom distinzione fra materia e vita), degli Stoici, di Sfingea, di se, eluso. di Lotze occ., Panteismo, griwtv = tutto e uso, Dio; tutto ò Dio) i/ilos.: e in generale la dottrina che identifica Dio eoi mondo. c concepisce la divinità come un principio supremo d’uniftoazione o d vita che fa sentire la sua azione nello cose tutte o ne costituisce la realtà esBezusiale. per il portico il cosmo e un prmndo organismo vivente, tutto penetrato e animato dal soffio divino, simboleggiato nel fuoco, cioè da una sostanza eterea. Impercettibile o intelligente. _per li. Bruno il principio divino dii vita al tutto, lo ordina e l'unillca. C r anima dol inondo. (V. questo termino). _per Spinoza, la sostanza. Din, la natura (substant ia sive De un si ve natura) sono termini d'identico valore; però Dio non coincido col mondo cui pirico, come negli Stoici, uiu lo contiene in sé (V. panentns.nor. il pensiero e l'estcnsiono sono due dei suol muniti attributi c tutte lo cose particolari (l modi) sono determinazioni provvisorio di quegli attributi. Il parallelismo psicofisico, pstool., e la teoria psicologica, secondo hi quale la serio dei processi psichici corrisponde punto per punto, alla serie del processi fisiologici, noi senso che od ogni reno meno psicologia) corrisponde un fenomeno nervoso (non però viceversa). 1 due fenomeni sono pertanto come due aspetti dello stessa esperienza; le due serie, psichica o nervoso, scorrono pa "f/OM )'• per Spinoza il corpo e lo spirito (ree ectenia e ree rag.fan» sono due aspetti diversi ed essenziali dello stesso essere, cioè della sostanza divina, la serie dei processi corporei e quella dei processi spirituali si svolgono ciascuna lu so stessa, senza mai inoon trarsi c senza turbamenti fazioni .reciproche, e tuttavia runa e l altra s accordano perfettamente, termine per termine, perché la loro emerita 'unica c. come attributi di Dio. sono Identici a Dio. sono Dio stesso. Cosi svanirebbe l’opposizione fra corpo o spirito, posta, ma non risolta da Cartesio. Paralogismo, da gr. *°Y ov contro la ragione, topica, e M» ragionamento errato che simula 11 vero, un errore logico Involontario. Kast denomina « paralogismi della ragione le affermazioni metafisiche dira la sostanzialità. la scmplteitói e Vunità dell'anima, perché esse don vano dal fatto clic si scambia il soggetto Intrico (v. somtetto) del pensiero con una sostanza metafisica. „ Particolare (giudizio) (tornea), e aneli in Olii il predicato s'afferma o si nega d'una parte del soggetto, proso ne la 1 sua estensione-, P. e.: alcuni uomini sono veramente colti. Parusia (gr. itapouola = presoli», « wb-etui) (/ilo».): la presenza dello idee nel mondo sensibile (p. e. la presenza dell’idea del hello nelle cose beile) è uno dei modi pensati da alatone per chiarire il rapporto fra » mondo intelligihlle 0 quello sensibile (v. me tessi o mimesi). rf fHvo Passione (psicol.): e uno stato affettivo intenso c persistente, un'inol nazione che predomina sulle altre inclinazioni „ anche le annulla quasi confiscando,v suo proli.lo tutta l'attività psicologica; p. e. la passiono del giuoco, Passività 72  Percezione -pur gii Stoici è una perturbazione dovuta a un errore ili giudizio, e ut* nello etiiuaro veri beni quelli che tali non sono. Le passioni fondamentali sono: il piacere (yjSovtj = voluptaa), il dolore (XÓtt/j = atgritudo), il desiderio (èn&ujjita = libido), il timore (96^01; = metus). 1 per Cartesio è un’emoziono, un moto puramente sensibile che l’anima prova per l’azione del corpo ocheimpedisco il retto giudizio intorno allo cose. -per Spinoza ò dovuta allo Idee inadigitate, alla conoscenza sensibile, in quanto questa determina l’azione pratica. Tutto le passioni rappresentano uifimporteziono, ma non tutte sono asHoiutamonto cattivo; lo passioni fondamentali sono il desiderio ( cupidità»), il piacere, 11 doloro. -per Kaxt procedo dalla facoltà di desiderare; ò una tendenza sensibile, un delirio che cova un’Idea, s’imprlme con tenacia sempre crescente », Impedendo alla volontà di agire per doveri:, di obbedire alla legge morale. Passività: è l'ultima dolio dieci categorie aristoteliche, espressu dal verbo Ttadjrtiv (= pati, ricovero passivamente) (v. recettività). Patristica (/ibis.): è la dottrina dei Padri della Chiesa; difendo il Cristianesimo contro lo critiche e lo accuse della lilosolia e della religione antica e contro le numerose eresio che venivano sorgendo nei secoli III, IV, V, e si volge all’elaborazione e alla definizione dei dogmi e a porre 1 fondamenti d’una filosofia cristiana, attingendo largamente al pensiero greco. Per la Patristica la filosofia non ba altro ufficio che di offrire ni dogma l’ausilio delle sue dottrine, e quindi è al sorvizlo del dogma cristiano; essa tratta delle questioni riguardanti la trascendenza di Dio, la Provvidenza, l'immortalità dell’anima, la finalità dell’universo,la dlpendenza dell’uomo dalla divinità. Pedagogia (dal gr. -il' = fanciullo, 0 àyci>YT) = condotta, da ttyzw, lat. ducere : donde educazione): è la scienza e Varte dell'educazione, cioè della formazione del fanciullo considerato nel suo aspetto fisico, intellettuale e morale; perciò come scienza si fonda sopra una concezione della vita, cioè sopra una filosofia, c come arte esige una conoscenza diretta della psicologia del fanciullo e dell'adolescente c particola ri qualità, neiroduoatore, virtù pratiche, come la devozione e lo spirito di sacrificio. Pedologia (g r . Trocu; = fanciullo, o X = passeggio) {filos.): sono cosi denominati i seguaci della filosofia aristotelica, che furono numerosi, dall’abitudine attribuita ad Aristotele di tenere una parte delle suo lezioni passeggiando in un giardino o sotto un portico del Liceo in Atene. Per sé ifilos.): si dice di ciò che esiste e può essere concepito senza l'aiuto d’altra cosa o di altra idea; p. e. la sostanza divina, per Spinoza, per se etmcipUur. Persona (lat. persona = maschere. teatrale, poi carattere rappresentato dalla maschera) (filos.): tonnine trasmesso a uoi da BOEZIO e dalla Scolast ica : persona est rationalis naturar individua substantia (la persona è un essere individuale di natura ragionevole). Leibniz pone l’essenza della persona nella coscienza di s . nella consapevolezza d’un’identità, d’essere sempre la stessa nel diversi momenti e mutamenti dell'esistenza individuale. -Kant aggiungo che la persona, come essere ragionevole e libero, ò anche responsabile, è un essere morale, un f ine in sé, cioè non dovessero mai trattato corno un semplice mezzo. In conclusione: la personal un essere cosciente di e moralmente autonomo. Pessimismo (opposto: ottimisnw) {filos.): consisto nella convinzione elio la vita coi suoi dolori, le sue preoccupazioni e le sue miserie senza line, è un mole o, anche, cho nell’esistenza la somma dei mali è sui>criore alla somma dei beni. >• Noi sentiamo il doloro, dico Schopenhauer, non l’assenza del dolore, sentiamo la cura uou la sicurezza, la malattia non la salute: la vita dell’uomo oscilla come un pendolo fra il dolore e la noia ». Ri conseguenza, come pensa anche la filosofia indiana, lo sforzo per liberarsi dal male, o, almeno, per attenuarne il ppso costituisce la somma saggezza umana. Petizione di principio {Ionica): ò un sofisma che consisto nell'accogliere corno dimostrato ciò che invece ò da dinio-, strare {si postula fin da principio, àpX7j$» ciò che si dove appunto dimostrare) ^ e piti specialmente nel fondale la verità d’un principio sopra una proposizione che, per essere vera, ha bisogno della verità di quel principio (p. e.: Tanima ò sostanza spirituale, perché ò immortale). Piacere (opposto: dolore) {psicol.): il piacere o il dolore, essendo dati immediati della coscienza, sono indefinibili, sono i due poli estremi e opposti della vita del sentimento, Secondo ima teoria già ammessa da Aristotele, il piaceli) sarebbe legato ad ogni atto naturalo e normale della vita e segnerebbe un aumento dell’attività vitale, tiu consumo più elevato o più libero dell’energia, mentre il doloro indicherebbe una diminuzione della vitalità, quasi uti grido d’allarme di fronte ul pericolo; ma tale teoria oggi è in parte contestata. ( filos .): per Artstippo di Cirene, il piacere, che è dato dal movimento dolco della sensazione presente e libera da ogni cura per 1'avvenitc, è il fondamento c la misura di ogni bene: questo ò 11 principio dc.W edonismo. il piacere inteso come assenza del dolore, calma dello spirito, è il principio dell’etica epicurea. per Aristotele il piacere affina e perfeziona Ratti'vità anche nei suol gradi più elevati; p. ‘e., la gioia cho accompagna la musica è incitamento naturalo alla creazione musicale., Houbes, appoggiandosi al principio materialistico che la sensazione è un movimento del corvello, pensa che, so questo movimento è favorevole idi'insieme delle funzioni vitali, produco 11 piacere, nel caso contrario il dolore: donde duo motivi essenziali d’azione: la ricerca dei piacere e la tendenza a fuggire il dolore. -per la dottrina intellettualistica di Leibniz il piacere è un processo intellettuale oscuramente percepito, una «petite, insenslble perceptlon : p. e., il piacere della musica è dato dall‘accordo e dal numero delle vibrazioni sonore percepito dall'orecchio in maniera confusa. per Kant il piacere è iu diretto rapporto con lo stato favorevole dell’or** Pigra ragione  71  Positivismo gallismo c deli-anima: « Il piacere è un sentimento che stimola in vita, il dolore Invece le è d’impodimento «. Pigra ragione = v. innova rotto. Pirronismo (/ ilo *.): i» stretto ilesigna la dottrina scettica di PnrnoNE. giunta a noi nei frammenti del suo discepolo TIMONI', in SlLLOOKAFO (sec. I 1 a Cr ) o negli scritti di Sesto Ejiruuco (circa 11 200 d. Cr.); in senso tergo e sinonimo di soettteismo. di cui Pinone È considerato II fondatore (v. scrii,n877JO ). ., Pleroma (gr. 7uXr 4 pco(j.a. ila TtXTjpoo = riempio) (filos.): ò per gli amatici (vedi) il complesso degli Koni che escono dal principio originario, daU’Kone perfetto, cioè dalla divinità (y. Eone). Pluralismo (opposto: monismo ) (filo».): designa le dottrine che pongono piii principi! essenziali e distinti per spiegare la composizione dell’universo; appartengono, fra gli altri, a questo indirizzo: _Empedocle, che alla materia unica del naturalismo ionico sostituisce «quattro radici di tutte le cose »: fuoco, acqua, etere, terra, che sono l’ essere immutabile; il loro mescolarsi o disgregarsi è dovuto a due forze, l 'amore ioiXÓttk) e la discordia (veixoc); _gli atomisti, che affermano due principi: Vatomo e il vuoto; gli atomi sono Infiniti di numero, materiali, della stessa qualità, eterni ; le cause del loro movimento sono la gravità e il vuoto (TÒ xcvóv);, „, \ v asm agora . nel quale gli elementi dell'universo sono le omeomerie (v. questo termine), messe in moto da una materia sottile e impalpabile. l'Intelligenza (voucj). * cosa infinita, padrona di sé. ocÙTOxpaTéc. che è in sé e per sé «, la più fine e più pura di tutte le cose ; Leibniz, pel quale le vere sostanze costituenti l’universo sono le monadi. tornite di attività o forza propria, unità spirituali cho sono disposto per gradi, i quali vanno dalla monade oscura e confusa alla monade delle monadi, a Dio. Pneuma (gr. 7tve0(itx, da irveto 8 ° r_ Ho. spiro) (/ilo*.): per gli Stoici è la forza originaria divina che anima il cosmo, un softtn vitale caldo ohe appare in forme e gradi diversi nel corpi Inorganici, nelle piante, negli animali; e nell’uomo appare come ragiono ( AoyOC). conservando sempre la sua unità, giacchi) il grado Inferiore si conserva o opera nei grado supcriore. Pneumatico (gr. da nvgùlJ.X= alito, sofflo) ir,'Ha. o /ilo*.): usato spesso nel Suor » Testamento nel senso di spirituale. , K . r gii Gnostici gli uomini, secondo Il grado di perfezione spirituale, sono detti ilici (= materiali, da uX’f] = materia), psichici (= esseri animati) c pneumatici (*= originati dallo spirito). Polidemonismo (dal gr. TtoXu;molto e SiUojv = demone) Ir, tir/.): credenza che scorgo in ogni fenomeno naturale il prodotto di entità spirituali. Pollmatia (gr. ToXu-na&ta = esteso sapere) i/ilos.): è il procedimento che ERACLITO rimprovera a ITTauora. di dedicarsi a indagini particolari, alla minuta erudizione che impedisco la visione diretta e unitaria del cosmo: iroX'J[.ia{Hx vóov e/mv ou Stòaoxei (rapprender molte cose non educa 1 intelletto), e cioè: la rieoroa personale è migliore della tradizioni;. Politeismo (relig.): è la concezione religiosa che ammette l’esistenza di piu divinità personali e distinte. Positivismo Uilos.Ynel tempi moderni ne pose il principio Davide Hume; la percezione è la fonte unica del conoscere; senza di essa non v c idee, n concetto; un a priori, come lo pensa il razionalismo, è impossibile, c ogni metafisica che oltrepassi respeiienza deve respingersi. Il nome di positivismo fu introdotto da Augusto CoMTK, secondo il quale la civiltà e la scienza percorrono tre fa-si ; _ a) fase teologica, in cui la spiega | zione dei fenomeni è riferita ad esseri soprannaturali;, fase metafisica, in cui la spiegazione dei fenomeni è riferita ad entità astratte, forze, sostanze, cause occulte; . . . *, _ c) fase positiva, in cui la scienza »» per oggetto la ricerca rigorosa dei fatti e dello leggi, cioè dei rapporti costanti che col legano i fenomeni osservati nella loro genuina realta; più in la non * pnù andare e la metafisica si perde in astrazioni vuote e in vani sogni: la scienza è ricerca di relazioni, di leggi, è retati ra, ma, permettendo di prevedere gli effetti anche lontani e di calcolarli, risponde ai bisogni umani, « al servizio del l’uomo. _ dopo il f’omte 11 positivismo si trasforma in un atteggiamento dello spirito ehc ha soprattutto una tendenza antimotafisica e vuole attenersi alla pura esperienza. Positivisti ni vano Positivo Predestinazion e senso sono considerati G. STO ART Mill, K. SPKNCEB, I. TAINE, R. AUOIOÒ, h. Mach ecc., „ .., Positivo (scienza): è ciò ohe e effettivo, reale, constatato mediante l'esperienza, c anche il prodotto d'un processo storico; p. e. religione positiva, diritto poPoEsibii e e possibilità (AtoOj W* senta diverse formo; la possibilità è. __„) fisica, nuando un fenomeno non contraddice ad alcun fatto o ad alcuna legge empiricamente stabilita; _ l,) delVesperienza o reale, per Kant è possibile ciò che «'accorda con le condizioni formali dell'esperienza, ossia con le forme dell'Intuizione pura dello spazio e del tempo, e con le forme dell intelletto, cioè con le categorie; _e) Ionica, quando ciò che e pensato o affermato non contraddice ai principi della ragione; però dal fatto ohe una oosa è logicamente possibile, non si può oonoludero alla sua esistenza reale; e) metaf isica : per AulSTOTKUJ la materia contiene la possibilità di ciò che nuó attuarsi mediante la forma -,, Pe. un masso di marmo può divenir statua. Post hòc ergo propter hoc c un sofisma che consiste noli affermare che un fatto è causa d un altro fatto solo perché lo precede nel tempo. Postulato er akiHTOTELE la materia è l'essere in potenza, l'essere allo stato virtuale, possili lita che tonde verso la torma, verso 1 essere determinato (v. atto), Pragmatismo (gr. rpayiia azione) ( fiios .): è la dottrina sostenuta in America da W. James e in Italia da G. 1 Apini giovane, secondo la quale la conoscenza è uno strumento al servizio dell’attività umana; il valore d un idea è riposto nell'esperienza e la verità d'uua proposizione dipende dalle conseguenze che ne derivano, cioè dal fatto che essa è utile, che riesce ad uno Hcopo, dà soddisfazione, quindi se le conseguenze sono buone, cioè conformi a ciò che l’uomo si propone, allora 1 asserzione è giustificala, cd é vera, e falsa nel caso contrario: ossia la verità o la falsità d'un'ldea dipendono dalle sue applicazioni, sostituendosi in tal modo alla ragione l'esperienza, al sapere I azione. Per esemplo, nella questione se sia vero il materialismo oppure lo spiritualismo. la decisione spetta a esame delle conseguenze: il miiterialismo. Densa W. James, nei suol ultimi risultati pratici è desolante, . cade In un oceano di disillusioni -, mentre lo spiritualismo, con la sua “razione d un ordino morale, apre la via alle migliori speranze, -si riferisce sempre a un mondo di promesse •. _ Prammatici (imperniivi)(«orale), sou per Kant consigli di saggezza P ratica che contribuiscono alla felicita. Pratico (gr. irpotxTiwSs da = opero: opposto: teoretico) i/iloa.). la distinzione e l’opposizione di iwa^co c teoretico risalgono ai Greci. Aristotele attribuisce all'Intelletto pratico (vou? ™«XTIx6?) l'ufilclo di occuparsi delle cose umane soggetto al mutamento e legate all'azione, e lo considera subordinato all'Intelletto teoretico (vou? &so>pr]Tix6?), che ha per oggettola conoscenza dell'universo e delle sue lepori eterne. VVT1T r11f . _Cristiano Wolff nel sec. XM1I dir fonde le espressioni di filosofia teoretica e di filosofia pratica, attribuendo la superiorità alla prima. K!a.nt capovolge questo rapporto, perché nel dominio dell'attività morale la ragione raggiunge una P iena aut nomia e apre all'uomo uno spiraglio sopra una verità assoluta (il regno dei fini, ili cui domina la libertà), mentre l'attività teoretica si limila alla conoscenza del fenomeni, cioè a una verità relativa, a un mondo in cui regna la necessità (v. primato della ragion praPredestinazlone (reWff.): è ia dottrina posta in termini rigorosi da 6}. MQPredeterminismo Primum anso: tutto ù già fermo o prodestiI nato ab aclerno uol giudizio divino; ciò elio deve accadere accadrà o l’uoino nulla nc può mutare; la sua parto nel mondo è in ogni punto prestabilita e soltanto la grazia può liberarlo dal male derivato dal primo peccato. Dopo ia colpa originale lo stato dell’uomo è: non posse non peccare, mentre la libertà d’Adamo era posse non peccare, e quella dei beati 6 non posse peccare. Perciò la volontà umana nulla può senza la grazia, e tutto ciò che l’uomo fa di bene, è Dio che lo fa in luì: potestas nostra ipsc est. Predeterminismo (filos. e rclig.): ò la dottrina di S. Tomtuaso secondo la quale gli atti liberi umani non solo sono previsti da Dio ( v. prescienza), ma sono predeterminati da Dio nella sua provvidenza: ex hoc ipso quod nihil volunlati divinae resista, seguitar quod non solum fiant ca quac deus cult fieri, sed quod fiant contingcnter vel necessario quae sic fieri vutt. Quindi l’uomo è mosso in antecedenza e naturalmente da Dio au agire in questo o quel modo, Ina la divinità ha predisposto pure che agisca liberamente, ossia la sua azione c a un tempo necessaria e libera. Kani, opponendo determinismo a predeterminismo, si chiede: so ogni atto è determinato da cause anteriori, da fatti passati che non sono più in nostro potere, come può questo conciliarsi con la libertà, la quale esige che nel momento d’agire l’atto dipenda dal soggetto, cioè sia libero l « Questo è ciò ohe si vuol saperi* e che non si saprà inni . Predicabile i,r n,,om )• nella dottrina di Kasr eonivale al termine a priori, cioè Indipendente dall’esperienza, razionale tper es nelle espressioni: ragion pura, intulzlone pura, concetto puro). Ouadrivlo: nella Scolastica è la divisione degli studil superiori costituenti la Facoltà delle arti-, comprende 1 anlau lica la geometria, la musica e 1 astronomia; mentre il Invia, che lo precede, comprendo hi grammatica, la retorica, la dialettica. Oualità (psicol.): indica gli aspetti sensI bili offerti dalla percezione d’uu corno facendo astrazione dalla loro intensità e quantità: p. es.: un suono, un colore, un sapore, un profumo; e anche ciò che dà valore o perfezione ad una cosa, come quando si apprezzano i pregi d’nn’opera d'arto oppure le virtù o lo abilità d'una persona. __t logica): è una categoria del pensiero logico che risponde in Aristotele alla domanda: ttoIo; = gitana?, ed esprime la maniera d'essere d’un soggetto; p. e.: quest'uomo è bello, è brutto ccc. Secondo questa categoria fondamentale, 1 giudizi logici sono affermativi o negatici, ossia attribuiscono o negano una data qualità a un soggetto. Qualità primarie e secondarie Job ): già per Democrito e poi per Galileo, Cartesio o Locke sono primarie le qualità costanti, universali, oggettive, rispecchianti la realtà nella sua vera natura, come la grandezza, la forimi, il numero, la posizione, il movimento: «per veruna immaginazione, dice il Galilei, posso separare una sostanza corporea da queste condizioni; secondane sono invece le qualità accidentali e mutevoli, come sapori, odori, colori, suoni, che « tengono lor residenza nel corpo, sensitivo, si che, rimosso l’animale, sono levate e annichilate tutte queste qualità; le quali sono dunque soggettive. Quantità (in generale 1* si applica a ciò che può essere misurato ed espresso numericamente, e perciò presenta la possibilità del piti e del meno, è suscettibile d'aumento e iti diminuzione. __ (logica): b una categoria fondamentale che per Aristotele risponde alla domanda: jtfjdov guaritami-, per essa l giudizi, secondo Kant, possono essere universali, particolari, singolari, sccondoche 11 soggetto ò preso in tutta la sua estensione (p. e.: lutti gli uomini sono mortali), o in una parto della sua ostensione (p. e.: alcuni uomini sono poeti), o nella sua singolarità (p. o.: quost’nomo è scultore). Quiddità (lat. scolast. guidditas) (logica): risponde alla domanda guid est ? ed esprime l’essenza d'ima cosa, la torma nel senso aristotelico. Quietismo (in generale): b la dottrina che ripone la quiete e la felicità dell anhna nell'allontannrsi dalle coso ilei inondo o nel ritrarsi nella meditazione Interiore e di Dio. _ 6 la dottrina dello spagnuolo Michele 1 do Molinos, secondo la quale si può raggiungere la perfezione e ottenere una quiete assoluta dell'anima mediante un atto di fede e un assoluto abbandono a Dio, che dispensa dalla necessità di ogni pratica religiosa e attività morale, e, in generale, ili opero esteriori. Quintessenza: signitlea dapprima la . quinta essenti» -, il quinto elemento cosmico, l'etere, considerato il più sottile e puro; poi l’estratto condensato, essenziale il’uu corpo, d una dottrina, infine sottigliezze complicate e vane. Ragionamento (logica): b un'operazione dell’intelligenza che si svolge ili piu momenti, cioè in una serie di preposizioni collegate fra loro per giungere a una conclusione che in tutto o in parte è già Implicita in esse. Ragione (/ ilos.): in generale, è la facoltà naturale di ben giudicare, di saper distinguere 11 vero dal false, disporre m una serie coordinata e libera da contraddizioni idee, giudizi, esperienze, col (ine di raggiungere un sapere oggettivo e universale, ossia valido per tutte le intelligenze, anche se poche sono in grado di riconoscerlo, di rifare da sé la via che ha condotto a tale sapere. _ per Platone la ragione (vou?) e l'attività più elevata dell’anima, quella cho può rappresentarsi le idee eterne; _. per Aristotele è ciò che distingue l'uomo dagli altri esseri; _ per s. Tommaso intellect.is e la taeoltà superiore e intuitiva ili conoscere. Razionalo Ragion sufficiente ratio è In facoltà di conoscere diversiva [nomea rattorti* sumitur ab inquininone et discussa; hdellrc us nomai sumitvr ab intima penetratimi ver itati*)* __ „ er SPINo'/.v la. ratio da la conoscenza vera, adeguata, dell’essere; «appartiene a lla natura della ragione il contemplare le cose non come contingenti, ma come necessarie * (pr. II, 14); essa ci apprende le cose sotto un «corto aspetto delle* ternità, sub queula.nl acternitidìs specie; apro la via alla conoscenza pin alta, I alla « scindili intuitiva -, a veder le cose sub specie aelernitatis. _ per Kant la ragione in senso largò ò il intasare a priori, è la Incolta che ci fornisco: a) i principi! o le forme a priori della conoscenza, che sono le intuizioni dello spazio c del tempo, le categorie, le idee; b) i principi! a priori dell'azione, ossia la regola della, moralità, la legge morale: nel primo caso è ragione teoretica, nel secondo è ragione pratica; o l’una e 1 altra sono indlpondout 1 dall’ospcrienzn. _ In senso ristretto la ragione è per Kant la facoltà di pensare lo idee allo quali non corrispondono oggetti nell’esperienza, cioè lo idee di Dio, dell'anima, del mondo. -iu oppos. a tede rivelata è l'organo della, conoscenza autonoma, a cui l’uoilio giunge con le sole sue forze; cosi l’intende anello ( : A I.II.KO che scrive. . la Scrittura dovorebbo essere riserbata nell'ultimo luogo; quello degli effetti naturali ohe o la scusata esperienza ci pone innanzi a gli occhi o lo necessarie dimostrazioni oi concludono, non deve in oont-o alcuno c-scr revocato in dubbio por luoghi della Sorittura • (Lett. al Costelli). È dunque il procedimento naturalo dello spirito umano ncU’acquisto del sapere. ^ Ragion sufficcnte (logica) : u il principio formulato dal Leibniz, secondo il quale nulla avviene senza ragione o motivo, cioè « nulla avviene senza che vi sia una causa o ragione determinante, che possa servire a render conto a priori perché una cosa csisxc o non esiste, è in un modo piuttostochò in uu altro », 8CHopenHAU ek lo rappresenta sotto quattro forme: a) ratio estendi, principio dell’essere: ogni parte dello spazio o del tempo è In relazione con le altre parti, in modo che ciascuna è determinata e condizionata dalle altre ; _ b) ratio /fendi, principio del dlvoidro: ogni nuovo stato (effetto) dev’essere preceduto da un altro (causa); _ c ) ratio coanoscnuU, principio del conoscere: ogni giudizio che esprime una cognizione deve avere un fondamento sufficcnte; _ _,/) ratio spendi, principio dell agire. ogni atto della volontà dev’essere preceduto da un motivo. Rappresentazione (psicol.); è il nprescntarsi, 11 riprodursi nella nostra mente d'uua percezione anteriore, o quindi È affine a\V immagine ed è soggetta a un'elaborazione interiore dipendente dall’azione continua delle altre rappresentazioni ; perciò si dice che essa ha una sua vita propria, come rimmagtne. _ Locke denomina rappresentazioni e Idee tutto ciò che è presente alla mento, ciò elio questa percepisce in sò, o ciò che è oggetto Immediato della percezione e del pensiero, mentre HOME distinguo nettamento percezione e la corrispondento rappresentazione, copia debole o sbiadita della prima. _peiLeibniz. è la funzione più importante della monade, ò la facoltà di percepire e ili ridurre la molteplicità all’unità (p erceptio nihil aliud est qiiam inultorum in uno exprtssum, est rcpracscntatio multitudinis in imitate). Ogni monade si rappresenta, eioò percepisce, l'universo da un punto di vista proprio, ohe s'accorda con quello delle altro monadi (v, armonia prestabilita), f n percezione ò chiara, quando la conoscenza ohe abbiamo d uu oggetto ci permette di differenziarlo dagli altri, oscura nel caso opposto; distinta, quando un oggetto ò percepito o conosciuto nello sue qualità particolari ed essenziali, contusa noi caso contrario; p. es.: un giardiniere può avere un'Idea chiara d un iioro, ma non distinta; un botanico ne ha un'idea chiara c distinta,  Sc®OPENHAC'EK col suo principio: . il mondo ò la mia rappiesentazione « esprimo l’essenza' dell» idealismo conoscitivo » (v. idealismo). Razionale (in generale ): ò ciò che ò conforme alla ragione c al suoi prinelpii, ciò che da questa trac la sua origine, (p. e. lo categorie kantiane), o ciò che in esse ha 11 suo fondamento, o quindi non dipende dall’esperienza (p. e. le matematiche, la meccanica razionale). _ Woijp distingue una cosmologia, una ontologia, una psicologia c una teologia razionali, che Kant sottopone ad RazionalismoRegno dei fini e8 amo crltioo per dimostrare l’impossibilità e le contraddizioni d'nna metafisica razionale (v. ciascuno di quei termini). _per Hi-'.cei. • ciò che è razionale è reale, e ciò che è reale è razionale », esprimendo con ciò il fatto elle il concetto ò l'essenza delle coso (come in Aristotele le idee sono nelle gose stesse), cho tutta la realtà data noU’csperienza umana ò accessibile alla.ragione c può essere inquadrata noi concetti della ragione; cho so vi ò qualche cosa di irrazionale, questa non ha che un’esistenza provvisoria. Però tale formula c non serve a giustificare tutto ciò che avviene, p. es. : un errore di stampa o uno sternuto; ma cho gli uomini vivano in imo Stato si chiarisce come razionale », ossia lo Stato è l’attuarsi, l’incamarsi d’uu’idea. Razionalismo (opposto: e mpiris mo e irrazionalismo) (filos.): b la dottrina che, avendo fede assoluta nella ragione, afferma che la conoscenza della verità si apro non al scuso e all’esperienza, o alla fede rivelata, ma allo piti alte funzioni dello spirito, il quale non ò un recipiente vuoto, una tabula rasq. ma porta in sé e trae dalla sua interiorità principi!l’attività, idee (p. e. di causa e di sostanza), che consentono di penetrare nella realtà, considerata razionale nella sua essenza, comprenderla, ordinarla, volgerla a beneficio dell'uomo nell’opera di dominare la natura. Razionalisti si possono considerare nell’antichità Parmenide, Platone, Aristotele; Cartesio inizia il razionallsmo moderno, seguito da Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, eoo. --dai principi costitutivi della ragione il razionalismo trae un diritto, una morale, uua religione naturali. Intendendosi qui per naturale ciò cho ò concepito e costruito dalla ragione, quindi opponendosi a diritto positivo (cioè lealmente in vigore), a morale tradistimale, a religione positiva o storica. -Kant, per dare un fondamento solido alla conoscenza, fonde empirismo e razionalismo, distinguendo la materia, cioè il complesso delle impressioni cho ci giungono dall’esterno per la via dei sensi, e la /orino, cioè 1 principi! che lo spirito trae da sé per ordinare la materia. Perciò l’uomo conosce le cose, 1 fenomeni solo In quanto e nel modo ondo trapassano nelle forme dello spazio e del tempo e delle caie\ gorie, cosicché non i concetti si modellano sulle cose, ma le cose sui concetti, e l’intelletto non attingo le sue leggi dalla natura, ma gliele impono. Quosta dottrina può definirsi un razionalismo critico. Realismo (filos.): in oppos. a nominalismo o a concettualismo è la dottrina cho nel problema degli universali ammette che le ideo generali hanno un’esistenza indipendente dolio spirito che le concepisce e dagli esseri individuali; si collega a Platone che pone lo idee fuori del mondo sensibile, e ad Aristotele che le pone nelle coso stesse. -in opposizione a idealismo si applica alle dottrino cho ammettono l’esistenza reale d'un mondo esterno, d’un oggetto indipendente dal soggetto pensante o di natura diversa da esso; vi appartengono moltissimi filosofi antichi o moderni. -In estetica esprime la tendenza artistica alla riproduzione esatta della realtà naturale e degli avvenimenti umani ; è sinonimo di naturalismo, che la riproduzione fedele, integrale o artistica delia natura vorrebbe rivolta anche ad un fine scientifico. Realtà (filos.): in opposizione a possibilità o a irrealtà esprime ciò che è attualmente esistente, sia sotto forma materiale e sensibile, sia sotto forma intellettuale o ideale. in opposizione ad Apparenza indica ciò ohe veramente è: p. e., un bastone posto di traverso neU’ncqua corrente sembra spezzato, ma in realtà non ò. iu opposizione alla realtà empirica v’è una realtà metafisica, che è al di là dei fenomeni percepiti dal sensi; è accessibile olla sola ragione o anche ineonosoibilo, come la cosa in si di Kant.  (logica): realtà è una delle tre categorie kantiane della modalità (realtà, possibilità, necessità ); il giudizio di realtà enuncia semplicemente un fatto o un rapporto di fatti come effettivamente esistente (v. modalità). Recettività (dal hit. recipere = accogliere passivamente; opposto: attività) (filos.): b la disposiziono a ricevere passivamente impressioni e suggestioni dall'esterno. per Kant la sensibilità è recettiva, ossia ò la facoltà di ricevere impressioni per la via dei sensi, che formano la materia del conoscere. Regno dei fini (morale): nell’etica di Kant è l’idealo di una unione sistematica degh esseri ragionevoU, per i quali Regressus in inflnitum è cosa spontanea l’obbodicnza alla lecite morale «li cui essi stessi sono sii untori: fc il regno della libertà in opposizione al mondo fenomenico, In cui domina la causalità c, quindi, la necessità. Regressus in inflnitum (/ito*.): secondo gli Scettici antichi il filosofo dogmatico è costretto a un regresso ail’iullnlto, cioè a risalire, senza mai fermarsi, nella serie dei principii, se vuol non lasciare alcuna affermazione indlmostrata c non porro corno primo principio una proposizione arbitraria o un’ipotesi elio ha bisogno d'essere dimostrata. Ha il oorrispettivo nel prògressus iti infittitimi (v. questo termine). _per Kant il regressus nella serio «lei fenomeni dell’universo conduce in il idefinitum, cioè la serie dei fenomeni è potenzialmente illimitata, non dollnlta. Relativismo (/ito*.): si applica alle dottrine cho accolgono lo. relatività della conoscenza umana, limitata ai fenomeni c «ile loro relazioni tostanti, ossia olio lauri, dichiarando che citi cho si pono ai di là di ossi, o è inconoscibile. come pensa lo Spencer, o non esisteaffatto, come dice C'omte, Relatività (/ito*.): è il carattere ohe si può attribuire alla conoscenza, di essere relativa (v. relativo). Relativo (opposto: assoluto) (/ito*.): è relativa la conoscenza, in quanto la si fa dipendere dalla costituzione soggettiva dello spirito umano, dal rapporto fra il soggetto o l’oggetto e si esclude la possibilità di cogliere con l'intelletto unii verità assoluta. -la relatività della conoscenza è sostenuta già dallo Scetticismo greco con Enesidemo, mediante dieci tropi che ponovano in rilievo la soggettività dello percezioni dovuta alle differenze fra gli uomini, diversi di corpo, di temperamento, di anima, dominati da disposizioni o condizioni variabili, come la, salute, l’età, le malattie; che percepiscono diversamente socondo le distanze, le posizioni, la complessità degli oggetti, la rarità e la frequenza dei fenomeni ecc. -anche per Kant la conoscenza è relativa, essendo limitata al fonomeni e ai loro rapporti, mentre la cosa in sé, che sta dietro ad essi, è inconoscibile. un’Importante concezione delia relatività è quella odierna dell’EiNoTBix, che estende ni movimenti accelerati e alia stessa gravitazione la relatività ammessa in meccanica: la massa d'uti corpo non è costante, ma varia in funzione della velocità; non v’è spazio e Religione tempo assoluto, le dimensioni ilei tarpi sono relative, giacché un corpo, trascinato in una traslaziono, subisco una contrazione nel senso del movimento; spazio, tempo, energia sono fra loro collegati; si Invecchia piti in un Inogo che in un altro. _ vi ù anche una concezione relativa della attirale : i principi dell’apprezzamento o della condotta morale dipendono dal carattere, dal grado di civiltà d’un popolo, dall'iunbionte nslco o sociale, dalla tradizione eco.; non esistono principii morali assoluti.  a 31 osò, ai profeti, e, in maniera completa, insegnate agli uomini dii Cristo e consegnate nelle .Sacre Scritture. Romanticismo (opposto: classicismo, illuminismo): v un Importante movimento spirituale Iniziatosi verso la due del scc. XVIII, che ha un'aziouo rilevante sui filosofi sorti dopo Iva.it (Fiotti:, Sm maino, Hegel eco.). L'Idea centtale è quella di vita pensata come forza originarla, immateriale, irriducibile, incosciente, spontanea, che rivela una verità piti profonda «li quella offerta dalle • Idee chiare e distinte li! Cartesio e dell'Illuminismo; il senti• mento vi appare più complesso e più ricco della ragiono astratta, il arnia ò superiore «vile regole, l 'istinto più forte delle convenzioni, dello istituzioni, dei calcoli della scienza. T)1 qui le conseguenze: «) di fronte all'ordine e ai modelli classici è una rivolta contro lo regole e le convenzioni, un'esaltazione di tutto le potenze della vita, un’affermazione della rclativitii di tutti gli ideali o della mutabilità delle Torme estetiche; b) «'accosta alla natura, alle intuizioni infallibili d'un istinto collettivo, inventa il genio della rozza, l'anima dei popoli, pone l’ispirazione e il genio al disopra del sapere e deìl’abilità tecnica; ai giardini e al parchi ben disegnati preferisce ipaesaggi grandiosi e selvaggi, le solitudini (Rousseau); al razionalismo oppone l’irrasionalismo, si stacca dai soggetti e dalle tradizioni classiche per rivolgersi al Modto Evo, considerato più spontaneo, alla tradizione cavalleresca, alla cattedrale gotica; ha il gusto e il senso della storia ; contro l’antistoricismo degli illuministi ò storicistico. s Saggio (gr. 0096? = sapiente) i/ilos.): l’ideale del saggio è definito, dopo Aristotele: l’uomo die incarna la virtù intesa come sapere, abilità, prudenza, giustizia, indipendenza dai beili esterni. Rispondono a questo ideale i Sette saggi, come anello il « saggio stoico » clic ne attua il tipo morale più alto, offrendo il modello pratico alla Roma «lei primi due secoli dopo ( ‘risto. La saggezza non 0 soltanto liberazione dalle passioni o dal l’utilitarismo volgare, ma anche scienza ed esperienza armoniosamente operanti nella vita o gni ftte da un ideale superiore. Sanzione (diritto e nomile): la sanziono giuridica, ossia la pena, ó determinata da tre fattori: dallo esigenze della difesa sociale; dall'offesa clic il delitto reca al sentiment o «li giustizia, pel quale 11 colpevole, partecipe della ragione, è considerato come persona razionale, trattato come tale o quindi costretto a subordinarsi alla ragione comune, infine dall’offesa portata all’ordine morale, per cui, oltre al ripristinnmento deU'ordino giuridico, la pena mira anche ad educare possibilmente il colpevole a sentimenti migliori. La sanzione morale, cioè la riprovazione e il rimorso, è una reazione della Volontà morale Idealo contro la volontà inoralo Imperfetta, che ha violato la legge morale: il fondamento di essa va corcato nella responsabilità di noi verso noi stessi (Martinetti). Scetticismo (gr. ay.irrzrjij.xi = Investigo ; opposto: dogmatismo) i/ilos.): è la dottrina fondata da l'iuuoNi:, secondo la quale la mente umana non può cogliere verità alcuna intorno alla vera realtà delle cose, ma solo apparenze. Non esiste un criterio di verità che permetta di distinguere le rappresentazioni vere «la quelle false, donile l’astensione dti ogni giudizio iZTZoyT,) e l’indifferenza (àSiatpopta). il dubbio Schema Scolastica sistematico c una tranquillità d’animo Inalterabile (&Tapoc££a). Dapprima, mediante la disciplina della condotta morale, mira alla calma e alla quiete dell’esistenza, ma alla line diviene anche una disciplina dello spirito scientifico, grazie al suo atteggiamento eri-fico e al severo esame cui sottopone le dottrine filosofiche contemporanee, specialmente Pepicureismo e lo stoicismo. Schema (gr. cr/-? (i iia = forma, esteriore), figura) (//los.): in generale indica il disegno, la figura che rappresenta in maniera semplificata le linee essenziali d’un oggetto o d’un movimento. -per Kant lo schema trascendentaleindica una rappresentazione intorme* diaria fra un’intuizione sensibile (per es. : d’uri dato triangolo) e un concetto (per es.: 11 triangolo in generale); ed è affine da un lato al concetto puro, in quanto non contiene nulla d’empirico, e dall’altro lato alle percezioni, e quindi all’ordine sensibile. Perciò esso permetto di applicare indirettamente agli ; oggetti dell'esperienza i concetti puri dell’intelletto, cioè lo categorie, che sono inapplicabili per via diretta. Cosi lo sohema della sostanza, cioè la rappresentazione sotto la quale si raccolgono i fenomeni per poter loro applicare la categoria di sostanza (v. questo termine), è il substrato che permane nel tempo; lo schema della quantità è il numero, mediante il quale la continuità dei fenomeni è distribuita in quantità determinate. Questi schemi sono creati dall'immaginazione, che ò una facoltà intermediaria fra l’intelletto o la sensibilità, con essa Kant vuol risolvere l'antico problema dell’accordo fra le idee, le categorie o le cose; per risolvere il quale Cartesio era ricorso allaveracità divina, Malebranche alla rivelazione, Spinoza al parallelismo (per cui l’estensione e il pensiero sono gli attributi d'un unica sostanza, di quella divina), Leibniz all’armonia prestati• •Scienza: è un complesso di cognizioni dovute a ricerche metodiche (fondato sull’esperienza guidata dalla ragione), disposte in un sistema ben coordinato, suscettibili di dimostrazioue e aventi per oggetto una parte ben definita della realtà naturale. I suoi strumenti 6ono: l’osservazione diretta dei fenomeni, l’csperimento, l 'induzione, la deduzione. Galileo apro ima via nuova alla scienza, sostituendo olla ricerca delle qualità, propria del metodo aristotelicoscolastlco e ancora presente in Bacone, la ricerca «iella quantità, esprimibile con formule matematiche; quindi non più forz e qualità occulte, ma elementi spaziali c numerici. Anche oggi gli atomi, gli ioni, gli elettroni c le loro composizioni quantitativo sono l'oggetto dell'indagine scientifica. * L 'aggetto della scienza è duplice, secondo filosofi c scienziati (BENTHAM, Ampère, Hill, Hegel, Wcndt, ecc.), cioè: la natura o lo spirito, donde le scienze della natura e le scienze dello spirito (o morali). Il Windklbanp divide le scienze In nomotetiche (gr. VÓ(AO£ = legge, e tU1yjjì.i= pougo), come la chimica o la fisica, che ricercano le leggi secondo cui si svolgono i fenomeni naturali; o ideografiche (gr. = particola^ e ypàcpstv = scrivere), cioè lo scienze storiche, che studiano gli avvenimenti passati, considerati nella loro Impronta individuale e non ripetibili. Scolastica (dal lat. setola, che è l’insognamento per eccellenza del Medio evo, quello della teologia o della filosofia; scholasticus ò il titolare di tuie insegnamento) ( /ilos .): ò la filosofia dominante in Europa dal hoc. X al XIV : le sue tesi fondamentali sono: a) dualismo fra Dio. che è atto puro, puro spirito, e la creatura, nella quale si mescolano l’atto e la potenza, la forma e la materia, l'anima o il corpo; b) Dio è persona spirituale, ha creato il mondo dal nulla e lo trascende ; c) la parola di Dio manifestata nelle Sacre Scritturo è l'espressione infallibile della verità; quindi, pur mirando a conciliare ragione e fede, cioè la filosofia antica, specialmente quella d’Aristotele, col dogma cristiano, la Scolastica afferma che la'ragione non può andare contro la fede, ma subordinarsi a questa; d) la distinzione flit soggetto conoscente e oggetto conosciuto, pensato come reale, indipendente dal soggetto nella sua esistenza; e) la distinzione fra teologia e filosofia : la prima ha per oggetto l’ordine soprannaturale in quanto è rivelato dalla parola di Dio; la seconda investiga l’ordine naturalo per mezzo della ragione, ma accordandosi con la teologia. In senso peggiorativo si dice che ima dottrina si trasforma in una scolastica quando si irrigidisce in formulo verbali, in distinzioni e divisioni numerose. sottili e astratte, in tesi imSecondarie Simbolo mutabili, o perciò diviene stagnante, incapace di progredire. Secondarie (qualità) = v. qualità. Sensazione (psicol.): è la piò semplice modificazione della coscienza, il processo psichico nella sua forma elementare; presenta due aspetti: a) è recettiva, cioè passiva, in quanto è prodotta da stimoli esterni o Interni; p. o. un raggio di luce, la contrazione d’un muscolo, che dònno rispettivamente una sensazione visiva o muscolare: li) è successivamente attiva, in quanto le impressioni provenienti dagli stimoli sono elaborate dalla coscienza, nella qualo già si trova ima molteplicità, d’elementi psichici, di ricordi, di immagini, occ. ; perciò la sensazione ò il prodotto dell'analisi e dell’astrazione. Sensibilità (furimi.): è la facoltà d’aver sensazioni, di conoscere por mezzo doi sensi, o anche di provare piacere o dolore che accompagnano lo sensazioni; _da Kant la dottrina della sensibilità, clic ò la capacità di ricovero passivamente impressioni da oggetti osterni por la via del scusi, ma ordinate nello forme a priori dolio spazio c del tempo, è detta estetici i. Sensismo (filos.): dottrina che consiste nel far derivare tutto le nostro facoltà o le nostre conoscenze dalla seusuzione ; ò rappresentato dal C ONDII*i*ao (sec. XVIII), che dalla sensazione fa derivare la memoria, l’attenzione, il giudizio, il sentimento, lo volizioni. Si distinguo én\Yempirismo, in quanto questo ammette duo fonti del conoscere: la sensazione o la riflessione. Senso ( psùvl .): è la facoltà (p. e. la vista, l’udito, il tatto) che mette gli esseri viventi in rapporto col mondo esterno c dà luogo a una determinata classo di sensazioni (visivo, uditivo, tattili eoe.). _ (morale): il senso morale consiste in una facoltà innata dì distinguere intuitivamente Il bene dal male, facoltà ohe dove considerarsi parto integrante della natura umana; tale dottrina è sostenuta per la prima volta dagli inglesi SnAFTEsnniY o Hvtchkson. Senso comune: comprende un’insieme indeterminato di opinioni c ili cognizioni condivise quasi universalmente, che si impongono o por la loro evidenza o per il loro valore pratico, o anche per l'autorità della tradizione. (Jilos.): per Aiustotklk II senso comune (Jtotvi) crìa&r,oiz) è una specie di senso interno cho ci dà la coscienza della sensazione o, al tempo stesso, coordina I dati offertici dai singoli sensi particolari (udito, vista, ecc.): esso costituisco quindi l'unità del soggetto senziente di fronte all'oggotto sentito. _I*a scuola scozzese del senso comune (Reto, Dcoai.p Stkwaht) ammottesenza discussione come validi i principi accolti da tutti gli uomini, oppure « cosi indispensabili nella condotta della vita elio il rinunzlarvi equivale a cadorc in numerose assurdità speculativo e pratiche »(Roid), e anzitutto afferma l’esistenza realo dell’oggetto, indipendentemente dall’attività percettiva del soggetto. Il senso oomuno sostituisco la ragione nella filosofia e,anohe nello matematiche. Sentimento (psicol.): In senso ampio esprime il complesso degli stati allei Ziri, cioè di tutti quei processi soggettivi, interiori, gradevoli o sgradevoli, legati con lo funzioni vitali e con la psiche dell’Individuo, come le emozioni, le passioni ecc. m in senso piò ristretto è uno stato affettivo stabile, o ancho un’attitudine costante a provare emozioni, corno il sentimento estetico, morale, intellettuale, il qualo ultimo consisto nel piacere complesso cho dà l’esercizio dello funzioni intellettuali. Sentimento fondamentale corporeo: ò l’cspressiono usata dal Rosmini per indicare la cenestesi (vedi). Sillogismo (gì-, ouXXo^tojxó;, da uoXXévw = raccolgo) (lattica): Aristotele, che ne ha creato la teoria, cosi lo definisce: ò un ragionamento (Xó-fb?), nel qualo, posto alcune cose, ohe p. o. « l'uomo ò mortalo ".e 0 Socrate ò uomo », un’altra cosa no risulta necessariamente, che « Socrate è mortalo », per qu sto solo cho 1 primo sono posto. Consta di tre proposizioni, di cui Io primo due diconsi premesse ; la terza, implicita in queste, conclusione-, e comI prendo tre termini: il maggiore, che ò il concetto più esteso (nel sillogismo citato: mortale), il minore (Socrate), il medio (uomo), che ò il ponto di passaggio. Corrisponde ai noti principi: ciò cho è contenuto nel genere ò puro contenuto nella specie; e nel linguaggio matematico: tiue quantità ugnali a una terza sono uguali fra loro. Simbolo  = «offro insieme) ( psicol .): in generale consiste nell’esistenza di disposizioni identiche in due o più individui della stessa specie o di specie diversa. nella sua forma più umile è un accordo di movimenti, detto sinergia, come si osserva nel riso o nello sbadiglio, che si propagano quasi per contagio. nella sua forma superiore ò un accordo di sentimenti, una sinestesia, un movimento che ci porta verso gli altri, a gioire della loro presenza, a partecipare allo loro gioie c alle loro pene, c alla fine si muta in «unore attivo, che supera i limiti della nostra co¬ scienza per rivelarci la presenza imme¬ diata d’un’altra coscienza; scopro va¬ lori (come pensa Max Scholer), men¬ tre l’intelligenza dà solo rappresenta¬ zioni. (morale): è il fondamento della mo¬ rale dell’inglese Adamo Smith: * la fonte della nostra sensibilità per le sof¬ ferenze altrui, egli dico, è la facoltà di collocarci con 1 ’immaginazione al loro posto, facoltà ohe ci rende capaci di concepire ciò che essi sentono o d'es¬ serneaffetti »; por essa giudichiamo moralmente delle azioni altrui e delle nostre. Sincretismo (gr. ouY-xpiJTurpóc» no¬ me derivato daH’unione dei Cretesi di fronte al nemico, nonostante lo dissen¬ sioni intorno) (in generale): esprime l'u¬ nione artificiosa, senza critica, di idee o teorie di disparata origine, nel campo della filosofia come in quello della re¬ ligione. Sinderesi (forse derivata da auvirrjpnjai? = sorveglianza, o, per deforma¬ zione, da vet$Y)el libero consenso degli indivi¬ dui ed è fondato sopra la volontà della nuiggioranzu, espressa mediante 1 rap¬ presentanti del popolo, donde lo Stato liberale rappresentativo coi suoi tre poteri ben distinti: legislativo, giudi¬ ziario, esecutivo, quale traeeorà più tardi Montesquieu por Rousseau lo stato sorge pure dallo stato di natura per un contratto pel quale l’individuo, naturalmente buono, trasferisce il buo diritto al po¬ polo, riunito in assemblea, la cui sovra¬ nità è assoluta c inalienabile; la volontà generale, manìfestantesi nelle decisioni della maggioranza o nel potere legislativo, che è il potere supremo, implica la volontà di tutti gli individui. Di qui il governo democratico. Stato etico (filos.) : per Hegel lo Stato è Tincarnazione suprema della moralità, l’attuazione delle Idee morali, lo spirito del popolo divenuto visibtlo; perciò il suo fine non è di assicurare la libertà individuale, la sicurezza, la proprietà dei singoli, giacché l’individuo non ha obbiettività, verità, moralità se non in quanto è parte dello Stato, e la vera volontà dell’individuo (la quale ò pensiero attuautesi nella realtà) è volontà razionale, quindi ani versale o, alla fine, identica alla volontà dello Stato: la rappresentanza del popolo non deve ingerirsi negli affari dello Stato, ma solo eccitare il governo a rendere pubblica ragiono dei suoi atti, elevandone cosi la vita a un grado di coscienza Stoicismo  91 Superuomo sempre più alto. Questa dottrina dell’Hegcl è l'affermazione dell’onnipotenza dello Stato. Stoicismo (/ iloa .) o PORTICO,: dottrina della Scuola filosofica fondata da Zenone di Cizio, elio fu aperta in Ateno nel ITI scc. a. Cr. nello Stoa Pecilo (portico ornato delle pitture di Poiignoto) od ebbe cinque secoli di vita e duo periodi, quello preco o quello minano (con Seneca, M. Aurelio, Kpittcto): professò un panteismo secondo il quale 11 mondo è animato da una forza immanente, la ragionecosmica simboleggiata nel luoco, della quale l'anima ù una particella. 11 lino supremo della condotta umana è per essa l 'avalla, che si raggiungo con la virtù, cioè liberandosi dallo passioni, obbedendo alle leggi inflessibili, ma ottime, con le quali la divinità reggo 11 mondo. Storicismo (/flottitela tendenza a considerale un oggetto della conoscenza come il prodotto d’uu’cvoluzione storica; ha un duplice aspetto: . d) in opposizione all' filmai mano, considera 1 prodotti spirituali non come l'effetto della ragiono, concoplta uguale dovunque e costante, ma corno Il risultato Ionio d'uno sviluppo storico, durante il qualo 1 caratteri essenziali si conservano, mentre quelli accidentali cadono ; - i>) In opposizione al naturalismo meccanico, considera e interpreta il tutto come una manifestazione dello spirito umano nel suo svolgimento storico : cosi per Heokl la storia ò lo sviluppo successivo della ragione c l'essenza di quosta appare o si do finisce eoi caratteri che sorgono in tale evoluzione idealo; l'essenza della filosofia è quindi da rioeroursì nella storia della filosofia. Subcosciente tpsicol.): si dice del processi psichici debolmente e oscuramento percepiti. Per primo il Leibniz ammise esservi nell’attività psicologica « petites insensiblcs perceptions che, riunite e fuse Insieme, possono produrre una percezione chiara; p. e. il rumore d’un’ondata marina è dato da un numero incalcolabile di rumori infinitamente piccoli, non percettibili separatamente. S’usa anche come sinonimo d 'incosciente. Sublime (estetica): è il sentimento prodotto nell'animo dalla visione diretta o dall'idea vivamente rappresentata della potenza.naturale n della grandezza morale e intellettuale. -Kant distingue: a) 11 sublime matematico, provocato dalla visiono o intuizione d'una grandezza assoluta nel senso dell’estensione; p. e. la vista dell’oceano immenso, l’idea dell'immensità degli spazi cclesti; i) Il sublime tlinamico, dovuto alla visiono della potenza non disgiunta dal senso di sicurezza dello.spettatore: p. c. la vista d'un vulcano jn eruzione, dell'oceano in tempesta. Questi spettacoli » elevano le forzo dell’anima sopra la loro ordinaria mediocrità c discoprono in noi un potere di resistenza che ci dà il coraggio di misurarci con l'apparento onnipotenza della natura. Il sublimo quindi non è nelle coso, ma nel nostro spirito, ci eleva al disopra della natura che è In noi, o di quella che è fuori di noi . Sufismo (relig.): è una dottrina, dovuta a ispirazione neo-platonica c seguita da una setta mistica mussulmana: Dio è il beno assoluto, l'essere puro, la bellezza eterna, 1'unica o vera realtà, mentre il mondo del fenomeni è un semplice riflesso della divinità, non essere, puro fantasma. Una vita spirituale rigidamente ascetica, la stretta osservanza dei precetti sacri sono la condizione necessaria per raggiungere il fine supremo proposto da questa dottrina all uomo. l'annientamento in Dio. Suggestione (psieol.): nel significato più generale f> l'evocazione, il suggerimento d’un’ideu o d’un sentimento cho qualcuno esercita, volontariamente o no, sulla coscienza d’un altro Individuo o ambe di se stesso (autosuggestione), e che agisce, senza trovare resistenza, sulla condotta e sul modo di pensare di questo. È comune nella vita sociale. _ La suggestione ipnotica consiste in un comando cui il soggetto obbedisco senza riflettere, senza cho II suo consenso intervenga: per una specie «Vautnmatismo irresistibile, egli compie tutto ciò elio gli viene suggerito, subisce, illusioni, allucinazioni, iperestesie, anestesie dei sensi ccc. Superuomo: termine usato da Goethe nel Faust o reso popolare da Nietzsche ; è la concezione idealo d’un tipo futuro di personalità superiore, d'una specie lituana meglio dotata di quella attuale. nell’umanità deve apparire tuia specie più forte, un tipo superiore, che abbia all re condizioni, per creare c conservare, clic rurnno medio Tn una prima conSussunzione Tempo codone U superuomo era per Nietzsche il gonio che s’innalza sulla folla e la domina. Sussunzione (dal lat. subsumcre = subordinare; gr. u 7 c 6 X 7 )^/i£) {Ionica): è una forma di ragionamento che consiste nel pensare un individuo come compreso in una specie, o una specie in un genere, o un fatto come l'applicazione d’una leggo. .-per Aristotele il unionismo di sussunzione è il solo perfetto ; in esso il termine medio è soggetto nella premessa maggiore e predicato nella minore; p. e: « l’uomo è mortale, Socrate è uomo; quindi Socrate è mortale ». T Tabula rasa {film.): a una tavoletta di cera su cui nuda è scritto viene paragonata daU’empirtono l’anima umana, la quale nel suo nascere non ha ideo o cognizioni innate. L’espressione si trova nel De anima d "Aristotele: &rsT:tp èv Ypa[xu.o!T£t(p té \j.r,Sh ùitxpxsi y£vpx'j.;j.