Philosophers From Italy

"Camus said that Christ came into this world to face two problems that philosophy will never solve. First: why do I suffer? And second: why am I born with a sign around my neck saying “condemned to death”? Jesus took them upon himself, thus making them sacred."

"Faced with death, one cannot help but cry... Crying is suffering in the face of true evil, and what is more true than death?"

"Giovanni Gentile was a philosopher dedicated to an undertaking so powerful that it had not been seen for centuries: to conceive, shape, organise and disseminate an Italian philosophy, that is, a philosophy for Italy, a philosophy of Italy, according to a tradition of political thought that Gentile saw as beginning with Dante and ending with himself. (2004)."

"I have read and reread all of Falcone's writings. He was a great man who saw things clearly. He did not like public prosecutors and judges being united in a single career and no longer believed in the mandatory nature of criminal prosecution, which, as it stands today, is nothing but a joke. I will say more: he would not have conducted the trials that Caselli subsequently did."

"As with the fall of other regimes, a new Resistance is needed, a new redemption and then a true, radical, merciless purge... The process has already begun and, for much of public opinion, has already ended with a conviction."

"If the crisis of today's society is a metaphysical crisis, its solution must be metaphysical in nature, and silence today can truly express the awareness of the problem as a problem of the whole. (from “La protesta dei giovani”, p. 93)"

"Perhaps the most extreme form of protest among young people is silent protest. It is the protest of those who accept nothing but reject nothing either, because they do not claim to have the criteria to reject and cannot determine precisely the object of their rejection, so they remain radically perplexed. Their negativity is total, but at the same time they are aware that they cannot express themselves without contradicting themselves.[...] Nothing is accepted and one “searches”. One searches with the awareness of one's complete disorientation: a disorientation so great that it does not even allow for its explicit expression. [...] It is the metaphysics of emptiness that is converted into the metaphysics of searching, which is increasingly fuelled by the search itself, illuminated by all the lights of a particularly broad and profound experience. And it is a metaphysics that reaches the level of a radical need, such that it invests all of today's reality and tends towards that exhaustive answer that every conscious metaphysics proposes. (from “La protesta dei giovani”, pp. 92-93)"

"One need only follow the usual manifestations of the ruling class, the speeches of its most representative figures, the appeals of the highest authorities, to realise the emptiness of their words and the coldness of their souls. There are still those who are capable of massive faith in the values they have been brought up with, but most are already far removed from them and continue to extol them because they are incapable of replacing them. Thus, the gap between the generations is not even mitigated by esteem and affection for those who believe sincerely, and the detachment of young people takes the form of explicit condemnation. (from “La protesta dei giovani”, p. 85)"

"Through the process of unification, everything that is distinctive must necessarily tend to fade and disappear. Only what has common value is destined to become more pronounced and an object of faith. It is precisely this fact that clarifies the current conflict between generations. The values in which fathers believe are still regional ones, and the values to which their children are drawn are those of a world in the process of unification. An in-depth analysis of what characterises the current common life of peoples allows us to understand the move towards an increasingly undifferentiated conception and practice. What is destined to prevail is what is recognised as valid by all, and everything that corresponds to particular traditions can only be saved if it manages to become an accepted part of the common discourse. (from “La protesta dei giovani”, pp. 81–82)"

"The world of politics is coming to an end because there is no one left who can aspire to formulate and implement programmes inspired by a precise and achievable ideal. The world is breaking away from utopia and is guided by forces whose composition no one can scientifically anticipate. The history of the twenty-five years is a clear demonstration of the impossibility of continuing to pursue messianic mirages, which no one can any longer fantasise about, let alone translate into reality. (from “Introduction”, p. 37)"

"The social revolution now taking place on the international stage consists precisely in the transition to a scientific and technical solution to common problems. Politics is receding into the background as a remnant of a tradition that must be overcome. (from “Introduction”, p. 32)"

"[...], if in economics abstract socialism means a capitalist State that differs from the Nation, and if liberalism means a capitalist individual whose interests also differ from those of the Nation, then fascism or corporatism will mean the negation of all state and individual capitalism and the coincidence of State and Nation through the corporation."

