Luca Bertolino

In Franz Rosenzweig's "The Star of Redemption" the chorus comes on stage in three forms: chorus in tragedy (with its presence in ancient classical tragedy and its absence in modern one), chorus of redemption and chorus in church music. Analyzing the role of chorus is useful to study Rosenzweig's aesthetics, which is in a way a "classical" art theory, but not an idealistic "pure" aesthetics, inasmuch as art must be "applied" art. An idealistic pure art condemns us to live in an hortus conclusus, far away from God and from life, while an applied art brings us near to the lost gan 'eden.

The "healthy human understanding" presents a theme of constant struggle for Rosenzweig, above all with regard to his determination of the essence of philosophy, because this concept acquires for him an anti-philosophical hue that colors both theory of knowledge and ethics. This contribution follows the traces of the healthy human understanding in Rosenzweig's works. On this background, it is determined that the "old" philosophy falls into a deep discontent, in contrast to the contentment of the "philosophy of healthy human understanding". The discontent of the latter nevertheless also becomes apparent, however, because it is incapable of giving an account of itself. In this regard, one can find a horizon of research precisely in that "rational treatment" which Rosenzweig mocks as "Criticin-vaccination". The essay "What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?" in which Kant, among other things, defines the common healthy reason, offers a convincing approach to a faith which partakes of rationality.

Philosophical counseling has faced the problem of therapy in different ways. At the beginning, it adopted a wholly negative stance against psychotherapy; later it developed a more critical and articulate awareness. More specifically, and more productively, in recent years philosophical practitioners have tried to answer the question whether their counseling may have a therapeutic function. This article aims to outline some significant attitudes of philosophical practitioners toward the therapeutic issue. By way of conclusion, it offers some personal reflections on philosophy as therapy.

The paper aims to present the proprium dialogicum of the café philo. In theoretical terms, the philosophical dialogue in the café philo can be recognized as discursive rationality and play of the faculties ruled by the logistikon, as an exercise of critical thinking, as an endless quest of meaning, and finally as a way of life. All those theoretical acquisitions are tested by the comparison with results from one year of praxis of café philo, part of the Diderot Project supported by the Fondazione CRT of Torino, conducted with more than 2.000 high-school students of Piedmont.

Il concetto di nulla viene assunto come chiave ermeneutica per accostare la proposta teoretica di uno dei maggiori rappresentanti del pensiero ebraico contemporaneo: Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929). Attraverso l'analisi dei luoghi, delle accezioni e delle valenze con cui il nulla si presenta nelle pagine della "Stella della redenzione", si evidenzia come ai diversi significati attribuiti da Rosenzweig a questo concetto corrispondano differenti modi di intendere la filosofia. I temi della filosofia del nulla, della creatio ex nihilo e della morte intesa come nulla esistenziale scandiscono la lettura dell'opus maius di Rosenzweig e mostrano come egli, nel teorizzare un "nuovo pensiero" che vuole rendere conto dell'esperienza religiosa attraverso categorie alternative a quelle onnicomprensive della tradizione filosofica, rimanga per certi versi ancora legato all'idealismo critico.