£VOv {sirut tabula rasa in qua nihil est scriptum, traduce 8. Tommaso). Teismo (/ilo*.): si applica alle dottrine ohe ammettono un Dio personale, trascendente, creatore del mondo; 6 proprio del Giudaismo, dcllTsliunismo e, più particolarmente, del Cristianesimo. Teleologia (dal grt£Xo; = fine e Xóyo?  discorso: scienza dei fini) (/iios.): dottrina che ammetto una specie di ragione cosmica o un essere supremo ohe agisca per cause finali, cioè per l’attuazione di determinati fini nel mondo e negli esseri. È iniziata da Anassagora, sviluppata da Platone, da Aristotele, dagli Stoici ccc. per Kant la vita della nat uni, pur essendo soggetta al principio di causa e a leggi meccaniche, rivela tuttavia un’arte tutta interiore, grazio alla quale essa si organizza, produco esseri organizzati o viventi, che possono essere detti fini della natura. Però l’ammettere questi fini non ha il valore di un principio costitutivo, ma solo regolativo, cioè «esprime la regola senza la quale l’organizzazione della natura sarebbe inesplicabile per la nost ra intelligenza ». Temperamento (gr. xpaot? = mescolanza; trad. lat. temperamentum)(psicof.): dalla mescolanza dei vari umori del corpo {sanane, bile, atrabile, linfa) e dai predominare d’uno di essi i Greci dedussero la distinzione dei quattro temperamenti (sanguigno, bilioso o collerico, melanconico, linfatico), distinzione che tuttora si conserva. II temperamento lia il suo fondamento nella vita fisiologica, specialmente nel sistema nervoso, consideralo in relazione con l’attività psicologica; è ereditario. Tempo ( filo ».): vi sono due principali concezioni del tempo : realistica o oggettiva, die ci ò data nella sua forma tipica da Newton per cui il tempo lia esistenza reale, assoluta, senza relaziono con le coso esterne, o scorre in so stesso in maniera uniformo per sua propria natura, seuzu rapporto col mutamento. È bensì vero che !a divisione umana del tempo in ore, giorni, mesi, anni è relativa; perù tale relatività diponde dalia mancanza d’un movimento uniforme atto u misurare il tempo in modo preciso e noti contraddice al carattere assoluto ili questo. (La relatività della misura umana del tempo è sostenuta duo secoli dopo da E. Poincaré, fondandosi sul fatto che tale misura si compie sulla durata dell’anno solare, la quale ò variabile; la nostra misura del tempo è soltanto comoda, utile por le usigenzo umane, non vera e assoluta). idealistica e soggettiva: preannunziata da Leibniz, pel qualo il tempo esprimo l'ordine di successione dello nostre percezioni, appare nel suo carattere più spiccato in Kant: il tempo è intuizione pura, la forma a priori dei fenomeni del senso interno, cioè dei processi psichici, la condizione necessaria e universale dello nostro percezioni; quindi è soggettivo, in quanto è un’attività dello spirito umano, ma è al tempo stesso oggettivo. In quanto è condizione d'ogni possibile esperienza. secondo Aristotele a noi è dato solo il tempo itrescnle, perchè 11 passato non 6 più c il future non ò ancora; quindi il presente è il limite fra 11 passato o il futuro; fra tempo e movimento esiste un rapporto, in quanto il primo è la misura numerica del secondo e contiene in sé distinzioni e divisioni che possono essere calcolate o sommate. Agostino, pur affermando che Dio ha creato il tempo, e con ciò attribuendo valore oggettivo al tempo, però quando lo considera nel suo aspetto umano e psicologico, lo interiorizza, 10 pensa come soggettivo, lo definisce una distenmo animar, per la quale tutto 11 tempo è presente, giacché il passato Teodicea  Teosofia ò presente nella memoria, li futuro nell’aspettazione, mentre l’attenzione ci dà la coscienza del momento presente (v. durata). Teodicea (gr. = dioc 8t*/.aia= cose giuste) (/ ilos .): tonnine coniato da Leibniz per indicale quella parte della teologia naturale che tratta della giustizia di Dio, ossia mira a giustificare j la presenza del malo nel mondo e a conciliarla con la bontà divina, o ad accordare inoltre la libertà umana con* la realtà della provvidenza e pre-scienza di Dio. Per estensione comprende la trattazione. dell’esistenza e degli attributi della divinità. Quindi, se il nome è recente, l’argomento è oggetto di studio fin dall’antichità greca (Platone, Aristotele, Stoici ecc.). Teofania (dal gr. 9 -eó; = dio c «patveiv ss apparire) ( filos. c relig.): ò il manifestarsi della divinità, sia in maniera diretta, sia, in un significato più esteso, indirettamente nelle sue opero o nell’universo. Teologali (virtù): v. virtù.'reologia (gr. dio e \ 6 yo$ = discorso) ( relig . e filos.): è la dottrina che ha per oggetto la divinità, i suoi attributi, i suoi rapporti con l’universo e l’uomo. -la teologia rivelata o sacra s’appella. nella sua trattazione, solo alla parola di Dio rivelata nelle Sacre Scritture o ai dogmi. la teologia razionale sottopone l’oggetto della fede all’esame critico della ragiono. Teoria (gr. -ilstopCa = investigazione intellettuale, scienza) (filos.): in opposizione a prativa, designa la ricerca pura, disinteressata, indipendente dalle applicazioni pratiche, non solo nella filosofia, ma anche nelle scienze, come la fisica c la chimica. in opposizione a sapere volgare esprime la trattazione metodica, sistematica, conforme a determinati principi, o anche appoggiamosi a ipotesi scientifiche. nel significato (li contemplazione, vedi questo termine. Teoria biologica della conoscenza (filos.): è la dottrina che fa derivare l’impulso al conoscere dalla vita, intesa nel suo significato biologico, fondandosi sopra l’ipotesi che lo spirito umano sia soltanto un’efllorescenza, una sublimazione, un prolungamento della vita: perciò la conoscenza risponde alle necessità prime e fondamentali doll’esistenza; la conoscenza, dapprima confusa e soggettiva, conio nell’te/w/o, si va facendo più cosciente e cliiara, toccando lo suo torme più elevate nella scienza c nella filosofia. Teoria della conoscenza (filos.): ò la dottrina cho serve da introduzione alla filosofia e rivolge l’attenzione non sull’oggetto conosciuto, ma sullo stesso soggetto in guanto conosce, sullo spirito umano nella funzione del conoscere; in altre parole, è il ripiegarsi della mente sopra se stessa per indagare il potere che essa ha di conoscere. È stata concepita con chiarezza da Locke e, ancor più profondamente, da ICant, che mira con la sua Critica della ragion pura a ricercare le fonti, i limiti, il valore della facoltà conoscitiva deiruomo.  Hegel nega la possibilità d’una teoria della conoscenza, affermando cho ò Impresa chimerica voler fissare 1 limiti della ragione, anzitutto perché una ragione limitata non è più una ragione; in secondo luogo perché la ragione soltanto può far la critica della ragloue e, se questa riconosce e definisce i propri! limiti, con ciò non fa altro che oltrepassarli, dal momento che la conoscenza del limite implica necessariamente la conoscenza di ciò che sta al di là del limite. Teoria economica della conoscenza (filos.): designa la dottrina cho, per comprendere il legame tra i fenomeni, rinunzia al principio di causa e si vale soltanto dell'idea di funzione (si vegga questo termine), riducendo a una pura convenzione la differenza tra fenomeno fisico o fenomeno psichico. Ufficio essenziale della conoscenza ò soltanto di descrivere 1 fenomeni e i loro rapporti funzionali nel modo più semplice e con la maggior possibile economia, riducendo una lunga serie di esperienze a una formula abbretriata, cho risparmi! ulteriori esperienze, dispensi da ràgionamentì o eolcol 1 ?omplicatÌ, e riduca la trattazione dei fatti alla più semplice descrizione. È rappresentata da H. Avenarius (v. empiriocrilicismo ), dal fisico Mach e dalla Scuola di Vienna: ha tendenza antimetafisica. Teosofia (gr. fi-sóc = dio e 009£a = saggezza): si può dire una metafisica religiosa, in cui entrano clementi di varia natura e di diversa provenienza. L’idea-comune alle varie dottrine teosofiche è di giungere alla conoscenza di Dio e delle cose divine mediante l'apTermini  94 Tradizionalismo profondiment o della vita interiore e obbedendo al precetto mistico clic « rientrare In sé j equivale ad « elevarsi a Dio: in hurnano animo idem est minimum quoti intimimi : nell’anima ciò che vi è di più alto e di più profondo coincidono (Riccardo di S. Vittore). Questo procedimento rivela forze spirituali che si sottraggono alla volontà umana o diurno luogo alla saggezza, alla calma e serenità interiore. Una credenza teosofica caratteristica è l'evoluzione dell'anima attraverso la catena dello esistenze, la dottrina della reincarnazione. I ermini del sillogismo = v. sillogismo. Terminismo (filos.): è il nome dato al nominalismo di Guglielmo d’Occam, pel quale ogni cosa reale ò individualo (quaclibet res co ipso quoti est, est haec rcs) e sono vere lo proposizioni quando si riducono a termini, cioè ad espressioni vorbali che esprimano esseri individuali. Terzo escluso (principio del) (logica) : afferma che di due proposizioni contraddittorie se l’una è vera, l'altra ò necessariamente falsa; una terza proposizione non ò possibile. È stato formulato da Aristotele. Iesi £48-1600). anima del mondo, antropocentrismo, coineklentia oppositorum, individuo, intelletto, monade, monadismo, panteismo, principio, umanesimo. Buchnkr: materialismo. Bit RH) A no: Buridano (asini» .n). CAMPANELLA: conosci te stesso, pri nudità. CANTONI: neo-kantismo t 'arnkadk: Accademia, ignava ratio, progressus in intìnitum, relativo. Cartesio: auCoscienza, autorità, bene, buon senso, cartesianismo, cogito, conosci te stesso, corpo, creazione continuata, criterio, deduzione, Dio, dualismo, dui», bio, errore, essenza, estensione, esterno (mondo), formale, gianduia pineali?, idea, illuminismo, immediato, innato, legge, lume naturale, materia, oggettivo, ontologica (prova), parallelismo, passione, percezione, qualità primarie, schema, sostnnzialismo, spazio, spiriti animali, spiritualismo. CICERONE: anticipazione, aporia, catalettica, cosmopolitismo, eclettismo, etica, neo-pitagorismo. Comtk: discontinuo, filosofia della storia, positivismo, relativismo, sociologia. COXPTLLAO: sensismo. Condorcet: progresso. ( Vij’krnico: antropocentrismo. Cousin: eclettismo. CROCE: bello, neo-hege Usino. Cesano: alterità, coincidentia oppositorum, doeta ignorantia, emanazione, explicatio, individuo, macrocosmo. Darwin: darwinismo. De Bonald: tradizionalismo. Democrito: analisi, anima, atomo, essere, filosofia, infinito, materialismo, meccanico, monadismo, nulla, qualità primarie, spazio. Dkstutt de Tràcy: ideologia. Dilthey: comprendere. Dubois-Reymond: ignorabimus. Dugàld Stewart: senso comune Duns Scoto: anima, eeceità, individuazione, volontarismo. Einstein, relativo. Empedocle da GIRGENTI: amore, elemento, infinito, pluralismo. ENEsrDEMO: relativo, tropi. Epicurei: anima, anticipazione, edonismo, empirismo, errore, etica, piacere. Epicuro: atarassia, atomo, beatitudine, canonica, dinamen, dualismo, idoli, intermuncU, spontaneo, utilitarismo. Epitteto: stoicismo. Eracuto: anima, attualismo, coincidentia oppositorum, conosci te stesso, divenire, logos, polipiatin. Esiodo: etica. Euckkn: astrazione, attivismo. Euhemkro (IN’ sec. a. Cr.): ovemerismo. Fechner: legge di K., jwicofiaica. Feuerbach: umanismo. Fichte: antitesi, esterno (mondo), idealismo, immaginazione, io, moralismo, romanticismo. Stato, volontarismo. FICINO: Accademia, neo-platonismo. Filone: logos. Focilide: gnomica. Freud: psicanalisi. Galileo: antropocentriamo, autorità, causa, compositivo, empirico, epagoge, esperienza, esperimento esterno (mondo), filosofia naturale, induzione, legge, numero, qualità primarie, ragione, risolutivo, scienza. Gall: frenologia. GENTILE: atto puro, attualismo, autoetwi, idealismo attuale, neo-hegelismo. Geulinx: cartesianismo, cause occasionali. Gilsox:’ illuminazione. GIOBERTI: creazione, dualità, ente, esistenza, formula ideale, intuito, metessi, ontologismo. Giustino: apologetica. Gnostici: gnosi, intuizione, pleroma, non essere. Goethe: analisi, superuomo, umanesimo, volontarismo. Haeckiu: biogenetico. Hamilton: intuizionismo. IXartley): associazionismo. Hartmann: incosciente. Harvrt: anima. Hegel: acosinismo, antitesi, attualismo, conosci te stesso, contraddizione, dialettica, Dio, essere, esterno (mondo), evoluzione, fenomenologia, filosofia della storia, idea, idealismo, intellettualismo, io, liberti politica, non essere, ontologica (prova), ottimismo, panlogismo, rappresentazione, razionale, razionalismo, religione, romanticismo. Stato otico, storicismo, teoria della conoscenza, tesi, volontà. Heidegger: angoscia. Helmuoltz: proiezione. Herbart: appercezione, pluralismo, volontà. Herder: umanesimo. Hobbes: contrattualismo, illuminismo, piacere. Stato. Humboldt: coltura. Hume: abitudine, analisi, associazione delle idee, associazionismo, corpo, credenza, empirismo, osterno (mondo), fenomenismo, idea, impressione, positivismo, religione, soggettivo. Husserl: eidetico, fenomenologia. Hutciieson: senso morale. Huxley: agnosticismo. Hyde: dualismo. James: emozione, pragmatismo, volontà di crederà Janssen: giansenismo. Kant: analisi, analitica, antinomia, antitesi, antropologia, a posteriori, appercezione, apriorismo, assoluto, autocoscienza, autonomia, bello, bene, carattere, categorie, conosci te stesso, cosa in sé, cose e persone, coscienza trasccnd.. cosmologia razionale, credenza, oritiea, criticismo, deduzione trascend-, dialettica, dignità, Dio, dogmatismo, dovere, dualismo, empirico, epigenesi, esperienza, esperienza possibile esterno (mondo), estetica, etica, fenomeno, filosofia, line in sé, forma, generatio spontanea, giustizia, idea, identità, illusione metalisica, immaginazione, immanente, immortalltà. imperativo. individualismo, innato, in sé, intelligibile, intendimento, intenzione, intuizione, legalità, legge, libertà, limitativi, metafisica. modalità, natura, neokantismo, noumeno, oggettivo, oggetto, ontologia, ontologica (prova), |iaralogiamo, passione, pensiero, persona, piacere, [inssibile, pratico, predeterminismo, primato, progresso, psicologia razionale, ragione, razionalismo, recettività, regno dei tini, regressus, relativo, romanticismo, schema, sensibilità, sintesi, soggettivo, soggetto, sostanza, spazio. Stato, sublime, tempo, teoria della conoscenza, trnnoendontale, trascendente, volontà, volontà buona, volontarismo. Kirkegaard: angoscia. Ivlaues (vivente): anima. Krause: panenteismo. Lachelier: cause finali, i riduzione. 1. A lande (vivente): logistica. Lamennais: tradizionalismo. Laplace: meccanica. Leibniz: antitipla, appercezione, appetizione, armonia prestabilita, atto puro, bene, contraddizione, Dio, energia, entelechia, idealismo, identità, illuminismo, incosciente, individuazione, individuo, infinito, innato, intellettualismo, male, materia, monade, monadismo, monismo, ontologica (prova), ottimismo, percezione, pesona, piacere, pluralismo, ragion sufficente, rappresentazione, schema, sostanzialismo, spazio, spiritualismo, spontaneo, subcosciente, tempo, teodicea. Leonardo da VINCI: filosofia naturale. Lessino: umanesimo. Locke: analisi, astrazione, contrattualismo, empirismo, esperienza, esterno (mondo), ideo, modo, qualità primarie, rappresentazione, ritleesione, spazio, Stato, teoria della conoscenza, tolleranza. Lotze: panpsichismo, valori (filosofia dei). LUCREZIO: elmamen, internimid ;, progresso. M,|M 1018V fenomenismo, induzione, Uacii u . ft Bell» con»poHÌtivfeino, icona t .ri-,)«gostinismo, corMalebranche -e: etica, gnomica. Spencer: agnosticismo, altruismo, a posteriori, associar. One dello idee, associazionismo, evoluzione, inconoscibile, libertà, omogeneo, relativismo, sociologia. Specsippo: Accademia. Spinoza: acosmismo, adeguato, amore, animo del mondo, assioma, attributo, beatitudine, bene, cartesianismo, causo sui, cor[x>, determinazione, determinismo, Dio, ente, orrore, esistenza, essenza, estensione, esterno (mondo), immaginazione, inimanente, in sé, intelletto, intelligenza, Intelligibilc, monismo, necessario, panenteismo, panpsichismo, panteismo, parallelismo, passione, per sé, ragione, razionalismo, schema, sostanzialismo, spazio. Staiil: animismo. Stoici: adialora, uuima, anima del mondo, anticipazione, apatia, ascetismo, asoroatieo, assenso, atarassia, autarchia, beatitudine, catalettica, cosmopolitismo, empirismo, esperienza, etica, filosofia, ignava ratio, indifferenza, legge, logos, macrocosmo, male, nihil est in intelleotu, ottimismo, panpsichismo, panteismo, passione, religione, ritorno eterno, saggio, spirito, stoicismo, teleologia, teodicea, virtù. Stuart Mill: altruismo, associazionismo, concordanza, differenza, edonismo, etica, induzione, positivismo, residui, variazioni. Tainb: analisi, associazionismo, positivismo. Talete: filosofia, uno. TempieR: Averroismo. Teognidf. : etica, gnomica. TertulUANO: allegorica, traducianismo. Timone: pirronismo. TOCCO: monismo, neo-kantismo, AQUINO: analogia, anima, a posteriori, a priori, contingente, contmgentia mundi, cosmologica (prova), creazione, determinismo teologico. Dio. forma, idea, immanenza, individuazione, intelligenza, ipostasi, metafisica, movimento, neo-scolastica, neo-tomismo, ontologica (prova), prcdeterminismo, ragione, sinderesi, spiritualismo, Stato, tabula rasa, tomismo, univoco, volontarismo. Tonnies: sociologia. Vaihinoer: come se, iinziouc. Valentino (II sec.): coni, gnosi. Valkby: identità. Vauhmioli: demone. VICO: corsi e ricorsi, degnila, filosofia della storia, legge, provvidenza, verità. Vittorini: mistica, teosofia. Voltaire: ottimismo. Winuelband: scienza, valori. Wolff: pratico, psicologia razionale, razionale. Wundt: metafisico, normativo, psicologismo, scienza, volontarismo. Zenone Ozici: stoicismo. Zenone Eleatico: antinomia, dialettica.  z za jr'srs'  PRINCIPI DI LOGICA, LIVORNO, GIUSTI, Livorno, Tipografia di Raffaello Giusti.    Una tendenza naturale e invincibile dello spirito umano in ogni momento della sua storia  e del suo sviluppo lo spinge a conoscere e a spiegare i  fenomeni che cadono sotto i sensi; un tale bisogno s’applica dapprima alle cose che hanno o sembrano avere un’utilità pratica e sono favorevoli alla conservazione e al miglioramento dell’esistenza ; più tardi, quando la lotta per  la vita è divenuta meno aspra, la curiosità e la ricerca si  l’anno a mano a mano disinteressate e sono coltivate per  sè stesse, senza mirare in modo esclusivo alle necessità pratiche. Sorge allora il sapere scientifico, si formano lentamente  le singole scienze e la filosofia, le quali si possono ben considerare come il prodotto più elevato e più pregevole dell’ intelletto umano, del quale mettono in chiara luce tutta la  mirabile potenza.   Qualunque scienza oggi si consideri, si possono in essa  distinguere duo cose : la materia ossia Voggetto studiato ; la  forma ossia l’insieme delle operazioni che la mente nostra  compie e dei procedimenti che adopera per conseguire la  scienza di quell’oggetto e per giungere alla conoscenza vera  delle cose. Valga a chiarire tale distinzione l’esempio della  psicologia sperimentale : la materia di questa scienza è costituita da fatti psichici, cioè da quei fatti che ognuno può constatare nella propria coscienza come sensazioni, percezioni, idee, sentimenti, desideri, volizioni ; ma per ottenere  la conoscenza scientifica della materia psicologica occorrono  svariate operazioni tra loro strettamente connesse. Innanzi  tutto è necessario formarsi un concetto ben chiaro del fatto  psichico, determinando con precisione i caratteri che gli sono  propri e che lo distinguono dagli altri fatti naturali, oggetto  delle altre scienze; inoltre, poiché i fatti psichici, come si  presentano alla nostra osservazione, mostrano fra loro differenze più o meno spiccate, sorge l’esigenza d’una classificazione in fatti di conoscenza, di sensibilità, di volontà, dei  quali bisogna poscia ottenere una descrizione accurata, indagare le connessioni, ricercare e stabilire le leggi. In queste operazioni e in altre simili ad esse, che prescindono dalla materia  e dal contenuto delle varie cognizioni, consiste l’ufficio della  logica, la quale si può quindi definire come quella parte importante della filosofia, che ricerca e studia i principi formali della conoscenza, ossia, per parlare con maggior chiarezza, qnellc cond izioni che debbono essere soddisfatte, affinchè  una cognizione, qualunque possa essere il suo contenuto, si  debba considerare come validamente costituita, ben fondata e  vera, non come un semplice caso o una supposizione inconsistente. In questo modo mentre le altre scienze s’occupano  d’oggetti particolari, le matematiche del numero e dello spazio, la fisica dei fenomeni luminosi, elettrici, termici eco., la  fisiologia dei fenomeni vitali, la logica si occupa invece delle  condizioni generali della scienza stessa, in quanto mira ad  assicurarci della verità formale di ciò che pensiamo, delle  nostre idee e dei nostri ragionamenti, qualunque ne possa  essere il contenuto. Si comprende quindi facilmente come  la logica venga ritenuta una disciplina filosofica generale al  pari della metafisica e della teoria della conoscenza o, con parola greca, gnoseologia, le quali si riferiscono a tutto il contenuto del nostro sapere e non a parti determinate di esso.   2. Divisione generale della logica.  I principi formali  della conoscenza si distinguono generalmente in semplici e  complessi, secondochè si riferiscono alle forme elementari del  pensiero, oppure alle forme dette metodiche, a costituir le quali ultime le prime contribuiscono come dementi. Quindi la divisione più razionale della logica è quella che distingue in essa  due parti principali: la prima comprende lo studio delle forme  elementari del pensiero, che sono il concetto, il giudizio, il  sillogismo, nei quali si risolve ogni pensiero, per quanto  grande sia la sua complessità ed ai quali corrispondono gli  elementi linguistici, la parola, la proposizione, il ragionamento. La seconda parte abbraccia lo studio delle forme metodiche che le scienze vengono applicando per acquistare  nuove cognizioni e por ordinare e provare le cognizioni acquistate ; onde questa parte dicesi metodologia, e tratta del  metodo inventivo che indica le norme, con le quali si possono  estendere le nostre conoscenze, e del metodo sistematico,  cioè dei procedimenti coi quali la scienza ordina le sue conoscenze. La storia della scienza ci dimostra chiaramente  che il metodo non si costituisce a priori, cioè prima che  una scienza sia formata, ma piuttosto si deduce dalla scienza,  quando questa ha raggiunto un certo grado di sviluppo ;  anzi si può dire che il metodo si trova spesso in ritardo  rispetto al cammino che percorre la scienza, nello stesso modo  che i trattati dell’arte poetica sono l’espressione tardiva  dell’arte contemporanea.   Infine bisogna notare che ogni scienza speciale presenta  un complesso particolare di norme e di procedimenti, che  però non rientra nella trattazione della logica generale,  essendo strettamente collegato con la materia che costituisce il contenuto d’ogni singola scienza ; così il fisico, il  chimico, il fisiologo, oltreché delle conoscenze generali di logica,  fanno uso nelle loro osservazioni e nelle loro ricerche di regole e di mezzi speciali di indagine, che sono propri della  scienza alla quale dedicano le loro forze intellettuali.  Logica e psicologia ; relazioni e differenze.  Le operazioni che formano l’oggetto della logica possono essere considerate sotto due diversi aspetti, ossia sotto l’aspetto logico  e sotto l’aspetto psicologico.   La psicologia tratta le operazioni logiche come tutti gli  altri processi che sono offerti allo studio dello spirito umano,  senza occuparsi per nulla della loro validità o della loro forza dimostrativa, stimando clie un cattivo ragionamento  valga quanto uno buono, nello stesso modo che pel chimico  lo zucchero e il vetriolo sono due corpi d’egual valore per  l’osservazione scientifica. La logica invece è stata detta una  « scienza ideale », perchè ricerca le leggi che il pensiero deve  seguire per procedere alla conoscenza delle cose, ossia ricerca  la forma ideale del ragionamento, ciò che dev’essere un buon  giudizio, un buon ragionamento.   La psicologia studia lo spirito umano qual è, per conoscerne i caratteri, la natura, le leggi e, tende a mostrare  come si formano le idee, i giudizi, i ragionamenti e, in una  parola, ha per fine di conoscere le condizioni reali delle nostre operazioni intellettuali ; la logica mira a conoscere le  forme ideali di queste stesse operazioni. Quindi l’una non fa  che constatare fenomeni, l’altra ne considera il valore; l’una  ricerca come noi pensiamo ordinariamente, l’altra come pensiamo correttamente ; la logica va dal semplice al composto;  concetto, giudizio, o legame di concetti, ragionamento, o legame di giudizi ; la psicologia ripudia questo ordine come  artificiale, e pone il giudizio come elemento primitivo, affermando che l’uomo ha cominciato a parlare per frasi esprimendo un giudizio e che questa frase può essere o una sola  parola, Vatirihuto, o due parole, soggetto e attributo, o tre  parole, soggetto, attributo e copula ; ma che sotto queste  forme diverse la funzione fondamentale rimane sempre la  stessa : affermare o negare.   Così, per citare ancora un esempio, che renda più evidenti le differenze che corrono tra la psicologia e la logica,  quest’ultima considera il giudizio nella sua forma compiuta,  quale lo possiamo trovare nella scienza, nella letteratura, nei  dogmi religiosi, o anche nelle affermazioni del buon senso, e  che si esprime per mezzo di proposizioni le quali alla loro  volta si compongono, nella maggior parte dei casi, di più  termini. Invece il psicologo, ben lungi dall’indagare ciò che  dev’essere un giudizio affinchè si possa ritenere valido, si  chiede ciò che è come operazione mentale e in qual modo si  forma : dietro i termini del giudizio egli ricerca le idee,  dietro le idee le rappresentazioni ; nelle proposizioni scorge  un potere d’analisi o di sintesi capace di dissociare gli eiementi che l’esperienza presenta legati, d’unire quelli che  l’esperienza presenta isolati, e vuol trovare l’origine di questo  potere dello spirito umano, seguendone l’origine e lo sviluppo,  rifacendosi dalle forme più semplici del giudizio quali si  presentano nell’ infanzia, per risalire alle forme adulte e più  elevato. In conclusione, mentre lo psicologo si pone il seguente  problema : per quali influenze fisiologiche, psicologiche e sociali si sviluppa nell’uomo l’abitudine di giudicare, d’affermare e di credere? il logico si propone invece quest’altro:  quali caratteri deve avere il ragionamento, a quali esigenze  e a quali leggi deve obbedire affinchè possa dirsi regolare,  libero da contraddizioni?   La logica dunque vuole offrire al nostro pensiero un modello da seguire, se inteude di apprendere l’uso retto e rigoroso del ragionamento ; però, se un tale modello deve avere  un valore reale, bisogna che abbia la sua base nella realtà,  ossia nella conoscenza degli elementi e delle energie più profonde e costanti dello spirito umano; di qui l’importanza e  la necessità della psicologia per lo studio della logica.   4. Le origini della logica razionale.  Una lunga civiltà ha abituato non solo gli uomini poco istruiti, ma ancor più quelli educati  dalla disciplina scientifica ad ammettere senza riflessione che la  log ica razionale, oggettiva, esatta sia sorta in modo spontaneo e  naturale e che i logici altro non abbiano fatto che «strame le regole. Vi sono invece buone ragioni per affermare che la logica razionale taira è il risultato acquisito d'unn lunga evoluzione e che  la facoltà di ragionare e di inferire, suscitata e alimentata dai bisogni e dalle necessità della vita, è stata essenzialmente pratica '  e ha dovuto fare i suoi primi passi in modo incoerente e poco  sicuro.   Si è scritto molto e si son fatte numerose congetture intorno  nlla costituzione mentale dell'uomo primitivo ; ma lasciando da una  parte qualsiasi ricostituzione deU'uomo appartenente alla preistoria, vi sono i selvaggi attuali che, a torto o a ragione, si considerano come equivalenti a quello, e intorno ai quali si hanno notizie  numerose, svariate e positive. In questi il livello delle facoltà logiche è assai basso e si mostrano evidenti l'incapacità all'astrazione e la difficoltà estrema a collegare le idee secondo rapporti  oggettivi; essi sanno invece rag ionare praticamente, per mezzo di  percezioni e di immagini che conducono al risultato atteso cioè, alla conclusione, e hanno il loro fondamento e l'origine nelle necessità  vitali e nelle questioni che si pongono di fronte agli agonti naturali e soprannaturali. Per convincersi di ciò basta pensare ai mezzi  che l’uomo primitivo ha escogitato pel soddisfacimento dei suoi bisogni : pel nutrimento, la caccia e la pesca ; per difendersi dalle  intemperie, le vesti e l'abitazione; per l'attacco e la difesa contro  gli animali e i suoi simili, le armi.   La costituzione d’uua .logica pura progredisce di pari passo  coi progressi della tecnica, secondo le attestazioni dei documenti  sturici, che dimostrano essere la tecnica la madre della logica razionale : l'invenzione degli strumenti, degli utensili, della fusione  dei metalli, della navigazione, dell’astronomia, dell'agrimensura ecc.  Ita costretto a poco a poco lo spirito umano a sottoporsi alla disciplina del ragionare. Terò questi “ ragionamenti, non sono liberi  dagli elementi affettivi e fantastici ; infatti noi sappiamo che operazioni profane, come il fabbricare uno strumento o l'edificare una  capanna, esigevano un intervento soprannaturale, preghiere, sacrifici, incantesimi, riti vari, forinole magiche ; tutte queste cose erano  considerate intermediari indispensabili per arrivare allo scopo, o solo  per l’influenza della coltura e della civiltà appare manifesta 1 indifferenza e la vanità di questi mezzi e si fa complota l'emancipa' zione della logica razionale. Quando questo strumento naturale d'esplorazione che è il ragionamento si è affermato e perfezionato con l'esercizio, l'abitudine e l'applicazione perseverante a materie di varia natura, sono venuti i logici clic hanno analizzato, dilucidato l’inferenze corrette o hanno dettato le regole per ragionare correttamente, incominciando con  Aristotile al LIZIO a studiare le forme più astratte o più rigorose del ragionamento. Però sono stati primi i sofisti – della SICILIA, come GIORGIA LEONTINO, i più antichi maestri d’eloquenza, che tentarono di rilevare le regole del pensiero corretto, nonché le regole grammaticali e le parti del DISCORSO, delle quali tutti si servivano senza saperlo; l’arte del pensare, le regole della dimostrazione e della confutazione divennero necessarie in quel'giorno, in cui la forza della PAROLA potè modificare il verdetto d'un tribunale o l'opinione d'un’assemblea politica. Ma a questo proposito, non bisogna confondere tra loro la logica e LA DIALETTICA, perchè quest’ultima è, come dice Aristotile, l’arte che apre la strada al vero mediante la discussione dello opinioni; discute, intorno ad un dato soggetto, le opinioni favorevoli e quelle contrarie, no rileva le difficoltà e le contraddizioni, si può, in una  parola, considerare come l’arte della discussione. La potenza della  (Rjbot, La logique des sentiinents, F. Alcnn] PAROLA – GRICE STUDIES IN THE WAY OF WORDS -- è stata per un certo periodo della storia greca, lo strumento principale per governare; e non solo nelle assemblee del popolo, ma  anche nei tribunali, dove sedevano centinaia di giudici, LA PAROLA è come un’arme che adoperala abilmente, raddoppia le probabilità della vittoria, e chi ne è privo, nel seno della propria patria e nella pace più profonda, è cosi esposto agl’attacchi degl’avversari, come se si fosse precipitato nel tumulto della pugna senza spada e senza scudo. Si comprende quindi facilmente come nelle democrazie di quel tempo, LA RETORICA – GRICE LEECH -- , la quale è per metà dialettica e per metà stilistica, siasi coltivata per la prima volta come una professione e prende un posto importante nell'educazione della gioventù. LA LINGUA e il ragionamento. LA PAROLA si deve considerare non solo come un mezzo per comunicare le idee, ma anche come uno strumento efficacissimo per lo sviluppo  del pensiero e del ragionamento. L’osservazione della psiche  infantile ha dimostrato che non è possibile un certo sviluppo mentale senza l’aiuto della PAROLA nei primi anni di vita del  bambino, durante i quali egli percepisce, esperimenta e ragiona senza possedere una lingua propriamente detta, che si sviluppa poscia a poco a poco per un BALBETTIO SPONTANEO – GRICE SIGNIFICATO NATURALE --,  pell’ESPRESSIONE dei sentimenti e per influenza della lingua che si parla intorno a lui e che egli cerca d’imitare. Preyer riconosce nel fanciullo una logica senza parole – PAROLA greco PARABOLA parlare parlamento -- che precede di molto lo sviluppo integrale della lingua – GRICE ANALOGUE OF CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS BEYOND. Infatti, quando il bambino allontana rapidamente la mano dalla fiamma che il giorno prima lo ha bruciato, non compie forse un vero e proprio giudizio di riconoscimento? L’ufficio della PAROLA – greco PARABOLA, parlare, parlamento -- diviene importante quando sorgono l’idee generali, pelle quali LA PAROLA diviene un mezzo indispensabile; infatti i sordo-muti che non hanno appreso la ‘lingua’ tattile esprimono le loro osservazioni in modo vivo o individuale per mezzo di gesti o di movimenti d’imitazione; e appunto per questo carattere individuale e concreto – PARTICLARIGGIATO – IDIOSINCRATICO -- delle loro descrizioni non riescono a formare idee generali chiare e distinte, le quali non si staccano mai bene dalle rappresentazioni singolari. Così, per indicare il cibo e il pasto, essi accennano al proprio corpo, indicano il rosso toccando le proprie labbra, esprimono col gesto l’atto di innalzare un  muro, di tagliare un abito; ma non sanno indicare l’idea generale di queste azioni, mancando loro l’udito e la parola. LA LINGUA ha quindi una doppia funzione: una funzione sociale, in quanto è il mezzo piti potente di COMUNICAZIONE – GRICE STEVENSON -- del pensiero; una funzione che si può dire individuale – IDIOSINCRATICA GRICE -- nel senso che ferma per mezzo di formule stabili i nostri pensieri più fuggevoli e più sottili – GRICE: IN WAYS THAT AN ANIMAL CANNOT M-INTEND -- , e li rende ai nostri occhi più chiari e più resistenti. Ammettiamo pure che la potenza del pensiero varchi i limiti d’espressione forniti dalla LINGUA, e che una serie più o meno lunga d’idee possa de-correre nella nostra mente senza che ad essa corrisponda una serie concatenata di parole – GRICE MODELS OF IMPLICATURE --. Così per esempio io posso passeggiare solo attraverso i campi, fermarmi un secondo sulla sponda d’un fosso che io debbo passare: io ne apprezzo coll’occhio la larghezza, misuro lo sforzo che debbo fare e mi trovo senz’accorgermi sull’altra riva. Tutte queste operazioni contengono una serie di giudizi – GRICE JUDGING – EVEN ANIMALS – PIROTOLOGY -- veri e  propri, di atti silenziosi. Però in questo e nei casi simili, le idee appaiono quasi come annebbiate, dai contorni indecisi, e sfuggono con estrema facilità, se LA LINGUA – IL DEUTERO-ESPERANTO DI GRICE -- non interviene; e se poi QUALCHE PAROLA improvvisamente viene a  mancare, s’arresta in modo brusco l’enunciazione del giudizio, e il pensiero esce con fatica e spesso incompleto od offuscato. Il possedere una lingua ricca e atta ad esprimere le più tenui sfumature del pensiero, equivale, pel pittore, all’avere una tavolozza ricca di colori – GRICE FREGE FARBUNG and/but -- coi quali si possano porre in rilievo i minimi particolari d’un quadro. Certo non bisogna dimenticare che se UNA LINGUA ben fatta e abbondante è il migliore strumento di progresso per  l’intelligenza, tuttavia occorre che questa senta il bisogno di servirsene. Il vocabolario usuale d’una persona dedicata agl’uffici più umili – dice BERNSTEIN -- della vita si compone tutt’al più di qualche centinaio di parole, appunto perchè queste sono sufficienti alle sue necessità intellettuali; e la povertà della LINGUA d’alcuni popoli – GRICE’S ESKIMO -- che vivono in uno stato di rozzezza primitiva, non è la causa, ma l’effetto della loro po Hoffding, Psychologie, Alcan] vertà mentale. Infine è da notarsi che se il concetto non può far di meno d’una forma espressiva, la forma espressiva non ha per sua necessaria condizione una forma logica o un  concetto. La logica e l’educazione dello spirito.  Lo storico Tucidide dice che in una nazione colta e civile si esige non  già che tutti i cittadini debbano essere capaci di trovare la  soluzione dei problemi che loro si presentano, ma che sappiano giudicare con criterio retto ed equanime le soluzioni  trovate ed affermate dagli specialisti. Per raggiungere questo  fine, oltre ad un certo complesso di cognizioni letterarie  e scientifiche, sono indispensabili le buone abitudini intellettuali, che ci avvezzano a considerare le cose con pazienza,  a scorgere facilmente la falsità delle soluzioni affrettate e  troppo semplici, e a convincerci che a conoscer bene la realtà  occorrono analisi prudenti e ossorvazioni accurate e ripetute. Inoltre lo spirito deve avere l’amore disinteressato del  vero, assoggettarsi alla sola evidenza razionale, veder chiaro  nelle proprie idee, non prendere le proprie preferenze per  buoni argomenti, i propri pregiudizi o le proprie passioni  per dimostrazioni valide. Lo studio coscienzioso della logica  può recare un aiuto efficacissimo a questo scopo, divenire  quasi un’igiene dello spirito e la preparazione necessaria ad  ogni istruzione scientifica seria e profonda; e questo si può  affermare per più ragioni. Anzitutto la logica è utile considerata come scienza per  sè stessa ; infatti, poiché V intelligenza è lo strumento indispensabile in ogni ramo di cognizioni scientifiche e queste  ultime non si possono pensare senza di quella che in certo  modo le crea e le sviluppa, ne viene che è necessario all’uomo conoscerne l’intima struttura ed il valore intrinseco,  nello stesso modo che nessuna persona sensata vorrà adoperare uno strumento qualsiasi senza possederne una qualche  cognizione. In questo caso la necessità è di gran lunga  maggiore, poiché si tratta di conoscere come opera e come  funziona ciò che Bacone ha denominato instrumentum instrumentorum. Però lo studio delle operazioni logiche del pensiero ha  un’altra ragione pur grave, se si considera come disciplina  dell’intelligenza, come conoscenza tecnica necessaria per aguzzare e rafforzare la facoltà del ragionamento e per rendere più  pronto e più sagace lo spirito d’osservazione. Il vedere come la  nostra mente, partendo dall’osservazione dei fatti e paragonandoli fra loro, riesce ad ottenere una cognizione generale, una  legge naturale che ordina e rischiara tutta una serie di fatti, ci  aiuta a comprendere come si acquista il sapere e per quali condizioni questo sapere deve rispondere alla verità, e rendere più  forte l’attitudine a cogliere i rapporti fra le cose. Invece,  l’accettare da altri una scienza bell’e fatta, la quale non  richiede da noi altra briga che quella, troppo leggera, di  credervi, non ci fornisce l’abito della critica, il desiderio  della prova rigorosa, e ci abitua a prestar la stessa fede ai  fatti constatati, alle leggi saldamente stabilite, e alle ipotesi  probabili e solo possibili ; il sapere che una verità è ammessa come certa non è come sapere in qual maniera, con  quali procedimenti e con quante precauzioni quella si stabilisce, come nacque, come crebbe e venne formandosi. Solamente in questo modo si impone il rispetto e l’amore della  verità scientificamente fondata e si formano le intelligenze  libere, attive, desiderose di conoscere, educate all’osservazione e alla critica, e tolleranti delle opinioni altrui. Un  pregiudizio assai diffuso pone la memoria come unica base  dell’educazione intellettuale, e si considera come cosa importantissima il versare nella mente il più gran numero possibile di cognizioni, il ripetere con precisione tutto ciò che è  entrato passivamente nel cervello. E questo un errore fatale,  poiché s’è constatato infinite volte che in un breve periodo  di tempo si dimentica una gran parte di ciò che si è studiato  meccanicamente con grande fatica. Ciò che più importa è  invece abituarci a pensare colla nostra testa, formare lo spirito d’iniziativa : il fanciullo che impara a camminare, impara appunto perchè va colle sue gambe e non colle altrui ;  insegnare ad osservare, scrive il Gabelli, è insegnare a pensare, a operare, a vivere, è infine formare la testa, intento  principalissimo dell’ istruzione ; quando invece l’offrire, o  l’imporre dogmaticamente le cognizioni bell’e fatte, è annegliittire l’intelligenza, uccidere la spontanea attività del pensiero, consumare l’anima. Certo non si può negare che si può divenire un grande  scienziato e un finissimo ragionatore senza aver latto uno  studio speciale della logica, nè questa sa rendere forte e  penetrante uno spirito che è naturalmente falso ed ottuso;  ma come lo studio coscienzioso della grammatica, senza formare da sè solo lo scrittore, gli concede il possesso sicuro  della lingua, così lo studio delle leggi che il pensiero segue  nella conoscenza rende più sicuro e robusto l’organo del ragionamento. Quindi, se la logica riflessa è insufficiente quando  le venga meno l’aiuto della logica naturale, la quale non si  impara sui libri e nelle scuole, ma si ha dalla natura, quando  invece questa vi sia, la nostra mente può essere più facilmente avviata ad usare del pensiero con abilità e con frutto.   Gabelli, L’istruzione in Ilalia, Bologna, Zanichelli. Poiché la logica mira ad assicurarci  della verità e della validità delle nostre cognizioni e dei  nostri ragionamenti, si presenta naturale la domanda se esistano principi o leggi fondamentali, alle quali ogni nostro pensiero debba obbedire affinchè possiamo essere certi della  sua verità. Il principio di identità, il principio di contraddizione,  quello del terzo escluso fra i contradditori, e il principio di  ragion sufficiente esprimono appunto le condizioni necessarie  per le quali noi possiamo pensare correttamente, e sono leggi  di ogni realtà spirituale valevoli per le creazioni estetiche  non meno che pei pensieri logici e per la vita pratica.   Il principio d’identità si esprime colla formula: A è A,  ed afferma l’identico dell’identico, che ogni cosa è uguale  a sé stessa. La parola identità, presa nel suo significato etimologico indica che la cosa, che noi ci rappresentiamo in  diversi tempi sotto diversi nomi, in diverse combinazioni è  sempre identica a sé stessa ; però questo principio non deve  affermare che nel giudizio il soggetto e il predicato debbano dire esattamente la stessa cosa, essendo un tale giudizio affatto vuoto di senso, come se dicessi che « un circolo  è un circolo » che « questa mano è questa mano » ; un giudizio di tal fatta è una vera e propria tautologia priva d'un  valore qualsiasi per la conoscenza e, non a torto è stato detto  giudizio idiotico, giacché solo un idiota potrebbe compiacersene. Occorre invece che il predicato esprima qualcuna delle  qualità che appartengono, oppure che possono aggiungersi al  soggetto: Galileo è il fondatore della fisica, Newton ha scoperto le leggi dell’attrazione universale. Il principio di identità enuncia dunque l’impossibilità di pensare un concetto dato e i suoi caratteri come dissimili reciprocamente: vi è  equivalenza assoluta tra un tutto e la somma delle parti che   10 compongono, tra un concetto e la totalità degli attributi  che lo costituiscono ; cosi si può dire che una cosa è uguale  a sè stessa, oppure A = A.   Anche quei giudizi nei quali in apparenza il soggetto e il predicato sono parole identiche, in realtà non sono tautologici. Così quando dico: la guerra è la guerra, intendo di  manifestare il pensiero' che, una volta intrapresa una guerra,  non è da maravigliarsi delle conseguenze triste che ne possono derivare; quando dico: i bimbi sono bimbi, col soggetto  voglio esprimere solo l’età infantile, col predicato le qualità  ad essa congiunte.   Il principio di contraddizione dice che due giudizi dei  quali l’uno nega quello stesso che l’altro afferma: A è B, A  non è B, non possono essere veri nel medesimo tempo, ma  se l’uno è vero, l’altro è necessariamente falso. Aristotile dà  questo significato al principio di contraddizione, che giudica  il più certo di tutti (aùii) TtaaCtv iait $e$a.'.oxb.Tt] tC5v àpx® 7 )»  poiché non è possibile che alcuno pensi che la stessa cosa sia  e non sia (àSuvzrov yàp ÓvtivoOv Taùxòv OnoXa|i^àv£iv efvzt  xai fitj eivat).   Molti secoli dopo il filosofo tedesco Guglielmo Leibniz  ha dato un’altra formula del principio di contraddizione, che  è la seguente: A non è non A; mentre la formolo aristotelica riguarda la relazione tra un giudizio affermativo ed  uno negativo, invece quella del Ijiilmiz si riferisce alla relazione che passa tra soggetto e predicato in uno stesso giudizio, e significa che un giudizio è falso quando il soggetto  e il predicato si contraddicono ; Aristotile ha voluto dare non  già un criterio per stabilire la verità o la falsità d’un  giudizio, ma solo negare la possibilità di ritener vere nel  medesimo tempo l’affermazione e la negazione; invece il Leibniz  ha inteso di porre un principio, per mezzo del quale si potesse  riconoscere la verità in tutte le forme della conoscenza.   Però le due formule esprimono alla fine una sola e stessa  legge del pensiero umano. Infatti che/significa: un predicato B è in contraddizione con un soggetto A? che un affermazione, la quale attribuisce il predicato B al soggetto A, per es. il sangue caldo ai rettili, contiene una contraddizione. Non vi è altra via, per la quale una contraddizione  divenga possibile se non questa, che il giudizio il quale attribuisce il predicato B al soggetto A, contraddica ad un altro  giudizio, il quale neghi che il predicato B possa convenire  al soggetto A; e poiché quest’ultimo giudizio; A non è B, i  rettili non hanno il sangue caldo, è evidente di per sé o  per altre ragioni note, la contraddizione annulla il primo  giudizio ; e ciò avviene secondo il principio enunciato da  Aristotile, che le due proposizioni non possono essere vere  ambedue nel medesimo tempo. (*)   Il filosofo greco Eraclito (III secolo a. C.) sostenne la coesistenza ilei contrari, partendo dal principio fondamentale del suo  sistema, pel quale attribuisco alla materia il cambiamento continuo  delle formo e delle proprietà, cosicché tutto ciò che vive è soggetto nd  una distruzione incessante e ad nn incessante rinnovamento, o  quando il nostro occhio crede di afferrare qualche cosa di permanente, è vittima d’una illusione, giacché tutto in realta è in un  perpetuo divenire, navi* pei. Noi non possiamo, egli dice, discendere due volte nel medesimo fiume, perchè di continuo porta nuove  acque; quindi noi discendiamo nel medesimo fiume e non vi discendiamo, noi siamo e non siamo; il bene o il male sono una sola o stessn  cosa; la dissonanza è in armonia con se stessa; l’armonia invisibile  (cioè quella che risulta dei contrari) è migliore di quella visibile,.  Ora con una concisione degna d’un oracolo, ora con precisione e  ampiezza mirabile, formula la proposizione che la legge del contrasto regge tanto la vita degli uomini quanto la natura, e che non  sarebbe meglio por questi ottenere ciò che desiderano, vale a diro  vedere tutti i contrari fondersi in una vana armonia. Il principio del terzo escluso e il principio di ragion  sufficiente.  Il principio del terzo escluso afferma che tra  due giudizi contradditori, A è B, A non è B, non è possibile un terzo modo di essere, una terza via d’uscita, e che  uno dei giudizi è necessariamente vero, perchè ambedue non  possono essere negati nel medesimo tempo; mentre il principio di contraddizione dice che uno dei due è necessaria  (i) Siowart, Logil-, I, p. 192. Freiburg i. B., Mohr.   (®) Gompebz, Les pene tur8 de la Orice. . F. Alcan] mente falso, perchè ambedue non possono essere affermati nel  medesimo tempo. L’applicazione di questo principio incontra difficoltà apparenti, le quali dipendono unicamente dal fatto che una cosa  viene osservata in momenti diversi e sotto diversi aspetti.  Cosi, mentre il sole tramonta, è vero tanto raffermare che 1 LOGICA. ima chimera, un non-valore. Tra queste due opposte estremità  sono possibili molte gradazioni, le quali contribuiscono a formare una « scala di valori » . In modo simile, pel malato una  determinata medicina, che può dargli la guarigione, ha un  grande valore, mentre per l’uomo sano non ne possiede alcuno.  In conclusione il valore è una qualità che noi attribuiamo  alle cose, come i colori, ma che in realtà, come i colori, non  esiste fuori di noi, ed ha quindi una vita essenzialmente soggettiva.  La nozione di “ valore „ ò penetrala lentamente e tardi nelle  scienze filosofiche; qualcuno ha voluto farne risalire l'origine ad  E. Kant, fondandosi sopra alcuni passi di interpretazione alquanto  dubbia; ò invece più esatto attribuirne il inerito a Lotze, il quale espose il principio che mette in rilievo la nozione di valore colle seguenti parole : * là dove due ipotesi sono ugualmente possibili, l'una che s'accorda coi nostri bisogni morali, l'altra  che ad essi contraddica, bisogna sempre scogliere la prima. In realtà però codesto concetto è d’origine economica, e bisogna  ricorcarne la fonte prima nell’opera “ La ricchezza delle nazioni „ dell’inglese Smith, pel quale il valore ò ricondotto  all'utilità, e alla sua volta l'utilità alla soddisfazione dei bisogni e  dei desideri dell'uomo. Ai nostri tempi il principio di valore è divenuto quasi popolare, grazio aU’opora di Federico Nietsche, sia che  egli voglia stabilire una * tavola di valori „, oppure restaurare  “ l’equazione aristocratica dei valori „, o biasimare acerbamente i  “ valori di decadenza,, o rifare in senso inverso il lavoro dei moralisti, operando una * trasmutazione di tutti i valori,, o celebrare  i ‘ forti che creano i valori,. Il campo, nel quale si applica la nozione di valore, è estesissimo o comprende la morale, l'estetica e le scienze sociali, la religione ecc. Nella morale si ritrovano i concetti del sommo bene,  dell'imperativo categorico, del bene, della simpatia, della giustizia,  della carità, della solidarietà, dell’utilità individuale o generale, dell'obbedienza a una legge rivelata, alla religione ecc. Nella vita  sociale vi sono i concetti di teocrazia, di monarchia, democrazia,  feudalesimo, il regime di casta, la schiavitù, il lavoro libero, il  salariato, che variano di valore secondo i tempi, le condizioni sociali e i bisogni.   Infine nella religione vediamo che il monoteismo, il dualismo,  il politeismo, i dogmi sono variamente apprezzati nelle diverse  religioni. Le percezioni, le immagini, le idee  astratte e generali forniscono la materia indispensabile al  ragionamento, il quale, nel suo significato più esteso, è un  atto dello spirito che consiste nel passare dal noto alV ignoto.  La forma pia semplice di ragionamento è quella che va da  una cognizione particolare ad un’altra cognizione particolare  e che si può già osservare nel bambino: questi, che ripete  ed applica alcuni nomi generali, forma una proposizione colltegando due nomi, come quando un oggetto, che evoca in lui  uu nome, evoca pure un altro nome, abbozzando cosi le prime  frasi incomplete e sprovviste di verbo. Quando per esempio  un cane scorge in un ruscello un liquido scorrevole, inodoro,  incoloro e chiaro, questa percezione suscita in lui, in virtù  d’un'esperienza anteriore, l'immagine d’una sensazione di  freddo, e la percezione e l’immagine s’uniscono per formare  una coppia; nel fanciullo invece, grazie al linguaggio, la medesima percezione evoca la parola acqua ; la medesima immagine evoca la parola freddo e le due parole s’associano insieme  a formare una proposizione, un giudizio.   In molti di questi accoppiamenti di termini che si suggeriscono reciprocamente si riscontrano i caratteri del ragionamento, come quando uu segno presente suggerisce una  realtà non veduta distante o futura, per es. le nubi e la pioggia ;  qui abbiamo vere e proprie inferenze.   Però nella logica il nome di inferenza si applica ad  operazioni mentali più complesse, ossia a quelle per le quali  da uno o più giudizi dati si passa ad uu nuovo giudizio.  L’inferenza è immediata, quando il giudizio risultante è una  conseguenza necessaria del giudizio dato ed è ottenuta senza  che sia necessario ricorrere a giudizi intermedi; cosi, se dal  giudizio che i triangoli sono poligoni io deduco che alcuni  poligoni sono triangoli, avrò un’inferenza immediata.   Si avrà invece un 'inferenza mediata, quando da un giudizio si passi ad un altro ricorrendo ad un terzo giudizio.  Cosi dal giudizio « gli uomini sono mortali » posso dedurre  queat’altro che Pietro è mortale, per mezzo d’un terzo giudizio, vale a dire che Pietro è uomo.   Tanto nel primo, quanto nel secondo caso occorre che  i giudizi posti in relazione non abbiano contenuto affatto diverso l’uno dall’altro, poiché allora non vi potrebbe essere  tra loro alcuna relazione logica, ossia dalla verità o falsità dell’uno non si potrebbe dedurre la verità o la falsità dell’altro. Trasformazione dei giudizi per subalternazione, per  opposizione, per equipollenza.  Quando la relazione è immediata, il contenuto dei due giudizi dev’essere identico, ma  diversa o la quantità, o la qualità, o la relazione, o la ino?  dalità; dal primo giudizio si deduce il secondo senza ricorrere ad un giudizio intermediario, e mentre la materia dèi  raziocinio, cioè il soggetto e il predicato, resta inalterata, si  muta invece la forma.   Le relazioni immediate dei giudizi si possono ridurre a  tre specie principali:   «) Per subalternazione, che ha luogo tra giudizi identici di contenuto e di qualità, ma diversi di quantità o di  modalità. Per opposizione, che ha luogo tra giudizi identici di  contenuto, ma diversi di qualità, oppure di qualità e di modalità insieme, mentre la quantità può rimanere identica o  mutare.   c) Per equipollenza che avviene tra giudizi di contenuto  identico, ma o diversi di qualità, o diversi di relazione.   Affinchè apparisca più chiaramente la diversità dei giudizi posti in relazione fra loro, i logici indicano con la lettera A il giudizio universale affermativo, con E il giudizio  universale negativo; con I il giudizio particolare affermativo,  con 0 il giudizio particolare negativo; e tale convenzione fu  espressa con artificio mnemonico in questi due versi:   Asserit A, nogat E, sed univejsaliter ambo,   Asserit I, negat 0, sed particulariter ambo ;   e dal filosofo bizantino Michele Psello del secolo XI fu proposto il quadro che può vedersi nella pagina seguente.   a) La relazione per subalternazione ha luogo tra giudizi  identici di contenuto e di qualità ma diversi di quantità : il  primo è universale e dicesi subalternante, il secondo è particolare e dicesi subalternato. Le regole che stabiliscono il passaggio da una ad altra forma sono: Dalla verità del giudizio subalternante (generale) si  conchiude la verità del giudizio subalternato (particolare);  ma dalla verità del subalternato non si può dedurre la verità  dol subalternante, poiché, come è facile comprendere, ciò che A opposti contrarii g è vero d’un'intera classe è vero anche d’una parte di essa,  ma non viceversa. Così, se è vero che gli uccelli sono muniti di becco, è vero pur che alcuni uccelli sono muniti di  becco; ma se è vero che alcuni popoli sono monoteisti, non  si può per questo concludere che tutti i popoli sono monoteisti. Dalla falsità del giudizio subalternato si conchiude  la falsità del subalternante, ma dalla falsità del giudizio  subalternante non s’inferisce la falsità del subalternato. Se  è falso che alcuni uomini sono perfetti, è pure falso che tutti  gli uomini sono perfetti; ma se è falso che tutti gli animali  sono provvisti di sistema nervoso, non ne segue che sia falso  l’altro giudizio, che alcuni animali sono provvisti di sistema  nervoso. La relazione per opposizione ha luogo fra giudizi che  sono identici di contenuto, ma diversi di qualità. Diconsi  opposti contrari se sono entrambi universali, opposti subcontrari se sono entrambi particolari, opposti contraddittori se  hanno diversa la quantità e la qualità.   