Erminio Maglione

Contemporary civilization has long been defined as a "civilization of images." Yet the history of the idea of ​​the image is a plural and multifaceted one, one that has seen the concurrence of diverse disciplines and the attribution of the most disparate functions to the image: ontological, psychological, cultural, technological. This volume aims to demonstrate the many, highly diverse, ways in which the image can be expressed, recovering, alongside salient moments of philosophical reflection, theories and practices that have remained on the margins of our tradition. Conceiving the iconic instance as a vector of unexpressed potential, rather than as a degraded copy of reality, is indeed a fundamental issue for the present time, characterized by a proliferation of media spectacle that demands only to be passively contemplated. This allows us not only to recognize the image's critical and transformative potential, but also to understand the reasons for its long and fascinating history.

The aim of this article is to trace, in general, the main stages of the reception of Nietzsche in Albert Camus’s philosophy. The analysis intends to highlight the originality of Camus’s existentialism and how this theory was influenced by the German thinker. However, it also contains several criticisms of Nietzsche. The French philosopher tries, in fact, to detach himself from the Nietzschean philosophy through the ideas of «pensée de Midi» and «affirmative negation» linked to his theorizing on «good nihilism». The latter draws its inspiration from the philosophy of the late Nietzsche (1886-1889) and, in particular, from reflections on active nihilism. This is where we find the most original Camus, the one who finally takes leave of the Nietzsche of The Birth of Tragedy to develop his own conception of «pensée de Midi». The «good nihilism» then assumes the form of a nihilism where the negation is not an exclusive negation, which removes the otherness of the opposite thesis, but an inclusive negation that contemplates the exercise of the negative in its tension with the opposite polarity. The revolt represents the apogee of this thought of contradiction. The «affirmative negation» describes a limit that cannot be crossed: the value of human life. The revolt is therefore the place where the distancing from Nietzsche and his conception of absolute nihilism takes place.

THE MECHANISTIC CONCEPT OF THE WORLD. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL NOTES ABOUT A RECENT CONFERENCE This work provides some contributions about the mechanistic paradigm from historical and philosophical perspective, taking into consideration its evolution from the ancient age until the contemporary science. This analysis is inspired by the conference “Mechanism. Interdisciplinary considerations about a theorical paradigm” organized by the research centre CIRSI of University of Modena and Reggio Emilia held in 14 and 15 December 2017. The work is structured into three sections. The first explains the research goals of the conference; the second is focused on the seventeenth century, the period of the main development of mechanistic paradigm; the third part explores its evolution and its crisis during the contemporary age.