Philosophers From Italy

"According to Aristotle, true happiness consists in doing the things we enjoy most with our friends. [...] Those who love philosophy love above all else to philosophise (in Greek: sum-philosophein) with their friends."

"Interviewer: What brings Aristotle closer to Lucretius' statement, “Happy is he who can know the causes of things”? Professor Berti: This is a point that has perhaps not yet been adequately explored because Lucretius was known to be an Epicurean, and Epicureans in ancient times were generally hostile to Aristotle and polemical towards him. Most of the anti-Aristotelian anecdotes preserved in history are of Epicurean origin. Nevertheless, Lucretius, the great Epicurean poet and philosopher, while sharing Epicurus' belief that happiness consists in pleasure – what he calls in Latin “'voluptas”', with which he begins his poem “'De Rerum Natura”' – Lucretius himself states that happy is he who has been able to know the causes of things. Therefore, this pleasure, this happiness, which is clearly an intellectual pleasure, includes knowledge of the causes, that is, the ability to explain phenomena and solve the problems that experience presents us with. And this is ultimately a trait shared by all great philosophers, but also – I would say – by all philosophers, all those who love philosophy, that is, the desire to know, the happiness that comes from solving problems and discovering the causes of why things happen."

"More than finalism (which in Aristotle concerns only internal finality), Christian theology owes to Aristotle the concept of a transcendent and personal Principle, which in Aristotle is the first among the immobile motors of the heavens, and therefore the first of beings and the motor of everything, while for Christians (as for Muslims) it is God. However, we must bear in mind the different meaning that the word “god” had for the ancients and has for believers in monotheistic religions. For the ancients (Greeks and Romans), ‘god’ is a common noun, the name of a species of living beings, like ‘man’, and is therefore written with an article and a lowercase initial letter (the god). For monotheists (Jews, Christians, Muslims), however, ‘God’ is the name of a single person, so it is written without an article and with a capital letter. These are grammatical rules, not ideological choices."

"What Christians consider to be Aristotle's “God”, i.e. the first unmoved mover – which for Aristotle is ‘a god’ because it is an immortal and happy living being – is not creator, it is not providential, and above all it is not a saviour. However, like the Christian God, it is transcendent and personal. Its transcendence is expressed by its immutability, which distinguishes it from every other reality we experience. His personality, on the other hand, is due to the fact that he thinks, therefore lives, and is happy to think, therefore possesses a will. However, I believe it is wrong to compare a philosophical doctrine, conquered by a man through exclusively human abilities (experience and reasoning), with a concept that is the result of divine revelation."

"Aristotle, like all the ancients, was a polytheist, that is, he believed in a plurality of gods, and “practised” his religion, that is, he prayed to the gods and made vows, as can be seen from his will. However, he criticised the anthropomorphic aspects of polytheism, interpreting the gods as the driving forces of the heavens, and recognised a “first” among them, thus paving the way, later taken up by the Stoics, towards monotheism."

"Interviewer: So today society is more in need of philosophy than ever... Professor Berti: Not only today, but always. Philosophy is in fact inherent in human nature; it has always existed and will always exist, despite attempts to decree its end. This was not only the thinking of Aristotle, for whom “all human beings by nature (i.e. males and females, free and slaves, Greeks and barbarians) desire knowledge”, and philosophy – if rightly understood – is the highest form of knowledge. Already in the Apology, Plato has Socrates say that ‘a life without inquiry is not worth living for a human being’."

"I began studying Aristotle when I was still a student here in Padua. When I decided to write my thesis, I approached a professor who seemed particularly interesting to me, Marino Gentile. I told him about my interests, which centred on the debate on metaphysics, in particular the objections that contemporary philosophy raised against metaphysics, represented by major currents such as Marxism, existentialism and positivism, which were hostile to metaphysics. The professor advised me to read Aristotle's Metaphysics, a text I had already read for some university exams. Reading it, I realised that there were still many things to be clarified, even though Aristotle was considered by my colleagues to be an outdated philosopher. Perhaps this was also due to the cultural isolation that Italy suffered as a result of the war and the presence of the historicism of Giovanni Gentile and Benedetto Croce. In other European countries, he was still a relevant philosopher, especially in English philosophy, within the context of reflection on everyday language; English scholars continually discussed Aristotle. In Germany, Heidegger, one of the greatest philosophers of the last century, devoted a great deal of attention to Aristotle. Over time, I continued to study Aristotle, discovering more and more how relevant he was. Today, Aristotle is one of the most studied philosophers in the world and is considered an interlocutor, in contrast to those currents that are now almost obsolete."