I passaggi da un giudizio ad un altro opposto contrario  sono retti dalla regola seguente:   Se uno di essi è vero, si può inferirne la falsità dell’altro, non potendo essere veri entrambi insieme ; ma non è  possibile l’inverso, poiché se uno di essi è falso, non si può  affermare che l’altro sia vero, potendo essere falsi tutti e due. Cosi, se è vero che tutti i popoli civili dell’Oriente sono  monoteisti, sarà falso l’altro giudizio che nessun popolo civile  dell’Oriente è monoteista; ma se è falso che tutti gli uomini  sono onesti, non sarà perciò vero raffermare che nessun uomo  è onesto.   I giudizi subcontrari possono essere ambedue veri, non  possono essere ambedue falsi ; quindi dalla verità dell’uno  non si conchiude alla falsità dell’altro, ma si può invece dalla  falsità dell’uno dedurre la verità dell’altro; cosi se è vero  che alcuni uomini sono giusti, non ne segue che sia falso  l’altro che alcuni uomini non sono giusti; ma, se è falso che  alcuni geni sieno in tutto malefici, è vero il giudizio che  alcuni geni non sono in tutto malefici.   Per V opposizioìie contraddittoria vale la regola seguente:  dalla verità dell’uno si inferisce la falsità dell’altro, e dalla  falsità dell’uno la verità dell’altro; se è vero che ogni uomo  è mortale, è falso che certi uomini non siano; se è falso che  tutti gli uomini sono saggi, è vero che alcuni uomini non  sono saggi. Le trasformazioni logiche per equipollenza dei giudizi sono di molte specie; l’equipollenza tra giudizi d’identico  contenuto può aver luogo o per mutate qualità, o per mutata relazione, o per mutazione della quantità nella modalità  e di questa in quella, o per mutata posizione dei termini nel  giudizio, o per mutata posizione dei termini e insieme per  mutata quantità del giudizio. Vediamone qualche saggio.   Quando si tratta di giudizi di identico contenuto e  diversi di qualità, dato un giudizio, se ne può derivare un  altro con diversa qualità; es. « se ogni vizio è biasimevole,  nessun vizio sarà da non biasimarsi » ; quindi il giudizio universale affermativo e il particolare affermativo hanno ciascuno i loro equipollenti qualitativi nell’universale negativo  e nel particolare negativo infiniti. Però, come è stato osservato, se si bada bene, si vede che le trasformazioni per  equipollenza qualitativa non danno illazioni, perchè il contenuto logico e materiale dei due giudizi è lo stesso. Il principio,  duplex negatio afflrmans, indica questa identità; riducendosi  ad espressioni dello stesso giudizio in diversa forma, sono  più del dominio della grammatica che di quel della logica. Due   forme di raziocinio immediato s’ottengono con la conversione  e la contrapposizione dei giudizi. Si ha la conversione del giudizio trasportando il soggetto  nel posto del predicato e il predicato nel posto del soggetto.  Il giudizio reciproco può avere la stessa quantità del giudizio diretto, e allora la conversione è semplice; es. « nessun  accusatore può fare da giudice, nessun giudice può fare da  accusatore » ; oppure può avere quantità diversa, e allora la  conversione si fa per accidente; es. « i triangoli sono poligoni, alcuni poligoni sono triangoli ».   Le universali affermative si convertono per accidente in  particolari affermative; es. « i benefici mal collocati sono  malefici, alcuni malefici sono benefici mal collocati. Si convertono semplicemente tutti i giudizi universali  uegativi: es. «nessun pesce respira per polmoni, nessun animale respirante per polmoni è pesce. Sono pure convertibili semplicemente i giudizi particolari  affermativi; es. * qualche uomo è saggio, qualche saggio ò  uomo » . Se però il predicato fa parte del soggetto la conversione semplice non è possibile; se infatti dico: alcuni parallelogrammi sono quadrati, non posso dire : alcuni quadrati sono  parallelogrammi, poiché tutti i quadrati sono parallelogrammi.   I giudizi particolari negativi non presentano regola di  conversione; dal giudizio « qualche uomo non è medico », non  si può inferire che qualche medico non è uomo.   La contrapposizione consiste nel poter derivare da un  giudizio universale un altro giudizio di diversa qualità, mentre  si scambia l’ufficio dei termini, passando il soggetto a predicato, e il predicato a soggetto. Quindi i contrapposti dei  giudizi affermativi, sono negativi e quelli dei giudizi negativi sono affermativi; es. « se tutti gli atti virtuosi sono  lodevoli, nessun atto non lodevole sarà virtuoso; se nessun  superbo è contento, talune persone scontente son superbe » .   Si è osservato dallo Stuart Mill che le regole logiche  della conversione e della contrapposizione dei giudizi non si  possono ritenere come regole del ragionamento, poiché le proposizioni reciproche e quelle contrapposte non sono illazioni,  e dicono in forma verbale indiretta la stessa cosa che le proposizioni dirette; vi è illazione solo quando v’è passaggio  da una nozione nota ad una ignota.   Però se in molti casi si può affermare che le trasformazioni dei giudizi non hanno altro scopo che di farcene conoscere con maggior chiarezza il contenuto, tuttavia in alcuni  casi, come nella conversione dei giudizi universali quando  non è artificiosa, e nel contrapposto del giudizio universale  affermativo, l’illazione ci dà qualche cosa di nuovo. Una delle  cause più. frequenti d’errori, là osservare il Bain, consiste  appunto nella tendenza a convertire le affermative universali  senza limite; quando si dice: tutti i grandi ingegni hanno  il cervello voluminoso, si passa facilmente ad affermare che  tutti i cervelli voluminosi sono grandi ingegni ; cosi pure  quando si dice: tutte le cose belle sono gradevoli, tutte le  virtù conducono al benessere, ogni evidenza suppone testimonianze contemporanee, sorge in noi la tendenza a convertire  senz’altro queste proposizioni. Di qui la necessità di applicare  le forme logiche per mettersi in guardia contro simili errori.   8. L’evoluzione psicologica del giudizio.  Come abbiamo già  detto, si può considerare il giudizio nella sua forma completa,  quale si trova nella scienza, nella letteratura, nei dogmi religiosi  o nelle affermazioni dol sonso comune, ed ò espresso per mezzo di  proposizioni composte di piii termini, che dall'analisi vengono ridotti al minor numero possibile: soggetto, attributo, copula; questo  è l’aspetto logico. Lo psicologo, invece di ricercare ciò che de*’ essere un giudizio affinchè sia valevole per la nostra ragione, si  chiede che cosa esso è quando si consideri come operazione mentale, e come si forma. Sotto le parole egli trova le idee e le rappresentazioni, nelle proposizioni un potere d'analisi e di sintesi;  nella genesi deU’affermaztone distinguo diversi momenti; in una  parola, considera il giudizio non come un prodotto completo, ma  come una funziono di cui descrive gli organi e l'attività.   11 punto di partenza dell’evoluzione del giudizio, secondo un  autore recente, (*) si deve ricercare nelle manifestazioni della vita  fisiologica. Ogni organismo, a incominciare dal più semplice, ha il  potere d’entrare in movimento di porse stesso ; questa spontaneità  non è del tutto indipendente, poiché l'animale vive in un ambiente  determinato, dal quale riceve eccitamenti diversi, ai quali risponde    (*) Ruyssen, L'éi'olution psychologique tlu jugement, p, 53 e seg., F. Alcan] in maniera diversa, e può anche moversi automaticamente per  l’azione interna; quindi il movimento organico elementare è un  movimento d’oscillazione dall’esterno all'interno e viceversa, uu  alternarsi ritmico di consumo e di ncquisiziono che i biologi chiamano “ reazione circolare La cellula vivente ha una costituzione  propria che la rende atta a reazioni originali, è un sistema conservatore fondato sul principio della ripetizione, in una parola è fornita d’ abitudine .   Se l'ambiente esterno fosse sempre costante, la reazione circolare per ripetizione basterebbe ad assicurare alla vita qualsiasi  durata; ma noi sappiamo che l'essere vivente è di continuo esposto  alle variazioni termiche, meteorologiche, luminose, alle quali deve  adattarsi o perire; \'adattamento è appunto la seconda facoltà caratteristica della cellula; anche gli organismi monocellulari sanno  ricercare ed evitare con un discernimento prodigioso gli agenti che  sono loro favorevoli od ostili.   L'adattamento segue una via ascendente; anzitutto si scorge  nelle reazioni motrici dell'animale e del fanciullo, nelle quali si  possono riconoscere le primo manifestazioni della vita; il primo periodo della vita infantile costituisce il fondo d’abitudini sul quale  vengono ad innestarsi gli adattamenti ulteriori; le risposte dell’organismo agli eccitamenti successivi divengono a ninno a mano  più facili c più sicure, preparando così il terreno alla vita cosciente.   Con l’apparizione della coscienza si notano nuovi adattamenti  motori provocati specialmente dalle sensazioni della vista e dell'udito; nelle quali si coglie la forma più dementare del giudizio.  11 fanciullo risponde ad eccitamenti diversi per mezzo di reazioni  non più diffuse, ma precise, localizzate nelle parti distinto dell'organo eccitato; così il suono d'una voce famigliare lo fa muovere  e gesticolare, un oggetto luminoso gli fa alzare e tendere le mani;  in una parola, le sue sensazioni quanto più variano e s'arricchiscono, tanto più facilmente provocano reazioni motrici adattate al  loro scopo, dove si può quasi scorgere la traccia d’una scelta intelligente. Il prender coscienza del piacere e del dolore è il principio d'adattamenti più variati e più efficaci.   A queste reazioni sensorio-motrici, che formano una specie  d’attuazione primaria, succedono lo reazioni ideo-motrici che presuppongono il sorgere de\V attenzione secondaria, del riconoscimento,  dell’associazione delle idee, e quindi del linguaggio e della facoltà  di generalizzare. Con queste diverse operazioni il fanciullo acquista  gli elementi necessari pel suo sviluppo mentale. I giudizi che  pronuncia il fanciullo di due anni e quelli dell'uomo adulto possono differire in estensione e in profondità, ma non pel meccanismo; non avranno le qualità accessorie di rapidità, di esattezza, di sincerità, ma 1 essenza sarà identica ; in una parola lo affermazioni  del fanciullo e dell’adulto differiscono solo per la forma, non per  la materia. Così pel fanciullo giudicare vuol dire, almeno da principio, adattare in maniera appropriata i propri movimenti agli stimoli della sensibilità: apprezzare una distanza equivale a rinnovare   10 sforzo necessario per percorrerla; riconoscere una persona equivale n tenderlo le braccia, sorriderle, nominarla in maniera adeguata; comprendere un segno è come riprodurlo. Nell’adulto la cosa  non avviene in modo troppo diverso; malgrado le apparenze, nei  movimenti quotidiani, nel camminare, nel gestire, nel parlare noi  non facciamo altro che ripetere reazioni motrici che abbiamo acquistato per le prime. Anche quando il pensiero arriva al suo completo sviluppo, quando s eleva alle più alto astrazioni della scienza  e della filosofia, non si libera completamente dall’elemento motore;   11 linguaggio diviene qui ora sostegno indispensabile del pensiero  astratto. Bisogna pero notare che se l’operazione intellettuale del giudizio ha le suo radici nel terreno biologico, non ne segue che il  suo valore soffra qualche diminuzione e che gli elementi ideali e  attivi cresciutivi intorno nel corso dell'evoluzione debbano perdere  patte del loro profumo e della loro freschezza; la stessa osservazione si dove fare riguardo agli altri fatti riferentisi allo sviluppo  dello spirito untano, la famiglia, l'amore, il sentimento morale, il  pudore ecc. Già secondo Aristotile i procedimenti che il pensiero umano adopera nella  ricerca sono di due specie ben distinte Ira loro: V induzione,  èTCaYwy^i muove dal l'atto per risalire alla legge e al principio, dai giudizi particolari per ascendore a giudizi universali,  è il ragionamento che afferma d’un genere ciò che si sa appartenere a ciascuna delle specie di questo genere; ossia quella  forma di ragionamento, per la quale dall’esame e dal paragone d’una serie di casi particolari si passa ad una proposizione generale che riguarda non solo i casi osservati, ma  anche un numero indeterminato d’altri casi che sono coi  primi in una certa relazione di somiglianza. Cosi se dico: i  processi di conoscenza, di sensibilità, di volontà presentano  come carattere essenziale la coscienza  i processi di conoscenza di sensibilità, di volontà sono (tutti i) processi psichici,  e quindi tutti i processi psichici hanno come carattere essenziale la coscienza; faccio un ragionamento induttivo.   TI secondo procedimento è la deduzione, che dal principio  e dalla legge vuole discendere al fatto, da un giudizio universale andare ad un giudizio particolare; cosi, per usare  l’esempio precedente, se dico partendo da un principio noto:  tutti i processi psichici hanno come carattere essenziale la  coscienza  i processi di volontà sono psichici  dunque  hanno come carattere essenziale la coscienza; compio un ragionamento deduttivo. In ogni modo tanto l’una quanto l’altra  for ma di ragionamento si imo formulare per mezzo del sillo gismo, che si può di conseguenza considerare come la forma  più semplice ed elementare del raziocinio.   Aristotile è l’inventore della teoria del sillogismo (da  auXXéYO) raccolgo), che egli cosi definisce: Il sillogismo è un discorso nel quale, poste alcune cose, un’altra cosa ne risulta  necessariamente, per questo solo che quelle sono poste : £uXÀoYtopòs S è èoxi Xóyo; èv (Ti xe&évxwv xivwv, gxepóv xi x&v  xeipivwv àvàyxrjs oupPaivec x(7> xaOxa efvai, ossia: quando  si parte da due proposizioni, di cui l’tina afferma una proprietà data appartenente a tutta una classe d’oggetti, e  l’altra afferma che uno 0 più oggetti appartengono a quella  classe, si passa ad una terza proposizione nella quale la proprietà suddetta è attribuita anche a questi ultimi casi.   La parola sillogismo si legge già in Platone, ma solamente nel significato generale di ragionamento; Aristotile  le diede il significato speciale che tuttora conserva; il principio fondamentale su cui esso posa consiste in questo, che  ciò che è contenuto nel genere è pure contenuto nella specie.  Inoltre dalla definizione aristotelica derivano al sillogismo i  seguenti caratteri : che l’illazione o conclusione derivi dalle  premesse, che derivi necessariamente, e che enunci cosa diversa da quella che è enunciata nelle premesse.   Ogni sillogismo comprende due premesse, Ttpoxxoei? 0  U7to9, last;, ed una conclusione, aupxépaopa, cosi detta perchè  unisce i due termini estremi, ulpaxa. Nelle premesse entrano  tre termini, Spoi, il termine maggiore, xò pec^ov Sxpov, il  termine minore, xò gXaxxov fixpov, il termine medio, péao;  5po; che non entra mai nella conclusione, ma serve a produrla, e jleve invece entrare in ciascuna delle due premesse.  Di queste l’una si chiama premessa maggiore 0 contiene il  predicato della proposizione che fa da conclusione, l’altra dicesi premessa minore e contiene il soggetto della conclusione.   Aristotile considera come il tipo del raziocinio e il solo  perfetto quello di sussunzione (subsumtio) nel quale appunto  due idee sono poste nella dipendenza come di specie a genere, di cosa individuale a legge generale. Cosi nel noto sillogismo ;   Tutti gli nomini sono mortali   Pietro è uomo   Dunque Pietro e mortale   l’idea Pietro, termine minore è posta in dipendenza (subsumitur) di mortale, termine maggiore, la sussunzione si opera  per mezzo del termine medio uomo. Le regole del sillogismo,  secondo la logica tradizionale, sono otto, delle quali quattro  si riferiscono ai termini, e quattro alle proposizioni. Il sillogismo non può avere più di tre termini: terni ìnus esto triple:/', meclius, maiorque minorque.   Se in un sillogismo vi fossero due termini medi invece  duino solo, si avrebbero come premesse due giudizi che non  avrebbero termine comune, dalle quali nessuna illazione, o  solamente un’illazione erronea potrebbe deri\aie, ciò appare  cosi nel caso che i due termini medi siano diversi nel significato come nel caso che, differenti nel significato, sieno identici nel nome, come chi dicesse: borsa è una costellazione,  ina l’orsa vive nelle selve, dunque una costellazione vive  nelle selve.   2°. I termini maggiori e minori non debbono essere presi  nella conclusione più universalmente che nelle premesse:  latius Ima quarn praemissae conclusi o non vult.   Se i termini maggiori o minori fossero presi nella conclusione più universalmente che nello premesse, si avrebbe  allora un ragionamento che andrebbe dal particolare all’universale, non dall’universale al particolare, come è richiesto  dalla natura stessa del sillogismo; tale errore è manifesto  nell’esempio seguente : gli empi sono nocivi alla società alcuni scienziati sono empi  dunque gli scienziati sono   nocivi alla società. Il termine medio non deve entrare nella conclusione:  nequaquam medium capiat conclusio oportct.   Questa regola deriva dal carattere fondamentale del sillogismo esposto più sopra; non la osserverebbe chi dicesse  per es. : Napoleone fu un grande statista  Napoleone fu  un grande generale  dunque Napoleone fu un grande statista e un grande generale ; qui non si è fatto altro che riunire le due premesse, facendo una proposizione composta,  non una conclusione vera e propria.   4°. Il termine medio dev’essere preso almeno una volta  universalmente : aut semel aut iterum meclius generaliter esto.   Questa regola vieta che il termine medio sia preso tutte  e due le volte particolarmente, non potendo allora seguirne  alcuna conclusione o solo una conclusione erronea ; così dalle premesse: le piante sono corpi organici  gli animali sono  corpi organici, non si potrebbe dedurre altro che la conclusione seguente: gli animali sono piante; e similmente dalle  premesse: alcuni filosofi sono materialisti, alcuni filosofi sono  spiritualisti, seguirebbe la conclusione: alcuni spiritualisti  sono materialisti.   5°. Non si concliiude negativamente da premesse affermative: ambae affirmantes nequeunt generare negantem.   In fatti se le premesse sono affermative, dicono che i  termini maggiore e minore convengono col medio e quindi  convengono tra loro, escludendo la conclusione opposta a  questa. Errerebbe chi dicesse per esempio: il giudice dev’essere imparziale  il tale e giudice  dunque non dev’essere imparziale. Non si conchiude da premesse negative: utraque si  praemissa neget, nihtt inde sequetur. Se confrontiamo il termine maggiore e il minore col  medio e vediamo che non convengono con esso, non è possibile affermare nè che convengano, nè che non convengano  fra loro. Quale conclusione si può, per esempio, trarre dalle   due premesse seguenti: l’animale non è eterno _ l’uomo   non è eterno? oppure da queste altre: l'acqua non è un corpo  semplice  la cellula non è un corpo semplice?   7°. Non si conchiude da premesse particolari: vii seguitar  geminis ex partici/iaribus unquam.   Per questa regola vale la dimostrazione che abbiamo  data per la seconda regola sui termini.   8°. La conclusione segue la parte più debole delle premesse: peiorem sequitur semper canclusio partem. I logici  chiamano parte più debole la proposizione negativa rispetto  all affermativa, la particolare rispetto all’universale; perciò  la regola suona in questi termini: se una delle premesse è  negativa, la conclusione è negativa; se una delle premesse  è particolare, la conclusione è particolare.   Nel primo caso una delle premesse afferma che uno dei  termini conviene col medio, l’altra premessa afferma che  l’altro termine non conviene col medio; donde si deduce facilmente che i termini minore e maggiore non convengono  fra loro; cosi se affermo che logico conviene con uomo, ma che libero dall’errore non conviene con nomo, i due termini  estremi: logico e libero dall’errore non convengono evidentemente fra loro:   Nessun uomo è libero dall’errore   Tutti i logici sono uomini   Dunque nessun logico è libero dall’errore.   Pel secondo caso vale la dimostrazione che si è data per  la seconda regola sui termini. Le figure e i modi del sillogismo.  Il sillogismo  categorico è quello in cui le premesse e quindi anche la conclusione sono giudizi categorici, o fungono come giudizi categorici: secondo il posto che il termine medio occupa nelle  premesse il sillogismo categorico presenta quattro ligure, che  indicando con la lettera M il termine medio, con P il termine maggiore, con S il termine minore, sono le seguenti : 1° MP-SM-SP   Il termine medio fa da soggetto nella premessa maggiore, da predicato nella minore, come nell’esempio:   I martiri della scienza onorano l’umanità  Molti uomini sono stati martiri della scienza  Molti uomini onorano l’umanità.   Il sillogismo della prima figura è per Aristotile il tipo  più perfetto del ragionamento deduttivo, perchè va dalla causa  all’effetto, dalla legge al fenomeno, dalla condizione al condizionato; la sua validità dipende da queste due regole, che  la maggiore sia sempre universale e la minore affermativa. 2° PM   SM   SP Nella seconda figura il termine medio fa da predicato  nelle due premesse; inoltre la premessa maggiore dev’essere  universale, e una delle premesse deve essere negativa; es.:  Nessuna scienza è corruttrice  Ogni oscenità è corruttrice  Nessuna osceuità è scienza. 8° MP   MS   SP   Nella terza figura il termine medio fa da soggetto nelle  due premesse; la premessa minore dev’essere affermativa e  la conclusione particolare; es.:   Nessuna frode è nobile  Ogni frode è atto di ragione  Qualche atto di ragione non è nobile. 4° PM   MS   SP   Nella quarta figura il termine medio fa da predicato  nella premessa maggiore, da soggetto nella minore; es.: Tutti i romboidi sono parallelogrammi  Nessun parallelogrammo è un trapezio  Nessun trapezio è un romboide.   Quest’ultima figura è stata da Averroè attribuita al  medico Oaleno, mentre le prime tre furono  stabilite da Aristotile. Però si nega generalmente che possa  esservi una quarta figura, o almeno si ammette che questa si  può ridurre con molta facilità ad una delle precedenti.   Oltre alle figure si sogliono distinguere nella logica i  m° 09S > a sillogismo dialettico, che,  per provare la verità, discute il prò e il contro e serve di  preparazione alla scienza.   Il sofisma, oó^tapa, da oo;pf£o|i.ai o sillogismo eristico  (eristica da ip££nrticolare dall’universale-, provare scientificamente  significa dimostrare le ragioni in forza delle quali l’affermazione ha valore incontestabile; tali ragioni si ritrovano solo  nell universale. La sillogistica diviene cosi il nucleo centrale  della logica aristotelica e della logica tradizionale fino ai  nostri giorni. I punti fondamentali di questa dottrina sono  i seguenti :   L illazione è la derivazione d’un giudizio da due altri;  poiché in un giudizio un concetto (il predicato) viene affermato d un altro concetto (il soggetto). Tale affermazione è  valida solo quando il legame avviene per mezzo d’un terzo  concetto, il termine medio, il quale deve però avere coi due  primi una certa relazione, espressa in due giudizi, cioè nelle  due premesse; 1 illazione consiste appunto in quel processo  del pensiero, il quale dalle relazioni tra un unico concetto e due altri, vuole manifestata la relazione che corre fra  questi due ultimi concetti.   Delle relazioni possibili fra concetti una se ne trova  alla quale la logica aristotelica, conforme ai suoi principi,  ha posto speciale attenzione: quella della subordinazione  del particolare al generale. La sillogistica vuol conoscere le  condizioni del pensiero, per le quali con l'aiuto d’un termine  intermedio, può determinare se la subordinazione d’un concetto ad un altro può aver luogo o no. Aristotile ha dato  a questo problema una risoluzione feconda di ottimi risultati; in essa consiste il merito imperituro della sua sillogistica, ma anche il limite del valore di questa.   Per mezzo della deduzione, così determinata, la mente  umana può solo acquistare cognizioni meno generali di quelle  più generali dalle quali sono tratte. Qui appare il carattere  (limitato) del concetto che gli antichi si erano formato intorno alle qualità essenziali del pensiero, il quale può solo  abbracciare e spiegare la realtà data, non creare nuove verità. Perciò la scienza che deduce, prova e spiega poteva di  nuovo dedurre ciò, che in un sillogismo serviva da premessa,  come conclusione d’un sillogismo più generale; alla fine però  deve partire da premesse che non possono più essere nè dedotte, nè provate, nè spiegate e neppure essere ricondotte  al termine medio; la verità di esse è quindi immediata  (ìpsoa), indeducibile, non suscettibile di prova, inspiegabile  e consiste in quei principi più generali e forniti di immediata certezza, che costituiscono il punto di partenza delle  operazioni scientifiche. (*)   2. La sillogistica aristotelica nell’antichità e nel medio-evo.  Già sin dall’antichità, qualche secolo dopo la  morte di Aristotile, avvenuta nel 332 a. Cr. sorsero dubbi  e discussioni vivaci intorno al valore del sillogismo; tra i  critici più notevoli a questo proposito troviamo Cameade di  Cirene e Sesto Empirico, vissuto intorno  al 200 dell’era volgare.    p) Windelband, Qeschichte der PhUosophie, png. 110 e sgg. Mohr, Tubingen] Cameade, che è annoverato fra gli scettici della seconda  Accademia, insegnava che non si poteva fondare nessuna  dottrina sicura nè sopra il senso per le apparenze fra loro  contrarie e inconciliabili, nè sopra la ragione, perchè in tutto  ciò che forma oggetto di ragionamonto, si può ugualmente  provare il prò e il contro; egli dimostrava pure che ogni  prova rende necessario un « regressus in infinitum », giacché  per la validità delle sue premesse presuppone altre prove;  e questa conseguenza era importante per gli scettici, i quali  non ammettevano verità immediate, come abbiamo visto che  le ammetteva Aristotile.   Più radicale di Cameade è il medico Sesto Empirico, il  quale dice che il vero scettico sottopone ad esame qualsiasi  affei inazione, reca il dubbio in ogni cosa e si astiene tanto  dall affermare quanto dal negare; egli fa un’analisi spietata  del sillogismo, il quale non riesce per nulla ad estèndere il  campo delle nostre cognizioni, poiché non serve a farci passare da una verità nota ad una vorità ignota.   Ecco le parole di Sesto Empirico nel suo capitolo contro  la logica d’Aristotile contenuto nell’opera intitolata « UoiboVSÌat U7tOTU7ttt)a£l£ » .   Quelli che dicono:   Ogni uomo è mortale  Socrate è un uomo  Dunque Socrate è mortale,   per provare quest’ultima proposizione per mezzo della prima  commettono un circolo vizioso (e: C xòv 5t’ ianin touol)»   poiché ammettono che tutta la certezza della prima proposizione non può derivare che da un’induzione di casi particolari dello stesso genere di quelli che s’affermano nella conclusione. Infatti se, prima d’enunciare la proposizione generale: «ogni uomo è mortale, noi non siamo già convinti della  verità di tutte le proposizioni particolari che essa contiene,  non si potrebbe ragionevolmente ammetterla per vera ».   Di qui egli conclude che nessun sillogismo o catena di  sillogismi potrà mai farci conoscere qualche cosa di diverso  da ciò che prima già sapevamo, e che la deduzione, ben lungi  d’essere la forma tipica e più corretta del ragionamento,  non è che un artificio sofistico atto a mascherare la nostra  ignoranza e a far passare come prova delle nostre opinioni  le nostre stesse opinioni espresse sotto altra forma.   Nel Medio Evo fin quasi verso la metà del secolo XII  la logica aristotelica si studiava assai più nelle opere dei  commentatori, che negli scritti originali, pochissimi dei  quali erano conosciuti; però Aristotile è considerato come il  filosofo che ha raggiunto il limite estremo della sapienza   il maestro di color che sanno  come lo chiama il Divino  poeta, e quindi, il giudice inappellabile della verità; donde  la frase « ipse dixit » foggiata probabilmente dall’arabo  Aven'oè(112(1-111*8) «che il gran comento féo» considerato come  il più illustre commentatore dello Staggita, che egli chiama  « regola e modello, creato dalla natura a mostrare l’ultima  perfezione umana, la cui dottrina è la somma verità, poiché  il suo intelletto segua il limite dell’umano intelletto».   Ma già durante il Rinascimento incomincia una forte  opposizione contro la logica aristotelica, specialmente per  opera di TELESIO, che vuol fondare la  scienza della natura sopra l’esperienza, e accusa Aristotile  di aver voluto spiegare la realtà con ipotesi arbitrarie; e di  Patrizi. Gli Umanisti affermavano risolutamente, come fecero più tardi Giordano Bruno, Bacone  da Verulamio e Renato Cartesio, che la sillogistica dev’essere amplificata e perdere il predominio tradizionale; che il  sillogismo è incapace di farci acquistare nuove cognizioni ed  è una forma del pensiero infruttuosa.   3. Francesco Bacone e G. Stuart Mill. Bacone considera la scienza come lo strumento e  il mezzo più efficace per volgere le forzo della natura all’utilità degli uomini e per dare all’osservazione dei fatti  naturali un carattere imparziale ed oggettivo, combatte la  dottrina tradizionale e intende di offrire un nuovo metodo  nella sua opera capitale Instauratio magna scientiarum, che  comprende due parti distinte : la prima intitolata De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum, la seconda Novum organimi  in opposizione all’Organo di Aristotile. Egli combatte aspramente il sillogismo aristotelico, attribuendo all’induzione, il  nuovo organo, l’ufficio più importante nella ricerca delle nuove verità scientifiche; sostiene che il sillogismo è viziato  profondamente da una petizione di principio, poiché se la  conclusione non è vera, non è vera neppure la premessa maggiore; in questa critica Bacone s’accorda quindi coi filosofi  precedenti, specialmente con Sesto Empirico.   L’idea fondamentale della logica, quale è stata concepita dallo Stuart Miti (1806-1873), consiste nel ricondurre  la logica ai fatti e all’esperienza, affinchè possa diventare  una scienza come le altre, ossia abbia per oggetto le cose  quali sono; essa diventa «la scienza delle operazioni intellettuali che servono all’estimazione della prova, cioè del procedimento generale che va dal noto all’ ignoto, delle operazioni  ausiliarie di codesta operazione fondamentale», è insomma  una logica reale che ha per oggetto i fatti e non le idee.   La teoria del sillogismo è profondamente trasformata  nella dottrina del^Mill. Anzitutto egli dichiara che .ogni sillogismo, considerato nella sua forma ordinaria, contiene una  petizione di principio; così (piando si dice:   Tutti gli uomini sono mortali,   Socrate è un uomo  Socrate è mortale   la conclusione è presupposta nella premessa maggiore; noi non  possiamo essere sicuri della mortalità di tutti gli uomini, se  prima non siamo sicuri della mortalità di ciascun uomo; se  si dice che la mortalità di Socrate è dubbia prima d’essere  estratta dalla premessa maggiore, questa è colpita pure di  incertezza e non può per conseguenza servire a legittimare  la conclusione. Il principio generale, ben lungi dal provare  la verità del caso particolare, non può essere accolto come  vero, se rimane l’ombra d’un dubbio sopra uno dei casi che  esso contiene. Quindi nessun ragionamento dal generale al  particolare può, come tale, provare qualche cosa, giacché da  un principio generale non si possono dedurre che i fatti  particolari supposti conosciuti da quel principio.   Pertanto sembra che il sillogismo ci fornisca ogni giorno  la conoscenza di verità non ancora constatate o stabilite; vi  sarebbe dunque in esso la possibilità di trarre inferenza,  possibilità disconosciuta e quasi soffocata da formule artificiali; infatti è incontestabile che la seguente proposizione: il duca di Wellington è mortale, deve considerarsi come  un’inferenza: ma si può trarla da quest’ultra proposizione:  tutti gli uomini sono mortali? Bisogna rispondere di no.  L’errore che qui si commette dipende dal fatto che si dimentica che nel procedimento filosofico vi sono due operazioni e due parti, quella dell’ inferenza e quolla dell'abbreviazione e che si attribuisce alla seconda la funzione della  prima. Infatti che cos’è, una proposizione generale? Non è  altro che un registro abbreviato delle nostre osservazioni e  delle inferenze che ne abbiamo dedotte; quando dalla morte  di Giovanni, di Pietro, e di tutti gli individui dei quali  abbiamo sentito parlare concludiamo che il duca di Wellington è mortale, noi non possiamo senza alcun dubbio passare per la proposizione generale: tutti gli uomini sono  mortali, come passeremmo per una stazione intermedia; però  l’inferenza non risiede in questa metà del cammino che  va da tutti gli uomini al duca di Wellington; essa è fatta  (piando noi abbiamo osservato che tutti gli uomini sono mortali. La garanzia della mortalità del duca di Wellington è  la mortalità di Giovanni, di Pietro, di Giacomo e di tutti  gli altri uomini a noi conosciuti ; dal fatto che tra il primo  e l'ultimo stadio del ragionamento noi interponiamo una  proposizione generale, la prova come tale non riceve alcun  giovamento.   Quale è dunque la vera funzione del sillogismo? Tutte  le inferenze primitive si fanno dal particolare al particolare;  per esempio il bambino che, essendosi bruciato il dito, si  guarda bene dall’accostarlo alla candela, ha ragionato e concluso, benché non abbia mai pensato il principio generale:  il fuoco brucia; egli si ricorda del dolore provato, e fondandosi su questa attestazione della memoria, crede che, quando  vede la candela, se pone il dito sulla fiamma, si brucierà ;  egli n ensa ciò in tutti i casi simili che gli si offrono, senza  guardare più in là del caso presente; non gener ali zza, ma  i nferisce un fatto particolare da un altro fatto particolare .  Le proposizioni generali sono quindi semplici registri abbreviati di inferenze già fatte e formule assai concise utili per  dedurne altre. Bisogna perciò dire non già che la conclusione del sillogismo è dedotta dalla premessa maggiore, ossia dalla proposizione generale, ma solo conformemente a questa;  la premessa reale, o, meglio, l'antecedente logico della conclusione, è la somma dei fatti particolari, dalla quale l’induzione ha estratto la proposizione generale. Noi abbiamo  potuto dimenticare questi fatti individuali; ci resta però  sempre al posto di essi una breve annotazione, un memorandum, che, rammentandoci che certi caratteri sono sempre  legati a certi altri caratteri, ci permette di passare dalla  presenza degli uni all’esistenza degli altri. Ma realmente  l’inferenza ha luogo partendo dai fatti dimenticati e condensati nella formula generale al fatto particolare di cui si  tratta; il sillogismo quindi è essenzialmente un’inferenza  dal particolare ni particolare, la quale ha il suo fondamento  e quasi la sua autorizzazione in un’inferenza anteriore dal  particolare al generale ; la conclusione è ritrovata nella premessa maggiore, na non è provata da questa. Altre obbiezioni contro il sillogismo.  Un altro celebre filosofo inglese, Spencer muove pure aspra critica  al sillogismo. Egli dice che noi non ragioniamo mai per sillogismi,  e che se vi sono verità che sembrano stabilirsi per mezzo dello  due premesse, ve ne sono altre che richiedono un procedimento o  più semplice o piii complesso, come le affermazioni elementari che  inseriamo spontaneamente, senza ricorrerò ad alcun termine intermedio, e le conclusioni che deduciamo da un sistema di numerosi  o svariati rapporti. Ma nuche ristretto entro limiti più modesti, è  il sillogismo la forma vera del ragionamento? Sia il sillogismo  seguente:   Tutti i cristalli hanno un piano di clivaggio   Questo è un cristallo   Dunque ha un piano di clivaggio. Quosta serie di proposizioni esprime forse l’ordine voro nel  quale i nostri pensieri si succedono per produrre la conclusione?  Si può sostenere che prima di pensare a questo cristallo, io ho  pensato a tutti i cristalli e sono disceso dal generalo al particolare? Vi sarebbe qui una coincidenza fortuita e affatto inesplicabile, poiché l’idea di questo cristallo ha dovuto precedere la mia  concezione di tutti i cristalli, ed è quindi uno degli clementi della  conclusione che mi ha suggerito uno degli elementi generali della  premessa maggiore. Liart>, Lee ìogìciens auglais contetnporains, pag. 24. F. Alcali] Se per evitare l’obbiezione, si imita il posto delle premesse,  si può sempre affermare che prima di pensare alla proposizione  generale: tutti i cristalli hanno un piano di clivaggio, io ho già  scorto in questo cristallo tale proprietà; è vero che le mie esperienze anteriori mi determinano a riconoscere la proprietà indicata  nel caso particolare, ma il ricordo delle esperienze passate non  s'offre al mio spirito prima che io abbia osservato il caso individualo; esso hanno lasciato in me la tendenza a considerare, nel  cristallo in questione, il piano di clivaggio piuttosto che qualunque  altro attributo; di qui io sono portato a pensare alla proposizione  generale che mi suggerisce la proposizione particolare, e da quella  ritorno a questa. Quindi ogni deduzione incomincia con un rapporto  inferito spontaneamente, ed ogni inferenza è ossenzialmente induttiva. Al ragionamento dal particolare al particolare, secondo il  concetto del Mill, si può ricondurre la deduzione, diminuendo continuamente il numero dei fatti affermati e osservati ; esso è a mela  cammino fra le due forme di ragionamento, è quasi la comune radice donde ambedue partono.   Oltre allo obbiezioni mosse al sillogismo dal Mill, dallo Spencer  e dai loro discepoli, pei quali la logica si riduce alla teoria dell'Induzione e dolla prova sperimentale, e il sillogismo nd un'induzione mascherata, vi sono altre obbiezioni di filosofi che, senza proporre le radicali riforme propugnate dai primi, pure s'accordano  con questi nel condannare la logica d’Aristotile, per sostituirvi un  sistema nuovo e più conforme alla verità scientifica. Questi affermano che il sillogismo è una tecnica delle relazioni dei concetti, cioè  serve a rendere più chiare le relazioni che corrono fra le nostre  idee, e che il principale strumento della ricerca è sempre l’induzione.   In conclusione le obbiezioni che si movono al sillogismo si  possono ridurre essenzialmente a due principali: Il sillogismo non ci dà nella conclusione nulla di nuovo.   2". Pur affermando la novità della conclusione, si nega a questa il carattere di novità scientifica, poiché l’inferenza dal particolare al particolare non può offrire che conclusioni probabili, o  in alcuni casi, false; nel sillogismo classico:   Gli uomini sono mortali  lo sono uomo  Io sono mortale   la conclusione non contiene più di verità che la premessa maggioro;  secondo i logici della scuola di Mill, bisognerebbe dire:  Gli uomini del tempo passato sono morti,   Io sono uomo   Dunque è probabile ch'io muoia. La metodologia è la  seconda parte della logica, che ha per line di determinare le  regole riguardanti la ricerca e la prova delle verità scientifiche. Il metodo (da |i£xà e éòój, via) abbraccia quindi lo  studio dei mezzi coi quali lo spirito umano estende ed ordina  le sue conoscenze; donde la distinzione in metodo inventivo,  che esamina i procedimenti e le operazioni del pensiero per  le quali dalle cognizioni note si passa a quelle ignote; e  metodo sistematico (da auv-:oxT]p.t, pongo insieme) che invece  studia le forme con le quali le cognizioni vengono ordinate  in un complesso di cui le singole parti abbiano tra loro  relazione e dipendenza reciproca. Per rendere più chiara tale  distinzione osserviamo l’esempio della psicologia ; questa  scienza adopra nelle sue ricerche, ossia ne)l' estender e le sue  conoscenze, due strumenti essenziali che sono Vintrospezione  od osservazione interna e Vosservazione esterna, cui vanno  unite V indagine sperimentale e la misura 1, al secondo ufficio,  cioè a quello sistematico, la psicologia soddisfi con la definizione del processo psichico, per distinguerlo dagli altri fenomeni naturali, con la classificazione in fatti di conoscenza,  di sensibilità, di volontà ecc.   Però bisogna osservare che la logica tratta soltanto  delle nozioni metodologiche generali, di quelle operazioni  che si presentano come indispensabili in ogni singolo ramo  di scienza ; non v’è scienza che possa fare a meno della definizione e della classificazione e dei procedimenti più semplici e più generali. Inoltre il metodo di ogni parte del  sapere comprende un certo complesso di particolarità, che  solo gli specialisti hanno il dovere di conoscere e di applicare nelle loro indagini; così al chimico soltanto spetta di apprendere tutto quell’insieme di particolari procedimenti  che sono propri della chimica, l’uso degli strumenti, le precauzioni da osservarsi quando si osserva e si sperimenta ecc.  Questo compito, come è facile comprendere, sta fuori del  dominio della logica.   Considerando la storia dello sviluppo delle scienze, si  può constatare che il metodo non si costituisce a priori, ma  piuttosto si deduce dalle scienze stesse quando abbiano raggiunto un certo grado di progresso; anzi si può ben dire  che il metodo si trova non di rado in ritardo rispetto al  cammino che percorre la scienza, nello stesso modo che vediamo i trattati dell arte poetica essere in generale l’espressione ritardata dell’arte contemporanea. Ed è facile comprendere la causa di questo fatto, la quale dipende da ciò,  che il perfezionamento delle regole metodiche è dovuto per  lo più alle intuizioni e alle scoperte dell’uomo di genio, per  cui vediamo Galileo, Newton, Claudio Bernard, Darwin portare alle teorie logiche contributi preziosi, che poscia divengono indicazioni e guida indispensabile per gli scienziati  posteriori. Ad ogni modo lo studio delle operazioni metodiche, quantunque spesso il ricercatore si affidi, con molta cautela, al  suo buon senso naturale e trovi qualche volta nel caso un  utilissimo ausiliario, disciplina e regge la nostra intelligenza,  abbrevia il tempo della ricerca e ci fa conoscere più profondamente l’organismo e il valore della scienza. « Quelli  che camminano lentamente, dice Cartesio, possono percorrere  un buon tratto di strada, se sanno tenere la via dritta  assai più di quelli che corrono qua e là allontanandosene ». Il sapere scientifico incomincia a sorgere quando un popolo raggiunge un certo grado  di civiltà ed ha il suo fondamento in un bisogno pratico  della vita. E assai probabile che ogni scienza sia derivata  da un’arte corrispondente, la medicina dall’arte di medicare  comune anche ai popoli selvaggi, l’astronomia dalle esigenze  della navigazione, e forse anche la matematica ha attraversato nel suo inizio un periodo, nel quale le verità acquisite  venivano considerate come conoscenze utili e derivavano dalle necessità inerenti alla costruzione delle case, alla  misurazione dei campi ecc. In questo primo momento cognizioni pratiche e conoscenze teoriche formavano una sola e  identica cosa; cosi da principio in una persona si riunivano  strettamente diversi uffici, il medico, lo stregone, il mago,  il sacerdote, che doveva combattere le malattie, molte delle  quali pel loro carattere epidemico e violento suggerivano  facilmente l’idea di uno o di più principi malefici che  s’introducevano nel corpo, donde la necessità di ricorrere,  per cacciarli, all’aiuto di forze sovrannaturali. Con molta  lentezza, quantunque non ancora completamente, la divisione del lavoro sociale e la conoscenza delle leggi naturali  hanno separato queste funzioni tra loro discordanti, distinguendo lo stregone dal sacerdote e il medico dall’uno e dall’altro.   L’opinione ora dominante consiste nel considerare la teoria  come fondamento indispensabile delle applicazioni pratiche,  pur rimanendo l’uua e le altre indipendenti tra loro; perciò  vediamo che chiunque voglia oggidì dedicarsi all’arte della  medicina, deve prima d’ogni altra cosa apprendere le scienze,  come l’anatomia, la fisiologia, l’embriologia ecc., le cui conoscenze applicherà poi nelle malattie che dovrà curare. Di  qui la distinzione tra le scienze teoretiche e le scienze pratiche-. le prime tendono alla cognizione pura e hanno trasformato il mezzo in fine, acquistando coscienza d’una finalità propria, la quale consiste nella spiegazione della natura,  cioè d’una massa enorme di fenomeni che l’uomo vuole ordinare razionalmente e spiegare per mezzo di leggi; le seconde invece si fondano sopra le scienze per applicarne i  risultati ai vari scopi che l’uomo o la società possono proporsi di raggiungere, e perdono quindi il vero carattere di  scienza. In questo modo, con lo svolgersi della conoscenza,  il lavoro scientifico si è a mano a mano diviso in due grandi  parti: alcune discipline s’occupano esclusivamente della teoria  ed altre della pratica; quasi in ogni ramo del sapere la parte  teorica si è venuta staccando nettamente dalla parte pratica. A noi spetta di considerare solo le scienze teoriche,  ossia le scienze nel senso più esatto e meglio determinato  della parola. Se si considera una  scienza qualsiasi, la fisica o la chimica, la botanica o la  zoologia, si scorge senza difficoltà che esse hanno di mira  non -la conoscenza dei singoli corpi e dei singoli esseri e fenomeni separati e distinti completamente gli uni dagli altri  ma fatta eccezione, come si vedrà in seguito, della storia,’  tendono a raggiungete concetti generali, i caratteri che le  cose hanno comuni, ciò che si ripete nei fenomeni, ossia la  c/usse, la legge. Vediamo qualche esempio, per chiarir meglio  il vero significato di queste osservazioni e le proprietà distintive di una delle produzioni più mirabili dell’umano intelletto, quale è la scienza.    Lo studio del regno animale ha per fine precipuo di presentare in modo compiuto e ordinato un quadro comprendente tutti gli esseri viventi nella natura; e raggiunse la  meta dividendoli e suddividendoli in gruppi, in classi, secondo 1 caratteri comuni a ciascuna di queste, in mammiferi,  in uccelli, in pesci ecc. La psicologia considera i processi  psichici non in quanto sono individuali, ma in quanto sono  generali; essa non osserva, per esempio, questo o quel determinato atto volontario, questa o quella determinata serie  di percezioni, ina vuole stabilire i caratteri generali dell’atto  volontario e della percezione. In fine la fisica mira a stabiiire non come cada questo o quel corpo, ma la legge generale della caduta dei corpi, ossia come, date le attuali con-'  ( izioni dell universo, la caduta dei corpi. si ripeta in quel  dato modo ovunque e in ogni tempo.   Però il concetto di scienza non è sempre stato lo stesso,  giacche vediamo che, ad esempio, gli antichi avevano di essa  un opinione assai diversa da quella che ha valore nell’epoca  nostra. 1    Per spiegare l’ordine che ammirava nell’universo, Aristatile ricorse alla nozione di essenza, di forma, di tipo-, eoli   pensa che la costituzione effettiva delle cose risulti di due  fattori :  I tipi immateriali, che tendono costantemente a realizzarsi nella materia, ed hanno, a quel che pare, un’esistenza  eterna ed ininterrotta; cosi il tipo « quercia comune » guerci,s  rmir esiste, ed io son certo che ad ogni momento vi è nell’universo almeno un esemplare individuale della quercia comune. La materia, che subisce l’influenza dei tipi immate• riali, si lascia muovere e ordinare da essi, opponendo però  una certa resistenza, di guisa che dove maggiore è la quantità di materia, ivi è più viva la resistenza di questa ad  assumere la forma dei tipi, e minore appare quindi l’ordine :  perciò nei cieli eterei l’ordine è perfetto; invece ''nella regione sublunare o della materia bruta vi è molta irregolarità e disordine.   I tipi sono dunque eterni, permanenti e si riproducono  nella materia docile e resistente nel medesimo tempo. L’epoca nostra non ha accettato questa dottrina, della  quale ha messo in rilievo gli errori e le conseguenze assurde ;  essa non ammette nè la costanza dell’ordine, nè l’esistenza  di .irregolarità risultante dall’opposizione della materia.   Infatti, come già abbiamo detto, i tipi naturali, minerali, vegetali, animali non sono permanenti, ma vanno soggetti a continue trasformazioni; il nostro sistema solare sappiamo essere la trasformazione d’una nebulosa, la terra essere  stata un tempo un anello gassoso, poi una sfera liquida, la  flora e la fauna terrestre aver avuto un principio, essersi  arricchite successivamente e non aver cessato di trasformarsi.  L’ordine è certamente una delle qualità che appaiono in  modo più spiccato a chi osserva e studia i fenomeni dell’universo; può anche darsi che sia di questo uno degli elementi  essenziali; ma, ben lungi dall’essere costante, è soggetto a  mutazioni e a trasformazioni.   In secondo luogo la scienza moderna nega che vi siano  fenomeni contrari alle leggi naturali, che esistano deviazioni,  anomalie risultanti da ima resistenza più o meno, grande  della materia; poiché anche nelle mostruosità e nei casi patologici le leggi non soffrono eccezioni ; cosi se scorgiamo  una piuma salire verso l’alto invece di tendere al centro  della terra, non affermiamo certo essere questo fatto un’ infrazione della legge di gravità.   In conclusione, una scienza è un sistema di verità e di  cognizioni generali, che sono dovute ad un lavoro metodico  dello spirito e della riflessione razionale dell’uomo. Il popolo greco ha diritto a più d’un titolo di gloria: a lui,  o almeno ai suoi grandi geni, era concesso di fare i più brillanti  sogni speculativi, di creare con la poesia e le arti plastiche capolavoii incompaiabJi; ma vi è un altra creazione dello spirito greco,  che si può dire non solo incomparabile, ma unica. Noi possiamo  oggi gloriarci del predominio che esercitiamo sulla natura grazie  alla conoscenza che abbiamo acquistato delle sue leggi; ogni giorno  i nostri sguardi penetrano sempre più addentro, se non nell'essenza  delle cose, certo nel succedersi dei fenomeni; questi trionfi a chi  son dovuti, se non ai creatori della scienza greca? 1 legami che in  tale materia uniscono l’opera moderna ai tempi antichi sono bene  evidenti. A Iato ad un immaginazione creatrice d’una ricchezza miìabile il Gieco possiede uno spirito del dubbio sempre vigile, che  esamina tutto freddamente; e non sosta davanti ad alcuna audacia;  ad un irresistibile bisogno di generalizzare si congiunge un’osservazione così attiva e penetrante da non lasciare sfuggir la più  leggera sfumatura; una religione che accordava piena soddisfazione  ai bisogni del cuore, senza per nulla impedire la libera azione di  una intelligenza che minacciava o anche distruggeva lo sue creazioni. Aggiungansi numerosi centri intellettuali aventi ciascuno il  piopiio emettere, 1 attrito continuo delle forze che escludeva ogni  possibilità di stagnazione, un’organizzazione politica e sociale elio  frenava i desideri vaghi e puerili della gente mediocre, senza mettere in serio pericolo lo slancio degli spiriti superiori: tali sono i  doni naturali e le condizioni favorevoli che hanno dato allo spirito  greco la preminenza e gli hanno concesso di porsi e di mantenersi  al primo posto nel dominio della ricorca scientifica, La classificazione delle scienze.  Ora che abbiamo  v isto che cos è una scienza, possiamo chiederci quale relazione colie fra le diverse scienze; poiché, volendo queste offrirci la conoscenza dell’universo, ossia d’un complesso di  fenomeni connessi gli uni cogli altri, non si può negare che  tra esse vi sieno legami e relazioni. Di qui la necessità  d’una classificazione delle scienze, che è stata tentata fino  dall antichità e che forma anche ai nostri tempi oggetto di  discussione.   Aristotile ammette una scienza fondamentale, la filosofìa  prima, '-fùcoCfix npwTTj, avente per oggetto la realtà ultima e 1 essenza immutabile delle cose, alla quale sono su oi Gojipebz] bordinate tutte le scienze, cioè la teoretica, la quale comprende  la matematica, la fisica, la storia naturale, la pratica, che  corrisponde alla morale, e la poetica, ossia l’estetica. Bacone tracciato una classificazione delle scienze fondata sulla sua teoria delle facoltà  dell'intelletto riducibili a tre principali, che sono: la memoria, l’immaginazione, la ragione; dalla prima facoltà deriva  la storia, che può essere civile e naturale', dall’immaginazione deriva la poesia, che può essere narrativa, drammatica  e parabolica; infine sulla ragione è fondata la filosofia, la  quale ha un triplice oggetto: Dio, la natura, l’uomo; donde  la teologia, ossia la scienza che tratta di Dio, degli angeli,  e dei demonii; la filosofia naturale che comprende la metafisica, la fisica e la matematica; la filosofia umana o antropologia, che contiene la medicina, la psicologia, la logica ecc. Comte, fondatore della filosofia positiva, è l’autore d’una celebre classificazione delle scienze,  che esporremo qui brevemente. Egli ha diviso prima di tutto  il sapere, per rispetto al fine che questo può proporsi, in teoretico e pratico. Alla loro volta le scienze teoriche si possono  considerare sotto un doppio aspetto: o ricercano leggi valevoli per tutti i casi possibili, come le matematiche e la fisica,  e allora sono generali e astratte ; oppure applicano tali leggi  alla spiegazione dei vari esseri esistenti in natura, e sono  particolari, descrittive, concrete. Per esempio, lo studio delle  leggi generali della vita è oggetto d’una scienza astratta,  la biologia ; mentre il determinare il modo d’esistere di ciascuna specie di esseri viventi mediante le leggi scoperte  dalla biologia, dà luogo a scienze concrete, quali sono la botanica e la zoologia; queste ultime quindi sorgono dopo e  per effetto delle prime.   Le scienze astratte sono enumerate dal Comte nell’ordine seguente : matematica, fisica, chimica, biologia, sociologia ; e una tale divisione non è arbitraria, ma fondata  sopra diverse e importanti ragioni.   Anzitutto il Comte osserva che i fenomeni si presentano  alla nostra osservazione in una serie di generalità decrescente e di complessità crescente, poiché ciascun ordine di  fenomeni è meno generale di quello che lo precede, ma più complicato; infatti, per poter osservare un fenomeno in un  maggior numero di casi, bisogna spogliarlo (estrarlo) da  un maggior numero di circostanze, e inversamente un fenomeno che conserva un maggior numero di circostanze,  si riscontra meno frequentemente; anche in questo caso la  comprensione e Y estensione stanno ira loro in ragione inversa,  come abbiamo osservato a proposito dei concetti subordinati.  Cosi i ienomeni tisici sono meno generali, ma più complessi  di quelli matematici; i fenomeni chimici meno generali ma  più complessi di quelli fisici.   Inoltre questa scienza è gerarchica, poiché ciascuna  scienza presuppone quella che la precede e ne dipende, almeno nei tratti essenziali, non potendosi studiare il fenomeno  più complesso senza conoscere quello più semplice, la fìsica  senza la matematica, la chimica e la biologia senza le scienze  precedenti.   Inoltre la serie è storica, nel senso che le scienze sorsero 1 una dopo l'altra nell’ordine indicato. Qui non bisogna  confondere il sorgere, il costituirsi delle singole scienze col  loro sviluppo.   La classificazione del Comte è strettamente legata al  suo sistema di filosofia, al positivismo, e non è possibile accettare la prima rifiutando il secondo. Si può ben dire che  il problema della classificazione razionale della scienza è un  problema essenzialmente filosofico.   