"In the continuous development of nature and spirit, Boutroux believes it is impossible to establish anything definitive that has eternal value. Man, therefore, who is the greatest exponent of progress, does not know what his progress is tending towards; he does not know, therefore, whether his progress is true progress. Everything disappears into the indefinite, into confusion, and a sceptical conclusion seems inevitable. But no: Boutroux, like James before him, does not lose himself in negation at this point, but seeks to save himself from scepticism. And so negation itself is transformed into affirmation. It is precisely the indistinct, the confused that has within itself the reason for life: in it is love, faith, the ideal: in it is that powerful impulse that moves the poet, the artist, the scientist himself, for science would be nothing without faith. But religion thus attained is an empty religion, and the ideal thus posited is an ideal that fades into nothingness."

"The main focus of Boutroux's thinking revolves around the problem of science and the meaning of natural laws. From 1874, the year of his thesis, De la Contingence des lois de la Nature (On the Contingency of the Laws of Nature), until his death, a little less than half a century, Boutroux developed and elaborated his critique of science, always insisting on it and basing his theories on freedom and religion, which form, one might say, the positive part of his philosophy."

"Europe is its history. “And this history is not the history of an idea that allows only one tradition, but the history of a tradition that allows the most diverse and daring ideas”."

"Supreme values are the subject of conscious choices: they are neither “proven” theorems nor “self-evident” and “self-founding” axioms."

"Christianity was the most important political event in the West: by religious decree, the state cannot be everything. Theocracy, therefore, is not part of Europe's destiny."

"Quite a few intellectuals, undoubtedly well-intentioned, have repeatedly emphasised the fact that Europe does not have today, and will have even less tomorrow, a single philosophy, a single faith, a single morality. They have seen and continue to see this as the weakness of the West and the fragility of Europe. In short, Europe would be weak without such a “unifying idea, a single faith” to proudly oppose other cultures that are far more monolithic and dogmatic."

"Life is understood through life. The past is understood through the present: it is present “experience” that makes past experiences relevant, that gives blood to shadows, that brings them back to life."

"The continuous proposal of alternatives and relentless criticism are the two pillars on which all scientific research is based."

"Having more theories available that allow us to see different aspects of an event and attempt to discard existing theories is not a weakness, but a strength."

"Despite the long history of the “controversy over method”, which has seen a series of attempts – from Dilthey to the Frankfurt School – to deny (especially by some historians, sociologists and philosophers) the unity of the “scientific method”, today it seems increasingly clear that scientific theories are constructed, tested, confirmed or rejected through a “single methodology”."

"Popper developed what is today the most rigorous, articulate and devastating critique of Marxism."

"Closely connected with the idea of “rationality”, understood as a critical attitude, Popper developed the theory of the “open society”. Critical of “historicism”, i.e. the claim that one can grasp the “laws” that guide the whole of human history, Popper opposed “holism” (i.e. the idea that society can be known in its entirety) and “utopianism” (the idea that society can be “changed” in its entirety according to a deliberate plan)."

"Popper argues that the worst aspects of Marxism stem from Hegelianism, namely historicism and totalitarianism. Not only Hegel, but also Marx is a “false prophet”."

"Living is learning. Science evolves in a Darwinian way: through trial and error."

"At the beginning of the academic year 1946-1947, Karl R. Popper received an invitation from the Secretary of the Moral Science Club in Cambridge to give a lecture. This was the occasion for the clash between Popper and Wittgenstein on the tasks of philosophy. But here is what happened the day after Popper gave his lecture. The next day, Popper recounts in his Autobiography, on the train to London, there were two students sitting opposite each other in my compartment, a boy reading a book and a girl reading a left-wing newspaper. Suddenly, the girl asked, “Who is this Karl Popper?” And the boy replied, “Never heard of him”. Such is fame. (I later learned that the newspaper contained an attack on “The Open Society”)."

