Lo studio presenta la vicenda filosofica del giornalista calabrese Giuseppe Gangale , un protestante che operò in Italia tra il 1922 e il 1934 dirigendo dapprima il settimanale «Conscientia», edito dalla Scuola Teologica Battista di Roma, e in un secondo tempo la casa editrice Doxa, alla quale collaborarono personaggi come Adriano Tilgher, Antonio Banfi, Giovanni Miegge e Carlo Antoni. Gangale sostenne dapprima un’interpretazione teologica del sistema hegeliano in polemica con le coeve interpretazioni di Croce e Gentile; in seguito, (...) aperto agli stimoli provenienti da Barth, Troeltsch, Spengler, ecc., Gangale tentò la formulazione di una teologia sostanzialmente irrazionalistica che ebbe la sua espressione più rilevante in Il Dio straniero . Le altre sue più importanti opere furono: Rivoluzione protestante , Apocalissi della cultura e Revival . Nel 1934, Gangale lasciò l’Italia e il lavoro filosofico per dedicarsi a studi di carattere linguistico. (shrink)

The concept of will to power is one of the most important Nietzsche’s theories, that deals with the capacity of a person to face death and the thought of his own sacrifice without any fear, in order to obtain one’s self-overcoming. The so called will to wreck is the most powerful objectification of will to power, and it is deep-rooted in European society, especially German popular ideology. Actually, it is possible to find this conception of will to wreck in connection (...) with will to power in Nibelungenlied, the greatest Nordic poem of 13th century, and, years and years later, in Nazi ideology (and of course Nietzsche himself), as a proof of the temporal continuity of this particular philosophy. A philosophy which is probably part of our psychology, and which is not likely to be easily forgotten though its terrible, destructive power. (shrink)

An ardent treatise for the Dignity of Man, which elevates Humanism to a truly Christian level, making this writing as pertinent today as it was in the Fifteenth Century.

t. 1. Scripta in editione Basilensi anno MDLXXII collecta.-- t. 2. Rime, Carmina, Commentaria in psalmos, Epistolae; Appendix; I. Reuchlin, De arte cabalistica.

Written in 1486 by the then 23-year-old Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the Oration on the Dignity of Man is considered a 'Manifesto for the Renaissance' and one of the most influential philosophical texts of its day, setting the tone for humanism.

Riassunto: Questo lavoro sviluppa due elementi, apparentemente lontani, ma per alcuni aspetti non secondari, convergenti. Per un verso l’attenzione è rivolta all’origine delle regole che disciplinano il comportamento sociale umano, oltrepassando le regole di matrice istituzionale e convenzionale, che sono spesso considerate le più nobili e le più umane, nel tentativo di far affiorare le regole più remote del nostro agire, legate al patrimonio genetico degli individui della nostra specie, al parlamento dei nostri istinti, sviluppatisi durante l’evoluzione filogenetica. Lungo (...) questo primo tratto del percorso l’articolo fa riferimento in particolare al pensiero di Konrad Lorenz e della sua scuola. Per altro verso, si seguono le tracce del pensiero etico di Lévinas, soffermandosi su alcuni punti fondamentali: il volto dell’altro, la passività, la responsabilità, al fine di porre in evidenza come tra il filosofo e l’etologo, pur nelle evidenti differenze di linguaggio, di approccio e di orizzonti, siano ravvisabili tratti e conclusioni comuni. Parole chiave: Alterità; Relazione; Istinto; Etica; Responsabilità Autrui: Ethics and anthropology in Lévinas: This paper moves along two seemingly distant paths, that turn out to converge in some significant ways. The first path leads us to the origin of what are often considered the most noble and essentially human principles that regulate our social behaviour, going beyond institutional and conventional norms. This allows us to highlight the deepest and most evolutionarily remote rules of human behaviour, related to our genetic code and instincts, which developed over phylogenetic evolution. As we move along this first path, we pay special attention to the work of Konrad Lorenz and his school. The second path follows the traces of Lévinas’ ethical thought, dwelling on some fundamental issues: the face of the other, passivity, and responsibility, and helps us shed light on some ideas and conclusions that are common to the philosopher and the ethologist, despite their clear differences in language, approach, and horizons. We hope this will show how the insights of each can be used to support of the theories of the other. Keywords: Otherness: relationship; Instinct; Ethics; Responsibility. (shrink)

This volume contains Gianfrancesco Pico's Life of his uncle Giovanni Pico and also Giovanni's Oration. Gianfrancesco's Life opens a collection that omits Giovanni's Conclusions but includes the speech that we - unlike Pico - know as an Oration on the Dignity of Man. He wrote the Oration to introduce the Conclusions, but his nephew's editorial decision cut the theses off from the speech that their author had connected with them. Several times in the Oration, the orator mentioned (...) "theorems" to be proposed in the Conclusions: he clearly saw the book and the speech as tools for the same task. Either Gianfrancesco missed his uncle's intentions, which seems unlikely, or he meant to seal off his other writings - including the Oration - from a book that he found embarrassing for himself and his relative and too risky to make public. This is the fact of the matter: Gianfrancesco left the Conclusions unpublished while publishing the Oration in a collection introduced by his Life. Both the speech and the biography are presented here, in this edition, in the same way - apart from the Conclusions: this reflects the situation in 1496 and respects Gianfrancesco's choice, even though his decision blocked understanding of the speech for many years. Today, with access to all the relevant texts in many versions, readers can move from one work to another as needed. (shrink)