In questi ultimi anni le classificazioni delle scienze si sono  moltiplicale; il problema ha assunto un aspetto filosofico, e ciascuno che si accinge a risolverlo, è guidato dalle sue vedute filosofiche o scientifiche. Noi citeremo qui due fra quelle classificazioni che hanno ora maggior voga, quella di Guglielmo Wundt, e  quella del Windelband, esaminandole brevemente nelle loro linee  generalissime, come quelle che rispecchiano due fra gli indirizzi  filosofici ora predominanti.   Secondo il IPundt, se si classificano le scienze secondo il loro  oggetto, si è condotti, dato lo stato attuale delle conoscenze, a distinguerne tre gruppi: lo scienze matematiche, le scienze della natura,  le scienze dello spirito. Le matematiche sono puramente formali,  lo scienze della natura e quelle dello spirito sono reali.   Le scienze naturali indagano il contenuto dell’esperienza facendo astrazione dal soggetto conoscente; mentre le scienze dello spirito, che hanno come fondamento principale la psicologia, studiano quei fenomeni, nei quali l’uomo, considerato come fornito di  volontà e di ragione, è un fattore essenziale: alle leggi dello spirito debbono essere subordinate le leggi della natura, e la causalità fisica è governata da leggi assai diverse da quelle che governano i fenomeni psichici; poiché, mentre nel mondo fìsico si nota  pur nel variare delle sue energie, una rigidità immutabile, il mondo  dello spirito invece manifesta un continuo accrescimento d’energia,  dovuto al fatto che ogni processo psichico è una sintesi, un prodotto affatto nuovo fornito di proprietà che invano si ricercano  negli elementi che lo compongono.   Inoltre in ciascuno di questi due gruppi bisogna distinguere: lo scienze che hanno per oggetto la scoperta di leggi che  reggono i fenomeni attualmente dati dall'esperienza, scienze fenomenologiche; le scienze che studiano le cose nella loro genesi, scienze  genetiche ;   3° le scienze che, considerando non piu i mutamenti passeggeri ma gli oggetti o almeno i risultati durevoli, determinano per  comparazione le relazioni di queste cose, ne formano concetti distinti e riuniscono questi concetti in sistemi, scienze sistematiche.   Di qui il soguente quadro:   1° scienze formali: matematiche.  scienze   scienze   naturali   se. fenomenologiche : fisica, chimica, fisiologia,  se. genetiche : Mimologia, geologia, scienza doll'crolulionc degli organismi. se. sistematiche: mineralogia, holanica, zoologia. reali scienze se. fenomenologiche : psicologia. dello se. genetiche: storia. spirito   se. sistematiche: diritto, economia politica. Windelband e Jlickert distinguono le scienze naturali,  quali la fisica, la chimica, la psicologia, che studiano le relazioni  tra i fenomeni, le quali sono date da giudizi universali e necessari,  ossia da leggi, e sono quindi scienze rette da leggi; e le scienze storiche, quali la meteorologia, la geologia, la storia, che studiano la  realtà considerata sotto l’aspetfo individuale e si limitano a stabilire una pura successione di fatti, sieno essi naturali o morali. La  storia considera un organismo collettivo per sé stesso, come qualche  cosa d’individuale, di particolare, d’unico, mirando a rilevare i Wundt, Einleitung in die rhilosophie, E rate r Theil, Leipzig, Engelmann] caratteri che lo distinguono da tutti gli altri organismi collettivi ;  ingomma, un gruppo d’individui, una famiglia, una nazione, lino  stato sono esseri concreti al pari degli individui, e sotto questo  aspetto deve osservarli la storia, che non è altro che la scienza del  particolare, doli' individuale, di ciò che non esiste che una volta  sola e non si ripete mai. Quindi, mentre le leggi naturali s’applicano ai fenomeni che si ripetono sempre nella stessa maniera e  non variano essenzialmente nelle loro manifestazioni, invece nella  vita storica non è possibile in alcun modo stabilire leggi simili a  queste, che si possano applicare tanto all’avvenire quanto al passato,  appunto perchè non esistono due individualità storiche identiche,  due avvenimenti che si possano ricondurre sotto la medesima legge  generalo. Gli avvenimenti storici non costituiscono se non serie di  fatti che si sono prodotti una sola volta nel corso del tempo e non  si riprodurranno mai più; e ciò è tutto l’opposto della nozione di  legge» che dà la formula dei fatti che si sono sempre prodotti e  sempre si riprodurranno: questa è la differenza essenziale ed importantissima che corre tra le scienze naturali e le scienze storiche. I principali procedimenti che il pensiero umano adopera per estendere le nostre  conoscenze, per passare dal noto all’ ignoto e che fanno  parte del metodo inventivo, sono: Vinduzione, la deduzione,  l’analogia e l'ipotesi. Il metodo induttivo c’insegna la via  per risalire dai fatti alle leggi, ossia, come s’è già accennato,  ai rapporti costanti e necessari tra due fenomeni, dei quali  il primo dicesi causa e il secondo effetto ; il primo mezzo per  raggiungere questo scopo è l’osservazione. L'osservazione si fa generalmente consistere in un atto  immediato del conoscere, nell’applicare il potere percettivo  alla constatazione dei fenomeni. Gli strumenti principali  che adoperiamo nell’osservare sono i sensi quando si tratta  di fenomeni esteriori, la coscienza quando vogliamo esaminare processi interni, pei quali è però sempre indispensabile  anche l’osservazione esterna. I sensi limitati e imperfetti ricevono un aiuto prezioso  dagli strumenti scientifici, i quali possono o aumentare il potere di percezione, come il telescopio e il microscopio, o rendere più esatte le osservazioni che noi facciamo, come i cronometri che permettono di misurare un secondo e parti  minime d’un secondo, oppure sostituirli ai sensi stessi, quando  i fenomeni da osservarsi sono fuggevoli e difficilmente afferrabili, come ce ne porge esempio la fotografia applicata allo  studio dei fenomeni celesti, o quando i fenomeni non possono essere da noi percepiti. Cosi la retina dell’occhio non  è sensibile ai raggi ultra violetti, dei quali invece rimane  traccia sopra la lastra fotografica. Però l’osservazione scientifica ha il suo fondamento essenziale e la sua guida nella ragione, nell’ intelligenza la quale  dirige la ricerca, interpetra e classifica i fatti e ne trae le conseguenze; in una parola, è il buon osservatore che fa le buone  osservazioni ; lo spirito di chi indaga sempre vigile, attento  anche ai ienomeni che sembrano più insignificanti, paziente  nel persistere nelle ricerche, imparziale, cioè libero da qualsiasi  pregiudizio, può giungere a risultati e a scoperte di grande  valore, come ce ne porge un mirabile esempio il Galilei, che  possedette in grado eminente l’ingegno critico; e si deve  solo a questo se dalle sue indagini intorno ai fenomeni naturali seppe trarre conseguenze e cognizioni importantissime: il suo metodo, come afferma egli stesso, si fonda tutto  sulla sensata esperienza non mai disgiunta dal ragionamento.  Innumerevoli persone avranno senza alcun dubbio osservato  le oscillazioni della lampada sospesa nel celebre Duomo, ma  solo una mente severa e indagatrice come quella del Galilei  poteva da quel fatto avere il primo impulso a stabilire rigorosamente le leggi del pendolo.   L’osservazione dev’essere quindi esatta, cioè fedele e  scrupolosa: bisogna raccogliere il maggior numero di fatti,  nulla omettere e nulla aggiungere. A questo fine occorre che  l’osservatore sia fornito d’un ricco corredo di cognizioni, affinchè non si lasci sfuggire quelle indicazioni minuziose che  spesso collegano tra loro fenomeni i quali in apparenza non  presentano nulla di comune, e possa compiere un’analisi completa del fenomeno considerato, che solo uno spirito acuto,  provvisto di profonda cultura, sereno, libero di preconcetti è  in grado di compiere. È inoltre necessario che l’osservatore  determini chiaramente la scelta dei fatti che prende per soggetto dei suoi studi, giacché tutti i fatti non hanno lo stesso  valore, ma alcuni conducono più agevolmente allo scopo, altri  invece ne allontanano, e i fenomeni che la natura ci presenta  sono innumerevoli, e tra essi la mente umana deve sapersi  muovere con grande discernimento.   In conclusione, se è vero che quando i fatti che servono di  base al ragionamento siano male stabiliti o erronei tutto l’edificio rovinerà e le teorie scientifiche fondate sopra di quelli  saranno false, è però innegabile che nelle buone qualità e nella perspicacia dello spirito risiede la condizione più preziosa per una buona osservazione. Cosi, per citare un esempio,  alcuni astronomi prima di Guglielmo Herschell avevano visto  una stella nella costellazione dei Gemelli, e l’avevano presa  per una stella fissa; ma l’Herschell non s’arrestò alle osservazioni superficiali dei predecessori : esaminò la qualità  della luce, l’ingrandimento che presentava al telescopio, e  conchiuse che non poteva essere una stella fìssa; osservò  quindi il suo spostamento e dapprima io paragonò con quello  delle comete e vide che non coincideva; lo paragonò con  quello dei pianeti e, confermando l’ipotesi già formata, conchiuse che era un nuovo pianeta, chiamato poscia Urano.   Il Galilei così descrive con somma finezza la grande ricchezza  della natura nel produrre i suoi effetti: Nacque già in un luogo assai solitario un uomo dotato da  natura di un ingegno perspicacissimo e d’una curiosità straordinaria; e por suo trastullo allevandosi diversi uccelli, gustava molto  del loro canto, e con grandissima maraviglia andava osservando  con che bell'artifizio, colla stess’aria colla quale respiravano, ad  arbitrio loro formavano canti diversi o tutti soavissimi. Accadde  che una notte vicino a casa sua sentì un delicato suono, nè potendosi immaginare che fosse altro che qualche uccelletto, si mosse  per prenderlo, e, venuto nella strada, trovò un pastorello, che soffiando in certo legno forato, e movendo le dita sopra il legno, ora  serrando ed ora aprendo certi fori che vi erano, ne traeva quelle  diverse voci, simili a quelle d'un uccello, ma con maniera diversissima. Stupefatto e mosso dalla sua naturai curiosità, donò al  pastore un vitello per avere quello zufolo, e ritiratosi in sè stesso,  e conoscendo che, se non si abbatteva a passar colui, egli non  avrebbe mai imparato che ci erano in natura due modi da formar  voci e canti soavi, volle allontanarsi da casa, stimando di poter  incontrare qualche altra avventura. Ed occorse il giorno seguente  che, passando presso un piccolo tugurio, sentì risonarvi dentro una  simil voce, e per certificarsi se era uno zufolo o pure un merlo,  entrò dentro e trovò un fanciullo che andava con un archetto,  eli ei teneva nella man destra, segando alcuni nervi tesi sopra un  certo legno concavo, e con lo sinistra sosteneva lo strumento e vi  andava sopra movendo le dita, e senz'altro fiato ne traeva voci  diverse e molto soavi. Or qual fusse il suo stupore, giudichilo  chi pnrticipa dell’ingegno e della curiosità che aveva costui, il  quale vedendosi sopraggiunto da due nuovi modi di formar la voce ed il canto, tanto inopinati, cominciò a credere ch’altri ancora ve ne potessero essere in natura. Ma qual fu la sua maraviglia quando, entrando in certo tempio, si mise a guardare dietro  la porta per veder chi aveva sonato, e s’accorse che il suono era  uscito dagli arpioni e dalle bandelle nell'aprir la porta! Un'altra  volta spinto dalla curiosità, entrò in un’osteria, e credendo d’aver  a vedere uno che coll’archetto toccasse leggermente le corde di  un violino, vide uno che, fregando il polpastrello d'un dito sopra  l'orlo d’un bicchiere, ne cavava soavissimo suono. Ma quando poi  gli venne osservato che le vespe, le zanzare e i mosconi, non come  i suoi primi uccelli col respirare, formavano voci interrotte, ma  col velocissimo batter dell'ali rendevano un suono perpetuo, quanto  crebbe in esso lo stupore, tanto si scemò l’opinione ch’egli aveva  circa il sapere come si goueri suono; nè tutte l’esperionze già vedute sarebbero state bastanti a fargli comprendere o credere che  i grilli, giacché non volavano, potessero non col fiato, ma con lo  scuoter l’ali cacciar sibili cosi dolci e sonori. Ma quando ei si credeva non poter esser quasi possibile cbe vi fossero altre maniere  di formar voci, dopo l’avere, oltro ai modi narrati, osservato ancora tanti organi, trombe, pifferi, strumenti da corde, di tante e tante  sorte, e sino a quella linguetta di ferro, che sospesa fra i denti,  si servo in modo strano della cavità della bocca por corpo della  risonanza e del fiato pel veicolo del suono; quando, dico, ei credeva di aver veduto il tutto, trovassi più che mai rinvolto nell’ignoranza e nello stupore nel capitarli in mano una cicala, e che né  por serrarle la bocca, nè per fermarle l’ali poteva nè pur diminuire  il suo altissimo stridore, nè le vedeva muovere squame nè altra  parte, e che finalmente alzandole il casso del petto, e vedendovi  sotto alcune cartilagini dure, ma sottili, e credendo cbe lo strepito  dorivasso dallo scuoter di quelle, si ridusse a romperle per farla  chetare, e tutto fu invano, sinché, spingendo l'ago più a dentro, non   10 tolse, trafiggendola, con la voce la vita; sicché neanche potè  accertarsi se il canto derivava da quelle; onde si ridusse a tanta  diffidenza del suo sapere che, domandato come si generavano i  suoni, generosamente rispondeva di sapere alcuni modi, ma che  teneva per formo poterveue essere cento altri incogniti ed inopinabili. lo potrei con altri esempi spiegar la ricchezza della natura  nel produrre suoi effetti con maniere inescogitabili da noi, quando 11 senso e l'esperienza non lo ci mostrasse, la quale anco talvolta  non basta a supplire alla nostra incapacità Il Saggiatore. Un altro mezzo efficacissimo nel  raccogliere i fatti è Vesperimento, che consiste nel riprodurr e  artificialmente i fenomeni natnrali, per poterli stud iare nelle  c ondizioni p iù fa vorevoli . I vantaggi che lo sperimentare offre  sopra l’osservazione pura e semplice si possono ridurre ai  seguenti : I fenomeni che lo sperimentatore può procurarci sono  più numerosi di quelli offerti dalla pura osservazione naturale, potendo esso ripeterli e moltiplicarli a sua volontà.  Però l'esperimento non si può estendere a tutti quanti i fenomeni dell’universo, e molti di essi non si possono in alcun  modo riprodurre. Cosi Galileo potè osservare due volte il più  straordinario e il più misterioso tra i fenomeni celesti: l’apparizione e l’estinzione totale di stelle fisse, che vincevano  in splendore tutte le altre stelle e i pianeti: anzi una di esse  si vedeva in pieno mezzogiorno. Fenomeni di questo genero  sono assai rari e si sottraggono naturalmente alla prova  dell’esperimento.   b) I fenomeni forniti dall’esperimento sono spesso più  chiari, più evidenti ed hanno un valore dimostrativo assai  maggiore di quelli forniti dall’osservazione, giacché, mentre  la natura procede sinteticamente, e in un medesimo essere si  riscontra una moltitudine d’esseri, in un effetto una moltitudine d’effetti; l’ esperimento invece separa questi elementi,  isola que sti effetti, pres enta un fenomeno separato dai fe nomeni concom itanti, rendendone qui ndi più facile l’esame. Cosi  ! osservazione della caduta dei corpi, quale si prosoma in  natura, è difficile o dà risultati assai scarsi; mentre studiando  tale fenomeno come si produce colla nota macchina d’Atwood,  tutti gli elementi e le circostanze di esso si possono rilevare con precisione. Lo sperimentatore può variare indefinitamente il  gruppo delle cause insieme agenti, e raccogliere con tal  mezzo più fàcilmente gli indici rivelatori dei rapporti di causalità, e ottenere anche fenomeni nuovi, che in natura non  si possono constatare, come la caduta dei gravi nel vuoto,  la liquefazione dell’idrogeno e dell’ossigeno. Come è fàcile scorgere, anche nello sperimentare, se si  vogliono ottenere buoni frutti, il predominio spetta sempre al potere discernitivo della ragione ; anche in questo campo,  come in quello dell’osservazione pura, la natura non rivela i  suoi secreti e le sue leggi se non al ricercatore illuminato  e guidato dalla luce dell’intelligenza. La ricerca della causa.  U osservazione e 1 ’esperimento si possono denominare operazioni preparatorie, in  quanto servono quasi a fornire il materiale, il complesso dei  fenomeni, che verranno poi elaborati dall’ induzione per  trarne le leggi generali ; quest’ultimo compito, che ha nella  scienza un’importanza essenziale e ne è il fine più alto, procede anzitutto dalla ricerca della causa. Vediamo quindi di  chiarire il concetto di causa, soggetto di tante discussioni  tanto nella filosofia quanto nella scienza dei tempi nostri.   Il principio razionale di causalità consiste nell’affermazione che « nell’universo ogni fenomeno ha una causa » .Quindi allorché si presenta un nuovo fenomeno, ossia quando  nell’universo ha luogo un mutamento qualsiasi, dobbiamo  considerarlo come la conseguenza, la continuazione, la trasformazione d’un fenomeno anteriore. Noi diciamo che esiste  un rapporto causale tra due fenomeni, quando li consideriamo cosi strettamente legati l’uno all’altro, che quando è  dato il primo, l’altro si presenta inevitabilmente. Perciò  mentre nel significato volgare la causa si restringe a indicare il fenomeno antecedente d’un altro fenomeno, a designare  ciò che produsse una cosa o un fatto, invece nel significato  scientifico i due termini causa ed effetto sono correlativi,  l’uno non può sussistere senza l’altro, e il passaggio, la  transizione dal fenomeno antecedente al fenomeno conseguente apparisce come il punto vitale, il « proprium quid »  della causalità. Si giunge così ad affermare l’identità della  causa e dell’effetto, a considerarli come due manifestazioni  d’un’identità fondamentale, benché differenti nel tempo. In  conclusione, si può dire collo Stuart Mill che « la causa è la  somma delle condizioni positive e negative, che, essendo  date, sono seguite da un conseguente invariabile ». Cosi,  quando esprimiamo la legge biologica generale: Vaumento eli  temperatura produce un’azione eccitante su tutti i processi  vitali, vogliamo indicare che se è dato l’aumento della tempelatura, n e se £ ue > invariabilmente il crescere dell’energia e  della ìapidità del movimento in un essere vivente. Valore del principio di causa. Il principio di causa  e una ipotesi che è accertata solo fino ad un certo punto  e si può sostenere che non si potrà mai avere una verificazinne completa del principio di causalità per mezzo del1 esperienza. Il principio di causalità stabilisce un ideale, che  pei la nostra coscienza non potrà mai avverarsi.   Anzitutto 1 esperienza non può mai dimostrarci che vi  sia tra i fenomeni una continuità assoluta ; giacché in tutte  le evoluzioni che noi possiamo seguire, si trovano sempre  /acune, differenze non spiegate. Quando si sarà spiegato il  passaggio dal fenomeno A al fenomeno B scoprendo ]’ intermediario k, si avranno due questioni invece di una: come  si spiega il passaggio da A a k e quello da k a B? In secondo luogo l’esperienza non ci palesa nessuna ripetizione assoluta, la quale sarebbe una condizione necessaria  per applicare la legge di causa. Anche quando noi siamo  convinti che A è la causa di B, non avremo con ciò il diritto di applicare questo principio ai casi futuri, se non nel  caso che ci rappresentiamo A sempre in modo identico; il  che avviene solo in maniera approssimativa, giacché vi sono  sempre circostanze accessorie, gradazioni infinite, le quali  lanno sì che una data situazione non si possa mai riprodurre  due volte nell’identica forma. Ciò è vero non solo pei fenomeni organici, psichici e storici, dove le condizioni e gli  elementi sono assai numerosi, ma anche nel mondo inorganico: la ripetizione assoluta è un ideale.   In terzo luogo la serie delle cause è infinita precisamente  come sono infiniti il tempo e lo spazio. Ogni arresto nella  nostra investigazione è sempre fortuito o arbitrario; e poiché  secondo il principio di causa, ogni causa diviene alla sua  volta effetto, il volersi fermare ad una causa prima sarebbe  come un contraddire a quel principio; se anche nelle ipotesi  più ardite siamo costretti di fermarci ad un certo punto,  questo non è che un limite di fatto-, noi concludiamo sempre  con un punto d'interrogazione, giacché in virtù del principio  di causa, vi è sempre un nuovo problema da porre e da risolvere. Perciò si può dire in un certo senso che nessun  fenomeno è completamente spiegato.   In realtà però si può sostenere che, anche ammettendo  il pensiero dell’ Hurne che noi non percepiamo mai la causa,  ma solo una successione, tuttavia per un numero estesissimo  di fenomeni la successione è inevitabile e continua, come dovremmo attenderci se il principio di causa fosse vero. Evoluzione del concetto di causa.  L’idea di causa ha una  origine interna, soggettiva, ci è suggerita dalla nostra attività motrice. Un essere, che per ipotesi fosse puramente passivo e vedesse  o sentisse successioni esterno costanti, non potrebbe avere alcuna  idea della causalità. Tutti i fatti di attività mentale che si manifestano per mezzo di movimenti contribuiscono a far sorgere in  noi l'idea empirica di causa, come azione transitiva e conio mutamento; tra essi quello più importante è la coscienza dello sforzo f.  muscolare, ossia la coscienza d'un complesso di sensazioni provenienti dalle articolazioni, dai tendini, dai muscoli, dalle variazioni  della respirazione ecc.; e la coscienza dello sforzo consiste sovrattutto nella coscienza AeW'effetto prodotto, alla quale s’aggiunge  T idea confusa d’una creazione che emana da noi, d’una capacità  che noi abbiamo di produrre un fatto nuovo. Noi estendiamo poscia  questa capacità individuale e soggettiva di modificare la nostra  persona e le cose, a ciò che ci circonda, giacché in forza d’una  tendenza istintiva l’uomo suppone intenzioni, volontà, una causalità analoga alla propria in ciò che intorno a lui agisce o reagisce,  nei suoi simili, negli esseri viventi e in quelli clic pei loro movimenti simulano la vita, come le nubi, le acquo correnti ecc. È  questo il periodo del feticismo primitivo elio s'osserva in tutte le  mitologie e in tutte le lingue; se ne scorgono ancor oggi le trnccie  noi fanciulli, nei selvaggi, negli animali, per es. nel cane che  morde la pietra che lo colpisce, e anche neH’uomo civile, quando  tornando ad essere per un momento un uomo primitivo, va in collera contro una tavola elio lo urta.   Dalla concezione popolare, pratica, esteriore della causalità  che deriva dal fatto, che ogni mutamento suggerisce all’uomo normale che no è testimonio la credenza invincibile in un agente noto  o ignoto che lo produce, si passa al secondo periodo, che incomincia colla riflessione filosofica e si sviluppa col lento costituirsi  delle scienze. Questo cammino si può riassumere nel seguente modo: Hoffding, Psychologie. Alcan. si spoglia a poco a poco la nozione di causa del suo carattere soggettivo, umano, senza che si arrivi totalmente a raggiungere  questa meta ideale; si riduce il carattere essenziale di tale nozione  a un rapporto fisso, invariabile, costante tra un antecedente e un  conseguente determinati; si scorge nella causa e nell'effetto non  altro che due aspetti o due momenti d’nn solo e medesimo processo, il che alla fino equivale all'affermazione d’una identità.. I quattro metodi sperimentali di Mill. Come abbiamo già detto, la scienza non bì ferma alla constatazione e alla descrizione dei fenomeni, ma tende come  ad ultimo fine alla ricerca delle cause, e quindi delle leggi;  queste ultime consistono in rapporti invariabili di successione tra i fenomeni, e la causa non è altro che l'antecedente invariabile dell’effetto; quindi la ricerca della causa  e quella delle leggi costituiscono in ultima analisi un unico  problema, o almeno due problemi tra loro indissolubilmente  congiunti, e la soluzione del primo conduce in modo facile  alla soluzione del secondo.   Il problema della ricerca della causa si può esprimere  nel modo seguente; « fra una moltitudine di rapporti di successione, trovare un rapporto di causalità». Ogni fenomeno  che cade sotto i nostri sensi ha per antecedente non solo il  fenomeno che ne è la causa, ma altri fenomeni a questo concomitanti, e in simile maniera ha per conseguenti non solo  il suo effetto, ma altri fenomeni concomitanti di tale effetto.  Quindi il problema da risolvere consiste nel saper distinguere  con esattezza il fenomeno causa tra gli antecedenti che non  sono causa, oppure tra i conseguenti che non sono effetto il  fenomeno che è veramente effetto. Se i fenomeni, invece di  prodursi riuniti in aggregati più o meno complessi, costituissero una serie unilineare, noi comprenderemmo con  grande facilità che ogni fenomeno è causa di quello che  segue, ed è effetto di quello che lo precede; ma la roaltà  delle cose è diversa, e bisogna quindi ottenere per mezzo  della ragione ciò che non ci è dato direttamente dalla natura: ossia bisogna mediante il ragionamento sperimentale   (i) Kibot, L’évolutìon des idée» generai*», p. 202 e Bgg. F. Alcan] in mezzo al complesso dei fenomeni isolare il fenomeno causa  e il fenomeno effetto. I quattro metodi induttivi messi innanzi  dallo Stuart Mill servono in parte a questo scopo; essi sono  il metodo d’accordo, il metodo di differenza, il metodo delle  variazioni concomitanti e quello dei residui. Metodo d’accordo.  Il canone di questo metodo è  il seguente: Se due o più casi d’un fenomeno concordano  in una sola circostanza, sempre presente, questa è la causa,  del fenomeno.   Sia da ricercare la causa del fenomeno a accompagnato  dai fenomeni ab, preceduti dai fenomeni ABC, nòe diconsi  antecedenti, ABC conseguenti; se in un secondo esperimento  s’ottiene il gruppo ode, preceduto dal gruppo ADE, si può  concludere che A ò causa di a. Infatti non si può affermare  che siano B o C la causa di a, perchè nel primo esperimento  questi mancano ed a invece vi appare ; per una ragione  identica non si possono considerare come causa nò D nè E.  Esempio: più corpi in circostanze differenti, entrano in fusione e si volatilizzano parzialmente, quando sono sottoposti  ad una forte temperatura: la fusione e la volatilizzazione  dei corpi hanno dunque evidentemente per causa il calore,  unica circostanza comune.   Metodo di differenza.  Il canone di questo metodo  è il seguente: Se un caso nel quale il fenomeno si verifica,  e un caso nel quale non si verifica, hanno in comune tutte  le circostanze meno una, questa presentandosi solo nel primo  caso, la circostanza per la quale sola i due casi differiscono,  è la causa.   Se in un primo esperimento si ottiene il gruppo dei conseguenti abe preceduto dal gruppo degli antecedenti ABC e  in un secondo esperimento si ha il gruppo he preceduto dal  gruppo BC, si può conchiudere che A è causa di a. La dimostrazione in questo caso è assai semplice. Esempio: Tutte  le volte che la pressione atmosferica si esercita nella camera  barometrica, il mercurio si eleva nel tubo .barometrico: sopprimiamo questa pressione facendo il vuoto: se vediamo il  mercurio scendere, la causa cercata sarà il peso dell’aria; cosi  pure in tisiologia la funzione d'un nervo si può stabilire con  precisione, quando, tagliato il nervo, cessa la funzione. Metodo delle variazioni concomitanti.  Il canone  suona così: Un fenomeno clie varia in una certa maniera  tutte le volte che un altro fenomeno varia nella stessa maniera, è una causa di questo fenomeno.   Se in un primo esperimento abbiamo abc preceduto da ABC  e se in un secondo esperimento facendo variare A vediamo  che varia pure a, diciamo che il primo è causa del secondo.   Variando ad esempio la quantità di calore in un corpo,  osserviamo il variare concomitante della sna dilatazione; e  giungiamo così a porre la legge che il calore dilata i corpi;  il calore (antecedente) si assume come causa della dilatazione (conseguente).   4° Metodo dei residui.  Il canone è il seguente: Sottratta da un fenomeno la parte che si sa per induzioni anteriori essere l’effetto di determinati antecedenti, ciò che  resta fra i conseguenti sarà effetto di quello fra gli antecedenti che si è trascurato.   Supponiamo che si abbiano gli antecedenti ABC e i  conseguenti abc. Per induzioni precedenti sappiamo che causa  di b è B e che causa di c è C; resterà che causa di a sia A.   Con questo metodo l’odore sparso nell’aria dall’elettricità guidò a scoprire l’ozono; così pure, poiché il movimento  d’Urano si spiegava nel suo insieme per mezzo di cause  note, le irregolarità di questo movimento formavano un residuo che, determinato con precisione, condusse il Leverrier  alla scoperta di Nettuno. Un bell’ esempio di questo metodo è l’induzione con la quale Galileo trovò la causa del  candore cinereo della luna. Le cause possibili sono quattro,  la luce del sole, quella delle stelle, una luce propria, quella  riflessa dalla terra; non può essere la prima perchè si prova  che quella parte della luna nella quale si scorge il candore cinereo non è illuminata dal sole ; non la seconda, perchè il candore cinereo si dovrebbe vedere anche nelle ecclissi, il che non  avviene, nè per la stessa ragione può essere la terza. Quindi  la luce riflessa dalla terra è la causa del candore cinereo. Osservazioni intorno ai metodi di Mill. I quattro metodi sopra descritti, che hanno il loro fondamento comune nell 'eliminazione di tutte le circostanze che sono la vera causa del fenomeno in questione, hanno per le  ricerche scientifiche in generale un’importanza relativa, la  quale dev’essere ridotta nei suoi giusti limiti, giacché vediamo spesso il fisico, il chimico, il fisiologo ricorrere, nello  stabilire esattamente la causa d’un fenomeno, a mezzi diversi  da quelli proposti dal celebre filosofo inglese. Anzitutto è stato osservato giustamente che l’uso di  questi metodi induttivi presuppone due condizioni, che non  sempre si verificano nella realtà, ossia: « che ogni effetto  fibbia una sola causa, e in secondo luogo che gli effetti di  ciascuna causa possano essere tenuti distinti dà quelli delle  altre ». Anche nella % r ita quotidiana noi osserviamo un numero considerevole di fenomeni, che possono essere prodotti  d a iiiii cause, tali sono per es. TI movimento, il calore, il   piacei e. la morte : in questi casi è quasi impossibile ridurre  le esperienze in formule così nette e precise, come quelle  che sopra abbiamo rappresentato per mezzo di lettere alfabetiche, ed è molto difficile non omettere qualcuno degli antecedenti tra i quali vi è la causa che si ricerca; quindi si  comprende facilmente come l a pluralità delle cause renda  difficile il metodo di concordanza, anche quando si moltiplicano le osservazioni e gli esperimenti. Cosi l’ignoranza del  peso dell’aria indusse i fisici ad attribuire al vuoto, o, meglio,  come essi dicevano, all’orrore del vuoto l'ascensione dell’acqua  nelle pompe.   La seconda esigenza rende dubbio il metodo di differenza; cosi nelle esperienze fisiologiche i risultati ottenuti  per mezzo della vivisezione rimangono non di rado dubbi,  giacché il fenomeno prodotto dalla soppressione oppure dalla lesione d’un organo, come sarebbe ad esempio, il cervello, non è  sempre da attribuirsi in tutto ad esse, mà è spesso il contraccolpo più o meno lontano prodotto dalla soppressione o dalla lesione d’un determinato organo sopra un altro, o anche sopra  l’insieme dell’organismo preso a soggetto d’esperieuza. Per  questa ragione le precauzioni e le cautele che deve prendere  il fisiologo sono rigorose e infinite, se non vuole cadere in  errore.   Un’altra difficoltà, per citarne ancora una, si presenta  quando avviene che più cause insieme s’uniscano a produrre un medesimo effetto, come il salire d’un areostato nell’atmoslera, prodotto dal combinarsi dell’azione della gravità con  altre cause, che non si possono trascurare, se si vuol dare  uua spiegazione esatta del fenomeno; oppure quando la causalità è reciproca. Non osservando l a reciprocità delle cause,  cadono in errore quelli che sostengono essere il fenomeno  economico la causa unica e diretta del determinarsi degli  altri fenomeni sociali, politici, religiosi, giuridici, artistici e  morali; mentre sono più nel vero quelli che sostengono che  i fenomeni sociali sopra indicati possano alla loro volta esercitare un’azione determinatrice sopra il fenomeno donde  hanno tratto l’origine; così è innegabile che se la produzione economica stimola il movimento scientifico, questo alla  sua volta con l’invenzione di macchine, di strumenti ecc.  stimola e rende più perfetta la produzione economica.   8. Eccezioni apparenti del principio di causa.  Vi sono due  idoe, che pare si sottraggano all’universalità del principio di causa  o che malgrado lo sviluppo del pensiero scientifico hanno tuttora  molta forza; sono le idee del miracolo e del caso.   J1 miracolo, preso non nel significato religioso, ma nel significato etimologico più gouorale [mirari), è un avvenimento raro,  imprevisto, che si produce fuori oppure in opposizione del coreo  ordinario e naturale delle cose. Però esso non porta alla negazione  della causa intesa nel senso popolare, giacché suppone sempre un  antecedente: la Divinità, o una potenza ignota; ma ammette una  derogazione al determinismo, nega la causa nel senso scientifico;  il miracolo sarebbe la causa senza la legge. Per molto tempo nulla  ò sembrato più naturale del miracolo: nel mondo fisico l'apparizione d'una cometa, le ecclissi e altri feuomoni simili erano considerati come prodigi e presagi, e tuttora sono causa d’inquietudine  per molte persone; nel campo della vita codesta credenza è più  tenace; nel secolo XVII spiriti illuminati ammettevano ancora gli  errore s o lusus naturar, stimavano la nascita di mostri segno di cattivo augurio ecc. Peggio avveniva nel campo della psicologia; sono  noti i pregiudizi, così diffusi nell'antichità, non ancora scomparsi,  intorno ai sogni profetici, al mistero onde si è circondato per tanto  tempo il sonnambulismo naturale o provocato e gli stati analoghi.  Infine anche nella vita sociale vi sono molti utopisti, cho pur respingendo la realtà del miracolo, l'ammettono però con grande facilità nell'ordine politico o ricostruiscono la società umana ab imis  fundanientis seguendo i loro sogni.  L’idea di caso è più oscura e controversa. Nel significato volgare esso è un avvenimento elle non presuppone nè causa nè leggo,  un'eccezione alla regola generale, secondo la quale ogni fatto è un  effetto. Molti pensano che il caso sia uua causa reale, ma oscura e  impenetrabile, un principio di disordine e di confusione, che con  irresistibile potenza agisce nel mondo a dritto e a torto, producendo ora con ostinazione capricciosa, una serio continua e strana  di avvenimenti, ora fenomeni isolati e mostruosi. Ma già nell’antichità Aristotile, intravedendo la verità, scrisse: “ si dice che alcune cose avvengono per caso, altre no, pur sapendo che tanto le  prime quanto le seconde si possono spiegare riferendosi a qualcuna delle cause ordinarie,. Anche Hume afferma essere il caso non altro che l’ignoranza delle cause vere.  Il Cournot, studiato profondamente tale problema,  dice die “ gli avvenimenti prodotti dall’incontro o dalla combinazione di altri avvenimenti che appartengono a serie indipendenti  le uno dalle altro sono chiamati fortuiti o risultati del caso,. Innumerevoli sono gli esempi di questa congiunzione o incrociamento  di due o più serie di cause e di effetti, indipendenti all'origine le  uno dalle altre e non destinate per la loro natura ad una influenza  reciproca; cosi una serie di cause e d’effetti conduce un viaggiatore a prendere un determinato treno e una serie di cause e  d effetti totalmente distinti produce in un luogo e momento determinato, un accidente che uccide il nostro personaggio. Rappresentandosi con una linea continua la catena delle ragioni che spiegano  un fenomeno, se questa catena 6 attraversata da un’altra catona e  questa linea vioue tagliata da una linea che parte da un altro  punto, il risultato di tale intersezione è qualcosa di fortuito, un  caso, che non è altro quindi che l'incontro di due serie di cause  non solidali, o non presenta quel carattere di assurdità che si scorge  in un fatto senza causa, giacché suppone il concorso di più cause;  si potrà dire con maggior precisione che è un fatto senza legge.  Tra la definizione del Cournot e quella antica di Aristotile, come è  stato osservato, esisto una profonda analogia, e si può almeno  diro che tanto per il primo quanto pel secondo il fortuito consisto  nell'incontro imprevedibile di cause e d'effetti fino a quel punto  indipendenti. Ribot Da G. Miltiaud e H. Piérox nella Heviie de Métapht/sique et de Morale. Dopo che si è osservato che a’ intenda per causa, è facile comprendere che  cosa s’intende per legge, sempre però nel campo delle scienze  che sono anche dette nomotetiche, appunto perchè mirano  a stabilire leggi. Quando noi esprimiamo giudizi universali,  come i seguenti : tutti gli uomini sono mortali, tutti i raggi  luminosi che cadono sotto un angolo di 30 gradi, sono riflessi  sotto un angolo di 30 gradi; noi vediamo tosto che essi furono veri noi passato e saranno nell’avvenire [manto nel pres ente. Quando il chimico dice che ogni combinazione dello  zolfo con l’ossigeno avviene secondo rapporti fissi di peso,  non si riferisce ad un momento, ad un giorno, ad un anno,  ad un secolo, ma Quindi nello stesso modo   che davanti a giudizi di tal fatta è lecito porre la parola sfM pg£  dominane, si può mettere anche la parola sempre, la quale £. richiamerebbe insieme col tempo presente anche il passato  e il futuro: sempre e dovunque le combinazioni di zolfo o  (l’ossigeno si sono fatte, si fanno e si faranno secondo rapporti fissi di peso.   Però il tempo presente che si adopera in queste proposizioni categoriche universali non deve essere inteso nel  senso che indichi una realtà permanente ed eterna', giacché  la scienza considera i fenomeni fìsici e chimici, l’esistenza  degli organismi viventi, le attività psichiche, gli aggruppamenti sociali, c ome semplici possibilità : ossia tutti questi fenomeni sono, possibili sempre e doni nane, quando ne sian o  date le condizioni, non vuol già dire che siano perpetuamente reali; la quale affermazione evidentemente sarebbe erronea. Tediamo di dare le ragioni di questo possibile *  errore.   Posso io dire in forma di giudizio categorico: sempre e  d ovunque i corpi si combinano secondo rapporti fissi di peso?   la combinazione dei corpi è una realtà costante ed eterna ?   No certo; la chimica non insegna forse che «ad una certa  temperatura tutte le attività chimiche sono sospese? Può  esservi stato nel tempo trascorso, potrà esservi nell’avvenire  un periodo di freddo universale nel quale alcuna combinazione chimica non era e non sarà possibile; bisognerebbe  quindi esprimersi con maggior precisione nel seguente modo:  sempre e dovunque, se alcuni corpi si combinano, le loro  combinazioni avvengono secondo rapporti lissi di peso.'   Negli enunciati generali della fisica si può constatare  un fatto simile. Così la legge d’attrazione non si può esprimere per mezzo d’un’affennazione categorica ed universale  come la seguente: tutti i corpi si attirano; ma assai meglio  e in modo più preciso in una forma condizionale: sempre e  dovunque, se due corpi pesanti sono soggetti, senza causa  perturbatrice o inibitrice, all’influenza che essi esercitano  l’uno sull’altro secondo le loro masse, la forza della loro attrazione è direttamente proporzionale al prodotto della massa  e inversamente al quadrato della distanza.   L ’impenetrabilità ci mette in presenza d’un problema  analogo. A prima vista nulla di più categorico di questa asserzione: tutti i corpi nello spazio occupano un posto; che  cos’è un corpo? è un aggregato che ha un certo volume e  una certa stabilità; vi sono corpi, ve ne sono sempre stati  e sempre ve ne saranno. Eppure possiamo chiederci con ragione se la scienza non deve ammettere come possibile uno  stato dell’universo, nel quale ogni aggregato sarà sciolto e  gli elementi veri verranno separati e rimarranno indipendenti. Non vi sarebbero quindi corpi percettibili per la  nostra mano o per le nostre bilance, non vi sarebbero più  atomi o elettroni ; gli atomi e gli elettroni sono essi impenetrabili? lo sappiamo noi di vera scienza? Isaville, La primauté des jngements condiiiunnels, “ Rovue philos.] In conclusione possiamo dire che alle leggi e ai teoremi  universali conviene non la forma categorica, ma la forma   condizionale, poiché espri m ono affermazioni relative a rap p orti e ad avveni menti consid erati solo come possibili, ossia  soggetti a determinate condizioni, le quali col tempo possono anche venir meno. I caratteri della legge naturale.  Chiarito in tal  modo il concetto di legge naturale, possiamo chiederci: perchè  noi crediamo, anche sulla testimonianza d’un caso solo, che  i casi futuri saranno simili ai casi sperimentati? come da  un certo numero di casi si trae una legge e si estende a * r** 6 " tutti i casi omogenei possibili? perchè, ad esempio, dopo r '“y ' m t, ’ z  aver esperimentato una o più volte che un corpo immerso  in un liquido perde tanto del proprio peso quanto è il peso  del liquido spostato, il fisico passa a stabilire la legge generale: sempre e dovunque se un corpo è immerso nell’acqua  perde tanto ecc. ecc.?   Il fondamento logico di quest’affermazione è da ricercarsi in un postulato, cioè in un principio indimostrabile,  c he dev’essere ammesso affinché la realtà riesca comprensibile : tale postulato è quello deU.’uniformità della indura, il  quale è alla sua volta fondato sul principio dì causa inteso  nel senso che cause simili in condizioni simili producono  effetti simili e sul principio della conservazione della materia e dell’energia.   Il postulato àe\Vuniformità della natura, la cui esigenza  era già stata compresa dagli antichi nell’espressione: natura  non facit saltus, non indica già che la realtà naturale è  costante e uniforme, ma che, pur essendo essa in perpetua  evoluzione e trasformazione, i mutamenti incessanti avvengono secondo leggi costanti e uniformi.   Il principio della conservazione dell’energia, che dà alla  scienza contemporanea della natura il suo carattere proprio,  trova la dimostrazione più evidente nella chimica, la quale,  appoggiandosi a tale supposizione, confermata da un gran  numero d'esperienze, afferma che la somma delle particelle  materiali o atomi rimane sempre la stessa in tutti i mutamenti che la materia subisce. Perciò quando un corpo riceve nuove proprietà, ciò si spiega per mezzo d’una modificazione  nell’insieme e nelle modificazioni delle parti: produzione o  soppressione d’una sostanza significa aggregazione o disgregazione d’atomi che già preesistevano, benché in altre combinazioni. Ammettendo quindi che la materia persista attraverso a tutti i suoi mutamenti, si ammette ancora che la  somma dell'energia ossia la capacità di lavoro, di vincere la  resistenza che si manifesta nella natura materiale, rimane sempre la stessa; e solo in apparenza avviene che l’energia nasca  o si distrugga, come si può dimostrare con qualche esempio:   La forza colla quale una pietra cade a terra dipende  dall’altezza dalla quale cade, e, alla sua volta, l’altezza dipende dalla forza con la quale la pietra era stata sollevata.  Quando la pietra s’è fermata sulla terra, pare che la forza  si perda, giacché la pietra non ha apparentemente il potere  di muoversi dal suo posto; ma, anche allora, il dileguarsi  della forza significa solamente che questa si è convertita in  qualche altra cosa, in calore. Lo stesso fenomeno avviene  quando il movimento non cessa del tutto, ma è solamente  rallentato dall’attrito, giacché la forza perduta dal corpo,  per l’azione dell’attrito, non si perde in modo assoluto, ma  si trasforma in calore. Esperienze ripetute, sempre confermate, dimostrano che la quantità di forza, o, meglio, d’energia  che scompare sotto una forma, trova il suo equivalente esatto  in un’altra forma, cosicché la stessa quantità della stessa  specie d’energia potrà essere di nuovo restituita, e qualunque  sia la metamorfosi che può subire ciascuna delle differenti  forme d’energia, considerate a parte, la loro somma rimane  sempre la stessa.   L ’importanza di questo principio è grandissima per la  s cienza, benché come legge generale della natura non abbia   ell e un valore ipotetico, giacche, non potenao mai conoscersi   il contenuto totale del la natura, non potrà inai ess ere confe rmato dall’espe rienza se non in maniera approssimativa. (*)   Esso si deve quindi considerare come~u n~;7r7nc7'»fo o  un 'idea che ci dirige nelle nostre investigazioni. Infatti  quando si presenta ai nostri sensi un nuovo fenomeno, ossia  HJmnsc] quando ha luogo un mutamento dentro o fuori di noi, esso  ci invita a scorgere nel nuovo fenomeno non altro che la  continuazione o la trasformazione del primo, o almeno a  ricercare un fenomeno antecedente, del quale sia la conseguenza inevitabile, donde il principio di causalità, secondo  il quale due fenomeni ci appariscono cosi strettamente legati  rimo all’altro, che, dato il primo, l’altro si presenta inevitabilmente. La formula dell’induzione, ossia la legge scientifica si può dunque esprimere nei seguenti termini: Ogni rapporto di causalità è costante. Il rapporto constatato tra i fenomeni A e B è un  rapporto di causalità. Il rapporto tra A e B è costante. Se, come ha dimostrato l'Helmoltz, esiste veramente la legge  di conservazione dell’energia, essa deve valere tanto per la natura  animata, quanto per quella inanimata. Poiché la natura animata,  dice un tisiologo idealista, è composta della stessa materia dell’inanimata ed è in continuo ricambio materiale con ossa, e poiché  per mezzo delle sostanze assunte certe forme d’energia son trasportato dalla natura inanimata in quella animata, la leggo di conservazione dell’energia sarebbe interrotta, se nella sostanza viva  l'energia perisse o sorgesse, cioè se la stessa quantità d’energia  introdotta nei corpi vivi, non fosse ridata di nuovo alla natura inanimata, sia durante la vita, sia dopo la morte.   Studi recenti hanno dimostrato che tutta l’energia assorbita  dall’organismo coila nutrizione dalla natura inanimata, abbandona  poi di nuovo il corpo sotto altre forme; nell’organismo non vi ha  produzione nè perdita d’alcuna minima quantità d’energia. L’evoluzione del concetto di legge.  Nello sviluppo  del concetto di legge si possono distinguere tre periodi principali: quello delle immagini generiche, quello delle leggi  concrete o empiriche, quello delle leggi teoriche e ideali.   Nella prima fase la mente umana si forma una concezione meccanica della regolarità d’un fenomeno, la quale si  estende ad un numero assai ristretto di avvenimenti: è il  risultato della ripetizione costante o frequente di alcuni cicli, Verworx, Fisiologia generale, Torino, Bocca] come, ad esempio, del corso del sole, della lima, delle stagioni ;  molti uomini non hanno che questa ombra, questo simulacro  di legge, che riposa sulla pura associazione, sull’abitudine  pratica, sull’ attesa spontanea d’una ricorrenza che è stata  percepita più volte. Questa nozione, quantunque sia assai  umile, tuttavia è stata assai utile nei primi passi percorsi  dall’umanità sul cammino della scienza, poiché ha frenato la  tendenza vivissima dell’immaginazione a popolare il mondo  di cause capricciose e senza regola: è stata la prima affermazione d’una credenza nella regolarità.   In un periodo posteriore la riflessione e la ricerca metodica fanno sorgere lentamente le leggi empiriche, che consistono nella riduzione d’un gran numero di fatti in una  formula unica, senza però dare di essi la ragione esplicativa.  Nel corso degli avvenimenti la mente scopre tra due o più  fatti un rapporto costante di coesistenza o di successione, il  quale viene esteso ad altri casi; qui non è del tutto necessaria la costanza, basta la frequenza. La legge empirica è  identica ai fatti, ossia legge e fatti non sono che due aspetti  della stessa cosa. Si assimila facilmente la legge empirica a  un fatto generale; cosi in psicologia si dice: la legge d’associazione o anche il fatto generale dell’associazione.   In secondo luogo la legge empirica è non di rado complessa ; non riuscendo sempre a rinchiudere in una formula  unica e breve molti fatti, essa deve scindersi in più casi e  adoprare lunghe formule per potere contenere i casi particolari e le eccezioni.   Appaiono infine le leggi teoriche o ideali, che sono le  più astratte e le più semplici; sono costruzioni dello spirito  che divengono sempre più approssimative a mano a mano  che salgono e s’allontanano dall’esperienza; e non possono  essere applicate, discendere dalla teoria alla pratica se non  mediante rettificazioni o addizioni. Per gli spiriti abituati  alla disciplina delle scionze rigorose la legge ideale è la sola  valevole, onde considerano con un certo disprezzo e con certa  diffidenza le formule che sono un semplice riassunto dei risultati dell’esperienza. Il carattere approssimativo delle leggi teoriche deriva  dal loro carattere ideale. Cosi si è detto che « le leggi fisiche sono verità generali sempre più o meno falsate in ogni caso  particolare » ; per es., non è sempre assolutamente vero che un  movimento sia uniforme e rettilineo; la legge teorica delle  oscillazioni del pendolo non si può constatare in modo assoluto, giacché non esiste un mezzo non resistente, una forza  affatto rigida e che non possa estendersi, nè un apparecchio  di sospensione capace di moversi senza attrito; un pianeta  non potrebbe descrivere una ellissi esatta, se non nel caso  che girasse solo intorno al Sole, e poiché vi sono più pianeti  che agiscono e reagiscono gli uni sugli altri, la legge di Keplero rimane vera solo idealmente. Si sa da ricerche compiute con estrema precisione, che la legge di Mariotte sopra  i rapporti tra la densità d’un gas e la pressione che sopporta, non è rigorosamente esatta in nessuno di essi ; però  tra la teoria e la realtà le differenze sono così tenui, che nei  casi ordinari si possono trascurare. Neppure le leggi della  termodinamica (conservazione dell’energia, correlazione delle  forze) adoperate con tanta frequenza ai nostri giorni pel loro  carattere di generalità e che qualcuno considera come il principio ultimo dei fenomeni, non hanno un valore assoluto; infatti non è del tutto esatto il dire che ogni cambiamento  dia luogo a un cambiamento capace di riprodurre il primo  senza addizione o perdita. L’enumerazione delle leggi ideali  sarebbe lunghissima. Oggidì la nozione di legge è comune a tutte le scienze od è  usata nel significato più rigoroso nelle scienze matematiche e fisico-chimiche. Però non è sempre avvenuto così. Nell'antichità il  termine è adoperato in un senso quasi esclusivamente sociale, giuridico, morale, per cui si considerano le leggi naturali come norme  impartite ai fatti da una volontà soprannaturale, nello stesso modo  che il legislatore impone ni cittadini il proprio volere con norme  non trasgreditoli; con gli stoici l’idea di legge è trasportata per  la prima volta dai fatti morali ai naturali, e con la scuola epicurea  cominciò a considerarsi come la manifestazione spontanea della  realtà intima dei fenomeni.   Il concetto di legge nel senso moderno si è formato tardi o  assai lentamente; Copernico o Klepero nel secolo XVI si servono  della parola “ ipotesi il Galilei chiama assiomi le leggi fondamentali della natura e leoi-emi quelle che ne derivano secondo la torminologia dei matematici. Descartes  incomincia la sua filosofia della natura ponendo alcune lìegulae sire  leges vaturales. Newton dice: Axiomata sire leges motti ». L’estensione della pai'ola logge è dovuta assai probabilmente al bisogno  di stabilire una divisione netta tra gli assiomi astratti dei matematici e i principi ai quali si attribuisce un valore oggettivo e  un esistenza nella natura. Infine con la celebro delinizioue del Montesquieu (1689-1755): “ le leggi sono i rapporti necessari che derivano dalla natura dello cose, il concetto di logge ha preso il  più alto grado di generalizzazione. Un altro fatto degno d’osservaziono è il seguente : Cartesio  chiama lo leggi della natura 41 regolo „ in quanto esse servono a  spiegarci i fenomeni; lo chiama “ leggi „ in quanto Dio le ha stabilite all'origine dell’universo come proprietà della materia. Tiù  tardi la natura pronde il posto di Dio; il che è una sopravvivenza  d una concezione panteistica del mondo; poscia predomina la tendenza a designare lo leggi coi nomi dei loro scopritori: legge di Mariotte, di Oay-Lussac, d'Avogadro, di Weber ecc. Nel secolo XVII  è Dio che stabilisce le leggi della natura; nel XVIII è la natura  stessa; nel XIX sono gli scienziati stessi che si assumono un tal  compito.   4. Cenno storico della teoria logica dell’induzione.   Benché abbia avuto il suo massimo svolgimento nella scienza  moderna, tuttavia la teori a logica dell’induzione risale all’antichità, e la vediamo formulata per la prima volta da Aristotile, pel quale l’induzione è il procedimento opposto al sillogismo deduttivo, e consiste nel ragionamento che procede  biamo tenerci lontani dai pregiudizi e dalle illusioni, ch’egli  chiama Mola e distingue in quattro classi : Mola tribus, che  derivano dalla natura e dalle tendenze proprie dell’uomo;  Mola spedis prodotti dal carattere e dalle particolarità individuali proprie di ciascun nomo; Mola fori, che sono gli  errori che sorgono dal commercio cogli altri uomini, specialmente per mezzo del linguaggio; Mola theatri, cioè gli errori  che si ricevono per la via della tradizione, dell’insegnamento  e dell’autorità altrui, quando si accolgono senza critica.   Liberato il terreno da questi ostacoli, sarà assai piè  agevole salire dai fatti constatati per mezzo dell’osservazione  e dell’esperimento alle leggi; in ciò consiste la vera induzione,  che egli considera come la via migliore per costruire la  scienza.   Egli però non attribuisce alla parola legge il significato  odierno, ma il senso d’una semplice generalizzazione empirica; d à valore di prova solo all’induzione completa, all’ennmerazione compieta, che nella maggior parte dei casi non è  possibile, dimodoché non è mai stata adoperata da nessuno  dei grandi maestri della scienza. Si è osservato giustamente  che l’induzione baconiana trascende in un volgare empirismo,  poiché, c oncedendo minima importanza al ragionamento, non  ci permette di vedere distintamente se la connessione osservata tra vari fenomeui è puramente casuale e sarà contraddetta da ulteriori osservazioni, o se dipende da ragioni profonde che fanno estendere il principio generale ottenuto anche  a fatti non ancora esaminati.   Bacone dichiara che la scoperta di nnove verità può ottenersi  soltanto per mezzo d’una raccolta metodica di fatti, la quale deve  essere fatta in modo da distinguere i fatti in tre categorie, disponibili in tre tabelle differenti. La prima, che vien chiamata tabula  essentiae et presentine, contiene esempi concordanti nella presenza  del fenomeno che si vuole investigare; la seconda detta tabula declinationis sive absentiae in proximo contiene esempi che mancano  nel fenomeno, ma che sono connessi cogli esempi in cui il fenomeno accade, ciascun esempio corrispondendo per quanto è possibile a quelli già inclusi nella primn tavola. La terza, che prende il nome di tabula graduimi si ve tabula comparativa, comprende i  fenomeni in cui il carattere ricercato si trova in grado più o meno  intenso, sia elio la variazione avvenga nollo stesso soggetto, sia che  in diversi soggetti paragonati fra loro.   