"“'Information does not produce imperatives”'. And, therefore, it is not logically possible to move from being to ought to be. This, in short, is the law of Hume, the great division between indicative assertions and prescriptive assertions, between facts and values. This law is a death sentence for natural law and tells us that values are not based on science: they are based on our “choices of conscience”. (p. 62)"

"An open society is [...] open to as many people as possible with different and perhaps conflicting ideas, ideals and beliefs — it is open to as many as possible, but not to everyone. It is closed, on pain of self-destruction, only to the intolerant, that is, to those who, believing themselves to be in possession of absolute truths and exclusive values, attempt to impose these truths and values at any cost, even with tears of blood. (p. 11)"

"The acceptability of a scientific theory is relative to the knowledge and technical resources available at a given time. (p. 7)"

"In science, nothing is certain: neither general assertions nor observational assertions. (p. 7)"

"You cannot be a philosopher. You cannot be one because you are a believer. A Catholic cannot be a philosopher'. So said Ugo Spirito to me one day. And this was the claim of most of the most influential philosophical movements of the century just ended. It was the presumption of those idealists for whom philosophy had among its tasks that of bringing to rational awareness contents embedded in “religious myths”."

"[...] the Christian idea of man “made in the image and likeness of God” has created, on a political level, a tension that runs through the entire history of the West. It is, in fact, an ideal which, despite compromising and even murky vicissitudes, between ‘theocratic’ temptations and ‘satanocratic’ rejections of political power, has exerted, throughout history, a sometimes overwhelming pressure on its antithetical worldly element. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's”: with this, the principle that Káysar is not Kýrios entered history – political power was desacralised, the worldly order relativised, and Caesar's demands subjected to a judgement of legitimacy by an inviolable conscience. On this basis, Origen could justify, against Celsus, the refusal of Christians to associate themselves with the cult of the emperor or to refuse to kill in obedience to his orders."

"The Internet is no longer an agglomeration of isolated and independent websites, albeit connected and networked, but is to be considered as the whole of the technological capabilities achieved by mankind in the field of disseminating and sharing information and knowledge."

"There is always a vulnerable point in Pavese's life, a point that exposes him to the beauty and intuition of the taste for life, but this seems to find no possibility of development."

"[...] we live in times in which we run the risk of losing the meaning of study and seeing it only as functional to a job. Certainly study 'serves' man and also helps him to find his place in the world as a worker. The risk, however, is that of living study in an occasional and functional manner, and no longer as a strong and valuable life experience. The Christian presence in a study environment such as the university must therefore first and foremost aim not to add activity to other activities, but to help the young student live his main activity: study, in a Christian manner. Much less can Christian formation and academic study be considered in competition with each other."

"Interviewer: Well Salvini out of government? Antonio Spadaro: It is not clear how this will end. In any case, Salvini's role in the League's sovereignist mutation, after twenty years in which the party has expressed real capacity for government rooted in the territory will have to be investigated. From green it has turned black. For me the question, after the bathing coup, is the relationship between Salvini, a charismatic personality who has absorbed the party into himself, and the League itself. The question is what the right in Italy can be. A question that has never been resolved."

"Digital technologies allow people, today more than ever, to stay connected and communicate, overcoming many distances. And with a technological system for communicating and thinking, a kind of intelligence distributed everywhere and growing all the time is being formed at the same time. The Internet, in fact, involves the sharing of resources, time, content, ideas. The now classic example is Wikipedia, which beyond any evaluation is the fruit of the convergence of many people, connected together across the planet, who think and write. Intelligence is distributed wherever there is humanity, and today it can be easily interconnected. The network of this knowledge gives rise to a form of 'collective intelligence' or common consciousness. [...] The Net is called from being a place of 'connection' to becoming a place of 'communion'. The risk these days is to confuse the two terms. Connection in itself is not enough to make the Net a place of fully human sharing. Working towards this goal is the specific task of the Christian."

