Ideen I in Italy and Enzo Paci and the Milan School

Sacconaghi, Rocco

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-5213-9_10

Rocco Sacconaghi³

Part of the book series: Contributions to Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 66))

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Abstract

The first part of this chapter provides a brief sketch of the publishing history of Ideen I in Italy. The most infl uential philosopher in the publishing history of Husserl’s work in Italy was Enzo Paci, professor at the State University of Milan. Like his teacher Antonio Banfi (who first brought Husserl’s work to Italy), he is considered one of the founders of the so-called Milan School. The second part of the chapter considers Paci’s transcendental philosophy, and in particular his original interpretation of the Husserlian epochē. Paci gives an existential interpretation of the epochē, conceived as an act “required by life itself.” It recognizes four elements in Paci’s version of the epochē: first, the epochē is a denial of abstract mundane data; second, it allows a poetic intuition of the cosmic form of experience; third, it determines the assumption of responsibility toward the world; and fourth, it is the first and essential political action.

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Notes

1.
Edmund Husserl, Idee per una fenomenologia pura e per una filosofia fenomenologica, vol. I, Libro Primo, Introduzione generale alla fenomenologia pura, ed. E. Franzini, trans. V. Costa (Turin: Einaudi, 2002).
2.
V. Costa, E. Franzini, and P. Spinicci, La fenomenologia (Turin: Einaudi, 2002).
3.
V. Costa, “Sulla storia editoriale di Idee I e sui criteri di questa edizione,” Editor’s Preface, E. Husserl, Idee per una fenomenologia pura e per una filosofia fenomenologica, vol. I, Libro Primo, Introduzione generale alla fenomenologia pura, LV. See also V. Costa, “La posizione di Idee I nel pensiero di Husserl,” ibid., 435–64. Costa is one of the most lively protagonists of the Italian phenomenological milieu. He wrote several essays and books about phenomenology and in particular on Husserl. Among others: L’estetica trascendentale fenomenologica. Sensibilità e razionalità nella filosofia di Edmund Husserl (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1999); Il cerchio e l’ellisse. Husserl e il darsi delle cose (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2007); and Husserl (Rome: Carocci, 2009).
4.
V. Costa, “Sulla storia editoriale di Idee I e sui criteri di questa edizione,” ibid.
5.
Enzo Paci, ed., Omaggio a Husserl (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1960).
6.
His most important works on Husserl are: E. Paci, Tempo e verità nella fenomenologia di Husserl, (Laterza: Bari, 1961); and Funzione delle scienze e significato dell’uomo (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1963; The Function of the Sciences and Meaning of Man, trans. J.E. Hanse and P. Piccolone (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1972). On his philosophy, see A. Vigorelli, L’esistenzialismo positivo di Enzo Paci. Una biografia intellettuale (1929–1950) (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1987); A. Vigorelli, “La fenomenologia husserliana nell’opera di Enzo Paci,” Magazzino di filosofia II/5 (2001): 169–95; S. Zecchi, ed., Vita e verità. Interpretazione del pensiero di Enzo Paci (Milan: Bompiani, 1991). For a complete bibliography of Paci’s work, see A. Civita, Bibliografia degli scritti di Enzo Paci (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1983); A. Vigorelli, “Rassegna: Bibliografia,” Il Verri 9–10 (1986): 204–208.
7.
Banfi’s first articles on Husserl are: “La tendenza logistica della filosofia tedesca contemporanea e le ‘Ricerche logiche’ di Edmund Husserl,” Rivista di filosofia XIV/2 (1923): 115–33; and “La fenomenologia pura di Edmund Husserl e l’autonomia ideale della sfera teoretica,” Rivista di filosofia XIV/3 (1923): 208–24. On Banfi’s introduction of phenomenology to Italy, see M. Mocchi, Le prime interpretazioni della filosofia di Husserl in Italia. Il dibattito sulla fenomenologia: 1923–1940 (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1990); S. Zecchi, “La fenomenologia in Italia, Diffusione e interpretazioni,” Filosofia italiana e filosofie straniere nel dopoguerra, eds. P. Rossi and C. A. Viano (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991), 15–33.