This paper explores the intertwinement of ontology and history that happened after the idealist turn of Kantian transcendentalism, particularly in classic German idealism and later in American pragmatism. The paper focuses on the less remarked-upon consequence of this intertwinement, namely the possibility of a new reading of history based on changes in concepts and habitual mentality. The paper proposes a new take on historiography that vindicates Hegel’s insight but changes his approach to a pragmatist one, more apt to face historical (...) changes in a technical way and less easily twistable into ideological frameworks. The paper argues that the notion of habit, as phenomenologically and semiotically described by Peirce, is the fundamental cellule of the pragmatist take on the entanglement of history and ontology. The paper elaborates on the notion of habit, singling out a special form of it called “gesture” that can be a useful tool for reading the history of the human spirit without incorporating Hegel’s dialectic and Absolute. The paper compares the notion of gesture as it originated in the pragmatist tradition with the parallel use of the term in the early studies of Michel Foucault and argues that the notion of gesture is better equipped to tackle a theoretical reading of history. (shrink)

To początkowy fragment mowy O godności człowieka Pico della Mirandoli." Wstępem poprzedział Danilo Facca, przełożyli Zbigniew Nerczuk i Mikołaj Olszewski. -/- This is an excerpt from the Polish translation of Pico della Mirandola's De dignitate hominis. The preface to the translation by Danilo Facca. Translation by Zbigniew Nerczuk and Mikołaj Olszewski.

We propose here the first translation into Portuguese of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s small treatise De Ente et Uno (1491). The translation is preceded by a brief presentation in which the work is contextualized within the scope of the thought of its young author and in the Florentine philosophical environment of the end of the Quattrocento. In the aftermath of the controversies between defenders of Plato and defenders of Aristotle, a quarrel brought by Greek and Byzantine intellectuals into (...) Italy, who exacerbated the differences between the two philosophers, there were also others who tried to show the essential concord between them, a purpose of which Pico’s treatise is one of the most expressive and relevant documents, seeking to prove the equivalence between Plato’s One and Aristotle’s Being. (shrink)

This is a translation of three works by Mirandola: "On the Dignity of Man," a document of early Renaissance humanism; "One Being and the One," a treatise on the relationship between unity and being; and "Heptaplus," an interpretation of the first verses of "Genesis.".

Discourse on the dignity of humanity by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, a renaissance Italian prince known for his erudition and sensitivity.

Diese Ausgabe bietet erstmals einen Schlüsseltext für die Reformation der Metaphysik in der Philosophie der Renaissance in deutscher Übersetzung. Der lateinische Text ist beigegeben. Die ausführliche Einleitung und ein sorgfältiger Kommentar erschließen die richtunggebenden Pointen, die Pico mit dieser Schrift gesetzt hat.

L'humanisme est-il cantonné dans la rhétorique? Ne peut-il avoir qu'un fondement métaphysique? Le recours aux Anciens est-il le signe d'un manque d'originalité? Jean Pic de la Mirandole (1463-1494), le plus grand philosophe de la Renaissance italienne, propose sa propre réponse, en inventant une nouvelle manière de penser l'essence de l'homme. Pour lui, la dignité de l'homme ne réside pas dans sa nature close, ou dans son statut de microcosme, mais dans l'exercice de sa liberté. Parce qu'il n'a rien en propre, (...) l'homme peut devenir toutes choses, et se définir lui-même par ses propres choix. Il est ainsi l'image de Dieu. L'étude des transcendantaux, le dépouillement des passions, l'interprétation de l'Ecriture et de toutes les sagesses culminent dans la béatitude, fruit d'une liberté humaine comblée par la générosité divine. L'humanisme s'inscrit alors dans un cadre théologique renouvelé : au-delà de la métaphysique, mais en dialogue avec elle. Dans son œuvre très cohérente, Pic atteste que la dignité de l'homme passe toutes les formes d'humanisme. Au lieu de contenir l'homme dans une définition ou dans une représentation, il le rend à sa liberté native. (shrink)

Ziel dieser kleinen, 1492 abgefaßten und für das Verständnis der Renaissancephilosophie bedeutsamen Schrift ist der Nachweis der Vereinbarkeit der Grundlehren der platonischen und der aristotelischen Metaphysik, also die Herbeiführung der Entscheidung in einer zwischen den Neuplatonikern seiner Zeit und den Peripatetikern ausgetragenen Kontroverse, mit denen Pico in engem Kontakt stand. Der Traktat basiert auf der späteren kritischen Auseinandersetzung Picos mit seinem ehemaligen Lehrer Ficino und einer 1490 geführten, sehr intensiven Diskussion mit den beiden anderen.