"At first, I was greatly influenced by the Aristotelian tradition, represented by the Islamic and Christian worlds, a tradition in which Aristotle was the philosopher of those who wanted to give a philosophical basis to those who had a religious faith. Later, I realised that Aristotle did not have this problem at all; Aristotle's interest was exclusively scientific, leading him to deal with areas that have become our current sciences, and to question concepts such as cause, a concept much broader than how we conceive it on a daily basis."

"For Plato, the soul was something that entered the body and left it at the moment of death. For the pre-Socratics, it was a kind of spectre. Aristotle, as many know, defines the soul as the form, or the first act of the body. We need to reflect on the concept of form; form is not a part of the organism, which has its own unity. Organisms are bodies capable of performing certain functions; these capacities are obviously reduced in plants, while in animals they are already more complex. In human beings, we find activities that we call superior, such as thinking and willing. The soul is the possession of these capacities."

"Philosophy and metaphysics are notorious because of the endless disputes that have always devastated them."

"Could evil, sin, catastrophe, and even drugs be the occasional material that God offers to men so that they can somehow see, feel, and understand him?"

"Educators must know how to measure the weight of what they promote."

"[...] philosophy is like the horizon, which can shift here and there, but, as a horizon, is always there."

"Philosophy looks at reality, and is therefore theory, but it looks at it as it relates to the choice of ends and therefore to practical commitment."

"Philosophy, in the great turning point that the history of the human spirit is undergoing today, seems called upon to take responsibility for the new form of humanism that is imposing itself."

"The thirst for knowledge is there, we know this from many signs: everything that can contribute to satisfying it, even if by modest means and to a modest extent, must be considered providential and cultivated with care."

"If it fails in this commitment to penetrate the human, to spread socially, philosophy has missed the opportunity offered to it by the times."

"Between being and nothingness there is no middle ground."

"All disciplines have being as their ultimate material object; but it must be said that metaphysics has it as its formal object."

"A generic humanitarian sentiment can lead to peace as well as war, to oppression as well as freedom, to violence as well as resignation."

"I am the first to recognise this. When I began to develop this way of thinking – but let's go back a long way – I was the first to realise that I should leave that university. Interviewer: However, you never broke off your personal relationship or esteem for your teacher, Gustavo Bontadini? Emanuele Severino: We loved each other, and I still get emotional when I think about it. I remember when he was in his last days... ah, what a dear man... I went to see him in Via Stradella – he lived in Via Stradella, near Corso Buenos Aires – and I said to him: “Maestro, I am Emanuele Severino”. He, who had not opened his eyes for days, gave a start and opened his arms to me. We embraced for a long time. Then he let go of my arms and I left him."

"Freedom, observes the philosopher, is potential launched into infinity."

"We are always exposed to the permanent risk of our contingency: the contingency of the environment, of society, our own intimate contingency. We ourselves oscillate, we are in oscillation with respect to ourselves."

"A philosophy that consumes itself in thought consumes itself, annihilates itself. Philosophy must open the windows of freedom, the doors of freedom; it must establish freedom. A philosophy that does not establish freedom is a Procrustean bed, a guillotine."

"The parties must step down and raise their hands... immediately and without the cunning that accompanies the death throes of their agony. That would be a coup against democracy: trying to resist the will of the people. (1 February 1993)"

"There are two Pera, before and after treatment. Before, he was so punitive that he would have scared Antonio Di Pietro and caused Paolo Flores D'Arcais difficulties. Today, he is ultra-guaranteeist. Before, he was extremely secular, speaking ill of the law on fertilisation. Today, he defends it."

"When commemorating the anniversary of Falcone's death, one cannot attack magistrates."

"I am shocked by the idea that there are still people who take seriously Popper's analysis of Plato – “that bitter enemy of freedom”, as Marcello Pera uncritically describes him – without questioning the texts, checking the quotations or comparing them. These are elementary operations. Today, these may be unknown to most people, but they cannot escape the attention of a scholar who aspires to this role or who remembers them."

"(About Francesco De Martino) A great scholar and a great politician."

"For Kant, there are no different religions, but rather different forms of belief in divine revelation [...] among which Christianity, as far as we know, is the most appropriate."

"In everyday language, a secular person is someone who does not believe, while a secularist is someone who believes that those who believe have no reason to believe. This is not a tongue twister. Secular people do not base their worldview on revealed faith; secularists believe that any revealed faith is meaningless, except in a trivial, private sense, like a tic or a bad habit. The former does not believe, or cannot believe, but recognises that faith is a dimension of human experience that serves a purpose, such as giving meaning to life, attributing a role to humans in the world, and interpreting evil. The latter, the secularist, denies this dimension: for them, faith is an illusion or a misunderstanding or a failure of reason."