8.
We should mention, as most eminent figures of this school, Piero Martinetti, Antonio Banfi, Mario Dal Pra, Ludovico Geymonat, Giovanni Emanuele Barié, Giulio Preti, Enzo Paci, Dino Formaggio (another important protagonist of Italian phenomenology, in particular for his attempt to apply phenomenological analysis to the art,) Mario Untersteiner, and Remo Cantoni. See F. Papi, Vita e filosofia. La scuola di Milano. Banfi, Cantoni, Paci, Preti (Milan: Guerini 1990); A. Vigorelli, La nostra inquietudine. Martinetti, Banfi, Rebora, Cantoni, Paci, De Martino, Rensi, Untersteiner, Dal Pra, Segre, Capitini (Milan: Mondadori, 2007); and D. Assael, Alle origini della scuola di Milano. Martinetti, Barié, Banfi (Milan: Guerini, 2009).
9.
G. Brand, Welt, Ich und Zeit: nach unveröffentlichten Manuskripten Edmund Husserls (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955); Mondo, io e tempo nei manoscritti inediti di Husserl, with an essay by Enzo Paci, trans. E. Filippini (Milan: Bompiani, 1960); and E. Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, Husserliana vol. VI, ed. by W. Biemel (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1954); La crisi delle scienze europee e la fenomenologia trascendentale, trans. E. Filippini, with an essay by Enzo Paci (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1961).
10.
V. Costa, “Sulla storia editoriale di Idee I e sui criteri di questa edizione,” LIV.
11.
E. Paci, Diario fenomenologico (Milan: Bompiani, 1961), 77.
12.
E. Paci, “Attualità di Husserl,” Idee per una enciclopedia fenomenologica (Milan: Bompiani, 1973), 9. See also E. Paci, “I temi husserliani fino al primo volume di Idee. 1. Sulle Ricerche logiche; 2. Sul primo volume di Idee,” 159–215.
13.
E. Paci, “Attualità di Husserl,” 9.
14.
A. Banfi, Principi di una teoria della ragione (Milan: Isi, 1926), 567–68.
15.
E. Paci, “L’eredità di Banfi,” Idee per una enciclopedia fenomenologica, 26.
16.
Ibid.
17.
Ibid.
18.
Ibid.
19.
About the Italian philosophical context of the time, see P. Rossi and C. A. Viano, eds., Filosofia italiana e filosofie straniere nel dopoguerra (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991); E. Garin et al., eds., La filosofia italiana dal dopoguerra ad oggi (Rome: Laterza, 1985).
20.
E. Paci, “Attualità di Husserl,” 9.
21.
We must name, as Paci’s most outstanding students, Pier Aldo Rovatti, Salvatore Veca, Stefano Zecchi, Alfredo Marini, Amedeo Vigorelli, Andrea Bonomi, Giovanni Piana, Carlo Sini, Sandro Mancini. They were all protagonists in the diffusion and development of phenomenology—not only Husserl’s, but in general—in Italy. There are, of course, also several scholars from other universities who contributed (and some of them are still contributing) influentially to the study and the diffusion of Husserlian phenomenology in Italy. We already listed some of them among the authors involved by Enzo Paci in the 1960 volume Omaggio a Husserl. Apart from them we should also mention Angela Ales Bello (University Lateranense, Rome); Mario Sancipriano (University of Siena); Mario Signore, Antonio Ponsetto and Giorgio Scrimieri (University of Lecce/Salento); Enrico Garulli and Vittorio De Palma (University of Urbino); Franco Bosio (University of Verona); Massimo Barale (University of Pisa); Renato Cristin (University of Trieste); Aldo Masullo (University of Naples); Bianca Maria D’Ippolito (University of Salerno); Virgilio Melchiorre and Michele Lenoci (Catholic University of Milan); Pasquale Pantaleo and Arcangelo Licinio (University of Bari); Stefano Besoli (University of Bologna); Francesco Saverio Trincia (University La Sapienza, Rome); Roberta Lanfredini (University of Florence); Nicoletta Ghigi (University of Perugia); Corrado Sinigaglia (University of Milan); Luca Vanzago (University of Pavia).
22.
Among his important works, see in particular I problemi della fenomenologia (Milan: Mondadori, 1966); and Elementi di una dottrina dell’esperienza. Saggio di filosofia fenomenologica (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1967).
23.