"I believe that in Internet there is a highly spiritual dimension. I would like to mention at least one person, a great Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who with his books, with his insights, his idea of the noosphere anticipated the idea of the Internet... We are talking about a Jesuit who lived in times when the Internet was not even conceivable, but he largely anticipated this phenomenon. I would also say that, in my opinion, the Internet is a reality that has strong spiritual potential."

"The model we have before our eyes, that of Francis de Sales, is therefore that of a journalism that communicates passion and has an intent of involvement, participation, education. The same attention to 'truth' is not a simple and cold focus on 'objectivity' or 'neutrality', but on understanding the value of things."

"Christianity is not an encyclopaedia of contents and values, nor a list of battles to be fought, but an openness to the surprise of God. Without the experience of his Real Presence, without the encounter with the person of Christ, Christianity becomes a rigid ideology. But beware! God is to be sought and found everywhere in the world. He is present and active in the world and in history. He is not necessarily where we think He is."

"It is a common experience to have frequented a library. Entering the reference room is like crossing a threshold between the world of noise and the world of silence. The people one meets appear, in general, concentrated on what they are reading with an attitude of body that seems to express deep attention. The surroundings, the silence, the concentration that one 'breathes' in the air seem to recall, in some respects, entering a church and praying. The man who studies and the man who prays seem to assume similar attitudes. This analogy is very fruitful for reflection and leads one to naturally think of a spirituality of study. The Christian scholar is strongly urged to ask himself how his activity and prayer can coexist in his inner life."

"I well understand how Wikipedia represents an Enlightenment dream of describing the world, which, however, clashes with the difficulties of accrediting itself as a credible compendium of knowledge, while maintaining anonymity, flexibility and continuous openness to new contributors. At the same time, this 'utopia' overturns the dream of the traditional encyclopaedia, understood as an authoritative, organic and integrated construction of knowledge. In fact, Wikipedia is like a living organism: it grows (at the rate of 7 per cent every month), it 'falls ill', it is subject to internal compositions and decompositions, to continuous growth and reduction. But above all, Wikipedia conceals another, in its own way, ambiguous utopia: the absolute democracy of knowledge and the collaboration of multiple intelligences that gives rise to a kind of collective intelligence. This utopia could hide a new form of 'tower of Babel', which has its Achilles' heel not only in unreliability, but also in relativism. [...] His 'utopias' arise, radicalising them, from the profound needs of human knowledge, which the wíki, in general, help transform into concrete projects: knowledge understood as a dynamic process, open to all, and the fruit not only of individual commitment, but also of profound collaboration and intense confrontation between minds willing to share skills and intelligence."

"When he (Thomas Aquinas) wants to represent the activity of our reason in knowledge, he takes the image of the flight of birds and says: there is the bird that flies in a rotating, circular way, or the flight that goes forward and backward or the flight that goes from top to bottom, from bottom to top. Circular motion is contemplative motion, motion that goes forward is from cause to effect, backward is from effect to cause, from top to bottom is deduction, from bottom to top is induction. Remembering the flight of birds recalls all the formalities of cognitive activity."

"It is true that to admit the eternity of the whole would be to deny creation, to deny historicity, but the very essence of Christianity presents itself in some revealed elements as that which demands the transcending of history."

"At death all our hope of salvation will come from the testimony of our conscience as to whether or not we are dying resigned to God’s will."

"Let him who has committed one mortal sin cast a glance upon the Hell which he has deserved, and thus will he suffer with patience every contempt and every pain."

"If then we would be saved, we must, even until death, have our lips ever opened to pray and say: "My God, help me; my God, have mercy; Mary, have mercy." If we cease to pray, we shall be lost. Let up pray for ourselves and let us pray for sinners, for this is so pleasing to God."

"Ungrateful soul, not to forego its own miserable gratifications, it consented to lose God."

"“Cogitanti omnia vilescunt” He who thinks, undervalues all things."