Come è facile accorgercene, il procedimento induttivo viene in  tal modo sottoposto a troppe lungaggini, che ne rendono l’uso assai  difficile o poco pratico, benché Bacone abbia con lo sue tavole intraveduto i tre primi dei quattro metodi dello Stuart Mill. Il creatore del metodo sperimentale è BONAIUTI Galilei che vide più  chiaramente di Bacone il vero carattere dell’induzione e seppe  accoppiare ad una mente critica e indagatrice di supremo  valore un’abilità insuperabile nello sperimentare. Noi salutiamo oggi il Galilei (cito a bello studio le parole non sospette d’uno straniero) come il vero fondatore della scienza  della natura, alla quale egli ha dato il metodo più acconcio;  noi salutiamo in lui lo scopritore della legge della caduta  dei gravi, con la quale ha posto la base alla scienza del movimento, alla dinamica, e ha aperto in tal modo la prima porta  a tutta la fisica; con profonda ammirazione pensiamo alle  sue osservazioni astronomiche, e sopratutto alla scoperta dei  satelliti di Giove, delle stelle Medicee, mondo copernicano  in piccolo: egli stesso visse e soffri per la dottrina di Copernico, per la conoscenza scientifica dell’universo. Il metodo  tjalileiano, cioè il metodo sperimentale che riunisce armonicamente l’induzione e la deduzione, l’esperienza e il pensiero,  rappresenta, come ha già affermato Emmanuele Kant, una  rivoluzione dell’indagine scientifica; l’antica filosofia naturale  è condannata, per lasciare il posto alla moderna scienza. Tutta  l’opposizione fra questa e quella, il progresso grande fra l’una  o l’altra si può esprimere con brevi parole: invece di chiedere: perchè cadono i corpi, da quale specie di impulso, da  quale ignota causa vengono sospinti ; il Galilei si pone il problema : come cadono i corpi, secondo quale legge. Questo mutamento in apparenza leggero nel porre la questione scientifica separa due età della conoscenza umana, collocando al  posto dell’inutile e ingannevole ricerca intorno all’essenza  delle cause il s olo compito possibile di indagare e ritrovare  l e leggi dei fenomeni. Riehl, Philosophie der Gegenwart, Lipsia, Teubner Galilei concepisce le forze naturali come capaci di  peso e di misura nelle loro azioni, e dice quin di essere la  natura scritta in caratteri matematici, e i caratteri essere  t riang oli, centri e altre figure geometriche, e quindi senza  questi mezzi essere impossibile di intenderne umanamente  parola; adopera i sensi nelle esperienze, l’immaginazione per rappresentarci all’intelletto le apparenze possibili o avverate  dei corpi, la ragione tanto nell’indagare le intime leggi del  pensiero, quanto a ricercare con le matematiche le leggi intelligibili del mondo esterno, essendo ogni cosa creata con  peso, numero e misura. Egli sottomette all’analisi ogni benché minimo accidente, con instancabile pazienza r ipete l’oss ervazione e l’esperimento variando le circostanze e rimovendo '  g li ostacoli che ne potessero diminuire la sincerità. Tutte   queste precauzioni, dice il Fiorentino, sarebbero rimaste inu-j  tili, senza quella geniale divinazione dell’ingegno, che, quasi  lampo attraverso d’una nuvola squarciata, gli faceva alla lontana intravedere la possibile causa d’un fatto. Vede oscillare  una lampada, ne osserva i movimenti equabili, li misura ai  battiti del polso e corre col pensiero all’ isocronismo del pendolo. Si sovviene aver veduto nelle tempeste cadere piccoli 1  grani di grandine misti con mezzani e con grandi, tutt’ insieme, nè gli uni aver anticipato l’arrivo in terra a preferenza degli altri e medita la legge della caduta dei gravi.  Raschia con uno scarpello di ferro tagliente una piastra  ottone per levarle alcune macchie, e movendolo con velocità  sente fischiare ed uscirne un sibilo molto gagliardo e chiaro;!  guarda su la piastra e vede un lungo ordine di virgolette!  sottili, egualmente distanti l’una dall’altra; rifà l’esperienza  e s’accorge che il fischio s’ode soltanto quando più veloce vi  striscia, più inacutisce il suono e più inspessisconsi le virgolette; ed eccolo pensare alle proporzioni delle onde sonori  ed alla teorica degli accordi musicali. Il pensiero e il senso  la natura e la ragione si trovarono riunite nell’ingegno del  sommo Galilei, ed a questo propizio congiungimento si del:  bono le sue maravigliose scoperte : non trascurar nulla di  ciò che la sensata sperienza ci porge ; nè d’altra parte arrestarsi impigliato nell’immediatezza del fatto; tale fu la  giusta misura ch’egli seppe trovare tra le angustie del senso o gli sfrenati ardimenti del vuoto intelletto (Telesin). Una trattazione profonda e singolare  della teoria induttiva è data dall’ inglese Mill, che definisce la logica « la scienza delle operazioni intellettuali che servono all’estimazione della prova,  ossia la scienza del procedimento generale che va dal noto  all'ignoto, e delle operazioni ausiliario di quell’operazione  fondamentale. Salire dal noto all’ignoto significa ragionare, e ragionare,  in senso esteso, è sinonimo d’inferenza, la quale, come abbiamo già detto, nella sua forma originaria va sempre dal  p articolare al particolare: la logica ci mostra appunto come  da questa forma primitiva e irreducibile di ragionamento  spunta l’induzione scientifica ossia quella che va dal parti colare al generale. Il carattere essenziale di quest’ultima consiste nel concludere che « ciò che è vero in un caso particoc olare sarà trovato vero in tutti i casi che rassomigliano al primo. E chiaro che una tale operazione ha come prejmp pjgjounpostulato, giacche per credere che ciò che s^pro d otto in un caso particolare si riprodurrà in tutti i casi simili,   bisogna prima ammettere « che vi sono in natura casi paral leli, che ciò che è avvenuto una volta avverrà pure in circostanze simili e avverrà tutte le volte che le stesse ciscostanzo  si ripresenteranno » o, in altre parole, è necessario credere  che i l corso della natura è uniforme, e l’uniformità della nat ura alla sua volta riposa su l principio della causalità universale che, secondo il Mill, trae la sua origine dall’esperien za"  Egli censura la definizione comune della causa ; gi aedi è, "se   due fenomeni che si succedono in ordine di tempo fossero  l’uno causa dell'altro, bisognerebbe dire che il giorno è la  causa della notte e viceversa; invece noi sappiamo bene che  tale successione è soggetta a una condizione, il levarsi del  sole sull’orizzonte; è quest’ultimo fenomeno quello che fa succedere la luce alle tenebre e, se venisse a mancare, non vedremmo più il giorno alternarsi alla notte. Bisogna quindi  definire la causa d’un fenomeno « l' antecedente o la riunion e  d’ antecedenti, di c ui il fenomeno è invariabilmente e incondizionatamente la conseguenza. Dopo l'apparizione dell'opera capitale del Alili “ Sistema di  logica, si La una vera fioritura importante di opere che trattano  di questioni logiche, e in particolare della teoria induttiva; frale  più importanti noteremo le seguenti: A. Baiu, La logique induttive  et deductive (trad. dall’inglese); Dii fondement de l'induction di Lacheli er; Sigwart. Logik;  Wundt, Logik.   Degna di nota è la dottrina della contingenza sostenuta in  Francia da una schiera valorosa di pensatori, tra i quali emergono  Emilio B outro ux ed Enrico Bergson. Secondo tale dottrina la contingenza è al fondo della natura, e l a necessità dello leggi naturali  è solame nte r elativ a, perchè la coni» non spiega mai tutto l'effetto,  e se questo facesse una cosa sola con la causa, non si potrebbo  considerare come un vero effetto. Si osserva quindi che nella naturn ad ogni grado s'a ggiu nge sempro qualch e cosa di nuovo.qualche elemento che non si trova nel grado precedente : cosi la coscienza s'aggiunge alla vita, la vita alla materia, nella materia lo  proprietà fisiche e chimiche s’uniscono allo proprietà matematiche ecc. ecc. La contingenza che si nota in ogni forma de ll’eBsere  è il segno manifesto della libertà che agisce nel mondo dei fenomeni; ossa scuote il postillato che rende inconcepibile l'intervento  della libertà nel succedersi dei fenomeni, la massima secondo la  quale nulla si crea o nulla si distrugge; essa ci porta ad ammettere uua libertà che discenderebbe dalle regioni soprassensTbili, per  mescolarsi ai fenomeni e dirigerli per vie impreviste. (La tendenza ad estendere la libertà e la conti ngenza ai fenomeni della natura o dell'uomo tocca il minto culminante nella dot trina del Bergso n, pel quale gli stati psichici profondi, quelli elio  formano la baso fondamentale dello spirito, costituiscono un’eterogeneità assoluta: essendo ciascuno qualche cosa di unico nel suo  genere, non diviene uè causa nè effetto, non potendo la causa riprodurre sè stessa; e non ha alcun rapporto colla quantità, essendo  qualità pura; alla quantità egli oppone la qualità, al meccanismo  dello spirito il dinamismo, allo spazio la durata pura, al determinismo la libertà. Però una tale questione esco dai limiti della logica, per entrare nel campo della metafisica.   Uno dei seguaci del Bergson, il Le Roy, afferma che l e leggi  s cientifiche diventano rigorose solo un mulo si trasformano in con1   vonzione e si appoggiano a circoli viziosi: il corso degli avvenimenti   è regolare, abituale, ma non necessario; cosi la legge della caduta  dei gravi ha valore, ma solo quando forze estranee non la turbano: Boutroux, De la contingence des loie de la nuture. F. Alcali] la conservazione dell’energia s’applica solo ai sistemi chiusi, i quali  sono quelli appunto in cui l'energia si conserva. Importante nel movimento del pensiero contemporaneo, è pure  la teoria di Ernesto Mach, fìsico e filosofo illustre. Questi pensa  elio le scienze fisiche c naturali non sieno altro elio descrizion i di  fatti naturali, ossia di fatti di coscienza, di sensazioni, e che quindi   tra il mondo della materia e Quello dello spirito non viT~) Euyssex] Ma, è stato osservato, le forze naturali e il tempo bastano per spiegare le irregolarità della crosta terrestre, senza  ricorrere ai cataclismi; nè si può affermare che il periodo  attuale risalga solo a sei mila anni, ma a molte migliaia di  più; inoltre a periodi differenti non corrispondono specie differenti, poiché certe specie appaiono in diversi strati successivi, mentre altre si sono estinte prima che avesse fine  l’epoca alla quale appartenevano. Queste ed altre obbiezioni  pur gravi fecero tramontare l’ipotesi del Cnvier, della quale  prese il posto e si diffuse rapidamente quella del Darwin,   Bisogna risalire fino al Rinascimento, per trovare i primi  tentativi d’interpretazione del mondo organico per mezzo dell’evoluzione naturale. Se no trovano accenni in opere di scienziati e filosofi appartenenti alle scuole più diverse, in Giordano  Bruno, in Guglielmo Leibniz, in Antonio Cesalpiuo, nel Buffon, nel Goethe, e più chiaramente nel Damarli ecc. Il Darwin  ebbe il merito, senza dubbio, grandissimo di aver saputo mettere. insieme tutti i fattori dell’evoluzione organica : vide nella  lotta per l’esistenza la causa della selezione naturale, a cui la  variabilità offre la materia, che poi l’eredità trasmette; accanto  a questi fattori principali pose come fattori ausiliari l’azione  dell’ambiente sull’organismo, l’influenza dell’ uso e del non  uso degli organi, la scelta sessuale, la legge di correlazione  di sviluppo.   L 'influenza dell’ambiente è la causa più in vista; piante  e animali si modificano mutando clima e paesi; di tutti gli  esseri viventi sopravvivono solo quelli che sanno adattarsi  all’ambiente.   Gli animali debbono lottare non solamente contro il suolo  e il clima, ma anche fra di loro: le piante sembra che si  contendano i raggi del sole e il nutrimento della terra; gli  animali adoprano l’intelligenza e l’energia che possiedono per  procurarsi da vivere; gli uccelli da preda provvedono alla  propria esistenza mettendo a morte gli uccelli più piccoli e  più deboli; questi alla lor volta si nutrono di insetti, i quali  vivono a spese del regno vegetale; dimodoché tutti gli esseri,  dall’animale più perfetto alla pianta, si movono di continuo  una guerra violenta e accanita; e in questa lotta per resistenza vincono i più forti e i più fecondi. I caratteri che assicurano il trionfo degli individui e delle specie si sviluppano producendo nell’organismo modificazioni più o meno profonde, giacché le diverse parti delPorganismo sono così strettamente collegate fra di loro, che i mutamenti che accadono  in una si fanno sentire più o meno anche nelle altre, donde  la legge di correlazione di sviluppo ; infine Veredità fissa nella  specie i caratteri acquistati dall’individuo. In tal modo la  selezione naturale, mediante continue modificazioni, conduce  ad una trasformazione continua e progressiva degli esseri animali e vegetali, assicurando la sopravvivenza dei più perfetti.   L ipotesi darwiniana, appoggiata ad una grandissima  copia di fatti, di osservazioni e di prove, contribuì a spiegare molti fenomeni che fino allora erano rimasti senza spiegazione, oppure erano stati spiegati in modo imperfetto; non  è quindi a meravigliarsi se oggi essa è accettata dalla maggior parte dei naturalisti come legittima; benché le differenze  nel modo di intenderla siano assai gravi, e benché abbia segnato il principio d’una rivoluzione radicale nell’ interpretazione scientifica della natura. E se oggi la selezione naturale  solleva non poche obbiezioni e appare di per sé sola insufficente a spiegare tutti i fenomeni della vita organica, tuttavia  i principi messi innanzi dal Darwin devono figurare come  la regola il « metodo » generale che bisogna seguire nell' interpretazione dei fenomeni naturali. L’analogia.  Il procedimento analogico ha pure,  come abbiamo già accennato, molta importanza nella ricerca  scientifica. La parola « analogia » ha però bisogno d’esser  chiarita nei suoi significati essenziali, affinchè si possa comprendere il valore che essa possiede nella ricerca scientifica.   Nel linguaggio volgare tale vocabolo s’adopera generalmente come sinonimo di somiglianza, mentre in realtà non  è che ima forma imperfetta di somiglianza. In tutte le  scienze si possono ritrovare esempi d’analogia. Cosi nella  chimica vi sono corpi analoghi, cioè capaci di combinarsi con  un altro corpo dato, producendo composti paralleli ; in fisica    0) De Sablo, Studt di filosofia coni., pag. 143. Roma, Loeschcr] il suono è analogo alla luce, avendo amendue un carattere  comune che è la vibrazione, malgrado la differenza del  mezzo che serve di veicolo.   L’analogia riesce ancor più evidente e frequente negli  esseri viventi; così malgrado le differenze grandi che a  prima vista passano tra un uomo e un uccello e tra un  uccello o un pesce, pure la loro struttura è analoga, poiché  tutti constano d’nna serie di segmenti vertebrali, che formano appunto la colonna vertebrale; hanno tutti un capo  che è collocato all’estremità anteriore di questa colonna, un  tubo digestivo che ne percorre tutta la lunghezza e una  certa quantità d’organi che si corrispondono a vicenda.   L’analogia, considerata come un procedimento dello spirito che mira a nuove cognizioni, si può dire un’ inferenza  che da una rassomiglianza constatata di alcuni punti conchiude alla rassomiglianza su altri punti; è un procedimento  instabile, ondeggiante e multiforme, che può dar luogo ad  aggruppamenti imprevisti e ad invenzioni originali, come ci  dimostra la storia delle scoperte scientifiche, e in generale  tutti i prodotti della fantasia e dell’immaginazione. Negli  spiriti poco precisi e rigorosi nelle loro osservazioni Yanalogia si fonda per lo più sopra il numero degli attributi paragonati, benché non sia raro il caso di analogie singolari  basate su pochissimi caratteri comuni; cosi un bimbo vede  nella luna circondata dalle stelle una madre colle sue figlie ;  gli aborigeni dell’Australia, racconta un viaggiatore, chiamarono un libro una « conchiglia », perchè si apriva e si  chiudeva come la valve di questo animale.   L’analogia è più profonda quando ha per base la qualità o il valore degli attributi messi a confronto; allora s’appoggia sopra un elemento variabile che oscilla dall’essenziale  all’accidentale, dalla realtà all’apparenza; cosi tra i cetacei  e i pesci le analogie sono molte pel profano, tenui pel naturalista. Valore dell’inferenza analogica.  L’analogia può riferirsi ai termini oppure ai rapporti', cosi se da una rassomiglianza di natura fra due organi si inferisce la rassomiglianza delle funzioni, nella prima rassomiglianza abbiamo un’analogia clie si riferisce ai termini; nella seconda ima  analogia elle si riferisce ai rapporti.   L’inferenza analogica si distingue dall’induzione per due  caratteri principali:   1° L’analogia è in realtà una deduzione fondata sopra  una precedente induzione, benché in apparenza proceda dal  particolare al particolare. Sieno per esempio i fenomeni A  e B che abbiamo in comune i caratteri a b c d ; constatando  nel primo un quinto carattere x, posso inferire che esiste  pure un’analogia fra i due fenomeni anche rispetto al carattere x, ossia affermo che anche in B si trova quest’ultimo carattere; per es. Franklin nota che alla scintilla elettrica e al fulmine sono comuni alcuni caratteri, e conclude  che hanno pure comune la causa, donde la scoperta della  causa del fulmine e del mezzo per mitigarne gli effetti. Bisogna però notare che il legame che esiste tra i caratteri  a b c d e il carattere x dev’essere costante e necessario, ossia  deve avere il valore d’una legge ottenuta mediante il procedimento induttivo; non dev’essere un fatto accidentale,  giacché, come è facile comprendere, in tal caso l’analogia  non sarebbe possibile o sarebbe per lo più errata. Molti errori di ragionamento che commette l’osservatore volgare o  poco circospetto dipendono spesso da false analogie. Uanalogia è sempre ipotetica, mentre ciò non si può  dire dell’induzione. Se per es. io osservo sulla terra i caratteri abed. l’atmosfera, il calore, l’umidità e la vita, e constato nel pianeta Marte i caratteri abe, sono tratto a inferire  che anche in Marte esiste il carattere d, ossia la iuta; però  evidentemente questa inferenza è ipotetica, e rimarrà tale  finché l’esperienza non ne abbia provato la verità.   Quindi il ragionamento analogico è di uso assai delicato,  e può condurre ad errori assai frequenti anche nell’osservazione scientifica, come ce ne fanno fede tanto le scienze che  hanno per oggetto lo studio della natura, quanto le scienze  storiche. Un esempio celebre di fallaci analogie è quella già  citata di Newton intorno alla luce; è pure fallace quella che  Platone stabili fra lo stato e l’individuo, in forza della quale  conchiude che debbono esservi tre categorie di cittadini :  servi, guerrieri, reggitori, come vi sono tre facoltà dello spirito, sensibilità, affettività, ragione; Platone non volle vedere  che le proprietà osservate nell’individuo non corrispondono  esattamente alle funzioni esercitate dallo Stato ; in un errore  simile sono caduti recentemente quegli studiosi che hanno  stabilito un’analogia molto stretta fra l’organismo e la società  e hanno affermato che le funzioni sociali debbono corrispondere alle funzioni dell’organismo, riconoscendo nella società  un cervello, i tessuti, la circolazione del sangue, un sistema  nervoso, muscolare ecc. La logica dell' invenzione.  Per ben comprendere la  scienza nei suoi caratteri essenziali, per coglierne lo spirito  sotto le apparenze superficiali, bisogna ancora considerare  brevemente l 'invenzione, la ricerca creatrice, la quale non  di rado trascura i metodi, le forme e le vie comuni dell’indagine, giacché il lavoro della mente che crea si compie  spesso come in un’atmosfera nebbiosa e oscura, spinto quasi  da un presentimento della verità che è anteriore al possesso  chiaro e cosciente di questa. In qualche caso lo spirito dell’ inventore è avvolto dalle contraddizioni, non ha la coscienza  ben chiara di ciò che compie e dello scopo a cui mira, manca  di rigore, di precisione, d’evidenza; spesso nello scoprire una  verità, grazie alla potenza intuitiva del suo ingegno, salta  a piè pari gli anelli intermedi che congiungono una verità  con un’altra, senza curarsi in nessun modo della continuità  e della concatenazione dei suoi ragionamenti. La storia ci  prova ampiamente che una conclusione nuova e giusta è uscita  spesso da falsi ragionamenti, che un edificio creato dalla nostra  mente può essere esatto, mentre ne sono false tutte le singole  parti; non so quale scienziato ha un giorno esclamato: « Io  non vorrei raccontare il succedersi dei miei pensieri in una  ricerca, perchè mi potrebbero giudicare o un imbecille o un  pazzo » . L’amore esclusivo dell’ordine, della chiarezza, della  logica razionale, l’orrore per la contraddizione, che si ritrovano negli spiriti comuni e mediocri, sono non di rado assenti  neigrandi inventori.   Il Turgot, uno dei più saggi filosofi del secolo XVIII  ha scritto : « Se si elevassero monumenti agli inventori nelle  arti e nelle scienze, vi sarebbe un minor numero di statue per gli nomini, che pei fanciulli, per gli animali, e soprattutto, 4  per la fortuna » .   L’importanza del caso nelle invenzioni scientifiche è •]  stata spesso esagerata, e va messa nei suoi giusti limiti; esso 1  va inteso in un doppio senso:   1°. In senso largo, il caso dipende dalle circostanze inteI  riori e psichiche. Si sa che una delle migliori condizioni per I  inventare è l’abbondanza dei materiali, l’esperienza accumuj  lata, un periodo preparatorio lungo, complesso, laborioso, parI  ticolare o generale, che rende poscia lo sforzo efficace e facile; I  nel dominio del pensiero, come negli altri campi, non esiste 9  generazione spontanea.   Le confessioni degli inventori non lasciano alcun dubbio 9  intorno a questo punto, cioè intorno alla necessità d’un gran I  numero di schizzi, di saggi, di abbozzi preparatori, sia che i  si tratti d’uua macchina o d’un poema, d'un quadro o d’uu J  edificio ecc. ; un’ incubazione profonda precede sempre l’e&pvjxa. 1  Qui il caso ha la sua funzione incontestabile, ma dipende • J  infine dall’ individualità, e da questa spunta la sintesi impreM  vista di idee che costituisce la scoperta. 11 caso, in senso limitato, preciso, è un accidente for1  tunato che suscita l’invenzione, ma che non ha in questa il  merito maggiore : si può dire che sia piuttosto la convergenza jj  di due fattori, l’uno interno, il genio individuale, l’altro 9  esterno, l’avvenimento fortuito. È impossibile determinare 9  tutto ciò che l’invenzione deve al caso inteso in questo senso;*  certo nell’ umanità primitiva l’efficacia ne deve essere stata I  enorme: la scoperta del fuoco, la fabbricazione delle armi, degli*  utensili, la fusione dei metalli sono state suggerite da accidenti 9  assai semplici, come, per esempio, la caduta d’un albero attra1  verso un corso d’acqua può aver suggerito la prima idea d’un 9  ponte. Nei tempi storici la raccolta dei fatti autentici forme-'®  rebbe un grosso volume; chi non conosce il pomo di Newton,   la lampada del Galilei, la rana del Galvani? Huyghens ha I  dichiarato che senza un concorso imprevisto di ch’costanze,   l’invenzione del telescopio avrebbe richiesto un « genio sovrumano », mentre si sa che è dovuta ad alcuni bimbi che®  giocavano con vetri nel laboratorio d’un ottico; lo SchònbeinH  scopre l’ozono grazie all’odore fosforico dell’aria quando è attraversata da scintille elettriche; si dice che la vista d’un  granchio abbia suggerito a Giacomo Watt l'idea d’una macchina ingegnosa. Le scoperte di Grimaldi e di Fresnel sulle  interferenze, quelle di Faraday, Arago, Foucault, Fraunhofer,  Kirchhoff e di altri cento debbono qualche cosa al caso.   L’ufficio del fattore esterno è chiaro, mentre è men chiaro  quello del fattore interno, benché sia capitale. Infatti lo stesso  avvenimento fortuito passa davanti a milioni d’uomini senza  suscitare nessuna idea nuova. Quanti Pisani avevano visto  oscillare la lampada nel celebre Duomo prima del Galilei! Il  caso fortunato tocca solo a quelli che lo meritano ; per profittarne occorre prima un acuto spirito d’osservazione, l’attenzione sempre desta e vigile, infine, se si tratta di invenzioni  scientifiche o pratiche, la penetrazione che coglie i rapporti  tra le cose e avvicina caratteri ed elementi, che nessuno aveva  pensato di riunire; in conclusione il caso è un’occasione, non  un agente di creazione. (*)   Il Voltaire attribuiva ad Archimede tanta immaginazione quanta  a Omero; A. Baili, C. Bernard, Th. Ribot hanno poscia determinato  con una certa precisione l ’importanza che l’immag i nazione ha nell e  scienze. Tra i caratteri essenziali dell’immagi nazione, il cui meccanismo sempre e dovunque è presso a poco lo stesso, sono notevoli i seguenti:   1°. Un’invenzione qualsiasi ha sempre i caratteri d’un’opera  d’arte, e nella sua unità rassomiglia ad un organismo vivente; essa  non è mai ottenuta mediante un lavoro d'intarsio discorsivo, ma è  il frutto d'un pensiero intenso e profondo più che metodico e minuzioso.   2°. Ogni inventore è un uomo d’azione; il suo pensiero, cosi  diverso da quello del contemplatore o del critico, va dritto, rapido,  è essenzialmente concreto e specifico, flessibile, prudente, capace  di adattarsi al variare delle circostanze e alle minime indicazioni  dell'esperienza. Si sa che l'abbondanza dei ricordi non è una condizione sufficiente uè necessaria per creare; si è anzi osservato che  un’ignoranza relativa è qualche volta utile per innovare, e favorisc e   l’audacia; vi sono invenzioni scientifiche elio non si sarebbero fatte   séTIoro autori fossero stati trattenuti dai dogmi e dalle opinioni  Ribot, L'imagination créatrice, Alcali] dominanti nei loro tempi e ritenuti come incrollabili ed eterni. La  mente dell’inventore mira al fatto, al risultato.   3°. La facoltà inventiva per eccellenza, come ha osservato il  Bain, consiste nella facoltà di identificare, di percepire somiglianze  e differenze, e suppone quindi una singolare attitudine a pensare  per analogie e por immagini; lo scienziato non si distingue in questo  punto dal poeta.Il metodo sistematico ha  per fine essenziale di dare alle cognizioni scientifiche un ordinamento razionale e di ottenere la prova della verità. Mediante queste operazioni l’insieme dei fenomeni che costituiscono l’oggetto di lina scienza diviene un complesso ordinato  nel quale tutte le parti hanno relazione e dipendenza reciproca.  Al primo ufficio la logica soddisfà con la teoria della definizione e della divisione, che comprende la classificazione ; al  secondo con la teoria della prova e dei principi di prova.  Quest’ultimo ufficio viene anche attribuito ad una parte speciale del metodo, che appunto dicesi dimostrativo.   In tutte le scienze tali operazioni hanno molta importanza per diverse ragioni: una raccolta di fatti e di cognizioni, come possiamo osservare nella tìsica, nella botanica,  nella zoologia ecc., quando viene fatta con ordine sistematico,  mette in maggiore evidenza la verità delle cognizioni rintracciate, che vengono presentate in tal modo alla nostra intelligenza come riunite in un quadro dai contorni chiari e ben  determinati; in ciò il sapere scientifico si distingue specialmente dal sapere comune e volgare che è per lo più disordinato, confuso, e non distingue le nozioni importanti e generali  da quelle che sono meno importanti e particolari, ciò che è  vero da ciò che è falso. Il valore e l’utilità d’un ordinamento  razionale si possono chiaramente stabilire osservando l’ufficio  che esso compie anche nelle raccolte di minore importanza,  come quando si tratta d’una biblioteca, d’un museo, d’un erbario eco., il disordine fa perdere tempo all’osservatore e gli  impedisce di apprezzare l’importanza degli oggetti che ha  davanti agli occhi. La definizione è In  più semplice delle forme sistematiche; precede la divisione e  la classificazione, poiché, se ogni nozione generale, come già  abbiamo visto nella prima parte, ha ima comprensione che  è la somma dei caratteri che essa racchiude, ed un’estensione,  che è il numero degli esseri che, possedendo in comune quei  caratteri, trovansi raggruppati sotto quella nozione, la comprensione determina l’estensione, e quindi la definizione determina la divisione. Ufficio primo della definizione è quello di determinare  con chiarezza e precisione le idee che sono l’oggetto d’una  scienza, ossia il co nte nuto dei singoli concetti; ora la definizione d’un concetto si esprime, nel modo più semplice, mediante un giudizio, nel quale il soggetto è il concetto che  dev’essere definito e dicesi appunto definito o definiendo ; e  il predicato è quella nota o quell’insieme di note, mediante  le quali il soggetto viene definito, e dicesi definiente. La definizione si può prendere in tre significati : è l’operazione o l’insieme d’operazioni che mirano a  determinare l’essenza delle cose ; e in questo senso l’intendeva  Socrate, che pel primo, al dire d’Aristotile, applicò la mente  alle definizioni. Definire era per lui cercare razionalmente  l’essenza delle cose, xò li iotiv ; cosi egli voleva determinare  l’idea della giustizia, della sapienza, della prudenza, l’idea  dell'uomo politico, del giudice ecc.; la definizione di queste  idee e di quelle simili permetteva di misurarne esattamente  l’oggetto e il valore e quindi di regolare meglio la nostra  vita pratica.   E chiaro che in questo significato la definizione è il  mezzo della scienza, in quanto tende alla conoscenza dei caratteri essenziali delle cose;   b) la definizione può anche essere il fine della scienza,  ossia la nozione, il concetto, nel quale si rende stabile il risultato della ricerca scientifica ; infine la definizione può essere intesa come l’operazione, la quale consiste nello sviluppare in una proposizione  o giudizio il contenuto d’un concetto ottenuto mediante la ricerca scientifica. In quest’ultimo significato è l’espressione della  scienza, la formula esplicita e breve dei risultati della scienza. I caratteri e le note che  formano il contenuto d’un concetto possono essere numerosi  e di specie diversa e di valore disuguale, e non possono di  conseguenza entrare tutti nella definizione scientifica; ma,  poiché la scienza ha per oggetto il generale, la definizione  ha per oggetto ciò che dicesi l’essenza ed esclude il particolare, l’accidente. Vediamo quindi che vuol dire essenza d’un  concetto.   L’essenza è costituita dall’insieme dei caratteri intimi  che persistono in mezzo al variare delle relazioni e delle modificazioni accidentali ; è ciò che l’essere possiede in sé stesso,  ciò che non può cessare d’appartenergli, senza che esso cessi  tosto di esistere. Li’accidente è ora un rapporto fortuito, come  ad esempio il posto occupato da un individuo o da un oggetto  nello spazio e nel tempo, ora una modificazione accessoria che  altera, per cosi dire, soltanto la superficie dell’essere che la  subisce, senza toccarne il fondo, è, in generale, tutto ciò che  avviene negli esseri per un concorso fortuito di circostanze  esteriori.   Si comprende quindi come la definizione escluda l’accidente e accolga solo ciò che è essenziale.   Però bisogna avvertire che questi due concetti non hanno  limiti fissi, giacché l’accidente può alla sua volta divenire  oggetto di definizione; cosi, se non si può definire l’uomo per  mezzo di qualche malattia, cui vada soggetto, si può però  definire la malattia nei suoi caratteri essenziali, escludendone  gli accidenti particolari, ai quali esso può andare incontro.   Però non tutte le nozioni si possono definire in modo  preciso e determinato, e nelle diverse scienze, oltre le definizioni approssimate, come le idee di colore, tono, sapore, vi  sono definizioni oscillanti, come avviene per le idee che si  arricchiscono di continuo per mezzo dell’esperienza e mediante  caratteri che vengono aggiunti dalle nuove scoperte. Per  esempio, dice il Taine, la nozione che un uomo ordinario ha  del corpo umano è assai misera e incompleta: per lui è una  testa, un tronco, un collo, quattro membra d’un colore e di  una certa forma; e questi pochi caratteri gli sono sufficienti  per la pratica usuale della vita ; ma è chiaro che i caratteri  propri del corpo umano sono infinitamente più numerosi ; l'anatomico vuol sezionare, notare, descrivere, disegnareil  manuale che si dà agli studenti ha mille pagine, e occorrerebbe un bel numero d’atlanti e di volumi per contenere le  hgure e l'enumerazione di tutte le parti che l’occhio nudo  ha constatate.   Se poi l’occhio s’arma d’un microscopio, questo numero  si centuplica; al di là del nostro microscopio, uno strumento  piu potente aumenterebbe ancora la nostra conoscenza; continuando per questa via la ricerca non ha termine.   Inoltre in alcune scienze le detinizioni segnano come il  punto d’arrivo della ricerca scientifica, in altre invece segnano il punto di partenza. Cosi nella geometria, dove nessun  ragionamento e possibile senza le definizioni, queste debbono  essere stabilite da principio; mentre nelle scienze sperimentali, dove esprimono i risultati ottenuti, debbono rappresentarne le conclusioni. E evidente che le definizioni del triangolo, del circolo, del quadrato ecc. debbono precedere qualsiasi  ragionamento intorno a queste figure; e che la definizione  delia « vita » nelle scienze biologiche non può essere che il  risultato di un gran numero di ricerche e di studi che riguardano i fenomeni vitali. Infine nella definizione debbono entrare quelle note che  sono sufficienti per distinguere il concetto definendo sia dai  concetti simili, sia dai concetti che appartengono ad altre  classi; per questo si dice che la definizione si fa pel genere  prossimo e per la differenza specifica, de/ìnitio, dicevano gli  Scolastici, fit per genua proximum et differentiam specificavi. Definire pel genere prossimo, cioè per quel genere che più,  s avvicina alla comprensione del definendo, equivale a indicare il gruppo di cui un oggetto o un individuo fa parte, e '  quindi attribuirgli implicitamente i caratteri di questo gruppocosi per definire l’uomo è inutile dire che è un animale vertebrato, mammifero-, quest’ultimo carattere, che esprime il genere prossimo, è sufficiente, giacché implica i due primi.   Definire per la differenza specifica vuol dire constatare  e determinare 1 caratteri speciali che appartengono solo al  definendo e lo distinguono da tutti gli altri esseri del medesimo gruppo. Cosi se al carattere « mammifero » noi aggiungiamo, per designare l’uomo, quello di bimane, gli attribuiamo con quest’ultimo concetto un carattere che lo distingue da  tutti gli altri mammiferi. Diverse specie di definizioni.  Il metodo che si adopera nel lare una definizione può essere duplice, positivo e  negativo. Il primo consiste nel riunire nella definizione tutti  i caratteri che servono a determinare il definendo; il secondo  mira invece a stabilire i caratteri che debbono essere esclusi  e non possono attribuirsi al definiendo. Quest’ultimo metodo  ó assai meno perfetto e si può considerare, nella maggior  parte dei casi, come un complemento del primo.   La definizione si suole distinguere in nominale e reale.  La definizione nominale ha per fine di spiegare e di determinare in forma precisa il valore e il significato d’una parola,  o di fissare il senso costante di alcune parole attraverso le  varietà mutabili delle significazioni particolari. Essa ha valore  logico non in quanto sia una semplice spiegazione etimologica  o sintattica, nel qual caso la definizione rientra nel campo  della grammatica, ma solo in quanto serva di preparazione  alla definizione reale. Vi è un certo numero di parole che non  sono facilmente definibili pel numero e la varietà degli elementi che contengono e che spesso sono il prodotto di varie  epoche storiche; di qui la difficoltà che s’incontra nel definire la « società » oggetto di tante dispute nella scienza sociale contemporanea, la religione, lo stato ecc. La definizione reale tende a darci invece l’essenza d’un  concetto, il valore intrinseco del definiendo, indicando i caratteri che questo ha comuni con gli altri concetti simili, e  quelli che ne lo differenziano; si fa quindi, come s’è già detto,  pel genere prossimo e per la differenza specifica.   Anche qui le difficoltà per ben definire non sono poche,  quando si tratti di concetti che si considerano come un prodotto storico o di concetti scientifici, ai quali nuove esperienze  possono di continuo aggiungere nuovi elementi; sono minori  per altre scienze, come ad esempio perle matematiche, dove  sono possibili definizioni perfette. Inoltre la definizione, considerata sotto un altro aspetto,  può essere anche analitica o sintetica.   E analitica quando risolve il concetto del definito in più altri concetti; per es. l’eredità fisiologica è la trasmissione  di caratteri speciali dell’organismo dai progenitori ai discendenti; oppure: il cerchio è una curva chiusa che ha tutti i  punti^ della circonferenza equidistanti dal centro.   L sintetica la definizione, quando nel determinare i caratteri del concetto segue il processo col quale il definiendo  si è venuto formando, ossia costituisce un concetto per mezzo  di altri concetti più semplici. In questo senso la definizione  può essere detta genetica, in quanto espone la genesi d’un  concetto ; e questa si può considerare come la forma più perfetta del definire. Un esempio di definizione genetica è il  seguente : Se in un piano, tenendo ferma una retta ad un  suo estremo, la muovo sempre nello stesso senso e in modo  che essa torni alla sua posizione di partenza, descrivo una  figura che dicesi circolo. Si sogliono anche distinguere due specie di definizioni genetiche, la diretta e V indicativa: è diretta quando essa stessa  produce e costituisce il definiendo; è indicativa quando espone  il modo col quale il definiendo può essere prodotto da cause  che sono distinte dal nostro pensiero, come avviene delle cose  prodotte dalla natura, per es. dei ghiacciai, dei venti ecc.   5. Regole della definizione.  Le principali regole che  si debbono seguire per ottenere una buona definizione logica  sono le seguenti :  i concetti defi nienti non debbono essere una semplice  tautologia del concetto definito o definiendo, ossia il definiente non deve ripetere colla stessa o con diversa forma  grammaticale il definito, come quando si dice che uomo bugiardo è colui che dice bugie. Questo errore assai comune  viene indicato dalla logica tradizionale colle note parole latine : idem per idem definire. la definizione non dev’essere circolare, ossia non ci  deve spiegare il delùdente mediante il definito e viceversa,  ricordando 1 errore del circolo vizioso, come quando si definisce  la coscienza per la percezione dei fatti interni, e questi ultimi  vengono definiti per quei fatti che si producono nella nostra  coscienza.   c) la definizione non dev’essere negativa, ossia deve dire  non già quello clie il definiente non è, ma quello che è, ed  esporre i suoi caratteri propri. Sarebbe negativa la definizione che chiamasse la virtù la qualità opposta al vizio.la definizione dev’essere infine chiara ed esatta, non  dev’essere sovrabbondante, non essere nè troppo ampia, nè  troppo ristretta, deve evitare le espressioni improprie, oscure,  e anche le espressioni figurate, quando non contribuiscono a  chiarire il concetto. Cosi quando si dice che il bello è lo  splendore del vero, non si giunge ad avere del bello un concetto nè chiaro nè esatto. Le definizioni di questo genere nascondono spesso l’ignoranza di cognizioni sicure e profonde intorno all’oggetto che  si vuole definire, oppure anche l’imperfezione della scienza.   6. La divisione.  La divisione, intesa come operazione  logica, determina l’estensione d’un concetto, mentre la definizione ne determina la comprensione ; essa si riduce quindi  a un giudizio, nel quale s’espongono le diverse specie d’una  idea generale, e il dividendo, che rappresenta il genere, fa da  soggetto, mentre il dividente, che contiene l’enumerazione delle  diverse specie contenute nel dividendo, fa da predicato.   Anzitutto nella divisione bisogna considerare le note contenute nel concetto da dividere, distinguere in esso gli elementi generici, che sono costanti, dagli elementi variabili,  che costituiscono il cosiddetto fondamento o principio della  divisione. Cosi nella nota divisione delle lingue in monosillabiche, agglutinanti, flessive, le parti divise sono queste ultime, il dividendo è il concetto lingua, e la divisione è fondata  sulla morfologia.   Le regole della divisione sono le seguenti: La divisione deve corrispondere esattamente all’oggetto suo, ossia le sue parti debbono riprodurne tutta l’estensione, in modo che nessuna parte ne sia trascurata e non  ve ne sia alcuna superflua. Ogni divisione dev’essere fatta secondo un unico principio. Così se dividiamo le opinioni professate dagli uomini  in vere, false e dubbie, la divisione posa sopra un doppio principio, la verità e la certezza: le opinioni tutte, comprese  quelle dubbie, sono vere o false ; cosicché converrebbe fare due divisioni: a) tutte le opinioni sono o vere o false; b) tutte  le opinioni sono o certe o dubbie.   3°. La divisione non dev’essere negativa, ossia ogni specie  divisa deve avere caratteri propri, non già essere una semplice negazione dei caratteri della specie opposta. Così è negativa l’antica divisione degli animali in vertebrati e invertebrati. Le parti divise debbono essere coordinate ed opposte:  bisogna far in modo che nessun oggetto o nessun essere possa  venir collocato in due termini d’una medesima divisione.  Cosi chi dividesse i fenomeni naturali in fisici, chimici, psichici e volontari cadrebbe nell’errore che è cagionato dal non  osservare la presente regola ; infatti i fenomeni volontari non  sono nè opposti uè coordinati a quelli psichici, ma subordinati ad essi, e ne sono parte.   La divisione più semplice è quella die dicesi dicotomia, la  quale consiste nel dividere il genere in due specie opposte, che si  distinguono per la presenza nell'una e l'assenza nella seconda d’un  solo e medesimo carattere. La classi fic azion e delle scienze concepita  dal fisico Ampère è una vera e propria divisione dicotomica ; egli  infatti distingue le scienze in due grandi regni, scienze cosmologiche  che si occupano del mondo materiale e studiano la natura, e scienze  nooloyiche che studiano il mondo morale e spirituale. Ciascuna di  queste classi si suddivido alla sua volta in altre due classi minori  e così di seguito; l'Ampère giunge con questo metodo a stabilire cento  ventotto scienze speciali, che abbracciano tutte le cognizioni umane. La classificazione; utilità e specie diverse.  Una   forma sistematica del sapere scientifico più importante di  quella precedente è la classificazione, la quale tende a presentare in modo compiuto e ordinato tutte le parti che compongono un complesso di cognizioni omogenee. Essa si può  dire una divisione complessa risultante da una divisione principale e da una o più divisioni subordinate o suddivisioni.  Nella classificazione lo scienziato parte da un concetto generale, ne distingue prima le specie immediate e più generali ;  in ciascuna di queste poscia le specie rispettive, finché giunga  fino alle ultime specie per mezzo di successive divisioni e  suddivisioni. I vantaggi che presenta un tale ordinamento delle cognizioni scientifiche sono evidenti. Anzitutto il contenuto di  nna data scienza viene compreso in un prospetto sintetico,  che abbrevia il tempo necessario per apprendere, riducendo  in un certo senso il numero delle cognizioni indispensabili;  cosi per es. il regno animale abbraccia probabilmente non  meno di 600000 specie, che lo zooologo riesce a conoscere in  modo relativamente completo riducendo gli individui in specie,  le specie in generi, i generi in famiglie ecc.; il quadro in tal  modo semplificato può essere facilmente ritenuto e riprodotto  dalla memoria, benché non ci fornisca che una cognizione  schematica o scheletrica della natura, che per la scienza è  però sufficiente e, pur sopprimendo i caratteri particolari,  estende mirabilmente il campo delle nostre conoscenze.   In secondo luogo la classificazione ci permette di apprendere non solo un numero infinito di esseri o di oggetti, ma  anche la loro 'parentela mediante le loro affinità naturali. In  tal modo l’immensità della natura viene riassunta non solo  in una forma concisa, ma anche in una forma ordinata ed  armonica.   Inoltre la somiglianza e le affinità constatate tra gli esseri  appartenenti ad un dato gruppo permettono spesso di inferire altre somiglianze ed affinità prima ignorate. Così, come  dice il botanico Adriano de Jussieu, quando sappiamo che un  certo numero di piante costituiscono una famiglia, di solito  siamo tratti ad attribuir loro le medesime proprietà economiche e medicinali.   La classificazione può essere artificiale o naturale.   La classificazione artificiale, che ha uno scopo essenzialmente pratico e mnemonico, tende a darci la conoscenza degli  oggetti o degli esseri che si vogliono classificare fondandosi  sopra un numero ristretto di caratteri, i quali vengono scelti  fra i più appariscenti, senza badare alla loro importanza intrinseca; un esempio di classificazione artificiale è l’ordinamento d’una biblioteca, dove i libri vengono disposti o secondo  l’ordine alfabetico, o secondo il formato, o, meglio, secondo il  contenuto. La classificazione naturale invece si ha quando, per riprodurre in certo qual modo l’ordine della natura, è fondata sopra la scelta dei caratteri più importanti, manifesti oppure  occulti, permanenti oppure evolutivi. La forma più perfetta  di classificazione naturale è quella detta genetica (da yiveatc  nascita, origine, formazione) la quale tende a classificare gli  esseri secondo l’ordine della loro apparizione. Cosi la biologia  mira, secondo tale principio, alla classificazione genetica delle  forme viventi, la psicologia a quella dei fatti psichici, la  filologia comparata a quella delle lingue. Fondamento della classificazione.  Il fondamento  della classificazione naturale è da ricercarsi, come si comprende facilmente da ciò che già si è detto, non nelle pròprietà apparenti, ma nelle primarie o causali, ovvero in quelle  che sono segni di proprietà primarie o causali; ossia bisogna  fermare 1 attenzione sopra i caratteri che si posson chiamare  dominatori, perchè la presenza di ciascuno di questi trae seco  necessariamente quella d’un certo numero di caratteri subordinati, essendovi tra un carattere dominante e i caratteri subordinati ad esso uniti un rapporto costante e necessario, una  legge non di successione, ma di coesistenza, di contemporaneità. In altre parole, la presenza di certi caratteri fondamentali fa supporre con certezza l’esistenza di altri caratteri;  come avviene specialmente nei gruppi animali.   Per questa ragione le classificazioni zoologiche sono fondate sui caratteri anatomici e fisiologici più importanti ed  essenziali; per esempio il pipistrello, che in apparenza ha  maggior affinità cogli uccelli, tuttavia è messo fra i mamini. ' b 01cllè ^ questi ultimi possiede i caratteri dominanti; in modo simile la balena è mammifero e non pesce ecc.   E pur sempre per questo motivo di regola generale  nelle classificazioni scientifiche si va dall’idea più generale  a quelle che sono a queste immediatamente subordinate, e così  di seguito a mano a mano alle specie più distinte, senza  omettere alcun anello intermedio. Il metodo dimostrativo ha per  fine di giustificare la verità delle conoscenze scientifiche, di  accertare noi stessi e gli altri d’una verità già scoperta facendola derivare dalla verità d’altre conoscenze, per offrire  in questo modo un fondamento logico alle nostre osservazioni.   La prova o dimostrazione, cosi concepita è un complemento  necessario delle altre operazioni logiche, le quali forniscono  ed ordinano le cognizioni scientifiche, ma non ce ne danno  la giustificazione che appaghi la nostra mente, collegando la  verità d’una conclusione alla verità delle premesse, come fa  la prova.   Nella prova bisogna distinguere tre elementi principali :   a) la tesi da provare. Ti*’er sé stesse in-,  dimostrabili.   Spesso nella vita pratica, quando si vuole ottenere qualche line particolare, si parte dalla tesi supposta vera e si    dimostra come essa non porti a nessuna conseguenza falsa.  La prova diretta e regressiva o induttiva che dir si voglia parte d ai particolari, come abbiamo già d et to, p er salire al  principio generale ; dimodoché la verità di questo si deve am  300 0 00000 mettere grazie alla verità dei particolari sui quali si fonda.»    Questa forma di dimostrazione ha la sua base nella verità  del principio dell’ induzione, intorno alla quale già a lungo  si è discorso, essa si adopera in tutte le scienze, ma più specialmente nelle scienze naturali, e meno nelle matematiche.   •Sia per esempio da provare la tesi seguente: la celerità  della I erra nella sua orbita intorno al Sole é in ragione inversa  della distanza da esso; la prova si ottiene osservando se è  verificata almeno in due casi particolari, cioè quando la Terra  si trova nel punto più lontano dal Sole ossia nell’afelio, o  quando raggiunge la massima vicinanza col Sole, ossia nel  perielio.   La prova diretta regressiva è d’uso assai frequente anche nella iuta pratica, quando per esempio si vuol provare  la bontà d un provvedimento o d’un disegno qualsiasi, applacandolo nei casi e nelle circostanze particolari ; così Focione  disapprovava nna spedizione di poche navi che gli Ateniesi  volevano tare contro una città, dicendo che era troppo piccola  per un’impresa ostile, e troppo grande per un atto d’amicizia. Prova indiretta.  La prova indiretta e progressiva  si ha quando si prova la falsità della tesi opposta o aj^gpi  partendo da due principi generali. Sia per esempio da provare la tesi : due rette perpendicolari ad una terza sono  perpendicolari fra di loro; si prova la falsità dell’antitesi:  due parallele perpendicolari ad una terza non sono parallele  fra di loro, partendo dal principio generale che « da un punto  preso fuori di una retta non si può sulla medesima abbassare  che una perpendicolare. Una seconda forma della prova indiretta e progressiva  si ha quando si dimostra che V antitesi conduce a conseguenz e  le duali o jono assurde, o sono in co ntraddizione con prin  cipi, la cui verità è solidamente stabilita e non si può in nessun casomeitere m dubbio. Sia per esempio da provare la  tesi seguente : il triangolo equilatero non può essere rettan  golo; si ammette, per ipotesi, che sia vera la tesi opposta: il  triangolo equilatero può essere rettangolo; in tal caso la conseguenza è che il triangolo equilatero dev’essere anche equia ngolo ; e poiché ciò non è possibile ammettere, perchè dovrebbe  avere dille angoli retti, si conchiude essere falsa l’antitesi e  vera la tesi da provare.   La prova indiretta regressiva, che dicesi anche ap^gogica  o induttiva, si ha quando si vuol provare la tesi esponendo  quali principi assurdi bisognerebbe accogliere se si ritenesse T  vera l’antitesi. Cosi per dimostrare la necessità del governo  che diriga e regoli l’attività dei cittadini, si espone quali  principi falsi bisognerebbe ammettere intorno agli uomini, per j~~l  dimostrare che l’anarchia è utile e giovevole alla società umana. I principi supremi delle scienze.  Le scienze hanno  per fine proprio la spiegazione della natura, la quale si presenta a noi come una massa enorme di fenomeni; spiegare i  quali vuol dire per la mente umana ricondurli sotto rapporti  di più in più semplici e generali, finché si giunga ai princip! supremi e irriducibili di ciascuna scienza, cioè a quei!  principi e a quelle leggi che non si possono derivare d a i.rin-l  o c a leggi piu__semplici. La dimostrazione ci conduce in i  ultima analisi a tali principi supremi, giacché, dovendo una  di giostrazione fondarsi senti r e soura altre verità già areni? ]  t a^e, dipende da altre dimo str azioni ole presuppone: ina in  u imo devesi giungere n e cessariamente a verità fondamen' ^ mdimos trabil i, e che sono evidenti per sè stesse .   osi nella meccanica i principi irriducibili sono le leggi  fondamentali e più generali del movimento; nella fisica l’inerzia. l’equivalenza e la trasformazione delle forze; nella chimica la teoria atomica; nella biologia, la contrattilità, l'assimilazione e la proliferazione dell’elemento anatomico, ossia  la vita, che le scienze biologiche studiano in tutte le sue  svariate manifestazioni. L’irriducibilità di queste leggi appare manifesta: il moto non si può dedurre dalla quantità,  nè 1 attrazione dal movimento, nè l’attività dall’attrazione. )  E necessario però notare che se ciascuna scienza ha prin li -riducibili e fondamentali, tuttavia le scienze tutte  formano nel loro complesso una specie d’organismo, le cui  parti sono strettamente collegate fra loro e si aiutano di  continuo a vicenda; giacché sappiamo che nè il fisico può  fare a meno nelle sue ricerche delle cognizioni matematiche,  nè il chimico delle cognizioni fisiche, nè il fisiologo delle cognizioni di fisica e di chimica e cosi di seguito.   \ odiamo inoltre che i principi fondamentali costituiscono  una sene di nozioni di complessità crescente, in modo simile a .  quello che è già stato osservato nella classificazione delle  scienze del Cointe; infatti c iascun a nozion e, pur contenendo  un fiuid irriducibile, cade sotto l’estensione del principiar  piecede, e diviene di questo un caso par ticolare . Così, coni*  piuta per mezzo dell’astrazione e dell’analisi la distinzione  delle proprietà fondamentali, ne succede tosto la sintesi: il  movimento s’aggiunge alla quantità, l’affinità chimica all’attrazione, al movimento e alla quantità ecc. Definizioni, ipotesi, postulati, assiomi.  I principi supremi delle dimostrazioni si possono ridurre a quattro classi  principali: le definizioni, le ipotesi, i postulati, gli assiomi. Le definizioni, secondo quanto s’è già stabilito, conten-UPF'iNf£) Gomperz] dere, dipendono sopratutto dall’esame critico e dal buon senso  dell’osservatore.   Il secondo caso è quello della verisiiniglianza quantitativa, o calcolo delle probabilità, che consiste nel determinare  quale di due affermazioni di materia identica, ma opposte, sia  più probabile; se la causa a ha ora per effetto b, ora per  effetto c, sicché sia vero ugualmente che a produce b e che  a non produce b, si tratta di vedere quale dei due effetti  b o c è più probabile; chiamando m i casi di b ed n quelli  di c, evidentemente sarà più probabile quello degli effetti,  che ha per sé il maggior numero di casi favorevoli. Il probabilismo ha le sue radici nell’antichità e si può  dire che sia sorto con l’arte oratoria; i primi retori siciliani  Corace e Tisia considerano il verisimile (sìxós) come lo  strumento necessario della retorica, e distinguono due specie  ‘»i, ver isimiglianza, 1 assoluta (eìxój àTUÀòi;) e la relativa  (eìxó? Tt); i filosofi della Nuova Accademia, soprattutto Arcesilao e Cameade acuti osservatori della vita, sostengono che  in nessun dominio del sapere noi possiamo raggiungere la  verità e, per conseguenza, la certezza assoluta, ma che dobbiamo in ogni caso accontentarci di semplici probabilità. Probabile aliquid esse (dicebat) et quasi verisimile eaque  se uti regula et in agenda vita et in qunerendo ac disserendo CICERONE, Acad.). Dopo saggi importanti di Pascal, di Bernouilli e di Leibniz, la logica del probabile  trova, nei tempi moderni, due cultori eminenti nel Laplace  e nel Cournot.   Il grande Trattato del Laplace comprende due parti:  una parte matematica, la Teoria analitica delle probabilità, e una parte filosofica, Saggio filosofico sulle probabilità, che espone, senza l’aiuto dell’analisi matematica,  i principi della teoria delle probabilità, i suoi risultati generali e le applicazioni più importanti.   