He wrote his thesis on Husserl’s later manuscripts under Paci’s supervision, published as G. Piana, Esistenza e storia negli inediti di Husserl (Milan: Lampugnani Nigri, 1965).
24.
Among others, Carmine Di Martino, professor at the State University of Milan and former student of Carlo Sini, after a long study of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Derrida, in the last years has devoted several courses to the interpretation of Husserlian phenomenology, trying to point out within it an original philosophy of experience. See for instance C. Di Martino,“Il senso comune nella fenomenologia,” Valore e limiti del senso comune, ed. E. Agazzi (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2004), 165–90; “Esperienza e intenzionalità nella fenomenologia di Husserl,” Intenzionalità e progetto. Tra filosofia e pedagogia, ed. F. Cappa (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2007), 17–46.
25.
E. Paci, Diario fenomenologico (Milan: Bompiani, 1961), 20.
26.
E. Paci, “Husserl sempre di nuovo,” Omaggio a Husserl, 10.
27.
Ibid., 11.
28.
E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, Husserliana, vol. III/1, ed. K. Schuhmann (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976); Ideas pertaining to a pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology, trans. Fr. Kersten (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1983), 51–57.
29.
Plato was a fundamental source for Paci since the beginning of his studies. His first work’s title (an adaptation of his thesis, written under the supervision of Banfi) was Il significato del “Parmenide” nella filosofia di Platone, (Milan: Principato, 1938).
30.
E. Paci, “Husserl sempre di nuovo,” 11.
31.
See E. Paci, Diario fenomenologico, 98: “In Husserl perception is never a merely cognitive fact in the narrow sense of the word. In each perception there is an interest … a minimum and a maximum of interest. Practical situation … Forseeable scholars’ misunderstanding of Husserl’s praxis. Knowing itself is praxis insofar as it is constituted … by operations which … tend to meaning, to truth.”
32.
Ibid., 45–46.
33.
E. Paci, “Husserl sempre di nuovo,” 10.
34.
Ibid.
35.
See M. Heidegger, Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie, Gesaumtasgabe 56/57, ed. B. Heimbüchel (Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1987); Toward the Definition of Philosophy, ed. E.H. Sadler (London: Athlone Press, 2001); M. Heidegger,Ontologie. Hermeneutik der Faktizität, Gesamtausgabe 63, ed. K. Bröcker-Oltmanns (Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1988); Ontology. The Hermeneutics of Facticity, trans. J. van Buren (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999). On this topic, see C. Esposito, Heidegger. Storia e fenomenologia del possibile (Bari: Levante, 1992).
36.
E. Paci, “Marxismo e fenomenologia,” aut aut 133 (1973): 8.
37.
E. Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenlogie. Eine Einletung in die phanomenologische Philosophie, Husserliana vol. VI, ed. W. Biemel (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1954); The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. D. Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), 16.
38.
E. Paci, “Il significato dell’uomo in Marx e Husserl,” aut aut 73 (1963): 19.
39.
Ibid., 11.
40.
E. Paci, “L’enciclopedia fenomenologica e il telos dell’umanità,” Idee per una enciclopedia fenomenologica, 43. See also E. Paci, “Il significato dell’uomo in Marx e Husserl,” aut aut 73 (1963): 19, “Phenomenology is transcendental … by laying concrete subjects as sciences’ base. Husserl thinks that a true society is a society in which no man is an object, or a thing, but in which all are subjects. To him the idea of this society is the telos of history and only this society gives a meaning to life of all men and is the very truth of the real historical movement.”
41.
E. Paci, “Sul significato dello spirito in Husserl,” aut aut 54 (1959): 348.
42.
E. Paci, “Vita e ragione in Antonio Banfi,” aut aut 43–44 (1958): 59.
43.
E. Paci, “Fondazione fenomenologica dell’antropologia ed enciclopedia delle scienze,” aut aut 96–97 (1966): 29.
44.
E. Paci, Diario fenomenologico 41–42.
45.
Ibid., 42.
46.
E. Husserl, Ideen I, §24, 44.
47.
