Roberta De Monticelli

On the basis of a short summary of phenomenological aims and methods, this essay describes the present state of relationships between phenomenology and analytic philosophy, pointing out the progress done in the last years on the way of their rapprochement, after a long time of reciprocal scorn and misunderstandings. In the way of a presentation of the Phenomenology Lab and Center’s present and future research program, it recalls some relevant chapters of past and present phenomenological research in Europe, and quite particularly in Italy. After discussing some aspects of contemporary debates in phenomenology and philosophy of mind, it attempts at establishing a convergent line of argument toward the assessment of an anti-reductive ontology of concreteness, or the life world.

Da un colloquio tra una fenomenologa di chiara fama e un pedagogista emergono iconnotati dell’atteggiamento fenomenologico, inteso come disposizione intellettuale e morale capace di fondare una “conoscenza personale” nel lavoro di cura. Questa attitudine della mente e del cuore può dar forma al “modo di essere” peculiare di chi, per professione e per vocazione, si prende quotidianamente cura delle persone e della loro esistenza.From this conversation between a well-known phenomenologist and a pedagogist thephenomenological attitude arises as both intellectual and existential disposition, wich is the basis of a “personal knowledge” in care professions. This cognitive and emotional attitude can mould the particular “way of being” which characterizes those professionals who, day by day, take care of people and their existence.

Il pensiero pratico dominante nel Novecento europeo fornisce risposte negative alla questione se sia possibile una fondazione razionale del pensiero pratico, configurando una posizione di scetticismo assiologico e morale ancora oggi maggioritaria. Ma il secolo XX, se da un lato ha rappresentato la bancarotta della ragione pratica, dall’altro ne ha prodotto una vera e propria incarnazione, nelle istituzioni e organizzazioni internazionali, nelle costituzioni rigide degli Stati europei del dopoguerra, nella Dichiarazione universaledei diritti dell’essere umano del 1948 ecc. Come può la filosofia pratica portarsi all’altezza della ragione pratica incarnata, invece di minacciarla dall’interno con le sue neo-sofistiche, attraverso relativismi, soggettivismi, nichilismi, politeismi assiologici e simili?Axiologic and moral scepticism has nourishedmainstream European practical philosophy during the XXth century, a time of bankruptcy of practical reason on the Continent. Yet the XXthcentury has also produced a kind of embodiment of practical reason, within the international organizations and institutions, as well as by means of the rigid post-war constitutions of the European States, the Declaration of the Human Rights in 1948 etc. How can practical philosophy grow up to the standards of embodied practical reason, instead of challenging it from a neo-sophistic point of view, through relativism, value polytheism and the like?

Each person is perceived by others and by herself as an individual in a very strong sense, namely as a unique individual. Moreover, this supposed uniqueness is commonly thought of as linked with another character that we tend to attribute\nto persons (as opposed to stones or chairs and even non-human animals): a kind of depth, hidden to sensory perception, yet in some measure accessible to other means of knowledge. I propose a theory of strong or essential individuality. This theory is introduced by way of a critical discussion of Van Inwagen’s and Baker’s ontologies of persons. Composition\nTheory and Constitution Theory are shown to be complementary, in their opposite strong and weak points. I argue that both\ntheories have unsatisfactory consequences concerning personal identity, a problem which the proposed theory seems to solve\nmore faithfully both to folk intuitions and the phenomenology of personal life