Il calcolo delle probabilità riposa, secondo il Laplace,  sulla nozione del caso che ha il suo fondamento nella nostra  ignoranza delle cause e serve a dissimulare la nostra debolezza, giacché nell’universo tutto è rigorosamente determinato e bisogna considerare lo stato presente del mondo come l’effetto dello stato anteriore e come la causa di quello che  deve seguire.   La causa che è manifesta in certi fenomeni semplici,  per es. nei fenomeni celesti, ci sfugge in altri fenomeni più  complessi, che noi, nella nostra ignoranza, attribuiamo al  caso. Benché la scienza tenda a eliminare sempre più i casi  fortuiti, tuttavia non è sempre facile respingere l’ipotesi del  caso: perciò le probabilità hanno una grandissima importanza nelle conoscenze umane. « Le questioni più importanti  nella vita sono per la maggior parte problemi di probabilità;  anzi, parlando con rigore, si può dire che quasi tutte le  nostre conoscenze sono solamente probabili, e, che nel piccolo numero di cose, che, nelle stesse scienze matematiche,  possiamo sapere con certezza, i mezzi principali per giungere alla verità, l’aualogia e l’induzione, si fondano sulle  probabilità. Cournot nel 1843 pubblica la sua Esposizione della  teoria dei rischi e delle probabilità », colla quale vuole insegnare alle persone, che non conoscono le matematiche superiori, le regole del calcolo delle probabilità, senza le quali,  non possiamo renderci un conto esatto nè della posizione  delle misure ottenute nelle scienze d’osservazione, nè del  valore dei numeri forniti dalla statistica, nè delle condizioni  del successo di molte imprese commerciali.   Chiamasi probabilità matematica d'un avvenimento il rapporto  esistente tra il immero dei cas i favorevoli a questo avvenimento  e il numero di tutti gli altri casi possibili ; laonde tutti questi casi  debbono essere egualmente possibili.   Prendiamo un paio di dadi da giocare, in forma di cubi geometricamente regolari e affatto eguali; in queste condizioni non si  può ammettere che, gottando i dadi nel modo consueto, i dadi caschino sopra una faccia piuttosto che sopra un’altra; in altri termini, i casi di caduta d’ogni dado sono ugualmente possibili.   Ogni faccia dei dadi è segnata con numeri (dall'uno al sei  eompreso) e tutti e due i dadi si gettano nel medesimo tempo; è  chiaro che ogui faccia d’uno dei dadi può cadere con ogni faccia  dell'altro dado; si avrebbero così 36 casi possibili di combinazione  di numeri a due a due. Indicando l'uno dei dadi con A e l’altro  con B, possiamo comporre la seguente tabella dei 36 casi possibili.  TAam» o Cl l  u  A B 11 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6  A B 2 1   2 2  2 3  2 4  2 5  2 6  A B  3 1   3 2 3 3 3 4  3 5 3 6 A B 4 1 4 2 4 3 4 4  4 5 4 6 A B  5 1  5 2  5 3  5 4  5 5  5 6 A B  6 1  6 2  6 3  6 4  6 5  6 6. Come si disse, tutte le combinazioni di questa tabella sono  ugualmente probabili: cosi l’avere il numero 5 sul dado A e il  numero 2 sul dado B, è ugualmente probabile cbe l’avere 6 e 6  su tutti e due i dadi. Ma se consideriamo la sortita dei numeri 2  e 5 indipendentemente dal dado sul qualo possono comparire, allora la probabilità di sortita di questa coinbinnzione si distinguer»  dalla probabilità di sortita dell'altrn combinazione 6 o 6 per questo,  che la prima combinazione s'avrà tanto con 5-2 cbe con 2-5, mentre  la combinazione 6 e 6 rimarrà limitata n una sola volta fra le 36  coppie di numeri. In questo modo la probabilità matematica di  sortita dei numeri 5 e 2 (rimanendo indifferente cbe ciascun d’essi  appaia sul dado A o sul dado B) sarebbe di */j 0 ossia di ‘/ist  mentre pei numeri 6 e 6 è solo di '/ss Se poi consideriamo la sortita, sui due dadi, di numeri tali  che la loro somma corrisponda ad una quantità desiderata, allora  la probabilità d'avere questa somma sarebbe, por le differenti qualità, affatto diversa. Così per os. il numero 2 si potrebbe avere in  un modo solo, cioè coll’uscita dei numeri 1-1, mentre il numero 7  si potrebbe avere nei seguenti modi : 1-6, 6-1, 2-5, 5-2, 3-4, 4-3, per cui la probabilità dell'uscita del numero 2 sarebbe di l jn, del  numero 7 sarebbe di e / 3 «.   Dalla definizione data della probabilità matematica, risulta  che essa è sempre una frazione, vale a dire un numero di parti  dell’unità, alla quale questa probabilità s’avvicina tanto più quanto  maggioro è il numero dei casi favorevoli all’avvenimento in confronto doi casi possibili. Questa frazione potrebbe cambiarsi nell’unità solo quando non esistesse nessun caso sfavorevole all'avvenimento aspettato; ecco perchè l’unità si considera come il simbolo  della certezza. Carattere generale delle scienze storiche  2. Oggetto delle scienze storiche ~   3. Svolgimento del concetto di storia  4. La storia ì> una scienza o un’arte?  La critica storica  6. Esiste una scienza generale della società? Il metodo nello studio dei fenomeni sociali.   1. Carattere generale delle scienze storiche.  Come si  è già accennato parlando della classificazione delle scienze,  la storia ha per oggetto il particolare, l’ individuale, ciò che  esiste una volta sola e non si ripete mai. Per comprendere  il valore di questa affermazione e per stabilire a quali scienze  si può sicuramente applicare, bisogna anzitutto determinare  con esattezza il significato dell’espressione: fatto o avvenimento individuale di cui si occupa lo storico.   Individuale è, in questo caso, ciò che si riscontra una  sola volta nel mondo, tanto se il fatto è singolare, cioè non  appartiene che a un solo corpo o essere, quanto se è generale,  cioè comprende una collettività, è comune a più esseri. In tal  senso si considerano come fatti individuali : la sovrapposizione  degli strati, terrestri, la quale non si è mai ripetuta nel corso  del tempo ; le specie vegetali e animali scomparse che hanno  popolato la terra solo in un’epoca determinata; tutti i fatti  storici propriamente detti, che non si sono prodotti che una  sola volta nel passato, come gli imperi egiziano, babilonese,  persiano, la civiltà greca, la conquista macedone, la dominazione romana, l’invasione dei barbari, il feudalismo, l’impero  di Carlo Magno, le Crociate, l’emancipazione dei Comuni, lo  assolutismo del secolo XVII, la Rivoluzione francese e così  di seguito.   Tutti questi fatti e gli altri simili ad essi sono individuali, perchè si constatano una sola volta nelle formazioni  dello spazio e in quelle del tempo. I fatti più universali sotto  l’aspetto dello spazio possono entrare nel quadro della storia  tostocliè vengano individualizzati nel tempo, ossia quando si sono prodotti una sola volta nei secoli decorsi. Appunto in  questo senso, secondo la nota ipotesi del Laplace, il nostro  sistema planetario è passato dalla nebulosa primitiva allo  stato attuale attraverso a tappe successive che non si sono  mai riprodotte nel corso del tempo.   La stessa cosa si può affermare delle modificazioni subite  dalla crosta terrestre, dei fatti della storia umana: si è vista una sola volta l’epoca della pietra rozza, una sola volta  l'epoca della pietra levigata e quella del bronzo; gli uomini  d’un paese sono pure passati una sola volta dallo stato di  cacciatori a quello di pastori, e da questo allo stato di agricoltori.   Anche quando sembra che i fatti storici si ripetano, codesta ripetizione è talmente differente, che i fatti, i quali  paiono ripetersi, in realtà sono nuovi. Cosi la produzione letteraria si è manifestata in tutte le epoche; ma in ciascuna  epoca essa ha rivestito un carattere particolare: la letteratura  classica del periodo aureo in Grecia e in Roma è ben diversa  dal nostro Cinquecento o dalla letteratura francese dell’epoca  di Luigi XIV. Ciò che bisogna considerare in queste fioriture  letterarie non è già il fondo comune umano, la tendenza ad  esprimere il bello mediante la lingua, ma la forma diversa  colla quale tale tendenza si è manifestata. Lo stesso avviene  di tutti gli altri fatti storici: tutti si ripetono, poiché l’uomo  rimane sempre il medesimo, coi suoi bisogni e colle sue aspizioni; ma il contenuto delle sue produzioni varia di continuo  e le opere sue sono sempre differenti, possiedono un carattere  individuale.   Ben diversa è la concezione dei fatti universali nel tempo,  ossia di quelli che si ripetono con differenze trascurabili, come  la rivoluzione dei pianeti intorno al Sole, la circolazione dell'acqua sulla terra, lo scambio d’ossigeno e d’acido carbonico  tra le piante e gli animali ecc. Sono fatti che si sono prodotti, si producono, e, possiamo dire, si produrranno anche nel  futuro, quando siano date le condizioni necessarie in forza del  postulato dell’uniformità delle leggi di natura, di cui già si  è parlato diffusamente. Invece, dei fatti storici si può affermare che sono fatti di successione, i quali sono avvenuti una  sola volta e non avverranno più; il che porta ad una eouseguenza importante, cioè che i fatti storici non si possono  esprimere, come i fatti naturali, per mezzo di leggi universali  e necessarie. \   Questa è la differenza più grave che corra fra le scienze  che si possono dire di sviluppo e di successione e le ricerche  teoriche, cioè quelle che studiano i fatti di ripetizione.   Alcuni sociologi hauuo creduto di ritrovare nella storia alcune  leggi sui generis: essi, considerando le serie intere di fatti successivi come fatti singolari, le hanno riunite in fasci c ne hanno tratte  leggi mediante gli stessi procedimenti che le scienze nomotetiche  applicano ni fatti singolari di ripetizione. In tal modo si è tentato  di formulare la Ugge dell’evoluzione religiosa, secondo la quale le  concezioni religiose sono sempre passale attraverso a tre stati consecutivi : il feticismo, il politeismo e il monoteismo (Spencer, Gumplowicz); la legge dell’evoluzione politica, espressa nella formula  seguente: la serie politica incomincia con l'anarchia, passa pel clan  famigliare, per la tribù repubblicana dapprima, più tardi monarchica  e aristocrntica, giunge alla monarchia dispotica, e infine, con uu  ritorno corretto verso le sue origini, arriva ni governo parlamentare  (Letourneau); la legge dell'evoluzione della pittura, che nei suoi primordi è religiosa, per dare origine alla pittura mitologica come ramo  parallelo, la quale alla sua volta divieue pittura storica; da quest’ ultima si stacca la ritrattistica, che dà origine al genere, per  giuugere infine per il paesaggio alla natura morta (Brunetière).   Ma non una di queste leggi e delle altre simili può reggere  all'esame dei fatti; esse non sono che generalizzazioni arbitrarie, che  non hanno il più piccolo fondamento nella realtà delle coso. (')   2. Oggetto delle scienze storiche.  Adunque la storia,  concepita nel suo significato più logico, ha per fine essenziale  di esporre lo sviluppo complessivo dell’universo, a cominciare  dalla formazione dei corpi celesti, svoltisi dalla nebulosa primitiva secondo il principio ipotetico del Laplace, per giungere, attraverso alla geologia e alla trasformazione successiva  degli organismi vegetali e animali, allo sviluppo dello spirito  umano, al quale in modo più speciale s’applica il nome di storia.  In questo complesso entrano tanto i fatti universali quanto  i fatti singolari considerati nello spazio, ma che sono però XÉNOPOi., Le caracthrcde l’histoire, in Jievue phil.. Lee  principes fondatHeniau.r de l’histoirè. Paris, Lerotut. tutti individuali considerati nel tempo, ossia che non si sono  prodotti che una sola volta nel corso del tempo e non si riprodurranno più nell’ identico modo : ogni fatto è unico e non  rassomiglia ad alcun altro in maniera completa. Tali sono per  esempio: la successione di zone sedimentarie nei terreni secondari o terziari; le trasformazioni successive attraverso le  quali sono passati i sauriani rettili per mutarsi in uccelli,  o quella dell ’elephas antiquus per divenire l’elefante che osserviamo ai nostri giorni; oppure le vicissitudini per le quali  ha dovuto passare l’Impero germanico o la Penisola italica  per arrivare alla forma unitaria attuale, o la trasformazione  dell’epica cavalleresca leggendaria e primitiva nelle opere  individuali del Pulci, del Boiardo e dell’Ariosto.   Per evitare equivoco, è però necessario in questo punto  uno schiarimento; cioè bisogna stabilire una distinzione tra  l’esposizione scientifica naturale e l’esposizione storica d’un  oggetto o d’una classe d’oggetti, per esempio degli esseri viventi, della società umana ecc. Cosi la biologia concepita  come scienza naturale, che mira a farci conoscere le leggi  generali che governano la vita degli animali e dei vegetali,  non si deve confondere colla biologia considerata come scienza  storica, la quale ha in vece per fine di studiare le successive modificazioni e trasformazioni dei medesimi esseri sulla  superficie della terra dal primo momento, se è possibile, della  loro apparizione fino ai nostri giorni ; in modo simile la società umana può essere oggetto d’una scienza naturale,  in quanto questa la studia e l’analizza nella sua maniera di  essere, di vivere, nella dipendenza dei suoi elementi ; e può  anche essere oggetto d’una esposizione storica nel senso comunemente inteso, in quanto ne espone le vicende successive. È quindi evidente che nello studio di certe classi di oggetti il metodo naturale, che vuole stabilire leggi, e il metodo  storico, che vuole invece stabilire il modo di successione dei  fenomeni, possono alternarsi, ma non confondersi; giacché le  leggi naturali non si applicano che ai fenomeni che si ripetono  e non esprimono che il carattere quantitativo dei rapporti tra Rickert, Die Qrensen der naturwisseuschaftlichen liegriffsbildung. Leipzig, Mohr i fenomeni, mentre la storia si occupa solo del lato qualitativo dei fenomeni, e afferma che non vi sono due individualità storiche che si rassomiglino, due avvenimenti che si possano  ricondurre sotto la medesima nozione generale o legge che si  applichi tanto al presente quanto al passato. Noi ci limiteremo qui ad esporre per sommi capi le regolo metodiche più. importanti che riguardano lo studio dei  fatti umani, cioè che riguardano la storia propriamente detta,  la quale ci interessa più da' vicino. Svolgimento del concetto di storia.  Le varie trasformazioni cui il concetto di storia andò via via soggetto servono  a mettere in evidenza i vari elementi che lo compongono e  a farne conoscere meglio la vera indole e lo scopo.   L’idea di cercare un disegno generale della storia non si  era presentata, nè si poteva presentare, agli antichi, i quali  non avevano un concetto chiaro dell’unità del genere umano.  Erano talmente immedesimati nella società e civiltà in cui  vivevano e di cui facevano parte, che non sapevano riconoscere e pregiare il valore d’un’altra : lo straniero era per  essi un barbaro; essere civile, pei Romani che conquistarono  il mondo, voleva dire accettare le leggi, le istituzioni, le  idee di Roma, divenire in una parola, romano. La storia ha però trovato in Grecia e in Roma cultori  di grande valore ; pel primo Tucidide rivolge lo sguardo sui  fattori politici e, quasi, sulla base naturale degl’avvenimenti, le cause dei quali ricerca non già nelle disposizioni di esseri sopra-naturali, ma soprattutto nelle condizioni in cui si trovavano i popoli, negli interessi degli stati, e, in piccola misura,  nei capricci e nelle passioni degl’individui; egli vuol descrivere il corso delle cose umane, come farebbe per quello dei  fenomeni naturali, ricerca la verità con zelo infaticabile, e nessuno sforzo, nessun sacrificio risparmia, per raggiungerla, per dare dei fatti un’esposizione esatta. Col cristianesimo si diffuse il concetto d’un Dio unico, creatore e guidatore del mondo, innanzi a cui tutti gli uomini sono eguali; e cosi sorge anche il concetto d’un disegno, Kickkbt, nella storia, d’una niente superiore, che conduca ad un fine determinato. E noto che questo concetto apparve per la prima volta nella Città di Dio d’Agostino e nelle Storie del suo discepolo Orosio. Cosi comincia quella che fu chiamata scuola  teologica, la quale in sostanza era la negazione del vero metodo storico e la rendeva impossibile. Infatti l’uomo diveniva  un cieco strumento, senza proprio valore, nelle mani di Dio.  che guidava i popoli come un cocchiere guida i cavalli; i  popoli sorgono o cadono, perchè Iddio avvicina o allontana  da essi la sua mano; le leggi dei fatti bisogna cercarle nella  mente divina, in cui ai mortali non è dato penetrare. Quindi  l’errore fondamentale non stava già neU’ammettere un Dio  creatore dell’uomo e. regolatore della storia, ma nel metodo  che si voleva seguire. Anche Galileo Galilei credeva in un  Dio creatore del mondo, autore dello leggi della natura; ma  egli cercava queste ultime studiando la natura e i suoi fenomeni. Invece gli scrittori del Medio Evo pensano che gli avvenimenti storici sieno esclusivamente opera della Provvidenza  divina, considerano l’uomo come un semplice strumento e la  vita terrena non altro che una preparazione alla vita celeste.   Coi grandi storici del Rinascimento italiano questo concetto è totalmente abbandonato; nelle storie del Machiavelli  e del Guicciardini, infatti, la Provvidenza è scomparsa del  tutto; essa non è mai chiamata a spiegare qualcuno dei grandi  avvenimenti storici. Tutto ciò che avviene nella storia è, per  gli scrittori del Rinascimento, opera dell’uomo, e dell’nomo  individuo civile, razionale. Però l’uomo non è considerato  come parte integrante della società, ma isolato, immutabile.  Così il Machiavelli nel primo libro delle sue Storie narra gli  avvenimenti dell’Europa nel Medio Evo: perchè i barbari  si precipitano sull'impero? perchè uno o un altro generale  romano offeso, geloso, irritato, li chiama per vendicarsi. Perchè  seguono le Crociate? perchè Urbano II, non avendo altro da  fare, pensò di darsi ad una « generosa impresa. V’è sempre  un capitano, un politico, un uomo di Stato, che è la causa  di tutto ; è esso che fa le leggi, che fonda una repubblica o  una monarchia, che muta i governi, che apparecchia le congiure, le grandi rivoluzioni e le conduce al fine desiderato;  non vi sono forze generali d’alcuna specie che operino : l’uomo rimane sempre lo stesso, e le differenze che vediamo di secolo in secolo, da nazione a nazione, sono secondarie, più  apparenti che reali. Queste idee durarono fino al secolo 2àlll. Il primo che  osò prendere una via a fiat io diversa fu Vico. Egli accetta il pensiero degli uomini del Rinascimento, cioè che le cause dei fatti storici sono da ricercarsi unicamente nell’uomo e nelle modificazioni dello spirito  umano, « questo mondo delle nazioni è pur fatto dagli uomini e bisogna quindi ricercarne leej-ipiegazione nella mente  umana * ; non crede però che l’uomo rimanga sempre lo  stesso attraverso a tutte le trasformazioni sociali, ma assicura invece che lo spirito umano muta col mutar dei tempi  e che, se vogliamo, per esempio, comprendere l’infanzia del  genere umano, dobbiamo uscire di noi stessi, rifarci in certo  qual modo fanciulli. Questo è il concetto che avviò la storia  per una via nuova e che fa del Vico il precursore dell’indirizzo seguito più tardi dal Wolf, dal Niebuhr, dal Savigny.  Questi ultimi iniziarono un nuovo metodo, studiando con metodo scientifico e con grande pazienza i linguaggi, le mitologie, il diritto, la società primitiva, le antiche istituzioni.  Questa scuola pose in evidenza che la mitologia, i linguaggi,  le società nascono e crescono secondo leggi determinate, senza  essere creazione personale dell’uomo: l’uomo non appariva più,  quale una volta, come un essere immutabile in tutti i tempi,  i tutti i luoghi, con facoltà sempre identiche in ogni età, in  ogni razza o civiltà diversa ; ma d’ora in ora continuamente  mutabile, ed in questa sua mutabilità, in questo suo continuo  diveìiire doveva essere studiato.   Di qui ha avuto principio quell’immenso lavoro di indagini che va rinnovando ab imis fundamentis tutta la storia  del passato e disseppellendo ad una ad una le antiche civiltà ; si tende ad una ricostruzione completa degli avvenimenti storici, fondata sulla conoscenza critica delle fonti e  di tutte le forze che agiscono nei gruppi sociali e dei bisogni  che cagionano i movimenti delle masse umane. Intorno alla Vili.ari, Scritti rari; il saggio “La Storia è una scienza? „ passim. Bologna, Zanichelli] Pane natura di questi bisogni spuntano le divergenze delle concezioni storiche, oggidì assai numerose.   Secondo la concezione eroica non sono altro che ^bisogni  degli eroi e dei geni che póngono in moto quella màis in(ììgéstaqtte moles che è l’umanità; è una spiegazione insufficiente, che riposa sopra una concezione antiscientifica della  causalità, confonde l’occasione del movimento storico con la  sua causa e cade in un circolo vizioso, poiché conclude dall’importanza dei risultati ottenuti dall’uomo di genio a quella  della sua energia, e fa poi di questa energia supposta la causa  dei risultati ; già Niccolò Machiavelli ha notato che la storia  insegna che i tempi porgono l’occasione ai grandi e questi  sanno afferrarla, mutando spesso il corso degli avvenimenti. Una concezione ideolo gica della storia si ritrova nella  celebre opera di H. Th. Buchle « Storia della civiltà in Inghilterra ; » le azioni umane, secondo questo scrittore, vengono determinate parte dalla natura, parte dallo spirito. Il  primo fattore si assoggetta il secondo, ed è quindi preponderante, nelle zone calde e fredde, mentre nei paesi temperati, come nell’Europa, la natura è subordinata allo spirito;  gli Europei debbono la loro civiltà ai progressi del sapere e  dell’ intelligenza ; però la civiltà non è già il prodotto arbitrario e casuale di cieche forze fisiche o di potenze spirituali, ma si deve considerare come il risultato necessario  d’una serie di cause strettamente tra loro concatenate.   La concezione collettivista, sorta di recente, vede la causa  dei movimenti indicati in un « bisogno delle masse », e specialmente in un bisogno economici) ; la forma più importante  di questa concezione economica della storia è il cosiddetto  materialismo storico, che ha il suo principale rappresentante  e fondatore in Marx. Questi sostiene che  t utto lo sviluppo sociale è determinato dal sistema economico, che alla sua volta dipende dalla forma e dallo svilnpup  della produzion e. La struttura economica della società, egli  dice, è la base reale, su cui s'eleva poi 1 edificio giuridico e  politico, cosicché i (_ modo dì produzione della vi ta m&tedale  domina in generale lo sviluppo della vita sociale, politic» o Il Principe, ed. carata da Lisio. Firenze, Sansoni] intellettuale . Il Marx distingui nella storia dell’umanità tre  periodi principali : il periodo a ntico, il f eudale, il borghese  o capitalista, tutti caratterizzati dal differente modo di produzione : ciascuno porta ingenita la sua propria contraddizione e ci mostra il progresso come uno sviluppo storico necessario. Il regime borghese, nel quale viviamo, è d’origine  recente, giacché incomincia nel -secolo XVI, quando i grandi  proprietari invadono a poco a poco il dominio dei grandi coltivatori, spingendo nelle città gli abitanti delle campagne.  La soppressione dei mestieri e l’invenzione delle macchine  hanno dato un grandissimo sviluppo all’industria, nella quale  s’ impiega un numero sempre crescente di lavoratori. La storia è c|uindi dominata dal sistema economico e non avrebbe  c he una fonte p rincipale: i Jjiso^ni mat eriali dell nomo; l’organizzazione economica che oravecliamo non è l’espressione  di leggi economiche eterne, ma non altro che una modificazione dell’organizzazione economica medioevale, che alla sua  volta deriva dall’antica. Il fatto economico è per natura  sua esclusivamente umano ; precede nel tempo tutti gli altri  fenomeni sociali, poiché, come Aristotile ha già osservato fino  dall’antichità, gli uomini non potevano porsi a speculare prima  d’aver provveduto ai loro naturali bisogni ; infine è tra i fatti  sociali il più semplice.   È innegabile che i fatti economici hanno sopra gli altri  fatti sociali una efficacia spesso decisiva, e che quindi la loro  conoscenza ha molta importanza nella spiegazione dello svolgimento storico delle società umane. Però non bisogna dimenticare il legame che uni sce gli uni agli altri i fenomen i  s ociali: il diritto, l a religione, la morale, reconomia, la po  Jitìca. tutte le categorie di fatti che l’analisi distingue sono   unite fra loro da reciproche influenze ; lo stesso Marx ha notato ciò che v’è di contingente nei progressi della tecnologia,  ciò che questa deve al caso, alle gr andi inv enzioni e all’im  t elligenza . Quindi il materialismo storico, secondo recenti interpreti, LABRIOLA e CROCE, fornisce una  somma di nuovi dati, di nuove esperien ze., che entra nella  coscienza dello storico, si risolve in un ammonimento a tener  presenti le osservazioni fatte da esso come nuovo sussidio a  intendere la storia. La storia è una scienza o un’arte? Importante è pure la  questione non ancora chiusa se la storia sia una scienza oppure  un arte; ponendola alcuni risolutamente fra le scienze, altri fra lo  arti, ed altri accordandole i caratteri d’una scienza e nel medesimo tempo d un’arte. Notevoli sono le argomentazioni chq il Croce  pone innanzi per sostenere che la storia è un’arte: egli distingue  nella conoscenza umana due forftd: la còrios'ceuza intuitiva e la  conoscenza logica, conoscenza per la fantasia e conoscenza per  l intelletto, conoscenza dellWimrfnalc e àeW universale, delle cosse  delle loro relazioni; l'una è produttrice d’imagini, l’altra produttrice  di concetti. Lo intuizioni sono: questo fiume, questo lago, questo rigagnolo, questa pioggia, questo bicchiere d’acqua; il concetto è:  1 acqua, non questa o quella, ma l’acqua in genere, in qualunque  luogo o tempo si roalizzi. Le manifestazioni più alte della conoscenza intuitiva e dolla conoscenza intellettuale sono arte e scienza. La stona è un’arte, come la poesia, la pittura, la musica; essa ò  una pittura vora e propria, descrivo gli avvenimenti, vuole rappresentare vivamente all’immaginazione degli uomini i fatti passati;  racconta e non fa deduzioni nè induzioni, secondo il metodo adoperato nelle scienze, non ricerca leggi, nè foggia concetti, è diretta  art narrandum non ad demonstrandnm. Il questo qui, Vindividuimi  umilino determinatimi è il suo dominio, od è il dominio medesimo  dell arte; la storia rientra perciò sotto il concetto dell’arte. 1', un sofisma quello di credere che la storia abbia por oggetto  il concetto dell’individuale, donde si conchiude che la storia sia  conoscenza logica o scientifica; la storia elaborerebbe il concetto  d un personaggio, di Carlo Magno o di Napoleone ; d’un’opoca come  del Ri nascimento o dolla Riforma: d’un avvenimento come della  Rivoluzione trancoso e dell'unificazione d’Italia, allo stesso modo  che la Geometria elabora i concetti delle forme spaziali. Ma di  tutto ciò non è niente: la storia non può se non presentare Napoleone o Carlo Magno, la Riforma o il Rinascimento, la Rivoluzione francese o l’unificazione d’Italia, fatti individuali, nella loro  fisionomia individuale, proprio nel senso cho dai logici si dico che  dell individuale si dà non concetto ma rappresentazione. Tra  aite ola storia corre quosta differenza: la prima è la conoscenza  d una cosa, d’un sentimento, d’un carattere, la conoscenza della  lealtà possibile, non della realtà esistente e reale, oggetto della storia   5. La critica storica.  Lo storico trae la materia della  narrazione o dai fatti che egli stesso ha veduto, oppure dai CROCE, Estetica. Palermo, Sandron. Croce fatti che altri in tempi o luoghi lontani hanno osservato;  d’onde la necessità di valutare il grado di certezza delle testimonianze, per avvicinarsi più che è possibile alla verità.  Bisogna notare che l’uomo lascia traccia di sè e delle sue  opere non solo nei racconti scritti o tramandati di generazione in generazione, ma anche nelle armi, negli ornamenti,  negli strumenti che adopera nella caccia, in casa ecc. ecc.  La preistoria è basata quasi esclusivamente sopra questi ultimi monumenti, non esclusi gli avanzi fossili del regno animale e di quello vegetale. Il materiale per ricostruire il periodo che segue alla preistoria ci viene fornito da una grande  quantità di monumenti, come iscrizioni, monete, sculture, edifici, opere pubbliche ecc., che provengono dagli stessi autori  degli avvenimenti o dai loro contemporanei ; l’interpretazione  di essi rientra propriamente nel campo dell’archeologia storica, la quale fornisce pure un prezioso sussidio alla storia  propriamente detta.   Importante è il criterio per stabilire la certezza della  tradizione scritta e della tradizione orale, per le quali s’incontrano non poche e gravi difficoltà, se si pensa che non  di rado per fatti e avvenimenti di lievissima portata e a  noi contemporanei, le testimonianze di persone oneste e coscienziose sono incerte e contraddittorie ; per fatti di molto  maggior gravità e che possono riguardare tutto intero un  popolo, le passioni, l’intelligenza, il partito politico, gl’interessi degli osservatori possono turbare la narrazione spesso  in modo irrimediabile ; tali testimonianze debbono essere vagliate con grandi cautele e con tutti gli speciali sussidi forniti dal metodo storico, e con tutto ciò non sempre si riesce  ad eliminare le alterazioni sia volontarie sia involontarie.  Avvenimenti come la origine del Cristianesimo, la Riforma  protestante, la Rivoluzione francese sollevano ancor oggi polemiche e pregiudizi, che impediscono e offuscano la retta  valutazione di essi. n. quindi chiaro che il principio di verisimiglianza e di  probabilità, come dice il Croce, (') domina tutta la critica  storica ; l’esame delle fonti e delle autorità è diretto a stabilire le testimonianze più credibili. Chi parla d’induzione e  di dimostrazione storica fa un uso metaforico di queste parole, le quali nella storia assumono un aspetto affatto diverso  da quello che hanno nella scienza. La convinzione dello storico è la convinzione indimostrabile del giurato, che ha ascoltato i testimoni, seguito attentamente il processo ; sbaglia,  senza dubbio, delle volte, ma gli sbagli sono una trascurabile minoranza di fronte ai casi in cui coglie il vero. La  storia è quindi ciò che l'individuo o l’umanità ricorda del  suo passato, ricordo dove oscuro, dove chiarissimo, ricordo  che con industri esami si procura di allargare e precisare il  meglio possibile; ma tale che non se ne può far di meno e  che, preso nel tutto insieme, è ricco di verità. Solo per spirito di paradosso si potrà dubitare che non sia mai esistita  una Grecia, una Roma, un Alessandro, un Cesare, un’ Europa feudale e una serie di rivoluzioni che l’abbatterono;  che si videro affisse le tesi di Martin  Lutero alla porta della chiesa di Wittemberga e che il 14 luglio 1789 fu presa dal popolo di Parigi la Bastiglia. Che ragione rendi tu di tutto questo?, chiede ironicamente il sofista :  l’umanità risponde : Io ricordo.   Chi si accinge a scrivere un’opera di storia deve attendere a quattro operazioni principali, a ciascuna dolle quali  risponde una parte distinta della metodica : Raccogliere il materiale, donde Veuristica: ossia dottrina delle fonti. Analizzarlo, donde la critica delle fonti. Comprendere i fatti in sè e nei loro rapporti, donde  la co Riprensione dei fatti e loro rapporti. Esposizione dei fatti.   Queste quattro operazioni nella pratica s’intrecciano e  si confondono, giacché nel tempo stesso che, ad esempio, si  raccoglie il materiale, questo viene vagliato, e non si può vagliarlo senza comprendere il valore dei fatti che esso fornisce.   Le fonti sono il materiale da cui si attinge la storia;  dapprima furono tradizioni orali e canti popolari, poi note  scritte e anche, occasionalmente, iscrizioni e documenti: più  in là nell’età antica e nel medio evo non si andò; solo nell’età moderna si pose mano a ricercare ed usufruire iscrizioni, documenti, monete, tutti i prodotti dell’arte, e persino  gli avanzi preistorici. Tutto il materiale storico si può dividere in due categorie:   a) avanzi ossia tutto ciò che di un l'atto è rimasto ed  esiste ancora, con semplici reliquie o parti di fatti e di atti  umani interamente spogli d’ogni idea di ricordo per la posterità e innanzi tutto i resti corporei degli uomini, poi la  lingua, le abitudini, i costumi, le feste, i giuochi, culti, istituzioni, leggi, utensili, monete, armi, edifizi; tra gli avanzi  sono da annoverarsi i monumenti nel senso più largo, vale  a dire tutto ciò cui è inerente l’intenzione di conservare la  memoria dei fatti;   b) la tradizione, che mira a conservare il ricordo degli  avvenimenti col proposito appunto di essere fonte o materiale storico. Si distingue in figurata, orale e scritta, secondo che consta di rappresentazioni di persone di luoghi  (ad es. carte geografiche, piante di città e simili) e avvenimenti storici, oppure di racconti orali, leggende, proverbi,  canti storici, oppure di iscrizioni storiche, alberi geneologici,  calendari annuali, cronache, ricordi, biografìe e storie d’ogni  genere.   Ufficio della critica storica è quello di stabilire la verità effettiva dei dati contenuti nelle fonti, cioè decidere se  e fino a che punto siano da ritenersi come veri o come falsi,  come realmente avvenuti o no. Ciò si fa sempre affermando  o negando, sotto forma d’un giudizio, sia nei rapporti delle  fonti coi fatti, sia dei fatti tra loro; come indica anche il  significato fondamentale del verbo xpfveiv (separare, distinguere, giudicare) da cui è derivata la parola critica. La metodica insegna i principi, le regole, l’arte onde s’adempie a  quell’ufficio. Tutto si riduce al raffronto di ciò che sottoponiamo a critica con altri dati di cui siamo sicuri, all’esame,  in una parola, dell’incerto col certo. Si deve alla critica veramente metodica o scientifica, se la storia è diventata una  vera e propria scienza, giacché solo il metodo scientifico ha  reso possibile l’accertamento dei fatti storici, cioè lo sceverare il vero dal falso, la storia, dalla leggenda.   La critica dicesi estrinseca, quando esamina se una data  fonte sia da considerare o no, e fino a che punto, come testimonianza storica, come vera e propria fonte storica; e ha  quindi per ufficio di a) provare l’identità delle fonti ; b) stabilire quando, dove e da chi e per che modo (se originali o  derivate) furono prodotte; c) stabilirne il contesto originale  (recensione) e pubblicarle (edizione).   La critica dicesi invece intrinseca, quando esamina i  rapporti delle testimonianze coi fatti, cioè se le testimonianze corrispondano, e fino a che punto, alla realtà. Il suo  ufficio somiglia a quello del giudice istruttore, il quale deve  constatare la realtà d’un delitto dalle dichiarazioni dei testimoni e dalle immediate tracce di esso; essa esamina la  forza dimostrativa delle singole tracce o testimonianze, raffronta e bilancia le ime colle altre. Esiste una scienza generale della società? I primi   saggi d’osservazione scientifica della vita sociale si ritrovano  in alcune opere di Platone e di Aristotile; ma solo nei  tempi nostri lo studio dei fenomeni sociali ha preso uno sviluppo notevolissimo e un’ importanza veramente straordinaria.  Augusto Comte nel suo « Corso di filosofia positiva » lo ha  innalzato al grado di scienza indipendente, dandogli il nome  di « sociologia », che viene ormai generalmente accettato ; nella  nota classificazione comtiana delle scienze, la sociologia tiene  1 ultimo posto, essendo sorta di recente e presentando maggior complessità e minor generalità delle altre scienze.   Ma la sociologia è ben lungi dall’aver determinato con  chiarezza e precisione il suo oggetto e i suoi metodi; anzi  alcuni negano ad essa il diritto all'esistenza, affermando che  i fatti che studia formano oggetto di altre scienze già costituite.   La sociologia viene generalmente intesa come la scienza  dei fenomeni sociali, cioè dei fenomeni che sono propri  della vita della società. Questo però non è sufficiente per  determinare l’oggetto della sociologia, poiché i fenomeni sociali sono già studiati da un gran numero di discipline particolari, storia delle religioni, del diritto, delle istituzioni Manuale Sei metodo storico di A. CnivEU.ucci, pnssim. Pisa, Spocrri  (è la traduzione dei capitoli 3° e 4° del Manuale del m. st. del Berkheim).] politiche, statistica, scienza economica ecc. Ora due sono le  soluzioni principali date a questo problema. Secondo alcuni  la sociologia è una scienza distinta dalle scienze sociali particolari, ha un’individualità sua propria, considera in tutta  la sua complessità la realtà sociale, che le scienze particolari dividono e decompongono per astrazione; essa è una  scienza concreta, sintetica, mentre le altre sono analitiche  ed astratte. In questo modo lo Stuart Mill afferma che la  sociologia ha per oggetto « gli stati di società » che si succedono nella storia dei popoli; l’insieme degli elementi che  formano lo stato di società è costituito dai fenomeni sociali  più importanti, come il grado d’istruzione e di cultura morale nella comunità e in ogni classe, le condizioni dell’industria, del commercio, della ricchezza, le occupazioni ordinarie della nazione, la sua divisione in classi, la forma di  governo, le leggi, i costumi ecc. La sociologia dev’essere  quindi come una filosofia delle scienze sociali particolari, e,  come la biologia ha preso il significato di filosofia delle  scienze biologiche, cioè d’una scienza che studia i fenomeni  essenziali ed universali della vita sotto le sue molteplici  forme, cosi essa dev’essere la scienza generale della società,  deve analizzare le caratteristiche generali dei fenomeni sociali  e stabilire le leggi più alte dell’evoluzione sociale.   Altri invece affermano che la sociologia non può essere  che il sistema, il «corpus» delle scienze sociali; la moltitudine innumera dei fatti sociali viene studiata dalle discipline speciali, che diventano in tal modo come rami particolari della sociologia e devono prendere un nuovo indirizzo  e un nuovo metodo, derivanti dalla considerazione che i fatti  sociali sono tra loro intimamente legati e debbono considerarsi come fenomeni naturali soggetti a leggi necessarie. Un  esempio di questa trasformazione ci viene presentata dalla  storia. Sotto gli avvenimenti particolari e contingenti che  costituiscono la storia apparente delle società umane, si cominciò a cercare qualche cosa di più fondamentale e di più  permanente, le istituzioni ; con ciò la storia cessa d’essere  uno studio narrativo e si apre all’analisi scientifica. I fatti  che vengono eliminati o considerati di secondaria importanza, sono i più refrattari alla scienza, essendo propri ad ogni individualità sociale considerata in un dato momento  della sua vita ; mutano da una società ad un’altra, e nel seno  d’una medesima società: le guerre, i trattati, gli intrighi  delle corti o delle ‘assemblee, gli atti degli uomini di Stato  costituiscono delle combinazioni che non si ripetono mai nello  stesso modo e non sono soggetti a leggi definite ; la storia  in questo senso si limita a stabilire una pura successione di  fatti. Invece le istituzioni nel loro svolgimento conservano  caratteri essenziali per lunghi anni e anche, qualche volta,  per l’intero corso d’un’esistenza collettiva, poiché esprimono  ciò che vi è di più essenziale in un aggregato umano ; in  questo campo i fenomeni sociali non possono più essere considerati come il prodotto di combinazioni contingenti, di volontà arbitrarie, di circostanze locali e fortuite, ma di cause  generali permanenti e definite. Quindi sotto l’azione dei  principi, degli uomini di Stato, dei legislatori, che era considerata un tempo come preponderante, si è scoperta l’azione  decisiva delle masse, si è compreso che una legislazione non  è che la codificazione dei costumi, che non può vivere se non  profonda le sue radici nello spirito dei popoli, e inoltre che  i costumi, le abitudini, lo spirito dei popoli non sono cose  che si creano a volontà, ma sono l’opera dei popoli stessi.   Non pochi sono gli argomenti cho si adoperano per dimostrare 1 impossibilità d'uua scienza generale della società; si ricorre alle definizioni tra loro discordanti che i sociologi propongono  di essa, del suo metodo, del suo oggetto; per gli uni la caratteristica dei fenomeni sociali è la continuità o storicità, per altri la  reciprocità d’azione, o la giustizia, o la sociabilità, o la coscienza  della specie; l'elemento primario e costitutivo della società è ora  l' individuo, ora la famiglia, ora l' orda ; nè può avvenire altrimenti  quando si pensi alla complessità estrema, alla variabilità di tali  fenomeni, le quali però, se attestano della gravissima difficoltà dell'impresa, non sono prove sufficienti per poterne affermare l’impossibilità. Il metodo nello studio dei fenomeni sociali.  Intorno   al metodo da adoperarsi nello studio dei fenomeni sociali si  notano divergenze simili a quelle che abbiamo trovato nelle  opinioni intorno al vero oggetto della sociologia.   Per un certo periodo di tempo ha avuto molta fortuna la concezione biologica della società ; ma oggi per l'importanza maggiore acquistata dalla psicologia e per altre  cause lia perduto gran parte della sua importanza e conta  minor numero di sostenitori.   L’analogia biologica si fonda sul metodo induttivo e consiste nella comparazione d’una società ad un organismo per  la corrispondenza e il parallelismo di non pochi caratteri fra  l’una e l’altro. Cosi in ambedue il punto di partenza, è uno  stato semplice, indefinito, relativamente omogeneo; lo sviluppo  della società come degli organismi s’effettua per differenziazione, successione e coordinazione delle parti differenziate ;  all’accrescimento della massa e del volume corrisponde la  complicazione graduale della struttura e delle funzioni, e,  come gli individui, gli aggregati sociali nascono, si sviluppano e muoiono. In secondo luogo l’individuo nella società è  l’equivalente dell’elemento anatomico nell’organismo, e come  i, io opino, credo, e  quindi opinione imposta da un’autorità posta al di fuori e  al disopra di ogni critica) afferma che il nostro sapere non  ha limiti, che lo spirito umano può giungere a conoscere la  realtà quale essa è. Dogmatici sono stati Platone e Aristotile e i razionalisti. Lo scetticismo rappresenta una dottrina opposta al  dogmatismo; esso (da oxémopai, esamino) afferma che il  dubbio si estende a tutte quante le cognizioni. Vi è uno Kulpe, EinUitung in die rhilosophie, p. 131. Leipzig, Hirzel] scetticismo relativo, pel quale tutte le nostre cognizioni sono  relative, vale a dire dipendenti dalle circostanze accidentali  in cui sono sorte, e quindi valevoli solo per determinati luoghi o tempi; e uno scetticismo soggettivo, pel quale la verità  è una cosa affatto dipendente dall’ individuo. Manca quindi  un criterio assoluto della verità: la debolezza e l’imperfezione  dei sensi rendono impossibile una percezione sicura, e la ragione per la sua stessa natura è condannata alla contraddizione.   Lo scetticismo ha avuto la sua massima fioritura nell'antichità fino dall'epoca dei Sofisti. Protagora, fondandosi sul principio  d’Eraclito che tutte le cose sono soggette a una mutazione inces-,  sante, ne trae la conseguenza che le coso sono ciò che pare a ciascuno  in un dato momento, e che la verità dipende, corno il gusto, dal  sentimento momentaneo degli individui, cadendo cosi nello scetticismo che abbiamo denominato soggettivo: l’uomo è la misura di  ogni cosa, egli diceva : nàvitov xp 1 il i, ‘ xa,v M T P SV Sv&puiitoj. Però  questa frase si riferisce solo alla teoria della conoscenza, non alla  morale, corno sposso si dico. 11 Goethe, guidato dall'istinto d’uno spirito superiore, ha compreso ciò: noi possiamo, egli dice, osservare, misurare, calcolare, pesare la natura, ma ciò avviene sempre secondo la nostra misura e il nostro peso, giacché l’uomo ò la  misura di tutto le cose. Questa espressione equivale dunque a dire: il reale solo può essere percepito da noi, l’irreale non può  in alcun modo divenire oggetto della nostra percezione; noi uomini non possiamo varcare i limiti dalla nostra natura, e la verità, per quanto può essere percepita da noi, deve trovarci entro questi confini. Gorgia Leontino cercò di dimostrare le seguenti tre tesi: nessuna cosa è; anche se qualche cosa fosse, non sarebbe conoscibile; quando pure fosse conoscibile, la cognizione che un uomo  potesse acquistarne, non sarebbe comunicabile ad altri ; in conclusione la verità non esiste, tutto ò falso. Infine Pirrone, capo della Scesi, afferma che le cose sono inaccessibili tanto ai sensi  quanto alla ragione, e che noi possiamo di esse affermare o negare  quello che vogliamo; il meglio che ci rimane a fare consiste nell’astenerci da qualsiasi giudizio. Fra gli scettici posteriori sono da  ricordarsi Arcesilao e Cameade. Nei tempi moderni gli scettici più famosi sono Montaigne e Charron. Gompebz conclusioni;. Il positivismo restringe il valore della conoscenza al  campo dell’esperienza e delle scienze positive, ai fenomeni  e alle loro relazioni. Noi non possiamo conoscere l’essenza  dei fenomeni, le cause prime e i fini ultimi, ma solo, mediante l’osservazione, l’esperimento e la comparazione, le relazioni costanti tra i fenomeni, il loro succedersi, le somiglianze, le leggi. Pertanto il positivismo elimina dalle scienze  qualsiasi ricerca estranea a quella delle leggi e rapporti costanti di coesistenza e di successione tra i fenomeni. La filosofia positiva procede come le vere scienze, badando solamente  ai fatti e restringendosi a spiegare un fatto per mezzo di  altri fatti; e il fatto non è altro che il fenomeno. Il fondatore del positivismo è Comte, del  quale abbiamo già esposto la classificazione delle scienze. Secondo Comte la coscienza passa per tre fasi principali, la fase teologica,  la metafisica, e infine la positiva.   Nella fase teologica lo spirito umano considera i fenomeni dell'universo come effetti di forze e di esseri soprannaturali; anzitutto si  considerano tutti i corpi esteriori come animati, vivouti (feticismo),  quindi si ammetto l'esistenza di esseri invisibili, ciascuno dei quali  presiede ad una classe distinta d'oggetti, di avvenimenti (politeismo),  finché tutte le divinità particolari vengono comprese nell'idea d’un  Dio unico, che, dopo aver croato il mondo, lo governa sia direttamente, sia indirettamente per mezzo di agenti soprannaturali.   Nella fase metafisica i fenomeni vengono spiegati non più per  mezzo di volontà soprannaturali coscienti, ma mediante astrazioni  considerate come esseri reali: ciò che governa il mondo è una forza,  una potenza, un principio; si vogliono spiegare i fatti colle tendenze  della natura, cui si attribuisce ad esempio, la tendenza alla perfezione, l’orrore del vuoto, una forza salutare ecc. Infine nel periodo positivo si lasciano in disparte lo entità  astratte, come cause, forze, sostanze, e si ricerca la spiegazione dei  fatti nei fatti stessi, confrontandoli, ricercandone le affinità e classificandoli per ragione di somiglianza ; la storia dell'umano pensiero  cammina, secondo il Comte, verso la sintesi, l’organizzazione dello  scienze, mentre il regno della metafisica volge al suo termine. II criticismo, s’oppone tanto allo scetticismo, che, negando la possibilità di qualsiasi conoscenza, finisce anche col  negare sè stesso, quanto al dogmatismo che ha una cieca fiducia nella ragione; mentre il positivismo ammette solo la scienza positiva e come fine di questa la ricerca della legge,  il criticismo riconosce allo spirito umano altri campi di ricerca. Esso investiga ed esamina lo stesso potere, conoscitivo, distinguendo quali problemi può risolvere, e quali invece rimangono senza soluzione e fuori del suo dominio. Kant ammette la conoscibilità del fenomeno, di ciò che è dato alla  nostra esperienza, e afferma l’inconoscibilità dell’essenza delle cose; però vi è in noi una tendenza naturale a valicare i i limiti del mondo dei fenomeni, e a penetrare nel mondo dei noumeni, tò voupevov, il pensato, la cosa in sè, l’oggetto quale noi supponiamo che esiste in sè stesso, in opposizione  al fenomeno, che è l’oggetto quale noi ci rappresentiamo nell’esperienza. Questa dottrina di Kant che vien detta anche razionalismo idealistico si può cosi riassumere: noi possiamo conoscere la realtà a priori mediante la ragione pura, non come è in sè stessa, ma solo, come appare a noi e sotto l’aspetto formale. Le scienze si possono anche dividere in formali e scienze della realtà; alle prime appartengono la logica e la matematica e hanno per oggetto idee che non sono tratte dagli oggetti reali; cosi i numeri e le figure della matematica vengono costruiti e determinati dalla nostra mente. Le altre invece studiano oggetti presi dalla realtà, dal mondo interno, dal  mondo esterno, dal passato, dal presente e che si impongono alla coscienza dell’osservatore. Ora, si può chiedere se questi  0 £f?®tti) studiati dalle scienze reali, esistono assolutamente, in se stessi, quindi in maniera indipendente dalle rappresentazioni che noi ne possiamo avere, oppure si può dare al problema un’altra soluzione. Le principali risposte a tale questione sono tre: il realismo, il fenomenalismo, l’idealismo. Il realismo rappresenta la più antica concezione, giacché si presenta a noi come naturale il fatto di pensare che le cose che stanno fuori di noi cosi come noi stessi, siano quali sono apprese dalla coscienza che le considera come gli ori  li) Pauusv, jB ’inleitung in lite Philosojihie. Berlin, Cotta] ginali ritratti dalle nostre sensazioni; quindi crediamo che gl’oggetti sono realmente rossi e verdi, chiari e oscuri, lisci  e ruvidi, dolci e amari. Però questo realismo ingenuo, che ha ancora la sua influenza nella vita pratica, come quando ad es. diciamo di vedere il sole levarsi e tramontare malgrado la scoperta di Copernico, non dura a lungo; molti  fatti vengono presto a dimostrare che le rappresentazioni non sono una copia della realtà: le illusioni, le allucinazioni, i sogni, la cecità dei colori parziale o totale, le differenze  individuali nell’acutezza visiva e uditiva ci convincono che  la percezione sensibile dipende in modo naturale da fattori soggettivi; si aggiunga a ciò la relatività della percezione sensibile, pella quale ciò che ad uno sembra freddo è percepito come caldo d’un altro, a questo un movimento pare lento, a quello veloce, e uno stesso oggetto al medesimo individuo si presenta sotto diversi aspetti secondo le circostanze, gli  strumenti coi quali s’osserva, la luce, ecc. ecc. Quindi non è più possibile pensare che lo spirito sia come uno specchio che rifletta fedelmente l’immagine degli oggetti esteriori. L 'idealismo è stato iniziato nella sua forma tipica dal filosofo inglese Berkeley secondo il quale tutte le qualità dei corpi che percepiamo sono meramente relative a noi, e i corpi non si riducono ad altro che a gruppi di qualità, le quali esistono solo nelle nostre percezioni, sono pure parvenze e la loro esistenza si riduce semplicemente all’essere percepite, esse est percipi; che cos’è, per esempio, una mela? un complesso di sensazioni visive, olfative, gustative, tattili e nulla più. Infine la dottrina del fenomenalismo fondata da Kant afferma che tutto ciò che ci viene dato nell’esperienza è costituito dai fenomeni; noi possiamo conoscere le cose non come sono in sè, ma come appaiono a noi. Le leggi fondamentali, alle quali la natura obbedisce e che ci aiutano  a comprenderla, non esprimono che le condizioni d’esistenza  della nostra intelligenza. La ragione è questa; poiché noi  pensiamo il mondo dei fenomeni, bisogna ammettere che vi  sia una correlazione tra le leggi dell’ universo e le leggi della  nostra intelligenza; ora, per spiegare questa correlazione  sono possibili solo due supposizioni: o lo spirito ha ricevuto dal inondo, mediante i sensi e l’esperienza, le leggi costitutive conforme alle quali esso pensa; oppure lo spirito impone  al mondo le sue leggi proprie e l’obbliga in certo modo a  costituirsi in modo che la natura fenomenica gli divenga intelligibile. Kant accoglie quest’ultima ipotesi, e quindi le  cose che noi pensiamo sono per noi ciò che il nostro spirito  le fa essere; il nostro pensiero attuale e cosciente non fa  che prendere conoscenza d’un mondo di fenomeni, che gli  preesiste e che, diventando oggetto di conoscenza, ha già  subito la legge del pensiero umano in ciò che esso ha di  essenziale e di costitutivo, di guisa che tutto ciò che noi  pensiamo non esiste in sè stesso, ma solo per rapporto a nyi. L’importanza che i problemi sopra accennali hanno per la scienza, va sempre più crescendo non solo  presso i filosofi, ma anche presso gli scienziati, tra i quali non pochi,  b enché siano di continuo a contatto deU'esperieiiza. meditano o   s'accingono a risolvere problemi filosofici gravissimi. Cosi un cèlebre fisiologo, Verworn, nell’introduzione alla fisiologia generale,  pone come fondamento a tutta l’opera una teoria della conoscenza,  giungendo alla conclusione “ che il mondo fisico è un frammento  della nostra psiche e cho è quindi naturale il fenomeno, cosi meraviglioso sotto un altro aspetto, che le leggi le quali reggono il mondo  fisico sieno del tutto identiche a quelle che reggono la nostra psiche;  questo fatto ci pare tanto più probabile in quanto troviamo che i  fenomeni del mondo fisico sono ordinati secondo lo spazio, il tempo,  la causalitù, ossia secondo lo leggi logiche della nostra mente; le  leggi cho noi assegnamo al mondo fisico sono le leggi proprie del  pensiero, le leggi secondo le quali avvengono i fenomeni psichici,  perchè il mondo è solo ima nostra rappresentazione. Il mondo esteriore è quindi pura illusione, l’idea d' una realtù oggettiva è affatto  insostenibile Helinhol t z matem a tico, fisico o fisiologo di grand e.  valore, speriinentatoro geniale, pensatore profondo e limpido, cho  ha lasciato una traccia luminosa nei campi più diversi della scienza,  ha pure proclamato la verità che ogni discussione scientifica mena  dritta all'analisi e alla critica della conoscenza, che qualsiasi riflessione sul movimento scientifico non può non metter capo a quesiti  d'ordine conoscitivo; egli tenta la soluzione del problema della conoscenza dal punto di vista della psico-fisiologia e pensa che la [Verwork] conoscenza deve essere analizzata, esaminata per scoprire in essa  i fattori, gli elementi impliciti, i presupposti che la rendono possibile. La filosofia moderna, dice Riehl, vive nelle opere di Mayer, Helmholtz, e Hertz. Dal breve, ma  profondo scritto del Mayer Osservazioni intorno all'equivalente  meccanico del calore si svolge chiaramente tutto il compito e il  metodo della conoscenza naturale e nel medesimo tempo i limiti di essa, E fino agli ultimi tempi l'Helmholtz ha rivolto la sua attenzione alle questioni della conoscenza teoretica, separando le condizioni per l'intelligibilità delle cose dalle rose stesse, e tentando,  dapprima sulle orme del Kant, poscia scostandosene, di esaminare  con intendimento critico le basi della scienza della natura. Un ottimo esempio del modo onde filosofia e scienza possono  accordarsi in un’opera comune e feconda si ritrova nei Princip i della meccanica, dell' Hertz. 