Antonio Di Di Chiro

This paper aims to reconstruct Otto Weininger’s influence on the philosophy of the early Wittgenstein, with the goal of showing how Wittgensteinian metaphysics is shaped, on the one hand, by the concept of genius and, on the other, by Weininger’s account of the relationship between logic and ethics. I will to attempt to demonstrate that in Wittgenstein this relationship is articulated through the notion of the mystical, and that logic and ethics form an indissoluble unity insofar as the resolution of a logical problem coincides with the resolution of an ethical one.

In this paper, I propose a critical analysis of William James and Alfred Schutz’s theory of multiple realities. I try to demonstrate that among the various issues concerning this theory, the most important ones concern the question of reality within another reality and the gradual transition between different realities. The basic idea is that just as reality has lost its character of uniqueness, similarly the subject is faced with the shattering of its identity. This will allow me to criticize the idea of static nature of the theory of multiple realities as separate entities and as closed universes and to demonstrate that the different realities are connected thanks to the subject who lives and works simultaneously in multiple dimensions.

In this paper I will attempt to reconstruct Mark Fisher’s theoretical path, his analysis of capitalism and his revival of marxism. Therefore, I will focus in the first part of the essay on Fisher’s text, Capitalist Realism, to examine the structural features of today’s capitalism and, in a second part, on Fisher’s 2016 lectures and conferences at Goldsmiths University in London, in which the libidinal link between desire and capitalism is investigated. Finally, I will analyze Fisher’s other writings in which he tries to develop a series of strategies to exorcise the fear that a revolt against the lack of economic, social and cultural alternatives that torment our present is impossible. The purpose of this article is to emphasize how the originality of Fisher’s interpretation of marxism lies in his awareness of shaping new political subjects, forms of social aggregation and new cultural and libidinal structures removed from the dominance of capitalist realism, eschewing easy solutions that appeal to spontaneity and nostalgic vagueness anchored in a rhetoric of failure and defeat.

_Riassunto_: In questo articolo cercheremo di delineare le caratteristiche di una fenomenologia dell’attenzione incentrata sui concetti di interesse e selezione. Partiremo dall’analisi del concetto di attenzione in Husserl per poi concentrarci sulle riflessioni di William James, Alfred Schutz ed Erving Goffman che riconoscono un ruolo fondamentale dell’attenzione nei processi con cui gli attori sociali inquadrano e definiscono la realtà e, infine, analizzeremo la proposta teorica di Bernhard Waldenfels che propone un’etica dell’attenzione che è sia un’etica dell’apertura e del riconoscimento dell’altro sia, soprattutto, una risposta e un antidoto alla xenologia e alla xenopolitica. _Parole chiave_: Edmund Husserl; Alfred Schutz; Bernhard Waldenfels; Fenomenologia; Attenzione _Delineating a phenomenology of attention: From Husserl to Waldenfels_ _Abstract_: In this paper we will attempt to outline a phenomenology of attention centered around the concepts of interest and selection. We will start with an analysis of Husserl’s notion of attention, then turn to the reflections of William James, Alfred Schutz and Erving Goffman, all of whom recognized the fundamental role attention plays in the processes by which social actors frame and define reality. Finally, we will consider Bernhard Waldenfels’ ethics of attention. He offers an ethics based on openness to and recognition of the other that, above all, offers both a response and an antidote to xenology and xenopolitics. _Keywords_: Edmund Husserl; Alfred Schutz; Bernhard Waldenfels; Phenomenology; Attention.

The aim of this paper is to propose a theory of pluralistic realism, i.e. a theory that presents an idea of reality that embraces multiplicity both at an ontological and epistemological level. The basic ideal of this theory is that reality is inexhaustibly multifaceted and that, therefore, the ways in which human beings can account for it are diverse and multiple. This idea of reality also implies an idea of plural truth, i.e. as an openness and acceptance of diversity and difference which can act as an antidote to the resurgence of fundamentalisms and totalitarian visions of reality based on the refusal of diversity, on the lack of ethical recognition-political-social difference and on the tendency to believe that one’s own reality and therefore one’s culture, one’s nation, one’s country are objectively superior to other realities, nations, countries, cultures. In proposing the reasons for this theory we will try to integrate Mario De Caro’s philosophical proposal of a «liberalized naturalism» or «pluralistic realism» with the phenomenological perspective of Vincenzo Costa based on the idea that reality is determined on the basis of the experience of the human subject.

The path articulated in this paper has as its background and horizon the question of hospitality. In order to propose a re-thinking of this concept and the practices related to it, in this paper an attempt will be made to analyze the phenomenology of hostility starting from the analysis of the concepts of the stranger and the foreigner, and then focusing on the concept of community in order to outline the assumptions of a philosophy of hospitality. The thesis of this work is that identity can only be defined in relation to otherness and that the latter does not come from an external dimension but from an internal dimension. In this sense, the stranger who must be welcomed is the one who is always on the verge of arriving and who in his coming always crosses the threshold, the limit that establishes the division between the inside and the outside, between the proper and the foreign.

In this paper we will try to reconstruct, starting from Husserl’s path, the genesis of Edith Stein’s philosophical itinerary and to show that, just in her detachment from Husserl’s orthodoxy, Stein will end up opening new paths to phenomenology and to reckon with questions left open by the father of phenomenology. Therefore, we will try to show that one of the most interesting aspects of the husserlian legacy revolves around the concepts of empathy and intersubjectivity developed in Edith Stein’s reflection. Moreover, we will try to refute Paul Ricoeur’s remark that speaks of an illusion arising from all attempts of phenomenology to account for the existence of the other and, in doing so, we will see that the solution proposed by Stein is not only not disappointing at all but contributes to open the way to a phenomenology of otherness that does not merely flatten and confine the other to one’s self.

In this essay we will try to analyze the thought of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben on the pandemic. The aim of the work is twofold. On the one hand, we will try to demonstrate that Agamben’s positions on the pandemic are not to be understood as mere extemporaneous statements, but as integral parts of his philosophy. On the other hand, we will try to show how these positions are based on a deeply paranoid and anti-scientific vision, since Agamben believes that the effects of the epidemic have been exaggerated by the centers of power in order to create a “state of exception” that allows to crumble social life and to use the fear of poverty as a tool to dominate society. We will try to demonstrate that it is precisely starting from the critique of Agamben’s positions that it is possible to rethink a philosophy and a politic to come and a new reorganization of social and intimate relations between human beings.

This essay analyzes the reflection of Alfred Schütz on music. The first part will focus on the analysis of those that for Schütz are the constitutive elements of the phenomenology of music. The second part will focus on the idea of music as a social interaction and relationship of mutual harmony. The aim of the work is to demonstrate that Schütz’s reflection on music does not constitute an isolated element within his thought process, but rather it constitutes a fundamental element of his reflection because music represents in an exemplary way the structure of the social relationship. Therefore, it will be demonstrated that music is for Schütz a relationship based on the sharing of space and time, or an intersubjective sharing of reality that allows simultaneous sharing in the experiences of one’s interlocutor.