See E. Paci, Diario fenomenologico 77–78: “September 18, 1958. Venice: The past that becomes, in Husserl’s sense, presentification and that, at the same time, keeps alive the lived horizon. Continuous comparisons between today and yesterday, presence of all that happened here, known and unknown. Venice seems to bring back any gaze which was ever cast on her and to communicate to us secret messages of unknown lives that reach us as if they had remained in some way inside the stones of the great palaces, in the labyrinth of the ‘calli’, on the doorsteps worn out by the waves.”
48.
See ibid., 11, 25, 41.
49.
Ibid., 50.
50.
Ibid., 48.
51.
Ibid., 6.
52.
Ibid.
53.
Ibid., 7–8.
54.
Ibid., 11.
55.
E. Paci, “Frammenti da una lettura fenomenologica di Goethe,” aut aut 277–278 (1997), 4–18. Also Whitehead, another fundamental reference for Paci (who dedicates him several essays and introduces his work in Italy, making his scholars study him and translate in Italian his works), presents a similar position on this issue. See A.N. Whitehead, The interpretation of science. Selected Essays (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961), 167:“It is essential to keep in mind that science and poetry have the same root in human nature. Forgetfulness of this fact will ruin … our educational system.”
56.
See E. Paci, Diario fenomenologico, 84–88.
57.
Ibid., 88.
58.
Ibid., 11.
59.
Ibid.
60.
Ibid.
61.
Ibid., 12: “But this is Husserl, and it is the opposite of absolutization of the ‘I’, because it is the relational mediation, the self-recognition of the truth which man has within himself and which must be realized in history, in time, in the world. Individuation as the meaning of truth.”
62.
E. Paci, “Sulla presenza come centro relazionale in Husserl,” aut aut 58 (1960): 240.
63.
Ibid.
64.
See E. Husserl, Ideen I, §55, 128–129.
65.
E. Paci, Diario fenomenologico, 69.
66.
E. Paci, “Sulla presenza come centro relazionale in Husserl,” aut aut 58 (1960): 237.
67.
Ibid., 237–238.
68.
See E. Paci, Diario fenomenologico, 64.
69.
Ibid., 39.
70.
Ibid., 76.
71.
Ibid., 108.
72.
Ibid., 45.
73.
Ibid., 109.
74.
Ibid., 22.
75.
Ibid., 21.
76.
E. Paci, “Due temi fenomenologici. I. Fenomenologia e dialettica; II. La fenomenologia e la fondazione dell’economia politica,” aut aut 116 (1970): 24. On this issue, see also E. Paci, “Per una fenomenologia del bisogno,” aut aut 123–124 (1971): 117–26.
77.
E. Paci, Diario fenomenologico, 108.
78.
Ibid., 15.
79.
Ibid., 36.
80.
Ibid.
81.
Ibid., 25.
82.
Ibid., 88: “This gift is the always renewed and always renewable meaning of my life, of the others’ life and of the world’s life.”
83.
Ibid., 58.
84.
Ibid., 15.
85.
Ibid., 42–43.
86.
Ibid., 43.
87.
Ibid.
88.
Ibid., 106–107.
89.
Ibid., 9.
90.
Ibid.
91.
A very interesting example of the dialogue with the arts is the one that took place between Paci and Giuseppe Ungaretti. See G. Ungaretti, Lettere a un fenomenologo, with an essay by Enzo Paci (Milan: Scheiwiller, 1972.)
92.
See E. Paci, Idee per una enciclopedia fenomenologica; S. Zecchi, “L’idea di enciclopedia fenomenologica di E. Paci,” La fenomenologia dopo Husserl nella cultura contemporanea (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1978), 72–79.
93.
On the history of this magazine, see A. Vigorelli “Una rivista milanese di filosofia e cultura: aut aut di Enzo Paci (1951–1972),” Rivista di filosofia 3 (1995): 645–55; L. Boella, “La responsabilità di pensare: aut aut e il rapporto della filosofia con la realtà,” La cultura filosofica italiana attraverso le riviste 1945–2000, ed. P. Di Giovanni (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2006), 277–81.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Michele Averchi, Francesco Poggiani, Santiago Ramos, Andrea Staiti, and Federico Zangrandi for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter.

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Department of Philosophy, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Rocco Sacconaghi

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Sacconaghi, R. (2013). Ideen I in Italy and Enzo Paci and the Milan School. In: Embree, L., Nenon, T. (eds) Husserl’s Ideen. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 66. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5213-9_10

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