11 metodo adoperato in quest’opera è   il metodo generale delle scienze teoretiche della natura, già conce-»'   due correnti riunendosi insieme vengono a costituire la scienza ;   non diversamente pensano i più illustri scienziati dei nostri tempi. Non potrà ritornare un'epoca, nella quale la scienza creda di  aver raggiunta la sua meta, quando abbia accumulato fatti sopra  fatti, nè un'epoca in cui la filosofia osservi con disdegno il lavoro  indispensabile di proparaziono compiuto dalla scienza. Il costruire  e il plasmare i mattoni per innalzare un edificio è tanto importante quanto l'opera dell'architetto che abbozza il disegno e guida  l'esecuzione della casa. Quindi come alla conoscenza verrebbe meno  il materiale senza il paziente e faticoso lavoro delle ricerche empiriche, così all’edificio scientifico mancherebbe un disegno senza l'elaborazione intellettuale dei fatti: l a scienza ha bisogno della filosofia,  e se ne foggia una per proprio conto, quando non ne trova altre.   Perciò può accadere che ricerchi i limiti del conoscere là dove sono  le condizioni di essa, oppure scambi i segni delle cose per le cose  stesse. In simile maniera l a filosofia non può fare a meno dell a  srionzfl. uon deve perdersi in vuote speculazioni, o restringersi ad  una teoria puramente formale della conoscenza, la quale non possa  raggiungere il nocciolo del sapere, i fatti offerti dall’esperienza. La  ricerca scientifica e la filosofia formano una cosa sola, si completano a vicenda. Sull’ingresso della scuola di Platone, come si dice, si leggeva: Nessuno, che non conosca la geometria, ossia, come si  direbbo oggi, che non conosca la scienza esatta, può entrare. Una  iscrizione analoga dovrebbe incidersi sulle porte dei nostri laboratori e dei nostri gabinetti scientifici: non può entrare chi non abbia  studiato la filosofia. L'educazione filosofica è parte dell’educazione  speciale d’ogni scienziato; essa gli insegna a conoscere lo strumento  dei suoi strumenti e gli offre la norma per le sue ricerche. Rieiil.,  Vortrag, passim. Voglio offrire una Raccolta di alcune fra le voci più comuni  nella logicn. Accidente: Aristotile contrappose l’accidente (oupjìelltjxòf da oóv cum  e |ia£vci> evento (recido ) allo sostanza (oùo£a), come ciò die non  può esistere da sé, ma solo nella sostanza; è quindi una qualità o modificazione che non appartiene all’essenza della cosa  e si ritrova in questa senza esser legata necessariamente alla  sua idea; oggi s’adopera comunemente nel senso di cosa non  necessaria, che può essere e non essere, senza che la cosa  muti o sparisca; cosi si può concepire una roccia, senza pensare che sia aguzza o arrotondata: queste ultimo qualità, rispetto al concetto di roccia, sono accidentali. Un significato  del tutto diverso ha nel ‘ sofisma per accidente „ e nella  “ conversione per accidente. Si dice argomento AD HOMINEM quello che si fonda  sopra un principio accettato come vero dall’avversario, il  quale si vede quindi costretto, per non parere in contraddizione con sè stesso, ad accettare la tesi. Agnosticismo, da a-fvoioxog, et neg. e yiYvtòoxo, inconoscibile, s’applica a quelle dottrine che affermano l’esistenza noi mondo  di qualche cosa che non si può conoscere, che è inaccessibile  alla mente umana, e che bisogna ammettere per potere spiegar l’universo; la filosofia di E. Kant, che pone l’esistenza  della cosa in sè, e l’evoluzionismo di E. Spencer che dichiara  inconoscibile l’assoluto, sono dottrine agnostiche. Un buon dizionnrio di scienze filosofiche is quello compilato da RANZOLI (vedasi), Hoepli. ANALISI -da àvoi, prep. che esprime in composizione l'idea di retrocedere, di rifarsi da capo, e Xóo> sciolgo -nel significato pin  generale è l'operazione del pensiero mediante la quale si  scioglie un tutto nei suoi elementi, nelle parti componenti, o  si distinguono in un composto una o più parti; il metodo analitico parte dai fatti particolari per salile ad un principio generale, come f induzione ; la prova analitica è quella elio va  dagli effetti alle cause; giudizio analitico è, secondo il Kant,  quello il cui predicato è contenuto necessariamente nel soggetto: i corpi sono estesi. Analogia: (àvee Xéyou pei matematici greci significa: nel medesimo  rapporto), è un'operazione logica per la quale, quando nell'idea  od oggetto A e nell’idea od oggetto C si sono riscontrali  elementi o caratteri comuni, si afferma che un altro o altri  caratteri che sono in A debbono pure ritrovarsi in B; l’analogia porta quindi a conclusioni ipotetiche, elio possono poi  essere confermate dall’esperienza.   Anfibolia: designa l'equivoco di senso prodotto dall'uso di termini  forniti di doppio significato, oppure di una speciale costruzione  sintattica d'uua frase; dal greco A;isp£-PoAog, elio va da due  parti, dubbio, da cui anfibologia parlare clic può prendersi in  duo significati anche opposti, es. : aio te Hannibalen vincere  posse.   Antecedente e conseguente: in un rapporto logico dicesi antecedente  il primo termine, conseguente il secondo; cosi la causa è l’antecedente, l'effetto il conseguente. Apodittico: (da àitoSetxvojxt, dimostro); l'apodittica è quella parte  della dialettica che insegna il modo di dimostrare la verità  d'un principio mediante il semplice ragiouameuto; Kant ha  chiamato giudizi apodittici quelli nei quali il predicato appartiene necessariamente al soggetto, intendendosi per necessità  l’inconcepibilità del contrario; quindi pei giudizi necessari  affermativi la formula è: dev’essere; pei negativi: non può  essere. Aporema, da ànopèui: dubito, è, secondo Aristotile, il sillogismo dubitativo, quello che mostra l'ugual valore di due ragionamonti contrari. A posteriori, a priori: la prima espressione significa ciò che risulta  dall’esperienza; così le idee a posteriori sono quelle fornite  dall’esperienza; la seconda esprime ciò che è dato anteriormente all’esperienza, ciò che non proviene dai fatti; così si è  detta scienza a-priori la matematica o scienza a-posteriori la  storia. Però tanto tra i Latini quanto tra i filosofi medioevali l’espressione “ dimostrare a-priori, significa dimostrare  dalle cause; dimostrare a-posteriori dimostrare dagli effetti. Aquino nega che Dio si potesse conoscere  a-priori, perchè non si può conoscere dalle cause, ma solo  dagli effetti.   Asserzione: ò l’atto dell'esprimere una semplice verità di fatto,  e giudizi assertori ha chiamato il Kant quelli nei quali il predicato appartiene al soggetto, senza annettervi T idea di necessità o di possibilità.   Assioma: (dal greco oj degno donde à{j(to|ia la stima che si fa  d'una cosa, poi principio evidente; Giambattista Vico nella  Scienza nuova chiama gli assiomi degniti) è una verità evidente per sè stessa, indimostrabile, che serve di fondamento  por altre proposizioni; secondo gli empiristi trae la sua origine  dall’esperienza, secondo gli aprioristi dalla ragione indipendentemente dall'esperienza.   Astrazione: (traduzione di àcpaipsoij da ino ab o atpéw traggo,  fu dapprima adoperata dagli scultori per esprimere l'atto di  estrarre il primo abbozzo dal masso informe) per Aristotile  ò il processo montale con cui, omesse le qualità accidentali  della cosa, si separano le qualità essenziali e si considerano  per loro stesso; in generale significa considerare separatamente ciò che in realtà non è separato, decomporre una nozione in elementi. Canone: per Mill, che nel suo sistema di logica ha formulato cinque canoni fondamentali dell'induzione scientifica,  è sinonimo di norma, di regola da seguirsi; canonica (da xaV(év, xavóvoj, regolo per tracciare linee diritte) chiamarono  gli Epicurei la logica, la quale era un complesso di regole  del pensalo, di norme per discernere il vero dal falso.   Categoria: le categorie sono i concetti più generali delle cose, i  generi supremi in cui si dispongono le nostre idee, p. e. sostanza, qualità, quantità; il giudizio categorico è quello che  afferma o nega senza soggiacere ad alcuna condizione; sillogismo categorico 6 quello composto di giudizi categorici. Causa: nel significato comune e popolare ò ciò che produce un fenomeno, ciò che agisce, l'antecedente d'un altro fenomeno;  però un po' di riflessione basta a far comprendere che la causa  è determinata come tale solo dall’effetto, che i due termini  sono correlativi e l’uno non può sussistere senza l'altro; secondo il Mill la causa non è altro che l'antecedente invariabile e incondizionato di un fenomeno; il principio di causa o  di causalità esprime il fatto che nulla vi ha senza causa, che tutto ciò elio incomincia ad essere lia la propria ragion d'essere in qualche cosa di anteriore e che cause simili in circostanze simili producono effetti simili, secondo il principio  (ipotetico) dell’uniformità del corso naturale delle cose. Il CIRCOLO VIZIOSO è un sofisma il quale consiste nel provar la verità  d’una proposizione, appoggiandosi ad un'altra, la quale alla sua  volta non può essere provata se non appoggiandosi alla prima.   Composizione: ò il complesso dei caratteri che sono contenuti in un’idea, l’insieme degli elementi o note, che costituiscono  ciò che si dice anche “ connotazione „ d'un concetto. Concetto, dal latino conceptum che corrisponde ni greco da ooXXappàvm, prendo insieme, concipio, per significare che mediante il concetto apprendiamo il significato della cosa; i greci chiamarono il concetto anche 8poj, termine da ipt^io 10 termino, è l'unità delle cose essenziali dell'oggetto. Non è da confondersi colle rappresentazioni, che sono varie, individuali, mutevoli. Il concettualismo è la dottrina filosofica che ha per principale rappresentante Abelardo, secondo la quale gl’universali, ossia i generi e le specie, pur essendo nomi comuni che designano qualità  che appaiono solo negli individui, hanno però, come concetti,  una realtà nello spirito di chi li pensa. Due fatti sono detti concomitanti quando si accompagnano e avvengono sia simultaneamente sia uno dopo l'nltro;  cosi sono fatti concomitanti l'aumento di calore e l’ innalzarsi  del mercurio nel termometro. Concreto: si adopera in opposizione di astratto, e pare che'sia d’ori gine latina e significasse dapprima denso, spesso; Cicerone  dice aer concretilo come opposto ad aer fusilo; si applica a  ciò che è fornito di tutte le sue qualità ed ha un’esistenza  reale per sé. Contingenza e contingente', s’oppongono a necessità e a necessario; il  vocabolo aristotelico xò ou|ipepr,aóg tradotto in latino accidens  e contingens designa ciò che avviene, ma che potrebbe anche  non avvenire; s’intende generalmente in un doppio significato:  contingente è ciò che lo spirito può concepire come non esistente o esistente in modo diverso; oppure ciò che in realtà  potrebbe non essere o essere diversamente.   Criterio: (da xptxiqpiov che deriva da xpivm, giudico) è il segno o  la regola, mediante la quale si può riconoscere e distinguere il vero dal falso o che socondo alcuni ò posto nell’ intelletto,  secondo altri nella sensazione, nel senso comune, neU'autorità ecc. ecc.  Deduzione: forma di ragionamento, che consiste in genorale nel partire da un principio generale noto, per trarne conseguenze  particolari, o nel trovare il principio ignoto d'una conseguenza  nota; si adopera tanto nelle scienze di puro ragionamento, quanto nello scienze sperimentali. Definizione è la determinazione del contenuto d’un concetto che  può essere espressa mediante un giudizio, nel quale il soggetto è il concetto da definire, il defìniendo o il definito-, e il  predicato è l'insieme di note con lo quali il primo viene de¬  finito e dicesi definienle.   Determinismo: è la dottrina secondo la quale ogni fenomeno naturale è l’effetto necessario d’una causa, oppure, secondo il pensiero di Mill [“More Grice to The Mill”], ogni fenomeno ha per condizione  d’esistenza un insieme di circostanze positive e negative che  costituiscono il suo antecedente incondizionale, non già nel  senso che l'antecedente incondizionale produca effettivamente  il conseguente, ma solo nel senso che ne è seguito in maniera invariabile; il determinismo universale consisto quindi  neU’ammettere che il principio di causa ha valore tanto per  la natura materiale quanto per la natura spirituale. Si suole  distinguere il determinismo fisico, che riguarda i fenomeni fi sici, e il determinismo psicologico, che riguarda quelli psi¬  chici e afferma che in ogni caso particolare, dati i nostri mo¬  tivi d'agire, le nostre risoluzioni sono determinate e seguono  di necessità il motivo prevalente. Non si deve confondere determinismo con fatalismo, secondo il quale gli avvenimenti  sono determinati ab aetemo in modo necessario da un agente  esteriore. DIALETTICA (8tà attraverso e ^éyio raccolgo) è l'arte che apre la  strada al vero o quindi alla scienza mediante il raffronto e  la discussione delle varie opinioni; Platone dico noi Cratilo:“ colui che sa interrogare e rispondere come lo chiameremo  se non dialettico?, osso quindi espone ed esamina con arte  polemica le opinioni favorevoli e quelle contrario intorno ad  un dato soggetto, rivelandone le difficoltà e le contraddizioni.   Dictum de omni aut de nullo: è l’espressione usata dagli scolastici  per significare che ciò che si dice d'un complesso di cose o  di esseri, si dice pure dei singoli, e ciò che si nega d'un complesso, si nega pure dei singoli; esprime quindi il principio  fondamentale del sillogismo. DIFFERENZA SPECIFICA è l'insieme dei caratteri, mediante i quali una  specie si distingue da un’altra o dalle altre, appartenenti al  medesimo genere. “DISCORSIVO” designa la conoscenza e il ragionamento mediato, nel  quale entra come fattore importante il lavoro della ragione;  si oppone a intuitivo, giacché la conoscenza intuitiva è quella  che avviene per un atto immediato, subitaneo, senza passaro  da un’ idea ad un’altra, senza la comparazione di più idee,  come avviene nella conoscenza discorsiva. Divisione: nel linguaggio logico, è l'operazione mediante la quale  si determina l’estensione d’un concetto, mentre la definizione  ne determina la comprensione; la forma più semplice della  divisione è una proposizione in cui il soggetto ossia il dividendo è il genere, e il predicato ossia il dividente enumera le  specie contenuto sotto quel genere. Dogma: o domma (da Box ito, io penso, donde 8óf|ia: ciò che è  pai’so conveniente, opinione, principio professato, deliberazione)  significa in generale un'opinione che viene imposta da un’autorità posta al di fuori e al disopra d'ogni critica e d'ogni  esame; il dogmatismo, in opposizione allo scetticismo, ammette  la possibilità di conoscere la realtà quale essa è. Il dubbio metodico consiste nel sospendere il nostro giudizio intorno  a qualsiasi cosa, respingendo le opinioni anteriormente stabiite, finché la verità non si imponga con assoluta evidenza ni  nostro spirito; si distingue quindi dal dubbio scettico, che  nega la possibilità stessa di conoscere alcnna cosa.   Eclettismo (da èx-Xéyto, scelgo): si dice del metodo filosofico che  consiste nel raccogliere da sistemi filosofici diversi e anche  opposti opinioni e dottrine, che si cerca di conciliare armonicamente. Empirismo, da èpReipia esperienza, icatpdco io sperimento, è la dottrina filosofica che fa derivare dall'esperienza tutto ciò che  conosciamo, e considera il fenomeno come unico oggetto della  nostra conoscenza. Ammette un’esperienza esterna basata sul  potere dei sensi ed un’esperienza interna basata sul potere  della riflessione; si distingue quindi dal sensismo, che ammette  essere i sensi la sola fonte di tutte le nostre cognizioni. Eristica: (da spij, contesa, ipf£o>, io contendo) è l'arte di disputare,  di contraddire ad ogni affermazione dell’avversario pel solo  scopo o pel piacere di voler contraddire, è una derivazione e  una degenerazione della sofistica, con la quale non si devo  confondere.   Esplicito: un giudizio o una nozione diconsi espliciti quando sono  chiaramente e precisamente espressi nella proposizione. Essenza (essentia da esse, traduzione del greco cuoia) è un’espressione di vario significato; è stata usata dai Greci por indicare ciò cbe persiste identico sotto la varietà e la molteplicità dei  fenomeni, ciò elio cade solo nel dominio della conoscenza razionale. Per gli scolastici l'essenza è il complesso delle qua¬  lità indicate dalla definizione e dalle idee che rappresentano  il genere e la specie; designa quindi ciò che nell’essere è intelligibile e concorre a definirlo, ossia i suoi attributi fondamentali. Estensione d’un concetto: è il complesso degli individui e degli os seri, dei quali un concetto o una qualità può essere affermato  come attributo, ossia il numero dei concetti cbe contiene sotto  di sé.   Fenomenalismo: o fenomenismo, è la dottrina filosofica la quale af¬  ferma resistenza dei fenomeni essere l'unica realtà, negando  l'esistenza della sostanza, della cosa in sé; noi conosciamo le  coso come appaiono a noi, non come sono in sè stesse.   Forma: por Aristotile la forma (popoli, et8oj) è attività ed energia,  la materia (OXv)) è passività o potenzialità; la forma trae dalla  materia, per mezzo del perpetuo moto che in essa suscita, la  molteplicità dei particolari, ciò facendo secondo certe regole  e quindi introducendo in quella ordine e uniformità; la forma  è inscindibile dalla materia. Oggi per materia della conoscenza  s’intende il contenuto di questa; la materia è ciò cbe indi¬  vidua i fatti e distingue, per esempio, il pensiero a dal pensiero ò, dal pensiero c e cosi via: per la materia una proposizione logica di scienza giuridica si distingue da una di etica,  una legge economica da una legge estetica; ma la logica che  non entra nei dibattiti delle varie discipline, ed ha per oggetto il pensiero in universale qualunque ne sia il contenuto,  la materia, prescinde da questa e contempla la forma. Però  un’affermazione logica, per esempio una qualsiasi affermazione  di scienza, non può esser vera formalmente o falsa material¬  mente, perchè, in concreto, la sua forma b inseparabile dalla  sua materia; la logica non può prescindere dalla verità dei  concetti, dei giudizi, dei ragionamenti, per quanto prescinda  da questi o quei concetti, giudizi, ragionamenti. (Croce). Genere: in una serie di concetti in cui l'estensione va crescendo e  diminuisce la comprensione, dicesi genere il concetto più esteso  e meno comprensivo rispetto ai concetti meno estesi e più  comprensivi: animale, per esempio, rispetto a vertebrato, vertebrato rispetto a uomo, uomo rispetto a Europeo e cosi via.   Giudizio ; fu detto dei Greci àitócpaaij, o Xóyos ànotpaxtxój, da  &7ti e ig) il dubbio degli  scettici.   Scolastica: è il secondo periodo della filosofia del medio evo, che  va dall' 800 al 1400; è preceduta dalla Patristica o filosofia  dei SS. Padri, è seguita dal Rinascimento ed ha per iniziatore  Scoto Erigeua e per centro Parigi; la Scolastica dipende stret¬  tamente dalla religione, nella quale ritrovavano la verità; è  essenzialmente dogmatica e manifesta in generale una sfiducia  e una diffidenza più o meno grando verso la ragione o la  scienza; una questione capitale che si agitò nella Scolastica  è quella che riguarda gli universali. SINTESI, da ouv-xIS-rjpt: pongo insieme, nel significato più lato designa ogni operazione che tendo a riunire in un tutto elementi  diversi. Si intende anche il processo mediante il quale dai  principi si scende alle conseguenze. SISTEMA – Myro: System Ghp – a highly powerful/hopefully plausible version of System G -- (da oov-£<mj|u: metto insieme) è in generale un tutto nel  quale le singolo parti sono ordinatamente collegate fra loro, un complesso di idee subordinate ad uno o a più principi generali e fra loro coordinate. SOSTANZA (substautia, loti.: ciò elio sta sotto, traduzione della parola aristotelica: &Ro-xe!|ievov, composta di imo sotto e xsìpat  io giaccio) è ciò che permane identico in mezzo al variare  delle qualità, del colore, della forma; per gli scolastici è ciò  che sussiste per sé (ens quod per se subsistit), mentre gli  accidenti sussistono nella sostanza e quindi per la sostanza. SUB-ORDINAZIONE è la relazione che corre fra due concetti di cui l’uno  ò contenuto nell’estensione dell’altro. Cosi il concetto di uomo e subordinato a quello di mammifero, che dicesi concetto sopraordinato. SUSSNZIONE (subsumptio, da subsumere) è una specie di ragionamento  che consiste nel porre due idee nella dipendenza come di  specie a genere, di caso individuale a legge. Pel Lizio il  sillogismo di sussunzione, che corrisponde al sillogismo di  pi ima figura, è il tipo perfetto del raziocinio. Emilio Morselli. Morselli. Keywords: implicatura. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Morselli.”

 

Luigi Speranza – GRICE ITALO!; ossia, Grice e Mosca:  a l’isola -- la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – la scuola di Palermo -- filosofia siciliana – filosofia italiana -- Luigi Speranza (Palermo). Filosofo siciliano. Filosofo italiano. Palermo, Sicilia. Grice: “When Austin was defending the ‘man in the street,’ he was thinking Mosca!” -- Grice: “I like Mosca; he speaks of elites – Gellner speaks of elites, too!” -- Grice: “Do Italians consider Mosca a philosopher?” –  Saggi: “Sulla teorica dei governi e sul governo parlamentare,  Appunti sulla libertà di stampa, Questioni costituzionali, Le Costituzioni moderne; Elementi di scienza politica, Che cosa è la mafia, Appunti di diritto Costituzionale, Italia, Stato liberale e stato sindacale, Il problema sindacale,  Saggi di storia delle dottrine politiche, Crisi e rimedi del regime parlamentare, Storia delle dottrine politiche, Partiti e sindacati nella crisi del regime parlamentare, Ciò che la storia potrebbe insegnare. Scritti di scienza politica (Milano), Il tramonto dello Stato liberale (a cura di A. Lombardo, Catania) Scritti sui sindacati (a cura di F. Perfetti, M. Ortolani, Roma) Discorsi parlamentari (con un saggio di Panebianco, Bologna. Appunti di diritto costituzionale dall’Enciclopedia Giuridica Italiana. Milano.  La genesi delle cottituzion imoderne. Cenni storici sulla scienza del diritto costituzionale. Definizione dello stato e della sovranità. Condizioni sociali che prepararono il regime rappresentativo. Dottrine politiche che integrano l'azione del dizioni sociali. La costituzione inglese e sua importanza con  dello di tutte le costituzioni moderne. Origini. Ordinamenti politici ed amministrativi dell'Inghilterra. La prima rivoluzione inglese. La restaura:   Vhabecis corpus. La seconda rivoluzione inglese. Il seconc   dei diritti e Patto di stabilimento. Lo svolgimento della costituzione inglese nel  decimottavo.  Lo statuto albertino.  Caratteri delle prime costituzioni moderne. più dirette dello statuto albertino. Il re. Sue prerogative e norme della succezione monarchica. Il gabinetto, i ministri ed il presidente del consiglio. La responsabilità penale dei ministry. La formazione delle due Camere. Varii sistemi  di suffragio.  La legge elettorale politica. Prerogative e funzioni dell» due Camere. Dell’ordine giudiziario. Dei diritti individuali. Dei rapporti fra la chiesa e lo stato. Lo studio del diritto pubblico in genere e del  diritto costituzionale in ispecie richiede anzitutto  la definizione esatta di certi concetti che, per quanto  non nuovi, non hanno acquistato ancora un significato preciso e determinato e nello stesso tempo  accolto da tutti. Il concetto di Stato, che è il più fondamentale  di tutti, venne ad esempio elaborato fin dalla classica antichità e corrisponde a ciò che i greci chiamavano “polis” ed i romani “respublica”. Eppure anche oggi si disputa sulla origine e la natura  dello stato. Fra tutte le definizioni dello stato la migliore mi sembra quella che lo fa consistere nella organizzazione politica e giuridica di un popolo entro  un determinato territorio, ma anche essa ha bisogno di spiegazioni e commenti.  Quando si dice infatti organizzazione politica di  un popolo, s' intende quella di tutti gli elementi che dirigono politicamente un popolo ossia esercitano funzioni statuali. Nello stato moderno perciò vanno  compresi non solo tutti i pubblici funzionari, tenendo conto pure di quelli fra costoro che non  sono pubblici impiegati, ma anche i membri del parlamento ed i consiglieri provinciali e comunali;  e perfino gl’elettori politici e comunali, quando  sono convocati nei comizi, esercitano funzioni statuali e perciò fanno parte dello stato. Ma per quanto in una organizzazione statuale  democratica lo stato comprende, almeno  giuridicamente dappoiché in fatto le cose vanno diversamente, la parte maggiore della società, pure questa non si confonde mai intieramente collo stato. Perchè anche nei paesi dove vige il suffragio universale vi sono molti individui che pur fanno parte  del sociale consorzio, come le donne, i minorenni  e coloro che per condanne sono esclusi dal suffragio, i quali in nessun caso partecipano alle funzioni politiche o statuali.  Ma se lo stato non è la società, esso essendo  costituito dal complesso di tutti gl’elementi che  partecipano alla direzione politica di questa non è certo al di fuori della società. Il cervello non è tutto  il corpo umano, ma ne fa parte e senza di esso il  corpo umano non può vivere. Bisogna però notare  che la vita del corpo sociale ha delle analogie  non delle identità con quelle dell'individuo umano.  Infatti in questo ogni singola cellula è fissata nell'organo di cui fa parte, mentre negl’organismi sociali più perfezionati, nei quali le funzioni statuali sono suddivise in vari organi le cui attribuzioni sono giuridicamente limitate, vediamo spesso che il medesimo individuo fa parte dello stato nell'esercizio della sua pubblica funzione e é sem-plice membro della società al di fuori della sua  funzione e di fronte a tutti gli altri organi dello stato. Ciò accade tanto al semplice elettore che  al magistrato ed allo stesso membro del parlamento, se non vogliamo tener conto per i due ultimi delle poche speciali prerogative che mirano a  salvaguardarne l'indipendenza nell'esercizio delle  loro funzioni. Molti filosofi considerano intanto lo stato e la  società come due enti che per necessità vivono in  continuo antagonismo, per alcuni anzi lo stato è  il perpetuo nemico della società. Dopo quanto si è  scritto risulta evidente che il loro concetto è per lo  meno inesatto e sopratutto è difettoso perchè contribuisce piuttosto a confondere che a chiarire le  idee che si possono avere sull'argomento. Nondimeno esso non è del tutto falso e può essere anzi  riguardato come una interpretazione sbagliata di  una condizione di cose in tutto od in parte verace.  È indiscutibile infatti che in una società vi possono essere elementi dirigenti che dalla costituzione in vigore sono tenuti lontani dalla organizzazione statuale. Ed allora naturalmente vi è una lotta fra questi elementi e quelli già accolti entro lo stato che può assumere la parvenza di una lotta fra stato  e società. E può anche accadere che i progressi del  senso morale e giuridico di una società abbiano oltrepassato quel livello che si era aggiunto nel  momento della formazione del suo organismo politico. Sicché questo, rimasto arretrato, permette  ai rappresentanti dello stato un'azione che riesce vessatoria ed arbitraria per gli altri membri della società.  Ma in sostanza i periodi di antagonismo acuto  fra gl’elementi statuali e quelli extra-statuali di una  società possono essere considerati come eccezionali e sogliono ordinariamente precedere le grandi  rivoluzioni. Tutto quanto si è detto spiega perchè lo stato sia l'organizzazione politica di un popolo. Se si tiene poi presente che, in tutti i paesi che hanno raggiunto un certo grado di civiltà, le condizioni in base alle quali si arriva all'esercizio delle funzioni statuali ed i limiti di queste funzioni sono determinati dalla LEGGE si vede facilmente come  questa organizzazione sia non solo politica ma anche giuridica; perchè essa crea fra i diversi organi  dello stato e fra coloro che esercitano le funzioni statuali ed i semplici cittadini una serie di rapporti giuridici. Questi rapporti nascono in base ad una facoltà  che lo stato esclusivamente possiede: la sovranità. La sovranità consiste nel potere di conchiudere convenzioni e trattati con un’ altro stato e di creare il diritto e farlo eseguire in tutto  il territorio sottoposto allo stato.  I filosofi, educati quasi esclusivamente alle concezioni del diritto privato, si sono spesso trovati  in qualche imbarazzo riguardo a questo attributo della sovranità. Essi stentano a spiegaisi  come e perchè l'ente che ha facoltà di fare la legge, di modificarla e disfarla e *sottoposto* alla legge. Per darsi ragione di questo fatto i filosofi hanno ricorso a tante ipotesi, fra le quali la  più divulgata è quella che lo stato a sorto in  base ad una convenzione, ad un “contratto”, ad un  atto giuridico tacito od espresso, ma ad ogni modo consentito da coloro che fanno parte del consorzio sociale sul quale esso esercita la sua sovranità.  Prendendo a base il concetto che già si è adottato sullo stato e dei suoi rapporti  con la società non riesce difficile di risolvere la difficoltà accennata. Già fin dal tempo dei filosofi e giureconsulti romani si distinsero nello stato due personalità -- una di diritto PRIVATO, per la quale esso potea contrarre obbligazioni come ogni altra persona giuridica -- ed un'altra di diritto PUBBLICO che  gli confere l'esercizio dei poteri sovrani. L'esercizio di questi poteri produce la conseguenza che lo Stato impone a tutti i cittadini degli obblighi, come ad esempio quello dell'imposta e del servizio militare, senza offrire in cambio alcun corrispettivo diretto. Senonchè è da osservare che nelle forme di stato più perfezionato e sopratutto nello stato  rappresentativo moderno, quando si tratta d'imporre questi obblighi e di esercitare in genere la  funzione sovrana per eccellenza, che è quella di  fare le leggi, è necessario il consenso del capo dello stato e di tutte quelle forze politiche che son  rappresentate nei due rami del parlamento. Nel  momento nel quale, collettivamente e nelle forme  volute, gl’elementi ai quali è affidato il POTERE LEGISLATIVO esercitano questa funzione, essi sono sovrani, cioè, SUPERIORI alla legge perchè la fanno  e la disfanno, in tutti gli altri momenti ed individualmente sono soggetti alla sovranità, cioè all'impero della legge. A guardarci bene nello stato moderno ciò non rappresenta una vera anomalia, perchè anche nell'esercizio delle altre funzioni statuali gl’elementi  che le disimpegnano agiscono, sia individualmente  che collegialmente, in nome dello stato e lo rappresentano nei limiti delle loro attribuzioni. Mentre sono completamente soggetti alla sovranità  dello stato in qualunque *altra* manifestazione della  loro attività personale. Tanto i membri del POTERE GIUDIZIARIO che gl’agenti del POTERE ESECUTIVO si  trovano infatti nelle condizioni accennate, colla differenza però che, quando esorbitano dalla loro funzione ed anche nell'esercizio della loro funzione, è sempre possibile di esercitare sopra di essi un controllo che riesce malagevole, se non impossibile, di fronte al potere legislativo.   Sia a causa di una lontana parentela. etnica, sia   perchè l'influenza delle vicine colonie greche dell’ Ita-  lia meridionale avrebbe agito efficacemente fin dal se-  sto secolo avanti l’era volgare, certo è che l’organiz-  zazione politica delle città italiche, all’inizio dell’epoca  storica, presenta molte analogie con quella dello stato-  città ellenico.   In Roma infatti, che è la più nota fra le città  italiche, troviamo in origine il Re, il Senato composto  nei tempi più antichi dai capi delle diverse genti pa-  trizie, ed i Comizi, ossia l’assemblea del popolo. Abo-  lita come in Grecia la regalità ereditaria e sostituita  ad essa il consolato e le altre magistrature temporanee,  elettive e quasi sempre multiple, sorse presto anche a  Roma la lotta tra l’antica cittadinanza patrizia, costi-  tuita da coloro che facevano parte delle antiche genti  e la nuova cittadinanza plebea, composta a preferenza  dai discendenti degli stranieri domiciliati e dei servi  liberati. E per un certo tempo pare che due città coesiste nell’urbe, con magistrature speciali all’una  ed all’altra, finchè si fusero quasi intieramente con una costituzione che ricorda molto il tipo ellenico della città-stato, ma che si distingue da essa per alcune particolarità originali. Le principali sarebbero la maggior  facilità con la quale veniva accordata gradatamente la  cittadinanza, od una semicittadinanza, alla parte migliore dei popoli vinti, il mantenimento di tutti i diritti di cittadinanza ai coloni che si spedivano in siti  abbastanza lontani dalla capitale, ed infine il carattere  spiccatamente aristocratico che conservò fino all’ultimo  secolo della repubblica la costituzione romana rispetto  a quella di quasi tutte 1é città greche. Infatti il Senato romano nell’epoca storica era com-  posto da coloro che erano scelti dal censore fra le persone che avevano esercitato cariche elevate, e solo in  un'epoca relativamente recente i Comizi centuriati fu-  rono riformati in maniera da togliere in essi la pre-  ponderanza alle classi altamente censite ed accanto at  Comizi centuriati furono ammessi i Comizi tributi, nei  quali prevaleva il numero sul censo. Però la legge non  poteva essere approvata se non nelia forma precisa con  la quale i magistrati l'avevano proposta, ed il Senato  romano ebbe attribuzioni ed autorità assai più larghe  di quelle concesse ai corpi analoghi che si potevano  trovare in qualche città ellenica. Ed in quanto alle  cariche elettive il costume, più che lia legge, impedì  sino agli ultimi tempi della repubblica che fossero conferite a veri popolani. Infatti il tribunato militare, che  era il primo gradino che dovevano salire coloro che  aspiravano alla carriera politica, fino alla fine della repubblica non fu praticamente accessibile che ai membri dell’ordine equestre, i quali dovevano possedere  un censo piuttosto elevato. Ma quando Roma, dopo avere sottomesso l'Italia,  ebbe conquistato quasi tutte le terre bagnate dal Mediterraneo apparì chiaramente che la costituzione della città-stato, sia pure modificata nel modo accennato,  non poteva più funzionare. Infatti la lontananza della.  grande maggioranza dei cittadini era di ostacolo alla  regolare e pronta riunione dei Comizi nel foro, i quali  in ultimo non furono più frequentati che dalla pleba-  glia che abitava nell’ Urbe. Inoltre diveniva impossibile di conservare l’annualità delle cariche più elevate  quando i consoli dovevano fare un lungo viaggio per  recarsi nelle lontane province. Oltre a ciò era avvenuto un profondo rivolgimento nella distribuzione della proprietà fondiaria, poichè  questa si era a poco a poco accentrata nelle mani di  un piccolo numero di latifondisti, e quindi era gradatamente diminuita quella classe di piccoli proprietari  che per lungo tempo aveva costituito il nerbo degli:  eserciti romani. Per riparare a questa deficienza furono promulgate due leggi: una proposta da Caio GRACCO, mediante la quale l’armamento non era più a carico del soldato, ma veniva.  pagato dal pubblico erario, e l’altra proposta da Caio MARIO, il riformatore dell’organizzazione militare romana, con la quale ve-.  nivano ammessi nelle legioni non solo i proletari ma  anche i figli dei liberti. Conseguenza di queste leggi e delle guerre lunghe e lontane fu che all’esercito cittadino si andò  mano mano sostituendo un esercito di soldati di mestiere, reclutati negli strati più bassi della popolazione,  e praticamente il comando (imperium), prima corcesso  solo temporaneamente e con possibilità di revoca ai  comandanti delle legioni, divenne illimitato e si protrasse per molti anni; sicchè i soldati divennero facili  strumenti dei loro capi sostenendone gli ambiziosi di-  segni a patto di partecipare ai vantaggi della vittoria.  In questa condizione di cose bisogna ricercare una delle principali origini delle guerre civili, che ebbero come conseguenza un sensibile spostamento della proprietà  privata; perchè durante la prima, e soprattutto durante  la seconda proscrizione, molte furono le terre che ven-  nero tolte ai ricchi ed ai medii proprietari e furono distribuite ai soldati, cioè ai proletari armati.  Viva è stata una disputa fra alcuni storici moderni,  perchè alcuni sostengono che OTTAVIANO vuole creare una nuova forma di governo, sostituendo l’impero alla  Repubblica, mentre altri invece opinano che egli volle  conservare la forma repubblicana ritoccandola dove e necessario. A noi la questione sembra, in tali termini, posta  male; perchè le persone non troppo addentro nello studio dell’istituzioni romane potrebbero in tal modo supporre che la repubblica in Roma antica fosse una  forma di governo presso a poco uguale alle moderne  repubbliche e che l'impero d’OTTAVIANO ha molta somiglianza con gl’imperi moderni. La verità è che  OTTAVIANO vide che l’antica costituzione dello stato-città  non puo più funzionare dopo che Roma aveva soggiogato tutte le coste del Mediterraneo e che i cittadini romani sono diventati milioni e perciò aggiunse a  quelli antichi nuovi e più efficaci organi di governo,  adattando pure, per quanto era possibile, gl’organi  antichi ai bisogni nuovi. Quindi i comizi come organi legislativi comincia-  rono ad andare in disuso, sebbene Augusto abbia fatto  .da essi approvare due importanti leggi tutelatrici del-  l'istituto familiare, cioè la legge Papia Poppea de  maritandis ordinibus e la legge Julia de adulteriis.  L’ultima legge approvata dai comizi, di cui si ha notizia, è una legge agraria di NERVA (si veda). La funzione legislativa dei comizi passò all’ Imperatore ed al Senato, il quale emanava Senatus consulta  aventi forza di legge. Però le antiche prerogative di  questo corpo politico furono notevolmente limitate; in-  fatti gli affari finanziari e la politica estera, che erano  stati di sua competenza, furono in buona parte affidati  all’ Imperatore! Le province dell’impero furono divise in imperiali  e senatorie; le une erano amministrate direttamente  dall’ Imperatore mediante funzionari da lui nominati,  le altre da funzionari nominati dal Senato. È da notare che le province imperiali erano quasi tutte ai confini dell'impero ed in esse risiedevano le legioni delle  quali era generalissimo l’imperatore, il quale aveva conseguentemente nelle sue mani la forza militare, e nelle  province imperiali, dove vi era un governo militare,  esercita un’autorità assoluta. A Roma e nelle province senatorie l’mperatore  era un magistrato civile, però cumulava in sè tante  cariche che la sua volontà era preponderante. Le antiche magistrature repubblicane furono quasi tutte con-servate, ma, accanto ad esse, si istituirono nuove e  più efficaci ciriche, coperte da semplici cavalieri o dai  liberti dell’ Imperatore, che dipendevano direttamente  da lui. Così a poco a poco la burocrazia imperiale  Nella civiltà. antica non si riscontra quella netta suddivi-  sione di attribuzioni fra i diversi organi sovrani che, almeno teoricamente, esiste oggi nei paesi di civiltà europea ed americana;  poichè spesso la stessa attribuzione, come ad esempio il potere  legislativo, veniva a vicenda esercitata da due organi diversi. Di,  fatto poi a Roma, nei primi due secoli dell'impero, i poteri del  Senato si allargavano e restringevano secondo la volontà degli  imperatori; più rispettosi essendo in generale dell’autorità del  Senato quelli che lasciarono un buon nome, come ad esempio  TRAIANO (si veda), meno assai quelli che furono dai contemporanei e dai  posteri giudicati malvagi. oa  soppiantò le antiche magistrature, che divennero col  tempo puramente onorifiche.   Rimase soltanto, come traccia e ricordo dell’antico  regime politico, la /ex regia de imperio per la quale  nominalmente era il Senato, come rappresentante del  popolo romano, che conferiva all'Imperatore la sua  potestà; sebbene di fatto era il favore ed il disfavore  dei pretoriani e poi delle legioni che creava ed abbat-  teva gli imperatori. Ad ogni modo la legge citata fa-  ceva sì che, fino alla fine del terzo secolo dopo Cristo,  la costituzione dell'impero romano si poteva distin-  guere da quella degli antichi imperi orientali, nei quali  il sovrano era tale per delegazione del Dio nazionale  O per privilegio ereditario della sua famiglia. Di questo concetto relativo all’origine dell’autorità dell’ imperatore romano si trova ancora il ricordo nelle Pandette di GIUSTINIANO; e GREGORIO Magno, scrivendo all’ imperatore d’Oriente, affermava che mentre i sovrani stranieri  (reges gentium) erano signori di servi, gl’imperatori  romani (imperatores vero reipublicae) comandavano  ad uomini liberi. Uno dei punti più deboli della costituzione impe-  riale romana fu la incertezza della regola di successione,  la quale faceva sì che nascessero frequenti lotte fra i  diversi pretendenti al trono. I primi cinque imperatori  appartenevano per sangue o per adozione alla famiglia  Giulia Claudia, spentasi questa con NERONE; dopo un anno di guerre civili sottentra con tre imperatori, Vespasiano, TITO e Domiziano,  la famiglia Flavia. Con quell’anno prevale  il costume dell’adozione, mediante il quale l’imperatore vivente designava il successore e, mercè questo.    costume, si ebbe una serie di buoni imperatori. In quell’anno si tornò alla successione naturale,  perchè ad ANTONINO (si veda) succedette l’indegno suo figlio COMMODO (si veda) e, dopo che questi fu ucciso, nel 192 dopo  Cristo, ricominciarono le guerre civili fra i candidati  alla successione, sostenuti ognuno dalle proprie legioni,  e con il ricominciare di queste lotte si manifestarono  i primi indizi della decadenza dell’ impero e della ci-  viltà antica. Le dottrine politiche dei filosofi romani non  sono molto originali. I romani, uomini eminentemente  d'azione, amano poco di teorizzare. Inoltre nell’ultimo secolo della Repubblica, epoca torbida di lotte  civili, le teorie servivano poco. Sotto l’ Impero manca il fine pratico per l’indagine teorica dei problemi  politici. Ad ogni modo fra i filosofi romani nei quali  si trovano pensieri che hanno rapporti con la vita politica si può anzitutto ricordare LUCREZIO (si veda), il quale  nel suo poema De rerum natura dopo aver ammesso  l'esistenza degli Dei, i quali però non si occuperebbero  delle cose di questo mondo, ricerca le origini degl’ordinamenti politici. Afferma che in principio gl’uomini si riunirono  in città sotto capi scelti tra i più forti ed i più prestanti, poichè questo è il significato che bisogna dare all’aggettivo pulcher che LUCREZIO usa; costoro degenerando abusarono del loro potere raccogliendo nelle  loro mani tutte le ricchezze e suscitando così la ribellione dei governati, la quale avrebbe provocato uno  stato di anarchia che avrebbe reso necessaria la for-  mulazione delle leggi e l'elezione dei magistrati. Come facilmente si vede vi è in queste teorie  molto eclettismo e si sente in esse l’ influenza di Platone e di Polibio. SALLUSTIO (si veda) nella sua De bello jugurtino mette in bocca a CAIO MARIO una violenta invettiva  contro l’aristocrazia romana, inoltre nella descrizione  che fa della congiura di CATILINA mette in evidenza in  maniera efficacissima la corruttela della vita politica  romana negl’ultimi tempi della repubblica. Altro filosofo che si occupa anche di politica e CICERONE che nel De republica, nel De legibus e nel De officiis esamina le tre tradizionali forme di governo,  affermando la sua preferenza per un governo misto nel  quale le tre forme erano fuse. Appare in ciò chiaramente l’ influenza di Polibio. Oltre a ciò CICERONE parlando della schiavitù non ammette la teoria aristotelica  della disuguaglianza degl’uomini, ma la giustifica con  un principio di diritto internazionale, affermando cioé  che nella guerra i vinti ai quali si lascia la vita diventano servi. Intanto è giusto ricordare che CICERONE tratta assai umanamente i suoi schiavi, specialmente quelli colti che venneno dall’Oriente, e difatti sono molto affettuose le lettere che scrive al suo liberto e collaboratore Tirone. Seneca, basandosi sulla distinzione fra diritto naturale e diritto civile, sostenne che la schiavitù non  e giustificabile dal punto di vista del diritto naturale,  ma lo e in base al diritto civile. TACITO nell’annali dice incidentalmente che i governi misti di monarchia, aristocrazia e  democrazia è più facile che siano lodati anzichè effettuati e che, se sono effettuati, non durano. Non sembra che TACITO sia stato repubblicano nel senso che  avrebbe desiderato il ritorno all’antica forma di governo anteriore a GIULIO Cesare e ad OTTAVIANO, egli e soltanto avverso ai cattivi imperatori e lodava quelli buoni,  che hanno saputo conciliare il principato con la libertà, cioè col rispetto delle leggi e dell’autorità del senato. Il più grande contributo alla elaborazione della civiltà antica lo diede la Grecia, ma fu merito di Roma  l’avere esteso i risultati della cultura ellenica a buona  parte dell’Asia, all'Africa settentrionale ed a tutta quella  parte dell’ Europa che sta a mezzogiorno del Danubio  e ad occidente del Reno e perfino alla parte meridio-  nale della Gran Bretagna. E merito anche maggiore  di Roma fu quello di avere introdotto, dovunque esten-  deva il proprio dominio, leggi, idee e costumi presso  a poco uguali, sostituendo, senza apparente coazione,  in Occidente IL LATINO, in Oriente il greco, alla MOLTITUDINE DEI LINGUAGGI BARBARICI e facendo col tempo sparire ogni distinzione fra vincitori e vinti, conquistatori,  e conquistati. Poichè con l’editto di CARACALLA si estende la cittadinanza romana a  quasi tutti i provinciali, completando così quella unità  politica e morale di tanta parte del mondo civile, che,  dall’ora in poi, non è stata più raggiunta. Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat. Così canta il poeta gallico Rutilio Namaziano al  principio del quinto secolo dell’era volgare, riassumendo  in poche parole l’opera grandiosa che nel corso di parecchi secoli Roma aveva compiuto. La ricerca delle cause che produssero la caduta  dell'Impero romano d'Occidente è ancora uno dei più oscuri problemi fra quelli che presenta la storia. Poichè  non si tratta soltanto di spiegare il crollo di un organismo politico, ma la dissoluzione, sia pure non completa ma certamente profonda, di una civiltà. Una osservazione, che forse finora non è stata fatta, è quella  che riguarda la China e fino ad un certo punto l’ India,  paesi la cui civiltà ha avuto pochi contatti con quella  ellenica e romana, e nei quali, pur essendosi succedute  parecchie invasioni barbariche, i conquistatori, in capo  ad un paio di generazioni hanno assorbito la civiltà  dei vinti e questa ha continuato il suo corso senza che  la decadenza sia stata lunga e molto sensibile. Ciò che  non è avvenuto alla caduta dell'Impero romano d’ Oc-cidente, ragione per la quale si può supporre che essa  sia principalmente dovuta a cause interne. È già noto che i primi gravi sintomi della crisi  si ebbero nel terzo secolo dopo Cristo e che essi sono  visibili perfino nell’arte e nella letteratura, che manifestano un notevole decadimento del gusto e del pensiero. Si è pure accennato alla mancanza di una norma  regolatrice della successione al trono che diede occasione ad una serie di guerre civili, durante le quali  qualche volta si ebbero tanti imperatori quante erano  le province importanti. Contemporaneamente ebbero  luogo le prime irruzioni dei barbari, che sparsero la  desolazione nella Gallia e nella penisola balcanica ed  arrivarono un momento perfino nell'alta Italia. Gl’imperatori Illirici Claudio secondo, Aureliano,  Probo, Caro ed in ultimo Diocleziano riuscirono a respingere i barbari pur abbandonando loro la Dacia e  quella parte della Germania che era ad oriente del  Reno e si estendeva fino alle sorgenti del Danubio;  poi Diocleziano per rinforzare il potere centrale compiè l’evoluzione già iniziata da Settimio Severo e diede  all'impero il carattere di una monarchia assoluta di tipo orientale, trasformando anche in questo senso l’e-  tichetta di corte. Egli cercò pure di fissare le norme  per la successione al trono in maniera da evitare le  guerre civili, mercè la coesistenza di due Augusti e  di due Cesari che si rinnovavano per cooptazione. Ma,  dopo il ritiro di Diocleziano, si rinnovarono le guerre civili, finchè Costantino ristabili l’unità dell’impero,  che però durò poco e, dopo varie vicende, si spezzò  definitivamente alla morte di Teodosio. Durante tutto il quarto secolo dell’era volgare e  nei primi decenni del quinto la dissoluzione politica,  economica e morale dell'Impero romano di Occidente  si aggravò sempre più fino a diventare un male irreparabile. Come già si è accennato è difficile di accertare quale sia stata la causa prima di questa decadenza,  dovuta probabilmente ad un complesso di cause, prevalentemente di natura interna, alcune delle quali sono  abbastanza note. E prima di tutto bisogna segnalare la diminuzione  della popolazione dovuta, oltre che a qualche irruzione  dei barbari, alle frequenti pestilenze ed alle carestie. Nè l’igiene pubblica nè il sistema dei trasporti erano  allora così perfezionati da potere prevenire le stragi  delle une e delle altre. Si aggiunga che la natalità era  scarsa, perchè il cristianesimo non era ancora così diffuso nelle plebi rurali da sradicare l’uso del procurato  aborto e dell’esposizione degli infanti. La diminuzione  della popolazione produsse naturalmente l'abbandono  della coltura di molti campi, alla quale si cercò di riparare coll’istituzione del colonato, che legava l’agricoltore ed i suoi figli alla terra, rimedio artificioso ed  insufficiente. Altra causa e la decadenza della classe media,  dovuta soprattutto all’eccessivo fiscalismo. Oltre alle  dogane ed alla imposta del cinque per cento sulle eredità, il maggior provento del fisco imperiale consisteva  nell’imposta sulla proprietà terriera. Essa veniva ripar-  tita mediante il sistema del contingente, in base al  quale il governo centrale stabiliva l'onere di cui era  gravato ogni municipio. Della riscossione erano incaricati i decurioni, ossia i membri del consiglio muni-  cipale reclutato fra i maggiori censiti, i quali erano  tenuti a ricoprire con le loro sostanze la differenza fra  la somma stabilita e quella realmente riscossa. I grandi  proprietari residenti a Roma o nelle ‘principali città  dell'impero si facevano esentare facilmente dal decu-  rionato, che così ricadeva tutto sulle spalle dei medi  e piccoli proprietari e li rovinava.   Si aggiunga che l’incertezza del valore della moneta doveva contribuire ad aggravare la crisi economica.  Durante il periodo dell’anarchia militare, nella seconda  metà del terzo secolo, si era cominciato a coniare mo-  neta falsa, mescolando nelle zecche dello Stato del  piombo all’argento e qualche volta all’oro. Natural-  mente nel commercio queste monete erano accettate  per il loro valore reale con un conseguente rincaro dei  prezzi. DIOCLEZIANO cerca di ripararvi con un’unica tariffa che stabiliva in tutto il territorio dell'impero i  prezzi massimi di tutte le derrate e di tutti i servizi.  Ma ciò era assurdo, perchè fra le altre cose era im-  possibile che una derrata avesse lo stesso prezzo in:  tutte le parti del vastissimo impero, sicchè, malgrado  le gravi pene comminate a chi la violava, la tariffa  non fu applicata.  È noto anche che in molte parti dell’impero il  brigantaggio era una piaga permanente e contribuiva.  a turbare la sicurezza dei beni e ad impoverire a pre-  ferenza il medio ceto, perchè i ricchi si difendevano con le loro guardie private ed i poveri erano difesi  dalla loro stessa povertà. Ma soprattutto ciò che aggravava le conseguenze  degli errori del governo e rendeva inefficaci quei provvedimenti che sarebbero stati utili fu la corruzione della.  numerosissima ed invadente burocrazia, la quale, dopo  il terzo secolo, avea conquistato sempre maggiori poteri a Scapito delle libertà individuali e delle autonomie  municipali. Gli storici ricordano qualche caso tipico  di questa corruzione. Quando i goti, sospinti dagl’unni, chiesero verso la fine del quarto secolo di sta-bilirsi nel territorio dell'impero a mezzogiorno del Danubio, gli imperatori accolsero la loro domanda, e promisero loro viveri per un anno e sementi per coltivare  la terra a patto che consegnassero le armi. Or i funzionari incaricati di questo servizio li derubarono dei  viveri e delle sementi, e, lasciandosi corrompere dai  loro doni, lasciarono loro le armi. Sicchè i barbari si  ribellarono, devastarono la penisola balcanica e sconfissero ed uccisero in battaglia l’ imperatore VALENTE (si veda). Altrò caso tipico di corruzione burocratica fu quello  narrato dallo storico Ammiano Marcellino a proposito  di una serie di inchieste che ebbero luogo in Tripolitania.  Senonchè tutto ciò spiega solo in parte la caduta  dell’ Impero romano d'Occidente e, fatto più grave di  questa caduta, la grandissima decadenza, per non dire  la dissoluzione, della civiltà antica. Perchè in ogni  paese civile ed in ogni generazione, accanto alle forze  dissolvitrici, vi sono sempre quelle conservatrici e ricostituenti, rappresentate dai caratteri nobili e devoti  al pubblico bene; ed uomini di questo carattere non  mancavano nella società romana nel quarto e quinto  secolo dell’era volgare, tanto vero che la Chiesa ebbe  allora una serie di uomini superiori, come indiscutibilmente furono sant’Ambrogio, son Girolamo, sant’Agostino, Paolino di Nola, Salviano, Paolo Orosio, ecc. Ma questi uomini superiori per ingegno e moralità  non ritardarono la caduta dell'Impero romano d’Occidente perchè facevano parte della gerarchia ecclesiastica; nella quale, sebbene non facesse difetto il  patriottismo, la salvezza dei corpi era posposta a quella  delle anime. All’ideale pagano (partecipazione attiva  alla vita dello Stato, sentimento del dovere civico e  militare, concezione immanentistica della vita), si so-  stituiva, in gran parte e necessariamente, quello cristiano (disinteresse per le cose di questo mondo e quindi  anche per lo Stato, aspirazione alla beatitudine eterna, concezione trascendentale della vita, considerata come  un esilio, un passaggio, un ostacolo al raggiungimento  della perfezione cristiana). Veniva cioè dissolvendosi  quell’ insieme di idee e di sentimenti che sino ad allora aveano diretto l’azione della civiltà antica e per-  ciò veniva a mancare quella forza morale che è il coefficiente essenziale degli sforzi collettivi di ogni società umana, e tale mancanza doveva di conseguenza  produrre, sotto la spinta di un urto esteriore un po’  grave, la dissoluzione dell’organismo politico e della  civiltà che erano da quella forza morale vivificati e sostenuti. Così morì l’ Impero romano d’Occidente, che, meno favorevolmente situato di quello d’Oriente, ebbe inoltre la sventura di essere assalito ed invaso dai barbari proprio nel periodo più acuto della crisi morale, occasionata dal diffondersi del Cristianesimo fra la sua  classe dirigente; mentre l'Impero d’Oriente ebbe il  tempo di reintegrare le proprie forze materiali e morali, di superare il momento peggiore della crisi e  potè ancora durare per quasi un millennio. Colà il  Cristianesimo, diventato nel sesto secolo dell’era volgare e nei susseguenti religione nazionale dell’impero, contribuì ad accrescerne la forza ed a mantenerne la compagine di fronte agli attacchi prima dei Persiani,  poi degli Arabi e per lungo tempo dei Barbari del settentrione. Nè bisogna dimenticare che a cominciare  dagli inizi dell’ottavo secolo la lotta contro il culto  delle immagini fu l’effetto, nella società bizantina, di  una reazione dell'elemento laico contro l’ascetismo ed  il monachismo. Gaetano Mosca. Mosca. Keywords: implicatura, mafia. Stato liberale, stato sindacale, regime parlamentare, partito e sindacato. Refs.: H. P. Grice: “Mosca’s liberalism;” Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Mosca," per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria.