"It is nothing new that Italian relativists, and not only them, try to use Europe, where relativism is dominant, to achieve their goals at the national level. It is the hypocrisy with which many speak of Europe. [...] Unfortunately, this Europe is diminished in itself, and it is from this Europe that the worst vices are imported, circumventing national sovereignty."

"The left hates our culture and our civilisation to such an extent that it is willing to hand it over, as it is doing, to Islam. Its foreign policy is acquiescence to terrorist countries and groups; its domestic policy is free entry for all immigrants and cheap citizenship; its social policy is multiculturalism; therefore, its urban policy is to close the American base in Vicenza! Yesterday, today, always against the West. And since the West also and above all means Christianity, the left, in order to be anti-Western, has chosen anti-Christianity, that is, secularism. This is the new frontier, the new dividing line between us and the left."

"We are committed to reaffirming the value of Western civilisation as a source of universal and indispensable principles, opposing, in the name of a common historical and cultural tradition, any attempt to build a Europe that is alternative or opposed to the United States."

"In Europe, the population is declining, opening the door to uncontrolled immigration and leading to a mixed-race society."

"An ill wind is blowing across Europe. It is the idea that we just need to wait and the troubles will disappear on their own, or that we can be accommodating even to those who threaten us and we will get away with it. It is the same wind that blew in Munich in 1938."

"Berlusconi is halfway between a dapper cabaret artist and a television salesman selling kitchenware, something that would have inspired and distressed poor Fellini. (1994)"

"Revolution has strict rules and tight deadlines. (26 September 1993)"

"Judges must continue their work. No one is asking that prominent defendants receive different treatment from other defendants. (5 March 1993)"

"Guaranteeism, like any preconceived ideology, is pernicious. (29 March 1993)"

"Without inspiration, without the Muses' enchantment, no artist, no matter how skilled they may be, can be considered a true artist."

"[On the teaching of philosophy in secondary schools] In France and Spain, where it has been almost eliminated from secondary schools, they have regretted it. In Germany, there is no possibility of an intermediate level of knowledge. A philosopher like Gadamer is much better understood in Italy than in Germany. He once told me that when he came here he felt like he was in a sanctuary: all those young people who came to hear him had tools of understanding that no other country had."

"I am shocked by the idea that there are still people who take seriously Popper's analysis of Plato – “that bitter enemy of freedom”, as Marcello Pera uncritically describes him – without questioning the texts, checking the quotations or comparing them. These are elementary operations. Today, these may be unknown to most people, but they cannot escape the attention of a scholar who aspires to this role or who remembers them."

"The prevailing idea is that knowledge derives from science and that technology solves all problems. Yet popper and the epistemologists have explained that science, by definition, cannot have universal and necessary ideas, but only ideas that are consistent with a paradigm that is dominant at that particular moment. The beauty of philosophy is that it can also contain opposing systems, because our ideas are not definitive."

"Plato can be considered the philosopher who is both the easiest and the most difficult to read."

"I leave no room for euthanasia. I don't say, “Let me die”. But, “Let me die as nature intended”. Neither you nor I. Nature. Take the case of Piergiorgio Welby, whom I followed closely. Welby did not essentially say: pull the plug. But: let nature take its course, do not make me a victim of technology that builds something artificial and substitute for nature. It is identical to what John Paul II is said to have said: let me return to my Father's house. The latter had faith, the former did not. For Welby, it was a journey into absolute darkness, for the Pope, into life. But from a human point of view, it is the same understandable request."

"While the term "henology" is widely used in foreign languages, for example in French, it is almost never used in Italian and should therefore be introduced. We have used the initial h because it conveys the harsh spirit of έν, but above all to differentiate the metaphysical term from the current one."

"The democracy to which Plato refers is not ours. For him, democracy is demagoguery, i.e. the lawfulness that leads to chaos. In his view, the flaw of demagoguery is the absolute excess of freedom that slips into licence. It is in this situation that man unleashes his worst instincts...Every government, he tells us, is exposed to deterioration. The three forms of government that Plato imagined – those “of the best”, “of the few” and “of the many” – can become corrupt. But the worst of all is the government “of the best”: the king who turns into a tyrant. Plato was never kind to tyrants."

"[On The Multiple Meanings of Being According to Aristotle] Among the various books I have read and studied on the philosophy of Aristotle, this one by Brentano certainly occupies one of the top places, if not the first."

"Aristotle was not only his critic, but also his most brilliant student. He rejected his doctrine of ideas, but I am not so convinced that he was horrified by his political convictions. He borrowed the ethical virtue as a happy medium between extremes from Platonic thought."