 

Luigi Speranza – GRICE ITALO!; ossia, Grice e Motta: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – la scuola di Vercelli -- filosofia piemontese -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Vercelli). Filosofo piemontese. Filosofo italiano. Vercelli, Piemonte. Grice: “If Mill’s claim to fame is to some his examination of Mill, Motta’s claim to fame is his examination of Rosmini!” -- Il conte Emiliano Avogadro della Motta. Nacque dal conte Ignazio della Motta e da Ifigenia Avogadro di Casanova, entrambi appartenenti a nobili famiglie di vassalli e visconti, i cui antenati risalgono a poco oltre il mille. Tra gli Avogadro vi fu anche Amedeo, inventore della legge sui fluidi. Frequenta con profitto gli studi e si laureò in utroque iure, ma proseguì lo studio in diverse aree della teologia e della filosofia, trasformando le dimore familiari in piccole accademie dove giuristi, filosofi, studiosi di diritto canonico e vescovi si riunivano, per discutere vari argomenti ed approfondire la filosofia moderna e i diversi aspetti del nascente socialismo.  Ricevette l'incarico, che già fu del padre, di riformatore degli studi del Vercellese e in un'epoca in cui si guardava ancora con diffidenza all'istruzione delle classi popolari, egli visitava ciclicamente le scuole d'ogni ordine, scegliendone accuratamente gli insegnanti, convinto che l'istruzione e l'educazione fossero un diritto di tutti e dovessero procedere simultaneamente. Assunse la carica di Consigliere di Formigliana e continuò a dedicarsi allo sviluppo culturale della natia Vercelli, ove fondò la Società di Storia Patria, per incrementare gli studi sul glorioso passato della città. Divenne membro del Consiglio Generale del Debito Pubblico e più tardi sindaco di Collobiano e “Consigliere di Sua Maestà per il pubblico insegnamento” La sua notorietà varcò i confini del Piemonte, allorché ricevette l'eccezionale invito di partecipazione alla fase preparatoria della definizione del dogma dell'Immacolata e le sue riflessioni ebbero un seguito fra alcuni importanti gesuiti, come il direttore de La Civiltà Cattolica, che fece dono a Pio IX del Saggio intorno al socialismo. Azeglio, richiamandosi a M., espresse la propria preferenza per una condanna esplicita di tali errori, da includere nella bolla di definizione del dogma, ma l'autore sollecitò apertamente la distinzione di due argomenti (definizione del dogma e condanna degli errori) dalla portata tanto diversa e lo stesso Pio IX incaricò la Commissione, che aveva già lavorato sulla definizione del dogma, di esaminare gli errori moderni e di preparare il materiale necessario per la bolla e chiese al cardinale Fornari di invitare formalmente alcuni laici a collaborare. Avogadro fu l'unico laico italiano ad essere interpellato e inviò a Roma una risposta singolare e ricca di argomentazioni. Ben presto la Commissione incaricata abbandonò la trattazione univoca dei due argomenti e la solenne definizione su Maria sarà fatta da Pio IX, mentre l'esame degli errori si trascinerà per altri dieci anni, mentre prevaleva in ambito ecclesiastico l'idea di una severa condanna.  Attività parlamentare Diventò membro attivo nella vita politica, quale deputato eletto nel collegio di Avigliana e operò nelle file dello stesso schieramento politico della Destra. La proposta avanzata in Parlamento di ridurre il numero delle feste, indusse Avogadro a scrivere un apposito opuscolo, per difendere la dignità dell'uomo che, in quanto essere intelligente e creativo, «senza tempo libero non vive da uomo, e mal lo conoscono gli economisti che altro non sanno procacciargli se non “lavoro e pane”». In Parlamento prendeva spesso la parola contro il progetto di legge che prevedeva l'obbligo del servizio militare e criticò la cessione di Nizza e Savoia alla Francia, smascherando le reali intenzioni che sull'Italia nutriva l'ambiguo Napoleone III.  Riceve la decorazione della Croce di Ufficiale dei Santi Maurizio e Lazzaro e continuò a scrivere, oltre a collaborare con l'Armonia, l'Unità cattolica, l'Apologista, il Conservatore, rivista quest'ultima stampata a Bologna e di cui è ritenuto uno dei fondatori e collaboratori. Muore in Torino”, come annotano diversi giornali e riviste, non ultima La Civiltà Cattolica, che gli dedicò un sentito necrologio. Saggi: “Saggio intorno al Socialismo e alle dottrine e tendenze socialistiche” (Torino,  Zecchi); -- partito socialista italiano -- “Sul valore scientifico e sulle pratiche conseguenze del sistema filosofico di Serbati (Napoli, Societa Editrice Fr. Giannini); “Teorica dell'istituzione del matrimonio e della guerra moltiforme cui soggiace, M. già Riformatore delle R. Scuole provinciali degli Stati Sardi, a spese della Societa Editrice Speirani e Tortone, Teorica dell'istituzione del matrimonio Parte II che tratta della guerra moltiforme cui soggiace, per M., già deputato al Parlamento Subalpino, Torino, Speirani e Teorica dell'istituzione del matrimonio e della guerra a cui soggiace, -- che tratta delle difese e dei rimedi, con una Appendice intorno alla ricerca del principio teorico morale generatore degli uffizi e dei doveri coniugali,” Torino, Speirani e Tortone, M. deputato al Parlamento Nazionale, Torino, Tipografia Speirani e Tortone, “Teorica dell'istituzione del matrimonio e della guerra a cui soggiace, Parte Documenti per M. già deputato al parlamento nazionale (Torino, Speirani); “Gesù Cristo nel secolo XIX, Studi religiosi e sociali, Modena, Tipografia dell'Immacolata Concezione, “La filosofia di  Serbati” (Napoli, Giannini); “La festa di S. Michele e il mese di ottobre agli angeli santi, Torino, Marietti, Il mese di novembre dedicato a suffragio dei morti, Torino, Marietti); “Le colonne di S. Chiesa. Omaggi a S. Giovanni Battista e ai Santi Apostoli nel mese di giugno e novena per la festa dei Santi Principi Pietro e Paolo, Torino, Marietti); “Il mese di dicembre in adorazione al Verbo Incarnato Gesu nascente e ad onore di Maria Madre SS.ma, Torino, Marietti); “Opuscoli di carattere storico-giuridico; Rivista retrospettiva di un fatto seguito in Vercelli con osservazioni al diritto legale di libera censura, Vercelli, De Gaudenzi, Delle feste sacre e loro variazioni nel Regno sub-alpino, Torino, Marietti); “Quistioni di diritto intorno alle istituzioni religiose e alle loro persone e proprietà, in occasione della Proposta di Legge fatta al Parlamento torinese per la soppressione di alcune corporazioni, Torino, Marietti, Cenni sulla Congregazione degl’oblati dei SS. Eusebio e Carlo eretta nella Basilica di S. Andrea in Vercelli e sulla proposta sua soppressione. Per un elettore Vercellese, Torino, Marietti); “Parole di conciliazione sulla questione della circolare di S. E. Arcivescovo di Torino); “Del diritto di petizione e delle petizioni pel ritorno di S. E. l'Arcivescovo di Torino); “Lo statuto condanna la Legge Siccardi, Torino, Fontana, Erroneità e pericoli di alcune teorie ed ipotesi invocate a sostegno della proposta di Legge di soppressione di vari stabilimenti religiosi” (Torino, Speirani e Tortone); “Alcuni schiarimenti intorno alla natura della Proprietà Ecclesiastica allo stato di povertà religiosa, ed alle quistioni relative ai diritti e ai mezzi temporali di sussistenza della Chiesa. Con una Appendice intorno alla legalità nell'esecuzione della legge sulle Corporazioni religiose” (Torino, Speirani); “Considerazioni sugli affari dell'Italia e del Papa” (Torino, Speirani); “Una quistione preliminare al Parlamento Torinese” (Torino, Speirani); “Il progetto di revisione del Codice Civile Albertino e il matrimonio civile in Italia, Torino, Speirani); La Rivoluzione e il Ministero Torinese in faccia al Papa ed all'Episcopato Italiano. Riflessioni retrospettive e prospettive” (Torino, Speirani); L'Armonia, Civiltà Cattolica, Rivista retrospettiva sopra la discussione delle leggi Siccardi, Unità Cattolica, Angelo Ballestreri, segretario della Famiglia, presso l'Archivio Storico di Torino. Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana, promossa e diretta dal marchese Vittorio Spreti, Milano, Avogadro di Vigliano F., Pagine di storia Vercellese e Biellese, in Antologia, M. Cassetti, Vercelli, Avogadro di Vigliano F., Antiche vicende di alcuni feudi Biellesi degl’Avogadro di San Giorgio Monferrato (e poi Conti di Collobiano e di Motta Alciata), dalla Illustrazione biellese, XIX, Biella, Corboli G., Per le nozze del Conte Federico Sclopis di Salerano e della Contessa Isabella Avogadro, Cremona, Feraboli, De Gregory G., Historia della Vercellese letteratura ed arti, parte IV, Torino, Di Crollallanza G. B., Dizionario storico-blasonico delle famiglie nobili e notabili italiane estinte e fiorenti,  I, Sala Bolognese, Dionisotti C., Notizie biografiche dei vercellesi illustri, Biella, Amos, Manno A., Il patriziato Subalpino. Notizie di fatto storiche, genealogiche, feudali ed araldiche desunte da documenti,  I, Firenze,  I vescovi di Italia. Il Piemonte, Savio F., Torino, Bocca, Bonvegna G., Filosofia sociale e critica dello Stato moderno nel pensiero di un legittimista italiano: Emiliano Avogadro della Motta in Annali Italiani. Rivista di studi storici, Bonvegna G., Il rapporto tra fede e ragione in Avogadro della Motta, in Sensus Communis,  Valentino V., Un difensore rigoroso dei diritti della Chiesa e del Papa, in Divinitas, rivista di ricerca e di critica teologica, Volumi e tesi sull'autore Bonvegna, M. Il pensiero filosofico-politico e la critica al socialismo, Tesi, Filosofia. Università Cattolica, Milano, De Gaudenzi L., Ultima parola su di una pretesa ritrattazione di M., Mortara, Cortellezzi, De Gaudenzi L., Un'asserzione di Paoli D.I.D.C. tolta ad esame, Mortara, Cortellezzi,  De Gaudenzi, Istruzione del vescovo di Vigevano al Ven.do Suo Clero sul Matrimonio, Vigevano, Spargella, Manacorda G., Storiografia e socialismo, Padova, Martire G., II, Roma, Omodeo, L'opera politica di Cavour, Firenze, Pirri, Carteggi delL. Taparelli d'Azeglio,  XIV di Biblioteca di Storia Italiana Recente, Torino, La scienza e la fede,  XXIV, Napoli Spadolini, L'opposizione cattolica da porta Pia, Firenze, Storia del Parlamento Italiano, N. Rodolico,  Palermo Traniello F., Cattolicesimo conciliarista. Religione e cultura nella tradizione Rosminiana Lombardo-Piemontese, Milano, Valentino, Il matrimonio e la vita coniugale, Facoltà dell'Italia Centrale, Valentino, Un'introduzione alla vita e alle opere, Vercelli, Saviolo, Valentino V., Un laico tra i teologi, Vercelli, Valentino, Il pensiero di Gioberti, Genova, Verucci, Dizionario Biografico Italiano, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia, Roma. Guido Verucci, Emiliano Avogadro della Motta, in Dizionario biografico degl’italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, Opere di Emiliano Avogadro della Motta, Emiliano Della Motta (Avogadro), su storia.camera, Camera dei deputati. DEL SOCIALISMO IN GENERALE. Origini del socialismo nel razionalismo protestantico. Le prime eresie tentarono soffocare la fede e la Chiesa; le seconde, viziar l'una, e sostituirsiall'altra. Lutero e Calvinodistrussero il principio della fede, dell’amorale, dellasocietà. Idolli germani cercarono rimedio nella scienza e nell'ecclettismo; la loro filosofia, il loro diritto pubblico.Il protestantismo in Francia fa più audace e ribelle.Combatiuto come selta religiosa produsse i liberi pensatori, che, a titolo di scuola, ne dilatarono il razionalismo empio. Previsioni di Bossuet. Il genio di Voltairee de'suoi discepoli fu essenzialmente anti-cristiano, Paradossi del Gioberti. La guerra del filosofismo dcontro la fede e la scienza e più radicale di quella del protestantesimo. Suo spirito non di separatismo,ma dicosmopolismo. Da secoli la preponderanza nell'ordine delle idee e devoluta in Europa alla Germania e alla Francia, colà bisogna cercare le fonti dell'errar. Diverso carattere delle due nazioni. Nel razionalismo dell'una, nell'incredulità dell'altra, stette deposto il primo articolo della carta socialistica. Non più autorild Progressi del razionalismo e dell'incredulità nell'idealismo. Kant, il suo antidommatismo; I suoi seguaci. Non vollero dirsi atei, loro panteismo spurio peggiore dell'ateismo. Non vollero comparir scettici ne materialisti, ma sovvertirono la scienza e la morale con l'i dealismo apriori. Hegel, el'idealismo trascendentale e pratico. I teologi protestanti lo seguirono. Il protestantesimo avea sfigurato fin da principio l'idea di un “Cristo”; a cosa la ridusse Strauss. Apparente regresso in Francia dal materialismo e dalle teorie rivoluzionarie. Principio di tolleranza mal applicato in tutte le ristorazioni; indi l'indifferenti. Prefazione Saggio. L'incredulismo e il filosofismo francese e nell'indifferentismo. I tedeschi pensatori seguirono l'esempio, non la frivolezza dei volteriani.   Smo religio sue políticone gli ordini pubblici, l'eclettismo nella scienza. Gl’eclettici vollero mitigare l'idealismo germanico; vollero parer rispettosi al cristianesimo, ma lo condannarono come decrepito. La loro religione filosofica. Non ebbero pensatori. Lamennais, e i razionalisti cattolici. L'idealismo o l'indifferentismo sono morbi quasi insanabili. Questi compongono il secondo articolo del simbolo socialistico: la fede all'Idea propria. Ne sorge l'amore all'indeterminato futuro, l'odio a ciò cheesiste. Giudizio di Staudenmayer. L'uomo nello stato suo presente non comporta nè dommatismo assoluto, nè razionalismo assoluto. La natura e il cristianesimo lo educano colla sede e colla ragione, somministrandogli un'ontologia reale e certa Alcune riflessioni sulle cose anzi esposte. Il protestantismo, il filosofismo francese, e il tedesco, sono professioni d'ignoranza. Pongono fuori delle condizioni di possibilità la religione e la scienza, e abbattono la ragione individuale con un'assurda emancipazione. Tolgono lo scopo della ricerca della verità. La fede per contro è scienza iniziale, anche negl’ordini naturali promettitrice. Gli spiriti penetranti previdero da gran tempo il socialismo moderno; i più furi bondi ne proclamarono e praticarono le massime. La religione e la società reale erano già condannate in teoria dall'Idea dei sofisti, cui non possono corrispondere in fatto. La Chiesa ne è la salute, perchè pre dica la verità positiva, e muta le ipotesi de'sofisti. Questi falsificarono anche I principii positivi, che vollero conservare per ricostrurre la società; tolsero la possibilità dell'amore; sfigurarono le idee di libertà, di eguaglianza, di fratellanza, che portate all'assoluto si escludono mutuamente. Il socialisino vuole ricostituire con queste l'uman genere. Gli uomini di distruzione, e quelli dell'utopia, sorti a slagellare l'umanità colle sperienze d'applicazione e tresta di d'esistenza delle sette. Siappoggianoa un fiero dommatismo. Non inventano dottrine, ma scelgonoe volgarizzano le più acconce ai loro fini. Sono la gerarchia, il sacerdozio, l'esercito della filosofia anticristiana e antisociale, che senza di quelle non sarebbe largamente perniciosa. Ora non sono più mere associazioni, ma trasformandosi divennero società e governi sotterranei. Una buona storia delle sette sarebbe un gran beneficio; come vorrebbe essere fatta. La miglior difesa contro di quelle è farle conoscere. I sommi Pontefici lo vennero facendo, furono mal secondati. Le sette massoniche. Veisaupte l'illuminismo. Le sette moderne teoriche ed esecutive. La Giovine Europa e Mazzini. Loro tre mezzi d'influenza, le loro arti, le loro forze. Non aspirano che alla propria supremazia e tirannia solto nome di repubblica sociale. Gioberti le descrisse con somma perizia mutando l'applicazione. Avvenire delle sette. Non sono esse sole il socialismo, ma ne sono la virtù plastica e direttrice. Carattere e spirito del socialismo. È l' eterodossia. Essa porta all'apice, all'universalità, a l l'atto, le empietà ed aberrazioni de'secoli precedenti. Le sue idee sono Le sette secrete demagogiche. Esse aggiunsero alle teorie un organismo artilizioso ed attivo. Tre aspetti, però terrene e ristrette. È un cattolicismo umanoe diabolico, che vuol essere più universale di quello di Cristo. Il suo Messianismo. Le sue stolte promesse e stolte accuse contro la società. Professa odio a Dio e a Cristo, odio all'uomo, odio alla giustizia. Sovverte il naturale eil supernaturale. L'idea socialistica non è intiera nella mente diverün10 mo, il solo spirito del male ne può abbracciare e volere il tutto. Nelle menti umane prende diversi gradi e forme. Coldomma dell'idea il socialismo raccoglie a sè tutti gli spiriti erranti e passionati; disordina i difensori della verità; esi infiltra nelle menti. Potenza seduttrice del l'Idea e delle Idee. Semisocialismo. Unità di pensiero, di scopo, di forze morali e materiali nel socialismo, collimanti contro il cristianesimo. Fa predetto dai santi Apostoli. Lamorte confuta il domma e le speranze del socialismo, erende calamito se le sue promesse. Il comunismo. È doppio; altro filosofico e in apparenza economico, altro apertamente Jadro e sensuale. Il solo principio della comunanza non valea fondare veruna società che basti a sè stessa. Esseni; comunanze monastiche; sistemi utopistici. Socialismo e comunismo sono due estremi della stessa idea.La Francia è travagliata di preferenza dal secondo, la Germania dal primo, il perchè. Il principio Cristiano non può ameno di somministrare la soluzione di tutti i loro problemi sociali.Sentenza di Jouffroy DEGLI SCOMPARTIMENTI PRECIPUI DEL SOCIALISMO . Delle scuole e dei sistemi sociali più insigni, e in particalare dicoli. Hegel le aprì un orizzonte vasto e pratico colla sua teoria sulla storia, e colle sue viste sul mondo germanico. Con queste infiamm di pietistic protestanti e i politici ambiziosi, specialmentein Prussia.Trovo eco fra novatorianche cattolici e israeliti. Le sette demagogiche germaniche s'impadronirono dell'idea hegeliana di nazionalità, ostile alla religione e alla civiltà romana. I sofisti la parodiarono altrove, adadulare le proprie nazioni CATO II. Sansimonismo, umanitarismo. Il misticismo di Sansimone s'indirizza alle passioni sensuali nobilitando le, alle ambizioni ultra-democratiche esaltando le capacità individuali. I suoi discepoli l'organizzarono amodo di religione panteistica umanitaria. Molti eclettici dell'università francese ne adottarono I principii ideali, compiendo con questi la metafisica hegeliana. Leroux e l'umanitarismo universale; gli umanitarii ricusano le idee di patria e di nazionalità. Il principio saņsimoniano penetra largamente in Francia,e per ogni dove; esso improntò al socialismo l'aria di religione lasciva e cosmopolitica. L'emancipazione della carne e conseguenza logica del l'emancipazione del pensiero dell'hegelianesimo e neo-egelianesimo. Owen e Fourrier vestirono l'idea socialistica e comunistica di sistemi ri . Del svoialismo anarchico e trascendentalmente empio . Prudhon, discepolo intelligente e sfacciato dei socialisti tedeschi, sveld le vere esigenze del socialismo. Professa esplicitamente l'odio a Dio, l'abolizione di ogni diritto, l'anarchia; cosa intenda con tal parola. Flagella i socialisti e comunisti, ma è peggiore di loro. Le sue idee fanno impressione, perchè sono l'espressione la più semplice della idea d'indipendenza assoluta. Lecoutrier, la sua cosmosofia materialistica, prosessa il culto di sè stesso. Condanna la filosofia e la civilizzazione. Il materialismo e l'anarchia spaventano in Francia; ostinazione di certi razionalisti, che non dimenonon ne vogliono vedere il rimedio additato già da Napoleone. Del socialismo operativo o militante, e di quello latente. Il socialismo pensante sta nelle scuole panteistiche incredule, l'operativo nelle sette e fazioni rivoluzionarie. I suoi fasti recenti. Lo scopo principale è distrurre il caltolicismo. Perciò cerca di rivoluzionare moral mente e materialmentela Chiesa. Adocchia l'Italia che ne tiene il centro. Mazzini, la sua filosofia panteistica, le sue idee di nazionalità e di primato italico parodia del primato germanico di Hegel. Sue contraddizioni. È lo strumento del socialismo universale, che non vuol altro in Italia che non più Papi. Per progredire il socialismo vesti in Italia tutte le forme e le ipocrisie. Cerca di alluarvi il comunismo politico. Il socialismo latente. L'Inghilterra ne possiede grandi elementi. Cenni sull'utopia del Moro.La Russia. Nissuna rivoluzione eguaglia quella voluta dal socialismo. Che cosa è una rivoluzione. Diverse specie di rivoluzioni parziali, che ora lutte s'informano dellospiritodelsocialismo.Sono ingiuste,ruinose,infrenabili nei confini voluti dai moderati, dai dottrinarii, dai liberali. Cos'è la riforma vera.Coloro non sono riformatori,ma rivoluzionarji. Possono chiamarsi semisocialisti; lo sono altri in religione, allri in filosofia, altri in politica. Fanno penetrare a tratti a tratti l'idea, ed eseguiscono per parti l'opera socialistica. Sono incoerenti. Giudizi di Joutfroye di Prudhon sui rivoluzionari al minuto. Giudizi di Quinet sui cattolici democratici predicatori d'indipendenza. Non sorge dai loro sistemi la vera democrazia, ma l'anarchia prudoniana in tutte le relazioni degl’individui, e delle società fra loro. L'indipendenza assoluta non esiste al mondo. Epilogo. Giudizio di Sterne sul principio rivoluzionario socialistico, eminentemente anticristiano. Il termine della rivoluzione sociale. La rivoluzione universale sociale non si compirà mai appieno. La rivoluzione religiosa, come è promossa dal socialismo,è nata a far luogo addi questa; e del semi-socialismo. Della rivoluzione universale e sociale; scompartimenti precipui Del panslavismo demagogico, e del ruteno. Un detto napoleonico inverosimile, o malinteso. Il panslavismo. È doppio. L'Idea russa; la suavivacità per forze morali e materiali. Le sue arti. È ostile all'idea Latina e cattolica. È religiosa e politica, panslavi sticae panscismatica. L'Italia ne èminacciata doppiamente. Calamità europea, che si è la dissoluzione dellaGermania nell'anarchia religiosa e politica. L'idea russa, ora antirazionalistica e antidemagogica, può col tempo mutare processo ed allearsi religiosamente al protestantesimo, politicamentealla demagogia europea. La Chiesa non teme, ma aspeita negli ultimi tempi un grande assalto dai popoli di quelle regioni, e dalla apostasia dei propria figli. Quel panslavismo sembra destinato a chiudere l'era del socialismo nostrale. laci, esuberanti, indefinite. La verità e l'autorità hanno l'adesione della maggioranza, ma sono malconosciute. Il clerocattolico fa quella vagliatura per ufficio, ma fra popoli colti la scienza e la dimostrazione è necessaria. Parte dei laici. La filosofia dee essere ricondotta al suo stato normale, da cui si di parti negando o trascurando l’ontologia cristiana e la scienza della socieià universale degli spiriti. In Italia bisogna far conoscere le produzioni della scienza straniera, dei paesi cioè in cui la controversiaè vivace. Bisogna svelare il fondo dei sistemi socialistici; formolare con precision i problemi; porre in lume i principii assoluti; questi non impediscono le temperazioni pratiche. Si fa alcontrario. Esempio nella quistione capitalissima delle relazioni fra chiesa e Stato. Questa in assoluto non è quistione di libertà, ma di autorità. Il principio di libertà non basta a spiegare l'ordine morale.Teorie di Rosmini nel suo saggio Della Costituzione. Il problema religioso vi è mal formolato. Il progetto di costituzione rosminiana non guarentirebbe alla chiesa nemmeno libertà; include l'indifferentismo politico; toglie all'ordine civile la base morale. Necessità della professione religiosa dello stato. Il problema politico intorno al diritto e alla giustizia sociale vi è del pari inesattamente formolato. Nel criticare le costituzioni galliche Rosmini non netacci ai vizii principali. Quale sia laquistione politica odierna; come sia formolata dai socialisti, come da Lainennais. Le emende proposte dal Rosmini alle costituzioni da lui criticate sono vane, o insufficienti a farargine al socialismo e comunismo.È inutile adulare e contrastare a metà le idee di moda, se non si risolve il tema del socialismo. Esso nega Dio e le due leggi provvidenziali per cui l'uo mo è governato dall'uomo, e il diritto sulle cose materiali è diviso fra gl’uomini. I dottrinarii italiani e francesi si contentano di massime generiche, di idee dimezzate, scoza analisi e applicazione. Gli americo una nuova foggia di demonolatria; la rivoluziones cientificaproducela perdita dell'unità di senso morale; la civile,un'anarchia,e tirannia in curabile. La rivoluzione universale,se potesse compiersi,distrurrebbe inultimol'umangenere.Come ilsocialismo l'odii dio dio satanico. Il suo termine logico sarebbe la distruzione dell'ordine di natura e di so prannatura. Il mondo non saràmai tutto socialista come fu tutto pagano, perchè la chiesa ha delle promesse infallibili; ma le nazioni civili non ne hanno, e camminano indolenti verso grandi ruine. Un altro socialism che si dispone a trasformare il mondo europeo. Timori, speranze, rimedii contro l'invasione delle dottrine socialistiche. Vuolsi una buona vagliatura delle idee, dei desiderii, delle speranze fal  mani italiani, e gl’anglomani francesi, non conoscono i tipi stranieri che vogliono imitare. I cattolici idealisti e razionalisti non comprendono che guastano e snaturano il cristianesimo colle misture eterodosse,a vece di farne l'apologia. Quali sieno dunque le tre vagliature,or peces sarie, delle dottrine e delle voglie del secolo. Ancora alcune osservazioni sul modo di trattare ora le controversie. Partito violento. La rivoluzione materiale è sopita, ma l'ideale si dilala. L'Italia odierna, e la Germania di tresecoli fa. Dollinger. È quindiur gente il bisogno di grandi manisestazioni della verità, per mezzo della fede e dellaragione. I governi, ora materialmente forti, sono moralmente deboli; l'epoca presente di razionalismo e di opinioni indeterminate piega alt ermine. Il socialismo vuol dommi e fatti, vuolsi contrap porgli la scienza della fede cristiana, continuando il lavoro dei più grandi genii del cristianesimo. Che cosa è una filosofia cristiana. La polemica dee essere trattata con franchezza; tenendo conto di tutti i principii veri e di tutti i fatti; distinguendo le ricerche di ciò che è giu sto, ediciò che è prudente. Non dee contentarsidi debellare gl’errori singoli, ma metter in luce la storia fillosofica, e il sistema universale dell'eterodossia .Ilpanteismo è lasostanza dell'eterodossia moderna. Considerazioni sul panteismo, suls uo lungo regno, sulle sue fasi.Non sarà l'ultimo errore.Voto umile e riservato per un oracolo della Santa Sede, e una condanna dottrinale e solenne del socialismo e comunismo. Motivi. Insufficienze e pericoli delle discussioni scientifiche. Il socialismo, come sistema compiuto, ha del nuovo; spesso sembra sfuggire agli anatemi degli errori antichi che rinnova. Fra icattolici stessi sinceri visono dubbiezze e illusioni. La gloria del nome di Cristo è avvilita. L'idea di Cristo, e quindi quella della Chiesa, sono meno mate in molte menti.Quella èl'antidoto a tuttol'errare moderno .Lapedagogia pende ad insinuare ilnaturalism o e ilsensualismo. La Santa Sede spesso unì alle decisioni, e condanne dommatiche contro gli errori, le lezioni razionali a illustrar lementi dei fedeli. Esempi. Così bramerebbesi ora, perchè da molti il socialismo e comunismo non sono conosciuti quali sono. Condannati, rimarrebbero nolati d'infamia agli occhi del mondo cristiano, e resi moralmente impotenti. È quel tutto un arcano di sata nasso, alla sola Santa Sede apparterrà svelarlo e conquiderlo; a lei però sola il giudicare della opportunità dei mezzi. Intanto, colle armi già pronte della fede e dellascienza, vuolsi da ognuno colle sue forze combattere la rivoluzione ideale. Teologia e filosofia, rivelazione e ragione, vogliono andar congiunte, distinte, ma non parallele. Un passo del Mancini. Due filosofismi, due rivoluzioni, che neminaccia no una più terribile. Presunzione dei moderni; giudizi dei posteri. Tutti i partiti scontenti del presentemirano all'avvenire; I più sci occhi sono gli aspettanti e ineuirali. Il principio cristiano è incarnato nella Chiesa, essa non fa quistioni di clericocrazia, quando parla alle genti con autorità. L'Italia e isuoiri formatori sispecchino nella Germania di tre secoli fa. La Chie sa benefica e invitta in tutti i secoli. I fedeli hanno da incoraggirsi; fra l'idea socialistica e la cristiana sanno quale abbia la verità,e quale ot Alcuni documenti intorno alle scriesegrere demagogiche.   SOCIALISJIO IN (iKNKRALE. Origini del socialismo nel razionalismo protcstanlieo. T.p  (uime eresie tenurono soffocare la fede e la chiesa; le seconde, viziar  r ona. e sosiiluirsi all'altra. JLulcro c Calvino distrussero il  principio della fede, della morale, della società. I dotti germani ccrenronn rimedio nella scienza e neireccletlismo; lo loro filosofia, il loro diritto pubblico. Il protestantismo nella Gallia è più audace e ribelle. Combattuto come setta religiosa produsse i liberi pensatori, che, a titolo di scuola, ne dilatarono il razionalismo empio. Previsioni di Bossuct. L'increduUsmo e il filosofiimo gallo. Il genio di Voltaire e de’suoi discepoli è essenzialmente anti-cristiano. Paradossi di GIOBERTI (si veda). La guerra del filosofismo contro la fede e la scienza è più radicale di quella del protestantesimo. Suo spirito non di separatismo, ma di costnopolismo. Da tre secoli la preponderanza nell'ordine delle idee è devoluta in Europa alla Germania e alla Gallia, colà bisogna cercare le fonti  dell'errar moderno. Diverso carattere delle due nazioni. Nel razionalismo dell'una. nell'incredulità dell’altra, stette dcposlo il primo articolo della carta sociali slica: iVoii più autorità Progresti del razionalismo e de/r  nell'  idealismo, e nell’indifferentismo. I tedeschi filosofi segnirono l’esempio, non la frivolezza dei volteriani. Kant, il suo anti-dommatismo; i suoi seguaci. Non vollero  dirsi a-tei, loro pan-teismo spurio peggiore dell’a-teismo. Non vollero comparir scettici nè materialisti, ma sovvertirono la scienza e la morale coll'idealismo a priori. Hegel, e l’idealismo trascendentale e pratico. I teologi protestanti lo seguirono. Il protestantesimo sfigura fin da principio l'idea di Cristo; a cosa la riduce Strauss. Apparente regresso nella Gallia dal materialismo e dalle  teorie rivoluzionarie. Principio di tolleranza mjl applicato ip tutte le ristorazioni; indi  1 indifiVreiiti Saggio smo rflit^iosu e politicu nejilt ordini pubblici, 1 ecldtismu nella scienza. (ìli ccieltici vollero tiiiiigare ridealismo che esiste. Giudizio dì Staudeiimayer. L'uomo nello stato MIO presente non comporta nè dommatismo assoluto, nè razionalismo assoluto. ìji natura e il crisUnnesimo  lo educano colla fede e colla ragioncj souuQÌoistraDdogU un'ontologia reale e certa Alcune rifleuioni iulle cote anzi etpotle Il  protestantismo, il filosofismo gallo, e il tedesco, sono professioni d’ignoranza. Pongono fuori delle condizioni di possibilità la religione e la scienza, e abbattono la ragione individuale con un’assurda cmancU  pallone. Tolgono lo scopo della ricerca della verità.  La fede per contro è scienza iniziale, anche negl’ordini naturali promeititrìce. Gli spiriti penetranti previdero da gran tempo il socialismo moderno; i pib furibondi ne proclamarono e praticarono le massime. La religione g la società reale sono già condannate in teoria dall' idea dei sofisti, cui non possono corrispondere in fatto. La chiesa ne è la salute, perchè predica la verità positiva, e muta le ipotesi de'sofisti. Questi falsificarono anche i prìncipiì positivi, che vollero conservare per ricostmrre la società; tolsero la possibilità dell’amore; sfigurarono le idee di libertà, d’eguaglianza, di fratellanza, che portale alfassolalo si escludono mutuamente. Il socialismo ruolo ricusiiiuire con queste l’unian genere. Gl’uomini di disinizione. e quelli dell’utopia sorti a flagellare f umanità colle spcrienze d'applicazione Le tette tecrete dema^o^icàe. Esse aggiunsero alle teorie un organismo nriifizioso ed  atlivo.Tre  aspetti e tre stadi d'esistenza delle sette. S’appoggiano a an fiero dommatismo. Non inventano dottrine, ma scelgono e volgarizzano le più acconce ai loro fini. Sono la gerarchia, il sacerdozio, rcsercito della filosofia anti-cristiana e anti-sociale, che  senza di quelle non sarebbe largamente perniciosa. Ora non sono piu mere associazioni, ma trasformandosi dirconero società e governi sotlurranei. Una buona storia delle sette sarebbe un gran benefizio; come vorrebbe essere fatta. La miglior difesa contro di quelle è farle conoscere. I sommi Pontefìri lo vennero facendo, furono mal secondati. Le sette tnassonirhe. Veisaupt e l'illuminismo. Le sette moderne teoriche ed esecutive. La giovine Europa e MAZZINI (si veda). Loro tre mezzi d' ìiillaenza, le loro arti, le loro forze. Non aspirano che alla propria supremazia e tirannia sotto nome di repnbblica sodale. GIOBERTI le descrive con somma perizia mutando l’applicazione. Avvenire delle sette. Non sono esse sole il socialismo ma ne sono lu virtù plastica e direttrice  Carattere e spirito del socialismo. t r eterodossia. Essa porla all'apice, all'unìversalità, al1’atto, le empietà ed aberrazioni de secoli precedenti. Le sue idee sono però lorrone c ri^trelic. K un c.iUolicKmo umano e diabolico, die vuol essere più universale di quella dì Cristo. Il suo messianismo. Le sue stolte promesse e stolte accuse contro la società. Professa odio a Dio e a Cristo, odio all'uomo, odio alla giustizia. Sovverte il naturale e il supernaiurole. L’idea socialistica non è intiera nella mente di veron ito SuuiimoNiimo, umanifat  iimo. 11 inislicisnio di Sansimone s'indirizza alle passioni sensuali nobilitandole, alle ambizioni ullradeuioi ratiebe esaltando le capacità individuali. 1 suoi discepoli l'organizzarono a modo di religione panteistica umani-  Mria. Multi  eclettici dell'università francese ne adottarono i principii ideali, compiendo con questi la metafìsica hegeliana. Leroui  e l umaniia-  risiilo universale; gli uinaniiarii ricusano le idee di patria o di nazionalità. Il principio sansinioniano penetra largamente nella Gallia, e per ogni dove; esso impronta al sorìalismo l’aria di religione lasciva e co-  Miio|Kiiiiica.  L'eiiiancipaziono della carne  è conseguenza logica delI’cmancipaziono del pensiero Val tucùìlUnio anarchico t (rciiccnJeiUuImcnfc  em/uo. Fi  udiion, disrcpolo intelligente e sfaccialo dei socialisti  Icdcsclii svela le vere esigenze del socialismo. Professa esplicitamente l’odio a Dio, l’abolizione di ogni diritto  l aiiarchm; cosa intenda con tal parola. Flagella i socialisti e cotuunisiU ina  è (H.'ggiore di loro. Le sue  idee fanno iinpresaione, percliè sono respressimiu lo più sctnpiico della idea d’indipendenza assoluta. Lecoutrier, la sua Cotmosufia materialìstica, professa il culto di sé steiso. Condanna la filosofia e la civilizzazione. Il iiintcrialisnio c ranarebia spaventano nella Gallia; ostinazione di certi razionalisti, che non di meno non tic vogliono vedere il rimedio additato già da Nopoleune Del  socialitmo operaDto o mtliftmle, e di quello latonte. Il socialismo pensante sta nelle scuole panicistiche incredule, l'operalivo nelle selle c fiutoni rivoluzionarie. 1 suoi fasti recenti. Lo scopo principale distrurre il eattolicisino. Perciò cerca di rivoluzionare nioraltiienle e riinterialmeiiie la chiesa. Adocchia l'ITALIA che ne lime il centro. MAZZINI (si veda), la sua filosofia pan-teistica,  le sue idee di nazionalità e di PRIMATO ITALICO parodia del primato germanico di Hegel. Sue contraddizioni. C lo striinienio dei socialismo universale, che non vuol altro IN ITALIA che non piA /’opu. Per progredire il socialismo vesti IN ITALIA tutte le forme e le ipocrisie. Cerca d’attuarvi il comuniSmo politico. Il socialismo latente. La Britannia ne possiede grandi elementi.  Cenni siiU titopia di Moro. La Russia .1 d Della rivoluzione universale e sociale: seompartimenti precipui di quetta; e del semi-socialismo. Nissuna rivuluiione eguaglia quella voluta dal socialismo. Cito cosa è una rivoluzione. Diverse specie di rivoluzioni parziali, che ora tutte  s'infornianu dello spirito del socialismo. Sino ingiuste, ruinose, infrenabili nei cuitlini voluti dai moderali,  dai dottrinarii, dai liberali. Cos'èia iiloiina vera. Coloro non sono rirorinalori, ma rivoluzioiiarit. Possono chiamarsi semi-socialisti; lo sono altri in religione, altri in filosofia, altri in polilira. Fanno penetrare a tratti a traili l’idea, ed eseguiscono per partì l upera socialistica. Sono incoerenti. Ciudizi di Jouffroy e di |’ruuhn sul rivoluzionari al mìmito. Giudizi di Qitinelsuì cattolici deinncruticì predicatori d'indi(K!ndenza. Non sorge dai loro sistemi la vera democrazia, ma l’anarchia prudoiiiana in tutte le relazioni degl’individui e delle società fra litro. L’indipendenza assoluta non insiste al mondo, hiepiiogo. Giudizio di Sterne sul principio rivoluzionario soiialislico, iiuiuenlcmentc aiUicrisiiauo. . u il termine della rivoluzione sociale. La rivoluziono univcisalc  sociale non si compirà mai appieno. La rivoluzione Ecìigio^a, come è promossa dal socialismo, è nata a far luogo atf (U»l una nuovfl di dtHìonuiaitia; la rivoluzione scientifica produce ia perdita dell’unità di senso morale; la cìvilci un'anarchia, e tirannia incurabile. La rivoluzione universale, se potesse com|nersi, dìstrurrebhc iu ultimo l'nroan genere. Come il socialismo Todii di odio  satanico. Il suo termine logico sarebbe la distruzione delt'urdioe di natura e di soprannatnra. Il mondo non sarà mai tutto socialista come fu tutto pagano, perchè la chiesa ha delle promesse  Infallibili; ma le nazioni civili non iic hanno, e camminano indolenti verso grandi ruine. Un altro socialismo che sì dispone a trasformare il mondo europeo  Del panslavismo demagogico, e del  ruteno. Un  detto napoleonico inverosimile, o mal inteso. 11 panslavismo, è doppio. L'Idea russa; la sua vivacità  |>er forzo morali e materiali. Le sue arti. £ ostile aU'idca LATINA e cattolica. È religiosa e politica, panslavistka e pan-scismatica. L’ITALIA N’È MINACCIATA DOPPIAMENTE. Calamità europea, che si è la dissoluzione della Germania nell’anarchia religiosa e politica.  L’idea russa, ora anti-razionalisiica c aoUdemagogica, può col tempo mutare processo ed allearsi religiosamente al protestantesimo, politicamente alla demagogia europea. La chiesa non teme, ma aspetta negli ullìroi tempi un grande assalto dai popoli di quelle regioni, e dalla  a|K>stQSÌa  dei propri! figli. Quel panslavismo sembra desU- iiaio a chiudere l’era del socialismo oustraie a Timori, speranze, rimedii contro l'invasione delle dollrine socialistiche. Vuoisi una buona vagliatura delle idee, dei desiderii, delle speranze fallaci, esuberanti, indefinite. La verità e l'autorità hanno Padesiune della maggioranza, ma sono mal conosciute. 11 clero cattolico fa quella vagliatura per ufiìzioi ma  fra popoli colti la scienza e la dimostrazione ò necessaria. Parte dei laici. La filosofìa dee essere ricondotta al suo stato normale, da cui si diparti negando o trascurando l'ontologia cristiana e la scienza della società universale degli spirili. IN ITALIA bisogna far conoscere le prodazioni della scienza straniera, dei paesi cioè in cui la controversia è vivace. Bisogna svelare il fondo dei sistemi socialistici; formolare con precisione i problemi; porre in lume i principU  assoluti; questi non impediscono le lempcrazioni pratiche. Si fa al contrario. Ksempio nella quislione capitalissima delle relazioni fra chiesa sttato italiano. Questa in assoluto non è quistione di libertà, ma d’autorità. Il principio di libertà non basta a spiegare l’ordine morale. Teorie di SERBATI nel suo  saggio Della CostUusione. Il problema religioso vi é mal furmoialo. 1! progetto di  costituzione rosminiana non guarentirebbe alla chiesa nemmeno libertà; include l’indifTercntisino politico; toglie all’ordine civile la base morale. Necessità della prufessiono religiosa dello stato italiano. Il problema polìtico intorno al  diritto e alla ginstizia sociale – GRICE SOCIAL JUSTICE -- vi  è del  pari inesallamenlc formolato. Nel criticare le costituzioni galliche SERBATI non  ne taccia i vizii principali. Quale sia la quistiono politica odierna; come sia formolaia dai socialisti, come da I.amcnnois. L’emende proposte da SERBATI (si veda) alle costituzioni da lui criticate sono vane, o ìnsuilicicnii a far argine al socialismo e comuniSmo. É inutile adulare e contrastare a metà le idee di moda, se non si risolve il tema del socialismo. Esso nega Dio e le due leggi  provvidenziali per cui Puoiiio è governato dalPiiomo, e il diritto sulle cose materiali è divìso fra gli iiuniìiii. 1 dominarli italiani e francesi sì runtentano di massime – GRICE MAXIMS -- generiche, d’idee dimezzate, senz’analisi e spplicazìouc. Gli amcricomniii italiani, e gl’anglomani francesi, non cono^ono i tipi stranieri clic vogliono imitare. 1 cattolici idealisti e razionalisti  non  comprendono che guastano e snaturano il crisiianesitiio colle misture eterodosse, vece di farne l'apologià. Quali aieno dunque le ire vagliature, or necessarie, delle doUrtne e delle voglie del secolo pug.  j4ncora alcune ottervatìoni ost- zione generale appoggiata con prove e dorumenli irrerragabili. Lnngi dall’avere esagerato bisogna anzi dire che non ha approfittato di tutti  i suoi vantaggi, perchè ha fottcr soltanto una scelta di tante prove, che erano a sua disposizione Riccordt. ;lfanuale d' ugni  letteralurOf  Milano,  Gl’addetti alle società segrete predicano alle genti il Barruel per un bugiardaccio, impostore, sognatore e parabolano ma credono in famiglia che niuno meglio di lui abbia svolto le dottrine, le finezze e gl’intendimenti di Weissbaupi Germogli dell’illuminismo  di Weisshaupt sono tutte le odierne società segrete, ed hanno il medesimo intendimento che si propone cotesto odioso e sfìdato nemico di Dio, del Re e di tutta l’umana società. ( 3ìemori$  di LionellOf  nella Cii’titd Cattolica.  Un grido d’indegnazione accolge queste memorie che avrebbero potalo minacciare la sorte di molli intriganti ivi oominali e l'esito delle loro consorterie; ma  niuno sì tolge a provare che sono calunniose, sebbene si trovassero aliissimi personaggi menzionali come fautori o come membri delle sette occulte colà istoriale. 1 fatti provano la verità delle dottrine e delle tendenze altribuile all’illuminismo. Se Weissbaupt non l’avesse professale, converrebbe dire che Barruel muta il nome del settario o ne fosse stato egli r inventore; certo è che  dopo l’apparizione dell’illuminismo ic società segrete rivoluzionarie non ebbero altro codice, altra niosutìa, altro sistema  di governo da quello già da più di cinquant'anni loro attribuito in tali àicmorie,  la loro lingua, le loro opere, il loro scopo sono sostanzialmente idcntUi anche ai di d’oggi Saggio intorno al socialismo, Torino. VIAGGIO  d'lN GENTIUOMO IRLANDESE IN  CERCA d’I’NA RELIGIO.NE, OPERA DI MOORE. Quest’opera ha fatto nella Britannia il più grande incontro. Moore combatte il protestantismo nelle sue basi, e più di venti opuscoli gli furon scritti contro. Quest’opera, come dice l’autore, offre un programma completo del protestantismo, e vi si vedono messi in mostra a lato degl’errori dogmatici i vizi e gli scandali dei  riformaiori.Essa  contribuì a condurre alla fede parecchi dei nostri traviati fratelli; e cièche prova il suo gran merito è la debolezza delle risposte che invano si tenta d’opporle  Conseils pour former une bibliothègue  LKTTKHF,  SH-L ITALI V CONSIUEIIATA SOTTO IL RAPPORTO DELLA RELIGIONE, OPERA DI JOUX. Icitrrp  S4  iiue  Jn un nrotrsontf ronvoriilu, tendono,i i  dei prolrsianli ed  n diicndere la nostra Rde. Meritano d'essi^r  pu' siecui Tra/Icnimcrifi dt  ÀlarAcc,  foli*  £cct7/en2a  ddOi  re/i^tone  di Milner»  folle Lcltere di Cobbett e fo^Ii altri senili rhc vider ta luce in questi tempi e rivelano tnUa la (ìevole/za del nroleslantismn. Alle savie disrirssinni die quesl’opera rarehiude c che produssero c produrranno  i più grandi  elTeUi  nei proteslanii c in tutti quelli  che le leggeranno,  I’Aulure ha rrapi>usic abilinenle delle descrizioni inicressanii che ne Yendunu  aggradevole la Icllura c tic formano nn opera convenevole a darsi per premio alla gioventù studiosa  Cori*  Sfi/J  pour  formcr  «n«  bibliothèquc Sl'L PRINCIPIO GENERATORE DELLE COSTITIZIOM POLITICHE  E DELLE ALTRE IMANE ISTITLZIOM, SAGGIO DEL CONTE MAISTRE. Il Saggio sul  principi»  ^cncraiore doHc  Coslilusiuni  po/t(icitc, è una di quelle opero fon cui Maistre impresse il suggello dell’immorlalilA alla riputazione che già crasi acquistala grandissima colle sne Considcmsioni sulla Gallia. Nel Saggio es^itiiina  i) fomianieiiio della scienza, c rovescia dal fondo l'ediGzio di quelle cflìnicre legislazioni, che da un mezzo secolo si  succedono e scompariscono r. Tpidamcnlc. Vi approfondisce qnistioni molto importanti nell'ordine sociale c le sue considerazioni si collegano agl’oggetti] MÙ gravi della religione c della società. ( A. iliccurJi. Manuale d’ogni letteratura.Aii7aao  /A'ò/, Rrescianì  parlando  del  De  Maistre lo chiama uomo, non so se più acuto poltlico o profondo filosofo t o cristiano  eminente.  La Francia dà quasi ogni  momento altcstaU  dell’ammirazione  che  pròfessa  pel  grande  ingegno che illustra la Savoia il  conte  Deinaistre,  il Platone  dell’Alpi,  come  lo  chiama  Lainartine,  nell’Histoire  de  la  itestavration. Noi leggiamo nel A/idt,  giornale che si stampa a Tolosa, che l’Accademia dei Jeux-Florau:c decreto un premio d'eloquenza all’autore  del  miglior  elogio  del  fonte  IVemaistrc, uno de'più  grandi-  *ìrui- lo annunzia che il concorso e ben  ragguardevole (Dall'  Armonia,  il  Vaggio  f53i , Il  Conte  De  Maislrc e Invialo del re Vittorio  Eromanuelc 1 alla  Corte di llnshia,  e in tempi infelici in cui la carica era atto di singolare devozione, da  )mihi  ambita. Il Conte Do Maistre è forse il primo fra i savi dell’età  presente  e i?  solo vero filosofo,  senza che altri possa  o%erlo  a male. Conte Soìaro della Margarita, nel Memorandum, Torino ISiif. SAGGIO INTORNO AL SOCIALISMO E ALLE DOTTRINE E TENDENZE SOCIALISTICHE. Il saggio intorno al socialismo è un libro profondo che merita  d’essere oticntamcntc letto e studiato, ma ciò non si farà imichò adesso i diziu> Ilari, i giornali, e i compendi bastano a far  gl’uomini eruditi e sapienti (Conte Solaro della Margarita, nel Memorandum, Torino). Emiliano Avogadro, conte Della Motta. Il conte Emiliano Avogadro. Emiliano Avogadro Collobiano e Della Motta. Il Conte Emiliano Avogadro della Motta. Conte Emiliano Avogadro della Motta. Avogadro di Vigliano, Motta. Keywords: implicatura. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Motta” – The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

Luigi Speranza -- Grice e Motterlini: l’implicatura conversazionale e la critica della ragione economica – il principio d’economia dello sforzo razionale – la scuola di Milano – filosofia milanese -- filosofia lombarda -- filosofia italiana -- Luigi Speranza (Milano). Filosofo Milanese. Filosofo Lombardo. Filosofo italiano. Milano, Lombardia. Grice: “I like Motterlini – he has written, echoing Kant, a critique of economic reason, which Stalnaker should read before saying I’m Kantian rather than Futilitarian!”  Specializzato in filosofia della scienza, economia comportamentale e neuro-economia, e noto per i suoi saggi in ambito psico-economico su processi decisionali, emozioni e razionalità umana e per le sue ricerche in ambito epistemologico sulla razionalità della scienza e il metodo scientifico. Insegna a Milanodove. Consigliere per le Scienze Sociali e Comportamentali della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri. Si laurea a Milano, dove porta a termine il proprio dottorato in filosofia della scienza. Ricercatore di economia politica e professore associato di filosofia della scienza presso l'Trento; Visiting Associate Professor al Department of Social and Decision Sciences della Carnegie Mellon di Pittsburgh, Visiting Research Scholar al Department of Psychology della UCLA. Professore di filosofia della scienza presso l'Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele.  Tra gli altri incarichi è collaboratore de Il Corriere Economia, Il Corriere della Sera e Il Sole 24 Ore, per cui ha curato per anni il blog Controvento. È stato consulente scientifico di Milan Lab, A.C. Milan, fondatore e direttore di Anima FinLab, di Anima Sgr, centro di ricerca di finanza comportamentale e Scientific advisor di MarketPsychData, Ls Angeles.  È direttore del CRESA (Centro di ricerca in epistemologia sperimentale e applicata), da lui fondato a Milano presso la facoltà di filosofia dell'Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele. I progetti di ricerca del centro si concentrano su vari aspetti della cognizione umana, dal linguaggio al rapporto tra mente e cervello, dall'economia comportamentale alle neuroscienze cognitive della decisione, con particolare attenzione all'indagine sperimentale multidisciplinare e alle sue ricadute pratiche e applicative (per esempio nell'ambito del policy making e dell'evidence-based policy).  A inizio, ha avviato il progetto di finanza comportamentale per Schroder Italia, dal quale è nato Investimente, un test psicofinanziario al servizio di risparmiatori, promotori finanziari e private banker, per raccogliere e quindi analizzare i dati riguardanti le decisioni di investimento e i bias cognitivi nell'ambito della gestione del risparmio.  Attualmente è direttore dell'E.ON Customer Behavior Lab e Chief Behavior Officer di E.ON Italia; stesso incarico che ricopre per il Gruppo Ospedaliero San Donato. Analizza la proposta falsificazionista, rivelando le difficoltà in cui si imbatte il progetto de-marcazionista e anti-induttivista. Affrontano quindi il modo in cui si ha preteso superare alcune di queste difficoltà, e insieme raccogliere la sfida di Duhem circa il carattere olistico del controllo empirico, tenendo conto delle immagini che il filosofo ha della sua stessa pratica e riferendosi a particolari casi storici come termine di confronto. Sull'orlo della scienza e in edizione ampliata. Nel suo “Filosofia e storia” avanza una interpretazione del progetto razionalista come il prodotto di una peculiare combinazione delle idee di Platone e Hegel. Ciò è motivo della straordinaria fecondità di Platone, ma anche di una inesauribile tensione al suo interno. Una tensione che viene illustrata affrontando la relazione tra filosofia e storia della filosofia (unita longitudinale) in riferimento alla questione della valutazione di una data metodologia in base alle 'ricostruzioni razionali' o construzioni logica a cui essa conduce. Nell'idea che la metodologia filosofica va confrontate con la storia della filosofia è contenuto il germe di una logica della scoperta in cui i canoni non siano fissati una volta per sempre, ma mutano nel tempo, anche se con ritmi non necessariamente uguali a quelli delle teorie filosofiche. Si focalizza su questioni di metodologia dell'economia da una prospettiva interdisciplinare che combina riflessione epistemologica, scienza cognitiva, ed economia sperimentale con aspetti più tecnici di teoria della scelta e della decisione individuale in condizioni d'incertezza. Le ricerche di questo periodo analizzano criticamente lo status delle assunzioni della teoria della scelta razionale, valutando l'impatto delle violazioni comportamentali sistematiche alle restrizioni assiomatiche imposte dai modelli normativi di razionalità. Avanzano quindi ragioni epistemologiche per la composizione della frattura economia e psicologia cognitiva in ambito della teoria della decisione; e suggeriscono di guardare ai recenti risultati dell'economia cognitiva in prospettiva di una nuova sintesi 'quasi-razionale' in cui i modelli neoclassici, integrati da teorie psicologiche che tengano conto dei limiti cognitivi dei soggetti decisionali, rafforzano le previsioni del comportamento economico degli esseri umani.  Neuroeconomia e evidence-based policy Le sue ricerche indagano le basi neurobiologiche della razionalità umana attraverso lo studio dei correlati neurali dei processi decisionali in contesti economico-finanziari, con particolare attenzione al ruolo svolto dalle emozioni, dal rimpianto, e dall'apprendimento sociale.  Parallelamente progetta ed esperimenta i modi in cui i risultati dell'economia comportamentale e della neuroeconomia possono informare politiche pubbliche più efficaci e basate sull'evidenza.  Queste ricerche sono oggetto dei corsi di Filosofia della scienza e di Economia cognitiva e neuroeconomia che insegna all'università San Raffaele, e hanno altresì trovato diffusione attraverso numerosi articoli divulgativi e due libri, Economia emotiva e Trappole mentali. Il suo ultimo libro è Psicoeconomia di Charlie Brown. Strategia per una società più felice. Saggi: “Sull'orlo della scienza,” – Grice: “Must say that ‘orlo’ is a genial word, wish Popper knew it!” –Lakatos, Feyerabend: Pro e contro il metodo, Cortina, Milano.  Popper, Saggiatore-Flammarion, Milano, Lakatos. Scienza, matematica e storia, Saggiatore, Milano, Decisioni mediche. Un approccio cognitive,  Cortina, Milano. Critica della ragione economica. Tre saggi: McFadden, Kahneman, Smith, Saggiatore, Milano, Economia cognitiva et sperimentale, Bocconi Editore, Milano La dimensione cognitiva dell'errore in medicina, Fondazione Smith Kline, Angeli, Milano  Economia emotiva (Emotional Economics), Rizzoli, Milano Trappole mentali, Rizzoli, Milano Mente, Mercati, Decisioni. Introduzione all'economia cognitiva e sperimentale, Egea, Milano  Psico-economia di Charlie Brown. Strategia per una società più felice, Rizzoli, Milano Alcuni articoli scientifici, Lakatos between the Hegelian devil and the Popperian blue sea. In Kampis, G., Kvasz, L., Stoeltzner, M. Considerazioni epistemologiche e mitologiche sulla relazione tra psicologia ed economia, Sistemi intelligenti, Il Mulino, Metodo e standard di valutazione in economia. Dall'apriorismo a Friedman, Studi Economici, Milano. A fMRI Study, PlosONE', Vai in laboratorio e capirai il mercato (con Francesco Guala) Prefazione a Vernon Smith, La razionalità in economia. Tra teoria e analisi sperimentale, IBL, Milano.. Neuro-economia e Teoria del prospetto, voci Enciclopedia dell'economia Garzanti, Milano. Investimente. Test dell'investitore consapevole  Recensione di Hacking sulla The London Review of Books  IlSole24Ore 22.5.//ilsole24ore. com/art/cultura/-05-18/motterlini-spinta-riforme--shtml?uuid=ADAaR2J A Sito su matteo motterlini. CRESA, su cresa.  I am strongly inclined to assent to a principle which might be called a Principle of Economy of Rational Effort. Such a principle would state that where there is a ratiocinative procedure for arriving rationally at certain outcomes, a procedure which, because it is ratiocinative, will involve an expenditure of time and energy, then if there is a nonratiocinative, and so more economical procedure which is likely, for the most part, to reach the same outcomes as the ratiocinative procedure, then provided the stakes are not too high it will be rational to employ the cheaper though somewhat less reliable non-ratiocinative procedure as a substitute for ratiocination. I think this principle would meet with Genitorial approval, in which case the Genitor would install it for use should opportunity arise. On the assumption that it is cha~acteristic of reason to operate on pre-rational states which reason confirms, revises, or even (sometimes) eradicates, such opportunities will arise, provided the rational creatures can, as we can, be trained to modify the relevant pre-rational states or their exercise, so that without actual ratiocination the creatures  84  Paul Grice  can be more or less reliably led by those pre-rational states to the thoughts or actions which reason would endorse were it invoked; with the result that the creatures can do, for the most part, what reason requires without, in the particular case, the voice of reason being heard. Motterlini. Keywords: critica della ragione economica, principle of economy of rational effort, twice in Grice – in Reply, etc. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Motterlini” – The Swimming-Pool Library.